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.

Talent Management Engagement Platform

Our first step toward a modern talent marketplace

The publication of Talent Management 2030 in November of 2021 was a watershed moment in the Marine Corps’ transition from Industrial Era human capital management to 21st-century talent management. While over the last three years there have been significant efforts at the headquarters level to realize these initiatives, there have only been a handful of tangible results for Marines. The development efforts toward creating a talent marketplace are one such result. These efforts include the award of contracts to prototype two industry-leading marketplace solutions in addition to the release of an internally developed marketplace called the Talent Management Engagement Platform (TMEP). The TMEP has already been released to approximately 30,000 enlisted Marines and officers and is in use for the fiscal year 2025 assignment season.

The TMEP will enable the Marine Corps to reimagine and enhance career management by increasing the transparency of the assignments process, improving the education of the individual Marine on career options and progression, and enhancing agency throughout the assignments process.   

What Is TMEP and How Is It a Marketplace?
A talent marketplace is a platform that enables job seekers to match their skillsets and interests with available job opportunities. Many marketplaces have familiar names, like LinkedIn or Zip Recruiter, which use advanced algorithms to match prospective employees with organizations that can reach out to begin negotiations. Harvard Business Review describes internal marketplaces like TMEP as having two forms.1 The first allows employees to search through job listings while managers search through candidate profiles and when interests align the process moves forward. In the second version, the platform automates the matching process, providing a curated list of recommended matches to the employees and managers. The TMEP is being designed to leverage the best of both internal marketplace types.

The current deployment of TMEP is like the first version of the internal marketplace. Marines can search through available billets to find opportunities that match their interests and desires. Simultaneously, monitors can review the Marines available for assignment and find options that align with their preferences. As the system matures and collects enough data, TMEP will implement machine learning techniques to include functionality more like the second version of the internal marketplace. Here the platform will use available data to align Marines’ skills, education, experience, and necessary career growth with the Marine Corps’ warfighting needs. Regardless of version, TMEP is being developed to support a modern internal talent marketplace rooted in three core principles: education, transparency, and agency.2  

The level of transparency provided by TMEP is unprecedented in the assignments process. Education and transparency often go together since education is nearly impossible without transparency of information. Before TMEP, Marines only had persistent access to their personal service record information, which includes their past assignments, but they lacked access to current and future assignment availability. The TMEP addresses this by providing Marines the ability to access a live update of the same assignment availability as the monitors. This level of transparency allows Marines to tailor their preferences based on current availability. The freedom to change their preference outside of the annual mover’s survey also allows Marines to adapt their career plan as their life circumstances change. The TMEP also increases transparency by providing an asynchronous and persistent communication platform for Marines and their monitors providing continuity even as monitors rotate out of the billet.  

In the current assignment process, a typical Marine has very little agency. They may complete a short survey and have a quick conversation with their monitor, but that is the extent of their input during the assignment process. Increasing the available information creates an opportunity for Marines to educate themselves and have more agency in their career progression.  

The TMEP is a significant step in the right direction to increase transparency and agency in the assignments process and further educate Marines on available career opportunities. While TMEP creates the opportunity for Marines to be more involved in the assignments process, it does not change the priority to meet the needs of the Marine Corps. 

What We See Today
Although most readers had not seen TMEP before the summer of 2024 when access was expanded to 12,000 enlisted Marines and 16,000 officers, the Marine Corps has been working on this effort for nearly two years. In that time Manpower and Reserve Affairs has conducted industry research, created an actionable vision, gathered user inputs, and began building that vision to meet those user requirements. This methodology, called user-centered design, is arguably one of the greatest changes and most impactful actions the Marine Corps has taken when it comes to IT modernization. The TMEP is being designed by and for the user: the Marines and their monitors. The version available today via Marine Online represents the most basic functionality and will serve as the foundation for future iterations still being shaped through Marines’ feedback and ideas.

Today, Marines can log onto TMEP and access the same service data that the monitors use to make assignment decisions. Officers can view their projected move date as well as when they can expect to be on a promotion board and in what zone. All Marines can see a consolidated graphic that captures key information for making career decisions including the ability to see how factors like age, time in service, rank, and children’s school grade levels line up over time to facilitate informed career planning (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Career path display. (Figure provided by author.)
Figure 1. Career path display. (Figure provided by author.)

Instead of being limited to an annual conversation with their monitor, Marines can send direct messages that are archived within the platform. The TMEP also provides Marines the capability to search through available assignments to make a more informed decision on assignment preferences. Marines can see the same availabilities that their monitor sees, including billet descriptions the commands can edit for their specific unit. Registering assignment preferences and communications with a monitor is now consolidated in the same platform monitors use to conduct assignments. This means no more jumping between systems reducing the potential to lose communications.  

What We’ll See Tomorrow
What we see today in TMEP is just the most basic functionality. What TMEP will look like in the future is up to the users of the platform. The TMEP leverages a user-centered design methodology, allowing Marines to inform the requirements and prioritization of future features. Users have already provided some great ideas that have resulted in functionality resident in the platform today.

In addition to improving user experience through feedback, the platform must incorporate talent-based criteria and decision tools. If we are to truly move to a talent-based marketplace, the next step for TMEP must be to identify required skills and talents by billet and register and validate the talent and skills of our Marines. One of the key ingredients in any talent marketplace is the mapping of skills to jobs and people, also known as a skills ontology. Without this mapping, matching Marines to billets will continue to rely on rank and MOS as the primary selection criteria. Mapping skills also clear the way for TMEP to start leveraging machine learning to automate and optimize the assignment process.  

In this instance, the intent of machine learning goes far beyond simple optimization. As the platform learns the various career paths Marines can take, the system will generate dynamic career path options and recommendations Marines can use as a roadmap to reach their career goals. Machine learning would be used to generate a draft list matching Marines to future vacancies optimized based on preferences, priority, and relevant skills. Machine learning will offer Marines a much clearer picture of their choices and how those choices impact their career progression and support monitors in meeting the needs of the Marine Corps.

Summary
Three years after the publication of Talent Management 2030, the marketplace effort is moving at full speed with two contracts and TMEP competing for the future of the Marine Corps’ talent management solution. Assignment processes are being evaluated for business improvement opportunities and the transition to a modern talent management system has begun. This move is long overdue but in no way an indictment of the old systems or the professionals who made it work for so long through sheer will and dedication. In a short time, TMEP made great strides to consolidate information, streamline workflows, and improve the efficiency of the overall assignments process with every additional feature added the Marine Corps’ talent marketplace brings the Commandant’s vision in Talent Management 2030 closer to reality.

>LtCol Peterson is currently serving as the Manpower and Reserve Affairs MITSM Portfolio Manager and Modernization Officer in the Manpower Information Systems Division, Manpower and Reserve Affairs.
>>Capt Figlioli is currently serving as the Talent Management Engagement Platform Product Owner and Project Officer in the Manpower Information Systems Division, Manpower and Reserve Affairs.

Notes

1. Gen David H. Berger, Talent Management 2030, (Washington DC: 2021).

2. Bo Cowgill et al., “How to Design an Internal Talent Marketplace,” Harvard Business Review, May–June 2023, https://hbr.org/2023/05/how-to-design-an-internal-talent-marketplace.

The Eminently Qualified Marine

2024 Chase Prize Essay Contest Winner: Second Place
A satire of and recommendation for the Marine Corps Fitness Report

“A collection of talented individuals without personal discipline will ultimately and inevitably fail. Character triumphs over talent.” 1

—James Kerr, Legacy

“The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.” 2

—Sir William F. Butler

Part 1: The Problem, in Satire
There is a pyramid of Eagle, Globe, and Anchor logos that comprise the Comparative Assessment Chart in Section K of the Marine Corps fitness report. The image is colloquially referred to as “the Christmas tree” for the diagram’s resemblance to the traditional holiday pine. In this portion of the report, a higher-ranking officer, who may not know the Marine very well, will compare the Marine’s value against that of other Marines who the higher-ranking officer also may not know very well. 

At the bottom of the chart is a single logo, mimicking the stump of the tree, where the Corps’ invalids are lumped under the solitary, shameful tag of Unsatisfactory. Those who happen to blunder and slip through the cracks of bare proficiency to rank so lowly against their peers should be separated by a bold double black line to annotate inadequacy and disgrace. 

Above the doomed are the Qualified, who represent the lowest trim of branches that merit holding ornaments. They are the foundational layer of bottom-third talent upon whom those of higher standing rely to buffer against shame. To be qualified is to be relegated to an inference of sub-standard functioning that, while technically satisfactory, must be categorically subjugated and cataloged as a group that has failed. They only did what they were told to do. 

Then, atop the regular folk but just below la crème, sit the masses of the Many Highly Qualified Professionals Who Form the Majority of this Grade. It is quite the epithet, especially considering the phrase portends where most Marines shall be assessed. They have done much more than is to be expected and should think highly of their accomplishments. However, that they have done more that what is expected of Marines. They will find a modicum of success within the organization. 

Next, one finds the proverbial pick of the litter, also known as One of the Few Exceptionally Qualified Marines. These must be the men and women who are charged with keeping bright the shining light atop the Corps’ hill because, without their influence, how will those wide-eyed followers beneath them know the morally right from the objectively wrong? When young boys and girls say out loud to their friends at recess that they want to grow up to be a Marine, this is what they intend.

Still, there is a rank above these do-no-wrongers. At the top of the Christmas tree is another single Eagle, Globe, and Anchor logo. This one is labeled: The Eminently Qualified Marine. It is commonly understood that no Marine truly ranks in this category. It exists to humble us and to let us know that only because the very best of our ancestors were so exceedingly proficient at winning wars was this classification even created.

However, this is not the system that describes human interaction. The pursuit of principled achievement cannot be summed through an exaggerated appellation that has no real definable metric. Who has not woken up on days and felt barely Qualified? Yet, there is no box to tick for One of the Many Who Succeeds in the Daily Conquering of an Inner Demon. Nor is there a category for Unassuming, Yet Expertly Competent. Who is not eminently qualified, sometimes, though having made unsatisfactory errors in judgment and execution, on occasion? 

Nonetheless, the slow, steep climb out of despair starts with one trudging step in darkness. Arguably, this is the hardest step. Marines might better be judged by how far and determined their trek than if they were able to plant a flag on the summit of eminence. The latter is an evaluation of talent; the former is an assessment of character.

As leaders commonly convey, Marines are promoted on future potential rather than past performance. Yet, the current version of the Marine Corps fitness report does little to characterize the potential of individuals. In fact, its sole function is to quantify past performance. The report and its accompanying master brief sheet codify every blemish, categorize every remark, and collate every meritorious phrase, reducing the sum of evaluations into a single comparative number known as a relative value. These values form the proverbial hourglass figure (or lack thereof): the graphical depiction of a career’s worth of reports.

The obvious discrepancy when attempting to shape-ify performance over the length of a career is the lack of nuance regarding the individual. Fitness reports capture performance for instance, and master brief sheets average those instances across a decade or more. Neither provides an evaluation of potential, which, at least colloquially, is the fundamental attribute for promotion (and by implication, denotes character). To avoid propagating the Peter Principle, where Marines rise to their level of incompetence, we must select for potential, within which is an assessment of character, and prepare prospective promotables for future successes.3

Figure 1. Comparative assessment chart. (Source: Commandant of the Marine Corps, NAVMC 10835, USMC Fitness Report, [Washington, DC: n.d.].)
Figure 2. The proverbial hourglass. (Source: created by author.)

Part 2: Selecting for Potential (and by Implication, Character)
The first part of this recommendation, and an easy proposal to make, is an update to the evaluation form. The problem, however, is defining potential. Then, once defined, quantifying it for comparative review. For the former issue, Harvard Business Review identified three general markers of high potential: ability, social skills, and drive.4

At its core, the current fitness report is an appraisal of ability. Essentially, the report is a drawn-out work sample test, where Marines are evaluated based on observations of the tasks that make up their job. That this evaluation is divided into five sections and fourteen sub-sections simply demonstrates the extent to which the individual’s ability (in his current position) is scrutinized. However, when evaluating a candidate for a higher, more complicated position, the capacity to learn “where the single best predictor is […] cognitive ability”5 supersedes the propensity to perform. In this sense, a premium should be placed on education, the ability to acquire new skills quickly, and flexibility in new roles or when making mistakes. Still, beyond a measure of raw cognitive ability, promotion to each successive rank or position requires examination of intangible items related to intelligence. As an example, promotion to a rank of organizational influence or selection for leadership positions should include an assessment for creativity and a knack for systems thinking.6 These advancements should also involve a sense of vision and imagination, items not usually captured in a standard annual report. Moreover, if the Corps is serious about promoting smart Marines, then the organization should test for aptitude as a required element of promotion, command, or school selection. Evaluation of ability, as it relates to potential, requires a rigorous assessment of intelligence. 

Social skills are the core elements of emotional intelligence, another item not explicitly measured when concerning retention, promotion, and selection for advanced programs or leadership opportunities. The core competencies of emotional intelligence, depicted with their relationships in Figure 3, are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. The primary attribute, self-awareness, describes the ability to understand your own strengths and weaknesses and recognize how they impact the team’s performance.7 Related, and perhaps the one item mentioned within the current Marine Corps fitness report, addressed as effectiveness under stress, is self-management. Beyond basic recognition, self-management refers to the ability to manage emotions, especially under stressful conditions. Social awareness closely relates to empathy and can best be described as knowing how to read a room. Lastly, relationship management “refers to your ability to influence, coach, and mentor others, and resolve conflict effectively.”8 The evaluation of these social skills, progressing generally in order of merit as they are listed above, is necessary to qualify emotional intelligence, an important factor in determining potential and assessing character.

An individual’s drive, best expressed in the current fitness report as initiative, is probably the most measurable and the most easily shaped by the environment. To the latter point, and in the parlance of the expectancy-value theory, drive is “motivated by a combination of people’s expectations for success and subjective task value in particular domains.”9 To this end, a Marine’s drive partially belongs to the individual yet is also indicative of a leader’s ability to create expectations of success and valency of the tasks to lead to it. 

Figure 3. Four core competencies of emotional intelligence. (Source: Lauren Landry, “Emotional Intelligence in Leadership: Why It’s Important,” Business Insights Blog, April 3, 2019, https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/emotional-intelligence-in-leadership.)

Part 3: Evaluating through Education
If cognitive ability is the single best predictor for higher-level success within the organization, then a Service-level investment in an individual’s intellect is the best groundwork for collectively preparing cohorts of Marines for selection and promotion. Furthermore, the results of that educational assessment (e.g., class ranking) should inform competitiveness for future opportunities. Within the officer corps, career-level, intermediate-level, and top-level schools require professional military education (PME) for promotion to the respective ranks of major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel. Whether accomplished through resident PME (an allegedly selective process for attendance) or through non-resident education, and irrespective of the Marine’s relative success at the school, accomplishing PME is briefed at non-statutory boards as either complete or incomplete.

While the Marine Corps PME system excels in providing a baseline education to the masses, at least for the officer ranks, it lacks a tool for educational assessment that could advise promotion and selection panels on the potential of a Marine for advancement or command. If resident PME is truly selective, then attending an in-person school program is the first aimpoint for an individual’s efforts to increase his or her value to the organization. It then follows that Marines are incentivized to perform well if they understand that the educational assessment affects career potential.

Beyond baseline educational schools, such as Expeditionary Warfighting School for captains or Command and Staff College for majors, specialty schools aligned to billet or general job descriptions are few and far between. If an infantry captain attends the Army’s Maneuver Captain Career Course (MCCC), then he is well-prepared to be an infantry company commander. Conversely, if the same captain attends Expeditionary Warfighting School, he or she is well prepared to be a staff officer in a MEU. Why is a curriculum like MCCC not mandated for the preparation of incoming company commanders? Why does the student’s evaluation from a school like MCCC not influence whether he or she should be a company commander? These schools, and many like them, become proverbial checks in boxes without any measurable bearing on a Marine’s career.

Figure 4. The new fitness report. (Source: Created by author.)

Part 4: A Recommendation
Character and intelligence ebb and flow over the course of a career, ideally upward, yet the fitness report and the master brief sheet do little to distinguish progress. Evaluations must be adjusted to provide the best picture of the current Marine’s value. Only the last five observed reports should be included in the master brief sheet.

If a fitness report is a tool used to screen promotion and selection opportunities, then its sections must evaluate potential. These sections should include ability (identified as talent and intelligence), social skills (identified as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management), and initiative (i.e., drive).

If cognitive ability is the single best predictor for higher-level success, then resident education should be valued higher than non-resident, and the individual’s evaluation at a PME school should affect master brief sheet percentages. Additionally, skill-enhancing schools should become a requirement for advancement within military occupation specialty fields.

