Archives: Gazette Magazines

by LtCol Robert W. Lamont, USMC(Ret)

The purpose of this article is to review the investments in warfighting capabilities required for urban combat in the 2030 timeframe. The approach for such an assessment demands a review of the physical characteristics of the battlefield, their impact on the theoretical application of combat power, and how the unique conditions within the urban setting influence the cross domain application of combined arms capabilities. This methodology allows the reader to identify gaps in capabilities demanded within this unique battlespace and possible modernization investment strategies for sustaining MAGTF dominance on the emerging urban littorals.

The military aspects of terrain within the urban setting present a number of challenges for conducting combat operations not normally associated with the more open environments, such as desert or undulating plains. Often these characteristics are operationally contradictory in that action taken to optimize employment within one aspect of the scenario will prove detrimental to other operational considerations. Weapons systems live fire testing and unit training tend to be conducted in more open settings, leaving the operator with limited appreciation as to the true capability of their organization to influence and operate in complex urban terrain.

While the density, composition, and structure may vary, buildings limit observation and fields of fire. The dramatic reduction in engagement range of direct fire weapons in the urban setting increases their potential lethality. Conversely, weapons systems that exploit standoff ranges find fewer optimal employment opportunities within the urban canyon. This dramatically impacts antitank missile systems that exploit long range and have minimum arming ranges not compatible with the narrow confines of the urban center. For VHF communications systems, line of sight employment considerations and power requirements combine to complicate secure information transfer. This directly impacts the available of supporting arms and the control of remotely operated vehicles.

LTC John Gordon IV, USA, found in a review of IRAQI FREEDOM operations that direct fire systems were able to immediately return fire when engaged by the enemy. They were able to consistently demonstrate a level of responsiveness not achieved by other supporting arms. The latency of air support was 5 to 20 minutes, and it took artillery 2 to 4 minutes to obtain rounds on target.1 Given the short range and high lethality of urban engagements, any such lag in response can prove decisive at the tactical level. Additionally, shot angle of fall and fuzing delay issues further complicate the use of indirect fire within the urban canyon.

For dismounted infantry, cover and concealment within the urban setting are found in abundance. Cover, consistent with the robustness of surrounding building construction, can dramatically improve the ability of dismounted units to resist the effects of small arms fire. Conversely, the ability of large caliber weapons to generate ballistic debris can compromise safety of these positions. Concealment, while not providing protection to the dismounted force, does complicate the targeting abilities of the engaging force. The resources required to locate and engage enemy forces operating on the urban battlefield exceed those found in other environments. This increases the likelihood of violent, short-range engagements against an enemy in prepared and protected positions.

The combined influence of defensive preparations and rubble generated from kinetic engagements produce multiple obstacles within the urban setting. These have the potential to channel movement through the urban battlefield and increase the vulnerability of a force exploiting maneuver as a defeat mechanism. Variable building height and power lines create obstacles to low-level helicopter approach avenues complicating the use of nap-of-earth flying profiles, thereby increasing their vulnerability to small arms and shoulder launched missiles as they have to gain operating altitude.

Key terrain can take many forms in cities. Operational, cultural, and logistical considerations can all compel the commander to conduct their operations along selected lines. From an operational perspective, high ground and mobility corridors can dominate combat force employment. High ground within the urban battlefield can compensate for limited lines of sight and improve the promulgation of electro-magnetic energy. This facilitates the ability of those holding this terrain to find and engage the enemy.

For the dismounted force, avenues of approach take on an undefined form. The infantry is able to exploit passage through buildings, beneath the streets, and above the landscape through vertical envelopment. However, their lack of protection from direct fire makes them susceptible to suppression and loss by the full array of weapons found within the urban battlefield. This contrasts sharply with the mounted force that must contend with limited avenues of approach along streets and alleyways often complicated with rubble or mines. Their armor protection allows them to retain mobility when opposed by all but the upper end of anti-vehicle systems. The demands for vehicle-infantry coordination in this environment are peaked, resulting in slower rates of movement when contrasted with more open terrain.

These factors combine to make the urban battlefield doctrinally a crowded place. Looking at German doctrine from World War II as a starting point, we see infantry company-level attacks conducted on non-urban terrain consistently with a frontage varying from 500 to 800 meters.2 Current North Korean doctrine aligns very closely with this frontage.3 Current Marine Corps warfighting publications, however, are not as prescriptive in defining unit frontages, but training exercises routinely see reinforced infantry companies operating across more than a grid square. FM9010-1, Infantryman’s Guide to Combat in Built-Up Areas, (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, May 1993), is the doctrinal publication for fighting in cities. It details techniques for a reinforced company team to attack a city block. While doctrinal frontage is not given in the techniques, a review of city block design finds they average in width and depth from 100 to 200 meters.4 This results in a compression in unit frontage of about four to one. The manpower requirements associated with the traditional doctrinal approach to urban combat finds these battlefields can rapidly absorb combat strength, making the commitment to this fight a key decision during course of action development.

The ramifications of the military aspects of terrain are evident when reviewing combat modeling of their attrition process. When Lanchester used coupled differential equations to describe the combat interactions associated with combat under modern conditions, he had few assumptions underlying his square law model. However, the one key parameter within their formulation was each combatant could see, and hence engage, any opposing combatant. This assumption breaks down within the urban battlefield resulting in more of a linear attrition mechanism.3 Fundamentally then, we would expect to see little increased utility in the massing of additional physical force within the urban battlefield, and partitioning your opponent would no longer serve as a defeat mechanism by which a smaller force could counter superior numbers.6 Given all these contradictions in urban force employment, how have units conducted combat operations in the past?

As the Marine Corps prepared for intense urban combat in Vietnam’s Hue city, FM 31-50, Combat in Fortified and Built-Up Areas, published in March 1964, was the doctrine of the day. It reflected an update from the previous version published in 1954. Both documents reflect Army experience in the European Theater of Operations during World War II. The fact that the discussion of fortified areas is first-and given equal space-reflects the Army’s experience in breaching the Siegfried Line in the winter of 1944. The doctrine defines the ultimate mission of a unit attacking a built-up area is to seize and clear the entire area. This effort was to be accomplished in three phases: isolate, seize a foothold, and clear.7 It recommends that, in block-type construction, a rifle company attack frontage is one city block.8

The latest update to the urban doctrinal series, FM90-10, retains the same aspects of earlier doctrine in terms of breaking the operation into three phases and company frontage. Three aspects of the current doctrine reflect operational experience in urban operations centered in Baghdad, Iraq. First, the isolation phase places increased emphasis on electronic means to deny the electronic spectrum to the enemy. Second, the document reflects the concept that force size will be insufficient to secure the entire urban landscape. It accepts that key areas will be retained and movement between these areas may require heavily equipped forces. The final aspect addresses in much greater detail the realities of fighting in close proximity to civilians and non-combatants. It emphasizes the importance of separating the local population from the enemy as a source of support or human shields. The use of firepower is placed in the context of umvanted collateral damage and how these limitations will impact supporting arms employment. However, the totality of the approach still has the force conducting a systematic, attrition-based engagement model built on a series of cross street assaults on defended structures.

In April, 1999, a Marine Corps Gazette article, titled “Urban Warrior-A View From North Vietnam,” discussed a contrasting approach to city fighting advanced by Gen Van Tien Dung. His approach avoided striking at the hardened defenses of the urban perimeter and sent striking columns directly against the city center to seek out command and control centers. Only after the command structure was disrupted would the forces turn back outward and destroy the now leaderless units on the edge of town. This approach, known as the “Blooming Lotus,” was used successfully at Ban Me Thuot and Pleiku during the opening rounds of the North Vietnamese Army’s Spring Offensive in 19757

Both these doctrines take unique approaches to defeating an opponent on urban terrain. The Western approach uses attrition to systematically clear key areas within the urban battlefield to control sufficient space for mission accomplishment and the restoration of civic services. The Eastern style seeks to physically remove the command structure and exploit the leaderless defenders that are now more susceptible to collapse. This approach assumes a degree of dependency on command architecture that may not be warranted. Given the fanatic nature of resistance encountered during the Battle of Fallujah, it may be required to kill individual fighters who do not fear death and revel in the concept of martyrdom.10 This level of resistance is not new to Marines, but it has not been seen since desperate struggles on Pacific islands against the Japanese. Historically, what defeat mechanisms are available to exploit the unique characteristics found within the urban battlefield?

In his book, Understanding Defeat, COL T.N. Dupuy, USA, reviews the causes of defeat in eight battles during World War II and the Korean War. He surveyed veterans from these engagements and asked them to assess the extent to which various factors contributed to their decision to quit the field. Thirty factors were identified and grouped in categories including force strength, tactical situation, environmental effects, material shortfalls, and human characteristics. Of all the factors considered, three occurred in three or more of the eight battles under consideration. The single dominate factor in surrendering the fight w>as the tactical consideration of being out maneuvered, flanked, or enveloped. Two other factors, poor communications and low ammunition, were observed as solid defeat contributors.11 All these factors share a common root cause of the warrior being unable to influence his tactical situation.

