At the direction of the  Secretary of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force  developed this multiservice concept focused on gaining and maintaining  freedom of action in the global commons, that is, the areas of air, sea,   In April 2014, the  space, and cyberspace that belong to no one state.Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued the Joint Concept for Entry  Operations, a supporting concept to JOAC focused on how forces will  enter onto foreign territory and immediately conduct operations in the face  of adversaries with increasingly effective area-denial strategies and  capabilities. Army and Marine Corps Are Undertaking Efforts to Prepare for Operational Access Challenges

The Army and Marine Corps are undertaking multiple efforts to address  operational access challenges, which impact a broad range of their  existing missions. Further, the  Army and Marine Corps have identified several areas where they have  important roles in overcoming access challenges, including engagement  activities and entry operations, as well as logistics and missile defense for  the Army. Army and Marine Corps Are Incorporating Operational Access Challenges into Service Concepts and Wargames

The Army and the Marine Corps have begun examining the impact of  operational access challenges on existing missions by revising their  concepts and incorporating such challenges into their wargames. These officials stated that  eventually this will inform Marine Corps assessments of capability needs,  gaps, and solutions. According to the JOAC, such activities include  multinational exercises, basing and support agreements, improving  overseas facilities, prepositioning supplies, and forward-deploying forces. The JOAC states that maintaining or expanding  operational access may require entry of Army or Marine Corps forces into  hostile territory to accomplish missions, such as eliminating land-based  threats or initiating sustained land operations, and identifies the ability to  conduct forcible entry operations as a required capability. By pursuing increasingly advanced missiles, adversaries  are able to impose costs on the United States. DOD Is in the Early Stages of Developing the JOAC Implementation Plan, but Has Not Fully Established Specific Measures and Milestones to Assess Progress

DOD is developing an implementation plan for the JOAC in order to bring  coherence to the department’s many simultaneous efforts to overcome  A2/AD challenges but has not fully established measures and milestones  to gauge progress.effort to coordinate, oversee, and assess the department’s  implementation of the JOAC. DOD is planning to issue the first iteration of  the plan in 2014 and intends to assess and update the plan annually. DOD Is in the Early Stages of Developing the Joint Operational Access Concept Implementation Plan

The Joint Staff is leading a multiyear DOD-wide effort, initiated in June  2013, to coordinate, oversee, and assess the department’s  implementation of the JOAC. While DOD has stated its intent to assess progress in the future, its  current planning lacks specifics about the measures it will employ and  how it will set milestones to gauge that progress. Without establishing specific measures and  milestones in future iterations of the JOAC Implementation Plan, DOD will  not be able to gauge JOAC implementation progress and assess whether  efforts by the joint force, to include the Army and the Marine Corps, will  achieve DOD’s goals in desired time frames in the near and long terms. Specifically, if DOD does not have a means to assess implementation  progress, it may lack assurance that Army and Marine Corps efforts to  address areas such as engagement activities, entry operations, logistics  support, and expeditionary missile defense fully align with the JOAC. Recommendation for Executive Action

To improve DOD’s ability to assess Joint Operational Access Concept  implementation, including the contribution of the Army and the Marine  Corps, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Joint  Staff, in coordination with the Army, the Marine Corps, and other  members of the working group, to establish specific measures and  milestones in future iterations of the JOAC Implementation Plan to gauge  how individual implementation actions contribute in the near and long  terms to achieving the required capabilities, operational objectives, and  end state envisioned by the department. 2. The ability to interdict enemy forces and materiel deploying to an  operational area.
Why GAO Did This Study

According to DOD, its ability to deploy military forces from the United States to a conflict area is being increasingly challenged as potential adversaries pursue capabilities designed to deny access. Access can be denied by either preventing an opposing force from entering an operational area or limiting an opposing force's freedom of action within an operational area. DOD has a joint concept that broadly describes how DOD will operate effectively in such access-denied environments. DOD's initial efforts have emphasized the roles of the Air Force and Navy.
GAO was mandated to review the role of the Army and Marine Corps in access-denied areas. This report (1) describes Army and Marine Corps efforts to address operational access challenges and (2) analyzes the extent to which DOD is able to gauge how its efforts support implementation of its concept for future operations in access-denied environments. GAO analyzed DOD, Army, and Marine Corps concepts; reports on service-level exercises; DOD policy and guidance on concept implementation; and documents specifically related to the joint concept. GAO also interviewed cognizant DOD officials.

What GAO Found

The Army and Marine Corps are undertaking multiple efforts to address operational access challenges—challenges that impede a military force's ability to enter and conduct operations in an area—that impact a broad range of their existing missions. For example, they are incorporating operational access challenges into their wargames and revising their service concepts, which inform their assessments of capability needs, gaps, and solutions. In addition, the Army and the Marine Corps have identified important roles they play in overcoming operational access challenges and are examining ways to carry them out in access-denied environments, including
engagement activities—improving access conditions through such activities as multinational exercises, prepositioning supplies, and forward presence, and
entry operations—deploying forces onto foreign territory to conduct missions such as eliminating land-based threats to access.
In addition, the Army has identified areas specific to its role, including
logistics—sustaining forces despite increased vulnerabilities from access threats and challenges associated with new operational approaches, and
missile defense—providing defense against increasingly accurate, lethal, and available ballistic and cruise missiles.
The Department of Defense (DOD) is unable to gauge the extent to which its efforts to overcome operational access challenges support the implementation of the 2012 Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC). The JOAC describes how the department will operate effectively in future operating environments with access challenges and is intended to guide the development of capabilities for the joint force of 2020. The Joint Staff is leading a multiyear DOD-wide effort, initiated in June 2013, to coordinate, oversee, and assess the department's implementation of the JOAC. DOD plans to issue the first iteration of the JOAC Implementation Plan in 2014 and to assess and update the plan annually. The draft plan focuses on the highest-priority JOAC-required capabilities and identifies related actions, but does not fully establish specific measures and milestones to gauge progress. While DOD has stated its intent to assess progress in the future, its current planning lacks specific details about the measures it will employ and the milestones it will use to gauge that progress. Until DOD establishes specific measures and milestones in future iterations of its implementation plan, the department will not be able to gauge implementation progress and assess whether efforts by the joint force, to include the Army and the Marine Corps, will achieve DOD's goals in desired time frames. As a result, DOD may lack assurance that efforts, including those currently being undertaken by the Army and the Marine Corps to address areas such as engagement activities, entry operations, logistics, and expeditionary missile defense, will fully align with the JOAC.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that DOD establish specific measures and milestones in future iterations of the JOAC Implementation Plan to improve DOD's ability to gauge implementation progress. DOD agreed with the importance of assessing the plan and said it is developing measures and milestones and will continue to refine these tracking tools in the future.