JC-HAMO and the Operational Art Joint Concepts: An Overview
“JC-HAMO and the Operational Art Joint Concepts: An Overview”
Speaker: Lane, Daniel (USSOCOM J7)
Date: 26 April 2019
Speaker Session Preview
SMA hosted a speaker session presented by Mr. Daniel Lane (USSOCOM J7) as a part of its SMA General Speaker Series. Mr. Lane began by providing a history of the campaigning concept within the US military. He pointed out that, historically, the US has never been able to avoid low intensity conflict and that the military is the nation’s main action arm. The concept that war is limited and has distinct beginnings and ends does not reflect reality. Therefore, there is a need to develop concepts that enable the military to think about and operate in the continuum of cooperation, in which the military assures protection and stability; competition, in which actors operate to advance their interests short of open conflict; and war. Mr. Lane then defined competition as the “interaction among actors in pursuit of the influence, leverage, and advantage necessary to secure their respective interests.” He emphasized that competition is about people (since actors are indeed people), and we must aim to understand their interests from their perspective. To conclude, Mr. Lane introduced JC-HAMO (Joint Concept – Human Aspects of Military Operations) and described how the military goes from Joint Concepts (big ideas) and transitions them to applications against which resources can be placed. JC-HAMO is conceived as a cyclical process in which the military identifies relevant actors (adversaries and others) and monitors them, evaluates and assesses their impacts, anticipates their decision making and plans against it, and influences their will and decision making by directing operations to create desired effects.
Mr. Lane is a Strategy and Analysis Specialist in the Concepts Development and Integration Division of U.S. Special Operations Command’s Strategy, Plans, and Policy Directorate (USSOCOM J59). A retired U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Officer, he specialized in marine nuclear and conventional propulsion engineering, anti-terrorism, and force protection. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, the U.S. Navy nuclear propulsion program, and The Ohio State University.
Since 2014, Mr. Lane has served as USSOCOM’s lead action officer for Capabilities-Based Assessments (CBAs) of Special Operations Command and Joint Concepts. His work includes the USSOCOM Concept for Operating in the Human Domain (SC-OHD), the Joint Concept of Operations for Scalable Effects with Non-Lethal Weapons (SENLW), the Joint Concept for the Human Aspects of Military Operations (JC-HAMO), and the Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning (JC-IC).
He has also been USSOCOM’s lead contributor to the Joint Staff J39 Joint Information Operations Warfare Center’s (JIOWC) development and CBA of the Joint Concept for Operating in the Information Environment (JC-OIE), the 2019 revision of the DoD Strategy for Operating in the Information Environment, and numerous other futures and strategic planning efforts.
