During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, I served on what was then the Marine Corps Combat Development Command’s Combat Assessment Team. There was a sense of urgency in gathering campaign lessons learned and the team members of the team were imbedded in staffs across the MEF. We contributed as part of the staff during the day and captured observations at night. When Baghdad fell and I MEF was re-deployed home, we spent a couple of months synthesizing what we had learned into something that would hopefully be helpful for future fights.
Our observations were focused on tactical lessons learned. The Marine Corps, after all, fights at the tactical level. Although I spent a lot of time studying and thinking about the operational level of war, my perspective has shifted, and I now argue the operational level of war does not exist. It is a construct (and not a useful one) for warfighting, justifying, in the wake of Goldwater-Nichols, general officer positions and massive supporting staff. Every staff, from combatant commanders through joint task forces, and functional component commanders, to the MEF claims to fight at the operational level of war.
These “operational-level staffs” create a massive demand for tactical information from those doing the actual fighting while diffusing authority, responsibility, and accountability. Accountability and responsibility are vital in war, and it is critical to know who is empowered to make decisions. He who makes decisions in war is responsible for strategy, and I am not certain our current organizational constructs make it clear who is in charge.
As a related aside, it should be troubling to recognize the United States won World War II with fewer than a dozen four-star admirals and generals leading sixteen million men and women in uniform. The nature of war has not changed even though its character has evolved with technology. We are creatures of our technology, however, and one could argue war’s complexity has not necessarily become more difficult to manage. Today, we have forty-three four-star admirals and generals, and our win-loss record is not great. I thought the Information Age was supposed to flatten organizations.
A tactical observation made, but perhaps not captured, by the Iraqi Freedom Combat Assessment Team was the failure in Phase IV planning. Phase IV was the phase that would follow the conclusion of combat operations. To say the Phase IV plan for I MEF was opaque would be charitable. Honestly, though I MEF planners were not negligent, they received no direction from the combined forces land Component commander or from anyone else.
Arguably, the reason there was no direction for Phase IV is there was no strategic goal for the U.S. war in Iraq for which Operation IRAQI FREEDOM was the opening campaign. There were vague goals surrounding finding weapons of mass destruction. Also, suggestions of ties between the Iraqis and the events of 11 September and after the initial campaign the shift from finding weapons of mass destruction to regime change continued to add ambiguity to our strategic goals. What was to come after regime change? What was the overarching U.S. strategic goal in Iraq? We did not have one.
We did not have a strategic goal or a strategy in Afghanistan either; if we did, it was a bad strategy. In hindsight, Afghanistan should have been a punitive expedition with the goal of punishing those responsible for the 11 September attacks and those who provided them refuge. The United States had a worldwide charter of approval for a punitive expedition, after which U.S. forces should have been withdrawn.
On 18 August 2021, following the debacle that was the withdrawal of U.S. forces, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen Berger, wrote a letter to Marines who had served in Afghanistan. He said,
You fought to defend your country, your family, your friends, and your neighbors. You fought to prevent terror from returning to our shores. You fought for the liberty of young Afghan girls, women, boys, and men who want the same individual freedoms we enjoy as Americans. You fought for the Marine to your left and the Marine to your right. You never let them down.
All of this is true, all of it is noble, and all of it is truly laudable and reflects the values of Marines and the Marine Corps. But through it all, one must wonder, what was the U.S. strategic goal in Afghanistan? Were Marines fighting for the liberty of young Afghan girls, women, boys, and men? Is that the goal for which we invested more than twenty years’ worth of effort and national treasure?
A popular saying in the wake of the U.S. loss in Vietnam was that we won all the battles and lost the war. We dominated tactically and lost strategically. After Vietnam and through the 1980s, the Marine Corps, the Army, and the Nation writ large went through a catharsis of sorts, working to understand the failure and how to avoid the same again. One of the products of this work was what became known as the Weinberger Doctrine, which amounted to a list of questions and pre-conditions to be met before committing U.S. forces to conflict. The Weinberger Doctrine to many appeared quaint and inapplicable in the “changed world” of 2002. I would argue the tenants of the Weinberger Doctrine were applicable then and are just as applicable now.
From my vantage point, there has been no effort comparable to post-Vietnam in understanding the failures of Afghanistan and Iraq. The focus has shifted to China and for the Marine Corps, Force Design 2030, kind of like a “whew, I’m glad that’s over, we need to get ready for what’s next.” I hope, at minimum, work has been done, as was done in 2003 to capture tactical lessons learned for the Marine Corps. Those lessons have immediate value and importance.
So, why is this important to the Marine Corps and readers of the Marine Corps Gazette to think about strategy? Because many of the Marines reading the Gazette today will soon find themselves in the position of shaping national strategy. But our national strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq was the responsibility of our Nation’s civil leadership, right? A cornerstone of our constitutional republic is civil control of the military, they define our national goals. The military supports the national strategy.
All of this is true, but at the same time, nobody in the Nation understands conflict and security better than those in uniform. The Nation invests in cultivating this knowledge and should be able, when necessary, to harvest the fruit. Senior military leadership has spent decades in uniform, in operational roles, in supporting roles, and attending schools. By the time these leaders arrive at the pinnacle of their careers, none of the civilians they support and advise can hold a candle to their training, education, and experience in matters of national security.
Moreover, throughout their careers Army and Marine leaders at least learned the importance of well-defined goals for tactical-level operations. They recognize tactical goals are the pinnacle of a pyramid resting on the foundational layer of strategy and strategic goals. As was seen by I MEF in 2003 during phase IV planning, tactical goals are impossible to divine absent strategic guidance.
This begs the question, why were we conducting military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan without defined strategic goals military forces were fighting to achieve? If we did have a strategy, why did we fail to attain our goal? Why, when former Commandant, Gen Berger penned his letter to the Marines, was he unable to point to or mention what had been achieved or not achieved in terms of worthy and defined strategic aims? Why is there an after-the-fact questioning by many Americans of why we were even in Afghanistan, countered by vague assertions, with foundations of support resting in the shifting sand of assumptions of it being better to fight potential terrorists abroad rather than at home?
Developing strategic goals implies the need for political consensus and approval. This means Congressional approval. In both conflicts, the use of force was authorized by Congress for initial operations, but there was little to no Congressional oversight focused on validating or shifting strategic goals in subsequent years of these long wars. There are many reasons for this lack of oversight.
Strategy is not stagnant nor is strategy limited to planning. Developing plans is merely the first step of strategy, the most important part being the identification of the strategic goal, followed by a reconciliation of that goal with means and ways. Strategy continues beyond planning, however, with an endless series of decisions, adjusting to the changing reality to attain the goal. With each decision comes another round of reconciling means and ways to ensure they remain sufficient and feasible.
Perhaps, with so few members of Congress having prior military experience, there was a dearth of understanding of the requirement for continuous oversight. Perhaps Congress simply trusted the military and State Department with the mission. Perhaps there was Congressional consensus, spoken or unspoken, for the need to project unity in the face of conflict. Perhaps political discussions of strategic goals were intentionally avoided precisely because doing so would create unwelcome controversy. It certainly is easier to simply approve generous annual appropriations to continue tactical actions than it is to wrestle in strategic discussions.
The various war colleges are the capstone educational experience for officers. Much time is devoted to the discussion and understanding of civil-military relations. These institutions are probably one of the best venues to at least begin discussions on what has gone wrong in recent conflicts with the goal of improvement. While these discussions would make interesting non-attributional fodder for lectures and seminars, something formal and attributional resulting in a product with recommendations would better serve the Nation’s needs.
Two questions that should be explored are what was the relationship between senior military officers and civil leadership from 2001 to 2021 and was it sufficient? In the over twenty years of conflict, no senior military officer ever spoke publicly with real misgivings in either conflict. Was this because of misplaced confidence in the status of ongoing operations?
If this is the case, our armed services have a training and educational shortfall that precludes leaders from accurately assessing conflict. In July and August 2021, most civilians with common sense recognized the looming disaster in Afghanistan. It is puzzling to hear assertions that military leadership saw no warnings and indicators of imminent collapse.
There would be true value when those who participated in Iraq and Afghanistan were available to examine these questions and to determine why we keep failing to get our strategy right. It would be valuable to re-consider the roles of military leadership in determining strategy in conflict. It may be of value to re-consider our organizational constructs. Is the geographic combatant commander and associated joint task forces construct still appropriate and are they effective?
We should ask strategic questions today about the fighting in Ukraine. While U.S. troops do not appear to be overtly committed, the United States is nonetheless supporting tactical actions, committing resources totaling more than three times the Marine Corps annual appropriation, without clearly articulated strategic goals. We hear platitudes of “defending democracy” or dubious assertions we need to stop Putin from his plans to conquer all of Europe—but no real strategic goals.
As noted, military leadership has more experience and qualifications than anyone else in understanding how to best shape our Nation’s strategy during conflict. Understanding how our strategy became insufficient in Iraq and Afghanistan and how it remains insufficient in Ukraine is important. Understanding and either validating or modifying for better results the roles of military leadership in defining strategy should also be considered. It is time to repeat the post-Vietnam efforts to understand what has gone wrong and determine how can be precluded from happening again.
>Col Vohr served as a Logistics Officer and MAGTF Planner.
