Joint 
Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey last week issued a Capstone Concept for Joint Operations that describes the notion of globally integrated operations to address future security challenges. The concept is meant “to guide force development toward Joint Force 2020,” the force called for in the Obama Administration’s new defense strategic guidance, writes Dempsey in the document’s foreword. “Future joint forces will face an increasingly complex, uncertain, competitive, rapidly changing, and transparent operating environment characterized by security challenges that cross borders,” states the capstone document, dated Sept. 10. Its public release was on Sept. 28. Joint force elements postured globally “can combine quickly with each other and mission partners to harmonize capabilities fluidly across domains, echelons, geographic boundaries, and organizational affiliations” under the concept “with significantly greater fluidity and flexibility than do current joint forces,” states the document. By routinely leveraging “unique service capabilities into a coherent operational whole,” future joint forces will “achieve efficiencies and synergies not previously feasible,” states the document. “The assertion is that through globally integrated operations, joint forces will remain able to protect US national interests despite constrained resources,” it adds. (CCJO 2020 full document; caution, large-sized file.)
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.