Figure 4 is imperfect and requires a process for normalization within a reporting senior’s profile. Additionally, it does not address the reviewing officer’s markings—but it does provide a better framework for how those markings should be applied. In any case, the current Marine Corps fitness report format is multiple decades old; it is time to accept a challenge to improve.

“The challenge is to always improve, to always get better, even when you are the best. Especially when you are the best.” 10

—James Kerr, Legacy

>Maj Halpern is an Infantry Officer whose previous experience includes deployments with the 22d MEU, FAST Deployment Programs, and SPMAGTF–Crisis Response Africa. Additionally, he spent two years working within the Australian Defence Force as part of the Marine Corps Personnel Exchange Program–Australia. Following, he served as the Assistant Operations Officer for 7th Mar. He is currently the Future Operations Officer for 4th Mar.

Notes

1. James Kerr, Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life (London: Little, Brown Book Group Limited, 2013).

2. Sir William F. Butler, Charles George Gordon (London & New York: Macmillan & Co, 1893). Charles George Gordon served in the British Army from 1852–1885, retiring as a major general. He served in the Crimean War, the Second Opium War, the Taiping Rebellion, and the Mahdist War.

3. “Peter Principle is prevalent in situations where people downplay the aptitude for management when making promotion decisions in organizations. In most cases, promotion decisions are made largely dependent on current performance. Therefore, those who excel in their current roles are promoted to managers despite not having the necessary management skills.” Human Capital Hub, “Peter Principle: What You Need to Know,” Human Capital Hub, May 29, 2023, https://www.thehumancapitalhub.com/articles/peter-principle-what-you-need-to-know.

4. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Seymour Adler, and Robert B. Kaiser, “What Science Says about Identifying High-Potential Employees,” Harvard Business Review, October 3, 2017, https://hbr.org/2017/10/what-science-says-about-identifying-high-potential-employees.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Lauren Landry, “Emotional Intelligence in Leadership: Why It’s Important,” Business Insights Blog, April 3, 2019, https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/emotional-intelligence-in-leadership.

8. Ibid.

9. Robert V. Kail and Campbell Leaper, “Chapter 9-More Similarities than Differences in Contemporary Theories of Social Development: A plea for theory bridging,” in Advances in Child Development and Behavior 40 (Burlington: Elsevier Science, 2011).

10. James Kerr, Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life (London: Little, Brown Book Group Limited, 2013).

Why I Hate Sun Tzu

2024 Chase Prize Essay Contest Winner: Honorable Mention
Reevaluating a supposedly foundational text

I hate Sun Tzu. There, I said it. Go on, make your judgments, roll your eyes, and think: Here we go, this is the same guy who dismissed Plato in Philosophy 101 just to be a shocking contrarian. That is, admittedly, a perfectly reasonable reaction—but let me add some context now that I have your attention.

The Art of War does not offer bad advice, quite the opposite. It has had a profound effect on the 20th century through men like Mao Zedong and Vo Nguyen Giap; that is unquestioned. The Art of War is the definitive work on war in some parts of the world—but not here. The problem with Sun Tzu is two-fold. First, the influence of Sun Tzu is wildly overemphasized in Western military education since The Art of War is a relatively recent addition to the Western strategic canon. Second, his Confucian philosophy is antithetical to the philosophies that shaped the American way of war. Ultimately, Sun Tzu is an outsider whose work has limited applicability to the Marine Corps.

What value does Sun Zi add to the study of the Western way of war? (Photo provided by author.)

New Kid on the Block
Sun Tzu is typically covered first when studying the theory of war. This makes sense, as he is chronologically the earliest great theorist. Yet, when the historicity is considered, Sun Tzu is a relatively recent addition. French Jesuits brought the first translations of The Art of War to Europe in the late 18th century, but when The Art of War entered into the Western zeitgeist is up for debate. Just because translations were available did not mean they were utilized. B.H. Liddell-Hart, whose indirect approach bears some similarities to The Art of War, was already working on his ideas when he was introduced to Sun Tzu in 1927.1 It was Marine Gen Samuel B. Griffith’s translation and commentary alongside Mao’s On Guerrilla Warfare in 1963 that finally brought the text to wider attention in the West. Griffith even observes in his translation’s appendix that, despite European theorists having access to the text, they either had little knowledge or regard for it.2 Sun Tzu did not even make the cut for the definitive Makers of Modern Strategy, first released in 1986, though he did make the cut in the 2023 edition.3

Mediocre translations were certainly a factor in the relative sluggishness of Sun Tzu’s acceptance in Europe; however, likely the most significant factor was the lack of foundational texts whose understanding was a requisite for comprehension. Even today, much of the nuance of The Art of War is lost on Westerners who are not familiar with Confucian philosophy and Chinese history.

