Joint Warfare History

The history of joint warfare goes back to World War I (1914 – 1918) and World War II (1939 – 1945) where air, land and naval collaborative operations took place. In more recent times, joint warfare was evident in Operation Desert Storm (1990 – 1991) and counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In this essay, we will take a look at how the nature of warfare has revolutionized through joint warfare. Militaries should move away from tri/quad services and form a main ‘joint’ service due to the change in nature of warfare, the importance of ‘jointness’ and the evolution of technology (thesis).

The change in nature of warfare can be classified broadly into four generations. An example of the first generation warfare is the Napoleonic

Cited from the book “The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine during the First World War” , war tactics and strategies began to form. Troops were well trained and prepared for war. As technology advances, weaponry equipment, such as, machine guns, recoil systems, explosives, optical sights, heavy artillery and communication lines were deployed in the First World War.

The third generation of warfare, particularly in the Second World War, saw the big leap towards joint warfare. Rapid advances in technology meant that wars are now fought on a different level. Aircrafts are capable of carrying bombs and missiles to carry out strategic bombing. Naval ships were utilised to carry troops, planes and resupply. Warships were also deployed to fight at the seafronts. On the ground, tanks were highly effective in

As quoted from an online article “The Future of Joint Operations” by former United States Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey, counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have revolved around the term called “Jointness” in the form of air and ground operations, intelligence, logistics and communications. In the article he also mentioned that US lost the Vietnam War because it was fought mainly on 3 different fronts, the air, sea and land. To add to the confusion, Generals from various services during the war did not agreed on strategies and tactics. Therefore, the vision is to have a Joint Force in 2020 capable of integration of troops globally to carry out a wide array of tasks anywhere in the world. In more recent times, the US has shown their support for Joint Arab Military Force to counter security threats in the Middle East. In the newspaper article titled “US backs Joint Arab Military Force to counter security threats in The Middle East” , the Joint Arab Military Force is made up of 40,000 highly trained troops with the support of fighter jets, warships and armoured vehicles. With the increasing need of joint operations, it is clear that different military services are coming together as one to defend their