# Joint Operational Environement (JOE) 2010



## FrankW (Mar 10, 2012)

Published by JFCOM ( Joint Forces Command, since folded into Joint Staff).
Signed by GEN Mattis, USMC one of the (few) great thinkers in our government.

JFCOMs website is still up hosting documents even though JFCOM has been disestablished.

While I found some areas in the JOE poorly integrated (for example they extrapolate yemen's future population w/o accountinjg for the fact that there is not enough water to support that growth) but they get the general brush strokes right:

It is difficult to determine who will influnce the policitcal reality on the planet in the next few years but a few things are certain:

- resource wars will intensify as oil depletes.
- population pressure in the 3rd world is changing the planets demographics.
- water wars will spring up as climate changes becomes an ever more dominant force in the worlds life.

Nothing that's in here is new or earth shaking but it si nice to see a lot of useful information brought together.

of course it's oriented towards how these things affect the US military but still a very interesting read.

http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2010/JOE_2010_o.pdf

An example of the beginning:
_
1900-If you are a strategic analyst for the world's leading power, you are British, looking warily at Britain's 
age old enemy, France.
1910-You are now allied with France, and the enemy is now Germany.
1920-Britain and its allies have won World War I, but now the British find themselves engaged in a naval 
race with its former allies, the United States and Japan.
1930-For the British, naval limitation treaties are in place, the Great Depression has started, and defense 
planning for the next five years assumes a "ten year" rule - no war in ten years. British planners 
posited the main threats to the Empire as the Soviet Union and Japan, while Germany and Italy are either friendly or no threat.
1936- A British planner now posits three great threats: Italy, Japan, and the worst, a resurgent Germany, 
while little help can be expected from the United States. 
1940- The collapse of France in June leaves Britain alone in a seemingly hopeless war with Germany and 
Italy, with a Japanese threat looming in the Pacific. The United States has only recently begun to 
scramble to rearm its military forces.
1950 -The United States is now the world's greatest power, the atomic age has dawned, and a "police action" 
begins in June in Korea that will kill over 36,500 Americans, 58,000 South Koreans, nearly 3,000 Allied 
soldiers, 215,000 North Koreans, 400,000 Chinese, and 2,000,000 Korean civilians before a cease-fire 
brings an end to the fighting in 1953. The main opponent in the conflict is China, America's ally in the 
war against Japan.
1960- Politicians in the United States are focusing on a missile gap that does not genuinely exist; massive 
retaliation will soon give way to flexible response, while a small insurgency in South Vietnam hardly 
draws American attention.
1970 -The United States is beginning to withdraw from Vietnam, its military forces in shambles. The Soviet 
Union has just crushed incipient rebellion in the Warsaw Pact. Détente between the Soviets and 
Americans has begun, while the Chinese are waiting in the wings to create an informal alliance with 
the United States.
1980- The Soviets have just invaded Afghanistan, while a theocratic revolution in Iran has overthrown the 
Shah's regime. "Desert One" - an attempt to free American hostages in Iran - ends in a humiliating 
failure, another indication of what pundits were calling "the hollow force." America is the greatest 
creditor nation the world had ever seen.
1990- The Soviet Union collapses. The supposedly hollow force shreds the vaunted Iraqi Army in less than 
100 hours. The United States has become the world's greatest debtor nation. Very few outside of the 
Department of Defense and the academic community use the Internet.
2000 Warsaw is the capital of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nation. Terrorism is emerging as 
America's greatest threat. Biotechnology, robotics, nanotechnology, HD energy, etc. are advancing 
so fast they are beyond forecasting.
Take the above and plan accordingly! What will be the disruptions of the next 25 years?_


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