Responses to “Fighting in the Real World”

by Maj Frederick J. Whittle

Bravo zulu to Maj McKenzie. His article represents some new and original thinking on a subject of great interest to all Marines. Synchronization concepts have a place in our warfighting toolbox, and I am pleased to see that the debate over their role within our doctrinal structure has been kicked off by such an insightful, thoroughly sound article. I’m sure he will now be the subject of a “full court press” by dogmatic maneuver-warfare theorists, but I don’t think they’ll erase the significance of what he’s written. Good job-and keep writing!

by Capt Judith A. Orr, USMCR

Thanks to Maj McKenzie for pointing out that synchronization is not necessarily incompatible with either maneuver warfare or Marine air-ground task force operations. He reminds us that the danger is not in the adoption of methods aimed at improving the commander’s understanding of the battlefield or improving the allocation of limited assets, but in becoming a slave to a method and its products. By helping the commander make rapid and accurate decisions on the battlefield, commander’s preparation of the battlefield (CPB) and intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) may enable a commander to achieve one of the two qualities Clausewitz views as indispensable-coup d’oeil-a term that Clausewitz adopted to describe sound decisions taken in the midst of action.

It does not matter whether the process is called synchronization, CPB, or IPB; all that really matters is that the process reflects the commander’s intent and is flexible enough to describe a confusing and changing battlefield. Techniques for synchronizing battlefield operations are not new to warfare or the Marine Corps. Operations orders, landing plans, beach assignments, fire control plans, and on-call targets are all techniques used to help commanders at all levels to better coordinate combat, fire support, and combat support activities. When properly used, they allow a commander to bring the full force of his combat power to bear against the enemy; they can help him make rapid and accurate decisions. Used incorrectly, synchronization can tie the commander’s hands. The art is to not contuse technique with tactics or doctrine. Synchronization is simply a technique to help the commander to develop a tactical plan. Maneuver warfare is doctrine.

by Maj William T. DeCamp III

Maj Kenneth F. McKenzie delivered an open-minded, forward-thinking, intellectual, and articulate application of synchronization and its concomitant parts to maneuver warfare. In fact, Clausewitz would have been the first to admit that friction in war does not render unnecessary an attempt to create “inharmonious harmony” (Horace) through the construction of artificial arrangements to help clear the fog of war-even if the creation of such order were simply a figment of the commander’s imagination. If friction is reduced and a sense of order created through the processes of synchronization, intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB), battlefield activities, battlebooks, etc., so the commander’s coup d’oeil intuits or perceives activities on the battlefield whose forms or patterns he recognizes from those he previously envisioned in his mind’s eye; and if these activities are developed and metamorphosed during the course of battle, so that the commander anticipates the enemy’s next move; and if he acts relatively faster than the enemy (inside the enemy’s OODA loop) to achieve victory-then who is Bill Lind but a rigid ideologue, whose arguments hinge on a nonsequitur that equates use and abuse of a tool (synchronization). He is too busy counting angels on the head of his maneuver warfare pin (and pricking us with it) to see the laser clarity of the McKenzie logic and its potential for victory in mortal combat.

Guderian and Synchronization

by Capt William S. Jesson

In his March article on synchronization, Maj McKenzie suggested that effective implementation of the principles of maneuver warfare doctrine requires reliance on “a body of techniques and procedures grouped under the umbrella heading of synchronization….” Below is a sampling of initial reactions. In addition, the editorial board is now considering three lengthy manuscripts prompted by the article, which obviously touched a sensitive and important point. Look for more on the “Synchronization Debate” in future issues.

Maj Kenneth F. McKenzie’s article “Fighting in the Real World” (MCG, Mar94) deserves high praise for attempting to work the broad, generally agreed upon, conceptual ideas of FMFM 1 into what will be vigorously debated procedures/techniques for use in the “Real World.” I bought the author’s logic on most points, however, I take exception to his statement that Guderian‘s XIX Corps attack at Sedan was an example of synchronization. I wish to offer a brief historical description of the 1940 campaign and make some conclusions on the issue of synchronization.

The breakthrough at Sedan can be analyzed at two levels. At the operational level, the attack through the Ardennes by Army Group A and XIX Corps was the main effort, although deceptively cloaked at the time. This is an example of synchronization when it is taken in context with the noisy, attention-grabbing secondary attack conducted through the low countries by Army Group B. However, the tactical conduct of the Meuse crossing and the follow-on actions of XIX Corps do not fit the synchronization paradigm.

An infantry regiment of the 1st Panzer Division attacked across the Meuse, near Sedan, without artillery or most of its engineer support. Ground combat support was delayed due to traffic congestion along the Ardennes corridor. Only massive Luftwaffe support silenced the French guns covering the crossing points and enabled an infantry assault to gain the high ground. The German infantry boldly continued the advance at night to enlarge the bridgehead without armor, artillery, or antitank gun support. This opportunistic stroke preempted the effectiveness of the next day’s counterattacks and opened the road to the channel ports. Would this fleeting opportunity have been lost if the crossing attacks were delayed to organize a combined arms attack that met the prerequisites of synchronization?

On their march to the sea Guderian‘s units formed combined arms teams to defeat piecemeal French counterattacks (battlefield activities). As the tank-infantry teams were outpacing their competitors in a risky advance behind enemy lines, Guderian had to fend off (in somewhat of a disobedient manner) numerous attempts from Army Group A (von Rundstedt) to slow the advance. This loss of “nerve” at higher headquarters was really a conservative tendency to grasp at synchronization in order to deal with the increasing level of uncertainty that was caused as lines of communication lengthened.

As XIX Corps neared the channel ports from the south, von Brauchitsch, Commander in Chief of the Army, transferred Guderian‘s Corps to Army Group B, which was nearing the coast from the east. This would have synchronized the pincers around the Allied pocket. However, Hitler, who was visiting von Rundstedt’s headquarters, countermanded this order. Von Rundstedt then ordered the panzers halted under Hitler’s authority. XIX Corps was unleashed 2 days later with Army Group A regrouped and in a better position to orchestrate the effort. This critical 2-day delay enabled the miracle of Dunkirk.

The cautious von Rundstedt, focused on synchronization within his own command, sought to protect his flanks, rear, and resources (XIX Corps) from the Allies and other friendly commands without grasping the opportunity presented the organization as a whole. His influence may have clinched Hitler’s decision to switch the effort to Air Marshal Goring’s Luftwaffe at Dunkirk. Hitler and Goring have received the preponderance of blame for a decision that was made against a backdrop of disunity among Army leaders. Would an intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) process have modified the behavior of the Army Group A commander?

I see the debate on synchronization as the “intellectual tension” Maj McKenzie describes. I think it can be characterized as tension between decentralization and centralization at various levels of command. Decentralized control allows such brilliant tactical and operational maneuver as was displayed at the Meuse crossing and the race to the sea. Centralized control is necessary for obedient and unified application of force, which was demonstrated successfully by the use of close air support during the Meuse crossing, but was unattainable at the strategic command level as envelopment pincers closed in on the Dunkirk pocket. Only a vibrant and trust-filled culture can enable an organization to maker proper judgments on decentralization/centralization issues when the chaos of war distorts the “real” situation. Synchronization is a tool for centralized control that is especially useful in staff planning and can be used within the dynamics of a campaign only when necessitated by external factors (exploiting enemy weaknesses, battlefield opportunities, etc.). Synchronization used as a tool to comfort internal phobias and appease internal political pressures will erode the potential effectiveness of maneuver warfare doctrine.

Keeping Up With Maneuver Theory

reviewed by Maj Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.\

Maneuver Warfare: An Anthology edited by Richard D. Hooker, Jr., Presidio, Novato, CA, 1993, 414 pp., $35.00. (Member $31.50)

This is an eclectic collection of 21 essays dealing with maneuver warfare. It is organized somewhat loosely into three parts: “The Theory of Maneuver Warfare,” “Institutionalizing Maneuver Warfare,” and the “Historical Basis 7of maneuver Warfare.” It is an excellent one-volume source for much of the thinking behind maneuver warfare. It is useful regardless of a reader’s position on the value of maneuver warfare, because it makes much of the current literature readily accessible.

The authors are principally serving Army officers and defense academics. Followers of the maneuver warfare debate will recognize the work of William S. Lind; LtCol Daniel P. Bolger, USA; and Col James McDonough, USA, among others. Interestingly, Col Michael D. Wyly, USMC(Ret), and Maj Brace I. Gudmundsson, USMCR, are the only two Marines to contribute to this collection.There are no Navy or Air Force authors. An examination of the excellent footnotes-there are 554 in all-reflects no citations from the Marine Corps Gazette, ajournal that through mid-1993 had published no less than 50 articles on maneuver warfare.

Marine readers may want to ponder why this is so. Can it be that Marines have little worthwhile to say on the subject, or is it that the debate has moved beyond the Corps? Whatever the reason, it surely suggests that much of the maneuver warfare debate-so important to Marines-may be taking place outside the Marine Corps and away from its professional journal.

On balance, these essays do a good job of describing some of the major positions surrounding maneuver warfare. Their tone may be a little pretentious; some have the portentous zeal of proselytizers converting the masses. There is only one “anti” essay provided for critical balance, that of LtCol Bolger, whose sustained withering attack on the maneuverists stands conspicuously alone, yet is so powerful it needs no reinforcement. What this book does not do is provide a unitary, congruent group of essays. Maneuver warfare, it seems, is clearly in the eye of the beholder, and every beholder has his own vision. There is no consensus. Perhaps the best summary definition of maneuver warfare is found in Gen John R. Galvin’s introductory essay:

Maneuver warfare, as a concept, is a way of thinking about the purpose of engagements, battles, campaigns, one that asks the question, How can I seize and hold the initiative, stay ahead of my enemy’s ability to think and act, dismantle this enemy, cause his collapse, take him apart?

While there are many schools of thought on maneuver warfare, the feet that this collection of essays has been published bodes well for future open debate on this absolutely critical subject, and in that we find this book’s great contribution-it encourages independent critical thought and analysis by Marines. It is unfortunate that so few Marines participated in its preparation.

Marines should read this book. They should also read the excellent articles in the Gazette-some by these authors-on the same and allied subjects. Most important, they should write. This debate over the utility of maneuver warfare and its associated concepts is too important for Marines to leave to our Army comrades and a few defense intellectuals.

Fighting in the Real World

by Maj Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.

. . . courses of action are wargamed using the enemy situation predicted by the intelligence preparation of the battlefield. Critical decision points are identified based on key events that support synchronization and mission execution.

FMFM-3, Command and Control

Through an evolutionary doctrinal process, the Marine Corps is reestablishing the primacy of the Marine air-ground task force (MAGTF) command element (CE) as the principal warfighting headquarters at all levels of the air-ground team. Concurrently, the Corps has introduced a body of techniques and procedures grouped under the umbrella heading of synchronization, all designed to more effectively implement the principles of our maneuver warfare doctrine. Few challenge the reassertion of the MAGTF CE’s primacy. On the other hand, some critics have expressed concern over the introduction of synchronization principles as enabling tools for maneuver warfare.

There seem to be two general schools of criticism. William S. Lind, an early proponent of the maneuver warfare concept, holds that the concept of synchronization categorically is incompatible with maneuver warfare. In the October 1993 Marine Carps Gazette, he says, “Intelligence preparation of the battlefield, battlefield operating systems, and battlefield activities, etc., all flow logically from synchronization, which is to say they are all incompatible with maneuver warfare.” A second criticism seems to be based simply on the fact that, originally, synchronization was an Army concept, thus insufficiently naval in outlook.

Maneuver warfare is the doctrine of the Marine Corps. It provides broad guidance and a rationale for our style of combat. In brief, it is part of our Service culture. On the other hand, synchronization is not a doctrine, but is rather the umbrella principle associated with a number of techniques and procedures first introduced by the Army in AirLand Battle in 1982. These procedures include intelligence preparation of the battlefield, the battlefield activities, and battlefield geometry. The crux of the issue is this: Do these techniques and procedures support maneuver warfare, or do they destroy it from below, by introducing irreconcilable contradictions?

In order to examine this issue, it is necessary to look at synchronization in light of our own maneuver warfare doctrine, as outlined in FMFM 1, Warfighting; FMFM 1-1, Campaigning; FMFM 1-3, Tactics; and FMFM 3, Command and Control By defining synchronization, placing it in historical perspective, including the charge that synchronization is the French methodical battle recast, one can gain insights beyond the rhetoric and superficial political opposition to an Army concept. In fact, synchronization can be a powerful tool for the commander, and one we can use to answer our own unique Marine requirements.

Maneuver Warfare

As outlined in FMFM 1 maneuver warfare is the Corps’ broad operational concept for how and, most importantly, why we fight the way we do. FMFM 1 describes an environment of friction, uncertainty, fluidity, and disorder. To achieve success in this environment, two principles are key: concentration and speed. “Rapid, flexible, and opportunistic maneuver” is used to gain a relative advantage over an opponent who is struggling within the same chaotic environment. The target is more the foe’s cohesion than the material integrity of his forces.

Written in a clear, straightforward style, FMFM 1 and its companions on campaigning and tactics provided a brilliant foundation for subsequent refinement of supporting procedures, techniques, and tactics. The development and implementation of synchronization concepts is the first real attempt to build on this foundation in a formal sense.

What Is Synchronization?

Synchronization is the integration of combat, combat support, and combat service support systems in time and space to obtain a sum of combat power that is greater than the simple addition of individual parts. It is a body of techniques and procedures that support our style of combat. LtGen John H. Cushman, USA(Ret), writes in the July 1993 Naval Institute Proceedings that

. . . synchronization is supposed to mean bringing to bear at one time and place the combined power of maneuver, artillery, air, deception, and other means so as to strike the enemy again and again with massed power greater than the sum of all the parts. It is the essence of combined-arms teamwork.

Commanders at all levels synchronize their efforts to accomplish the mission. At the strategic level, the elements of national power-economics, diplomacy, and military strength-are integrated. At the operational and tactical levels, commanders work within the construct of a coherent set of functions intended to optimize the interplay of the various elements of warfighting power. These are collectively called “battlefield activities” in the Marine Corps, and “operating systems” in the Army.* At Officer Candidates School, candidates learn to establish a base of fire on an objective and to shift and then lift it on signal. They arrange for the displacement of the supporting fire team forward and conduct resupply and reorganization on the objective. At the lowest level, this is the synchronization of fire, maneuver, and logistics-a structure that operates within the chaos and friction of the battlefield.

Coordination and synchronization are not synonymous; there is instead a hierarchical relationship. The commander’s intent and concept of operations outlines his synchronization: what he envisions doing with his fire, maneuver, logistics, intelligence, and other activities. This directs vertical and lateral coordination, which then becomes a tool to attain an end-the coherent application of combat power. In situations where there are more opportunities than assets, broad synchronization will focus and enhance limited combat power. As a general principle, synchronization springs from the commander’s concept of the battle. As noted in the Army’s 1992 draft FM 101-5, it creates a “critical path of concentration and priorities,” defining the main effort. Here, a danger must be seen and avoided: This path must not become a one-way street that brooks no deviations. In the largest sense, synchronization is an ongoing analytic process that provides a methodology for shaping, not scripting, efforts within the chaotic environment of combat.

By design, synchronization is not time-driven; instead, it is event-driven and anticipatory. Critics who argue that synchronization treats men like “stopwatches,” and ties all maneuver units to the pace of the slowest, like yoked oxen, simply do not understand its essence, which is the integration of functional battlefield activities, a much broader and deeper process than merely issuing movement orders. Nor does synchronization imply the lockstep massing of forces. Instead, it envisions possible paths to obtain decisive mass and tempo at the proper time and place. Critics of synchronization are actually-and rightly-attacking scripting, which is an attempt to choreograph action with a rigid timeline. Attempts to link actions on the battlefield to time almost universally fail.

Synchronization can be abused to manifest both a “dress right” approach to maneuver and a rigid timetable. Today, some believe that in the Army there is evidence that the process of synchronization may subordinate critical thought and the role of the commander as decisionmaker to a rigid ballet of execution that cannot deal with a fluid battlefield. If true, this is a valid criticism. In the Marine Corps, the overarching culture of maneuver warfare will prevent this. The greatest threat to synchronization is a commander who is unable to accept uncertainty as his handmaiden in battle.

Conceptually, synchronization is counterpoised against agility and initiative. This dynamic tension is created by the conflict between what is planned and what actually happens. Tension like this is inherently good, and a robust tactical doctrine will always feature a contrast between order and understanding on one hand and initiative on the other.* Reconciling these competing imperatives, each of which is fully justifiable within its own particular logic, is T. E. Lawrence’s “kingfisher flash,” the essence of the operational art.

The commander holds two competing ideas in his mind as he plans and executes combat operations: on the one hand, order, understanding, control, and the lure of certainly; on the other, creativity, spontaneity, and the uncertainty of opportunity. The ability to reconcile these concepts effectively over time varies from commander to commander, but ongoing synchronization makes it easier to define critical issues and expedite decisions. This balancing test is at the center of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s observation that the best test of intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in one’s mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

Through the medium of commander’s intent, a plan’s “branches” are developed during the planning and wargaming process, preparing units for possible rapid changes in situation, mission, and status. Concurrently, potential “sequels” are identified that enable the staff and commander to coordinate battlefield activities for future operations. The entropic nature of combat will challenge all plans, but a planning and analysis structure that recognizes the inevitability of change will be able to accommodate these occurrences. Commanders must recognize that fleering opportunities will arise, requiring immediate and perhaps unanticipated action (e.g., recon pull).

Commanders direct battlefield activities in order to carry out tactical plans. As events unfold, the tactical situation will erode the initial synchronization of effort, and the commander will have to adapt to new and ever-changing situations. However, the recognition that battle is a dynamic, chaotic activity is part of the synchronization process.

How Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) Fits In

The commander is aided in rapidly reassessing and modifying plans by his IPB, a process that has continued since before the operation began. In close collaboration between the commander and his operations, intelligence, and logistics officers, the battlefield is subjected to an exhaustive terrain analysis, with particular attention being paid to mobility corridors, key terrain, and chokepoints. Applied to this is a doctrinal template of how the enemy may choose to fight, based upon his doctrine and the terrain. From these two elements comes the situational template, an analysis based on the factors of mission, enemy, terrain, troops-time, or METT-T. It is updated constantly throughout the fight. Typically, commanders seek to know the most likely and the most dangerous enemy courses of action.

As part of this ongoing effort, a variety of information, decision, and execution aids are created, based upon the commander’s intent and the concept of operations. These aids, all designed to enable rapid adjustment of the commander’s vision of the unfolding battle, provide and organize quantitatively. Often, the situation precludes the development of all IPB products, forcing the commander to prioritize his requirements. In any event, the products of IPB are less important than the IPB process, whose purpose is to maintain a relentless focus on the enemy.

IPB requires intimate interaction between the operations, intelligence, and logistics officers and must be coordinated by the commander. It is particularly useful in wargaming potential courses of action, both enemy and friendly, during the development and execution of a plan and lends itself to rapid, continual updates as the situation changes. IPB helps to identify opportunities for decisive friendly maneuver, while tightening the observation-orientation-decision-action loop through continual analyses of enemy options. It cannot be a substitute for the commander’s decision, reached through analysis and the spark of intuition, but it can help make his decision an informed and rapid one.

Is Synchronization the Methodical Battleand What Is Methodical Battle?

Critics of synchronization often argue that it is only the French bataille conduite or methodical battle of the interwar years expressed with modern weapons. The doctrine of methodical battle reflected two French lessons from World War 1: the dominance of the defense, and the superiority of fire over movement. It was spawned in the peculiar culture of a victorious French military establishment, revolted by the casualties of 1914-1918.

In the 1920s and 30s, this doctrine deemphasized maneuver, controlling it with rigid phase lines, elaborate reporting procedures, and the centralization of virtually all assets under higher level commanders. Attacks were conducted in phases, each defined by the establishment of a mathematically modeled density of artillery. It was above all a cautious, defensively oriented doctrine, one that reflected France’s grisly experience in World War I and her limited manpower pool. It was further compounded by the fact that the exposed location of her critical industrial areas and mineral fields forced her to fight on the frontiers. Politically, the Army could not afford to surrender the ground necessary to create maneuver opportunities.

As new weapons of greater range and mobility were introduced in the 1930s, the French Army forced them to fit the methodical battle model, rather than changing doctrine to encompass the new technology. The French Army rejected the German World War I success of infiltration tactics, believing the latter attributable to the use of elite formations and refusing to credit them as an idea worth copying. The methodical battle was a style of war ready-made to be ravaged by the decentralized execution. rapidity, and shock of formations such as Guderian’s XIX Corps, which spearheaded the German breakthrough with a synchronized attack at Sedan.

The methodical battle is not synchronization, at least in the Marine usage of the term. They cannot fairly be compared. Methodical battle was a philosophy of war inextricably wedded to the defense, firepower, and resistant to rapid, decentralized maneuver. Synchronization in the Marine Corps context encompasses a set of techniques and procedures designed to enhance performance within the chaotic battlefield envisioned by the philosophy of maneuver warfare.

More akin to the methodical battle was the U.S. Army’s “active defense” of the 1970s-the predecessor of maneuver warfare and AirLand Battle. The methodical battle and the active defense both embraced concentration, the supremacy of the defense, and centralized control. Maneuver warfare was, and is, a reaction to just this view of combat.

The Real World

What does all this mean for Marines? Wars are not fought in sterile, academic settings. Military forces today must deal with not only the factors of METT-T, but also very real political considerations that promise to intrude to even the lowest tactical levels. This may not be good, but it is a fact of life. Not all engagements are fought on terrain like a billiard table, where freewheeling gnostics can implement frictionless plans in an airy, structureless environment. There are limitations that operate on even the most profound genius. In the real world, synchronization is a method that will identify potential limitations and possible work-arounds.

For Marine forces operating from the sea, in immature theaters with minimal infrastructure, synchronization concepts may prove to be very useful in a number of areas, particularly in the realm of logistics. We are a force that must integrate amphibious assault forces, maritime prepositioning ships, and strategic airlift into a coherent plan. The limiting actor in many littoral operations will be our ability to supply the landing force ashore, while standing up prepositioned equipment with its troops. Synchronization will identify limiting factors, and suggest alternatives, not only as part of the planning process but also in execution.

Marines are pragmatic people. To us doctrine is not theology, we are agnostics, tending to shun a comprehensive doctrinal structure and opting for whatever seems to work best for a particular situation. In maneuver warfare we have a concept for fighting, a clear philosophical paradigm within which to operate. But philosophy, however clear and lucid, cannot in and of itself provide all the conceptual ammunition a large military organization needs to fight. Too much structure leads to dogma, thus choking initiative; yet doctrinal anorexia-a studied disdain for the tools of doctrine-can also be dangerous. Appropriate tools, techniques, and procedures to give shape to maneuver warfare doctrine are found in synchronization, IPB, battlefield activities, battlefield geometry, and their allied concepts.

These concepts, however, do not represent a philosophy themselves, rather a body of procedures that support the commander within the mission-orders, high-tempo world of maneuver warfare. Synchronization is ideally suited to support maneuver warfare, if practiced by thinking, skeptical Marines who do not become slaves to the process and maintain the spark of intuition and aggressiveness that no system of war can provide. Command in war is and will remain an art.

There is no reason to shun ideas merely because they originate elsewhere-a second criticism of synchronization. Using this strange proprietary logic, it was wrong for the Marine Corps to scour the Pacific battlefields after World War II, bringing vast quantities of formerly Army equipment to Barstow-equipment that proved vital in Korea. There’s no natural law that says that all good ideas must come from within the Marine Corps; we should get them wherever they are found and adapt them to our own purposes.

The introduction of synchronization concepts into our doctrine of maneuver warfare is helpful, not hurtful. When applied with perspective, avoiding the extremist positions on both sides of the argument that demand an “all or nothing” approach, synchronization becomes a powerful enabling tool that translates the ideas of maneuver warfare into procedures and techniques that can be used in the real world: the world of friction, violence, and uncertainty. In this world, even Moltkean geniuses must grapple with sleep deprivation, chemical protection gear, “the reasonable promptings of fear,” and the death of comrades, all while controlling the levers of an increasingly complex machine. To reject synchronization categorically is to invite a judgment pronounced on the French Army in World War II: “. . . too pedantic, too theoretical, and not practical enough; their doctrine was more suited for the classroom than for the battlefield.”*

Notes

*The MEF has seven battlefield activities: command and control, maneuver, engineer operations, aviation, fires, intelligence, and combat service support.

*Wayne P. Hughes, Fleet Tactics: Theory and Practice. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 1986. p. 29.

*Robert A. Doughty, The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919-1939. Archon Books, Hamden, CT, 1985. p. 187.

FMFM-1, Warfighting

by Capt Robert J. Muise

Two articles in the October issue-those by Maj Philip E. Knobel and Maj Robert S. Trout-criticize FMFM-1, Warfighting and call for its revision. I disagree with the basic premise of both articles. What FMFM 1 does not provide, and rightly so, are formulas for success, formulas for task organization or force structure, and details for weapons and equipment procurement. The bottom line is that there is no bottom line.” What I find interesting is the difficulty that many Marines have with this concept. Also, interestingly enough, from my experience as a teacher in the Marine Corps University, lieutenants have the least difficulty grasping the basic tenets of Warfighting.

Maj Trout praises the Army for its me of FM 100-5 as a “doctonal template” because it was capable of “engineering a tactical success into a deep operational turning movement to meet its mandated strategic goal.” When considering the commander’s intent and the focus of effort, which were aimed at the Republican Guards (a stated center of gravity), a close examination of the “successful” turning movement clearly demonstrated that it was too slow, too shallow, and ultimately 0indecisive. As was the case with counterinsurgency, the Army again appears to have had difficulty understanding the requirements and demands of its own doctrine.

The greatest failure of FMFM 1, in my opinion, is that it assumes that the Marine Corps’ “culture” is capable of changing. The Corps’ fondness for systems and processes and its “this is the way we do it” attitude are formidable institutional barriers to the acceptance of FMFM 1. FMFM 1 requires Marines to think “outside of the box.” Maj Trout’s comment about the tailings of FMFM 1 to provide guidance on weapons procurement is just such an example.

FMFM 1 requires Marines to seek creative solutions to unique problems through innovative ideas and actions. These ideas and actions are to be nurtured at the lowest level-those closest to the problem. Initiative is coordinated through the commander’s intent. The criteria for success is decisiveness. FMFM 1 also demands that we consider the enemy’s perspective. This “outward” focus is extremely difficult for us to adopt.

Consider the use of the U.S. Army Rangers against a pitifull band of thugs” in Somalia. Rangers are an elite unit, but one bound by their own dogmatic approach and insistence upon established techniques. They proved to be an inappropriate tool and unable to completely focus on the enemy. There is a lesson in this somewhere.

There are those, Martin van Creveld in particular, who are discussing a “fourth generation” of warfare-a generational shift that will pose asymmetrical problems requiring unique, nontraditional solutions. Our present fondness for the “methodical battle” has made it difficult for us to grasp the concepts of maneuver warfare, a third generation approach to warfighting. The obvious question remains: “How can a second generation military adjust to a fourth generation war?” Our difficulty accepting the concepts of FMFM 1, as indicated by these two articles, leaves me with little hope.

by 1stLt William B. Henry

* I think it is important to take FMFM-1, Warfighting for what it is-a simple manual that teaches those of us in the profession of arms that there is more to warfighting than slugging it out with the enemy.

In order to be better warfighters, we need to understand the politico-military realities that dictate military action. We need to learn how to thrive amidst the chaos of a battlefield and use it to our advantage. And above all, we should constandy and consistently reevaluate our combat techniques and tactics to ensure we are the best in our profession!

FMFM-1 is probably the best guidebook for military thought ever published with- in the U.S. military. In remarkably concise terms, it provides a great jumping-off point for further discussion, debate, and planning. Much like the commander’s intent in an operation order, it sets the tone for future and more specific doctrine.

I think it would be a mistake to replace FMFM-1 with a manual that outlines a joint staff planning sequence, “provides guidance for weapons procurement, or dictates a particular force structure” as suggested in the October Gazette. All of these functions are more appropriately dealt with in specialized reference publications.

FMFM-1, Warfighting prescribes an attitude with which to plan and conduct combat operations. Let’s not lose this focus.

At the Forefront of Tactical Thought

by Col Michael D. Wyly, USMC(Ret)

It is well that two articles appearing in the October 1993 Gazette (“Revise FMFM-1, Warfighting,” by Maj Philip E. Knobel, and “Dysfunctional Doctrine,” by Maj Robert S. Trout) recognize the need to change FMFM-1, bring it up to date, and keep it relevant, useful, and at the forefront. For even as we worked on it in 1989, we feared that, like previous doctrine, FMFM-1 would become ensconced as sacred and beyond criticism or modification. The omnipresent danger of doctrine is that it will inhibit needed change. Every new structure begins the process of erosion and decay the moment it is formed.

The benefit of FMFM-1, as originally written, was that it added four important new dimensions to our fighting style: (1) action by subordinates without waiting for orders; (2) dependence on judgment instead of methodology; (3) emphasis on speed more than control and on substance more than form; and (4) focusing outwardly on the enemy (and the entire surrounding situation, including civilian populace) more than inwardly on our own organization These new concepts were alien to our Marine Corps culture when I entered commissioned service in 1962. They remained so until we were well into the 1980s. But now that FMFM-1 has made them doctrine and they have been assimilated by a large number of Marines, we have gained tremendously in terms of fighting power.

So long as our equipment keeps pace with technological development, our new tactical concepts enable us to keep ahead of any enemy whose soldiers are less able to think independently than our own. This ought to mean all of the Third World. Our new tactical concepts uniquely equip us to overpower swift-moving, elusive guerrillas, as well as conventional forces with the latest technology and weapons.

Majs Knobel and Trout’s October articles are encouraging because officers are thinking, but discouraging because the thought appears only as entries in the Chase Essay Contest, a contest that rewards “boldness and daring.” That is, thoughts about changing doctrine are categorized as radical thoughts, just as they were in the days of the pre-1989 doctrine. Thoughts on changing doctrine continually ought to be the mainstream priority at Headquarters Marine Corps and Quantico, as well as in the Fleet Marine Force. Even before FMFM-1 was signed, I had a file of proposed changes in process. Where is the file now, I wonder?

I would take issue with the notion expressed in one of the two October articles, where its author contend that we should modify our doctrine to conform to the latest U.S. Navy and Joint Chiefs of Staff doctrine. To predicate Marine Corps tactics on another Service’s methodology, “senior Service” notwithstanding, would drive us back to the habits of the pre-Vietnam years, the very habits that slowed our ability to deal with the new kind of war that faced us. That is, the internal focus, or the lining up of one of our own organizations with another. The outward focus, to which FMFM-1 introduced us, predicates our actions on the situation that we are faced with. That is, our tactics would be dictated by awareness: awareness of the enemy, our surroundings, and unpredictable new faces of war.

As stated on page 69 of FMFM-1, Warfighting:

We should base our decisions on awareness rather than on mechanical habit. That is, we act on a keen appreciation for the essential factors that make each situation unique instead of from conditioned responses.

Another questionable feature of one of the articles in the October issue is the suggestion of a return to the principles of war, for whose rote memory the acronym MOOSE-MUSS was invented, toward what useful purpose no one has ever articulated. One need only look to the principles’ origin, as told by their originator, to appreciate the absurdity of their having dominated our doctrine for so long. It was 1919 when the British Army first took note of the work that J.F.C. Fuller had begun on his own in 1915, developing the list of “principles.” No sooner did the British Army incorporate the list into doctrine than the U.S. Army and Marine Corps followed suit. Fuller continued to work on and change his list over the years, based on his continuing study of war. His list had grown from six principles he authored in 1912 to nine, which the Army incorporated. Eventually it reached a height of 19 principles before descending again, down to 3, then to “economy of force” alone; and, at last, by 1929, to zero.

Fuller finally concluded that his “principles” were not principles at all, and rejected the whole idea, regretting that he had caused the entire British Army to forsake professional study to memorize his list unthinkingly, as if it were a ritualistic prayer. Meanwhile, we see military bureaucratic behavior at its worst. Ensconced into “concrete,” the principles remained in U.S. doctrine for 64 years, even after the British had abandoned them by 1980.

When I was on active duty the list of “principles” that were not principles served only to stymie thought. Can a list of words that speaks of “mass” but omits “dispersion” be principles? Is “speed” on the same level of importance as “economy of force” and “unity of command,” when speed alone enables us to shift from mass to dispersion and back again when the changing situation demands?

And herein lies one of the flaws in FMFM-1 that needs to be fixed. “Concentration and speed,” it says on page 31, “are two concepts of such significance and universality that we can advance them as principles.” Yet, speed seems decidedly more important, certainly for successful maneuver. And why should concentration be elevated above dispersion? Perhaps it ought to have been in Clausewitz’ time-and the “concentration and speed” idea came from Clausewitz’ On War when it was written into FMFM-1. The Brown Bess musket and its contemporaries, after all, had to be massed, or concentrated, to be effective. Many modern weapons do not.

I have to assume a certain amount of personal responsibility for Clausewitz’ concentration and speed being in FMFM-1, as they are. However, to take them out again, I remember, was first in my file of proposed changes for revision.

FMFM-1 needs to be revised in order to move beyond Clausewitz and his era. It needs to reflect the requirements of situations like Somalia, where the main excuse given for the defeat of American infantry was, pathetically, “We didn’t have the tanks.” Tanks were hardly the solution; better intelligence and better tactics were.

Action without orders, dependence on judgment, emphasis on speed and an outward force can be clarified well beyond FMFM-1’s expository. They can be expressed differently, revised, or added to. In the process of writing this article, I have done a synthesis of my own in order to extract what, after 4 years, seems to me to be the essence of the changes of 1989. These four ideas, however, more than any others, are what brought us out of a long period of tactical stagnation. To hold to FMFM-1 as if it were Holy Writ, would be to repeat the mistakes of our predecessors. Yet, to crawl back to the trenches of the nine “principles,” or to start all over from scratch, would demonstrate a real fragility in Marines’ confidence in their own contribution to the art of war.

Studying Squad Tactics

by Col Michael D. Wyly, USMC(Ret)

How encouraging it is to see that the Gazette continues to publish articles on the all-too-often neglected tactical level of war-right down to the squad! In the August 1993 issue, Capt Daniel J. O’Donahue’s “The Last 300 Yards” and Army Maj Richard D. Hooker’s “Light Infantry Assault Tactics and the Night Attack” were usable grist for the squad leader’s mill. After years of hearing, “But down at the squad level it’s all the same, whether in maneuver warfare or the stuff we used to do . . .” some of our young lions in the Army and Marine Corps are pointing out how much is indeed different.

Both pieces imply a central idea that lies at the heart of the change from old to new. But neither author brings it out explicitly. I first caught sight of it in Vietnam when it began to be evident that much of what we had gotten in training was obsolete in modern combat. I noticed it first in the behavior of squads and squad leaders. Capt O’Donahue alludes to it briefly when he says, critically, of our premaneuver tactics, “The emphasis [was] on inward control.”

In training, riflemen had worried most about keeping the formation, while squad leaders concerned themselves with controlling their Marines’ spacing and speed of movement. Focus was inward. But in combat, focus was outward. Riflemen scanned the terrain and so did squad leaders.

Clearly, what we were called upon to do in combat, including the “last 300 yards,” was quite different than what we had been called upon to do in training. When I finished a 29-year career as an infantry officer 2 years ago, however, I was still too often seeing in training the behavior my Marines in Vietnam had rejected.

Next time you are in the field, notice a squad in action. First, look at the squad leader. Are his eyes on the terrain before him and around him? Is he looking for targets and danger areas? Or is he watching his men, trying to catch the eye of a fire team leader and give him a hand signal? Most often, you will find his attention divided between the two. He glances anxiously outward, then, signals to the fire team leader to move forward or to stop and wait for others to “close up.” Perhaps he looks behind him and directs the fire team following to fall back a little, and then shifts his attention to some particularly dense foliage to his front that might be hiding a well-camouflaged enemy.

Notice the squad members. Are their eyes and rifles fixed on their surfoundings, searching for opportunities to kill and disrupt? Or are they looking backward, toward their squad leader, trying to find him, watching for his signal directing them where to go, where to look, and at what speed to proceed? As with the squad leader, the chances are that you will find riflemen torn between two conflicting claims to their attention.

A fundamental difference between maneuver warfare and what we used to do, and between my Marines’ style in Vietnam and what we did in training, is that in maneuver warfare and the real thing, focus is outward on the enemy and surroundings. But more essential, in combat, their attention must be undivided. Often in Vietnam we talked to one another about the importance of concentrating all our senses on the enemy. “Getting into his head,” we called it. We shared stories about the strange intensity of our senses in combat. My Marines even believed the enemy would feel it if they looked at him directly. “Never look at ’em in the eye when they come in the kill zone,” they counseled. I doubt the enemy could really feel my Marines’ eyes on them, but obviously my Marines were aware of their heightened senses and the importance of keeping them tuned and focused.

So you have, on the one hand, the outward-focused squad of 13 men, together, doing what the ever-changing situation demands, each one out to undo the enemy. And on the other, you have 13 men, wary of their surroundings, but concerned with transmitting and receiving the squad leader’s commands and keeping the squad under control. The difference may sound subtle, but actually it is stark.

In Vietnam, squad leaders departed from the doctrinal “Be wherever you can best control your squad” and customarily moved toward the fronts of their units. Control was not the issue. Awareness was. Awareness of surroundings. So it is in maneuver warfare. (See page 69, FMFM 1.)

In Vietnam, squad leaders depended on their Marines to be alert and move into opportunities without waiting for orders. It was the squad leader’s job to be there with the point man or whoever first met the enemy. It was the squad leader’s job to exhort and encourage, to send for help if it was needed, and to make sure his Marines moved on and got fire out, sometimes more “out of control” than “in control.” More important than keeping them under control was the squad leader’s task of keeping them in action. And, by being up front, he was lending his own eyes and ears as the most expert “hunter” in the squad.

Likewise with squad members, all eyes looked outward for the enemy, not inward, waiting for a signal or to get the formation right. The worst situation imaginable would be for their attention to be divided in any way. Only the enemy counted. The squad leader was secondary once the squad moved out because he had done his job. And he could be depended upon to do it again the moment the enemy appeared. If the mission wasn’t understood before the squad moved out, it was unlikely it would be conveyed in the midst of a fire fight. So riflemen were guided by the unfolding situation upon which their survival depended.

Grenadiers and designated automatic riflemen, focused to the front but vulnerable in other directions, required protection. We found this was best provided by a buddy system, not unlike wingmen in aerial combat, assigned to protect attack aircraft from enemy fighters. Again, this mission-who would protect whom-was understood before moving out. Combat unfolds too quickly for the squad leader to signal a formation change in hopes of protecting vulnerable elements. But focus for both the “assault men” and “wingmen” was outward-toward the enemy. The wingman positioned himself according to the movement of the Marine he was protecting, but he followed his moves as a secondary matter, never slackening his attention toward the enemy. After all, the threat was the enemy, wherever in the 360 degrees around the assault man he might appear. It was the enemy’s position that had to be pinpointed. The exact positions of the Marine assault man and his wingman were unimporant.

The well-trained squad can operate this way. The squad leader depends on his men to be in the right place, to set the pace, to find targets, and to attack them.

In Vietnam, replacement riflemen spent weeks discovering what was demanded of them. Noncommissioned and junior officers were ill equipped to articulate it. What we saw before our eyes, and came to understand intrinsically, had not been part of our training. We knew it was there; we knew what our Marines had to do and we told them. Had we been trained in advance, we could have explained it far better. As it was, we said, “Keep your eyes and ears open and watch; you’ll learn.”

What we need to be doing now is radically changing the training we give at the most basic levels. From the moment he first puts on the uniform, the new Marine must know that his primary function is to act and that he must direct his attention to the enemy, that unless he does so he lets his squad down and he doesn’t survive. That was the lesson in the infantry squads of Vietnam. It is also the central difference, so far as the rifleman is concerned, between maneuver warfare and old-fashioned tactics.

In the days when riflemen armed themselves with semiautomatic weapons and when we were willing to fight a slower moving methodical battle, Marines may have waited for orders and kept formation in combat. Though even still, I wonder sometimes if World War II and Korean War veterans fought according to the methods in the manuals we were given when I came in the Corps in 1957 as a private. What I know for sure is that by 1965, when we went to Vietnam, those manuals were obsolete, and most of them being used today, e.g., the FMFM 6 series, still are. Happily, now that Marine noncommissioned officer schools have been formalized, the new training can be quickly instilled at the tactical level. But if we are not teaching it to recruits and officer candidates, then we are waiting too long. If the recruit and officer candidate’s first lesson is to wait and obey, then he is learning lessons he must unlearn the first time under fire.

Discipline must be stricter than ever. But modern combat demands proactive Marines at the lowest level, not Marines who let someone else think for them.

Such training is necessary to enable Marines to do the kinds of things O’Donahue and Hooker propose. With the old training, which emphasized formations, control, and awaiting orders from a central authority, we were reacting to the enemy’s initiatives, and never doing it quite fast enough. Interestingly, it was down in the squads and platoons that young Marines finally broke the Viet Cong’s “code” and learned to fight as their enemy did, only better.

Training that imbues initiative is the starting point for enabling all of FMFM 1’s philosophy, and, in particular, the kind of assaults and night attacks proposed in the August Gazette. Consider infiltration, which Hooker writes about in his treatment of the night attack. Capt O’Donahue takes us up to the enemy lines but not inside. Nevertheless, I think his plan for the attack would likely include an infiltration, or at least we can call it that if one of his small units breaks through and enters before the other units do, a possibility which he allows for in his article. Whether or not we use the term “infiltration,” the assault in maneuver warfare becomes an endeavor to get in as close as you can-inside the position if possible. And both authors are correct that it cannot be done well through centralized orders dictating fire and movement. Riflemen have to make decisions as they go. But it is essential to realize that infiltration-especially night infiltration-can only be achieved through training of the sort I have described, where squads are equipped to fight as a team, all focusing outward.

The Viet Cong were masters of infiltration, and we would be neglectful not to learn from our enemy. Indeed, he failed to dislodge us from our positions; however, this must not be interpreted as a condemnation of his tactics. He lacked the reserves to come in and hold on to the terrain where he wreaked hovoc, and more important, lacking any aviation whatsoever, he well knew he had to be out of there when the sun came up.

But the lesson the Viet Cong’s tactics offer is that once inside our enemy’s position, we can anticipate a change in his behavior. A paralysis sets in. Having viewed it from the standpoint of the defender, I can attest that when your troops think that maybe even one enemy is in their position at night, the assumption is quickly made that there are multiple intruders. With this in mind, leaders who believe they are infiltrated are less inclined to move from man to man and encourage them. The prospect of being mistaken for the infiltrator becomes distinctly real. My point here is that the tactic of getting a small assault force inside an enemy position, as O’Donahue and Hooker suggest, is extremely powerful.

Once Viet Cong were inside U.S. positions, they seemed totally focused on seeking targets of opportunity. Centralized command and complicated control measures to prevent fratricide were left behind at the American perimeter. There was no luminous tape on their backs or flashed signals of recognition. Distinguishing friend from foe had to be done intrinsically by noticing the Vietnamese manner of running and walking compared to the American, language, and shape of headgear. And it worked. The lesson is clear: Only troops who are good at acting on their own are good at operating inside enemy positions or close to the enemy in any role-as attacker, defender, or infiltrator.

Through the course of two tours in Vietnam, I watched Marines discover these subtleties. Discovery occurred at the lowest echelons and seldom went very far up the chain of command. We failed as often as we succeeded in applying the lessons, progressing through a process of trial and error. But what we were beginning to see was that in the age of the universal issue of fully automatic assault rifles, a more outward-focused fighting man was demanded. (Capt O’Donahue states that a “squad equipped with only assault rifles can deliver 6,000 rounds a minute during the last 300 yards.”) The methodical tactics of our predecessors had seen their day. When I left Vietnam for the last time in January 1970. we were a long way from maneuver warfare and ideas of shattering an enemy’s cohesion. But in the form of decentralized tactics, high dependence on individual initiative, and outward focus, we had the necessary beginnings.

Dysfunctional Doctrine: The Marine Corps and FMFM 1, Warfighting

by Maj Robert S. Trout

1992 Chase Prize Essay Contest Honorable Mention

The fact that we teach it means we believe it. If we teach it and don’t believe it. we’re all frauds. If we teach it and we believe it. then we must buy the weapons that make it work and write the manuals that say how to use the weapons that make it work.

-Gen William E. DePuy, USA

Unlike the ongoing equipment modernization process, doctrinal development has remained stagnant. Thus, as the Corps faces the next century, it does so with 1990s weapons and 1970s doctrine-completely forgetting that even the best weapons can be rendered impotent by improper employment. The root causes of the Corps’ dysfunctional doctrine lie in two areas. First, a capstone manual that is amorphous and not solid enough to support a foundation for future development; and second, a doctrinal development process that thus far has been unable to produce a utilitarian and pragmatic doctrine.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff define military doctrine as a set of fundamental principles by which military forces guide their actions in support of national objectives. Doctrine is authoritative, but requires judgment in application.

FMFM 1, Warfighting announces itself on the first page as being both doctrine and the authoritative basis for how we fight. Eschewing formulas, it is the capstone doctrinal manual of the Marine Corps. Enclosed within its 74 pages is a mixture of maneuver warfare concepts. Clausewitz, and Sun Tzu. All are carefully blended to expand on the well-founded nine principles of war* that have guided U.S. military thought since 1921. It purposely does not contain specific techniques or procedures, but instead provides broad guidance in the form of concepts and values.

The principles of war are fundamental to doctrine, but they are not doctrine in and of themselves. It is an attractively deceptive argument to believe that broad guidance in the form of concepts and values, based on the principles of war, is doctrine. It is not. Doctrine must be constructed by the organization and include those attributes that are unique to the force that is building it. Each organization has a different view of its cultural heritage, subordinate span of control, and junior leadership. It is these special attributes along with the principles of war that make up a military organization’s doctrine. If this were not so, every military force would look and perform in an identical fashion. What separates the successful militaries of the world from the defeated is not the principles of war, but how they blend and bend them into a particular style of warfare-into doctrine.

To succeed on the battlefield, Marines need solid doctrinal underpinnings. This is particularly important in giving commanders and subordinates on the battlefield shared assumptions that enable them to know intuitively what others might be doing under the confused pressures of combat. Warfighting with all its generalities does not provide this, nor does it provide guidance in four other areas that are doctrinally related to an organization’s warfighting ability.

First, it does not provide guidance on weapons procurement. Given the relative sophistication of today’s battlefield, it is vital that the Corps continues to acquire advanced weapons. It is equally vital that those weapons “fit” into the organization’s doctrinal style of warfare, in order to magnify the capabilities of both. Without a specific doctrine, a weapon is merely purchased to fill a gap or perceived need. There is a difference. One method speculates on what the organization and the weapon together will do to the enemy. The other method is centered on just the weapon, regardless of who employs it or how it is employed.

Second, Warfighting doesn’t explore force structure. Military organizations design their forces around their doctrine and equipment. Their style of warfare determines the size and capability of not only the combat forces, but the combat support and combat service support formations as well. All are structured and integrated to display the organization’s warfighting ability to its best advantage. A dated or unclear doctrine indicates that the organization employing it is not clearly structured and therefore not fully combat capable, regardless of its weapon suites. Poor doctrine also indicates that a force deploying modern weapons will not be able to properly maintain or employ them to their maximum potential.

Third, doctrine alone is useless unless training and education can instill the necessary standards of performance. Doctrine sets these educational and training standards. It also ensures that there is a link between education, training, and battlefield realities. Doctrine also provides the educational and training laboratory in which to test new equipment and methods outside the unforgiving arena of combat. Additionally, a thorough education and training process not only teaches doctrine, but is itself a pathway for doctrinal change.

Fourth, a well-written capstone document should serve as a foundation for subordinate doctrine. It has the dual purpose of stringently examining current practices while simultaneously serving as a base for tactical and technical innovations. It also ensures that the organization’s tactical and operational concepts are interrelated and mutually supportive. A successful capstone document is the Army’s Field Manual 100-5 (FM 100-5) Operations. Revised in 1986 to present AirLand Battle doctrine, it serves as the basis for all Army warfighting field manuals. Its precepts were the chief cause of victory during Operation DESERT STORM. Using FM 100-5 as a doctrinal template, Central Command was able to engineer a tactical success into a deep operational turning movement to meet its mandated strategic goals.

As the authoritative basis for how Marines fight, Warfighting is woefully inadequate and fundamentally flawed. It does not provide the necessary guidance that is needed to glue weapons acquisition, force structure, education and training, and subordinate doctrine together. Furthermore, Warfighting ignores the attributes that are unique to the Corps, and are our greatest strength-a balanced combined arms team, integrated air support, tactical excellence, and the ability to quickly task organize. Nor in its generalities, does it furnish the operating forces with a battle-tested, lucid method of waging war. The flaws in Warfighting, grave as they are, are only a symptom of a larger and more intractable problem-the doctrine development process.

If the development of combat doctrine is used as a test, the Corps has failed. Established in 1984 to write doctrine, the Doctrine Center-now the Doctrine Division-has yet to produce a doctrinal capstone manual written for a force preparing for war. Warfighting is not adequate nor is its companion manual FMFM 1-1 Campaigning. In Campaigning, the Corps’ preeminent publication on the operational level of war, less information is contained on the employment of Marine aviation than in a like manual, FM 100-15 Corps Operations, published by the U.S. Army (11 lines versus 4 pages).

Not only has the Corps’ doctrine development process failed to publish a pragmatic doctrine, it has also failed to update or upgrade those “doctrinal” manuals that are obsolete. For example, FMFM 6-1 Marine Division, last updated in 1988, contains numerous organizational errors and contains absolutely no information on light armored infantry or how the division operates in the rear, close, and deep battle areas. However, it contains no fewer than 14 pages on how to mark a railroad flatcar.