In the case of being hanked, the fear of getting cut off from support contributes to a sense of loss of relevance to the fight. The movement of the enemy behind or around your position generates doubt as to the ability of your current alignment to direct firepower against the enemy. It plays on the natural fears of the blind spot each warrior has for those threats outside his field of vision. Poor communications has a similar effect, coupled with the increased uncertainty of the overall situation and ability to obtain combat support to address the battle at hand. The isolation of not being able to consult with higher headquarters places the burden of responsibility on junior leaders who are not always equipped to operate independently. Finally, the lack of ammunition provides a material reasoning for abandoning the fight. It gives the combatant a sense of freedom from responsibility to continue since they have expended all the resources available to engage the enemy. A lack of ammunition is symptomatic of a supply system which has broken down to the point of being ineffective. Once again, this ties into the isolation of the operating force. So, as we review these root causes of defeat, the common theme that plays into the loss of will to fight is isolation coupled with limited combat effectiveness.

COL Dupuy continued his assessment by developing the causes that underlay the factors identified by the battlefield veterans. He found five causes of defeat that were common to a majority of the battles reviewed, including: superior enemy artillery support, fatigue, surprise, leadership self-delusion or lack of perception, and poor reconnaissance or intelligence.12 These factors have common reinforcing themes that command our attention. Superior artillery subjects the force to the physical effects of blast and fragmentation. However, the physiological influence of isolation and a sense of helplessness from an inability to strike back cannot be discounted. Surprise, lack of accurate perception, and poor intelligence are all linked to an inability to see that battlefield. They are again symptomatic of an isolation resulting from an inward focus not accounting for enemy intentions and actions.

Marine Corps doctrine views the execution of maneuver warfare as a philosophy that seeks to shatter the enemy’s cohesion through a variety of rapid, focused, and unexpected actions that create a turbulent and rapidly deteriorating situation with which the enemy cannot cope.1- This approach has special considerations when attempted on urban terrain. The nature of the terrain will limit the ability of the force to focus the effects of combat power, and the rules of engagement tend to limit the use of direct and indirect fires in order to control collateral damage. Rapid and unexpected action, coupled with a progressive isolation of the enemy force, provide the best opportunity to defeat the enemy without a grinding, linear attrition battle so often associated with urban terrain. What capabilities provide the MAGTF the means to execute such an approach and exploit the known defeat mechanisms discussed, in the 2030 timeframe?

Isolating the enemy on the urban battlefield will demand the ability to fix his defenses while removing support and resupply. To hold him in position will require the ability to engage his defenses and deny movement options by massing sufficient combat power from dispersed locations and then spreading out again to limit exposure to his weapons systems. Conducting these operations requires the ability to dominate the limited, open space within the urban canyon. Forces that have to maneuver within the direct fire envelop will require the requisite armor protection to absorb damage and return fire in sufficient volume to gain firepower dominance without external support. This is driven by the short engagement ranges of the urban battlefield and the latency of indirect fire systems. In the near-term, tanks, operating as part of a combined arms team, can meet this requirement. The future progression of micro-computing and mechanical miniaturization will open a new range of warfighting options.

The emergence of robotic technology, coupled with artificial intelligence, may well allow for the productive separation of sensor and shooter. Remotely operated vehicles (ROV) that are able to hover and fly vertically within the urban canyon have the potential to act as vigilant observation posts passing targeting data back to local forward engagement terminals. The selection of smart weapons at these forward terminals could include a wide array of possibilities. Precision-guided indirect ordnance would enable precision strike enhancing lethality while at the same time limiting collateral damage. Missiles that home on selected laser frequencies would be able to follow targeting instructions from these ROV with the same end game effects. The ability to forward deploy a ROV armed with precision small caliber weapons and accurate sensing arrays would allow a sniper capability that is rapidly mobile across all types of urban terrain. Any use of ROV assets implies a significant investment in tools needed to dominate the electrometric spectrum.

Any separation of sensor and shooter can only be accomplished with control of the electrometric spectrum. The ability to transfer information by data and voice provides the means to sustain our communications’ capability and potentially deny it to our enemy, thereby isolating them on the battlefield. The recurring theme across our development of urban warfare is exploiting isolation as defeat mechanism. This will require adjustment to our current technical and staffing approach as we move to the 2030 timeframe.

Information operations demand our closest review to promote our capacity to secure victory on urban terrain. Denying our opponent the unencumbered use of the electromagnetic spectrum will require the integration of electronic warfare, psychological operations, integrated intelligence, and deception. Electronic warfare can block fire control nets and stifle command nets, isolating units defending within the urban battlefield. As we have seen in our review of root causes for quitting the struggle, the cumulative influence of isolation has the best chance to disrupt the continuity of the defense given the other limitations of the urban environment.

Psychological operations, while rarely decisive on their own, can influence those that are remote and not under the direct observation of their leadership or committed peers. Again, we see how isolation can set the stage for successful psychological operations by allow the individual to take action they would not otherwise take if subject to the collective peer pressure of the unit. Campaigns to support survival and creature comforts can be executed through a number of means including voice or pamphlet communications.

The need for a staff battle captain to coordinate these efforts requires review of methodology within the current operations cell at most staffing levels. The ability to use these tools with the same effectiveness as supporting fires becomes critical in the difficult terrain of the urban battlefield. This staff officer has to understand the desired end state of information operations campaign and how each component works to reach that goal. During TANDEM THRUST 95, a MAGTF from Okinawa conducted a force-on-force exercise against an Army unit in the Saipan-Tinian area. The MAGTF was about to run a A-6E Intruder mission, as scheduled three days prior on the joint force air component air tasking order, to jam the opposing force command net. An S-2 (intelligence) officer approached the current watch officer and told him to abort the mission. The reason was the opposing force commander was sending all his traffic in the clear. The intelligence section was able to stay one step ahead of their opponent since they knew his intent and orders in real time. The two staff sections were able to make the call to cancel the mission since the information operations outcome would be stronger without it.14 Facilitating this sort of staff exchange requires increased command attention and support.

The MAGTF headquarters has the ability to fight deep within the urban battlefield to physically isolate centers of resistance. Vertical envelopment provides the means to block, disrupt, and interdict resupply efforts. The impact of low ammunition levels to forward line troops has a direct correlation to their desire and ability to continue resistance. Deep fires reduce the defender’s supporting arms mechanism depriving them of the means to influence the close fight. The MAGTF command element will determine when and where to accept close combat to shape the urban battlefield consistent with operational objectives and end state. The structural influence of linear attrition processes in these engagements can be minimized through separating the engagement chain and using robotic delivery systems when short-range, high lethality duels are unavoidable. Finally, the senior command element can leverage combat service support, civil affairs units, and civilian relief agencies to restore essential services to populations near the close fight. These efforts help remove the support structure used within the urban setting and help separate the local population from indigenous combat forces.

The conduct of deception operations has taken on new layers since the introduction of social media. In addition to the traditional false radio traffic, positioning of units, and random supporting fires, units must leverage off what the enemy is collecting from social media to both create false situational awareness and flood their ability to read and process information on this medium. When strong limits are placed on what is conducted in social media, any traffic that does occur gains credibility as genuine and authentic. Flooding Facebook and Twitter with false traffic will require our opponent to sort through ever increasing volumes of information to attempt to determine what is real. Inducing false information into the scenario can drive them to taken inappropriate action facilitating our maneuver in the process.

In summary, the urban battlefield presents unique challenges to the conduct of maneuver warfare. The environment and its associated rules of engagement slow operational tempo, limit supporting arms, and tend to result in linear attrition processes that are not desirable. On the plus side, the rather independent nature of city combat and emphasis on small unit employment provide the opportunity to isolate the defenders. Isolation has been shown to be a historical root cause for surrendering the fight and, as such, provides promise as a defeat mechanism in the urban setting. Facilitating this approach will demand the progressive development of selected capabilities.

As we look to the 2030 timeframe, the use of social media for a deception effort remains largely unexplored. Our opponents use this technology to collection information on our operations and personnel. It should become a twoedged sword in the future as we exploit this medium saturating it with false targets and intent complicating their collection efforts. The culminating effect of all these efforts warrant the development of special staff oversight to ensure each effort is mutually reinforcing.

Finally, we should expect robotic technology to surface as a key mechanism to allow the uncoupling of sensor and shooter. Control of these systems will demand domination of the electromagnetic spectrum to facilitate their employment. A ROV that can hover within the urban canyon or exploit armor protection on the ground to survive all but the most robust attacks holds promise to gain engagement superiority within the lethal short-range scenarios envisioned for this battlefield. Investment in both the technology and staff processes to conduct an integrated information operations campaign must become a common focus to exploit the full potential of isolation as a defeat mechanism on the littoral urban battlefields of the future.

By The Ellis Group

The Marine Corps is a combined arms organization, but it has not always been so. After the amphibious advanced base force exercise on Culebra, Puerto Rico, in 1914, it was clear that the institution’s new mission would require it.¹ LtCol Earl “Pete” Ellis, who observed the Culebra experiment, proposed a more balanced combined arms force in Advance Base Operations in Micronesia, his strategic net assessment of potential war in the Pacific.² From 1935 to 1941, the Navy and Marine Corps experimented with different ways to employ such a force during amphibious operations. In a series of seven Fleet Landing Exercises (FLEX), the Marine Corps, under Commandant LtGen Thomas Holcomb, refined its force structure and mix of weapon systems.³ These exercises not only led to advances in naval ship-to-shore capabilities, but also allowed the Marine Corps to refine first its brigades and finally its divisions into combined arms forces. These efforts transformed a Marine Corps built for the Age of Sail into the modernized expeditionary force it remains today.

