ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the interaction of defence policy goals and their operational implementation, and offers a combined-effects approach to joint and combined operations to address strategic gaps. The growing capabilities and scope of complex warfare require improved command and control while creating high expectations for defence strategy. In this challenging environment, disconnects between policy and implementation may be attributed to prevailing military biases and policy failures to specify goals. Asymmetric adversaries target such opportunities. Beginning with issues in joint operation planning, advanced analysis and command and control, the chapter highlights the key limitations that inhibit effective defence strategy. Allied operations in Iraq are used as a case study to illustrate concepts and processes that produced ambitious goals without the means to achieve them. Next, future tendencies in joint and combined operations are presented along with recommendations on how to compete with flexible adversaries. The chapter concludes that the language of combined effects should subsume the predominant paradigm of combined arms as a practical way to improve defence strategy.
