Evolving the OODA Loop for Strategy

A new application of Boyd’s model

The work of the late Col John Boyd has significantly influenced the doctrine and concepts of the U.S. armed forces for the last 30 years. Boyd’s achievements during his Air Force career include substantial contributions to fighter tactics and aircraft design.1 Yet, he is better known for his ever-evolving and eclectic theoretical efforts to define conflict and for his simple decision-making model, the famous “OODA loop.”2

In this article, we introduce another construct for consideration. The authors are avowed maneuverists, who find value in Col Boyd’s wide-ranging theories, notwithstanding his contempt for battles of attrition, which are sometimes unavoidable. Boyd’s detractors criticize the underlying historical cases he drew upon and his lack of published substantive scholarship. But over the last two generations, he has arguably offered better frameworks for thinking about warfare (especially at the tactical level) than anyone else. A concept that addresses uncertainty, cognition, moral factors, feedback loops, continuous adaptation, and time-competitive decision making is quite powerful. His theory rightly stresses the value of relative tempo vice just acting faster, which Boyd clearly understood. 

Thus, we are not surprised that Boyd’s conception of war as a violent and time-competitive clash to disrupt an opponent’s mind and force cohesion has traction with many in the U.S. military and Marine warfighting doctrine.3 Boyd was respected and praised by numerous students of war.4 Additionally,  having numerous devoted acolytes, the late strategic theorist and prolific author Colin Gray, counted Boyd as an honorable mention on his list of favorite strategic theorists.5 “The OODA loop may appear too humble to merit categorization as a grand theory,” Gray observed, “but that is what it is. It has an elegant simplicity, an extensive domain of applicability, and contains a high quality of insight about strategic essentials.”6  Scholars at the Army War College support this assessment.7

Boyd’s thinking also influenced the development of the U.S. Army’s AirLand Battle doctrine and underpins the Army’s concept of mission command, which embraces the delegation of responsibility and decision making down the chain of command to ensure tempo is not ceded to the enemy.8 The Navy’s Next Generation Air Dominance program, involving unmanned loyal wingmen flying with sixth-generation manned fighters, continues to assess the implications new technology will have on cockpit decision-making.9

Moreover, Boyd’s OODA construct (see Figure 1) has been popularized in both military and management circles and has taken root in the military doctrine of many NATO countries. 

Figure 1. Boyd’s full OODA loop. (Figure provided by authors.)
Figure 1. Boyd’s full OODA loop. (Figure provided by authors.)

But as previously noted, Boyd’s work is not without controversy or criticisms.10 Some scholars found the leap from Boyd’s cockpit experiences difficult to scale up to the operational and strategic levels of war.11 One critic labeled him a “blind strategist” who was “in the dark” due to his fraudulent reading of history.12 According to this critic, maneuver warfare somehow “corrupted the art of war” and is responsible for the catastrophic decisions made in Iraq and Afghanistan. That critique is both facile and hyperbolic. The most balanced observers of Boyd’s research acknowledge that he was not a professional historian and that his selection of historical cases reflected some bias.13

These shortcomings tempted some Army officers years ago to wishfully give the OODA loop a sendoff into academic oblivion.14 These authors focused on the simple four-step OODA loop, which is a shorthand description. They would be justified based on that abbreviated understanding. But they overlooked Boyd’s richer and expanded version that better depicts his thinking.15 There have been other efforts to construct alternative concepts including the critique–explore–compare–adapt loop and, in Australia, a pair of analysts proposed an act-sense-decide-adapt (ASDA) cycle.16 The ASDA concept stressed the competitive learning and adaptation aspects of warfare, as did Boyd.17

An Alternative Approach
Changes in the global security environment since the 1980s and ineluctable demands confronting today’s strategic planners suggest Boyd’s OODA loop could use a modest update. Thus, we propose a 4-D Model of discovery, design, decide, and disseminate/monitor. This builds upon Boyd’s OODA cycle while expanding his concept to enhance its relevance to the strategic level of war. Underpinning the need for the 4-D model are the following drivers:

  • The deliberative nature of strategy is less about making fast decisions and more about identifying and deeply understanding the right problem and the rigorous generation of a sound solution.  
  • The collective character of strategy formulation, including group dynamics between commanders, allies, staffs, and specialists, and not just one individual’s cognitive cycle. The importance of discourse in building a shared understanding needs reinforcement.18
  • The opportunity to incorporate advances in the cognitive sciences and other sciences that have occurred since Boyd developed his framework.19
  • The thrust of the military design movement has steadily influenced strategic planning.20
  • The need for a more explicit recognition of the role of risk in strategy formulation and implementation.  There are new dimensions of strategic risk that transcend traditional concepts of risk to mission and forces that must now be accounted for: the risk that action or inaction poses to democratic governance, the global economy, and nation-states’ ability to marshal both manpower and materiel to meet the exigencies of protracted war.  

In Boyd’s time, few fighter pilots or infantry commanders had to worry much about these factors. Today, they may find themselves quickly assigned to a combatant command headquarters and tasked with writing war plans and operations orders in an era of strategic competition and gray zone challenges. Thus, Boyd’s focus on operational or tactical success using the OODA cycle requires some translation for staff officers who are required to think strategically in peacetime but not yet moving to the sound of the guns. 

The “4 D” Model (Discovery, Design, Decide, Disseminate/Monitor)
Our proposed model is presented in Figure 2. We came to recognize from Boyd that these are not isolated steps; instead, they are interconnected by information flows from continuous feedback loops.21 Our model blends Boyd’s interdisciplinary efforts with additional elements and attempts to help modern-day commanders and their staffs apply it to their critical command functions. To represent the nonlinear and continuous interaction that Boyd intended, we revised our version as depicted in Figure 3. This depiction came out of Boyd’s writing about the nonlinearity of warfare and seeks to better reflect the interactive nature of the various components. 

Figure 2. (Figure provided by authors.)
Figure 2. (Figure provided by authors.)
Figure 3. (Figure provided by authors.)
Figure 3. (Figure provided by authors.)

Discovery
In place of observe, we propose discovery, which connotes a more active effort to learn and understand. Obviously, the Observe step is drawn from Boyd’s experience as a fighter pilot. Observing is not irrelevant to fighter pilots nor strategists, but a more proactive search is needed to build a comprehensive understanding of the strategic environment and the particular strategic culture of the adversary. What is necessary is an active effort to learn and appreciate what GEN McMaster called strategic empathy, which he defined as “the skill of understanding what drives and constrains one’s adversary.”22

In the discovery component, we include the identification and attempted resolution of “known unknowns” and an effort to satisfy the commander’s information requirements. We also include a recognition of the perspectives and mental modes, heuristics, and biases of key leaders and strategists, as Boyd properly noted. 

An integral component of the discovery step involves identifying political constraints (actions that must be taken) and restraints (actions that are not authorized) that will shape the design step. In an era of great-power competition between nuclear-armed adversaries, escalation control and the political imperative to find acceptable off-ramps will impact the design of strategies involving the use of force between nuclear powers and their surrogates.

Design
In lieu of orientation, we have labeled the next step of the process as design. Whereas Boyd used orientation to capture the elements of sense-making, leading to analysis and synthesis, our model explicitly uses some of the simpler components of design as practiced in joint and Service planning methodologies. Design is not a single step; it is a developing awareness based on constantly changing circumstances and imperfect information. In Boyd’s briefing lectures, he stressed that orientation never ceases but rather constantly evolves as it takes in new data.23 “Orientation isn’t just a state you’re in,” he claimed, “it’s a process. You’re always orienting.”24 Likewise with design.  

Some aspects of design theory have been incorporated within the existing joint planning process.25 While this has not been the sweeping paradigm change design advocates would like, it has helped generate the desired outcomes of the design movement (more creativity, critical thinking, challenging outdated frames, etc.). We agree with proponents who embrace complexity and novel ways to make sense of dynamic and non-linear environments and who want to exploit divergent thinking and leverage deep reflection.26

Yet, the notion of design theory and military applications is in flux. Now, as was the case a decade ago, there is little agreement on exactly what design thinking is or how to best apply it in strategy or operational art.27 The field is split between purists and pragmatists.28 While recognizing that design theory is a valuable but rather philosophical approach, we are practitioners who appreciate pragmatic applications.29 Design theory is not inconsistent with Boyd’s work, given his emphasis on complexity and systems theory, as well as the cognitive sciences.  

Design is a useful intellectual approach that can assist planners who must grapple with wicked or ill-structured problems that are non-linear, interactively complex, and have no stopping rule or final end-state.30 But planners who ignore Boyd’s ideas and attempt to use design to overcome war’s inherent ambiguity and uncertainty will be gravely disappointed.31 At best, ill-structured problems can be managed or mitigated and not permanently solved. Instead of seeking some sort of utopian end state, planners must be content with achieving an acceptable sustainable state.32

Our conception of design includes problem framing, the first step in any serious strategy formulation process.33 That enables multiple diverse approaches (or courses of action) to be generated to resolve the gap between a perceived environment and a desired change. Design generates ideations in the form of potential solutions or mitigations, and these are fed into the analysis and synthesis process via the gaming of options or courses of action. All of this is interactively refined by discourse and collaboration among commanders and staffs. Critically, the insights gleaned from this process will almost always require the approaches or courses of action to be modified, necessitating yet another round of testing and experimentation before the Commander takes a decision.  

Although doctrine still encourages strategists to develop a Theory of Victory, such verbiage can lead to over-reach when identifying the ends for which military force is going to be used. States acquire nuclear weapons to immunize themselves against regime change and existential defeat. Victory implies an outcome that is much more favorable than returning to the status quo ante or a negotiated settlement involving major concessions from both belligerents. History informs that the former is difficult to achieve and so a Theory of Success may have greater utility during strategy formulation.

Decision
The next component of the framework is the actual decision. Boyd appropriately labeled decisions as a hypothesis. This hypothesis represents a causal relationship between actions and desired ends, which is the operative theory of success in the evolving strategy.34

The commander is responsible and accountable for this decision as well as the degree of freedom of action for independent judgment that he or she delegates to subordinates and coalition members.35

In our model, we included strategic risk as an element in the decision component. Risk is an enduring reality in both strategic and operational decision making. The rigorous assessment of risk is or should be a critical and explicit step in strategy development. There is always a risk to any strategy thanks to the unrelenting reality of uncertainty in human affairs and especially war.36 Yet, it is often a weak link in U.S. strategy formulation and decision making.  

Strategic risk is more than the risk to mission or force in joint risk analysis. It can come from many sources, both internal and external.  Most of the time we look for risk from vulnerabilities or external events. The joint doctrine note on strategy suggests that risk analysis is an implicit function and relegates it to the assessment phase. It states, “Implicit to the implementation of a strategy is the identification of its associated costs and risks.”37 This is limiting and slightly problematic. Risk considerations should be explicit and start with the development of a strategy as well as execution and refinement from assessments. However, retired GEN Stan McChrystal insists that the greatest risk to our organization is from ourselves.38 Our lack of empathy, curiosity, and critical thinking leave us open to surprise from foreseeable hazards.  

Risk assessment is a continuing process based on new information, or planning assumptions that reveal themselves to be inaccurate. A strategy and design team will look at risk in its gaming and synthesis. However, a conscious effort to accept risk or modify a strategy is the responsibility of the senior official approving the strategy. Risk is not well understood, and risk management is not applied consistently and explicitly at the policy and strategic decision-making levels. The U.S. strategy community needs to sharpen its appreciation for risk as a requisite step in testing strategic choices, making risk-informed decisions, and implementing strategy.  

The inclusion of risk within the strategy process is now well recognized in U.S. doctrine but not by Boyd. Hence our inclusion of it as an explicit item to improve our capacity to appreciate risks to and from our strategy.39

Dissemination and Monitoring
After a decision has been made, it must be disseminated to all subordinate actors in such a way that captures the commander’s intent and logic. We have not used “act” since higher-level headquarters themselves do not act as much as support implementation and assessment.40 They do direct action across their formations, which must be continually assessed and which may generate the need to adapt the strategy or how it is being implemented. We specifically include monitor as a part of a commander’s function (and his staff) as it supports both mission command and documents the vital assessment process. Monitoring vice control is a notion we have absorbed from Boyd himself.41 Boyd felt that control was too focused on limiting freedom of action, which is the opposite of what learning and rapid adaptation are supposed to achieve.

Monitoring includes adopting useful assessment metrics that can help senior commanders and the civilian leaders they serve to answer the most difficult wartime question of all: is our strategy working? Bogus metrics and failing to ask this question frequently enough during a campaign can undermine the virtuous cycle of learning inherent to Boyd’s overall concept.  

Regarding transitions and change, as the Russo-Ukraine war demonstrates, war is a competition in learning and adaptation.42 This is just as true at the strategy level as it is in the conduct of warfare.

Pitfalls
Strategists must be mindful of pitfalls that can lead to less-than-optimum outcomes or outright failure. We expect our adapted model will help ameliorate them. Richard Rumelt believes that “a good strategy recognizes the nature of the challenge and offers a way of surmounting it. Simply being ambitious is not a strategy.”43 Nor are big audacious goals and broad arrows on a map conducive to sound strategy. Some of the most dangerous pitfalls to remain aware of include:

Ignoring or Stifling Criticism
• The discovery step includes gathering as much relevant information about the problem as possible—the security environment, adversaries, friendly forces, allies, and partnered nations, and required resources to implement and sustain the strategy. A bias toward happy talk and good news can result in overly optimistic judgments that seep into the design step and lead to developing facile courses of action and the downplaying of associated risks. Prudent strategists are wary of too much sunshine intruding on the process and jealously guarding their objectivity and dispassionate analysis. 

Forgotten Assumptions
• Strategy making takes time. Edward Miller has noted that “strategists are not clairvoyants,” and the development of War Plan Orange for defeating Imperial Japan in World War II was “a plan nurtured over thirty-five years.”44 Admittedly, this is a long time. Nevertheless, regardless of duration, strategy development requires that planners keep track of the assumptions underpinning their thinking and constantly cross-check them against reality. Circumstances will dictate whether old assumptions should be refined or discarded, and new ones adopted. A seemingly simple assumption like “country X or Y will or will not provide U.S. forces basing access,” can have an outsized impact on strategic outcomes. It is the impact that discarded, or newly adopted assumptions, have on the overall strategy—and the imperative to understand their second and third-order effects—that matters most.  

Interagency Cooperation
•  A strategy that integrates all elements of national power will, by necessity, involve multiple Executive Branch departments and agencies—each with its own unique organizational cultures and resource limitations. Understanding the role civilian agencies have in the strategy, and their timelines for execution, which, in most cases, differs from when the positive effects of their actions will be realized (i.e., financial sanctions and tariffs imposed, mobilization of industrial base, etc.) is crucial. Involving the interagency at the outset of the 4-D process will help promote a realistic understanding of what these stakeholders are bringing to the table, or not. 

Rigid Adherence to the Plan
• Good strategies have some organic flexibility baked into their design so they can adapt to changing circumstances during implementation. Strategy refinements and modifications are almost always necessary to meet the moves and countermoves of a thinking adversary. The U.S. “Europe First” strategy during World War II allowed for operations in the Pacific and Mediterranean without causing decision makers to lose sight of the ultimate prize. Throughout the war, military objectives were expediently modified to exploit success and more effectively align resources with changing operational and strategic priorities. There is a reciprocal relationship between policy and strategy during war that should occur naturally.45 Identifying the shifts and the strategic trade-offs that should be made and for what reasons is strategic acumen of the highest order. 

Conclusion
Like Clausewitz, Boyd deserves his place in the pantheon of useful philosophers of war. Oddly, both never really finished their work, and we are left with some questions to resolve on our own. We are not surprised Boyd’s various concepts resonate with many theorists and practitioners exposed to warfare. Despite the critics, we believe that any conception of warfare remains on solid ground with Boyd’s ideas about relative tempo, uncertainty, decision making, and adaptation. The convergence between Boyd and the Marine Corps is tied to their common emphasis on adapting to new circumstances in conflict. Ian Brown stresses, “such adaptability required a mind-set that could recognize when circumstances changed,” and the ability to “process the new information, and make those decisions necessary to adapt and triumph.”46 As noted earlier, the Army and the Navy also see some virtue in many of Boyd’s ideas.

We do not contend we have discovered the Rosetta Stone, but we offer this alternative model to help further leverage Boyd’s construct, especially for higher staff levels. We argue that Boyd would be happy to debate about the modified loop we have developed. Boyd hated dogmas and expected his ideas to germinate and evolve. Locking into a single mental model was tantamount to failure, or as Boyd colorfully put it, “You’ll get your pants pulled down.”47 His key point was to not become predictable or locked into templates which he labelled as cognitive stagnation.  

While some of Boyd’s ideas can and should be challenged, his thinking “has shifted strategists, planners, and operators from mass-based to tempo- and disruption-based conceptions of war, conflict, and competition.”48 We should continue to build on that at all levels of war. The extensive use of the OODA loop model for decision making is a testament to the pervasive utility of this concept. Yet, Boyd’s contributions go well beyond the OODA framework and are worthy of serious study. However, they do not represent the final word.  In fact, it is quite likely that the late Col Boyd would be unhappy if his provocative insights did not engender more debate and evolution. 

>Col Greenwood (Ret) currently works as a Research Staff Member at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, VA.

>>LtCol Hoffman (Ret) was, until his retirement, a Distinguished Research Fellow at the National Defense University, Washington, D.C.

Notes

1. Barry Watts and Mie Augier, “John Boyd

on Competition and Conflict,” Comparative Strategy 41, No. 3 (2022).

2. Which for those not familiar with the construct stands for observe, orient, decide, and act.

3. Headquarters Marine Corps, MCDP 1, Warfighting, (Washington, DC, 1997).

4. For positive assessments of Boyd’s many contributions see Grant T. Hammond, The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 2001); Chet Richards, Certain to Win, (Bloomington: Xlibris 2004); Robert Coram, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (New York: Little, Brown, 2005); Ian T. Brown, A New Conception of War: John Boyd, the U.S. Marines, and Maneuver Warfare (Quantico: Marine Corps University Press, 2018).

5. Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

6. Ibid.

7.  Clay Chun and Jacqueline Whitt, “John Boyd and the “OODA Loop,” War Room blog, Army War College, January 8, 2019, https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/podcasts/boyd-ooda-loop-great-strategists.

8. Jamie L. Holm, An Alternate Portrait of Ruin: The Impact of John Boyd on United States Army Doctrine, (Fort Leavenworth: School of Advanced Military Studies, U.S. Command and General Staff College, 2021.)

9. John Robert Pellegrin, “Boyd in the Age of Loyal Wingmen,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, June 2024, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2024/june/boyd-age-loyal-wingmen.

10. Robert Polk, “A Critique of the Boyd Theory—Is It Relevant to the Army?” Defense Analysis 16, No. 3 (2000); and James Lane, “A Critique of John Boyd’s A Discourse on Winning and Losing,” Research Gate, February 2023, unpublished thesis, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368470051
_A_Critique_of_John_Boyd%27s_A_Discourse_on_Winning_and_Losing.

11. James Hasik, “Beyond the Briefing: Theoretical and Practical Problems in the Works and Legacy of John Boyd,” Contemporary Security Policy 34, No. 3 (2013).

12. Stephen Robinson, The Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Way of War (Dunedin: Exile Publishing, 2021).

13. Frans Osinga, “Getting a Discourse on Winning and Losing” A Primer on Boyd’s ‘Theory of Intellectual Evolution,’ Contemporary Security Policy 34, No. 3 (2013). 

14. Kevin Benson and Steven Rotkoff, “Goodbye OODA Loop,” Armed Forces Journal, October 2011, http://armedforcesjournal.com/2011/10/6777464.

15. David Lyle, “Looped Back In,” Armed Forces Journal, December 2011, http://armedforcesjournal.com/perspectives-looped-back-in.

16. David J. Bryant, “Rethinking OODA: Toward a Modern Cognitive Framework of Command Decision Making,” Military Psychology 18, No. 3 (2009).

17. Justin Kelly and Mike Brennan, “OODA Versus ASDA: Metaphors at War,” Australian Army Journal 6, No. 3 (2009).

18. T.C. Greenwood and T.X. Hammes, “War Planning for Wicked Problems,” Armed Forces Journal, December 1, 2009, http://armedforcesjournal.com/war-planning-for-wicked-problems. See also Ben Zweibelson, “Seven Design Theory Considerations, An Approach to Ill-Structured Problems,” Military Review (November–December 2012).

19. Frans P.B. Osinga, Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Thinking of John Boyd (New York: Routledge, 2006).

20. Ben Zweibeleson, Understanding the Military Design Movement: War, Change and Innovation (Abingdon: Routledge 2023).

21. Alistair Luft, “The OODA Loop and the Half-Beat,” Strategy Bridge, March 17, 2020, https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2020/3/17/the-ooda-loop-and-the-half-beat.

22. H.R. McMaster, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World (New York: Harper, 2020); H.R. McMaster, “Developing Strategic Empathy: History as the Foundation of Foreign Policy and National Security Strategy,” Journal of Military History 84 (2020); Allison Abbe, “Understanding the Adversary: Strategic Empathy and Perspective Taking in National Security,” Parameters 53, No. 2 (2023); and Montgomery McFate, “The Military Utility of Understanding Adversary Culture,” Joint Force Quarterly 38, No. 3 (2005).

23. “The OODA Loop and the Half-Beat.” 

24. John Boyd, cited in Brett and Kate McKay, “The Tao of Boyd, How to Master the OODA Loop,” Unruh Turner Burke & Frees, September 15, 2014, https://www.paestateplanners.com/library/Tao-of-Boyd-article-2016.pdf. 

25. Daniel E. Rauch and Matthew Tackett, “Design Thinking,” Joint Force Quarterly 101, No. 2 (2021).  See also the Army Design Methodology and Marine Corps Planning Process.

26. Ben Zweibelson, “Fostering Deep Insight Through Substantive Play,” in Aaron P. Jackson ed., Design Thinking Applications for the Australian Defence Force, Joint Studies Paper Series No. 3 (Canberra: Center for Strategic Research, 2019).

27. Aaron Jackson, “Design Thinking: Applications for the Australian Defence Force,” in Aaron P.  Jackson, ed., Design Thinking: Applications for the Australian Defence Force (Canberra: Australian Defence Publishing Service, 2019).

28. Aaron P. Jackson “A Tale of Two Designs: Developing the Australian Defence Force’s Latest Iteration of its Joint Operations Planning Doctrine,” Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, 17, No. 4 (2017).

29. Ben Zweibelson, “An Awkward Tango: Pairing Traditional Military Planning to Design and Why it Currently Fails to Work,” Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 16, No. 1 (2015).

30. “War Planning for Wicked Problems.”  

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. Andrew Carr, “Strategy as Problem Solving,” Parameters 54, No. 1 (2024).

34. On Theory of Success see Jeffrey W. Meiser, “Ends+Ways+Means=(Bad) Strategy,” Parameters 46, No. 4 (2016); Frank G. Hoffman, “The Missing Element in Crafting National Strategy, Theory of Success,” Joint Force Quarterly 97, No. 4 (2020); and Brad Roberts, On Theories of Victory: Red and Blue (Lawrence Livermore Laboratory: Center for Global Security Research, 2020).

35. Lawrence Freedman, Command, The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2022).

36. Colin S. Gray, Strategy and Defence Planning: Meeting the Challenge of Uncertainty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

37. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Doctrine Note 2-19, Strategy, (Washington, DC: December 2019). 

38. Stanley McChrystal and Anna Butrico, Risk: A User’s Guide (New York: Penguin, 2021).

39. A point stressed by a former Combatant Commander, see Kenneth F. McKenzie, Melting Point: High Command and War in the Twenty-first Century (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2024). See also Frank G. Hoffman, “A Weak Element in U.S. Strategy Formulation: Strategic Risk,” Joint Force Quarterly 116, No. 1 (2025). 

40. Drawn from Jim Storr, Something Rotten, Land Command in the 21st Century (Havant: Howgate, 2022).

41. Boyd, slide 32 from “Organic Design for Command and Control,” May 1987.

42. Mick Ryan, “Russia’s Adaptation Advantage,” Foreign Affairs.com, February 5, 2024, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russias-adaptation-advantage. For a deep study of adaptation in Ukraine see Mick Ryan, The War for Ukraine: Strategy and Adaptation Under Fire (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2024).

43. Richard P. Rumelt, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters (New York: Crown Business, 2011).

44. Edward S. Miller, War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897–1945 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1991).

45. Dan Marston, “Limited War in the Nuclear Age: American Strategy in Korea,” in Hal Brands, ed., The New Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2024).

46. A New Conception of War.

47. Boyd quoted in A New Conception of War.

48. Brian R. Price, “Decision Advantage and Initiative Completing Joint All-Domain Command and Control,” Air and Space Operations Review 3, No. 1 (2024).

Sustaining the Naval Expeditionary Force

Any beach is a sustainment pathway

Sustaining the Naval Expeditionary Force (NEF) in a distributed maritime operating environment requires methods for assured logistics over the shore. This means bringing warfighting capabilities and life-sustaining supplies from ship-to-shore, shore-to-shore, and potentially shore-to-ship. For survivability in a contested operating environment, the NEF will need the flexibility of operating over opportune landing sites versus known and routine port facilities.

Traditional NEF operations have been tied to the Navy amphibious force. This force includes amphibious ships with attached landing craft, beach master units, and Marine elements task-organized for throughput across designated beaches. These Navy and Marine Corps forces train together during pre-deployment exercises for operational certification. Through operational experience, policies have been developed and refined to govern landing operations with deliberate collection and analysis of hydrographic data.

These policies relate to institutional confidence in a ship and landing craft commander to navigate safely through seas and to land the landing force. This approach of capabilities and policy has worked well for today’s amphibious readiness group and MEU (ARG/MEU) team.

A different approach is necessary for the employment of a NEF that is not tied to amphibious ships. Stand-in forces (SIF) operating from a distributed network of seabases and expeditionary advanced bases (EABs) in a maritime operating environment require logistics over the shore through opportune beach landing sites to survive, particularly in a contested operating environment. These forces will not have a direct tie to amphibious ships and will, therefore, not have access to the landing craft, beach master units, and Marine Corps landing support teams that are traditionally part of the ARG/MEU.

The Marine Corps’ premiere SIF is the Marine littoral regiment (MLR), which is designed to be sustained even when amphibious ships are not present. Sustainment of the SIF will occur through multi-domain distribution platforms that are likely to flow from shore-to-shore, versus the traditional ship-to-shore method that is enabled by the continuous presence of amphibious ships. The MLR will enable sea denial for the NEF, which implies there will be some presence of Navy ships in the operating area, though not necessarily amphibious ships. For the NEF to persist in a contested, distributed maritime operating environment, policies, organizations, and training must be adapted.

Policies
Intentionally beaching a ship or vessel is not a normal practice, and determining where a vessel can be safely beached is nearly a lost art. Historically, the Navy operated tank landing ships designed for landing capability directly onto a beach. This dates back to World War II. These ships have since been decommissioned in the 1990s—many of which were sold to partner nations like Mexico, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Malaysia, and Spain. Since World War II, the Navy and Army have gradually shifted from beaching larger vessels to the use of ship-to-shore connectors designed for maritime-domain theater distribution. These craft include the landing craft utility, landing craft mechanized, and landing craft air cushion.

Ship commanding officers (COs) are responsible for the safe navigation of their ships, informed of the maritime operating environment across the oceans, seas, and littoral areas of operation. Most ships are not designed to beach and recover as a routine, and accidentally running a ship aground can be disastrous for the ship, and the CO. Further, there may also be impacts on the flow at the port, harbor, or canal (ex. Ever Given in the Suez Canal, 2021). Commanding officers are informed by updated maps and charts, trained navigators, experienced maritime pilots, and hydrographic safety officers. This layered combination is designed to prevent grounding and safely execute intentional beaching for deliberate
amphibious and littoral maneuver.

By policy, the Navy is responsible for providing oceanographic services for all elements of the DOD.1 Specifically, the Navy is tasked with collecting source data necessary for oceanographic, hydrographic, and bathymetric (OHB) surveys to “produce the maps, charts, and databases needed to support
navigation, operational plans (OPLANS), joint and naval operations and exercises, and intelligence preparation of the environment.”2

Today, the Navy has approximately 65 military and civilian members assigned to the Fleet Survey Team (FST) as an “expert, efficient, and responsive resource for littoral battlespace characterization and hydrographic surveys.”3 This FST construct has proven to be sufficient for a deliberate response for a crisis or disaster (such as Hurricane Katrina and Haiti earthquake relief). However, this is not responsive enough to support landings at varying opportune beaches across a distributed maritime operating environment during campaigning and when the emergent situation escalates to contested crisis response.

As an operational visualization of this challenge, consider the NEF operating with Marine Corps and Naval support elements ashore in the Philippines. The Philippine archipelago includes over 7,500 islands. The NEF will leverage this whole maneuver space to extend the range of capabilities with survivability. Not all coastlines on these islands are accessible by current landing craft and vessels, which narrows the focus on potential landing sites. Even if the entire 65-member FST were positioned in the Philippines, this would not be very responsive and efficient due to the operational necessity for tactical distribution. Fleet Survey Team members may not need to be on-site if they have the appropriate data to advise a ship CO. However, some collection of accurate, realtime data will always be necessary for safe navigation and the beaching of vessels to support littoral maneuver. Thus, the existing challenge is to have the right capability in many places at once to provide operational agility in the distributed maritime operating environment.

Organizations
Positioning the right capability at the right place and at the right time is the essence of sustainment, yet ensuring this littoral maneuver enabler capability is positioned effectively is the challenge. The organization to provide assured littoral maneuver over opportune landing sites can be accomplished by Navy and Marine Corps elements who have the expertise, the equipment, and the access.

Since forward positioning elements of the limited-capacity FST at all the possible global hot spots is not feasible, there are ways to leverage organizations that are already forward every day. In competition, the SIF has access geographically and politically to collect marine data in the littoral operating area. This includes military surveys, hydrographic surveys, and marine scientific research, all of which help to inform potential opportune beach landing sites.4 A key to collecting this data on foreign soil is diplomatic clearance, which the SIF will already have in competition.

Expanding organization options for collecting marine data will propagate beach landing site opportunities. Marine Corps meteorology and oceanography specialists may seem an obvious choice to collect marine data, though there are current limitations of capacity, and their primary focus is to support aviation operations. Intelligence specialists are another choice, though there can be some challenges to diplomatic clearance for these Marines. Explosive ordnance disposal technicians are increasing organic abilities for operations in littoral operating areas with equipment designed to operate in near-shore water. Another option may be to use infantry or engineers to conduct reconnaissance. Of note, engineers are trained to conduct tactical and technical reconnaissance for mobility. Any of these options can be appropriate with the right equipment and training. However, a key factor for these options is the acceptability of the collection and analysis by ship COs to navigate waters and beaches.

Emerging technology can be used to ensure standardized collection for integrated realtime analysis to assure safe navigation at sea. Marine data may be collected using strategic geospatial capabilities integrated with tactical-level autonomous means. In competition, forces operating ashore can use unmanned or uncrewed multi-domain systems with multi-spectral sensors. Integrating these systems in realtime, and tying them to reach-back experts can effectively identify and validate potential opportune landing sites. From the sea, unmanned or uncrewed surface, subsurface, or aerial systems may be launched from littoral maneuver connectors, or other maritime platforms, to do the same. Autonomous systems used to inform OHB surveys need not be fully dedicated to these sensors; instead, these sensors may just be bolt-on sensors that can be affixed or carried by any vehicle or craft and networked to appropriate analysis teams.

Beyond the organization to collect marine data, the SIF requires an organization to support the landing of vessels at opportune beaches. Recall the traditional shore party teams attached to an ARG/MEU to enable a landing and assure mobility at these beach landing sites. This includes Navy beach group yellow patchers, Marine Corps landing support red patchers, and engineers. For SIF, who do not have assigned, attached, or supporting amphibious ships, these same capabilities are required to assure sustainment can flow across opportune beach littoral transition points. Therefore, the SIF must organize elements to support the landing of shore-to-shore vessels.

Historical precedence exists for shore party teams to conduct reconnaissance and support beach landing areas. Australia established its first pioneer battalion in the aftermath of the failed Gallipoli campaign, forming a unit with light combat engineer functions to support beach landings. During World War II, the Marine Corps formed pioneer battalions to conduct shore-party operations during amphibious assaults to provide mobility support across beaches. Pioneer battalions were eventually redesignated to engineer battalions within the Marine Division and then to combat engineer battalions.

Today, the Navy and Marine Corps no longer have a unit exclusively organized for shore party operations, though the precedence exists and the concept has been rekindled from history. An output of the Marine Corps force design efforts since 2019 was the publishing of a Pioneer Battalion Concept of Employment. This concept presents a standing organization consisting of Navy and Marine Corps engineer and landing support specialists that would support the MLRs operating across the western Pacific area of operations. While the standing organization from this concept has not been embraced by the Navy and Marine Corps, the general concept is employed regularly during combined training and large-scale exercises.

Training
Building the institutional experience for sustaining the NEF across littoral transition points requires training. While the ARG/MEU teams conduct cyclic training for certification before deployment, units operating routinely across the distributed maritime operating area do not routinely build the same integrated training experience. The NEF must train as they will respond to crisis and fight in conflict. Deliberately training to identify and validate opportune landing sites, and then emplace the shore party team for assured mobility across littoral transition points is necessary to assure sustainment for the SIF.

In recent years, Navy and Marine Corps engineers have trained to increase integration toward the missions of expeditionary advanced base operations. Exercises Pacific Pioneer, Summer Pioneer, and Winter Pioneer have strengthened interoperability between Marine Corps engineer support battalions and Navy Seabees. These exercises have incorporated scenarios of beach landing sites and port operations, though they have not drawn in the full mission profile of OHB collection and analysis.

Transitioning from annual exercises to routine interoperability training is the next step for assured mobility. Today, Navy and Marine Corps elements are already operating forward day-to-day in a competition context. Supporting the landing of maritime vessels at opportune beaches is not the only mission for any of these units, yet they must be agile enough to shift on-call to support this mission. Even without the availability of landing craft and vessels, these elements can collect OHB data to update potential landing sites. Doing so overseas also increases interoperability with partner and host nations, and potentially has an integrated deterrent effect.

Conclusion
Sustaining the NEF in a distributed maritime operating environment necessitates the ability to maneuver between seabases and EABs using opportune landing sites that provide flexibility and survivability. To navigate across these littoral transition points, the Navy and Marine Corps must refine policy, organize, and train in competition to be always ready for crisis and conflict. The necessity of accurate OHB collection and analysis for safe maritime navigation should be matched with the existing SIF access. Additionally, transitioning from the occasional exercising of the Navy and Marine Corps Pioneer Battalion concept to routine interoperability training will ensure the NEF can persist in the contested, distributed littoral operating environment.

>Col Angell is a Logistics Officer currently assigned as the Director, Logistics Combat Element Division within Headquarters Marine Corps, Combat Development and Integration.

Notes

1. Department of the Navy, OPNAVINST 3140.55C, Oceanographic, Hydrographic, and Bathymetric Survey Program, (Washington, DC: December 2018).

2. Ibid. Oceanography is the study of the ocean surface, water column, and bottom features including the propagation of acoustic, optical, and other forms of energy. Hydrography is the depiction of shallow water bottom features, coastline, beach, tides, and surf characterization. Bathymetry is the measurement of water depths and bottom contour lines with precise geographic locations. 

3. Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, “Fleet Survey Team,” Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, n.d., https://www.cnmoc.usff.navy.mil/Our-Commands/Naval-Oceanographic-Office/Fleet-Survey-Team.

4. Department of the Navy, OPNAVINST 3128.9G, Diplomatic Clearance for U.S. Navy Marine Data Collection Activities in Foreign Jurisdictions, (Washington, DC: April 2021). 

Think, Act and Operate Differently

Our nation faces its most significant threat to national security in generations. China’s relentless military modernization and expansion has disrupted the Indo-Pacific region and threatens American interests, those of our allies and partners, and the overarching global order. Other actors seek to further destabilize the globe, adding to the continually growing and evolving challenges we face. The requirement for us to answer the call—every call—necessitates a unique mindset among all of us, one that can deal with multiple, disparate, even seemingly unrelated yet subtly connected events that require agility in thought and action. Logistics remains a common thread throughout these varying warfighting scenarios and often drives what we can and cannot do.

Logistics breathes life into strategy, and the changing character of war means we must think differently about delivering logistics readiness to the Fleet Marine Force (FMF). We must acknowledge that sustaining the force throughout the next conflict will require many changes from our previous twenty-five years of combat to stay ahead of China’s pacing threat. These changes must be viewed through the lens of all warfighting functions—logistical readiness is not just the purview of logisticians; it requires a whole of Marine Corps commitment. This will require hard decisions to balance optimizing our current capabilities with the need to develop and apply new capabilities as force offerings to Combatant Commanders. In doing so, we ensure our logistics and installations capabilities are fully integrated with the overall Force Design plan and we provide combat credible forces to serve as effective deterrents and, if necessary, will undoubtedly prevail in conflict.

Our 39th Commandant believes that innovation keeps us ready—and I agree with him. Real innovation begins with your courage to vocalize and actualize your recommended solutions to our challenges. Innovation helps optimize current capabilities and develop new approaches against today’s problem sets to mitigate risk and increase lethality. The Marine Corps Gazette is a perfect forum for this discourse. To remain relevant in a modern fight, we need to be a modern force—our Corps needs your thoughts, voices and action to keep us most ready when our Nation is least ready.

I owe a huge thanks to all contributors. I personally read every submission and am exceptionally grateful for the tremendous commitment, thought, and time they took in drafting their respective articles. Each one was superb, and I wanted to publish all, but we had to make hard choices. The articles address many Fleet Marine Force requirements necessary to enable our Marine forces to provide relevant and credible combat forces. Critical topics such as intelligence, artificial intelligence and information systems, advanced manufacturing, the Marine Corps Global Positioning Network, health and mortuary services in a contested environment, and building installation resilience are examined in detail. Other equally valuable topics are addressed in the on-line edition of the Gazette, and I recommend those as well. The mandate to “Think, Act, and Operate Differently” is more than a tagline; it defines how we approach the multitude of challenges we face. The time to act is now.

Stephen D. Sklenka
Lieutenant General, U.S. Marine Corps
Deputy Commandant for Installations and Logistics

The Marine Corps Warfighting Lab

Thirty years of innovation

“Force Design remains the Marine Corps’ vehicle to create innovative formations, equipment, and concepts and ensures we remain lethal on any battlefield while optimized against the pacing threat.”

—Gen Eric M. Smith

The Marine Corps must continually evolve given the changing global balance of military capabilities, a proliferation of emerging technologies, and a growing assertiveness among the Nation’s strategic competitors. To address these core challenges, the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) guides a process of innovation through concept development, experimentation, prototyping, research, analysis, and wargaming. 

For 30 years since its inception, MCWL has spearheaded innovation. From HUNTER WARRIOR in the late 1990s, which examined squads acting as independent elements on a dispersed battlefield, to counter-improvised explosive device experimentation and fielding that saved Marine lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, to today’s Family of Integrated Targeting Cells efforts that will support stand-in forces, MCWL continues to serve as the headlights of the Marine Corps. Those headlights are illuminating the way ahead for what Gen Eric Smith, 39th Commandant of the Marine Corps, has described as the “righteous journey” of force design. Force design—as a general, enduring modernization process rather than a particular set of investment or divestment decisions regarding specific platforms and organizations—requires the creative vision to foresee the future force that will be necessary to meet the challenges of tomorrow’s battlefield.