The combined arms approach is how the Marine Corps executes maneuver warfare. Rapid, flexible, and opportunistic maneuver can only be accomplished by a combined arms force, and diversity of means maximizes combat power, flexibility, and responsiveness. MCDP 1, Warfighting, describes it simply as, “The full integration of arms in such a way that to counteract one, the enemy must become more vulnerable to another.”⁴ Increasingly though, full is the operative word; the MAGTF must employ not just direct and indirect fires but all of its assets to achieve combined arms dilemmas. Mastery of combined arms fueled the Marine Corps’ success in the 20th century, but today there exists far more combat arms capabilities. Therefore, our view of combined arms must expand in equal measure with the expanding capabilities of the MAGTF. Indeed, the Marine Corps operating concept states that,

The 21st Century MAGTF executes maneuver warfare through a combined arms approach that embraces information warfare as indispensable for achieving complementary effects across five domains—air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace.⁵

The Marine Corps will have to conduct combined arms across five domains: air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace. To do so, our understanding of combined arms must be expanded for the current strategic environment.

Combined Arms in History

To understand combined arms warfare, we first have to understand its origins. Although there is evidence that earlier civilians, such as the Assyrians, managed to integrate multiple arms within their military forces, the initial development of an integrated approach is clearest in Ancient Greece. Warfare in ancient Greece was in constant flux, a product of continual tactical competition and the resultant adaptation. In the years after the Trojan War, two major powers dominated Aegean politics: Sparta, which focused on land power, and Athens, which focused on sea power.

This situation prevailed during the Persian Wars. Despite Hollywood depictions, the Greeks were just barely able to hold off Persian power only because Persia did not have the logistics to support longer efforts. It was the destruction of much of the Persian fleet at Salamis in 480 BC that forced a Persian withdrawal and allowed a combined Greek army to defeat the rear party left in Greece at Plataea the following year.

In the aftermath of the Persian defeat, Sparta and Athens turned on each other. During the Peloponnesian War, Athens had to confront Sparta on land. To defeat the superior Spartan hoplites, the Athenians combined irregular warfare tactics and its stronger navy during the amphibious Pylos and Sphacteria campaign on the Peloponnesian Coast in 425 BC. Despite this defeat, the Spartans eventually succeeded in winning the war by developing its own navy and defeating the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami.

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Despite being the now dominant Greek power, the Spartans ran into further trouble when they were defeated by Thebes under a general named Epaminondas. Epaminondas defeated the Spartan army by creating asymmetry of mass; at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, the left wing of the Theban phalanx was weighted as a main effort. The best Theban troops were arranged 50 ranks deep instead of the traditional 8 ranks deep. Theban allied troops on the right wing, as a supporting effort, were instructed to withdraw slowly as the Spartans opposite them advanced. The withdrawal drew the Spartans forward, exposing their flank to the weighted Theban main effort. The Spartan Army suffered so many casualties that their supremacy in Greece was broken, and they never recovered.

This action and reaction of inter-Greek warfare was interrupted by the first regional power to integrate all the arms of warfare rather than just strengthening one arm to defeat another. The Macedonian Army under Philip IV was professionalized, trained, and improved. Rather than just improve one arm, however, Philip improved them all. The Macedonian phalanx was equipped with longer spears (18 feet versus 8 to 10 feet), and their light troops were trained alongside the hoplites and the cavalry. Integrated training of hoplites, peltasts (skirmishers armed with light javelins), and cavalrymen produced a combined arms force that melded the mass of the phalanx, the standoff firepower of the peltasts, and the mobility and shock of the cavalry.

The result of this revolution is clear in the historical record of Philip’s son, Alexander the Great. Alexander had little trouble conquering both Thebes and Athens. Sparta was so irrelevant after their earlier defeats that Alexander did not even bother with them. When Alexander invaded Persia, their masses of troops were not just held off by Alexander’s troops but rapidly shattered by his combined arms assault. Importantly, neither Phillip nor Alexander invented a single new capability or method, they were just the first to combine existing methods in a way that each complemented and supported the other.

With this Macedonian army, Alexander conquered the known world. He was only stopped by his own troops who, having conquered everything and everyone, only wanted to go home. The Romans would later institutionalize a modular, combined arms approach and would go on to even greater conquests, but, for a brief moment, Alexander was unstoppable.

Information warfare too has been integrated with maneuver for centuries. During Saladin’s campaigns to seize power in the Middle East in 1174 he repeatedly presented himself as acting in the interest of the previous ruler, then an 11-year-old boy based in Aleppo. Thinking Saladin an ally, cities opened their gates to his army. In this way, Saladin seized Damascus, Homs, and Hama in Syria with a tiny force and very little bloodshed.⁶

20th Century Combined Arms

It’s unnecessary here to further trace combined arms warfare through all of history. The approach truly came into its own and solidified in the 20th century. It revolved around the firepower of modern artillery and aviation, the mobility and protection of tanks, and the maneuverability of motorized and mechanized infantry forces. At the end of World War I, the Germans cracked the code of the static trench defense line. A combination of well-planned fire support, storm troop tactics, and well-chosen attacks on narrow frontages burst French and English lines wide open. The Germans, however, were unable to logistically sustain those offensives, allowing French, English, and American troops to shift troops and halt the offensive.

In the course of the 20th century, rapid-fire artillery, heavy machine guns, tanks, tank destroyers, fixed-wing and rotary-wing attack aviation were all introduced and relegated to separate, homogenous units.⁷ In every case, such an arrangement failed. New battlefield capabilities only reach their potential once they are integrated into a cohesive whole.

The Germans had gotten maneuver and fire support right but failed to put as much intellectual resources into studying the logistics piece. In World War II, however, they added enough follow-on troops to keep the offensives going, chose points of infiltration opposite railheads, and designed motorized logistics trains attached to panzer divisions, better at supporting assaulting forces than horse-drawn logistics (which were still used). Motor transport allowed infantry to keep up and support the tanks of panzer units. By 1939, they mastered sustaining such offensives, and the French defense in depth system cracked and broke.

Their success, however, was the result of more than just the integration of artillery, aviation, tanks, and infantry. Such integration depended first on the ability to keep every arm supplied with fuel, ammunition, and other supplies. Secondly, rapid combinations of various combat arms could only be achieved with a decentralized command and control system (C²) based on mission tactics, commander’s intent, and opportunistic exploitation, known as aufragstaktik. Even before World War II ended, other militaries began more or less adopting such methods. The prosecution of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, for example, was designed around the same concepts as the initial German offensive during World War I in France.

What makes combined arms so potent is not the physical employment of multiple arms on the battlefield but the mental stasis or collapse caused by the victim’s inability to effectively respond to the dilemma posed by combined arms. A great example of the mental effect caused by an innovative application of combined arms is the jumping barrage used by the Israeli Defense Force in 1967. Israeli ground troops were attacking an Egyptian fixed defensive position in the Sinai. When the Israelis began to take incoming fire from the Egyptians, they stopped. Every artillery gun available, over 100, was tasked with firing a single volley at a single target located on the Egyptian line. At preplanned intervals, each gun would shift to a new target and then, occasionally, shift back to its original target. After ten minutes of such volleys, Egyptian troops refused to leave their bunkers even after the firing had stopped. The mental effect of the seemingly chaotic barrage induced inaction on the front line troops and overloaded the Egyptian C² network with multiple confusing and conflicting reports of incoming fire. The Israeli ground troops then advanced on the Egyptian positions unopposed and shattered the defensive line.⁸

This is just one innovative application of combined arms, but it offers a number of lessons. First, the combination of multiple arms—in this case artillery, infantry, and attack aviation that destroyed the Egyptian artillery positions prior to the barrage—was greater than the sum of its parts. Second, the mental effects caused by the artillery fire were more decisive than the few casualties it caused. Third, the jumping barrage achieved mass by concentrating effects in time; the artillery targets were deliberately dispersed rather than concentrated. Even so, it achieved the intended cognitive effect. Combined arms is not just about creating a dilemma for the enemy but also about weaving various combat arms together in such a way that the enemy cannot mentally cope with such dilemmas. The ability to execute combined arms, not just physically but also cognitively as the above example demonstrates, is the key to combined arms in the cognitive effect on the enemy.

21st Century Combined Arms

It is vital that the Marine Corps achieve a tight level of integration combining the physical and cognitive effects, kinetic and non-kinetic, lethal and non-lethal, among all combat arms: information, cyber, and electronic warfare as well as maneuver, artillery, and aviation. Fortunately, there are more options than were available to the Israelis in 1967. But, there are also new challenges.

In order to place the enemy in a combined arms dilemma, the MAGTF must have a feel for the enemy, his intentions, and the operating environment. In maneuver warfare terms, we must identify the enemy’s surfaces and gaps while preventing the enemy from ascertaining ours. Warfare in the 21st century demands that we view surfaces and gaps not solely as hard and soft points in the enemy’s lines but across the domains of air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace, to include the electromagnetic spectrum.

Five Dimensional Combined Arms

To that end, the Marine Corps employs force with organic or supporting arms down to the lowest level, but future fights demand an expansion of the arms available to those units at the tactical edge. Combined arms across five dimensions means using all available means to confront the enemy with multi-faceted, reinforcing, and rapidly-shifting dilemmas at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels in order to shatter his cohesion, corrupt his decisionmaking, and increase his friction.

