Hyten: COVID-19 restrictions behind Joint Warfighting Concept delay

The Pentagon's delay in publishing the first iteration of a new Joint Warfighting Concept by the end of 2020 is due largely to COVID-19 restrictions that limited the ability to conduct effective, large-scale exercises needed to mature the concept, according to a top Defense Department official.

The department says the document, which will lay out joint requirements for four major areas, is now expected in the spring. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten said today during a National Security Space Association event the services have only conducted one of the four wargames and exercises they had intended to run to help shape which concepts work and which do not.

"By this time, we were supposed to have already done three major wargames and a globally integrated exercise, and we've only done one of them and the one was less than satisfactory because of all the restrictions we had to put in place for COVID," Hyten said.

Hyten said the plan is to "continue to exercise it, wargame it, drive it out," and publish the concept in the spring.

The four concepts underpinning the document are: joint global fires, Joint All-Domain Command and Control, contested logistics and information advantage.

Speaking earlier this month during an Association of Old Crows event, Hyten said the Joint Requirements Oversight Council expects to publish a draft version of the information advantage concept requirements by the end of January.