Artillery modernization and support to the 2d MarDiv
The release of Force Design 2030 has precipitated significant changes in the structure of 10th Mar. The regiment maintains a two-battalion structure following the cancellation of activation plans for the 3d and 5th Battalions, resulting in adjustments to the capability and support provided to the 2d MarDiv. The divestment of cannon artillery, paralleling the larger divestment of infantry regiments and battalions, was accompanied by the establishment and consolidation of the division’s High Mobility Rocket Artillery System (HIMARS) capability within the 2d Battalion. The establishment of the Fire Support Battery consolidated the regiment’s fire support teams—long the mainstay liaison capability to its infantry counterparts—under one command while the incorporation of longer-range target acquisition systems complemented the introduction of a division organic long-range precision fires capability. Throughout this evolution, 10th Mar expanded its support to the 3d MarDiv and combatant commanders worldwide through expanded support to the Unit Deployment Program while maintaining its presence embarked aboard Camp Lejeune-based MEUs, increasing its global footprint.
These structural changes affect the regiment amid a rapidly evolving operating environment. The hard lessons of recent conflicts such as the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War and the ongoing war in Ukraine loom large as 10th Mar adapts its learning to generate forces capable of thriving amidst global crisis and contingency operations. The threats posed by adversaries’ integrated sensors and fire complexes, the increased prevalence and capability of unmanned systems on the battlefield, and the increasingly contested nature of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum are but a few of the operational realities that drive an increased distribution of forces on the battlefield. The Service has followed suit, and the Marine Corps’ current Service-level Integrated Training Exercise and MAGTF Warfighting Exercise provide a demanding, distributed environment where 10th Mar operating concepts have been put to the test.
While 10th Mar of today may look different, its responsibilities as the Marine Corps’ Service-retained cannon and rocket artillery regiment endure. Regardless of ongoing change, 10th Mar remains postured and capable of supporting global force tasking while retaining a combat-credible capability to respond to crisis and contingency. As the regiment mans, trains, and equips in support of the 2d MarDiv, the challenges posed by contemporary threats, force structure changes, and a distributed battlefield drive defined changes in how it organizes for combat to support maneuver. It is a much more scalable and flexible artillery regiment than ever before, employing more diverse weapons systems, advanced targeting acquisition capabilities, and an improved ability to man and train capable fire support teams; 10th Mar continues to capture valuable lessons learned to optimize its support to the Follow Me Division in any capacity required.
The Arm of Decision
If it has done nothing else, the regiment’s structural changes under Force Design 2030 have shattered convention in the realm of legacy concepts of support to the 2d MarDiv. While the regiment retains two-for-two artillery battalion parity with the division’s infantry regiments, the battery-level organization of 10th Mar disrupts traditional ratios of support. The regiment’s present organization consists of seven cannon batteries and three HIMARS batteries tasked with providing support to eight infantry battalions and the additional fire support needs of the 2d Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion while retaining a capability to support MEF-level requirements with long-range precision rocket fires or cannon artillery as needed. This problem of capacity is further strained by the reality that at any given moment upwards of 40 percent of the regiment’s firing batteries are forward deployed—or preparing to deploy—in support of global force tasking.
These structural changes and their impact on conventional methods of support exist in the context of a broader landscape of operational challenges stemming from both contemporary adversaries and the operating environment. They do not, however, change the foundational demand placed on the regiment. As 10th Mar continues to fulfill its mandate to effectively organize for combat in fulfillment of its fire support tasks, it is much more than simply an artillery regiment in support of a division.1 The regiment has evolved into an exceedingly flexible organization, provisioning scalable fire support from the regimental to cannon and rocket platoon levels, supported by a tailored approach to tactical mission assignment at all echelons informed by the threat, force structure, and the distributed nature of the battlefield.
Legacy Ratios of Support and Habitual Relationships
Traditionally, the direct support tactical mission has been the hallmark of the artillery battalion, with “minimum adequate support” considered to be one artillery battalion for every infantry regiment.2 This paradigm implied that one infantry battalion required one cannon artillery battery (or six howitzers). The regiment’s artillery battalions are no longer optimized to maintain direct support relationships with infantry regiments, a reality driven as much by its reduced quantity of cannon artillery as by the non-uniform structure of its battalions. (Five cannon batteries are organized under the 1st Battalion while all HIMARS batteries are retained under the 2d Battalion.)
In addition to the inability to maintain legacy ratios of support to maneuver units, the bifurcation of the traditional liaison capability retained within 1st and 2d Battalions to the regiment’s new fire support battery redefined the traditional approach to fire support coordinator (FSC) responsibilities in support of infantry regiments. The regiment’s loss of battery to infantry battalion parity did not extend to its fire support teams, and regimental fire support team officers in charge have subsumed the roles of regimental FSC from the artillery battalion commanders, taking the “habitual” relationships of yesterday with them. This has its own advantages, as this field grade officer, rather than splitting responsibilities between that of an artillery battalion commander and FSC, is completely focused on the planning and employment of fires and effects, coordination and deconfliction of fires, and the disposition of the platoon’s fire support teams. In the performance of these duties, the regimental FSC is fully integrated into the infantry regimental commander’s staff and in the best position to have an impact on fire-related decisions. This splitting of responsibilities has made the provision of fire support to maneuver units a more collaborative process, and the artillery battalion commander remains an invaluable stakeholder in providing support to maneuver units in cooperation and collaboration with the FSC. This collaborative relationship has been exercised and refined during Service-level exercises, doing much to optimize artillery tactical missions and organization for combat in support of the maneuver commander’s concept of fires.
