Within the United States Department of Defense, the Joint Capability Areas (JCA) are a standardized set of United States military definitions that cover the complete range of military activities. The system was initially established in May 2005 by the United States Department of Defense Joint Staff with input from each of the services, designed to begin "a new framework that paves the way for side-by-side comparisons of service contributions to joint warfighting and a tool that will assist decision-makers in deciding whether to move resources between service budgets."
The establishment of the JCA was primarily a result of an Operational Availability study from 2005 and from the Joint Defense Capabilities Study of 2003 (also referred to as the Aldridge Study after its primary author, Edward Aldridge). The Aldridge study called for the establishment of a new joint lexicon that would allow leaders to clearly discuss mission areas and how to most responsibly manage resources.
Further information on JCAs can be found at the Joint Experimentation, Transformation and Concepts Division (JETCD) of the Joint Staff J-7, Operational Plans and Joint Force Development Directorate.
Current Joint Capability Areas
Force Integration
Battlespace Awareness (aka INTEL) Force Application (FA) Logistics (LOG) Command and Control (C2) Communications & Computers Protection (FP) Corporate Management and Support (CMS)
Initial Joint Capability Areas
Joint battlespace awareness
Joint command and control
Joint network operations
Joint interagency coordination
Joint public affairs operations
Joint information operations
Joint protection
Joint logistics
Joint force generation
Joint force management
Joint homeland defense
Joint strategic deterrence
Joint shaping and security cooperation
Joint stability operations
Joint civil support
Joint non-traditional operations
Joint access and access denial operations
Joint land control operations
Joint maritime/littoral control operations
Joint air control operations
Joint space control operations
References
External links
The JCA Framework (.xls) Detailed JCA Definitions(.doc)