A process that publishes ambiguous doctrine and allows years to pass without doctrinal upgrades needs to be changed. Three specific changes that are needed include greater involvement of the operating forces in the doctrine writing process, ensuring that a group and not an individual writes the doctrine, and insisting that the developed doctrine be pragmatic.

The U.S. Army brought the whole force into its doctrinal writing process. The idea of the French peasant’s proverbial “pot of soup,” i.e., a mix to which new ingredients were continually being added for the general benefit, was fostered. Involving the whole force also had the effect of crystallizing doctrinal theories into valid and workable concepts. Unworkable or nebulous ideas would never be acceptable to the frontline units, who had a say in the matter. This not only created interest within the operating forces, it also made the subsequent introduction and adoption of new doctrine easier. The Army made it a point to consult with its soldiers down to the battalion level about proposed doctrine. When was the last time the Corps consulted its officers, and in particular its experienced staff noncommissioned officers in the operating forces, on new doctrine?

When the whole force is consulted on a new doctrine, a facilitator and not necessarily an author is needed. While supervising the writing of the revolutionary Stormtroop doctrine, Gen E. F. Ludendorff, Deputy Chief of Staff of the World War I German Army, saw himself as a doctrine coordinator, not as an author. As such, he emphasized a group effort in writing doctrine. Appointing a group of junior officers (majors and captains) of various occupational specialties to do the actual writing, Ludendorff coordinated their efforts with the various staff sections. The group ensured, through its mix of occupational specialites, that battlefield concepts were both workable and supportable. The result was a remarkable document that not only met the German Army’s immediate needs, but later served as the doctrinal foundation for the blitzkrieg operations used in World War II. The writing of Marine Corps doctrine compares unfavorably to this practice, and may account for the dearth of information in Marine Division on deliberate breaching operations, an engineer/ infantry task.

Both the German and the U.S. Armies dealt with the pragmatic. They were concerned with winning the first battle of the next war. A solid doctrine was seen as a means to do this. To this end, both produced capstone doctrines that encompassed both proven and conceptually proven methods. This attempt to articulate specific and useful ideas is in direct contrast to the Corps’ cautious retreat into vagueness.

Incorporating the above changes into the Corps’ doctrinal development process can be done easily and cost effectively. Consulting the operating forces by a simple phone call or a liaison visit can put these forces back into the doctrinal loop. Requiring Fleet Marine Force concurrence on new doctrine can have the same effect.

Collocated with the Doctrine Division at Quantico are the Senior SNCO Academy of the Marine Corps, the Amphibious Warfare School, Communications Officer School, Command and Staff College, School of Advanced Warfighting, and the Marine Corps War College. All are composed of experienced Marines of various ranks and specialties. It would be a simple matter to consult them, or to require their involvement, in the formulation of doctrine. Gen John H. Russell successfully did this during the 1930s, thereby producing the amphibious doctrine that was used to devastating effect in World War II.

The first step in achieving a pragmatic doctrine is to recognize Warfighting and Campaigning for what they are. Both contain useful information that can serve as a foundation for doctrinal development, but in themselves are not doctrine. Neither document is written in enough detail to serve as the capstone manual for the Corps. Their publication as training circulars-a Reader’s Digest version of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz-would be more appropriate. Retaining them as existing doctrine creates a barrier to future doctrinal development. Use them as an educational tool, not as doctrine.

If it is to maintain its battlefield edge into the next century, the Corps needs something it currently does not have. It needs a pragmatic warfighting doctrine-a doctrine written by a group of Marines of diverse operational backgrounds in close consultation with the operating forces and coordinated by the Doctrine Division. Its key doctrinal tenets should be practical, achievable, and supportable. It should build upon the principles of war and upon those attributes that have been crucial to the Corps’ success in the past-employment of balanced combined arms, integrated air support, tactical excellence, and the ability to quickly task organize. These measures will give the Corps a viable doctrine that will have an immediate use today and will serve as a doctrinal foundation for tomorrow. With an adequate doctrine, effective forces can be deployed. With an inadequate doctrine, a military force and a nation are courting disaster.

Revise FMFM 1, Warfighting

by Maj Philip E. Knobel, USMCR

1992 Chase Prize Essay Contest Honorable Mention

FMFM 1 Warfighting was published in 1989 as the foundation document that would set a new direction for Marine Corps doctrine. It was well received and widely regarded as a useful “short, concise, lively, and easy to read” guide to a new style of warfare. But even from the earliest days some believed it had shortcomings that would undermine its effectiveness as the fundamental statement of Marine Corps warfighting philosophy (MCG, Nov89). Now 4 years later, as the articles below illustrate, criticism continues and some believe revisions are overdue . . .

FMFM 1, Waifighting is the Marine Corps’ stated doctrine. By publishing fundamental principles to guide its actions, the Marine Corps made substantial improvements in unifying its organization and to its effectiveness. Waifighting is both a statement of intent and an aid to thinking, communicating, planning, and executing. It serves as the official acceptance of the maneuver style of warfare, and its packaging and distribution evidently were the model for the later development of Joint Pub 1, Joint Warfare of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Because doctrine is authoritative and requires judgment in application, its statement in a document such as Warfighting should be comprehensive and accurate. It should be easier to arrive at better decisions using the doctrine. However, a significant body of experience indicates that as written, Warflghting is incomplete, misleading, or has been superseded. For good reasons we plan and fight differently than we say we will.

To be plain, we fight better than our doctrine. It is time to fix that by revising Warfighting.

Ground Rules

The purpose of the current Warfighting is to provide broad guidance in the form of concepts and values and to establish maneuver doctrine unambiguously. The doctrine expressed should be:

consistently effective across the full spectrum of conflict, because we cannot attempt to change our basic doctrine from situation to situation and expect to be proficient.

A revised Warfighting should support the same broad guidance while providing a more general and effective description of how we prepare and fight.

What causes changes in doctrine? Changes in national policy, relative national strength, or capability derived from technology can stimulate fairly rapid changes in doctrine. Changes in human nature and psychology are slower, so doctrine should be expected to remain more stable in these areas.

The target audience remains the same, however. It consists of Marine officers and staff noncommissioned officers, other military leaders, elected and appointed officials, and interested members of society. The broad range of the audience is intentional, since all are concerned with maintaining the Marine Corps as an effective organization. Effective writing will make its guidance understandable to the full audience.

Publication of Joint Pub 1 and “. . . From the Sea” change the situation for Warfigltting. These two “senior” documents and establishment of the Naval Doctrine Command provide a framework into which Warfighting must now fit. This is not to say that unique Marine aspects should be abandoned or diluted. On the contrary, they should be explained well and strengthened while fulfilling the intent of the senior documents. The broad audience and the necessity for judgment require logic, clarity, and supporting rationale.

The purpose of this article is to look at specific areas where improvements are needed.

The Object of War

From the beginning, Warfighting is influenced heavily by Carl von Clausewitz’ On War. This is understandable, given the seminal nature of the work and the strong emphasis that On War receives at the war colleges. Warfighting defines the object of war to be the imposition of our will on our enemy. This is a straightfoiward development from the hostile characterization of war and also serves to introduce the maneuverist maxim of “orient on the enemy.”

But another statement from On War is provided in Section 2: “War is an extension of policy by other means.” This is much closer to our system of civilian control of the military. Along these lines, serious defense reform efforts have been taken to rationalize command structure, planning, and employment by linking policy rigorously to execution. Joint Pub 1 states that the object of war is to win. In this context, we can see that the object is to realize policy goals and establish a desired condition at the termination of hostilities.

The difference between the views is crucial. If the object is to impose our will, then we risk subordination of national to military goals. If the object is to achieve national goals, then appropriate means can be apportioned and other elements of national security brought into play. Consistent with the National Military Strategy and much of the rest of Warfighting, we should adopt the latter view.

Better Emphasis

To be complete and accurate, four areas require better emphasis in the revised Warfighting:

Mission. At any level the externally assigned mission dominates preparation and action. Specific means are provided to accomplish the mission and constraints in area, timing, or actions are imposed. Within this framework commanders and staffs detail plans and identify additional necessary actions. In fact, externally imposed constraints on risk often determine the style of operation to be performed. Warfighting does not acknowledge the primacy of the assigned mission.

Because of these constraints, the Marine Corps may not be able to adapt a doctrine that exclusively demands a maneuver style of warfare.

* Estimates. To fulfill a mission responsibly, evidence of military judgment must be made tangible. Estimates are the means a priori to show the results of judgments, and a number of techniques have been developed to prove and improve estimates and resulting plans. We all can agree that comparison of objective factors does not represent a complete estimate. Yet words such as “combat power,” “multiplier,” and “optimum” are found throughout Warfighting, indicative of some basis of comparison. The “Combat Power” section makes clear, however, that relative comparison and description of its elements are undesirable. Perhaps this stems from an emphasis on the intuitive.

Military judgment is developed through education and experience based upon individual aptitude. The basis of our actual estimating process and its use in developing military judgment should be described.

* Transitions. Transitions from one mode of operation to another are central to Warfighting. Whether changing tempo, shifting the main effort, modifying task organization, or changing from attrition to maneuver style, the ability to make a smooth transition quickly minimizes risk and improves our effectiveness.

Operational and strategic transitions lie at the heart of various proposals to restructure the military’s operating forces. How well one trusts our capability to execute such transitions seems to determine where one stands in the “forward deployed” to “surge from the United States” spectrum. Expeditionary Marine air-ground task forces (MAGTFs) have demonstrated the transition from zero to a full operational capability to the world. That they can sustain themselves while supporting entry of additional units is a decisive advantage on the scene and in the Washington battles. Smooth command and control transitions between smaller and larger MAGTF headquarters and joint task force headquarters remain to be demonstrated to an equivalent level.

The revised Warfighting should explicitly discuss transitions within Marine Corps operations and in combined and joint settings.

* Joint Operations. Joint operations were not central to the initial development of Warfighting; they are today. Both domestic political reality and the fragmented international order will require contributions from more than one Service to achieve national goals.

“. . . From the Sea” states an intention to link air, land, and naval warfare to ensure truly joint warfare. A revised Warfighting should describe how the Marine Corps should fit into a joint operation.