Under the leadership of BGen Simon Doran, MCWL generates and examines threat-informed operating concepts and capabilities and provides analytically supported recommendations to inform subsequent force design and development activities. The long-term modernization efforts of the lab are balanced with the understanding that FMFs are competing with adversaries today, and they must be equipped with the latest ways and means of operating to respond to any crisis that may arise.

As suggested by its name, MCWL pursues an empirical approach to force design akin to the scientific method. The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory’s work begins with generating a series of hypotheses about operating in the future. It then seeks to test these hypotheses through rigorous experimentation methods such as wargaming, modeling and simulation, prototype development, and live-force experiments. External studies may provide additional data and insights. Ideas that are shown to be viable are then transitioned to adjacent units in Combat Development and Integration for further development and analysis. Solutions suitable for implementation across the Marine Corps are incorporated into doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy. The personnel in each of MCWL’s divisions provide unique capabilities and expertise to aid this process. 

Concept-Driven Force Design
Generating hypotheses about future warfare first requires MCWL to make plausible assumptions about the direction of the operating environment over a ten to twenty-year timeframe. Rather than making specific predictions about the future, MCWL’s Futures Division identifies key trends and indicators that drive change in the operating environment. By synthesizing this internal analysis with that given in referential documents such as Framework for Future Force Design, Joint Strategic Assessment, Joint Operating Environment, and Navy Force Design 2045 as well as the work of future-oriented organizations such as the Office of Naval Research, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, Army Futures Command, Headquarters Air Force A5/7 (Skunk Works), the Joint Staff and others, Futures Division identifies challenges at all classification levels as well as opportunities that can be explored during concept generation. 

The lab’s modeling and simulation (M&S) capability evaluates cutting-edge technology in various operating scenarios based on the manipulation of key variables to inform resourcing
decisions. The ability to conduct iterative, quantitative analysis to support concept development activities and science and technology investments increases MCWL’s efficiency in delivering war‑
fighting effectiveness. 

One of the most impactful aspects of M&S is its ability to provide real-time feedback during wargames and live force exercises. This feedback loop enables participants to adapt tactics on the fly, learning from data as it is generated. In a fast-paced combat scenario, the ability to quickly assess the impact of a decision can mean the difference between success and failure. 

Simulations, while realistic, cannot fully replicate the unpredictability of real combat. Simulations may lack the human factors, stress, and environmental unpredictability inherent in real-world operations. The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory leaders remain cautious about over-relying on M&S-generated tactics without considering the nuanced realities of live missions. Incorporating feedback from field exercises, combat training, and real-world operations into M&S ensures models remain reliable in real-world contexts. 

When combined with the qualitative analysis of future-oriented thinkers, Futures Division transforms M&S data into meaningful programmatic insights that inform invest, divest, accelerate, or sundown decisions. Looking deep at possible futures allows the Marine Corps to make necessary investments in the near term to assess the viability of leap-ahead capabilities in the long term.

Based on this understanding of the future operating environment, MCWL generates operating concepts as expressions of how warfighters, using military art and science, might employ capabilities to meet future challenges and exploit future opportunities. An operating concept’s solutions to a military challenge or opportunity are hypothesized in its central and supporting ideas. Additionally, the operating concept describes the future capabilities required to realize its desired end state. These ideas and concept required capabilities are the base units against which the experimentation efforts of MCWL are applied. They are written with a level of abstraction to provide the experiment design teams sufficient flexibility to fully explore the proposed ways and means of operating. In this way, a concept matures through experimentation as insights are gained about the conditions and standards in which certain capabilities must perform.

A collection of operating concepts beginning with 2017’s Littoral Operations in Contested Environments (LOCE) illustrates the Service’s renewed focus on supporting naval operations in joint campaigns. LOCE called for higher levels of naval integration and set the stage for Expeditionary Advance Base Operations and A Concept for Stand-in Forces. These latter two concepts described the Marine Forces projecting power toward the seaward element of the maritime domain. Maneuvering these forces is described in the draft A Concept for 21st Century Amphibious Operations (21CAO) and sustaining Marine Forces for the future fight is described in the recently signed Marine Corps Concept for Logistics (MCCL). Taken as a whole, this family of naval concepts describes the shaping, decisive, and sustaining actions of an operational approach to future warfighting. Many parts of LOCE, Expeditionary Advance Base Operations, and A Concept for Stand-in Forces are being implemented in the FMF today while 21CAO and Marine Corps Concept for Logistics require continued experimental interrogation and development before moving into doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy implementation. 

Analysis through Wargaming
One method to further examine the ideas expressed in these concepts is wargaming. Through wargames that are purpose-tailored in type, size, scope, and classification level, The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory’s Wargaming Division derives insight from gameplay that can inform concept generation and development. These games leverage the subject-matter expertise of Marines, other Services, allies, and partners, the interagency, and inter-organizational partners. Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory’s M&S capabilities can be used in conjunction with wargames to provide greater fidelity in game design and to provide additional gameplay iterations to test player ideas. 

In fiscal year 2024, wargames analyzed Marine Corps logistics operations in contested areas to include their interdependencies with allies and partners, examined different task-organized amphibious force formations regarding their ability to employ all-domain operations, and explored the role of Marine littoral regiments outside the Indo-Pacific theater. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, wargames focused on crisis response planning and how the Naval Service can generate sealift capacity in support of the Joint Force. 

To remain at the forefront of technological advancement, the Marine Corps established the General Robert B. Neller Center for Wargaming and Analysis (Neller Center). Located in Quantico, VA, this state-of-the-art 100,000-square-foot facility is designed to support not just the Marine Corps, but the DOD at large and for fostering collaboration with allies and partners worldwide. The Neller Center will harness cutting-edge technologies to create realistic, complex scenarios that mirror modern warfare’s multifaceted nature. Incorporating live, virtual, and constructive simulation technologies permits exploration and discrimination of an array of strategic, operational, and tactical questions before committing substantial resources for live-force experimentation.

Another significant impact of the Neller Center will be its ability to conduct wargames at all levels of classification, ensuring sensitive information is securely integrated into simulations while providing a comprehensive operational picture based on a full suite of capabilities. A cloud-based distributed capability will enable seamless collaboration across commands, regardless of location. 

At the heart of this transformation is the Next Generation Wargame concept. The Next Generation Wargame establishes a human-centric, technology-enabled, collaborative gaming environment. It leverages decision support tools, M&S, artificial intelligence, and visualization technologies to enhance quantitative and qualitative assessments. Participants will dynamically adjust variables, explore multiple courses of action, and witness potential outcomes in a controlled setting, thus providing invaluable insights unattainable through live experimentation or traditional analog wargaming.

Gathering enhanced data from multiple validated sources allows for demonstrable, repeatable, and defensible results. Insights gained from this approach are crucial for informing senior leaders and supporting their decision making. Collaboration with the Joint Force, as well as with allies and partners, will enhance collective readiness and interoperability—essential in an ever-changing global security environment. 

Experimentation By, With, and Through the Fleet
The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory’s Experiment Division (ExDiv) plans, executes, and reports the results of threat-informed, live-force experiments conducted to advance the future warfighting capabilities of the Marine Corps. Live-force experimentation builds on the analysis generated from M&S and wargames by providing a venue to test ideas under real-world conditions and standards. Through research questions and learning objectives developed and tailored for each experiment, ExDiv generates critical insights into experimental priorities as recently demonstrated during Phase I and II of Marine Corps Infantry Battalion experimentation and during Marine littoral regiment experimentation in a III MEF Force Integration Exercise. 

ExDiv has supported Marine Corps modernization through the conduct of numerous experiments; a sampling of noteworthy ones includes: 

Phase II of Marine Corps Infantry Battalion experimentation is underway to observe and collect data on recent modernization efforts that span the man, train, and equip spectrum. Additive capabilities that enhance all-weather direct and indirect fire weapons consist of Group 2 small unmanned aircraft systems, loitering munitions, and organic signals intelligence/electronic warfare. As the character of warfare changes, ExDiv continues to work with Headquarters Marine Corps stakeholders to train and equip the warfighter contributing to a more lethal, survivable, and resilient infantry battalion required for the modern-day battlefield. 

The conditions of the future threat environment place increased importance on winning the reconnaissance/counter-reconnaissance battle. The Mobile Reconnaissance Battalion experiment represents a critical step in reimagining the Marine Corps’ ability to conduct multi-domain reconnaissance. Experimentation with manned and unmanned platforms in the air, maritime, and land domains will advance the modernization of reconnaissance formations, allow stand-in forces to provide critical and timely information, and extend the commander’s operational reach. 

ExDiv, in partnership with 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, has experimented with the Multi-Mission Reconnaissance Craft (MMRC) to provide organic littoral maneuver capabilities, supporting surveillance, intelligence collection, target acquisition, and reconnaissance while reducing detectable signatures in high-threat areas. The MMRC’s modular design enables rapid configuration for various mission needs, allowing reconnaissance units to deploy advanced sensor suites or direct-action payloads as required. 

Additionally, ExDiv and 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion are preparing to incorporate the Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC) into experimental venues. These autonomous platforms enable persistent, unmanned sensing capabilities within the contested littorals. The Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Crafts enhance reconnaissance operations by autonomously monitoring critical zones, detecting potential threats, and transmitting real-time data back to commanders. The MMRC and GARC provide the maritime reconnaissance platoons the platforms, sensors, weapons systems, and ability to maneuver to support MAGTF operations in the littorals. The integration of the maritime reconnaissance platoons under the maritime reconnaissance company concept of employment sets the stage for a robust, adaptable reconnaissance capability that strengthens the MAGTF’s ability to operate across complex multi-domain environments.

Project Convergence Capstone 4 represented a milestone in the Marine Corps’ journey toward modernization goals. This Army-hosted event emphasized advanced air and missile defense systems, sensor integration, littoral mobility platforms, unmanned systems integration, and Joint Force interoperability. ExDiv worked in collaboration with Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity to improve integrating joint and combined fires and multidomain operations. ExDiv also tested a multidomain corridor concept, creating maneuver space by establishing control from the seafloor to space. This concept is expected to play a crucial role in future littoral and contested environments. Notably, ExDiv partnered with multiple DOD entities to improve sensor integration and validated capabilities like the MAGTF command and control Minimum Viable Product, which executed joint fires and enhanced weapon track capabilities through advanced sensor data sharing.

VALIANT SHIELD 24 (VS24) underscored the importance of multinational, cross-domain collaboration for the Indo-Pacific region. Taking place in the summer of 2024 in locations across the first and second island chains, VS24 included forces from every branch of the military. This exercise emphasized interoperability in multi-domain operations and refined joint training across air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace. During VS24, ExDiv assisted U.S., allied, and partner forces in developing regional and global power projection capabilities. Training scenarios focused on integrating the unique strengths of each Service, from cyber operations to naval maneuvers, thus enhancing interoperability and preparing joint and combined forces to respond to crises, contingencies, and complex missions.

Equipping Today’s Warfighter with Tomorrow’s Technology
Incorporating advanced technologies into live-force experimentation helps generate more insightful learning output. The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory’s Science and Technology (S&T) Division works with the Office of Naval Research, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DOD, Marine Corps Systems Command, Program Executive Office, Headquarters Marine Corps and industry partners to develop the vision, policies, and strategies needed to leverage scientific research and technological development in support of Marine Corps combat development and some of the operating forces’ most pressing needs.

Science and Technology Division’s approach emphasizes rapid development, testing, and integration of new technologies and operational concepts, mirroring the urgency and adaptability of wartime innovation to maintain a competitive edge. Significant advantages include rapid iteration, cost-effectiveness, and increased collaboration throughout the capability development process. Providing prototypes to the FMF facilitates real-world experimentation and bottom-up refinements that foster a culture of innovation essential in today’s environment. 

The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory S&T projects bridge the gap between cutting-edge technology and practical application. For example, the Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel, a 55-foot, fully autonomous vessel designed for stealth and survivability, can deliver weapons and supplies over long distances. Inspired by semi-submersible designs, the Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel provides operational options in contested environments. Recent deployments to Okinawa underscore its utility in addressing logistical challenges in the Indo-Pacific and showcase the Marine Corps’ ability to rapidly adapt to evolving operational demands. 

The Stern Landing Vessel, a precursor to the Landing Ship Medium supports littoral maneuver in support of distributed forces. Recent testing proved the Stern Landing Vessel’s capability to sustain forward-deployed units in austere and contested environments. The Marine Corps also made significant advancements in loitering munitions, increasing small-unit lethality through over-the-horizon precision targeting. These systems, including air-launched swarming munitions, reduce risks to manned platforms while providing a decisive advantage in dynamic operational scenarios.

In an increasingly interconnected and information-driven world, Marines must have access to the information they need, when they need it, at the appropriate classification levels, with the necessary authorities to act on it. Science and Technology Division, in conjunction with MCWL’s Security Division, has made significant strides in providing that information within the combat development community and the FMF including developing capabilities that will enable improved decision making and enhanced war‑
fighting capability at all echelons. For example, the Family of Integrated Targeting Cells provides a more cohesive approach to command and control of multi-domain operations by integrating realtime targeting data from multiple sources into a comprehensive, common operating picture. Leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning, Family of Integrated Targeting Cells is crucial for maintaining the technological edge of distributed Marine Corps forces and for enhancing situational awareness and coordination among joint and allied forces.

The Marine Corps’ commitment to S&T experimentation represents a bold step toward aligning innovation with operational effectiveness. Through several MCWL initiatives, the Marine Corps is redefining how technology integrates into military operations. And the Marine Corps is not going it alone. Increased cooperation with allies and partners balanced with internal innovation ensures long-term resilience. By embracing this paradigm shift S&T helps ensure Marine forces continue to thrive in an increasingly complex and contested world. 

Conclusion
A force design amounts to a set of operating concepts depicting a force that does not exist today. This future force must be equipped with the methods for operating and cutting-edge technologies that will allow it to accomplish its assigned mission against adversaries who are likewise rapidly modernizing and increasing their warfighting capability and capacity. Correctly envisioning this future force is a notoriously difficult task, a challenge that is compounded by the need to maintain readiness for inevitable near-term crises. 

Today’s operating environment is markedly different than that of 30 years ago. Since its inception, MCWL’s charge to identify novel ways and means of operating remains consistent, but trends such as increased global strategic competition and the rapid proliferation and democratization of technology demand that innovation occur more quickly. Those innovation decisions, however, must be informed and supported by a thoroughly validated body of evidence to ensure that the Service is not accepting unnecessary risk or poorly utilizing its resources.

To this end, MCWL continues to aggressively chart the course ahead for the Marine Corps force design journey. Through wargaming, modeling, and simulation, science, and technology development, and live-force experimentation, the ideas expressed in future operating concepts are rigorously examined for their viability for implementation across the force. Continuous adaptation to change against an unstable backdrop of world events requires agility, creativity, and a mindset of risk acceptance. Through MCWL’s experimentation efforts across its divisions, the Marine Corps leads the way in innovation, simultaneously adapting to today’s realities and the ever-changing battlefield of tomorrow, allowing Marines to deter conflict, and when deterrence fails, defeat the Nation’s enemies in battle.

Project Sea Wolf

2024 LtCol Earl “Pete” Ellis Essay Contest Winner: Honorable Mention

Marine boat squadron

Recent global security events have confirmed that we must accelerate preparation for contingencies. The Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas conflicts are indicative of the volatile reality and delicate nature of the global security environment we currently live in. The Corps has a long tradition of achieving greater efficiency with fewer or less exquisite resources. As we prepare for potential conflicts, we must change our approach and deviate from traditional scenarios of large-scale attacks launched from the sea. The optimal advanced platforms and weapons required for the next major conflict may also not be readily available in voluminous quantities. We must embrace ingenuity and prepare to fight soon by pushing the boundaries of mature systems while creating an unfair advantage. In the words of Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, “Since the dawn of time, any tool can be used for good or ill. Even a broom can be used to sweep the floor or hit someone over the head.”1 Smith’s quote embodies how we must audaciously approach the subsequent application of solutions. 

Directives and Opportunity (Who and Where)
There is extraordinary transparency within the latest iteration of major fleet directives. The 39th Commandant’s Planning Guidance and the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Navigation Plan 2024 undoubtedly define the most imminent threat to the Naval Services. The CNO cautions that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is preparing for war by 2027.2 Gen Smith referenced the 2022 National Defense Strategy as an overarching directive and delineated the PRC as the primary competitor.3 The PRC remains a robustly resourced and complex aggressive global competitor. There are a variety of dissenting opinions on the U.S. military’s best counterforce response to the PRC if necessary. Overwhelming firepower is an obvious choice but an elusive retaliation plan against the PRC. However, it would be more advantageous for the Marine Corps to dissect the potency of the PRC with an alternative asymmetrical concept. 

Oddly enough, the CNO’s Navigation Plan 2024 provides insight into a new prospective priority Marine Corps mission area. ADM Franchetti illuminated the complexity of the PRC’s interconnected utilization of dual-use forces such as the Chinese maritime militia. 4 As reported by the Irregular Warfare Initiative, the Chinese maritime militia employs commercial fishing vessels to engage in coordinated aggressive sea denial swarming tactics in tandem with People’s Liberation Army Navy and Chinese Coast Guard ships.5

Reports also claim that Chinese fishing vessels frequently deceive maritime transponders and falsify their identity to evade detection.6 The Chinese maritime militia has created a Blue Ocean demand in business parlance without an existing market solution.7 Problem sets, such as the Chinese maritime militia, are best neutralized with non-kinetic resources in the advent of conflict. Neither the Corps nor the Navy have openly discussed a remedy for noncombatant vessels akin to the maritime militia in the past. Therefore, the Corps should have a vested interest in locating and interdicting fishing vessels, if necessary, as part of the overarching fleet campaign in the Indo-Pacific area of operations.

“MARSOC seeks to provide the joint force with the capability to share the operating environment; illuminate adversary actions, activities, and intentions; and provide options to impose cost, both kinetically and non-kinetically, from competition to conflict.” 8

—Gen David H. Berger

Raiders of the Lost Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) (Who 2.0 and What)
For the new project to succeed, the Marine Corps must depart from existing practices and create a spinout organization to support maritime reconnaissance.9 The traditional MAGTF construct has the potential for numerous friction points and competing interests. Traditionalists would say a new formation is simply a SP-MAGTF, but a familiar naming convention only deters progress. Therefore, a newly acquired Marine maritime reconnaissance platform and associated personnel should be a stand-alone formation. The force’s composition should remain as fluid as the virtues of the MAGTF but with an eye on externally proven structures. 

Our reverence for partners and allies is often discussed and mentioned as a strategic pillar. However, we can apply noteworthy value from our partners and capitalize on their lessons learned. In particular, the maritime expertise of the British Special Boat Squadrons.10 In experimental form, a Raider formation can reorganize in the footprint of a Special Boat Squadrons unit and be attached to an amphibious warship. The combined new formation and designated personnel would constitute a Marine Boat Squadron. Fortuitously, the Raider Regiment already has a distinguished history of operations in the western Pacific dating back to their reconnaissance collaborations with Coast Watchers during World War II.11

Raiders inherently possess the organic training, personnel, and organizational flexibility to establish a counterforce solution to the Chinese maritime militia network problem. In execution, this would reconnect the Raiders to their Indo-Pacific roots in a modern-day naval role. The optimal initial concept of operations also needs to depart from the standard ARG. Yet, the formation can remain close to the convenient and familiar accommodations of the San Antonio-Class Amphibious Transport Dock (LPD). Contrarians would argue that MEUs are already capable of special operations, but there is a distinction between special operations forces and special operational capability certification. The variance concerns mission authorities, proficiency, risk tolerance, and funding. 