Tailorable Employment and Tactical Missions at all Echelons
The regiment’s solution to bridging the gap posed by contemporary threats, evolving force structure, and the challenges posed by the distributed battlefield has been one of a flexible approach to tactical mission assignment at all echelons. While the distribution of firing platoons and batteries across the battlespace is a necessary step to improve survivability in the face of emerging and evolving threats, it is also driven by the regiment’s requirement to meet its fire support tasks in support of maneuver forces operating at greater distances. Platoon-level operations for cannon and rocket artillery are often necessary to ensure that zones of fire maintain their ability to support zones of action in a distributed environment, a reality that has reciprocal effects on tactical missions at the battalion level.
The distribution of a reduced quantity of cannon artillery systems increasingly makes general support the tactical mission of choice at the battalion level, wherein the battalion is required to support the force as a whole while remaining prepared to support subordinate elements therein.3 An artillery battalion assigned the general support tactical mission while employing distributed firing platoons is thus better able to measure its tempo of support to maneuver, ensuring that it meets essential fire support tasks for the force while retaining dedicated firing capability to respond to immediate requests by forces in contact at subordinate echelons.
An increased proficiency in distributed operations also means that tactical missions are relevant and viable at the battery and platoon levels, providing 10th Mar with a flexible means through which to tailor support to individual formations, maintaining the ability to weigh more responsive fire support to specific maneuver units if required. This is especially relevant for the regiment’s increased quantity of long-range precision fires. HIMARS batteries, organized in three platoons of two launchers each, are exceptionally flexible firing agencies that can be task-organized to provide tailored and responsive fires to multiple echelons of command through the deliberate application of tactical missions to the battery and platoon levels. Their effectiveness is bolstered as well by structural changes that have introduced dedicated billets for fires plans officers at the artillery battalion, supporting battery-assigned liaison officers with interfacing and integrating effective precision fire support with higher echelons of command.
Impacts to Effects of Fires
While the scalable and flexible employment of firing units at every echelon helps compensate for shortcomings in traditional ratios of support, the regiment’s reduced capacity of cannon artillery does force a reappraisal of the traditional effects of fires provided by the division’s organic artillery. Without the capacity to sustain traditional direct support relationships, batteries and battalions are challenged to provide ammunition-intensive suppressive effects to individual infantry formations while at the same time retaining sufficient capability to support units across the breadth of the GCE.
Fielding a reduced structure of cannon artillery against ever more capable adversaries, the regiment’s ability to provide suppressive fires is increasingly unsustainable in favor of a more optimized approach to destruction and neutralization fires, enabled by the regiment’s HIMARS capability and its ability to achieve precise effects at range. While this allows the regiment to retain its ability to degrade or render key adversary capabilities incapable of accomplishing their missions, it also increases the requirement for the supported unit’s targeting processes to employ the finite, yet lethal, resources at their disposal most efficiently. Supported units are not alone in meeting these requirements, being reinforced by the weight of the regiment’s fire support battery.
Fire Support Battery
As structural reorganization within the Regiment’s firing battalions has disrupted historical habitual relationships with 2d MarDiv’s infantry regiments, a new unity of effort has emerged with the establishment of the Fire Support Battery, 10th Mar. Active since October 2022, the 10th Mar was the first artillery regiment to establish a fire support battery by Force Design artillery modernization efforts. The transfer and consolidation of 1st and 2d Battalion’s fire support platoons, further supported by the integration of the 2d MarDiv Fire Support Coordination Center, created a singular unit that is structured to source habitually aligned fire support teams to the division’s infantry regiments, their battalions, and 2d Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. For the first time, a unified headquarters platoon and command element exists to support efforts to man, train, and equip fire support teams for combat operations in support of scalable fire support solutions for maneuver formations. The result is better-trained fire support teams for global force tasking, crisis response, and contingency operations.
The cascading effects of the fire support battery’s establishment extend well beyond the consolidation of dedicated support to maneuver. The consolidation of the division’s fires and effects integration expertise continues to support the development and refinement of high-quality, standardized fire support team training and evaluation packages—overseen and executed by the battery’s training and headquarters sections—to provide a uniform capability to the regiment’s supported units. The consolidation of the regiment’s tactical air control party program has also improved its ability to generate and train quality joint terminal attack controllers and joint fires observers for the division. This has correspondingly increased the battery’s ability to harness its manpower and equipment resources to better task organize scalable fire support teams for emergent crisis response requirements and taskings, providing a tailorable capability when required.