Overemphasis on ‘Maneuver’

A key aspect of Warfighting is that it prescribes the maneuver style of warfare as the Marine Corps’ doctrine. To meet the challenge described in Section 4, we need to be able to exploit a range of options. The mission and situation may limit or constrain courses of action, so current practice is to operate using a range of styles adaptable to the situation and its timing requirements. Stated differently, Warfighting is ignored under certain conditions because a strict maneuver concept is not generally appropriate. A significant portion of the differing professional opinions between the maneuverists and the “firepower tribe” stem this reality.

The means used to establish maneuver warfare as the dominant style in Warfighting appear to be unfair and arbitrary. Unfair because the attrition examples are evidently lacking an equivalent level of judgment and subscribe to literal interpretations of Clausewitz. Arbitrary because neither logic nor experience lead from the statement of the problem to selection of maneuver warfare. The argument presented is basically that effective maneuver is better than ineffective attrition.

Examination of the first three phases of DESERT STORM’S air war shows attritionist behavior while I Marine Expeditionary Force’s Ground Combat Element was confined to Saudi Arabia. The national goals of inflicting damage and recapturing terrain are described as attritionist objectives. So the situation, the buildup, and the national goals all required a portion of the war be fought in the attritionist style. Evidently we are both attritionists and maneuverists as the conditions suit us.

Part of the problem lies in the limited definition of maneuver warfare that is provided, a definition that combines gaining positional and temporal advantages and that apparently limits supporting arms to suppressive roles. Another part of the problem stems from misinterpretation of history and technological change. Maneuverists did not clearly envision the consequences of precision guided munitions well targeted at known locations. The problem is not that we cannot trust naval gunfire, rather that we cannot trust indiscriminate fires of any type.

Overstatement of maneuver’s benefits and of attrition’s drawbacks weakens our ability to use doctrine as an aid in judgment. As a tool to overcome the ineffective bombing campaigns in Vietnam and to convey a point of view to senior civilian leadership, such overstatement may have been effective. However, a lack of balance hinders the document’s usefulness.

The Presentation

Warfighting’s effectiveness in communicating both a philosophy and an intent is governed by its presentation. The structure of factual information in Sections 1 and 2 followed by prescriptive information in Sections 3 and 4 supports the reader’s understanding. The use of examples to achieve desired goals communicates ideas well as in “Command Philosophy” and “Mission Orders.” The uniformity and consistency of the presentation can be improved to the same high level throughout.

Providing new principles of war gives a new perspective, but an opportunity to link them to the well-known and accepted set used in Joint Pub 1 is missed, as is an opportunity to communicate to the wider audience. Terms should be used in their common military sense or be consistent in use of specialized meanings. Use of buzzwords such as “shape,” “gap,” and “force multiplier” cloud the message. Since Warfighting wants to avoid approaches based on formulas, it is contradictory to think of “optimizing.”

The marketing phrases “nation’s force in readiness” and “nation’s rapid response force” likely belong in another document. The offensive remark about the Navy should be eliminated.

Recommendations

* First, as the naval doctrine is established, Warfighting should be revised, reissued, and given broad distribution. An opportunity to communicate broad guidance in this manner is invaluable to this widely dispersed organization and to supporters within and outside the Government.

* Take advantage of our operational experiences and change the balance to reflect the use of a fighting style appropriate to the situation.

* Maintain the strong points of “Philosophy of Command” and “Focus of Effort” and provide additional examples such as found in “Mission Orders.”

* Address the impact of joint operations as well as other omissions in the mission and estimates discussions.

* Finally, an effective editorial review can identify internal inconsistencies and deliver a more coherent document.

Summary

Using a short book, such as Warfighting, to communicate common concepts, values, and a common doctrinal basis is a good idea and can improve the Marine Corps’ effectiveness. However, if it is to be effective in this role, a clear consistent message must be sent. The book will be found useful to the degree that its contents help the users in performing their duties.

We are fortunate that we are able to fight smarter than our doctrine would suggest. It is time to upgrade Warfighting to support more effective Marine Corps and joint performance in the future.

Operational Maneuver From the Sea…Making It Work

by Cdr Terry C. Pierce, USN

Operational Maneuver From the Sea (OMFTS) is a concept for combining the maneuver of Navy forces and the maneuver of the Marine air-ground task force (MAGTF) to produce a seamless operation between actions at sea and actions on land. Applying the principles of maneuver warfare to littoral battles and operations, the Navy and Marine Corps hold that this concept can exploit the extraordinary operational mobility offered by naval expeditionary forces without loss of momentum during the transition from sea to shore. Our ability to achieve this improved power projection capability, however, requires that we possess a seamless command and control capability from sea to land. This is a difficult proposition, one that may be solved only after a close examination of the maneuver warfare term, “main effort.”

The naval expeditionary force (NEF) is a cohesive, integrated, task-organized Navy and Marine force designed to control and dominate a designated sea-air-land battlespace. The tools of NEF power projection include missiles, shells, bombs, bullets, and bayonets. Of all the NEF’s power projection capabilities, the most decisive tool is the amphibious operation. Only a MAGTF can introduce troops into hostile territory from the sea, culminating a naval operation or enabling a continental one.

OMFTS refers to the means by which the Navy and Marine Corps bring a MAGTF from the sea to bear against selected enemy vulnerabilities and gaps. Like maneuver warfare, OMFTS is a philosophy, a way of approaching a particular set of problems. In short, it is an effort to remove the seam at the highwater mark that has traditionally separated naval and land combat. In this new approach, sea and land are both used as maneuver space for a single fluid operation.

Admittedly, our doctrine writers have yet to describe the command philosophy that is necessary for the NEF to fight as a maneuver force and project power ashore. This may take time as the Navy is just beginning to thoroughly understand the Marine Corps concept of maneuver warfare. Fortunately, however, the tenets and terms of maneuver warfare are generally interchangeable with those used in OMFTS. This fact, I would argue, means that the NEF’s philosophy of command should be the same as the MAGTF’s philosophy of command.

In other words, the Marine Corps not only brings a wealth of ideas from maneuver warfare to OMFTS, but also its philosophy enriches and complements the Navy’s notion of OMFTS, thus making both more effective. Since the maneuver warfare concept of main effort is an important tool for providing unity of effort for the MAGTF commander, it will also be an important tool for providing unity of effort for the NEF commander.

In fact, of all the key ideas of maneuver warfare, main effort is perhaps the most important. Unfortunately, however, this concept means something different to the Navy and Marine Corps. For the Marine Corps, the term “main effort” includes supported unit. For the Navy, it does not. Yet, when main effort includes the concept of supported unit, it allows us to mesh the Navy’s composite warfare commander (CWC) concept with amphibious doctrine to achieve a single seamless operation from commitment of the NEF through success ashore.

Main Effort

Modern maneuver warfare theory, as explained in three recently published Marine Corps Fleet Marine Force manuals, uses the concept of main effort to put maneuver warfare into practice (see FMFM 1, Warfighting; FMFM 1-1. Campaigning; and FMFM1-3, Tactics). The main effort is defined as the unit that the commander believes will enable him to achieve a favorable decision. This unit has the most important task to be accomplished, the one on which the overall success of an operation will hinge.

Once the commander designates a unit as the main effort, he then concentrates his support and combat power on it so as to ensure quick success. Likewise, all other units work to support the main effort, even in the absence of specific directions. Thus, through the main effort, the commander creates a unity of effort by providing a focus that each subordinate commander uses to link his actions to the actions of those around him. As a result, throughout the force, main effort ties together a multitude of independent efforts ensuring that they relate to one another.

Conversely, without a main effort, combat quickly breaks down into a multitude of independent efforts, each divergent from one another. So the value of specifying main effort is that it allows subordinate commanders to seize opportunities as they arise during combat while still supporting operational goals.

The commander designates only one main effort at any one time. In other words, in any operation, only one portion of a particular organization is designated to strike the decisive blow. Considering the safety of his entire force and the level of acceptable risk, the commander stakes the success of the entire action on the performance of his main effort.

Calling it effort principal, the French were the first to coin the phrase of main effort. Applying main effort primarily at the corps level, the French saw its significance as a course or direction of effort decided on before an attack and afterward seldom changed. The Germans, on the other hand, placed a much different emphasis on the concept. Calling it Schwerpunkt, they saw it applying not only to the corps, but also spanning the entire chain of command to include small infantry units at the tactical level.

By 1918, Schwerpunkt was becoming more sophisticated and differed dramatically from the French concept of main effort. Indeed, the Germans had developed an attack based on locating an enemy’s critical vulnerability and forming a main effort to exploit it while their other forces supported that effort. Moreover, their introduction of the idea that a force could shift its main effort during an attack was of critical importance. Thus, in the course of the attack, as the situation changed, the commander could shift his main effort and redirect the weight of his combat power in the manner that made the most sense and offered the greatest chance of success. In this way, a commander was able to exploit success and prevent failure.

The German’ concept of supporting effort is also important to us. The means by which supporting units assist the main effort is often covered in explicit orders. In the absence of these, all other units must seek and do all they can to assist the main effort. In most cases, this can be accomplished by aggressive action. The more aggressive the action of supporting units, the less will be the ability of the enemy to resist or even identify the main effort. For example, during the German blitzkrieg of May 1940, panzer group commander Gen Paul L.E. von Kleist, overall panzer commander for the campaign, designated Gen Heinz Guderian’s Panzer Corps as the main effort for the attack through Sedan to the French coastline. Similarly, Kleist designated Gen Hermann Hoth’s 15th Panzer Corps as the supporting effort. Consisting of 5th Panzer Division and Gen Erwin Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division, Gen Hoth’s Panzer Corps, as a supporting effort, was to protect the right flank of Guderian against an attack by powerful Allied forces that would be located farther north in Belgium.

Although Guderian received most of the Luftwaffe ground attack support because he was the campaign’s main effort, Rommel, who was Hoth’s main effort for the supporting attack, pushed his division so successfully that it not only matched, but at times outpaced Guderian’s. The result of Rommel’s supporting spearhead was that he so perplexed the French command as to which penetration, Rommel’s or Guderian’s, was the main thrust that he successfully created a distraction that diverted French forces from Guderian’s main effort.