The possibility of Marines operating small boats soon has quietly gained traction. The Corps has a rich history with small vessels and previously operated several purpose-built riverine boats. Recently, the Marine Corps Reserve and the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory expressed interest in acquiring small boats for experimentation.12 Initial reports indicate the small boats are for littoral operations. Nonetheless, the combination of history and recent events does not arrive at fulfilling an over-the-horizon maritime reconnaissance role. Inevitably, including a small boat over the horizon equipped with reconnaissance operators changes the completion of the ARG-MEU team. It provides a means to close in on a problem set with a reduced signature and decreased risk-to-force.

The trouble with requirements is the struggle between aspirational and operational reality. The notional small boat platform needs to be more survivable than rigid inflatable boats with the potential combat power of World War II patrol torpedo (PT) boats. The main priority must be to acquire a small boat with sufficient operational endurance and compatibility with amphibious ships. Secondly, additional arguments over increased firepower and missile systems will only obstruct and delay the acquisition of a platform. The projected acquisition of the Medium Landing Ship (LSM) in FY2025 for 268 million dollars should serve as a cautionary tale for a maritime maneuver vessel initiative.13 The appropriate small boat acquisition is feasible through rapid prototyping of mature sea-frame designs or commercial options at a fraction of the cost of the LSM.

“Take an institution, a technology, or a method that has been forgotten or discarded and appropriate it for your own purpose. Revive something from the past by giving it a new purpose or to reinterpret and bring to life old ideas, customs, and traditions.” 14

—Stefan H. Verstappen

Sea Wolf and the Ghost
How much is extracted and applied from history is a matter of perspective. In recent years, the Navy has demonstrated some indifference to its small-boat history. The Navy never truly realized the MK VI patrol boat’s potential and ultimately killed the program as a cost-cutting measure.15 The utility of small maritime platforms is a topic of great consternation and debate. In 2021, OPNAV N95 deemed the now-divested MK VI patrol boats as non-essential in wargaming scenarios due to their limited firepower.16 However, wargaming scenarios or firepower should not be the metrics that determine a platform’s holistic utility. If those were valid metrics, the landing craft utility and landing craft air cushion would have been decommissioned several decades ago. Since the Navy disestablished the MK VI program, the Ukrainian Navy has reportedly received the boats and employed them for patrols in the Black Sea.17 The Marine Corps must not repeat the same errors the Navy made with its contemporary assessment of patrol boats.

The Ukraine-Russia conflict has challenged assumptions regarding missile firepower on a microscale and demonstrated the potential value of asymmetric warfighting capabilities. Ukraine’s tactical maritime creativity and employment of small commercial unmanned sea drones are a valuable example of asymmetric weapons innovation.18 The Houthis have also aggressively improvised irregular warfare at sea with unsophisticated technology.19 In June 2024, Houthis utilized an uncrewed surface vehicle disguised as a fishing vessel to successfully execute a kamikaze attack on the MV Tutor in the Red Sea.20 Conversely, during World War II, ADM John “Sea Wolf” Bulkeley achieved significant tactical-level
success against superior opposition as commander of the experimental PT boat unit, Submarine Division Two.21 ADM Bulkeley’s PT boats were a combination of simplicity and power. Bulkeley’s PT boats were outfitted with depth-charge racks and achieved a maximum speed of 55 knots.22 Given the emergence of irregular maritime activities, the Raiders are well-positioned to apply relevant elements from ADM Bulkeley, Ukraine’s tactical victories, and present-day asymmetrical threats. 

The required mature technology is already tested, prevalent, and available. The carcass of the Mark VI patrol boat requires postmortem examination beyond its utility in the littoral environment focused on the conceptual supplementary intersectional platforms capable of connecting sea-based operating forces with broader expeditionary advanced base operation activities. The MK VI’s sea-frame was among its best and most relevant qualities. In particular, the MK VI’s well-deck compatibility with amphibious ships; passenger capacity; 600+ nautical mile range; and command, control, communications, computers and intelligence capabilities.23 Significant untapped potential exists in disaggregated data link interoperability and common tactical picture integration. The MK VI also left behind a codified doctrinal procedure in the Navy’s Wet Well Manual for amphibious shipping well deck interoperability to be duplicated or modified for another sea-frame. Ultimately, the specific maritime platform is less important than the collective aggregation of the essential technical systems and functionality. 

Replicator and the Expendables (How)
Resource pairing and optimization are the foundational pillars of the Marine boat squadron concept. It principally combines operators with a menu of full-spectrum tactical options. Operationalizing the spinout is achievable by pairing the formation with a San Antonio-Class LPD deploying independently from an ARG. An independent deployer reduces the potential of mission creep and operational friction with broader MAGTF command element priorities. Secondly, it provides the Marine boat squadron the latitude to modify the personnel footprint without conceding shipboard space to other elements. The Marine boat squadron also provides force planners with a unique deployment package. 

The boat squadron and associated boat of choice are 50 percent of the prospective cumulative combat power available. The DOD is transforming the other 50 percent of the equation from aspirational to operational under the umbrella of the Replicator initiative.25 The Replicator program is devoted to fielding thousands of affordable autonomous systems across multiple domains.26 

Conversely, the Marine boat squadron’s boat would make an optimal host vessel for unmanned undersea, surface, and aerial Replicator systems. The notional squadron can be supported by its resource agent with mature technology to conduct multi-dimensional reconnaissance or kinetic tasking. Prepackaged containerized loitering munition launchers are also a realistic option.27 The Replicator systems could be loaded as expendable kinetic or non-kinetic as dictated by tasking and mission authorities. The fully developed technology available from the Replicator initiative is an upgrade from the MK VI’s MK38 machinegun system and reduces the demand for permanent weight and electrical power on the host platform. 

The parallels between the past and the potential future are often peculiar. The maritime guerilla tactics and ingenuity utilized by Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) over several decades ago are a prime case study. The squadron can draw upon the LTTE Sea Tiger, the Black Tigers group’s combined conventional swarm tactics, one-way explosive fast attacks, and electronic domain exploitation.28 The Black Tigers repeatedly proved the validity and lethality of coordinated asymmetrical attacks. A well-resourced Marine boat squadron could significantly improve the LTTE’s maritime guerilla tactics via tandem manned boat and unmanned Replicator system operations for various naval targets. 

“We need to conceive new ideas to address the problems and opportunities that surround us—and we need to defy the odds and make ideas actually happen.” 29

—Scott Belsky

Catalysts of Change (Why)
A Marine boat squadron with organic boats is a sensible and realistic choice at the tactical level. Patrol-size boats do not garner the adversary’s satellite and radar resources compared to an aircraft carrier or other higher-profile ships.30 In the same regard, skeptics often portray today’s anti-access/area denial challenge as an unsolvable problem.31 Yet, a patrol boat can serve as an appropriate tactical countermeasure under the right circumstances. Logically, a missile barrage is not the appropriate countermeasure for a patrol-size boat. The anti-access/area-denial missile threat is more likely a problem for an LSM than a patrol boat. Thus, the opportunity for Marines to influence and change behavior in the maritime environment is highly probable and available now.

The maritime domain is dynamic and replete with expansive operational opportunities for willing participants. That is why nefarious vessels continuously exploit loopholes and freely deceive maritime transponder protocols. The ships engaged in continuous deception are doing so with motive and intent. There are simply too many of these vessels operating unchecked. Recently, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released a report on Iranian weapons smuggling operations in support of the Houthis spanning nearly a decade.32 According to the DIA, the United States and its allies have successfully interdicted twenty Iranian smuggling vessels at sea.33 The most concerning aspect of the DIA report is that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force has been identified as the source provider for the now seized anti-ship and guided missiles and ballistic missile components for the Houthis.34 The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force activities leave several questions unanswered. How many other vessels are out at sea engaging in smuggling? What other state and non-state actors are involved in smuggling missiles and high-capacity weapons? Are we doing enough to solve this dilemma for the Joint Force? 

A Marine boat squadron will undoubtedly change the Joint Forces’ options to surveil, interdict, or neutralize vessels as needed. A forward-deployed squadron on a maritime maneuver platform can extend the battlespace for an LPD and other warships. The operators and boats can facilitate more sea space for Navy ships to operate outside adversary missile ranges. Ultimately, the capability is dynamic enough to influence the patterns and behaviors of other vessels. 

Raiders are the optimal Marines to accomplish the specialized cross-training necessary for a Marine boat squadron faster than any other entity due to their extensive pool of personnel. Moreover, the Raider screening and selection process establishes an increased baseline for the individual operator’s capabilities. In addition, Raiders are more likely to own additional exquisite, portable technical systems complementary to a patrol-style boat and Replicator systems. The Raiders’ inherent access to expansive resources accelerates the functionality and employability of a forthcoming Marine boat squadron deployment. Moreover, designating this task to special operations forces ultimately bypasses the cumbersome procedural obstructions of the doctrine, organization, training, material, leadership, and education, personnel, and facilities process.35

Initiating a project of this magnitude is less complicated or expensive than the alternatives. Formally funded programmatic systems too often suffer from budgetary casualties and industrial inertia. Moreover, a Marine boat squadron project does not require special policies. Instead, it requires trust that an elite organization within the Marine Corps has the experience and ingenuity to push boundaries. 

>LCDR Fermin is a Surface Warfare Officer and Amphibious Warfare Tactics Instructor serving as the Operations Officer onboard USS Portland (LPD-27). 

Notes

1. Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age (New York: Penguin Books, 2021).

2. Chief of Naval Operations, Lisa M. Franchetti, Chief of Naval Operations Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy 2024 (Washington, DC: 2024).

3. Gen Eric M. Smith, 39th Commandant’s Planning Guidance, (Washington, DC: August 2024).

4. Chief of Naval Operations Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy 2024.

5. Umar Ahmed Badami, “Under the Radar: Weaponizing Maritime Transponders in Strategic Competition,” Irregular Warfare Initiative, January 13, 2024, https://irregularwarfare.org/articles/under-the-radar-weaponizing-maritime-transponders-in-strategic-competition.

6. Ibid.

7. W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, “Blue Ocean Strategy,” Harvard Business Review, June 6, 2024, https://hbr.org/2004/10/blue-ocean-strategy.

8. Gen David H. Berger, “Statement of General David H. Berger Commandant of the Marine Corps on the Posture of the Marine Corps,” Marines.mil, March 28, 2023, https://www.cmc.marines.mil/Speeches-and-Transcripts/Transcripts/Article/3360019/statement-of-general-david-h-berger-commandant-of-the-marine-corps-on-the-postu.

9. Clayton M. Christensen and Marc Benioff, The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press, 2024).

10. Samuel A. Southworth and Stephen Tanner, U.S. Special Forces: A Guide to America’s Special Operations Units: The World’s Most Elite Fighting Force (Cambridge: Da Capo, 2002).

11. Ibid. 

12. Irene Loewenson, “New in 2023: Small Boats for Marine Reserve Experimentation,” Marine Corps Times, May 5, 2023, https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2022/12/28/new-in-2023-small-boats-for-marine-reserve-experimentation.

13. U.S. Naval Institute Staff, “Report to Congress on Navy Medium Landing Ship,” USNI News, April 26, 2024, https://news.usni.org/2024/04/26/report-to-congress-on-navy-medium-landing-ship-4.

14. Stefan H. Verstappen, The Thirty-Six Strategies (Toronto: Woodbridge Press, 2017).

15. Joseph Trevithick, “Navy Confirms It Wants to Ditch Its Very Young Mk VI Patrol Boats in New Budget Request,” The War Zone, May 28, 2021, https://www.twz.com/40844/navy-confirms-it-wants-to-ditch-its-very-young-mk-vi-patrol-boats-in-new-budget-request.

16. Joseph Trevithick and Tyler Rogoway, “The Navy Wants to Get Rid of Its Nearly Brand New Patrol Boats,” The War Zone, February 15, 2021, https://www.twz.com/39240/the-navy-wants-to-get-rid-of-its-nearly-brand-new-patrol-boats.

17. Tayfun Ozberk, “Ukraine’s First Mk VI Patrol Boat Breaks Cover,” Naval News, January 26, 2023, https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/01/ukraines-first-mk-vi-patrol-boat-breaks-cover.

18. H.I. Sutton, “Suspected Ukrainian Explosive Sea Drone Made from Recreational Watercraft Parts,” USNI News, October 11, 2022, https://news.usni.org/2022/10/11/suspected-ukrainian-explosive-sea-drone-made-from-jet-ski-parts.

19. Howard Altman, “First Look at Houthi Kamikaze Drone Boat That Struck Cargo

Ship in Red Sea,” The War Zone, June 17, 2024, https://www.twz.com/news-features/first-look-at-houthi-kamikaze-drone-boat-that-struck-cargo-ship-in-red-sea.

20. Ibid. 

21. William B. Breuer, Sea Wolf: The Daring Exploits of Navy Legend, John D. Bulkeley (Novato: Presidio, 1989).

22. Ibid.

23. Staff, “Mark VI Patrol Boat,” Navy.mil, n.d., https://www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/Article/2173363/mark-vi-patrol-boat.

24. Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Seven Patterns of Innovation (London: Penguin, 2011).

25. Christopher Woodbridge and Vic Ruble, “Scuttlebutt Ep 164: Commandant’s Planning Guidance 2024,” MCA Scuttlebutt, September 26, 2024, podcast, website, 34:57, https://www.mca-marines.org/podcast/scuttlebutt/
scuttlebutt-ep-164-commandants-planning-guidance-2024.

26. U.S. Department of Defense, “Defense Innovation Official Says Replicator Initiative Remains on Track,” Defense.gov, n.d., https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3657609/defense-innovation-official-says-replicator-initiative-remains-on-track.

27. Joseph Trevithick, “Shipping Container Launcher Packing 126 Kamikaze Drones Hits the Market,” The War Zone, June 17, 2024, https://www.twz.com/news-features/shipping-container-launcher-packing-126-kamikaze-
drones-hits-the-market#:~:text=The%20modified%20shipping%20container%20with,including%20in%20the%20maritime%20domain.

28. Naval War College, Joint Military Operations Department, and Paul A. Povlock, A Guerilla War at Sea: The Sri Lankan Civil War (Newport: Small Wars Journal, 2011).

29. Scott Belsky, Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality (New York: Portfolio, 2014).

30. Christian Brose, The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare (New York: Hachette Books, 2022).

31. Future Joint Force Development, Cross-Domain Synergy in Joint Operations: Planner’s Guide (Washington, DC: 2016).

32. Defense Intelligence Agency, Seized at Sea: Iranian Weapons Smuggled to the Houthis (Washington, DC: April 2024).

33. Ibid. 

34. Seized at Sea: Iranian Weapons Smuggled to the Houthis.

35. Staff, “Dotmlpf Process,” Marines.mil, n.d., https://www.marines.mil/News/Messages/Messages-Display/Article/889374/dotmlpf-process.

Lighting the Way

2024 LtCol Earl “Pete” Ellis Essay Contest Winner: First Place

Marines, missiles, MPF boats, and the path through PRC defenses in the Western Pacific

 

The onset of World War II saw U.S. naval forces experimenting with new technologies to mitigate territorial advantages held by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces. As the campaign in the Pacific unfolded, U.S. Navy and Marine Corps elements found themselves operating beyond the expanses of the open ocean, closer to coastal areas. When warships were pushed to navigate inside confined waterways, the newly developed patrol torpedo (PT) boat emerged as an unexpectedly effective capability to support maritime operations. Fast, highly maneuverable, and relatively inexpensive to build, hundreds of PT boats were organized into squadrons and deployed across the Western Pacific. They proved especially useful during the Solomon Islands Campaign, engaging Imperial Japanese Navy warships attempting to transit the narrow channels of Iron Bottom Sound.1 With their elusive speed, considerable firepower, and seemingly unescapable quantity, PT boats disrupted Imperial Japanese Navy resupply and other maritime operations. Eight decades later, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has emerged as the new competitor in the Western Pacific and seeks to capitalize on similar territorial advantages within the region. Given the ambiguity surrounding a potential conflict, U.S. naval forces may again need to leverage experimental capabilities to ensure freedom of maneuver in the Pacific.

The new era of conflict will require U.S. maritime forces to contend with traditional PRC warships and more obtrusive surface vessels. Limited means to predict the catalyst for hostilities will require U.S. forces to pull existing capabilities into the fight to achieve initial operating objectives. Small, fast, and flexible watercraft will be the key to bridging the gap between the activities of warships and vessels operating at the lower end of the spectrum of conflict. Fortunately, U.S. naval forces already possess the tools to build a capability to address emerging threats. Marine Corps stand-in forces (SIF), deployed throughout the Western Pacific, are well-postured to operate across the continuum of competition or conflict. The maritime pre-positioning force (MPF) utility boat (UB) is a small and versatile craft currently employed by the Military Sea-Lift Command. The Javelin missile, organic to designated Army and Marine Corps formations, can support offensive or defensive operations against various adversarial threats. Combining the attributes of these seemingly disparate resources will produce a uniquely suited capability to mitigate the challenges presented by intermediate PRC threats. Teams of SIF Marines, armed with Javelin missiles and employed aboard MPF-UBs, will provide the maritime component commander with a platform to disrupt PRC operations in contested waterways.

Within the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) area of responsibility, the PRC continues to develop and employ maritime technologies to achieve an asymmetric advantage over existing U.S. naval formations. The intricate web of anti-access/area denial capabilities is designed to deny entry and prevent freedom of maneuver throughout the first island chain (FIC). Missile boats, patrol boats, and other small watercraft present significant threats to all classes of friendly vessels attempting to transit the waters of the South China Sea (SCS). Their small size, low signature, and high speeds allow for rapid approaches to warships to penetrate minimum weapons engagement zones and operate inside defenses. The ambiguous nature of purported law enforcement or other non-military vessels strains the ability to discern intent, inhibiting the rapid engagement of prospective threats. Hefty procurement costs associated with existing and emerging U.S. anti-ship capabilities render their use against smaller PRC threats inefficient. The employment of a flexible naval asset capable of responding to threats across the spectrum of conflict will be essential to defeating coordinated layers of PRC maritime defenses. 

The Type 022 Houbei-class missile patrol boat is a pivotal element of the PLAN near-seas defense strategy. The low draft, top speed of 42 knots, and a combat radius of 250 km make these boats the ideal platform to conduct operations around PLA bases and occupied territories throughout the FIC. Armed with up to eight YJ-83 anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM), they are capable of attacking ships at distances out to 200 km.2 When employed under the cover of PLA integrated air defense systems, they can extend their operating ranges and further reduce the availability of vital maritime terrain. They attack by converging on a target with multiple boats, engaging in swarm tactics to destroy a U.S. Navy warship or constrain its ability to maneuver. Defeating the presence and effect of Houbei-class missile boats will be critical to enable the successful execution of the U.S. maritime strategy in the Western Pacific.

Another layer of the PRC maritime defense is executed by the China Coast Guard (CCG). Deployed from coastal bases and other inshore locations, its primary function is to enforce maritime laws within China’s proclaimed territorial waters. The Jiangdao-class cutters, created from repurposed warships, allow for easy conversion from law enforcement operations to a surface warfare platform.3 The equipping of Zhongtao-class patrol boats with large-caliber machineguns and high-capacity water cannons further obfuscates their perceived threat level, complicating rules of engagement (ROE) and rules for use of force (RUF) decision making when responding to their activities.4 The pervasive presence of cutters and other patrol boats also represents a persistent PRC intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting (ISR-T) capability. To operate undetected and freely maneuver across the FIC, U.S. Naval forces must develop the means to counter CCG patrols and other ISR-T activities.

The third component of the PRC maritime defense strategy is the China Maritime Militia (CMM). Within the SCS, CMM vessels execute a variety of grey-zone tactics to enable the achievement of larger strategic objectives. Though not an official component of the PLA, they have been employed in conjunction with PLAN and CCG vessels to reinforce territorial claims during designated operations.5 Their firepower is limited, but crews are equipped with various small arms and the hulls of their boats are constructed using reinforced steel.6 This allows for the employment of aggressive tactics against civilian or military support vessels, as they engage in overt anti-access/area denial activities to deny foreign vessel operations in disputed waterways. CMM boats can also be outfitted with radars, navigation equipment, and communications to facilitate their employment as an ISR-T platform. Interdicting CMM operations will limit the disruption to sea lines of communication, providing U.S. warships the ability to operate unmolested inside the contested waters of the FIC.

Each echelon of PRC maritime defenses presents unique challenges to traditional naval operations in the USINDOPACOM area of responsibility. The preponderance of existing U.S. Navy capabilities in the Western Pacific are designed to engage PLAN warships or operate against high-level threats. Attempts to overcome the density and volume of lethality afforded by the Type 022 missile boats would quickly exhaust the countermeasures of the deepest operational magazines. Mitigating the pervasiveness of CCG activities to limit PRC maritime domain awareness will require the deployment of substantiative counter ISR-T capabilities. Once hostilities unfold, the ambiguous nature of CMM operations will demand a measured approach to the application of the ROE and RUF to manage the potential for escalation. Addressing intermediate threats across the spectrum of conflict will be essential to the success of U.S. naval forces operating within the web of PRC maritime defenses.

Marine Corps SIF are specifically designed to operate within contested areas, conducting sea-denial operations
to disrupt the maneuver of an adversary’s naval forces.7 Forward positioned within the FIC, they represent a foundational component of the U.S. naval strategy to mitigate the presence of PRC maritime threats. When provided with a maneuverable and low-signature watercraft, SIF Marines will be able to rapidly move about contested waters within a given area of operations. Their vessels must be fast, agile, and possess a shallow draft to allow for rapid ingress and egress of low-water areas. Crew-served weapons and other small arms will provide the organic force protection capabilities needed to ensure their survivability. A moderately ranged high-explosive projectile will offer the fire support required to neutralize or destroy smaller enemy surface vessels. Equipping SIF Marines with the requisite capabilities to deliberately shoot, rapidly move, and effectively communicate will enhance their ability to degrade intermediate PRC maritime threats in the Western Pacific.

Maritime pre-positioning force utility boats are one of the best assets to support transportation requirements within coastal areas. As a component of the Improved Naval Lighterage System, they are used by the Military Sea-Lift Command to move personnel and equipment during MPF operations. With a length of just over 41 feet and a beam of 14 feet, they have a very low profile and produce a limited radar signature during the conduct of operations. Two 660 horsepower diesel engines power a waterjet propulsion system, giving these boats significant maneuverability as they reach speeds of up to 41 knots.8 Their draft of just under three feet allows for easy navigation into and out of shallow water areas. A ramp positioned at the center of the bow enables the rapid discharge of up to 10 tons of cargo, 30 combat-loaded troops, or other materials directly onto a beach.9 The characteristics of the MPF-UB make it an ideal platform to support the maritime maneuver requirements for SIF Marines within the FIC.

The Javelin Close Combat Missile System (CCMS) is the primary anti-tank weapon for the Army and Marine Corps. It is a lightweight, man-portable, fire-and-forget missile that can easily be employed from a small vessel. In the Marine Corps, they are assigned to infantry units and employed by anti-tank missile gunners. The 8.4 kg high-explosive anti-tank warhead is autonomously delivered against targets operating at distances as far as 2,500 meters.10 The reusable command launch unit enables rapid target acquisition while also providing an enhanced daytime or infrared night vision surveillance capability. The Javelin possesses the characteristics to be the desired lethal surface-fires capability for SIF Marines conducting sea-denial operations inside the contested waterways.

Combining task-organized SIF elements, MPF-UBs, and the Javelin CCMS into a single platform will create a highly lethal capability to provide the maritime component the means to disrupt PRC operations across the spectrum of conflict. These new Marine light assault missile patrol (LAMP) boats will have the maneuverability and firepower needed to engage and neutralize intermediate adversary threats in coastal areas. Their speed will allow them to rapidly close with Houbei-class missile boats and then attack them with a volley of self-guided anti-tank missiles. Their ability to outmaneuver CCG cutters and other small craft will place them in a position to interdict maritime patrol operations or disrupt ISR-T activities inside the FIC. Marine crews armed with various small arms and crew-served weapons provide the flexibility needed to contact CMM vessels, discern their intent, and engage them if determined to be hostile. When effectively organized and widely employed within SCS, Marine LAMP Boats will be able to create opportunities for Navy warships to maneuver.

This concept is not without some disadvantages, which could impede its development and limit successful implementation. Training will be one of the primary limitations to inhibit the widespread deployment of LAMP Boats. Though infantry units are already organized with anti-tank missile gunners and machinegunners, coxswains, and navigators are not widely present in any current Marine Corps formation. Leveraging the knowledge and expertise of the Navy’s assault craft units for exercises and training can increase nautical proficiency, providing time to build capacity and mature an organic capability. Survivability is another considerable challenge within the LAMP boat concept. The MPF-UB’s relatively small size and aluminum construction will make them susceptible to deck guns, surface-to-surface missiles, or other large-caliber weapons. Crews must be prepared to maximize the MPF-UB’s speed and maneuverability to evade PLAN warships and avoid potential engagements. The final challenge to the successful employment of this concept will be the requirement for maintenance. As with other surface vessels, MPF-UBs rely on daily preventative maintenance checks and services and occasional higher-level repairs to remain operational. Littoral logistics battalions with engineer equipment mechanics or the expertise of mechanics of allies and partners will provide the technicians needed to service the MPF-UB’s two six-cylinder diesel engines. This will ensure vessels remain operational and can quickly return to the station following preventative maintenance or repairs. Mitigating the identified shortfalls will facilitate the successful employment of the LAMP boat concept while remining perceptive of other challenges during maritime operations in the FIC.

Despite the apparent challenges, the numerous advantages of the LAMP boat concept encourage the maritime component to pursue further development of this initiative. Cost is one of the primary benefits, given the limited fiscal investment required to facilitate the fielding of this platform. The price for an MPF-UB is approximately $1M and an Javelin CCMS is less than $250K for the full system; less than $100K when procuring the missile only.11 This is considerably cheaper than the estimated $3M for each Block II Harpoon missile, $2M for a Naval Strike Missile, and other high costs associated with individual ASCM systems.12 Versatility is another key advantage to the employment of LAMP boats, as they can support multiple warfighting functions. The low draft, high-payload capacity, and convenient bow ramp enable MPF-UBs to perform a variety of enabling tasks during patrols. They can easily be configured to support supply delivery, medical evacuation, or other logistics functions when not engaged in offensive operations. The most significant advantage of this concept is the ability to conduct operations across the spectrum of conflict. At the high end of the spectrum, the delivery of a volley of Javelin missiles provides a level of lethality commensurate with that of an ASCM. At the lower end of the spectrum, the ability to apply ROE/RUF considerations allows Lamp Boat crews to interrogate vessels conducting grey-zone activities and classify their status as friend or foe.

Should hostilities commence in USINDOPACOM area of responsibility, the defense in depth created by PRC anti-access/area denial capabilities has the potential to inhibit the successful entry and maneuver of U.S. naval forces. Houbei-class missile boats, CCG cutters, and CMM vessels present a variety of challenges to traditional naval operations and require a new approach for a successful campaign. Though ASCMs and other exquisite weapons systems will be essential in the fight against the PLAN, their expense and long development period could result in their untimely delivery for the prospective fight. The LAMP boat concept provides the maritime component commander with an immediately available, cost-effective, and highly lethal platform to address intermediate PRC threats within the FIC. The MPF-UB has the speed and maneuverability to keep up with Houbei-class missile boats, and the Javelin CCMS warhead is more than sufficient to neutralize the threat. They are versatile enough to interdict CCG cutters and other purported maritime law enforcement boats, disrupting PRC ISR-T activities and allowing U.S. vessels to operate more freely in the contested waterways. The LAMP boats can directly respond to CMM vessels attempting to disrupt sea lines of communication or engage in maritime surveillance, applying the appropriate level of force to neutralize their effect without concern for inadvertent escalation. The LAMP boat concept will provide the means to chart a path through echelons of mutually supporting PRC defenses, opening waterways in the SCS for U.S. warships to safely maneuver. 

>Col Rainey is currently assigned as the AC/S G-9 for Marine Corps Installations Command, following graduation from the National War College in June 2024. Before being promoted to Colonel, he served as a Military Police Officer and completed various assignments within FMF and supporting establishment organizations.

Notes

1. Edmund B. Hernandez, “Fifty Tons of Fury: Bring Back the Patrol Torpedo Boat,” Proceedings, September 2018, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2018/september/fifty-tons-fury-bring-back-patrol-torpedo-boat#:
~:text=PT%20boat%20action%20during%20World%20War%20II%20is%20well%20documented.

2. Dr. Sam Goldsmith, Vampire, Vampire, Vampire: The PLA’s Anti-Ship Cruise Missile Threat to Australian and Allied Naval Operations (Canberra: Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2022).

3. U.S. Department of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2023: Annual Report to Congress (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2023).

4. Caitlin Campbell and Ben Dolven, China-Philippines Tensions in the South China Sea, CRS Report for Congress IF12550 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2023).

5. U.S. Department of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2019: Annual Report to Congress (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2019).

 

6. Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2023.

7. Headquarters Marine Corps, A Concept for Stand-In Forces, (Washington, DC: December 2021).

8. Staff, “Assault Craft Unit (ACU) 1: About Us,” Navy.mil, n.d., https://www.surfpac.navy.mil/Ships/Assault-Craft-Unit-ACU-1.

9. Ibid. 

10. Headquarters Department of the Army, FM 3-22.37: Javelin-Close Combat Missile System, Medium (Washington, DC: August 2013).

11. Missile Defense Project, “FGM-148 Javelin,” Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, March 21, 2022, last modified April 23, 2024, https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/fgm-148-javelin.

12. Jack Montgomery, “The Navy Must Build More Missiles Now,” Proceedings, August 2013,
 https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/
2023/august/navy-must-build-more-missiles-now.

The Combined Action Platoon

Unique in the history of war 

 

Commemoration address for the Combined Action Platoon memorial at Marine Corps Museum
We who fought in the villages six decades ago have gathered here to dedicate this memorial to our fallen brothers. We thank LtGen Ron Christmas and MajGen Jim Lukeman for honoring their sacrifice.  

Historians remark upon the sheer audacity of the Combined Action Platoon (CAP). In the midst of a war with millions of combatants, twelve-man squads led by sergeants lived and died in villages amongst thousands of Vietnamese. Their mission: drive out the enemy, protect the villagers and train the farmers to defend themselves.1 In theory, those tiny squads, vastly outnumbered and isolated, should have been wiped out. In fact, they succeeded. Of the 209 villages protected by CAPs, not one reverted to enemy control.2 The CAP stands unique in America’s wars, never duplicated before or since.  

From 1966 through 1970, across hundreds of hamlets every mosquito-filled night, patrols of about five Marines and five farmers sneaked through the bush, with no night vision or on-call fires. To survive, they relied on stealth, laying down grazing fire, pitching grenades, and pulling back when incoming fire was too intense. Firefights were sudden and short, green and red tracers zipping past like dancing Christmas lights. Afterward, no one ventured into the kill zones. Only the next day might they hear from the villagers about enemy bodies carried off. No CAP ever relaxed. The peril of each night focused every Marine.  

During the day, CAP grunts ambled through the hamlets, eating duck eggs and bananas and peanuts, laughing and bartering with the villagers, respected but not feared. The ‘nghia quans’ (the farmers called PFs, or Popular Forces) patrolled and lived side by side with the Marines. Spending month after month inside the same few kilometers, the Marines and villagers came to know one another as human beings, with individual quirks. Six of the CAP Marines in this 1966 photo were killed in the besieged village of Binh Nghia.  

The village chief wrote a letter to the parents of Sergeant White, the CAP leader. Here is a direct quote:  

To Sgt. J.D. White Family … My name is trao, second village chief working with Sgt. White and Sq. Our people thank him very much, because he is very good man. Every day he is few to sleep he works too much … My people are poor and when they see a marine they very happy. When V.C. come to people, people come to talk to Sgt. Whte so Sgt. White can talk to P.F. and marine to fight V.C. Maybe die … I’ll say a Happy New Year to you. Jod bless you all …. Your friend always, Ho Yan Trao.3 

The cost was high. Of the 450,000 Marines who served in Vietnam, three percent were fatalities,4 rising to six percent among the combat battalions. In the CAPs, the fatality rate was above ten percent. The reason was that on average a CAP conducted a thousand patrols in a year. There was no embedded chain of command to ensure these patrols went out, no gunny, no first sergeant, no company commander. Instead, there was peer pressure. There were no nights off. In every CAP, sooner or later death called.  

Over five years, 540 CAP Marines were killed, while accounting for 4,900 enemy killed by rifle fire and grenades, with almost no employment of supporting arms.5 You don’t call in fire on the village where you live. Inflicting casualties on the enemy was only a means; the end objective was providing security and training the nghia quans (PFs). The CAPs weren’t interlinked; they were scattered across several thousand kilometers. Each CAP staked out five to seven square kilometers of paddies, shrubs and hooches, then fought to protect it.  

The ultimate test of the program came when the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) launched the 1968 TET offensive. In the Marine area in northern I Corps, tens of thousands of NVA left the mountains to assault the cities. To get there, they had to pass through the hamlets guarded by CAP patrols. The CAPs absorbed fully 47% of all the enemy attacks.6 Forewarned through the network of villagers, for eleven straight days the CAPs held firm in daily combat. The NVA found no way through.   

At its peak, CAP platoons (squads really) extended across 800 widely scattered hamlets, protecting 500,000 villagers.7 This was accomplished by 2,200 CAP Marines, three percent of the Marine total force. Given that CAP was a force multiplier, why wasn’t it expanded into a countrywide strategy?  

The CAP focus upon population protection collided with the directive from the high command in Saigon to search for and destroy the NVA forces in the mountains. To quote from the official Marine history of 1968, “The problem was a lack of a warfighting (overall) strategy. There was no yardstick for measuring the amount of resources dedicated to Mission X vs Mission Y. The CAP was seen as a drain of manpower. In fact, it saved Marine lives.”8  

The high command in Saigon opposed the CAP program. Yet no top-level meeting with the subordinate Marine command was ever convened to resolve the conflicting strategies. The top commander in Vietnam, General William Westmoreland, criticized Marine tactics. His command disparaged the CAPs as “too manpower intensive and too slow in pacifying.”9 The command also consulted the British, whose top counterinsurgency expert, Sir Robert Thompson, concluded the opposite. He said CAP was “the best idea I have seen in Vietnam.”10 

After our troops left in 1972, Congress slashed aid to the South and forbade all air strikes. In 1975, South Vietnam fell to North Vietnam. Artillery and armor provided by China and the Soviet Union plus massed infantry caused the defeat, not some fantasy about a Marxist revolt in the villages. Quite the opposite. When the North Vietnamese troops poured in, they changed the names of CAP villages, symbolizing their frustration with the farmers who had staunchly resisted. A history of the CAP program in the Military Review magazine concluded, “The Battle for Hue City and the siege at Khe Sanh dominate the literature about the Marines in Vietnam. CAP, however, was the Corps’ greatest innovation during the war.”11 

Is the CAP concept useful in the future? My book describing the lives and deaths in a typical CAP, entitled The Village, was deleted from the Commandant’s Reading List because CAP seemed irrelevant. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the tribal and Muslim insular cultures did make it impossible for Marine squads to live inside isolated villages. Unlike in Vietnam, as outsiders (and unbelievers) Americans were not accepted, let alone warned of danger. On the other hand, CAP is relevant for the new antiship mission. Although Marines no longer read about the CAP, the small units training to deploy on remote Filipino islands will need its tactics. 

Regardless of where Marines next fight, there will be civilians and local forces. Marines don’t have the manpower to support a stand-alone advisory regiment. We will always seek the support of the local forces. The CAP proved that our infantry squads can adapt on any battlefield, due to the Marine ethos and training.  

>Mr. West, an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, served in CAP Lima-One in Chulai in 1966. He has written a dozen books about Marines in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. His forthcoming book is entitled: Who Will Fight for Us the Next Time?  

Notes

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Action_Program

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Action_Program

3. https://www.amazon.com/Village-Francis-J-West/dp/0299102343/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.p-mZNDimiy50ukbcHJePqf34WcdHeY7QGVcWelymYhzsODh_dEwCC7vZOsDJOpK7wUlcKoIykKApCmsweqabshyjB1zc40ZFr6VQ_r-nrAJKhD_Jx-K7MrIOvC40_P4PwQSOUHmJnWhFBbRW64yovnGhQT2YJhe41eixBDWTobY.kMlkWTIY2hPyuRhqs2FJgFYqsYZl7bEnd8yUvSMy1Aw&qid=1723471958&sr=8-1 

4. https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2015/april/marines-vietnam-commitment; and https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/vietnam-war0/human-cost.html 

5. https://www.nmvetsmemorial.org/combined-action-program-monument.html

6. Weltsch, Michael D (1991). “The Future Role of the Combined Action Program” (PDF). U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 February 2012. That PDF was retrieved 12 December 2007.

7. https://www.usni.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/Kopets,%20Keith%20F.pdf

8. Ibid. p. 629 

9. https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/US Marines In Vietnam The Defining Year 1968 PCN 19000313800_1.pdf pages 619-625

10. https://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/kopets.htm

11. Military Review, July-August 2002 Found as a footnote in https://www.usni.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/Kopets,%20Keith%20F.pdf

A Worthy Investment in the Stand-In Force

MARSOC and Force Design

Modernization and force structure efforts for the Army resulted in plans by the U.S. Army Special Operations Command to make cuts that would account for the entire size of the Marine Special Operations Command (MARSOC) if applied by the Marine Corps.1 The Marine Corps, however, has made significant transformational efforts elsewhere with Force Design 2030, and the value of MARSOC has continued to provide a significant benefit to both the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and the FMF. Marine Special Operations Command is highlighted as a key capability of the Stand-In Forces (SIF) concept in the 39th Commandant’s Planning Guidance (CPG), “The unique capabilities contained within the MAGTF paired with the special operations capabilities of our Raiders forms a modernized warfighting capability with the agility and lethality capable of gaining and maintaining advantage from inside the [weapons engagement zone (WEZ)].”2 

Marine special operations companies (MSOC) like Marine littoral regiments (MLR) provide value at the Service level through their ability to sense, make sense, and communicate with the Joint Force. Marine Special Operations Command units offer theater special operations commands a unit of action for employment toward strategic, operational, and campaign objectives. Marine Special Operations Command additionally produces specialized human capital for the Marine Corps outside of Special Operations Officers, MOS 0370, and Critical Skills Operators , 0372, by training, manning, and equipping USSOCOM unique Special Operations Capability Specialists (SOCS), 8071, that subsequently integrate back to FMF formations. Furthermore, MARSOC leverages special operations-peculiar funding from USSCOM through Major Forces Program 11 to rapidly acquire unique capabilities to support real-world operations and preserve the force. By sustaining the integration of joint kill webs between MSOCs and the other joint SIF units, prioritizing manning through Manpower and Reserve Affairs, and driving modernization, the Marine Corps will continue to use MARSOC as a worthwhile investment as outlined by the 39th Commandant to fight and win today and set conditions to win in the future.