• Multifaceted

– The classic example of combining direct and indirect kinetic lethal fires to present the enemy with a dilemma holds true but is no longer sufficient. Most enemy forces will have multiple options, not just two. Multiple enemy courses of action must be confronted with multiple friendly capabilities so that his reaction, any reaction, will expose a critical vulnerability to a friendly capability.

• Reinforcing

– Combined arms dilemmas must be created in depth. Enemies can choose a course of action, come what may, and “push through” a dilemma presented by one of our arms. If this is the case, his reward must be another layer of dilemma presented by still another capability.

• Rapidly shifting

– The MAGTF cannot present a dilemma to an enemy and then wait to see the effect. The MAGTF must be able to adroitly shift multiple dilemmas so that the enemy is not just confronted with a pattern of dilemmas but a kaleidoscope thereof. By the time he has gained situational awareness, the situation has already changed. Rapidly shifting from maneuver to maneuver contributes to both combat power and combined arms dilemmas.

Multifaceted, reinforcing, and rapidly shifting combined arms operations require the ability to fight for and generate intelligence to identify surfaces and gaps while simultaneously protecting friendly surfaces and gaps in order to drive maneuver. Moreover, five dimensional combined arms must be performed simultaneously at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. This means that individual enemy units are vulnerable to multiple MAGTF capabilities, the enemy’s campaign plan is in disarray or puts them at a disadvantage, and the very act of confronting Marine Corps forces threatens their political ends. The Marine Corps as an institution is not structured and trained to operate on multiple levels and in multiple dimensions simultaneously, but future warfare demands it.

Surprise and deception. Surprise and deception have played large roles in warfare as the story of the Trojan Horse attests. No amount of advanced technology has diminished its importance. In fact, its importance has increased. During World War II, the Red Army planned surprise and military deception efforts—referred to as maskirovka—for campaigns on a routine basis.⁹ That Soviet tradition has survived as Russian Federation forces continue it in Ukraine today. Of course, Western militaries have their own traditions of military deception, such as Operation FORTITUDE, the effort to deceive Nazi Germany as to the location of the Allied landings in France in 1944. However, after decades of technological overmatch, the U.S. military pays less attention to surprise and deception. This is unfortunate, as a British study of 158 land campaigns since 1914 found that achieving initial surprise in a tactical engagement has the same success rate as possessing a 2,000:1 numerical superiority over the enemy.¹⁰

Although the two concepts frequently go hand in hand, they are not the same thing. Military deception can contribute to achieving surprise, but it can also achieve other effects. Deception efforts can divert enemy troops and resources to defend against attacks that will never take place, for instance, or it can force enemies to react thereby exposing them to detection by electronic signature or to fire support agencies. While these skills have atrophied as the Marine Corps has enjoyed air supremacy and technical overmatch in recent conflicts, Marine Corps history offers many examples of successful military deception. The most famous of which occurred during the Persian Gulf conflict. Coalition planners ensured that the Iraqi forces knew that II MEF was on its way to the region and that it was intended to stage an amphibious assault. This led the Iraqi forces to defend the coastline with fully two infantry and one armored divisions, taking those divisions out of the fight entirely.¹¹ The use of an offshore MEU to neutralize enemy forces achieved deception but without surprise as an ambush would, for example.

A combined arms approach is about the cognitive effect of forcing the enemy into a dilemma that he cannot overcome or ignore. The enemy is psychologically paralyzed by a dilemma where even inaction is deadly. Surprise and deception are thus powerful weapons that enable such an approach.

Reconnaissance/counterreconnaissance. In order to place the enemy in a combined arms dilemma that achieves surprise and deception, the MAGTF commander must have a feel for the enemy, his intentions, and the operating environment. Reconnaissance units, motorized and not, that mirror infantry units with additional training were sufficient for the 20th century but will not remain so.

In recent years, capabilities like unmanned aircraft systems and satellite imaging have offered unmatched surveillance capabilities, but the Operating Forces have grown dependent on them. The air supremacy needed for persistent ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) coverage can no longer be assumed and, even were it to be achieved, will not be sufficient against capable enemies. Ground reconnaissance forces are necessary to augment aerial surveillance to acquire granular detail that surveillance cannot ascertain.

This means that the MAGTF will have to generate the capability that gathers battlespace information about the enemy forces, the human and geographic terrain, the electromagnetic spectrum, and gathers intelligence via various means, especially signals and human intelligence. All of these contribute to the MAGTF commander’s fingerspitzengefühl, or “finger feeling:” his feel for the battle as it unfolds. A robust reconnaissance capability is necessary to establish it. Simultaneously, relevant information about the MAGTF has to be protected, enemy reconnaissance units screened and blocked, and misinformation will need to be injected into the enemy’s situational awareness.

Information warfare. Surprise and deception are increasingly difficult in the densely populated urbanized littoral regions reinforced by a global digital media environment, but the proliferation of the global Internet has also elevated information warfare. Every major adversary that the United States may face in the foreseeable future puts information warfare in the front and center of their operations. Much like the proliferation of usable gunpowder in the late Middle Ages transformed every level of warfare, so too is the proliferation of Information Age technology and communication suffusing warfare at every level. The global digital media environment is a reality and will not suddenly disappear. Warfare now takes place on a global stage, and every operation must be evaluated through the lenses of different audiences: enemy, friendly, domestic, and international.

While this will impact how we operate, it also offers additional opportunities for combined arms. Information can be used to deceive, demoralize, and even disable enemy units and capabilities, contributing to the creation of dilemmas.

Electronic warfare (EW). Electronic warfare has been a battlefield capability since the first use of radios to communicate. Telephone lines and radio transmissions were tapped as early as World War I to gather intelligence, and jamming was possible by World War II. Just as electronics have advanced since then, so has the importance and ubiquity of electronic warfare.

The ubiquity of electronic warfare has major implications when it comes to defensive measures. Signature management will need to become as continuous and as well understood as camouflage. In fact, the most important part of camouflage will be mitigation of electromagnetic signature at every level. Simultaneously, the Marine Corps must better integrate EW in order to identify and the target the enemy. The signature battle has both offensive and defensives aspects.

EW also has great offensive potential. Most enemy reactions to any other combat arm will create a signature, even if the enemy can only send a situation report. Once that signature is detected, it can be targeted. Additionally, EW itself can be used to disrupt or disable enemy C² nodes, making it an important part of the suppression of enemy air defenses as well as other enemy capabilities. EW, therefore, must be fully integrate into our combined arms construct so as to take advantage of enemy vulnerabilities, gain intelligence, and deliver an appropriate response.

The essence of combined arms is the use of every available means at the disposal of the MAGTF to achieve an advantage over the enemy. Since various arms have various and complementary strengths and weaknesses, the ability to employ them simultaneously and in a mutually reinforcing manner will be the key to success. However, the use of multiple arms magnifies the friction of the organization employing them. Clausewitz, of course, teaches that a military force must overcome friction in order to operate, and our force structure should be organized in such a way as to minimize that inherent friction. But John Boyd teaches that we must not just overcome our own friction, we must inflict friction on the enemy.

Cyber warfare. Cyber capabilities are not just a means for information warfare but offer opportunities for espionage and intelligence gathering, military deception, and battlefield effects like the turning off of power grids or direct manipulation of enemy C² networks and systems. In 2015, a cyberattack by a Russian hacking team on a power grid in Ukraine turned off the electricity of 225,000 customers.¹² This same type of attack could be used on the battlefield, shutting down C² networks and lighting, forcing an opponent to fight in darkness and without communications. Cyber warfare will allow us to magnify the fog, friction, and chaos of battle in a way that is detrimental to our enemy and his cognitive ability to fight.

Artillery. While emergent capabilities will be vital, traditional supporting arms will still have a place and innovative ways of employing them will be needed. Surface delivered, kinetic, and lethal indirect fire capabilities will continue to be a strong base of combined arms, especially when sheer volume of fire is needed. The sustained suppressive and fixing effects of artillery is still unmatched by any other combat arm. Surface fires will, however, need to be employed with creativity and care. As dependent as fire support coordination is on radio and digital communications, the electromagnetic signature of artillery units especially is now a serious vulnerability. Artillery will need to be employed in a much more physically distributed manner and fast, easy displacement of platforms is of primary concern; counter fire is no longer a possibility but a likelihood. Large coordination centers that are only moved with difficulty will not be a realistic option. The ideal future surface-to-surface fires capability will require dispersed delivery and converged effects (although this does not necessarily mean converged fire as the jumping barrage example shows).

Therefore, the agility of artillery systems—i.e., the ability to emplace and displace quickly and fire from any point on the battlefield—will be far more valuable than its firepower per round or even its range. This places a premium on automated and self-propelled platforms. As maneuver formations operate in a more distributed manner, artillery units will need to be even more capable of direct support of smaller and smaller units which presents both logistic and force protection challenges. Lastly, fire support coordination measures must be decentralized and delegated to the absolute lowest level. Lengthy approval processes are a luxury that is no longer possible. This is not to say that coordination to prevent friendly and civilian casualties can be ignored. Rather, junior leaders must be empowered with training, authority, and commander’s intent in order to achieve speed, precision, and accuracy.

Maneuver. The purpose of any combined arms approach is to facilitate maneuver that shatters the enemy’s cohesion. As an infantry-centric force, Marine infantry will remain at the core of our tactics. In recent years, the Marine Corps infantry squad has become the focus of operations, and the Marine Corps operating concept reflects this trend. The character of recent infantry combat, however, has been almost entirely reactive. To restore proactivity and effectively retain tempo in the 21st century, the ability to conduct combined arms must be resident in the squad itself as well as at higher echelons. Personal weapons systems with sufficient range and with high explosive lethality to affect enemy units out to at least 800 meters will be required.