This new structure is not without its growing pains, and the establishment of the fire support battery did not singularly eliminate the regiment’s challenges in the areas of unit lifecycle management and equipment. Fire support teams, while better trained under the present fire support battery organization, remain affected by occupational-specialty shortages.4 Because of these issues, the fire support team force generation often struggles to keep pace with the pre-deployment training cycles of overlapping global force management requirements. Similarly, an enduring need exists to continue to modernize communications and optics equipment toward systems that are lighter, less power-consuming, and better optimized for the joint environment. The fire support battery is better postured than ever to address these challenges, and the resulting consolidation of expertise within the regiment has brought about a new unity of purpose in the liaison capability 10th Mar provides the division.
Target Acquisition Advances
As the establishment of the fire support battery sustains and advances 10th Mar’s habitual liaison capability to supported units, the regiment’s organic target acquisition capability has equally benefitted from new technology and employment concepts in support of the division. The 10th Mar Target Acquisition Platoon is at the leading edge of modernization efforts in cooperation with Combat Development and Integration and Marine Corps Systems Command to field and test new equipment. The Regiment’s Block 2 AN/TPS-80 Ground Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR), a ground weapons locating variant optimized to acquire and track hostile indirect fire, and Scalable Passive Acoustic Reporting and Targeting Node (SPARTN) are together more potent than their predecessors.5 This advanced equipment is paired with the benefits that come from structure growth, and a benefit of the 12th Mar’s transition to the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment is the subsequent inheritance of counter-battery radar teams divested from the 3d MarDiv. These structural gains will further increase the regiment’s sensor capacity by two G/ATOR and two Lightweight Counter Mortar Radar systems—welcome additions to 10th Mar as they further contribute to shortening kill-chains and enhance support to 2d MarDiv and II MEF’s counterfire needs.
As of January 2024, the regiment has completed fielding half of its allotted G/ATOR systems and is already benefitting from this exceptionally capable system which drastically outperforms legacy AN/TPQ-46 Fire-Finder radar systems in its combat capability, allowing the regiment’s counterfire capability to keep pace with its evolving organization for combat. The radar’s extended range has opened opportunities for new and creative employment concepts for the target processing center’s liaison capability between radars and firing agencies. Increased target processing center’s employment at the MEF and division fire support coordination center levels improves target acquisition and proactive counterfire capabilities at these echelons while better familiarizing them with counter-battery capabilities.6 This will bridge the maneuver’s counterfire acquisition and delivery capability at the extended ranges of an increasingly distributed battlefield.
This year also introduced another much-needed upgrade to the regiment’s target acquisition suite with the introduction of the SPARTN system. A passive acoustic sensor whose primary function is to report acoustic events, the SPARTN provides an improved capability to cue G/ATOR emissions on detections that meet unmasking criteria. This complementary relationship between the SPARTN and G/ATOR increases system survivability and provides a more resilient counterfire capability to the 2d MarDiv. The SPARTN’s significant reduction in size, increased communications capability, and longer battery lifespan is directly aligned with supporting effective coverage in support of any level of sustained, distributed operations. Together, these advances represent the regiment’s contribution towards ensuring that counterfire remains the shield that allows the 2d MarDiv to wield its sword of supremacy in any crisis or contingency operation.
Future Change and Opportunities for Optimization
While the 10th Mar remains postured to support the requirements of the 2d MarDiv, the regiment’s organization will not remain static in its march toward the future operating environment. The regiment’s current operating concepts and organization for combat yield continual lessons on areas for investment germane to effective fire support employment both now and into the future while future structural changes will continue to adjust its organization and support to the division.
Areas for Further Optimization
The regiment’s reduced density of cannon artillery formations and the corresponding emphasis on destruction and neutralization fires requires greater investment and prioritization in employment techniques for dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, rocket-assisted, and family of scatterable mine projectiles over traditional high explosive variable-time combinations. While these presently available munition types can assist in offsetting the prohibitive expenditure rates required to achieve firepower and mobility kills on armored equipment, long-term investment in the capabilities of cannon artillery must emphasize greater infantry access to longer-range cannon fires to support their mission-essential tasks and complement the expanding range of sensing capabilities at every echelon.
As the ongoing conflict in Ukraine illuminates, cannon mobility also requires further investment. The conflict has in many cases highlighted the disadvantage that towed artillery formations encounter in a high counter-battery threat environment, where the ability to reposition on short notice equals advantage and often survival.7 The Marine Corps’ current Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement is not optimized for keeping pace with increased infantry mobility, nor the requisite displacement times to avoid contemporary counterfire threats. The age and usage rates of the Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement have also affected ongoing operations, as availability rates have decreased upwards of 60 percent in the past decade.8 In light of these realities, alternative prime mover options incorporating a lower tongue weight and smaller chassis merit increased consideration, while voices advocating for the Marine Corps to more seriously explore adopting a self-propelled cannon artillery system deserve additional attention.
While the batteries and platoons of 10th Mar continue to demonstrate an increased proficiency at distributed operations, cannon, and HIMARS batteries must continue perfecting these techniques while equipped with the requisite communications equipment to support dispersion at the cannon section and rocket launcher level to maintain uninterrupted command and control. Legacy communications equipment employed across traditional wavelengths does not adequately meet this aim. Very high-frequency systems, employed in a nearly exclusively omnidirectional pattern, increasingly make firing units vulnerable to rapid detection and targeting. Similarly, time-intensive techniques for the effective employment of high-frequency communications are regularly outpaced and outclassed by the effective usage of new wideband communications technologies; these systems are not currently available in quantities sufficient to support an increased number of independent and distributed firing formations throughout a non-contiguous battlefield. Ongoing exercise participation at the Service-level has validated the benefits of wideband satellite communications systems over legacy waveforms, and the capability merits serious consideration for future investment across the Marine Corps’ artillery formations.
Change on the Horizon
The regiment’s contemporary lessons learned and operating concepts are in many ways a foundation for its future force structure and roles within the division. Current fire support systems and liaison capabilities to supported units are only a waypoint towards the complete structure changes outlined in Force Design concepts.
Endorsed by the 2023 Artillery Operational Advisory Group and currently underway in conjunction with Combat Development and Integration, the positive changes from the establishment of the fire support battery may one day see the organization grow to a battalion-level command. This fire support battalion would provide its commander the authority required to compete for resources in the form of personnel, money, and equipment within the regiment. Presently, the fire support battery rates 342 Marines and sailors as part of the table of organization, and while on-hand numbers are smaller, they will only continue to grow based on Headquarters Marine Corps manpower projections. The command element and staff appropriate to manage this large organization would greatly enhance the future battalion’s ability to functionally manage a formation that serves a division headquarters, two regiments, eight infantry battalions, a light armored reconnaissance battalion, and myriad emergent requirements and requests that demand fire support expertise. A future fire support battalion will improve the regiment’s ability to meet 2d MarDiv’s demand for adaptable and relevant fire support teams.
The regiment’s current cannon and rocket artillery structure will further change with the fielding of the Navy-Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) in the coming years. 10th Mar has remained keenly invested in Service-modernization initiatives through involvement in NMESIS development and extended user evaluation to best forecast impacts to future organization and operations. 10th Mar anticipates transition of initial batteries to NMESIS as early as fiscal year 2026 and maintains the planning horizon required to ensure initial units identified to receive training are prepared to develop best practices and recommendations for system employment.
The introduction of NMESIS to the 10th Mar will see the regiment go through a subsequent reduction of cannon artillery batteries, placing a greater onus on the efficient employment of the division’s organic cannon artillery capability in support of recurring and emergent operations. The introduction of a naval interdiction capability within the 2d MarDiv will no doubt have a marked impact on the proficiencies and capabilities demanded of 10th Mar. Facing these changes, the regiment’s ongoing success in furthering the efficient and flexible employment of distributed firing agencies, integrating long-range precision fires systems and employment techniques within the division, and improving its liaison capability and target acquisition complexes are laying the foundation upon which 10th Mar’s future capability will stand. While missions and fire support systems will change, the adaptability and foresight that has long been the hallmark of Marine Corps artillery professionals will continue to ensure the regiment remains best postured to support 2d MarDiv now and into the future.
Conclusion
As its structure and concepts of employment continue to evolve, 10th Mar stands as one of the most flexible formations within 2d MarDiv. The regiment continues to meet the challenges of contemporary threats, the implications of ongoing force structure changes, and the challenges of an increasingly distributed battlefield with an approach to innovation that has redefined its organization for combat and allowed it to keep pace with its enduring responsibility to provide timely and accurate fires in support of the Follow Me Division. 10th Mar remains postured to sustain its support to global force tasking while maintaining scalable cannon and rocket artillery formations ready to respond to crisis or contingency requirements.
The regiment’s current successes do not overshadow areas where it can benefit from continued investment and optimization. Increased investment in the mobility of the Marine Corps’ cannon artillery will go far in enabling the survivability requisite for the modern battlefield, a demand reinforced by the 10th Mar’s reduced capacity of cannon systems and reevaluation of the effects they provide. Similarly, Service-level solutions to manpower constraints will help ensure that firing batteries and fire support teams can continue to man, train, and equip at a level of parity with maneuver formations now and into the future.
While structural changes have, in many ways, shattered convention in the areas of legacy ratios of support to maneuver units and traditional approaches to tactical missions, the result is a more dynamic artillery regiment that is better postured to maintain effective support to the division. This is no small accomplishment, and great credit is due to the Marines and sailors whose daily efforts ensure that the 10th Mar remains 2d MarDiv’s Arm of Decision.
Cpl Erick Leon, right, a Queens, NY, native and a field artillery cannoneer with 1/10 Mar, fires an M777 towed 155 mm howitzer during field training on Camp Lejeune, NC. (Photo by LCpl Jonathan Rodriguez Pastrana.)
Marines with Headquarters Battery, 10th Mar, 2d MarDiv conducting G/ATOR operations in support of 1/10 Mar aboard Camp Lejeune, NC, on 24 January 2024. (Photo by Cpl Jose Rovirosahidalgo.)
Notes
1. The four fire support tasks are supporting forces in contact, supporting the commander’s concept of operations, integrating fire support with the scheme of maneuver, and sustaining fire support. Headquarters Marine Corps, MCTP 3-10F, Fire Support Coordination in the Ground Combat Element, (Washington, DC: 2018).
2. Current doctrine acknowledges the battalion as the echelon “normally” assigned a tactical mission. Headquarters Marine Corps, MCTP 3-10E, Artillery Operations, (Washington, DC: 2018).
3. Ibid.
4. Field artillery officer, fires and effects integrator, and joint terminal attack controller respectively.
5. The regiment fields the Block 2 G/ATOR system. The Block 1 G/ATOR system provides the Marine Corps with an air-defense and surveillance radar capability.
6. “Proactive counterfire” is a vital component of mid- to high-intensity conflicts to limit or damage hostile fire support systems and is incumbent on allocating proportionate target acquisition assets, normally at the MEF and division levels. For more information, see MCTP 3-10F, Fire Support Coordination in the Ground Combat Element.
7. Sam Cranny-Evans, “The Role of Artillery in a War Between Russia and Ukraine,” Royal United Services Institute, February 14, 2022, https://rusoi.org.
8. Availability rates based on data maintained through Global Combat Support System-Marine Corps R12, analyzed by 1/10 Mar from 2012 through 2024.
Innovation—the discovery of new ideas, methods, or technologies—is a necessary but insufficient condition to achieve the dominant warfighting capability edge needed to address both near-peer adversaries and other threats. Military history is replete with accounts of battles won not because of an advantage in the number of soldiers or platforms but rather by the side that employed a new technology—or a new combination of existing technologies—against an unwitting opponent.
At its heart, the Marine Corps’ Force Design initiative an innovation strategy that directs the entire Marine Corps, in a phased and organized way, to conduct innovation activities (experiments, tests) across technology and concepts of operations against current and anticipated threats.1 The acquisition community, fully engaged in responding to the Corps’ modernization efforts, often misses opportunities to adopt innovation. As this round of Force Design is funded, technology and capability acquisition must innovate at scale to ensure our Marines dominate across their multi-domain mission sets.
Today, we are engulfed—and at times overwhelmed—by the dizzying pace of technological change, spanning across known areas and extending into soon-to-be-known domains. The list is long. But mere discovery is useless unless those technologies or concepts are adopted, integrated, tested, fielded, and improved at the right speed, scale, and cost to support our warfighters. And nowhere is innovation more important than in the acquisition domain where new technologies are delivered at scale as new programs or capability improvements to existing programs. We know what side we want to be on in any conflict: the side that maintains a dominant advantage that will deter—and if necessary defeat—an adversary. To achieve this dominance, the Marine Corps’ acquisition community must develop a stronger innovation culture that can increase the pace of innovation adoption.
Most of the proposed solutions to improving the DOD’s innovation adoption are focused on broad organizational or authorities changes to the Defense Acquisition System and the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution System. The recently issued report from the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption outlines many of these recommendations that the DOD is considering implementing.2 However, there is little attention on how we can improve innovation adoption at all echelons and formations within the Defense Acquisition System.
Oftentimes, the way we are organized, both the acquisition commands and military formations are byproducts of the way we won the last war and can frustrate the pace of implementing innovations. After all, traditional military organizational structures, and how they fight wars, are optimized for operational execution and not for innovation. Orders must be given and followed, and experimenting in combat is high risk. In fact, it is hard to find a requirement to innovate in any military doctrine, process, or procedure. One common approach to spurring innovation in organizations is to create a centralized innovation group or cell that interested organizations can leverage. While this approach has its advantages, a notable drawback is that it can lead the rest of the organization to rely exclusively on that one group for innovation, assuming that it is someone else’s mission.
The acquisition community has the mission focus and tools to be a full-fledged innovation partner in re-equipping the force for its 2030 (or sooner) posture. Acquisition professionals partnered closely with the requirements setters at the Deputy Commandant for Capability Development and Integration and funding managers at the Deputy Commandant for Programs and Resources are empowered to tailor acquisition strategies, plans, and schedules to deliver capabilities promptly. They are adept at finding new and creative ways to improve capability delivery within the resources they have. The attributes of an innovation culture are present to varying degrees across our acquisition community, but they often compete with a well-entrenched regulatory and compliance culture and a set of beliefs and behaviors wedded to traditions, habits, risk aversion, and a predisposition to assume that only marginal change is possible. In short, our latent innovation culture is often overshadowed by our compliance culture.