The problem of mature kill webs and a combined Joint all-domian command and control is not new to the Joint Forces’ efforts of modernization or USSOCOM. It is an effort where MARSOC plays a critical role, as highlighted by the 39th CPG, “Marines in the Stand-in Force, critically bolstered by our MARSOC Raiders, are the tip of the spear of the entire Joint and Combined Force.”3 Marine Special Operations Command and FMF units routinely participate in various operations, activities, and investments (OAI) in the first-island chain and throughout the globe to train against Joint Force objectives. Operations, activities, and investments like Exercise Balikatan—an annual exercise between the Philippines and the U.S. military designed to strengthen bilateral interoperability, capabilities, trust, and cooperation—demonstrate combined joint kill webs that culminate in real-world sink exercises at key maritime terrain in the first-island chain.4 The OAI further provides MARSOC units at the MSOC level to train and integrate adjacent to emerging transformational units of the Joint Force like 3d MLR, the U.S. Army 1st Multi-Domain Task Force, and Joint certified headquarters from the Marine Corps such as I MEF and 3d MarDiv, III MEF, FMF Pacific, as well as Joint headquarters from I Corps and 25th Infantry Division. Moreover, it can be stated that the problem of combined Joint all-domian command and control and kill webs, easily traced to the history of USSOCOM during Operation EAGLE CLAW, will continue to require investment and integration across the Joint Force to succeed and win during great-power competition.5

The 39th CPG states, “Ironclad discipline is the currency of our Corps. Ruthless adherence to standards is what makes us special as a Service.” This discipline and affinity toward ruthless adherence to standards and mission accomplishment are why Marines subsequently make another choice to start a journey toward a career or tour at MARSOC. Unlike the deployable units of Navy Special Warfare, Navy Special Warfare Task Groups, the MSOCs of MARSOC are enabled by a detachment of SOCS, who are special operations qualified by the Marine Raider Training Center or Marine Raider Support Group.6 The SOCS MOS has its unique pipeline based on its specialization of logistics, intelligence, communications, or fires. These Marines serve anywhere from three to five years at MARSOC before returning to the FMF. The value of a tour at MARSOC provides these SOCS unique, but operationally relevant experience that seamlessly translates to assignments at III MEF or other SIF units. A SOCS trained for intelligence gains all the skills necessary to sense and make sense for an MLR headquarters or MEU. A SOCS trained for communications can seamlessly bolt onto a task unit from a MEF Information Group or provide communication to contested logistics for a littoral logistics battalion. Manpower and Reserve Affairs must continue to assign a prioritized staffing goal at MARSOC units while incentivizing tours for Marines and those SOCS post-MARSOC to spread the knowledge and experience across the FMF. The tours at MARSOC must elevate to the equivalent of FMF by precept for career officers and Subsequent-Term-Alignment-Plan Marines to ensure talent does not transition from the Service or create an unnecessary demand for curtailed tours from a SIF unit as outlined by the Commandant to remain competitive for advancement and promotion.

A final unique characteristic of MARSOC as a part of the SIF is the ability to tap into special operations-peculiar funding for operational and training modernization, experimentation in command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting, and Preservation of the Force and Family programs. The unique funding and access to USSOCOM continue to enable greater modernization for training and operational effects with FMF and other Joint SIF units as seen during the Service-Level Training Exercise and at forward-deployed locations. The command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting advancements and experimentation continue to align with FMF advances whether the touchpoints and engagements are through wargaming or implementation of assets in support of live, virtual, or constructive training at a newly established Special Operations Training, Exercise, and Simulation Center at Stone Bay, Camp Lejeune, NC, that shares similar capability to sites hosted by Marine Corps Tactics and Operations Group or Marine Corps Logistics Operations Group. Furthermore, the expansion of Preservation of the Force and Family resources have served as a model to carry over to FMF units to maintain and sustain career-long readiness. The 39th CPG states, “No single issue is more existential for our Corps than recruiting and retaining high-quality Marines.”7 Marine Special Operations Command sustains this critical effort while efficiently employing SOF-peculiar resources to accomplish the assigned USSOCOM missions as well as providing benefits to the Service.

Manpower and funding will remain a constant for all the military services like the unchanging nature of war. For the Marine Corps, it must remain a priority to man, train, and equip MARSOC units like MLRs as both serve as the critical stand-in forces for competition and conflict. For the SOCS and those that are assigned to MARSOC, Manpower and Reserve Affairs must ensure stable and continuing careers like those in the FMF. The value of MARSOC remains that they are Marines first, and special operations are what they do. Like all SOF units, the resourcing of MARSOC by the Marine Corps will allow them to fight and win both now and in the future while upholding the Special Operations Forces Truth that Competent SOF cannot be created after emergencies occur.8

>Maj Fultz is an Infantry Officer serving as the Battalion Executive Officer for the 1st Marine Raider Support Battalion. He has served in all three divisions with a most recent tour with the Stand-In Force at III MEF Command Element and 4th Mar.

Notes

1. Cole Livieratos, “Cutting Army Special Operations Will Erode the Military’s Ability to Influence the Modern Battlefield,” War on the Rocks, January 9, 2024, https://warontherocks.com/2024/01/cutting-army-special-operations-will-erode-the-militarys-ability-to-influence-the-modern-battlefield.

2. Gen Eric Smith, 39th Commandant’s Planning Guidance, (Washington, DC: September 2024).

3. Ibid.

4. Embassy Manila, “Philippine, U.S. Troops to Kick Off Exercise Balikatan 2024,” U.S. Embassy in the Philippines, April 17, 2024, https://ph.usembassy.gov/philippine-u-s-troops-to-kick-off-exercise-balikatan-2024.

5. Special Operations Warrior Foundation, “Operation Eagle Claw,” Special Operations Warrior Foundation, September 2024, https://specialops.org/operation-eagle-claw.

6. Joint Special Operations University Center for Engagement and Research, Special Operations Forces Reference Manual, 5th Edition (MacDill Air Force Base: November 23).

7. 39th Commandant’s Planning Guidance.

8. Joint Special Operations University Center for Engagement and Research, Special Operations Forces Reference Manual, 5th Edition (MacDill Air Force Base: November 2023).

Archibald Henderson: An Era

>Originally published in the Marine Corps Gazette, July 1960. Extracted from Chapter Four of The Compact History of the U. S. Marine Corps, by LtCol P.N. Pierce and the late LtCol F.O. Hough. Copyrighted by Hawthorne Books, May 1960. $4.95 

 

ON OCTOBER 17, 1820, MAJOR ARCHIBALD HENDERSON was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and became the fifth Commandant of the Marine Corps at the age of 37.

Under the blunt, outspoken Henderson the Marine Corps underwent some profound changes. The long span of years of his command were eventful ones, and through a series of dramatic events which commanded wide attention, the Corps established a high reputation with the people of the nation. The man who was to become known as “the grand old man of the Marine Corps” was largely responsible.

Morale was low in the Armed Forces of the 1820s. As usual after each war, the military had been shunted aside. The War of 1812 was rapidly passing into the limbo of forgotten things. It had been an unpopular war to begin with, as far as Americans were concerned. The war-torn era of Napoleon had ended at Waterloo, and the great powers of Russia, England, Austria and Prussia had combined in the Quadruple Alliance to “preserve the tranquillity of Europe” against a revival of revolution. The danger of being drawn into a European war appeared very remote. The Congress of the United States was much too occupied with internal expansion to pay attention to the relatively few people it hired for the defense of the nation. The strength of the Marine Corps stood at 49 officers and 865 enlisted men.

Immediately upon assuming command, Henderson, who had evidently given the matter considerable thought, set about improving the morale and efficiency of his Corps. He began by personally inspecting every shore station which included Marines and many of the ship’s detachments. He was a stickler for detail, and continually gave evidence of knowing thoroughly the job of everyone of his Marines. He insisted on the strictest economy in the expenditure of funds, and personally handled the majority of the Corp’s legal affairs. Although he had the reputation of being a martinet, he went to great lengths to insure that his officers and men were properly accorded their every right.

In the matter of training he was almost a fanatic. He had long realized that the key to the efficiency of any fighting organization lay in two inseparable and basic fundamentals—training and spirit. He ordered all the newly commissioned officers to duty at Marine Corps Headquarters, in order to personally supervise their indoctrination and training. During most of his tour of duty, the Army was unable to absorb all of the graduates of West Point. Henderson obtained as many of these officers as possible for the Marine Corps. To assist in the training of the new officers, and to act as a nucleus for a landing force, he kept a skeletonized battalion at Headquarters. This battalion was thoroughly trained in the latest developments of military weapons and tactics.

Archibald Henderson.

Henderson demanded, and received, the strict subordination of all his officers. He took no nonsense from anyone, including his superiors in the U.S. Navy. On one occasion, when the Navy Department countermanded his orders to a Marine Captain to go to sea, Henderson went directly to the President. He respectfully, and probably vigorously, explained that it was imperative that his orders be carried out in order to vindicate his position and authority. Four days later the captain in question reported for sea duty, and the Secretary of the Navy reported to the President for what might have been described as a unilateral conversation.

The agencies for maintaining law and order in the United States during the first half of the Nineteenth Century were few and far between. Those which did exist were poorly organized, and even more poorly trained. During this era the Marines were often called upon to lend a hand in local disturbances.

In the great Boston fire of 1824 they performed both rescue work and police functions in helping to stamp out the wave of pilfering and looting which followed the holocaust.

A short time later, Maj Robert D. Wainwright earned prominent mention in the classic school books of the era, McGuffey’s Readers. And, for the next 75 years, the nation’s school children received a lesson dealing with the heroic conduct of Marines.

The scene of the action was the Massachusetts State Prison at Boston. Having become thoroughly dissatisfied with their lot in life, some 283 prisoners staged a riot which rapidly got beyond control of the prison authorities. With the situation out of hand, the warden sent a frantic call for help to the Boston Marine Barracks.

Maj Wainwright, with a detachment of 30 Marines, soon arrived at the prison area. Making a hasty estimate of what was apparently a bad situation, Wainwright came up with a simple solution. Hastily forming a single rank facing the prisoners, he ordered his Marines to fire a warning volley into the air. The shots had the desired effect and the clamor subsided. As his Marines reloaded their muskets, the major addressed the rebellious prisoners, “These men are United States Marines,” he said. “They follow my orders to the letter.”

Turning to the Marines, Wainwright consulted his watch, and then issued his orders in a loud, parade ground voice, “Exactly three minutes from now I shall raise my hand over my head,” he bellowed. “When I drop my hand you will commence firing. You will continue to fire until you have killed every prisoner who has not returned to his cell.”

For three long minutes not a word was spoken. The only sound was the shuffle of the inmates’ feet as they dejectedly returned to their cells.

With the advent of the 1830s the traditional isolationist policy of America underwent an abrupt change. It had become apparent to the United States that many areas of commercial advantage lay beyond its own boundaries. This change in policy had a pronounced effect on the functions performed by Marines. As a result of it, the Marines, under the energetic leadership of their fifth Commandant, ranged far and wide to protect the interests of their country.

United States Marines of General Henderson’s era.

Late in 1831 the natives of Sumatra seized and robbed an American merchantman in the harbor of Quallah Battoo. This act of piracy resulted in the murder of several members of the crew. In retaliation the United States sent the frigate Potomac, especially outfitted for the job, on a punitive expedition against the Sumatran pirates. Arriving in February 1832, the Potomac put a landing force of over 250 Marines and sailors ashore. In two days of bloody warfare, the force captured four pirate forts and reduced the town of Quallah Battoo to a heap of smouldering ruins.

At the same time, on the other side of the Southern Hemisphere, Marines were having some difficulties in South America. Argentina was attempting to establish claim over the Falkland Islands. In pursuit of this claim, that country looked with extreme disfavor on American vessels conducting trade with the Islands. In an effort to discourage this practice, the Argentinians proceeded to impound three American schooners and jail their crews. Marines from the sloop Lexington waded ashore and through dint of considerable small arms fire, succeeded in impressing the Argentine officials that the United States did not look kindly upon such treatment of its ships and citizens.

  But, as far as the Marine Corps was concerned, the most far-reaching effect of the new anti-isolation policy of the United States was reflected in the Act of 1834. Passed by Congress on June 30, the legislation authorized a substantial increase in the strength of the Marine Corps. It also settled the question of its control, by placing it in the hands of the Secretary of the Navy. In addition, it authorized the President to order the Marines into whatever action his judgment dictated, including duty with the Army. Within the year the President was to make good use of his newly granted powers.

      In the Everglades of Florida a bad situation of long standing was rapidly coming to a head.

    Over a period of many years runaway Negro slaves had found refuge with the Seminole Indians and many slaves and members of the tribe had intermarried. The southern planters, aware of this refuge for their escaped slaves, had made repeated petitions to the Crown of Spain, without avail. Unhappy with the refusal of Charles IV to take the necessary steps to return their slaves, the southern land owners began to petition their own government for the annexation of Florida. In 1819 a portion of Florida was purchased from Spain for $5,000,000. Immediately the slave owners renewed their demands to the government that their slaves be returned. Inasmuch as some 75 years had passed since their ancestors had taken refuge in Florida, it was a little difficult for the Seminoles to understand the claims of the planters. As a result, such demands met with a particularly unenthusiastic response by the Seminoles.

Under the political pressure eventually brought to bear by the slave owners, the Administration completed a treaty with the Indians, under which the government would take the tribe under its protection and assign the Indians to reservations. Perhaps things might have worked out if certain enterprising souls hadn’t become aware of the lucrative possibilities in the profession of slave catching. The “slave hunters,” in direct violation of the terms of the treaty, entered Florida in organized bands to catch runaway slaves who brought high prices on the slave markets. There is no evidence to indicate that the government made any attempts to stop this practice, although the Indians continually demanded redress.

In 1828 the proposal was made to the Seminoles to move to a reservation in the area now occupied by the state of Arkansas. Tribal chiefs made a reconnaissance of the area and returned with the report that “snow covers the ground, and frosts chill the bodies of men.” Their objections notwithstanding, the Seminoles were ordered to emigrate West. At which point, things got rapidly out of hand.

Determined to force the emigration, the government sent troops into Florida. Just as determined to remain where they were, the Seminoles made preparations for war. In December 1835 the hostilities began in earnest, and in a short time the horrors of the Seminole War were being chronicled throughout the land.

BGen D.L. Clinch, who was commanding the US troops in Florida, was charged with the responsibility of the removal of the Indians. The end of the year found the well-armed Indians, under the leadership of a colorful half-breed named Osceola, assembled in the almost inaccessible swamps of the Withlacoochee River.

Clinch, whose immediate problem was to protect the white settlers, decided to attack the Indians. Since his own force, which occupied Fort King near the present town of Ocala, was too small for the job, he sent to Fort Brooke on Tampa Bay for reinforcements.

The reinforcements, numbering 110 and under the command of a Maj Dade, answered the call of Gen Clinch with colors flying and bugles blaring across the swamps. With the possible exception of Custer’s debacle at Big Horn, the fate of this force is without parallel in the history of Indian warfare.

Shortly after Dade’s force crossed the Withlacoochee, they were met with an ambush so effective that only two survivors remained to crawl through the wire grass to safety. One was Pvt Clark of the 2d Artillery who, although badly wounded, is reputed to have crawled to Fort Brooke, a distance of 60 miles. The other was Louis Pacheo, a Negro slave who acted as guide for the force. There is reason to suspect that the escape of Pacheo from the ambush was something more than blind luck. Be that as it may the only man to survive without a scratch lived to the venerable old age of 95 without being taken to task for his treachery, if such it was.

On the same day as the Dade Massacre, Osceola and a small band invaded a dinner party given by Gen Wiley Thompson, who had been sent from Washington to oversee removal of the Indians, and murdered the General and his five guests. If there had been any doubts about the earnestness of the war in Florida, the Dade Massacre and the murder of Gen Thompson provided the clinching argument.

By the spring of 1836 the Army in central Florida found themselves in difficulty. Some 1,000 soldiers were trying to round up and deport over 3,000 Indians. The State militias, which had originally augmented the Army of the South, soon had their stomachs full of poor food, swamp fever and general discomfort. And, with the coming of spring, they left Florida for healthier climes.

To add to the general misery, the Creek Indians of southern Alabama and Georgia decided to go on the warpath. The results of this uprising were severe enough to cause the Army to shift its main effort from the Seminole country to the area occupied by the Creeks.

At this juncture Archibald Henderson volunteered the services of a regiment of Marines for duty with the Army. The offer was promptly accepted. On May 23, 1836, President Jackson, under the recently enacted law, ordered all available Marines to report to the Army. Henderson, never one to sit on the sidelines, insisted on leading the regiment personally. By taking practically all officers, reducing shore detachments to sergeant’s guard, and leaving behind only those who were unfit for duty in the field, Henderson was able to mobilize more than half the total strength of the Corps.

There is a tale, often related by Marines, that Col Henderson closed Marine Corps Headquarters during this period. It is said that he locked the door to his office, placed the key under a mat, and tacked a neatly lettered sign to the door which read:

Have gone to Florida to fight Indians. Will be back when the war is over.

A. HENDERSON
Col. Commandant
More reliable accounts indicate that the Commandant left the Headquarters in charge of LtCol Wainwright, with the Band to provide the guard. Among those deemed unfit for duty in the field was one Sgt Triguet, whom Henderson commended to Wainwright in a letter of instruction which began: “Sergeant Triguet is left to assist in attending to the duties at Headquarters. He is a respectable old man, and has no other failing than that which but too often attends an old soldier….”

Henderson, with a force of 38 officers and 424 enlisted men, reported to Gen Winfield Scott at Columbus, Georgia. Since the Commandant was under direct orders of the Secretary of War, he technically became an Army officer and was placed in command of a brigade composed of Marines, Army Infantry and Artillery, and friendly Creeks.

Presaging the modern Marine battle garb of dungarees, the troops wore white fatigues, rather than the green and white uniforms of the period. Armed mostly with muskets, they also carried some of the new-fangled Colt rifles which had a disconcerting tendency to explode spontaneously when carried loaded for any length of time in the hot sun.

Both the Marine commander and Gen Scott took an optimistic view of the final outcome of the campaign. In a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, Henderson wrote: “It is now expected that the Campaign will be closed in the course of ten days or two weeks….” On the same day Gen Scott went on record to the effect, “war against the hostile Creeks is supposed to be virtually over.” One may well speculate as to the thoughts of Gen Scott a month later when he was recalled to Washington for an investigation of his conduct of the war against the Creeks and Seminoles. After a long, drawn-out investigation, Scott was exonerated and restored to his command. 

The end of summer brought with it the termination of the Creek Campaign. The Creeks were removed to a reservation in what is now the state of Oklahoma, and the Army of the South again turned its attention to the problem of the Seminoles in Florida.

On June 24 a battalion of Marines under LtCol W.H. Freeman reached Milledgeville, Georgia, and moved on into Florida. In October Freeman’s battallion was consolidated with the one Henderson had been leading into a six-company regiment and moved to Apalachicola, to garrison Fort Brooke. The Marines were augmented by a regiment of Creek Indians, some 750 strong, who had been mustered and were paid as militia. The regiment was officered mainly by Marines, and wore white turbans to distinguish them from the enemy during battle. The Seminoles were rather unhappy about being pursued by their blood relatives, and showed their dislike by scalping all Creeks who fell into their hands.

