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Millennium Challenge

In August 1999, Joint Forces Command announced that it would take the lead in coordinating all joint issues among the service participants and their experiments. Issues include establishing an overarching scenario, integration of the services' joint C4ISR architecture, coordination of data collection efforts, integration of service simulation efforts, establishment of the experiment command and control structure, and coordination of a series of train-up events needed to lay the foundation for the experiments. Joint Forces Command named the overall event Millennium Challenge 2000 (MC 00).

Millennium Challenge 2000 was the Joint Forces Command exercise to test the environment for large-scale cooperative experimentation. During the Millennium Challenge 2000, all Services conducted exercises within the same timeframe as the JCF AWE-the Navy Fleet Battle Experiment-Hotel, the Marine Corps Millennium Dragon, and the Air Force Joint Expeditionary Force. The Joint Task Force (JTF) Headquarters, initially coordinating with JTF-2 as the Second Fleet commands during the Navy for the first phase of Millennium Challenge, handed off command to JTF-XVIII at Fort Bragg, NC, with the Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) remaining onboard the USS Mount Whitney. For the execution of the forced and early entry missions, the Global Command and Control System, ABCS, and EMPRS linked Fort Polk, LA, en route aircraft, Fort Bragg, and the USS Mount Whitney in a large-scale demonstration of joint interaction.

Millennium Challenge 2002

Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02) is the premier joint integrating event, bringing together both live field exercises and computer simulation July 24-Aug. 15, 2002. Sponsored by U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM), MC02 focuses on how a U.S. explores the military's ability to conduct Rapid Decisive Operations (RDO) against a determined adversary. MC02 is a critical building block of future military transformation.

MC02 incorporated elements of all military services, most functional/regional commands and many DoD organizations and federal agencies. The Secretary of Defense has directed that participants involve elements representative of their future force concepts such as the Air Force's Expeditionary Aerospace Force, the Army's medium-weight brigades and the Navy's "Forward From the Sea" vision. Rapid decisive operations is a concept for future operations. A rapid decisive operation will integrate knowledge, C2, and operations to achieve the desired political/military effect.

MC02 simulated a high-end, small-scale contingency that had the potential to escalate to a major theater war and:

• Determine the extent to which a joint force is able to implement the principles outlined in Joint Vision 2020 via the RDO concept through: Establishing and maintaining information/knowledge superiority, Setting the conditions for decisive operations, Assuring access into and through the battle space, Conducting effects-based operations, Sustaining itself as it conducts synchronized non-contiguous operations.
• Develop improved joint training capabilities through experimentation efforts
• Develop goals and objectives for future USJFCOM transformation events
• Produce recommendations for current doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel, and facilities (DOTMLPF) in order to more effectively use our current major systems by developing and adapting a new set of principles.

In preparing for and conducting a rapid decisive operation, the military acts in concert with and leverages the other instruments of national power to understand and reduce the regional adversary's critical capabilities and coherence. The US and its allies asymmetrically assault the adversary from directions and in dimensions against which he has no counter, dictating the terms and tempo of the operation. The adversary, suffering from the loss of coherence and unable to achieve his objectives, chooses to cease actions that are against US interests or has his capabilities defeated.

Given the capabilities of the joint force and a major regional threat in the 2007 period, MC02 determined the extent to which the US can:

• Set the operational conditions for Rapid Decisive Operations (RDO)
• Establish a knowledge network through concepts such as Common Relevant Operational Picture (CROP) and Joint Interactive Planning (JIP)
• Establish joint command and control (C2) functions and Joint Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (JISR) capabilities
• Establish access and then sustain a distributed, non-contiguous operation without relying on fixed bases adjacent to the objective area
• Establish full-dimensional and time definite superiority for selected forces and actions within the battle space of the RDO
• Conduct simultaneous, joint tactical actions throughout the battlespace that are based on a shared understanding of both the tactical and operational situation.