Building Partnerships by Design or by Default?

The purpose of this book is to explore how the United States military should organize, train and equip their forces to better support building partnership capacity operations in support of the Geographic Combatant Commanders' (GCC) Theater Campaign Plans (TCP). As stated in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, the Secretary of Defense's priority objective of preventing and deterring conflict requires the Services to better align organization and force structure in support of national security and military strategies to meet GCC Theater Campaign Plan requirements. As the GCC's priorities change in support of our national strategies (ends), the forces provided (means) and how they are employed (ways) should also change. The assumption that U.S. conventional combat forces can do this additional building partnership capacity mission by default and "out of hide" is not valid. If the number one priority is theater engagement and building partnerships, then that mission should be resourced appropriately, in spite of organizational resistance, to meet the needs of the Geographic Combatant Commanders attempting to execute this mission.