On November 21 the Creeks, under the command of 1stLt Andrew H. Ross, fought an advance guard action at Wahoo Swamp. From Wahoo a four-pronged advance, two columns of Army troops and two of Marines, pushed the Seminoles back to the Hatchee-Lustee River. Six days later the main body of Indians was located in the area of the Great Cypress Swamp, and was promptly attacked. The attackers managed to capture the horses of the enemy and 25 prisoners, most of whom were women and children. The braves slipped back into the swamp. Henderson left a detachment to guard the prisoners and horses, while the regiment pressed on after the warriors who had taken up positions on the opposite bank of the Hatchee-Lustee. The troops extended along the river bank and took up a cross fire, in an effort to dislodge the enemy. As soon as the Indians’ fire slackened, the troops crossed the river by swimming and by means of logs. According to Henderson’s report, “… we pursued the enemy as rapidly as the deep swamp and their mode of warfare permitted.”

Osceola, Chief of Seminoles.

The chase continued until nightfall when Henderson was forced to withdraw his troops from the dense undergrowth. The result of the day’s operations was the capture of the Indian women and children, already mentioned, 23 Negroes, a few horses and some clothes and blankets. The battle report states that one Indian and two Negroes were seen dead by the troops.

As a result of his routing of the Indian forces Henderson was brevetted a brigadier general and several Marines were promoted for “gallantry.” Four days later, Abraham, a Seminole Chief, appeared at Henderson’s camp under a flag of truce. This marked the beginning of several days of negotiations between Maj Gen T.H. Jesup, to whom Gen Scott had relinquished command upon being recalled to Washington, and the Indian leaders at Fort Dade. These meetings finally resulted in an agreement by the chiefs to assemble their people for transportation to their new reservation. The peace treaty was formally signed on March 6. Jesup, believing the war to be over, began to discharge his volunteers.

On May 22, 1837, Henderson received orders to proceed to Washington. Taking with him all Marines except two companies, which totalled 189 officers and men, Henderson left Florida the next day.

On the night of June 2, Micanopy, grand chief of the Seminoles, and several of his lesser chiefs who had encamped with their followers near Tampa Bay, the port of embarkation, were abducted and taken to the interior. The next day a report was received from the troops south of Hillsboro that the Seminoles encamped in that vicinity had disappeared. These two incidents were the signal of the renewal of hostilities. Gen Jesup reported, “This campaign, so far as relates to the Indian emigration, has entirely failed,” and requested to be “immediately relieved from the
command of the Army.” The Seminole War was far from over.

For the next five years Archibald Henderson vainly tried to get the remaining Marines recalled from Florida. His appeals were met with refusal by the Secretary of War, who felt that the need for Marines in Florida was more pressing than the need for their return.

Jesup was finally relieved and realized what had been his burning desire since the beginning of the campaign—to join his family and spend the rest of his life on his farm. He was replaced by Col Zachary Taylor, who was soon promoted to the rank of brigadier general.

The campaign wore on and the possibility of success appeared more remote with each passing day. Osceola, who had been arrested while conferring with Gen Jesup, died in prison at Fort Moultrie in October 1837. The next year some 4,000 Seminoles made the move to Oklahoma, though many of them slipped away from the New Orleans concentration camps and returned to the Everglades.

The two remaining companies of Marines put in four more years of duty along the coast and around the keys of Florida with the Mosquito Fleet. From June 1838 to the summer of 1842, this array of half a dozen small vessels, two barges and 140 canoes was manned by 68 officers and 600 men. The Marines of the fleet numbered about 130, and for the first two years of operation were commanded by 1stLt George H. Terrett who, seven years later, was to lead the way into Mexico City.

The object of the Mosquito Fleet was twofold, to intercept communications between the Indians and small boats operating off the Florida coast, and to conduct amphibious sorties into the interior of the Everglades. The fleet operated successfully throughout the remainder of the campaign, and the Indians came to have great respect for the “sailor boats” as they called them.

In the summer of 1842 the Seminole War gradually waned, without formal cessation of hostilities and with neither side clearly victorious. The Marines returned north in July, well pleased to be relieved of what had been six long years of extremely dreary duty. In the final accounting, 61 Marines had given their lives in the Seminole Campaign. Over half of them had died from disease, and one unfortunate soul had departed the scene, dispatched by a friendly musket ball—“discharged by accident.” In analyzing the success of the campaign, one need only reflect upon the fact that the Seminoles still occupy the Everglades of Florida.

The arrest of Osceola, who later died in prison.

With the Seminole War a matter for the record books, Henderson again turned his attention to strengthening and developing the Corps. His efforts were aimed at keeping the Marines in a state of readiness for any emergency, domestic or foreign. The remainder of his career was distinguished by such important events as the Mexican War and Perry’s Expedition to Japan. Under his direction Marines virtually covered the globe. To protect Americans and their commerce with China, they stormed the forts of Canton during the great Taiping Rebellion. In the South Seas they splashed ashore to bring the rampaging Fiji Islanders to heel. In the jungles of Central America they made their first contact with the Republic of Nicaragua, which was to see the repeated return of Marines over the next three-quarters of a century. Along the Gold Coast of Africa the slave traders, on more than one occasion, felt the bite of a Marine’s bayonet.

For the 50 years he wore the uniform of a Marine, Archibald Henderson preached the gospel of strong leadership and constant readiness. At 74, he dramatically demonstrated that advanced age was no deterrent to practicing what he preached.

The issues of the elections of 1857 were particularly bitter ones. In an effort to control the election in Washington, the “Know Nothing” Party imported a gang of hired thugs, known as the “Plug Uglies,” from Baltimore. The gang commenced activities by physically threatening the voters, and finally put a complete halt to the elections by taking possession of the polling places throughout the city. Civil authorities, unable to cope with the situation, appealed to the President who ordered two companies of Marines from the Marine Barracks to restore order to the city.

General Henderson facing up to the “Plug Uglies.”

The Marines met the “Plug Uglies” on Pennsylvania Avenue, in the vicinity of City Hall. The rioting thugs, who were armed with every conceivable weapon, dragged up a brass cannon, aimed it at the Marine formation and demanded that they return to their barracks. Capt Tyler, commanding the Marines, ordered a detachment forward to capture the cannon. At that moment, Gen Henderson, who had been mingling with the mob and was dressed in civilian clothing, walked calmly up to the muzzle of the cannon and forced the weapon around. Henderson addressed the “Plug Uglies,” warning them of the seriousness of their acts and telling them that the Marines would fire if it became necessary. In the hectic few minutes that followed, a number of rioters who fortunately were very bad marksmen, fired their pistols at Henderson. A platoon of Marines charged in to protect the Commandant and capture the cannon. One of the rioters, at point blank range, aimed his pistol at Henderson’s head. A Marine knocked the pistol to the ground with a butt stroke of his musket. The General promptly grabbed the culprit by the collar and the seat of his pants and marched him off to jail. With the riot getting out of control, the Marines opened fire. The rioters, suddenly convinced that the Marines meant business, beat a hasty retreat and order was restored to the city.

On January 6, 1859, the “grand old man of the Marine Corps,” who had served as Commandant under 11 Presidents, died in office at the age of 76. The impact of his strong personality and zealous devotion to duty remains to this day, indelibly engraved on the Corps to which he devoted over 50 years of his life.

The era of Archibald Henderson had encompassed two wars worthy of examination from the standpoint of the nation’s history. One, which had been purely internal, was the protracted campaign against the Creek and Seminole Indians. The other, which took place on foreign soil, provided the Marines with the first line to their hymn, and the nation with something it had long wanted—a western boundary that bordered the blue Pacific. 

30th Anniversary

Intelligence Plan of 1994

2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the Intelligence Plan of 1994. The purpose of the plan, approved by Commandant (CMC) Mundy in 1994, was not just to address the intelligence deficiencies that became apparent in Operation DESERT STORM (1991) but to professionalize the intelligence occupational field by structuring its manning and training the way other occupational fields were structured. This short article will focus on three areas: plan development, plan implementation, and the performance of intelligence in OIF/OEF.

For roughly the first 200 years of the Marine Corps, the role of intelligence was analogous to that of a volunteer fire department. Whenever a war or serious conflict arose, G-2/S-2 sections were manned by non-intelligence officers and enlisted personnel to augment the meagerly manned and poorly trained intelligence ranks. For the first 200 years, it worked well in the sense that we never lost a war.

It was not until advanced technical intelligence systems for collection, imagery, targeting, and analysis were developed that the volunteer fire department approach to intelligence was no longer viable. The first wake-up call came from BGen P.K. Van Riper in his June ’91 Marine Corps Gazette article entitled “Observations during Operation Desert Storm.” He said, “The weakest area I observed was tactical intelligence; many of the problems are endemic and stem from the way we select, train, and educate our intelligence personnel.” He suggested changing the way we select and train our intelligence personnel. 

He also said, “Now is the time to reconsider whether we want to continue acquiring the majority of our intelligence officers through lateral moves.” This comment referenced the Marine Corps’ decision in 1978 to open the intelligence field to regular officers—not just limited duty officers. While this created an opportunity for regular officers to enter the intelligence field, the sourcing was based entirely on lateral moves. There was no dedicated sourcing of intelligence officers directly from The Basic School and, therefore, no manpower pyramid to sustain career progression in the occupational field.

In the spring of 1992, the Senate Select Committee for Intelligence became aware of deficiencies in Marine Corps intelligence and started sending questions for the record to Headquarters Marine Corps regarding its intelligence capabilities, or absence of capabilities. Ultimately, the Senate directed the Marine Corps to develop a five-year plan to correct the intelligence deficiencies that were identified during Operation DESERT STORM. MajGen Jenkins, Director of Intelligence (DIRINT) at the time, established a Program Objective Memorandum Working Group to develop a response to the Senate. Maj Dan Dietz, who was directed to write the response to the Senate based on the working group’s effort, admitted that the final report to the Senate “absolutely wasn’t a polished, staffed document, but provided a framework.” CMC Mundy approved the report in the spring of 1993.

When MajGen Van Riper became DIRINT in early 1993, one of his first initiatives was to establish the Intelligence Structure Support Group (ISSG) that would include senior officers from the FMF, Manpower, Training and Education, Systems Command, and the Doctrine Division to provide the rigorous analysis of the issues that the official response sent to the Senate did not include. He assigned Col Larry Burgess, a regular intelligence officer, as the lead for the ISSG which took place in August 1993. The findings of the ISSG were then turned over to the Resources Division of Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence headed by Col Jim Clark (an infantry officer) and staffed with a talented group of intelligence officers including LtCol Gerry Hughes, LtCol Herb Strauss, Maj Buck Buikema, and Capt Rick Natale. 

Working closely and continuously with Manpower and Training and Education over the next year (1993–94), Resource Division developed a comprehensive plan to address the deficiencies and establish a professional occupational field. They were aided greatly by the publication of the Restricted Officer Manpower Study/Act that significantly changed the warrant officer and limited-duty officer program for the Marine Corps and the Marine Corps intelligence community. It provided the Resources Division the ability to convert the limited-duty officer structure to an unrestricted officer structure and the ability to finally establish direct accessions from The Basic School to develop the essential intelligence officer manpower Christmas tree to sustain the intel occupational field.

Other important elements of the plan included the establishment of four intelligence battalions (one for each MEF and one for the reserves), an additional radio battalion (at the time only two existed), and consolidated training for basic intel officers and enlisted at the Navy-Marine Corps Intelligence Center in Dam Neck, VA. It also established separate MOS designations at The Basic School for ground, air, and counter-intelligence/human intelligence officers. Once these officers achieved the rank of Captain, they would return to the Navy-Marine Corps Intelligence
Center for the Marine Intelligence Officers Course where they would be designated as MAGTF intelligence officers (0202). 

The Intel Plan of 1994 was approved by CMC Krulak—thus ending the development stage of the Intel Plan and beginning the challenging implementation phase.

The implementation phase of the Intel Plan of 1994 lasted 14 years. It was a challenging and arduous task requiring close and continuous attention to the core elements of the plan in the face of numerous challenges on several fronts. To put it in combat terms, it was a battle of inches, not yards. Responsibility for implementing the Intel Plan fell to the Assistant DIRINT, Michael Decker, and the Intel Occ Field Sponsor staff. Number one on the priority list was to recruit, train, and field the 600 new enlisted Marines and 90 officers (sourced from The Basic School) every year until the four intelligence battalions and one signals intelligence (Radio) battalion were fully sourced, trained, and fielded. This involved working closely with Recruiting Command, Training and Education Division at Marine Corps Combat Development Command, and the officer and enlisted assignments branches within Manpower, and required major adjustments to enlisted recruiting and staffing goal models and training input plans.

Initially, there was overall acceptance of the Intel Plan and little bureaucratic resistance. In the late 1990s, this began to change. It was a relatively peaceful time in the world and the operational imperative for a robust intelligence presence was no longer as pronounced as it was immediately after Operation DESERT STORM. The Intelligence Department had to overcome the institutional requirement in two CMC-directed Force Study Review Groups (1997 and 1999) to cut a table of organization and to find compensatory reductions in the structure to be added. The Intel Plan called for additional structure with no compensatory structure (other than 117 reserve officers that were converted to unrestricted officers by the Restricted Officer Manpower Study/Act directive) to offer up. It was an uphill battle. The CMC’s Force Structure Review Group of 1997 recommended a Marine Corps-wide, salami-sliced approach to downsizing irrespective of the fact the Intel Plan called for an increase. The Marine Corps Support Battalion was a target for reduction. Fortunately, several Marine generals who had commanded MEUs or had been in joint billets knew what the NSA did for the MAGTFs. Unlike command post exercises where the opposition force was a notional (Country ORANGE) threat, MEUs deployed against real-world threats. These commanders relied heavily on the embedded robust intel package that accompanied them to help define these threats. When the Force Study Review Group recommendations were presented at the General Officer Symposium, one MarFor CG with prior MEU command experience stood up in the face of the crowd in opposition to a cut to the Marine Corps Support Battalion and CMC took it off the list. It was a minor but important step in protecting further cuts to intelligence. The 1999 Force Study Review Group focused not only on cuts but also on capability gaps. Intel was still a large capability gap and once again survived any cuts despite opposition from many competing occupational fields.

The second priority in the Intel Plan implementation effort was to establish a paper trail documenting each step along the way. Much like mountain climbers drive pinions in rock to cement their slow advance up the mountain, the Intel Department created, received CMC approval for, and published ALMARS, MC Bulletins, table of organization cover letters, and Marine Corps Doctrinal Publications (MCDP 2, Intelligence) to officially document their progress. Anyone who has been involved in creating and getting CMC approval for this kind of documentation would appreciate the tedious work this requires.

The third priority was to remove the Marine Corps from under the yoke of the Office of Naval Intelligence which controlled funding from the General Defense Intelligence Program (run by the Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA]). The Navy determined how much funding the Marine Corps got (primarily for civilian hires). Up until this time, DIA recognized only the Army, Air Force, and Navy as recipients of General Defense Intelligence Program funding. The Intel Department was successful in getting the DIA to recognize the Marine Corps as a Service intelligence organization, separate from the Navy. This was a major victory that allowed the Marine Corps (with General Defense Intelligence Program funding) to increase its civilian intelligence workforce without requiring the Navy’s permission or to require offsets in the Marine Corps structure. The primary beneficiary of this was the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA) which grew from 20 civilians in 1994 to 187 in 2009. 

The importance of this became evident in the work-up to Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. CENTCOM used an Army-generated trafficability and hydrologic study of the routes the 1st MarDiv could use in their advance to Baghdad. Much of the territory on either side of the MSRs between Basra and Baghdad had been declared “not available for tracked vehicles or heavy trucks.” The CG of 1st MarDiv tasked MCIA with an updated trafficability study. The MCIA, with help from the National Ground Intelligence Agency, developed a study that refuted CENTCOM’s study and 1st MarDiv was able to significantly alter their plans, freeing them from sticking solely to the MSR and advancing more quickly and safely toward Baghdad. 

Finally, the Nail in the Coffin

Operations IRAQI FREEDOM/ENDURING FREEDOM delivered the operational imperative for a professional, robust intelligence presence. In 2005, CMC held an Operations IRAQI FREEDOM/ENDURING FREEDOM after-action review. The general officer support from ground and aviation combat commanders was overwhelmingly supportive of Marine Corps intelligence. This support put the Intel Plan of 1994 over the goal line. The institutional resistance to Marine Corps intelligence faded away and cleared the way to fulfill the remaining elements of the plan by 2008.

The real heroes of this arduous fourteen-year effort were not just Deputy DIRINT Michael Decker and his talented OccFld Sponsor staff but the combat commanders of OEF/OIF who were freed from command post exercises with notional Country ORANGE threats came to embrace the role and importance of intelligence.

Since 2000, eight intel colonels have been promoted to brigadier general and then to major general. Four advanced to lieutenant general (one as Director of DIA, one as J-2 JCS, one as CG Artificial Intelligence Command, and the fourth as Deputy Commandant C4I). Where do we go from here?

Except for the MC DIRINT billet, and most recently the Deputy Commandant C4I billet, all the other billets occupied by Marine Corps intel generals have been in the joint arena. In the early stages of the Intel Plan development, (then) MajGen P.K. Van Riper said, “Intel and Ops are like the 2 sides of the same coin and shouldn’t be separated.” Intel cells are now a permanent fixture in current ops, future ops, and targeting. The two are now inseparable. The green door syndrome became a thing of the past. The intelligence officers’ knowledge of the concept of operations should qualify them for more MAGTF operational billets. Unfortunately, the intel moniker remains an impediment to being assigned to these billets. The general officer assignments branch needs to get beyond the thought that intel generals can only fill intel billets. Between 1995 and 1997, command of the 3rd Force Service Support Group was given to an aviator and a public affairs general. When the need arises, intel generals are equally qualified. Given the close relationship between ops and intel, the Deputy MEF CG is one billet that should be at the top of the list, and there are others as well.

There is a saying that it takes a generation for a major organizational restructuring to become fully accepted. I argue now, in the fourth decade of the Intel Plan, that has happened. Without Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM, I am not sure it would have turned out the same way. There is now a valuable capability and opportunity for the Marine Corps not to be overlooked and needs to be recognized. 

I salute those individuals and working groups that contributed to the success of the Intel Plan of 1994 and to the combat commanders of Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM who provided the credibility that cemented the operational psyche of the entire Marine Corps. Well done!

Road to 250: Cultural Intelligence

To the Shores of Tripoli: a Case Study
>Originally published in the Marine Corps Gazette, February 2016.
Editor’s Note: The authors biography is available in the original edition.
Lieutenant O’Bannon and Marines advancing toward Tripoli. (Image from Merrill L. Bartlett and Jack Sweetman, The U.S. Marine Corps: An Illustrated History, (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD: 2001), 30–31.)
Lieutenant O’Bannon and Marines advancing toward Tripoli. (Image from Merrill L. Bartlett and Jack Sweetman, The U.S. Marine Corps: An Illustrated History, (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD: 2001), 30–31.)

Preface
On 7 April 1805, William Eaton, one midshipman, and eight United States Marines under the command of Presley O’Bannon stood at the Egyptian frontier and looked up toward the hills that would take them into hostile territory.1 Accompanying them was a collection of several hundred mercenaries and followers of the exiled ruler of the Barbary State of Tripoli, Hamet Qaramanli. Having crossed 280 miles of desert, the war party still had to advance 180 miles into Tripoli to capture the port city of Derne, the capital of Cyrenaica. In the weeks that followed, Eaton would succeed beyond expectations, earning his place in history. While much has been written about the Barbary Wars—including the Derne victory—discussions on the social dynamics at work in Tripoli largely have been missing. Yet those dynamics, which may be described as “cultural intelligence,” played an important role.2 Failing to understand that is to fail to fully understand the war itself. This article is an attempt to introduce that history as an argument for a greater focus on cultural intelligence in military planning.