Most Westerners are not familiar with their own foundational texts, much less the Chinese ones. However, this was not always the case. For centuries, education in Europe was based on the medieval model’s trivium and quadrivium—collectively referred to as the liberal arts.4 This model drew heavily from the Greco-Roman texts that formalized education and served as a means of leveling the upper class.5 Classical works were pervasive in the development of modern military theory, practitioner Wellington and theorist Clausewitz would have equally dreaded the sentence: Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.6

Intellectually, the Greco-Roman and Medieval worlds were far more influential than Sun Tzu could ever hope to be. The overwhelming majority of theorists and practitioners who shaped our world had no idea who Sun Tzu was. If studying the evolution of Western strategic theory as it developed chronologically, Sun Tzu appears very late—certainly after Clausewitz and Jomini. The ancient classics with their medieval linkages are so vast that scholars frequently forget they are standing on them.

Why Sun Tzu Does Not Belong
The Art of War was a subversive text at the time of its collection. War in ancient China had become increasingly theatrical with battles serving as opportunities for the nobility to display their manliness. Sun Tzu brought pragmatism to war in China. That is precisely the problem, Sun Tzu is the ultimate pragmatist; winning without fighting is a pragmatic goal, not a moral ideal. Restraint and magnanimity in victory are only necessary when the benefits outweigh the cost. People are disposable if it means winning; he lets others do the fighting and suffering provided it leads to victory. Everything is available to Sun Tzu—how you win is of no importance so long as you do. Mao and Giap won their wars in no small part because they were willing to inflict truly staggering degrees of suffering not just on their soldiers but on their own people; safe in the knowledge, it was for their own good. Effectively employing The Art of War requires the kind of hubris that Icarus would briefly appreciate.

This is where Sun Tzu fails to meaningfully contribute to the American way of war or Marine Corps warfighting. His commonsense advice is just that—common. Sun Tzu is certainly not unique, Homer compares conflict to flowing water as well.7 Readers can already learn the value of deception from wily Odysseus, sound campaign preparations from Julius Caesar, and strategic foolishness from Thucydides. Sun Tzu just reads better on a PowerPoint.

What is distinct to Sun Tzu is his cynical philosophical underpinnings that are best suited to equally cynical autocrats seeking to create a world more advantageous for themselves. The difference becomes more apparent when it is compared directly to the Western intellectual tradition that would create the concepts of chivalry and just war. The Art of War stresses the importance of the general as the “bulwark of the state” and “arbiter of fate” which has been an antithetical concept in American history since George Washington.8

Like Liddle-Harts’s indirect approach, Sun Tzu requires a healthy degree of sophistry to intellectually sustain. If you properly observe the techniques, then success is all but guaranteed; failure is the result of not following the proscribed techniques. By this logic, one could argue that Alexander applied the indirect approach when he slashed open the Gordian knot. Just consider the translation convention of terms like Moral Law and virtue, Sun Tzu and Thomas Aquinas are talking about very different things.9 Where Sun Tzu advocates morally relative pragmatism, Thomas Aquinas acknowledges moral paradox. War can be both awful and just. Violent men are expected to control themselves with courtly manners. This is not hypocrisy but the inability to live up to transcendent ideals, much like Clausewitz’s acknowledgment that theoretical total war is impossible. This is why Europe has King Arthur and China has Confucius.

Know Your Self, Know Your Adversary
Science is the handmaiden of philosophy. Therefore, cynical pragmatic philosophy will produce cynical pragmatic means of making war. Sun Tzu would be baffled by Western readers’ negative perception of the Melian Dialogue as an increasingly imperious Athens threatens the small neutral island of Melos into submission; obviously, the weak endure what they must, that is the entire point of being strong! For the most hardened student of realpolitik, it is hard to make a case that Americans are particularly talented at the strategy advocated by Sun Tzu. It has been attempted but rarely with lasting success and never with moral justification. When Americans are at peace, Sun Tzu has minimal applicability to U.S. foreign policy because pragmatism does not win friends.

