The Emerging Capabilities and Challenges Program Area supports the executive branch of the government, including senior leaders, the intelligence community, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Staff, and Military Services, providing top government officials with fact-based analysis of pressing gaps, challenges, and opportunities to advance our national security superiority. Analysts use detailed, mission-focused analysis to provide technical feasibility and military utility assessments of new systems or innovative applications of existing systems.

The analysis includes operationally relevant concerns, such as multi-mission constraints, cross-domain coordinated operations, deployment timelines, and end-to-end effects chains, and is designed to help senior leaders in the program budget and acquisition process. Projects can be quick turn, supporting emerging senior leader questions and concerns, or longer-term study efforts supporting advanced capability concept exploration, analysis of alternatives, acquisition, development and testing, and sustainment.

Focus areas include policy and strategy, intelligence, and capability and capacity. In policy and strategy, analysis is conducted to help inform policy, strategy, and international norm development. For intelligence, the goal is to conduct analyses that help uncover future challenges and potential opportunities today. The capability and capacity focus area is aligned to shape the capability, design, and capacity of the future force.

The Innovative Operational Concepts Program Area leads technology-infused operational analyses in support of operating forces and combatant commanders.

Focus areas include posture and readiness, operational planning and exercises, and technology-infused operations. In posture and readiness, JOC works to redefine proficiency to align with operational needs and determine how technology can be leveraged most effectively to meet training and readiness requirements. For operational planning and exercises, JOC leverages technology and operations research expertise to reconstruct and analyze exercises, mission rehearsals, and real-world events to shape operational plans and support innovative multi-domain operations. JOC’s technology-infused operations work links current and emerging technologies to operations across all domains and provides operators with rigorous, objective analyses to support decision-making at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels.