Comprehensive Joint Assessment

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Comprehensive Joint Assessment is an annual deliberate assessment process directed by Joint Staff to assess a specific topic. The input that the CJA gives the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff joins the strategy review process and allows the chairman provide advice to the Secretary of Defense and President as well as lay out plans for the services in everything from personnel matters to operations. At EUCOM, input to the CJA is managed within the J7 Analysis and Assessments Directorate.

The CJA is made up of five distinctly separate but interrelated parts:

Combatant Commander Integrated Response -- focuses on the accomplishments, opportunities, issues, concerns and risks for the military.

Security Environment -- works with the European and global security environment, threats and opportunities. It identifies potential strategic events that would require a military response as well as the event’s implications for the theater. The last responsibility of this part is to identify how challenges change over time.

Current Operations and Health of the Force -- focuses on performance and effectiveness of operations and activities, and the Command’s institutional ability to generate ready forces over the long term. It also identifies issues affecting execution of global and theater operations and activities.

The Near-Term Military Risk Assessment -- assesses the command’s ability to respond to potential strategic events in addition to its current operations. Risk mitigation is an integral part of the Near-Term Military Risk Assessment as it focuses on gaps and shortfalls, resource priorities, and the implications for force employment and force management guidance.

Implications for the Future Force -- focuses on force development priorities for the Future Years Defense Plan and beyond. The FYDP is all comprising, featuring the resources, experimentation, concept development and implications for force development for the coming years.

J7 provides input to the CJA by developing and integrating inputs from the EUCOM staff, component commands, key U.S. government agencies, international and academic sources, and open-source experts for submission on Sept. 30 every year.