Additionally, maneuver units will continue to require organic mortar systems to provide an intimate and responsive fire support capability. While artillery will continue to be an ideal weapons system when mass is required, infantry mortar systems need to be able to provide rapid precision fires at the bleeding edge of maneuver operations.

Aviation. The unmitigated air supremacy enjoyed by American aviation units in recent conflicts can no longer be assumed. Foreign professional militaries now employ organic air defense systems as low as the battalion level in response to the traditional dominance of American airpower. Aviation units thus must be prepared to create local air superiority on a temporary basis and to exploit local air freedom of movement generated by other combat arms. Suppression of enemy air defense missions will become routine rather than rare. Even beyond the threat of enemy action on the ground, Marine Corps aviation units will continue to be tasked by joint forces to assist in the defense of naval assets and expeditionary advanced bases. This has major implications for the employment of both manned and unmanned aviation systems. At times, other combat arms will have to shift to compensate for a lack of local air superiority or higher priority tasking of aviation assets.

The advent of advanced aerial-delivered munitions will drastically increase the complexity of fire support coordination and thus increase the burden on both fire support teams and fire support coordination centers. Munitions with greater range and net-enabled terminal guidance will prove useful but will necessitate additional training of fire supporters at every level, especially joint terminal attack controllers. The geometry of fire support coordination will be an order of magnitude more complex than in recent years.

While the role of aviation in combined arms may prove more difficult to employ in future fights, its importance will not be diminished. Indeed, as electronic warfare capabilities are increasingly employed by aircraft, aviation will increase in both flexibility and importance.

Implications

The implications of the expanding character of combined arms are many but none more important than the need to fuse more forms of combat arms support. The nature of combined arms has not changed; it is still about the mutual and reinforcing effect of numerous capabilities. Its character though is employing information, cyber, and electronic warfare with new and innovative application of artillery and aviation fires in support of maneuver. Fire support coordination at every level is focused on the coordination of maneuver, artillery, and aviation but must now include more capabilities. As the use of these combat arms fuses, so too must structure: organizational stovepipes between fires and information, cyber, and electronic warfare must be broken in the same manner as an fire support coordination center integrates maneuver, artillery, and aviation.

Another implication is that designation of infantry units as the main effort will no longer be the rule. As adversaries increasingly make military deception and information warfare a main effort, the Marine Corps must break its habitual views on the main effort in order to retain initiative and flexibility. Of course, as an infantry-centric force, infantry units will still frequently be the main effort but not always. Marine Corps commanders will frequently need to employ more creative plans, especially in shaping phases. This is not to say that there will not be a decisive phase where an assault is the main effort and enemy forces are destroyed, but that the shifting of main efforts must be an engrained habit and not a rarely used option.

As noted above, surprise and military deception are now of the utmost importance. These efforts cannot be left to information warfare subject matter experts; they must be front and center during the planning process. Both concepts feature prominently in both Marine Corps history and in MCDP 1, but little attention has been paid to them in recent years due to the nature of counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a muscle the Marine Corps must get used to flexing again.

None of these efforts can be successfully pursued without flexible and responsive expeditionary logistics. Prosecuting combined arms across five dimensions will strain legacy logistics systems and methods. Catastrophic failure in this realm will put Marine forces in their own dilemma.

Lastly, our tradition of decentralized C² based on mission tactics and commander’s intent is more important than ever before. It is vital to Marine Corps’ operations across the entire organization but especially so when it comes to executing modern combined arms warfare. Five dimension combined arms requires coordination, and coordination requires communications. At the same time, electromagnetic signatures caused by modern communications devices must be mitigated as much as possible. How will the Marine Corps achieve the level of coordination and communication necessary for combined arms while simultaneously mitigating the electromagnetic signature of units? We already know the answer—decentralize the C² of various arms as much as possible and at the lowest level possible. Centralized processes can no longer be tolerated and must instead be rooted out and redesigned. Commanders who cannot or will not effectively lead in accordance with our maneuver warfare philosophy similarly cannot be tolerated.

Conclusion

The Marine Corps expects that domain and technological dominance on the part of our military forces can no longer be assumed. Future adversaries will have capabilities on par with or nearly on par with our own. It also cannot be assumed that a return to peer adversaries will automatically mean a return to 20th century combined arms maneuver. It’s unclear exactly what future tactics will look like, but they will surely not look like past tactics. Russia and China are already integrating advanced capabilities, especially cyber and electronic warfare, into tactical level organizations and operations. Even non-state actors like Hezbollah and ISIS have gained advanced weaponry, leverage modern information technology, and have demonstrated the ability to take on conventional, professional militaries in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. The race to dominance on future battlefields is a race to integrate the new and the traditional in a synergistic fashion aimed not at the physical destruction of enemy forces but at their cognitive ability to operate as a cohesive unit. The combined arms approach, as an integral part of maneuver warfare, allows us to creatively combine the capabilities of the entire MAGTF and joint partners into a cohesive whole in a way that adversaries will be unable to match.

Notes

1. Dirk Anthony Ballendorf and Merrill L. Bartlett, Pete Ellis: An Amphibious Warfare Prophet, 1880–1923, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 59.

2. B.A. Friedman, 21st Century Ellis: Operational Art and Strategic Prophecy, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2015), 82.

3. David J. Ulbrich, Preparing for Victory: Thomas Holcomb and the Making of the Modern Marine Corps 1936–1943, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2011), 43–67.

4. Headquarters Marine Corps, MCDP 1, Warfighting, (Washington, DC: 1997), 94.

5. Headquarters Marine Corps, Marine Corps Operating Concept: How an Expeditionary Force Operates in the 21st Century, (Washington, DC: September 2016), 8.

6. Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, (New York: Shocken Books, 1984), 181.

7. Jonathan M. House, Combined Arms Warfare in the 20th Century, (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2001), 281.

8. Bruce Gudmunsson, On Artillery, (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993), 156.

9. House, 158.

10. Jim Storr, Human Face of War, (London: Continuum UK, 2009), 49–50.

11. Robert M. Citino, Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm: The Evolution of Operational Warfare, (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 281.

12. Dustin Volz, “U.S. Government Concludes Cyberattack Caused Ukraine Power Outage,” Reuters, (25 February 2016), accessed at http://www.reuters.com.

By The Ellis Group

Nineteen years after the release of MCDP 1, Warfighting, the Marine Corps finds itself in an environment of increasing strategic uncertainty and rapid introduction of new technology. While many new capabilities and concepts are unfamiliar, the situation is not. One hundred years ago, new technologies like the airplane, radio transmission, automatic weapons, and the tank were being introduced on battlefields all over the world. Every major combatant attempted to integrate the new weapons but few successfully sustained those efforts after the war.

Thus, World War I was an example of a conflict where new technologies were being introduced to military organizations that employed outdated tactics. It produced a situation where none could win; nations could only be ground to dust by continued resource depletion and attrition—first Russia, then the Ottoman Empire, and finally Germany. In the aftermath, tactics continued to stagnate as the war was viewed as an aberration. Although every nation changed their doctrine, few managed to bring all the new capabilities together.

There were two exceptions: Germany and the United States Marine Corps. LtCol Pete Ellis, in his Naval War College papers and lectures as well as Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia, proposed new tactical combinations and new, combined arms units purpose-designed to carry them out. His concepts were an embryonic version of the modern MAGTF, and Gen John A. Lejeune reformed the Marine Corps along those lines. The Germans studied and experimented, eventually developing a suite of tactics and newly designed units that would eventually come to be known as blitzkrieg.

In both cases, no new capabilities were developed. Tanks, aircraft, landing craft, and radios were all introduced, but not effectively integrated, during World War I or before. Specialized landing craft, for example, were proposed as early as 1798 and were used in North Carolina during the Civil War. The Germans and the Marine Corps succeeded in combining existing technologies and ideas in unique and innovative ways to produce something larger than the sum of the parts. Battlefield success throughout history is not necessarily achieved by military organizations that invented new technology but rather by those that best integrated them into a cohesive whole.

Today, the situation is similar. There are frequent calls to get back to the peer-on-peer methods of the 1990s. This is a coded proposal to stagnate and ignore the changing character of warfare. Last time it happened, thousands died for the mistake.

Achieving a cohesive whole does not just require the acquisition of emerging and maturing capabilities, but also necessitates the development of concepts and doctrine that guides use and coordination as well as the training and education methods that support the concepts. As a reflection of the Marine Corps maneuver warfare philosophy, MCDP 1, Warfighting achieved this cohesion for the Marine Corps of the late 20th century. The document provided guidance on how to organize, train, equip, and fight the organization in order to integrate each part into a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

MCDP 1, Warfighting can ensure that the Marine Corps achieves another such evolution for the 21st century. The concepts that underpin the document are timeless and their application on the modern battlefield just as effective as ever. As we shall see, even our adversaries apply maneuver warfare. MCDP 1, then, provides the best guidance as to how the Marine Corps should evolve for the future. But is the Marine Corps still institutionally able to execute maneuver warfare?

There is a concept in organizational theory called strategic fit. The concept is essentially an expression of whether or not an organization is well adapted to its environment. As an organization, it behooves the Marine Corps to assess whether it is strategically fit for its environment, in this case the prosecution of maneuver warfare in the 21st century. The question is whether the Marine Corps as an organization is structured, trained, equipped, and educated to execute maneuver warfare effectively in the modern context.

First, this article will examine trends in the current strategic environment for insight into both changes and continuities. Next, it will examine MCDP 1, Warfighting against the backdrop of the strategic environment. Third, it will describe instances of maneuver warfare during current operations. Lastly, it will lay out how the Marine Corps will need to apply the philosophy in the future and draw specific conclusions about how MCDP 1, Warfighting should be applied to the strategic environment.

The Strategic Environment

The last revision of Warfighting was signed by Gen Charles C. Krulak in 1997, eight years after it appeared as FMFM 1, Warfighting. In Gen Alfred M. Gray’s preface to the updated edition, he stated that,

Like war itself, our approach to war fighting must evolve. If we cease to refine, expand, and improve our profession, we risk becoming outdated, stagnant, and defeated.¹

The 19 years since have seen dramatic changes in warfare. The Marine Corps has participated in two major wars on land and countless other operations around the globe, all while maintaining a presence on the seas. Myriad new weapons, technology, and capabilities have been taken aboard and integrated with legacy systems, including the MV-22 Osprey, the HIMARS, and various unmanned aircraft systems (UASs). Operations have run the gamut of the spectrum of conflict, from training and advising missions in Africa to the Second Battle of Fallujah. While few would doubt that MCDP 1’s embrace of maneuver warfare allowed the Marine Corps to better keep pace with such rapid change, the pace of change remains remarkable.

Looking ahead, this pace of change and the corresponding need for adaptation shows no signs of decreasing. More than likely, it will increase. The recently released Joint Staff study of global trends, Joint Operating Environment 2035, has identified a strategic environment characterized by the same fracturing state authority, ideological violence, weapons proliferation, and complexity that Marines are now used to operating in. These trends presage future battlefields inhabited both by humans and robots, professionals and amateurs, and state and non-state actors, no matter the conventional or irregular nature of the conflict.

Most notably for the Marine Corps, the study predicts, “Increased competition across the air and maritime domains,”² a trend that is already obvious in the South China Sea and as Russia takes violent action to ensure its access to the Black Sea in Ukraine and the Mediterranean Sea in Syria. In terms of technology, autonomous robot systems and radio-frequency weapons will be more common and adversaries will be able to easily achieve C3/ISR (command, control, and communications/intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) capabilities commensurate with our own whether they are state or non-state actors.³ Lastly, the importance of information operations will skyrocket. The report states that:

Adversary information operations will focus on evolving their messages, goals, aspirations, and objectives and adapting their narrative strategies to affect a variety of friendly, neutral, and hostile audiences. Information warfare and propaganda efforts will be reinforced by military activities and violent action … ⁴

This level of integration of information warfare with other military means is something the Marine Corps has yet to achieve.

Information warfare can no longer be ignored as all future warfare will take place within a globalized digital media environment (GDME). Some adversaries have already mastered the use of information. Col T.X. Hammes, USMC(Ret), describes a “modern insurgency” as “ … essentially a strategic communications campaign supported by military action rather than a military campaign supported by effective strategic communications.”⁵ Marines are used to operating in a mode where maneuver is the main effort, for friendly and enemy forces. Increasingly, the main effort will be other means and will shift between means rapidly.

Lastly, technology is advancing rapidly, thus bringing new capabilities to bear on the battlefield. The Marine Corps Warfighting Lab has been at the forefront of many of these capabilities. Some of the most important of these are information, cyber, and electronic (ICE) warfare. As mentioned above, information warfare is of vital importance because of the Information Age environment in which the Marine Corps will operate. It can no longer be an annex to the operations plan or a task relegated to the collateral duties of a staff officer at high levels of command; it must be taken into account any time Marines plan any kind of operation. As military units, local populations, infrastructure, and weapons systems become increasingly digitally interconnected, cyber warfare offers great threats and great opportunities. Electronic warfare has been a U.S. asset for years, but sophisticated systems that can disrupt, deceive, and destroy vital electronic systems are proliferating to many of our adversaries. It is not just important to integrate these capabilities into our offensive operations, but defensive measures must continually be taken to reduce the electromagnetic signature of all Marine Corps units and to mitigate the effects of enemy electronic warfare.

The Maneuver Warfare Philosophy

For all of these changes, maneuver warfare as the Marine Corps’ institutional philosophy not only remains sound but also continues to offer insights. MCDP 1 was written to remain timeless and has succeeded in doing so. The fact that the first citation is Carl von Clausewitz’s On War (184 years old) and the second is Sun Tzu’s The Art of War (roughly 2,500 years old) is no accident.

It is Clausewitz that informs much of the first section, “The Nature of War.” The Prussian’s famous treatise was not written as a work that explains how to win wars but rather what war is as a sociological phenomenon. MCDP 1 defines war in a few ways, all based on Clausewitz’s definitions and all still relevant today. War remains an act of politics with the addition of violent means. Even ideological and religiously motivated non-state actors, at their core, have policy goals: the political power to enact their ideology. In defining war, it is important to remember the two aspects of war: its nature and its character. Its nature never changes. Its character, how it is expressed in the real world, is never the same.

In addition to its nature, MCDP 1 describes numerous characteristics of war: friction, fluidity, complexity, and its human character. No matter the technological means employed, war remains a human act, and its dualistic nature causes friction, fluidity, and complexity. Despite claims to the contrary, we continue to struggle friction and the uncertainty in war. Every tactical act is beholden to the play of probability and can never be certain.

Lastly, MCDP 1 lays out three elements of war: the physical, the mental, and the moral. Maneuver warfare does not stop at inflicting physical stress on the enemy but also takes into account the mental effects that our tactics have on the enemy. An artillery barrage does not just kill and wound, but also shocks and overpowers the human mind. No matter what physical and mental forces assail the enemy, his morale and the moral cohesion of his unit will keep him in the fight unless it is shattered. Conversely, it is the esprit de corps and cohesion of Marine Corps units that makes them potent no matter the physical and mental adversity. Thus, the moral cohesion of the enemy is the true target of tactics. As MCDP 1 says, “The combination of the physical, mental, and moral effects we inflict on the enemy is combat power.”⁶

The second section, “The Theory of War,” is the philosophy’s view on how wars are fought, reiterating that it is an act of and subject to policy. The point of this repetition is to remind Marines that their actions serve a larger purpose for the Nation: “The policy aims that are the motive for any group in war should also be the foremost determinants of its conduct.”⁷ This is why rules of engagement are so vital: they ensure that the tactical conduct of a war contributes to its policy aim. This is a lesson that Marines had to viscerally relearn in recent years.

There is no reason for the Marine Corps to stop dividing war into tactical, operational, and strategic levels, but the separation is not nearly as important as the convergence thereof. The character of modern warfare is a clear convergence in the levels of war: tactical actions can have instant and global strategic effects in a global digital media environment. As Marines fight the Nation’s battles, they must do so with the realization that every tactical decision—or indecision— has a positive or negative strategic effect. It either contributes to or detracts from achieving the strategic aim. This dynamic has been less obvious in the past, but on the modern battlefield, even a private’s actions can have immediate and profound strategic effects. This does not mean that we must treat every Marine as a strategist, but Marine leaders do need a basic understanding of strategy in order to make effective tactical decisions.

This section discusses the interplay of the offense and the defense as well as initiative and response. MCDP 1 connects the initiative most often with the offense, but we should remember this is not always so. If one can divine the enemy’s offensive plan and decide where to defend against it or, better yet, induce the enemy to attack you where you planned a devastating defense, you have both the initiative and the strength of the defense. MCDP 1 one states exactly this,⁸ but the idea has seemingly disappeared from discussion. Another dichotomy discussed in this section is attrition versus maneuver warfare. Attrition warfare was meant as a theoretical demonstration of how warfare would be conducted if one were to adhere to the extreme opposite of every tenant of maneuver warfare.⁹ This was done to illustrate the concept of maneuver warfare. It had the effect of turning attrition into a dirty word. This is a false conception. The overly-centralized, procedural methods described should be avoided, but the destruction of enemy forces—accomplished along maneuver warfare lines—is an integral part of Marine Corps operations.

The last part of this section gets down into the tactics that typify maneuver warfare, starting with maneuver (juxtaposed with mass) and including surprise and boldness. MCDP 1 briefly defines maneuver as, “ … circumvent a problem and attack it from a position of advantage rather than meet it straight on.”¹⁰ The most common depiction of using maneuver to gain advantage is positional: striking a flank, seam, or rear area in the enemy system. While speed, firepower, mass, and surprise all contribute to maneuver, there are various other ways to out maneuver an enemy system, including cognitively.

The cognitive level is an important part of maneuver warfare because, as MCDP 1 says when discussing surprise, “Surprise is not what we do, it is the enemy’s reaction to what we do.”¹¹ This is key because, as maneuverists, we do not just take into account what physical destruction our actions cause but also the mental effect our actions have on the enemy’s mind. Surprise is one these effects.

Section three, “Preparing for War,” is an application of the philosophy to the Marine Corps in terms of organization: it covers everything from training, personnel policy, leadership, and acquisitions. The first major point is that the Marine Corps should operate as MAGTFs. It lays out how we should view our own doctrine, the Marine Corps’ conception of professionalism, and how we can become an organization designed for maneuver warfare. Many of these ideas were ahead of their time in terms of organizational theory and mechanics.