“A Country Not Your Own”3
For four years, the United States waged desultory naval combat with Tripoli after its leader, Bey Yusef Qaramanli, declared war on 14 May 1801. The conflict stemmed from a refusal to offer tribute, a dubious scheme where America paid not to have their ships robbed or seized by the Bey’s pirates. In June 1803, a frustrated President Thomas Jefferson authorized a land attack and appointed Eaton, an experienced North African diplomat, as commander (Naval Agent for the Barbary Regencies). As Washington never contemplated sending an army abroad and the few Marines proved inadequate, the need for local forces became critical and the ability to rally fighters to oppose his brother Yusef made Hamet indispensible. Under Eaton, Hamet’s “army” would conduct the first land campaign led by the young United States on a foreign shore.4 

On 27 April 1805, some 400 soldiers under Eaton assaulted Derne, defended by twice their number. A charge by a handful proved decisive: the Marines and midshipmen, a company of 26 Greek mercenaries and 24 artillerymen. The fight was a short, if bloody, affair; Eaton suffered a shattered wrist from a musket ball, and two Marines died with another wounded while Hamet emerged unscathed during the subsequent capture of the Governor’s palace. Within three hours, Derne fell and the Stars and Stripes waved for the first time over a distant battlefield. Why was a mixed and meager force under American generalship able to defeat a superior force located deep within their homeland?5 The courage of Eaton and his men won out, but a number of social factors worked to their advantage. Tripoli was riddled with social fissures stemming from the nature of the Barbary States and the local political situation in Tripoli.

In 1805, Ottoman Barbary consisted of the provinces (eyalats) of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. Barbary came from the Arab barbar (Berber), describing North Africa’s inhabitants. The term became misleading after the 11th century as the Arabian Banu Hilal tribes migrated across North Africa, halting only at Morocco’s border. Over the course of their migration, they swept away much of the Berber farming population, something that had two lasting effects. The Arabs and the Berbers formed a mixed race and two societies were created, one sedentary, clustered around the remaining coastal cities and farmlands and the other consisting of semi-nomadic Bedouin tribes. This also divided economic life between inland pastoralism with the caravan trade and littoral agriculture linked to sea commerce. The society fractured further with the rise of the Barbary States in the 1500s.6 

Around 1505, Hayreddin Barbarossa moved his pirate fleet from the Aegean to Algeria and began raiding European shipping. In the process, he made a great fortune and his forces grew in strength. Simultaneously, the Spanish Reconquista spread into the Maghreb. In 1517, Barbarossa traded submission to Ottoman authority for military aid and Sultan Selim I obliged by sending forces while elevating Barbarossa to beylerbey. In 1551, the Ottomans recaptured Tripoli from the Maltese Knights of Saint John and the Spanish were driven from Tunis in 1574.7 

With the crisis averted, the Porte dismissed the beylerbey and divided its holdings into the three eyalats, each ruled by a commander (bey) appointed by the Sultan and, if successful, promoted to pasha. Together with the bey and a Turkish administrative staff, Janissaries were dispatched along with a naval contingent. The three capital ports were turned into fortified bases. Ideally, the eyalats should have been divided into sanjaks (districts headed by sanjak-beys) to solidify control, but Ottoman rule was too tenuous to expand inland. This created additional societal strains as the Turks, Janissaries, and sailors disturbed the status quo. The Ottoman legal tradition also created friction; it followed the Hanafi Sharia while most peoples of the Maghreb adhered to the more conservative Maliki school. Acknowledging the limits of its authority, the Porte never forced the Hanafi system on the local population, but the result heightened the barrier between the governed and those that governed.8 

The Janissaries—lifelong soldiers—were also a breed apart. Most had been taken as boys as a “blood tax” on Christians dwelling in Ottoman Europe. Moved to Anatolia, they were reared as soldiers and volunteered or coerced to convert to Islam. Despite these hardships, Janissaries were well paid, held a respected position in society, and were free to elect their own leaders, the deys. Finally, sailors, the most alien and profitable contingent, were able seamen recruited from anywhere and, if not Muslim, became converts. Motivated by the promise of privateering spoils, they were singularly mercenary and of limited loyalty but brought much needed cash to the States. Pirate rule soon reigned.9 

The Ottoman conquest ended in the imposition of an alien government that never fully integrated with the people. Tripoli suffered most from these internal disconnects. Because of geography, it had only two enclaves able to support agriculture: the plateau south of the port of Tripoli and the ancient Pentapolis in Cyrenaica with Derne on the eastern extreme. The Bedouin tribes were economically self-sufficient and dominated the rest of the country, allowing them to stand apart from the Bey. This made rule tenuous in the best of times and the war with America did not come during the best of times.10 

Tripoli was ostensibly part of the Ottoman Empire, but the power yielded was far from that of the 16th century. When Tripoli was recaptured, the Sublime Porte installed Aga Murad as bey and as an indication of the importance of Tripoli as a naval base, named Admiral (Reis) Turgut the second bey in 1553. For the next half century, Tripoli was ruled directly by the Porte. In 1609, the local Janissaries selected Suleiman Safar as dey who overthrew Bey Ahmad Pasha, and the Porte subsequently acceded to the elected deys as rulers. In late 1709, Bey Halil Pasha died without a successor and over the next two years, Tripoli witnessed five different self-professed governors attempting to take and keep power.11 

During this crisis, the Janissaries chose as dey the capable sipahi (cavalry) leader Ahmed Qaramanli. Qaramanli was not a pure-blooded Janissary but a khouloughli (children of soldiers), the descendants of earlier Janissaries who had married into the local elite in Tripoli. In July 1711, Ahmed seized control and the Sublime Porte recognized him as bey and awarded him the rank of pasha. Although he continued to refer to himself as Dey, Ahmed ended the dey elections and the Qaramanli became hereditary leaders. The Qaramanli were able to expand their control into the Fezzan to the south and Cyrenaica to the east. A succession of Qaramanlis ruled effectively for most of the 18th century until the physical decline of the long serving Ali Pasha in the 1790s set in motion an internecine power struggle. The troubles began when Ali designated his eldest son, Hassan, as his successor in 1790.12 

In August, Yusef, the youngest son, lured Hassan into the Bey’s harem under the ruse of reconciling their differences. The harem was a refuge whose protections exceeded that of a mosque. Once there, Hassan disarmed as required and greeted his mother. A hiding Yusef then cut him down. Hassan was able to recover his saber and slightly wound Yusef before dying. This murderous outrage threw the country’s leadership into turmoil. Bey Ali refused to recognize Yusef as regent and a civil war erupted with Yusef besieging Ali in the Tripoli fortress during the spring and summer of 1793.13 

In early July, Ali died after naming Hamet, the middle son, as bey. Amidst this chaos, the Turks acted. On 29 July 1793, an Ottoman fleet under Ali Benghul arrived in the harbor. He declared himself ruler and both Hamet and Yusef fled to Tunis. Benghul’s rule ended in failure when the brothers, with the assistance of the Dey of Tunis, regained power in 1795. Yusef then pushed aside Hamet, sending him to Derne as Governor of Cyrenaica—an internal exile. Yusef also took Hamet’s family hostage. In fear for his life, Hamet fled first to Tunis and then to Egypt. Yusef sat uneasily on the throne, knowing that the Porte and his brother awaited an opportunity to overthrow him. Those were not his only problems.14 

Tripoli was the poorest of the Barbary States and the government’s survival had become dependent on extortion, namely the tribute and wartime privateering policy. Even Yusef acknowledged that reality, stating in 1797 that his aim was to declare war on one nation as soon as he made peace with another. Internal conflicts made matters all the worse. When Americans had paid tribute to avoid trouble, the Barbary silver piaster was interchangeable with the U.S. dollar, except in the case of Tripoli. Yusef had so badly bankrupted Tripoli’s finances that its piaster had been reduced to a small copper coin. By the outbreak of war, one U.S. dollar was trading for 800 Tripolitanian piasters.15 

In this environment, the American blockade worked exceptionally well as it affected little outside the Port of Tripoli. There was no hardship in the agricultural regions, a reality equally true for the pastoral tribes and their caravan trade. For the United States, the war became a conflict limited to Yusef and his followers, and the blockade cost Yusef his primary source of income, forcing him to raise taxes, an act that alienated the population under his control. As if the economic and political difficulties were not enough, Yusef could not count on his military for much help as the situation within the ranks of Janissaries and amongst the ships’ crews was nothing short of dire.16 

Lt Presley O’Bannon. (Photo credit: Naval History and Heritage Command.)
Lt Presley O’Bannon. (Photo credit: Naval History and Heritage Command.)

Tripoli was a feeble military power in the early 1800s. When Yusef declared war on the United States, his navy had seven ocean-going corsairs: 2 frigates, one of 32 and one of 28 guns, plus 5 barks or sloops of 10–18 guns each. The only bright spot was the fleet commander, Admiral Murad, a competent commander who sailed on the seized American vessel Betsy. This compared with 13 corsairs held by Tunis and 18 by Algiers. By the time of the Eaton Expedition, Murad’s diminished fleet was trapped in port and the U.S. Navy’s Mediterranean Squadron under Commodore Samuel Barron containing 6 frigates (220 guns total), 2 brigantines (16 guns each), 3 schooners (12 guns each), and the 10-gun sloop Hornet, sailed offshore.17 

The exact size of Tripoli’s Janissary-khouloughli corps during the war is not known. Given its poorness and the fact that Tunis had an army of 6,800 badly trained and equipped soldiers, Tripoli may have been able to field half that force. Further, because Yusef had alienated himself from the Porte, he could not count on Turkish reinforcements. This limited his ability to defend the country from a land attack. By the spring of 1805, excluding fortress cannoneers, the port of Tripoli garrison was approximately 900 sipahi Janissaries with another 90 each at Misurata and Benghazi. Derne had an estimated 800 defenders, both Janissary and untrained local Arab levees.18 

Derne was an enclave on a coastal plain and passage into town followed the Roman road that was used by Hadj pilgrims traveling to and from Mecca, providing a source of income and information. The Mediterranean coast ran before Derne roughly from east to west with a sloping point jutting slightly into the sea to the northwest and the sheltered port just to the east. To either side of the open shore that abutted the Derne plain, the beaches were shallow and pinned between sea and rocky cliffs. Rising hills surrounded the plain, starting approximately one and a half miles inland from the coast. In the 1800s, the wadi system that had formed the plain consisted of a seasonally dry riverbed that passed Derne to the southeast and emptied into the port along with the main wadi that passed west of town en route to the sea. It contained an aqueduct system that provided water to Derne and the surrounding fields. By 1805, Derne was known as a fertile region, rich in fruits and grains as well as wax, honey, and butter.19 

The population was approximately 7,000 people and represented the social upheavals of the Mediterranean world. Originally a 7th century B.C. Greek settlement, it fared well during Roman times, becoming a bishopric by the 5th century. Following the 7th century Arab conquest, Derne fell into decline and its people were swept up in the Banu Hilal migration during the 11th century. Refugees from Moorish Spain, the moriscos, resettled the abandoned city in the 15th century. As sedentary settlers, communal ties, not Bedouin bloodlines, formed the basis of morisco society. Communities were tied to the farmland, the town, and as it grew, by its quarters that formed de facto sub-tribes. The Bedouins regarded the inhabitants of Derne as outsiders, a people without a tribe, well into the 20th century.20 

The Bedouin tribal leaders were more opportunists than adherents of the Qaramanli regime. Their focus was on herding and trading with Derne and the caravans that operated far from the court intrigues in the Port of Tripoli. They acknowledged the Dey’s authority but were disinterested in politics so long as it did not interfere in their livelihoods. The relationship between the town’s community and the Bedouins was one of uneasy tension. This made Derne’s population dependent on the protection of the Dey, to feel the hand of his rule or misrule, and by 1805, their loyalties were divided between the competing Qaramanli heirs.21 

In Egypt, Eaton formed an “army” after the Ottoman Viceroy provided a letter of amnesty on 17 December 1804. The letter granted permission for Hamet and Eaton to pass the Turkish garrison without interference during what was in essence an invasion of Tripoli. This was a blow to Yusef who had sent an envoy to the Viceroy with the aim of keeping Hamet in Egypt. The envoy returned to Tripoli and upon hearing of Hamet’s plan, Yusef ordered the dispatch of a Derne relief column, a decision that stretched his army to its limit, leaving only 600 sapahis at the port fortress. The column was augmented by Bedouin horsemen and untrained soldiers from tribes of questionable loyalty and, as Derne was on the pilgrimage route to Mecca, Yusef could not keep the movement secret.22 

In February 1805, several hundred Hamet loyalists assembled in the Egyptian desert nearly 300 miles from the frontier. To transport the necessary supplies and weapons, Eaton was forced to hire some 200 camels with drivers from a venal and troublesome Bedouin sheik named Tayyb, who would bring several dozen armed horsemen for protection. This allowed the expedition to travel relatively unmolested and trade with the local tribes for food from the time it departed on 6 March until the 21 April Battle of Derne. The American victory had an immediate and profound impact on the course of the war.23 

Yusef immediately sued for peace. The demand for tribute and a $200,000 ransom proposed ironically on 21 April was withdrawn for a new one with three conditions: first, a $60,000 payment; second, the ending of aid to Hamet; and third, the evacuation of Derne. Tribute would end and Yusef also agreed to the release of Hamet’s family upon the return of Derne, but there was a secret provision that allowed him to keep Hamet’s family hostage for four years even if Hamet quit Derne. The American negotiator, Tobias Lear, agreed and the treaty was signed on 4 June and the secret provision, the day following. The war was over.24 

The expedition was a marked military success. While achieved by the heroics of those who fought there, it was made possible by Tripoli’s social fissures. Culturally, the bifurcation of the society in the 11th century created the caravan system and made the expedition logistically viable, and the Turkish insertion of foreign coastal colonies deepened fault lines and formed a Bedouin society that would indifferently accept outsiders like Hamet and Eaton. Militarily, Tripoli’s poorness and the limits of the Janissary-khouloughli system put Yusef at a disadvantage. Divided loyalties at Derne also meant that Eaton would be sufficiently strong in relative terms. Victory was not certain but not by the risky undertaking indicated by Eaton’s small numbers. Politically, had Yusef not risen bloodily to power or had Hamet not escaped, the entire enterprise would not have been possible. Yusef’s illegitimate rule in the eyes of the Porte also helped, as demonstrated by the lack of aid for Yusef coupled with the Viceroy’s support of Hamet.25 

By themselves, none of these factors ensured success, but together they leveled the battlefield. It was equally true that, had any factorial combination been different, victory at Derne may have proven impossible. The point for military planners is that cultural intelligence or regional knowledge and experience can prove invaluable, and formally integrating cultural intelligence into the planning process can make a difference between success and failure.

Notes

1. The Ottoman’s named provinces for their capital, to avoid confusion; this article uses “Tripoli” to denote the Barbary State of Tripoli. The capital will be referred to as the Port of Tripoli.

2. The author first heard the term “cultural intelligence” in 1993 during a lecture by Gen Anthony Zinni on his experiences during Operation Restore Hope in Somalia.

3. William S. Shaw, The Life of the Late General Eaton (Brookfield, MA: E. Merriam, 1813), 315.

4. Shaw, Eaton, 256; United States Department of the Navy, Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers: Naval Operations including Diplomatic Background, 1785–1807, 450.

5. Shaw, Eaton, 306, 338–340. The ships were the brigantine Argus, schooner Nautilus, and sloop Hornet. Derne was the name used at the time of the battle. Other versions include Darnis (the name given by its Greek founders) and Darnah. Today’s name, Derna, dates from the Roman Era. Its name in Arabic is virtually identical: Dernah.

6. Ramzi Rouighi, “The Berbers of the Arabs,” Studia Islamica, new series, 1, (2011): 81; Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (New York: MJF Books, 1991), 103–104.

7. Hourani, 215. Beylerbey means “commander of commanders.”

8. Hourani, 228; Rifaat Abou-El-Haj, “An Agenda for Research in History: The History of Libya between the Sixteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 5, No. 3 (August 1983), 306–307. “Pasha,” pronounced “bashaw” in North Africa, came from the Persian “padishah” roughly meaning “master king.” Within the Sublime Porte, it was a rank superior to Bey, but in the Barbary States, the local title of Dey or Bey was often retained.

9. Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History (New York: Macmillan, 1994), 45–46. The Turks referred to the “blood tax” process as devserme or collection.

10. Chai-lin Pan, “The Population of Libya,” Population Studies 3, no. 1 (June 1949), 101; K.S. McLachlan, “Tripoli and Tripolitania: Conflicts and Cohesion during the Period of the Barbary Corsairs (1551–1850),” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series 3, no. 3, Settlement and Conflict in the Mediterranean World (1978), 287.

11. Navy, Documents, Volume 1, 207; see World Statesmen-Libya at http://www.worldstatesmen.org (accessed 29 January 2012).

12. Helen Chapin Metz, editor, Libya: A Country Study (Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987), See “Karamanlis,” paragraph 1. Available at http://countrystudies.us/Libya (accessed 15 January 2012). Ahmed Qaramanli was of Albanian descent.

13. Shaw, Eaton, 339; Richard Tully, A Narrative of a Ten Year Residence in Tripoli in Africa (London: Henry Colburn, 1817), 231–233, passim, 329. Accessed at http://books.google.com, 1 February 2012.

14. Tully, 336–337; Chapin, Libya, see “Karamanlis,” paragraph 2; Richard Zacks, The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 (New York: Hyperion, 2005), 110–111.

15. Navy, Documents, Volume 1, 217, 333; McLachlan, “Tripoli and Tripolitania,” 290.

16. Shaw, Eaton, 342–343.

17. Navy, Documents, Volume 1, 300, 315, 368; Louis B. Wright and Julia H. Macleod, The First Americans in North Africa: William Eaton’s Struggle for a Vigorous Policy Against the Barbary Pirates, 1799–1805 (New York: Princeton University Press, 1945), 89; Joshua E. London, Victory in Tripoli: How America’s War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation, (Hoboken: Wiley, 2005), 191. Murad, a convert to Islam, had been born as Peter Lisle in Scotland. The USS Enterprise took the 14-gun corsair Tripoli out of action on 1 August 1801.

18. Shaw, Eaton, 98, 330, 335–336, 348. Misurata is also known as Misrata or Misratah. The composition of the Derne forces was not cited. To crush a similar rebellion by his son in 1817, Yusef deployed fewer than 500 Janissaries (See Della Cella’s Narrative, 8).

19. Hourani, 480–481; Shaw, Eaton, 306; Paola Della Cella, Narrative of an Expedition from Tripoli in Barbary to the Western Frontiers of Egypt in 1817, translated by Anthony Aufrere (London: John & Arthur Arch, 1822), 176, available at http://books.google.com (accessed 28 January 2012); John W. Norie, New Piloting Directions for the Mediterranean Sea (London: J. W. Norie, 1831), 338. Accessed at http://books.google.com/books (accessed 23 January 2012).

20. Della Cella, 177; R.G. Goodchild, “Mapping Roman Libya,” The Geographical Journal,  Volume 118, No. 2 (June 1952), 143, 150; Hourani, 106; Vladimir Peniakoff, Popski’s Private Army: A Legendary Commander’s True Story of World War II Commando Combat (New York: Bantam Books, 1950), 106.

21. McLachlan, 292; Shaw, Eaton, 337, 348, 358.

22. Shaw, Eaton, 283, 293; Joseph Wheelan, Jefferson’s War: America’s First War on Terror, 1801–1805 (New York: Public Affairs, 2003), 267; Shaw, Eaton, 306, 348, 358.

23. Shaw, Eaton, 311, 316–317, 326–327, 336; Navy, Documents, Volume 5; for examples of difficulties associated with Tayyb, see 405, 456, and 470–472.

24. Navy, Documents, Volume 6, 1, 81–82. The ransom was for the safe return of the crew of the USS Philadelphia that had been taken prisoner after the ship ran afoul of a reef off the port of Tripoli on 31 October 1803.

25. Shaw, Eaton, 315, 337.