Worldwide Military Command and Control System

The Worldwide Military Command and Control System (or WWMCCS) (pronounced /ˈwɪmɛks/) was a military command and control system implemented for the command and control of the United States military. It was created in the days following the Cuban Missile Crisis. WWMCCS was a system of systems that encompassed the elements of warning, communications, data collection and processing, executive decision making tools and supporting facilities. It was decommissioned in 1996 and replaced by the Global Command and Control System.

The worldwide deployment of U.S. forces required extensive long-range communications systems that can maintain contact with all of those forces at all times. To enable national command authorities to exercise effective command and control of their widely dispersed forces, a communications system was established to enable those authorities to disseminate their decisions to all subordinate units, under any conditions, within minutes.

Such a command and control system, WWMCCS, was created by Department of Defense Directive S-5100.30, titled "Concept of Operations of the Worldwide Military Command and Control System," which set the overall policies for the integration of the various command and control elements that were rapidly coming into being in the early 1960s.

As initially established, WWMCCS was an arrangement of personnel, equipment (including Automated Data Processing equipment and hardware), communications, facilities, and procedures employed in planning, directing, coordinating, and controlling the operational activities of U.S. military forces.

This system was intended to provide the President and the Secretary of Defense a means to receive warning and intelligence information, assign military missions, provide direction to the unified and specified commands, and support the Joint Chiefs of Staff in carrying out their responsibilities. The directive establishing the system stressed five essential system characteristics: survivability, flexibility, compatibility, standardization, and economy.

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