Strategic command selling itself to field commanders.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: STRATEGIC COMMAND

OMAHA, NEB. -- The lives of officers at U.S. Strategic Command sound remarkably similar to those of traveling salesmen.

"We engage the combatant commanders," said Army Col. Christopher Fulton, chief of staff for global strike integration. "We travel to them. We visit them. We try to make them smarter about what Stratcom brings."

Five years after Stratcom began its reorganization, Fulton said the command has only been "partially successful" in selling itself to the other services and joint commands.

"There is a level of education out there that is very low on what the new Stratcom mission set has," he said.

For commanders in the field, "it's about turf," he said.

Stratcom reinvented itself under its former commander, Marine Corps Gen. James E. Cartwright, and took eight missions into its fold. Some of the eight components are more established in the defense community than others. Five have been designated joint functional component commands (JFCCs).

The eight missions are: global strike and integration; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; information operations; space; integrated missile defense; network warfare; global network operations; and combating weapons of mass destruction.

Cartwright, who recently was named as vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, envisioned a command that provides services to field commanders. When they need space-based sensors trained on an area of operations, for example, they pick up the phone and call JFCC-Space.

Cartwright has said that the JFCCs would have a tough selling job...