Two states that actively espouse Sun Tzu will never truly be at peace. Sun Tzu emphasizes attacking an opponent’s strategy. In peacetime, this means undermining the enemy society since the best way to win without fighting is to endlessly prepare for war while undermining your adversary. A state that ascribes to this sort of mentality can have a public policy of no preemptive strikes yet still launch a surprise attack in the name of defense.

Sun Tzu emphasizes a mental model of war versus a physical one; this becomes truly terrifying when it hybridizes with postmodern materialistic philosophy. The pursuit of gaining and maintaining political power becomes its principal goal and is endlessly pursued. Sun Tzu is far more applicable to the challenges of international order, unsurprisingly, the People’s Republic of China. China has recognized that attacking an opponent’s strategy means corrupting their society, which they do through disinformation campaigns on social media, complicity in illicit synthetic opioid exports, and eroding trust in global institutions, such as the World Health Organization. A state that emphasizes undermining its perceived adversary’s societal fabric through deception will have to pay a moral cost as words will cease to mean things and trust corrodes.

What Should the Marine Corps Do About It?
Thucydides should be acknowledged as the intellectual godfather of the Marine Corps; the History of the Peloponnesian War puts tragic the human cost of war on full display. When war is perceived as easy and convenient, reality quickly dispels this notion at a terrible cost. Society breaks down when pragmatism is ahead of ideals. The fact humans are unable to achieve permanent peace does not make the ideal less worthwhile. Wars should be fought with the intent to create a better state of peace, wars of pragmatism rarely accomplish this. Thucydides paints an imperfect world that is worth living and fighting for, the world of Sun Tzu knows no leisure.

Sun Tzu should be studied and comprehended in the same way that Mao’s Little Red Book should be kept handy. No reasonable person could argue about Mao’s effectiveness as a leader; he achieved his political objectives and was one of the most consequential leaders of the 20th century. Yet, this came at the cost of ruthless purges, grinding campaigns, and mass starvation but on a scale that most Americans can barely comprehend. The current generation of the Chinese Communist Party helming China are the heirs of that tradition. Whether they appreciate it or not, Americans are crusaders. Brilliant crusaders. Whether crushing insurrections to end slavery or ending the terror of an authoritarian dictator; when Americans go to war with ideals and strategic alignment—they get the job done regardless of the cost and blood.

Sun Tzu is commonly referenced because it is easily referenced, pithy quotes that apply to everything. The Western classical tradition is more difficult to digest but offers a much richer understanding of humans in conflict. Thucydides is a grind, both textually and spiritually, and it should be—comprehending war should not be easy or convenient. The works of Homer and Thucydides are ostensibly sad, life is hard, and war is tragic but that is only because deep down they understand that it should not have to be this way. Understanding the rage of Achilles, the despair of Odysseus, or the whole tragedy of the Peloponnesian War offers a far more realistic view of humanity in conflict because of its longing for a better world that is denied to them. They can only see the silhouettes that are created by a luminous perfect form. They are focused on the light; Sun Tzu is focused on the shadows.

Sun Tzu’s current place in the Western strategic canon is poetic, his introduction is far more recent, yet he is the most recognizable and more often quoted. The West Point Civil War generals fought because of Jomini, the Prussian generals fought because of Clausewitz, and both of whom are footnotes when compared to the influence of Thucydides. Sun Tzu has truly won without fighting.

>Maj Stephens is the Course Chief for the Logistics Intelligence Planners Course at the Marine Corps Operational Logistics Group in Twentynine Palms, CA.

Notes

1. Sun Tzu, Art of War, translated by Samuel Griffith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971).

2. Ibid.

3. Gordon Gecko cites the text in 1987’s Wall Street if that is any indication of public awareness.

4. For a concise description of the medieval liberal arts, see the Dorthy L. Sayers essay “The Lost Tools of Learning.”

5. Thomas Ricks, First Principles (New York: Harper, 2020). 

6. “All of Gaul is divided into three parts,” The (in)famous opening line of Julius Caesar’s campaign in Gaul.

7. Homer, The Iliad, translated by Robert Fagles (New York: Penguin Books, 1990).

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.