A joint base (JB) is a base of the United States military utilized by multiple military services; one service hosts one or more other services as tenants on the base. In most cases, joint bases have interservice support agreements (ISSAs) to govern how the host provides services to the tenants.
The practice originated during Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC), 1993, in which joint reserve bases were established at Willow Grove, Pennsylvania and Fort Worth, Texas. Base Realignment and Closure, 2005 added to this list when 26 bases were combined into twelve and renamed as joint bases. In addition, several other uses of the term "joint" are used in names of bases in the United States military and are described below.
JRBs at Willow Grove, Pennsylvania and Fort Worth, Texas were created during BRAC 1993; however, the name Joint Reserve Base was not used in the BRAC law. Instead, the BRAC realigned several reserve air assets to Carswell AFB (now NAS JRB Fort Worth) and NAS Willow Grove. It is not clear how or when these bases acquired the Joint Reserve Base name.
The JRBs are examples of typical military host–tenant relationships, in which support provided to the tenants by the host is codified in an ISSA as dictated by DOD Policy. At NAS JRB Fort Worth, the Navy hosts a variety of reserve flying units from the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force; each has an ISSA with the Navy for the support it needs at the base.
The joint basing program, established by recommendation 146 of the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission, represents the department's efforts to optimize the delivery of installation support across the services. The BRAC Report created 12 joint bases from 26 service installations that were in close proximity or shared a boundary. As of 1 October 2010, all 12 joint bases achieved full operational capability.