As solid as this section is, it is the most depressing part of MCDP 1 to read—nearly every paragraph makes a recommendation that the Marine Corps has failed to achieve. The habitual relationships that are supposed to be the foundation of every MAGTF have all but disappeared.¹² Our philosophy is that doctrine should not be viewed as prescriptive, but our premier exercise, the integrated training exercise, ignores the recommendation for free play and even features officers assigned to no other duties but mandating doctrine and punishing transgressions. This is in direct violation of MCDP 1.¹³ Professionalism for officers is defined first as “a solid foundation in military theory and knowledge of military history,”¹⁴ but neither of these is truly evaluated by promotion boards. As long as the PME box is checked, it is assumed. The study of war is recommended not once but throughout the book and in every chapter. Physical fitness is mentioned only once, and that is just to say that the study of war “ … is at least equal in importance to maintaining physical condition and should receive at least equal time.” Yet, a Marine could go his entire career without cracking a book on war, so long as he can do pull-ups.

Section three goes on to say that commanders are expected to provide adequate time for subordinate unit training at each echelon,¹⁵ but more training is now mandated than there are training days in a year.¹⁶ Our personnel management system is supposed to

… recognize that all Marines of a given grade and occupational specialty are not interchangeable and should assign people to billets based on specific ability and temperament.¹⁷

It still does not. The chapter is essentially a roadmap for how to apply our maneuver warfare philosophy to the Supporting Establishment of the Marine Corps. Unfortunately, this is a road the institution has yet to take.

The last section, “The Conduct of War,” is a series of specific conclusions for the Marine Corps based on the philosophy of war laid out in the first two sections and assuming that the recommendations of the third section have been implemented and a maneuver warfare organization achieved. The first major conclusion is our method of C²: mission tactics. There is little to say about the relevance of this concept as the U.S. Army has recently adopted it. But a decentralized method of C² sacrifices unity for speed of action and reaction. To regain some of that unity, the next three concepts are key: commander’s intent, main effort, and surfaces and gaps. Marine leaders of any rank can be trusted to accomplish their mission as they see fit if they understand the goal of their commander (commander’s intent), know which unit is tasked with the most important part of the plan so it can be supported (main effort), and know that advantage can be achieved by apply our strength against an enemy’s weaknesses rather than his strength (surfaces and gaps).

The above concepts are how we operate, but we apply combat power against the enemy on the physical, mental, and moral planes through combined arms. Combined arms depends on the availability and use of multiple, complementary weapons systems and effects applied in a coordinated manner. It is defined in MCDP 1 as “ … the full integration of arms in such a way that to counteract one, the enemy must become more vulnerable to another.”¹⁸ The ultimate aim of combined arms is to inflict this dilemma on the enemy. It is usually explained in terms of the simultaneous employment of direct and indirect fire weapon systems but any arm, including information, cyber, and electronic warfare, can be used in such a coordinated fashion.

Current Operations

This admittedly cursory review of the major maneuver warfare precepts as defined by MCDP 1 lays out how the Marine Corps is supposed to fight, but is that ideal suitable for the current and future strategic environment? To answer that question, there is no better way than to examine actual and potential adversaries as they have the most incentive to master such methods before we can. Such a review reveals that not only is maneuver warfare relevant, it is being actively employed all over the world.

Although often associated with conventional operations, the fighters of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS and ISIL) have proven that maneuver warfare concepts do not just apply to professionals. The terrorist group executed a lightning campaign against Iraq, capturing huge swaths of the country, looting advanced weaponry, and shattering the cohesion of the Iraqi Army in the same way that maneuver warfare aims to do. First, the group established a base area in Eastern Syria by co-opting or eliminating rival anti-Syrian government groups already located there. They did this with a clever information warfare campaign, establishing communications with each group, and telling them that ISIS would only attack the other groups. They further camouflaged themselves by dropping their trademark black uniforms and wearing brown civilian clothing like the rebels. When ISIS eventually attacked all of the rebels, every rebel unit expected to be left alone and was completely unprepared.¹⁹

The Islamic State did not stop there. After pushing into Iraq, ISIS fighters waged a shaping campaign against the Iraqi Seventh Division around Mosul prior to taking the city. For almost a year prior to actually assaulting Mosul, ISIS identified effective and loyal Iraqi Army officers and assassinated them, on and off duty by various methods.²⁰ This caused a pervasive sense of fear and instability in the division, undermining its moral cohesion. When the main attack finally did occur, the units melted away; their cohesion finally shattered.

Just such a far-sighted shaping campaign may already be ongoing by a vastly different strategic actor, the People’s Republic of China. In recent years, China has stepped up its efforts to bolster and enforce its claim over the South China Sea, bringing it into conflict with many of its neighbors such as Vietnam and the Philippines. Here, deception is the key method as China masked its construction of offshore oil rigs and artificial islands built to achieve de facto control over the area. The most notable deception effort is the repainting of maritime security ships as Chinese Coast Guard ships.²¹ This takes advantage of Western assumptions about the purpose of a Coast Guard (law enforcement and rescue except during times of war) to mask their true purpose: keeping foreign vessels from observing the artificial islands and oil rigs. While intelligence analysts may easily see through such methods, it allows China to extend its control over the region without triggering Western interference because the general public does not notice.

The most dangerous current application of maneuver warfare ideas may perhaps be Russia. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have gone through major modernization efforts since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but those efforts have accelerated under President Vladimir Putin, especially after the 2008 invasion of Georgia. Russia has streamlined every aspect of its army, including the elimination of all levels of the chain of command above the brigade and below the regional level. The truncated chain of command fosters rapid C² as there is just one headquarters level between brigade commanders and the Russian General Staff.²² (There is some indication that Russia is reversing this decision, however.²³) The professionalism of Russian soldiers has also increased as conscription continues to be phased out.

It is the structure of those brigades, however, that is key. Each one is a self-contained combined arms force. They are built around three battalions of motorized infantry, much like our MEB, but include much more firepower: two battalions of self-propelled howitzers, a rocket artillery battalion, an electronic warfare company, a tank battalion, an anti-tank battalion, and two air defense battalions, plus maintenance, communications, logistics, and engineering units.²⁴ All of these capabilities are organic to the brigade rather than attached. Air support, however, is provided by the Russian Air Force and is attached prior to operations. These combined arms brigades have proven to be extremely potent in Eastern Ukraine, where the units work alongside Russian-sponsored insurgents. Fire support from the combined arms brigades is frequently directed via UAV feed—mostly commercial off-the-shelf systems—piped directly to the fire direction centers.

The trend in American operations for the past decade and a half has been increasing levels of command and increasing levels of coordination while simultaneously depending on technological overmatch as an advantage over adversaries. That technological overmatch is quickly eroding and studies have shown that a technological advantage is a poor determinant of success in warfare.²⁵ Russia is reversing that trend, streamlining both decision making and increasing flexibility and responsiveness, especially in fire support. New technology is being integrated without using it as a crutch. Maneuver warfare, of course, encourages such methods and is built around being able to make and implement decisions faster than the enemy. While our philosophy supports this, our force structure does not. Russia has purposefully designed reforms that support exactly those tenants and can execute them in conventional and irregular operations.

Future Operations

While the above examples demonstrate that maneuver warfare remains relevant in the 21st century, they also show that the character of warfare has changed since MCDP 1 was released.

Perhaps the most important changes in the realm of fires. Traditionally, the Marine Corps has focused on a triad of field artillery plus close air support and naval surface fire support to provide the firepower necessary to conduct maneuver warfare. In recent years, however, both electronic warfare and cyber warfare have been developed by ourselves and by our adversaries. These capabilities are most relevant for Marines as they can perform fires-like missions.

Information warfare has always been a part of war, but thanks to the globalized digital media environment, it is now much more important and its effects both more potent and faster than in the past. Nowhere is this more obvious than when it comes to terrorist and insurgent organizations, but, as noted above, both Russia and China cloak operations and efforts in a screen of confusion generated by information warfare, not unlike a smokes screen created by artillery rounds but at a much higher level.

Yet, traditional firepower remains as potent as ever, if not more potent. Modern fire support systems have proliferated, too many non-state actors and peer adversaries retain large stocks of artillery and missiles, especially North Korea. World War I style trenches are currently in use by both sides around Mosul and in Eastern Ukraine. Kinetic, indirect fire is obviously still a threat, but that threat is made much more potent by the ubiquity of unmanned aerial ISR platforms. These systems can now be purchased off-the-shelf, and while they are not survivable in contested airspace, their expendability means that they will be used nearly everywhere for the foreseeable future. The trenches mentioned above are necessary because the ability to hide from forward observers is dwindling as more and more actors use UAVs to spot targets for fire support. Additionally, satellite technology also continues to advance and proliferate, reinforcing the ubiquity of ISR over every future battlefield.

Lastly, the United States does retain dominance on land, sea, and in the air when it comes to high-end combat. Both wars in Iraq proved that beyond a doubt. That dominance, however, merely means that adversaries are incentivized to fight in other ways. Just as we seek to always fight from a position of advantage so too will our enemies. This means that the use of asymmetric, hybrid, and unconventional approaches will only increase in the future. Even if a war against a peer adversary were to occur, the idea that tactics and warfare would simply revert to those of the 1940s when such conflicts were more common is ludicrous.