Thus, the continuous designation of the main effort from above, throughout the chain of command, is an inherent part of this concept. In other words, as soon as the commander designates a specific unit as the main effort, all subordinate commanders, whether they are the main or supporting effort, will; in turn, designate their main effort. And the process continues on down the chain of command. So we have the concept of a main effort within another main or supporting effort. Thus, commanders at all levels designate a main effort, focus resources to support it, and shift it rapidly as the attack unfolds if another effort appears more promising.

An example of this concept is again contained within the German blitzkrieg into France in May 1940. The German General Staff made Army Group A its main effort and Army Group B and C its supporting elements. Group A’s commander. Gen Gerd von Rundstedt, in turn, made Kleist’s Panzer Group his main effort. Kleist’s Panzer Group was made up of Reinhardt’s Panzer Corps (the 6th and 8th Panzer Divisions), and Guderian’s Panzer Corps (1st, 2d, and 10th Panzer Divisions). Kleist then designated Guderian as his main effort (see Figure 1).

Main Effort and Operational Maneuver From The Sea

OMFTS relies upon the naval expeditionary force (NEF) commander exercising centralized planning and decentralized leadership. It is he who. considering the situation on both the sea and the land, will conceive the operation, express his intent and concept of operations in the form of mission-type orders, provide unity of effort by determining his main effort, and respond, if necessary, to changing situations by shifting the main effort.

The tool that will enable this flexibility of main effort within the NEF is the composite warfare concept. Without using maneuver warfare terminology, this command and control concept has used maneuver warfare tenets for years. It employs commander’s intent, mission-type orders, and decentralized execution-all mainstays of maneuver warfare. Its shortfall, however, at least with regard to OMFTS. is that it is functional in design. In other words, its commanders are neither supported nor supporting, they simply perform the desired function. To take this one step further, we must add the concept of main effort-a concept that includes supported and supporting.

The commander of the NEF is in command of a variety of subordinate leaders including the amphibious warfare commander (AWC) and MAGTF commander. The important point to remember is that depending on the situation, the NEF commander can designate any subordinate commander as his main effort. He may then shift the main effort to another commander, in accordance with his plan and the developing campaign. For example, during the period when the NEF commander is trying to achieve battlespace dominance and his most immediate threat is small, fast enemy patrol boats, he may initially designate his antisurface warfare commander (ASUWC) as the main effort. Of course, the remaining warfare commanders are also supporting efforts (see Figure 2).

If the NEF commander receives an initiating directive or a warning order for an amphibious operation, he will designate the AWC as the commander amphibious task force (CATF) and the MAGTF commander as the commander landing force (CLF). Likewise, he will designate the CATF as his main effort. Similarly, all other warfare commanders will support the CATF as the main effort until the CATF has completed his mission or the NEF shifts it to another commander (see Figure 3).

If CATF’s primary threat, however, is mine warfare, he may, in turn, designate his mine warfare commander as his main effort. All other warfare commanders will be supporting efforts and do what they can to support the CATF’s main effort. After the CATF achieves mine superiority, he may shift his main effort to the navy commander in charge of the ship-to-shore movement.

For those who are concerned that the entire NEF could be supporting a very junior commander, such as the mine warfare commander, there have been cases where the unit, which is the main effort, is tiny in comparison to the supporting units. Of course, typically in an assault, the main effort is the largest of a commander’s subordinate units. But modern maneuver warfare theory accepts that small units can be the main effort. For example, 5 weeks after the German blitzkrieg began, the main effort of the German attack on the French fortress of La Ferte was a single company of combat engineers commanded by a first lieutenant. Supporting this main effort was the reinforced artillery of an entire army corps commanded by a general.

At some point during the amphibious operation, perhaps during the ship-to-shore movement, the CATF will designate his subordinate commander, CLF, as his main effort. Because the operational level of war is central to maneuver warfare, this will be a situational decision based primarily on operational rather than tactical requirements. When this occurs, the NEF commander, the CATF, and all other subordinate commanders will support the CLF in his maneuver ashore. This arrangement, in fact, is very similar to our previous example of the 1940 blitzkrieg into France where Rundstedt, the Group A commander, who is like the NEF commander, designated Kleist’s Panzer Group as his main effort. And Kleist, who is like the CATF, in turn, designated his main effort as Guderian’s Panzer Corp, which functions like the landing force (see Figure 4).

What we have introduced is the concept that within the NEF commander’s main effort, we will have two other main efforts: one is the CATF (as the NEF’s main effort); the other is the CLF (as the CATF’s main effort). While the commander of the NEF always remains in overall command, considerable autonomy and discretion is granted to the CATF, and by extension, to the CLF. Indeed, unity of command is maintained, and we have the flexibility to have all the other warfare commanders support the CLF to accomplish his operational objective.

Continuing our analogy for a supporting effort, we can compare the Navy’s strike force commander to Rommel. Like Rommel, who performed superbly in the role as the main effort of a supporting effort to Guderian, the strike warfare commander (STWC), in turn, can be expected to perform equally as well in the role as the main effort of a supporting effort to the CLF.

For example, because strike air knows the CLF’s intent in maneuvering toward its objective, strike air could continue to take actions to shape the battle to the CLF’s advantage. Examples include using strike air assets to canalize enemy movement in a desired direction or to block or delay enemy reinforcements so that the CLF can fight a piecemeal enemy rather than a concentrated one.

For most amphibious operations, once the CATF designates the CLF as his main effort, the CLF will remain the main effort until completion of the mission. We must understand, however, that during the amphibious phase of the operation the NEF commander can shift the main effort from the CATF to another warfare commander. An example would be, if we were no longer able to dominate the battlespace, the main effort of the NEF could shift to the antiair warfare commander (AAWC) or the STWC until dominance is again achieved.

Even if the main effort shifted from the CATF, the CLF would continue to be the CATF’s main effort. But the CATF would be a supporting effort within the NEF. As such, the CATF and the CLF would no longer be receiving the concentrated support and combat power from the rest of the expeditionary force. After achieving battlespace dominance, the NEF commander could, once again, shift back to the CATF as his main effort.

Solving the CWC and Amphibious Integration Dilemma

Applying this concept of main effort to the NEF should enhance our ability to conduct OMFTS. The NEF commander, quite simply, designates one of his warfare commanders as his main effort for a particular phase of the operation. He may then shift the main effort to another commander in accordance with his plan and developing campaign. This concept solves our problem of how to mesh the CATF and the CLF with the powers of the CWC who is capable of swiftly shifting the forces’ assets to meet rapidly changing threats. In other words, the CWC concept is relevant to littoral warfare if we use the concept of main effort with it.

The immediate difficulty that we in the Navy have with main effort is that it does not appear to be much different from how we now operate. In fact, several of us might argue that when the CWC does not negate a warfare commander’s request to task assets, then he is, at least tacitly, stating his main effort preference. We do not call it main effort, but it is the same thing-isn’t it?

The answer is no. We in the Navy do not understand main effort the same way the Marine Corps does. That is the crux of the problem. When we read about main effort, we look through a blue CWC lens, which only tends to distort the image. As a result, we envision main effort to be a concept where a warfare commander assumes that his assigned warfare mission is the CWC’s main effort. This, however, is not unlike the problem posed when other warfare commanders see their warfare missions as main efforts as well. Of course, the result is that several warfare commanders think and act as if they are the main effort.

We encourage this whenever we ask each warfare commander to task assets as if he were the only warfare commander who could do the job. However, when two warfare commanders simultaneously task the same asset, the CWC commander decides which one has the greater need. Thus, each warfare commander is expected to task, deploy, and fight with all the assets in the force in the best possible manner, to support his mission without regard to how the other warfare commanders might want to task or deploy these assets.

As I have shown, this is not like the concept of main effort. There can only be one main effort at a time, and, if need be, this main effort can shift. In the CWC concept, each warfighting commander thinks of himself as the main effort. This is where the CWC concept falls short in OMFTS. Warfare commanders, like the CATF and CLF, are assigned missions in littoral warfare that require support relationships within the command structure. To make the CWC relevant to littoral warfare, the NEF commander must designate a main effort. He must also clearly identify supporting efforts. And if someone is designated as a supporting effort, he must learn to ask the question, “What can I do to support the main effort?”

In summary, main effort is the tool for providing unity and decisiveness within the NEF. That is to say, main effort is the glue that holds OMFTS together. It allows the NEF commander to focus and rapidly shift his resources to exploit opportunities. When the Navy embraces the concept of “main effort,” the NEF will then exploit its operational mobility at sea and on land. That’s the surest way to guarantee successful OMFTS.

Regression

by William S. Lind

Congratulations on the July issue. A number of articles showed a growing and deepening understanding of maneuver warfare, including those by Col Gary W. Anderson, Capt Paul C. Schreck, Capt Francis C. Halliwell, Capts Michael F. McNamara and Paul C. Kennedy, and 1stLt Michael O. Barron. Jr.

Unfortunately, while Maj Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr’s article, “On the Verge of a New Era: The Marine Corps and Maneuver Warfare,” starts out well with its brief history of maneuver warfare and the Marine Corps, it quickly gets badly off the track. The concepts that, according to Maj McKenzie, are central to the draft FMFM 2-1-battlefield geometry, battlefield systems, and top-down planning-do not represent the institutionalizatiort of maneuver warfare but rather its abandonment. These are the guiding concepts of methodical battle, the opposite of maneuver warfare.

Maj McKenzie makes plain the source of these fundamental doctrinal errors: the Marine Corps has (again) been copying the Army’s doctrine. Regrettably, after some progress toward maneuver warfare in the early 1980s, the Army has gone hard in the other direction. Army doctrine is now dominated by the concept of “synchronization,” which under different terms was also the centerpiece of French army doctrine in the 1930s, Intelligence preparation of the battlefield, battlefield operating systems, and battlefield activities, etc., all flow logically from synchronization, which is to say they are all incompatible with maneuver warfare.

In the late 1980s the Marine Corps demonstrated with the excellent Warfighting, Campaigning, and Tactics FMFMs that it was capable of thinking for itself and did not need to copy the Army’s doctrine, Each of these manuals is far superior to anything the Army has produced and all of them are used in a number of Army units. For Quantico now to return to copying seriously defective Army manuals that directly contradict the Marine Corps’ doctrine of maneuver warfare is both damaging and unnecessary.

As to the draft FMFM 2-1, if it follows the lines laid out in Maj McKenzie’s article, it represents a sad case of doctrinal regression.