Therefore, in an effort to retain our strategic fitness as a warfighting organization, it behooves us to reinvigorate maneuver warfare for the current operating environment by reconceiving a few key concepts. Despite the many changes in technology, geopolitics, and warfare in the intervening years, the theoretical principles clearly remain sound. If anything, global trends toward agile, combined arms units and decentralized C² means that maneuver warfare is more relevant than it was two decades ago. Still, a few refinements are necessary to ensure a better strategic fit.

21st Century Maneuver Warfare

These refinements are not changes to the documents but evolutions in how Marines think about and implement maneuver warfare. The core of maneuver warfare is a preference for maneuver: attacking from an advantageous position or angle. This remains effective, but the conception of maneuver must broaden even beyond the examples included in MCDP 1, Warfighting. Out-maneuvering our opponents will increasingly require us to divorce the concept of maneuver from maneuver units. Rather, maneuver is required across all MAGTF functions. It may require sustained electromagnetic or cyber fire support, an information warfare campaign, or ground operations against anti-air threats. This means the main effort will not always be a ground combat unit.

While maneuver is the core idea, the principle of mass is of increased importance despite its near absence from Warfighting itself. As the ISR and firepower capabilities of our opponents increase, so will our need to master the principle of mass. This does not mean that our forces should always be concentrated. Rather, the principle of mass has two components: concentration and dispersal. Military units disperse to move faster, avoid detection, mitigate the effects of fires, and take advantage of multiple avenues of approach. Forces then concentrate—either effects or units—to strike a strong blow against a decisive point or when necessary to secure key terrain. Some forms of maneuver require concentration, others require dispersal. Mastering the principle of mass means knowing when to concentrate and when to disperse and being able to function well in both modes.

Physical deployments of course matter, but maneuver warfare stresses not just the aspect of our physical tactics but the mental effects that those tactics cause. Marine leaders are well versed in the advantages and disadvantages of various maneuvers, but let’s take the next step and evaluate—from the enemy’s perspective—the expected mental consequences. MCDP 1 stresses surprise, and it is always good to surprise the enemy when possible, but there are other possibilities as well. First, deception is a potent force that is not necessarily linked with surprise. In the past, Marine forces have used deception to force enemies to commit forces to defend points that never get attacked and to obscure intended amphibious landings that do happen. Such methods will continue to be important, but any measures that deceive the enemy pollute his decision-making process and situational awareness. Even rapid, smaller attacks can overload an enemy C² system and cause confusion. In the future, Marines will need to become better at not just overcoming friction but in introducing friction into the enemy’s system by contaminating his perception of reality. Cyber warfare especially offers many opportunities for this, but even properly planned kinetic fires can play a part.

The point of evaluating both physical and mental effects of our plans is to direct the battle in such a way that it shatters the moral cohesion of the opponent. MCDP 1 defines maneuver warfare as

… a warfighting philosophy that seeks to shatter the enemy’s cohesion through a variety of rapid, focused, and unexpected actions which create a turbulent and rapidly deteriorating situation with which the enemy cannot cope.²⁶

But if the enemy’s cohesion is our target, what exactly is it?

The cohesion of a military unit is an aspect of what Warfighting calls the moral level of war. This should not be confused with the word morality. Military units, from fire team to army, are not just bound together as a whole by regulations and statutory authority. The shared values and loyalties of the individual members, tempered by shared training and adversity, along with organizational values and traditions, bind them together. This enhances everything from morale to courage and teamwork. Whether this is referred to as esprit de corps or a “band of brothers” mentality, the more cohesive a military unit is as an organization the more effective it is in combat.

But no matter how cohesive a unit is on the moral level, enough trepidation, defeat, attrition, frustration, and fear can overcome that cohesion. When that happens, individual members defect or retreat. Other units become isolated and distrust their adjacent and even higher counterparts. When the bonds of trust and loyalty within an organization are broken, it can no longer function as a whole. An army becomes individual corps, then depleted divisions, then broken and scattered remnants. As Marines evaluate and plan physical deployments with an eye toward affecting the enemy’s mind, it is their moral cohesion, which must be ceaselessly corrupted, dissected, and shattered and is the target of every tactical action, kinetic or non-kinetic.

Way Ahead

This article is the first in a series that will be published in the coming months. Each article will examine applications of MCDP 1, Warfighting through various lenses and against the background of 21st century warfare. These articles will include:

• 21st Century Combined Arms. As the method by which the Marine Corps executes maneuver warfare, the combined arms concept merits expansion to include emergent capabilities. What does combined arms mean in the 21st century?
• Maneuver. The Marine Corps uses maneuver to attack the enemy from a position of advantage. This advantage is not just spatial but must include out maneuvering the enemy on the cognitive level. How can the Marine Corps expand the maneuver space into other domains?
• Fires. Both surface-delivered and aerial-delivered fires affect the enemy and facilitate maneuver, but emergent capabilities can also contribute in a fires-like manner.
• Intelligence. Intelligence, as ever, will drive operations. How can the Marine Corps more quickly cycle through collection, analysis, and dissemination to drive the kind of rapid, dynamic operations required?
• C². Information technology offers many opportunities, and threats, when it comes to command and control. The Marine Corps must continue to utilize a decentralized C² method driven by mission command and commander’s intent but centralization is easier than ever. How can the Marine Corps avoid the temptation to micromanage?
• Logistics. All warfare depends on logistics, maneuver warfare included. The logistics community can leverage new technology to increase their agility and responsiveness, but that is only part of the answer. The Marine Corps has developed coordination between the GCE and the ACE into a fine art, how can it do the same for coordination with the LCE?
• Force Protection. Force protection extends across all Marine Corps functional areas, from fire support coordination to acquisitions to cyber defense. While it’s vital to protect Marine forces in the fight, force protection is continuous. How can we make more mentally resilient Marines before battle and better take care of them after?
• Amphibious Operations. How can emergent capabilities facilitate amphibious operations and how can the Marine Corps overcome adversaries ashore who employ capabilities and technology on par with our own?

Conclusion

Maneuver warfare, as a warfighting philosophy, is fit and appropriate for the strategic environment. Some aspects of MCDP 1 need a refresh. Others remain correct, but it is the institution that needs to better absorb the lessons.

The Marine Corps, as an organization is less strategically fit in the sense that institutional factors interfere with many of our philosophy’s tenets. Maneuver warfare is an ideal that we have yet to reach. This is not just a complaint but also an explication of a risk. As new Marines enter our Service and read our philosophy, they will compare their own experience with it. Every time a Marine does this and sees a breach between what the institution preaches and what it practices, the institution as a whole loses credibility. The bonds of trust between that individual and the Marine Corps are frayed and eventually broken. This is a threat to our moral cohesion as a fighting force and one that should concern all of us. MCDP 1 states that, “ … our philosophy demands confidence among seniors and subordinates.”²⁷ Marine leaders who cannot lead in accordance with maneuver warfare, who persist in using authoritative and overly supervisory styles of command, are a threat to the institution as a whole.

Since maneuver warfare remains a sound approach to both war and warfare, the deficit between the status quo and strategic fitness is the Marine Corps’ collective ability to embrace its ideals in peacetime and in war. We must abide by and execute maneuver warfare as the character of warfare changes. In contrast to other Services, our philosophy primes us to not seek salvation in the form of wonder weapons or technological marvels. To be sure, we must exploit modern technology but do so in a way that enhances our warfighting capability while not depending wholly upon it. Rather, we look to improve ourselves and our organization, to invest in mental power rather than in purchasing power, and to out think rather than out buy. We must seek to do what the Marine Corps, starting with Pete Ellis, has done time and time again: integrate new technologies in innovative combinations with our storied traditions of excellence and Marines. Lastly, maneuver warfare teaches that we should invest heavily in our most significant asymmetric advantage: the United States Marine.

Notes:

1. Headquarters Marine Corps, MCDP 1 War fighting, (Washington, DC: 1997), Preface.

2. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Operating Environment 2035 (JOE 2035): The Joint Force in a Contested and Disordered World, (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, 2016), 7.

3. JOE 2035, 18.

4. Ibid., 23–24.

5. T.X. Hammes, “The Message is the Insurgency,” Marine Corps Gazette, (Quantico, VA: November, 2007), 18–30.

6. MCDP 1, 40.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid., 39.

9. Ibid., 37.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid., 43.

12. Ibid., 55.

13. Ibid., 59–61.

14. Ibid., 57.

15. Ibid., 59.

16. Ibid., 59.

17. Ibid., 64.

18. Ibid., 94.

19. Christoph Reuter, “The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of the Islamic State,” Speigel Online International, (Hamburg, Germany, 18 April 2015), accessed at http://www.spiegel.de/international.

20. Michael Knights, “ISIL’s Politico-Military Power in Iraq,” CTC Sentinel, (West Point, NY: August 2014), 2–4.

21. Matthew Hipple, “China: Leap-Frogging U.S. Deterrence in the Pacific,” War on the Rocks, (2 July 2014), accessed at http://www.warontherocks.com.

22. Mikhail Barabanov, Editor, Russia’s New Army, (Moscow: Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, 2011), 21.

23. Ulrich Kühn, “False Alert: Is Russia Beefing up its Forces on NATO’s Border?,” War on the Rocks, (8 July 2016).

24. Barabanov, 24.

25. Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).

26. MCDP 1, 73.

27. Ibid., 82.