While the formal innovation ecosystem (e.g., Marine Innovation Unit, Office of Naval Research, Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, NavalX, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Strategic Capabilities Office, Defense Innovation Unit, etc.) is an important source of ideas (and of increasing resources), the acquisition community has huge opportunities to demonstrate the innovation it can contribute through the prototypes, programs, and capability that it is fielding to the fleet. We need to become full members of the innovation ecosystem.
Former Under Secretary of the Navy James “Hondo” Guerts said as much, noting, “When organizations don’t build in the ability to pivot quickly, they become very brittle.” A recent Gallup report identified eight factors as the building blocks of agile workplace culture, summarized by Guerts in his “4 D’s” to increase the Navy’s organizational pivot speed and agility.3 In short, decentralize, differentiate the work, maximize the power of the digit, and most importantly, develop talent. He believed that to truly empower innovation, one must first address infrastructure. Building a culture that values how we address failure and create spaces for psychological safety—knowing that the team is there to support their ideas and challenges in a non-confrontational way.4 A truly innovative organization needs to understand that changing a culture is not only driven by factors within our systems and processes but also by the mindset we foster in our workforce.
However, it is important to recognize the tensions between a culture of innovation and one oriented toward compliance. What are some indicators of an “innovation culture?” Of a “compliance culture?” How can we reconcile the two, keeping the best of both cultures? How do we resolve these contradictions that frustrate innovation adoption? How do we unleash our innate innovation energy to ensure we are key enablers and implementers of innovation adoption? How often is the acquisition community crowdsourced to help solve capability gaps, rather than for the fleet or Headquarters Marine Corps to assume that we are only focused on the program of record baselines?
One way to gauge readiness to innovate is to assess whether your team or formation exhibits yes-if versus no-because behaviors.5 A yes-if organization rises above process and procedural allegiance to find new ways to solve complex procurement and operational challenges. Yes-if teams anticipate, adapt, and thrive in dynamic environments. They take new approaches and test boundaries without fear of failure. Are we taking measured and deliberate risks, not only in executing our cost, schedule, and performance responsibilities but, in responding to fleet feedback and the need to keep the capability at an unfair advantage level? There are of course many occasions when programs need to say no, but that message is often best delivered to the fleet or others as a conversation about how to achieve the yes outcome. Other organizations that must anticipate, adapt, and thrive in rapidly changing environments have achieved great success in adopting a yes-if culture.6
There are five other areas that acquisition organizations should explore to gauge and improve their innovation culture.7
First, they should be tolerant of failure but not of poor workmanship or incompetence. Failures rooted in incompetence cost too much time or money to tolerate. We need to focus on achieving success while learning and avoid unnecessary repeated failures. Treat a failure as a “first attempt at learning” with the expectation that a professional, well-trained, and certified team will achieve success in its next attempt.
Second, be willing to experiment and take measured risks but be ruthless in establishing objective criteria to evaluate the results and take the next step or move on to the next effort. Continuous experimentation without a shared understanding of when to stop must be avoided.
Third, create an environment that fosters everyone’s engagement and participation so that candid and data-centered views can be shared without fear of professional embarrassment or ridicule. Focusing on objective measures and data-centered discussions keeps the team focused on getting all ideas and solutions out in the open and avoids negative emotions.
Fourth, foster collaboration while continuing to acknowledge individual contributions. For better or worse, our performance management systems are focused on individuals, not teams, and government civilians are evaluated for their individual performance and achievements. Team performance is usually only evaluated by boards screening award nominations. Find ways to reward team achievement and collaboration by holding individuals accountable for promoting that behavior.
Fifth, keep organizational structures and decision making as flat as possible by using commander’s intent and mission orders to encourage team-focused initiatives across the acquisition formation.
These are not necessarily easy contradictions to resolve or manage. Balancing a rising innovation culture with a compliance culture requires ambidextrous leadership at all levels to achieve seemingly incompatible objectives.8 This is the acquisition innovator’s dilemma: to ensure timely operational execution to deliver capability and capacity with enterprise processes, practices, and procedures while continually seeking novel technologies to improve what is in development or already fielded. In many ways, it is a smaller example of the competition between modernization and readiness that the Marine Corps is working its way through today via Force Design. And we know the seeds of success are present. Some program-specific examples below show what an innovation culture can achieve to increase capability delivery velocity through innovation adoption:
Medium Range Intercept Capability: An innovative acquisition strategy to stitch together three existing Marine Corps programs of record together (Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar, Common Aviation Command and Control System, Composite Tracking Network), adapt a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launcher, and leverage an international partner (Israel) to provide the missile and other elements (Iron Dome). Open architecture, risk reduction, avoiding long development cycles and new production lines, and looking to leverage the Israeli’s tactical experience for test and evaluation purposes are all hallmarks of an innovative culture.
Amphibious Combat Vehicle mission role variants procurement strategy: Use an engineering change proposal approach vice individual full rate production contracts for each lot to avert delays during months-long continuing resolution “no new start” limitations.
Marine Air Defense Integrated System: Using existing commercial or military off-the-shelf systems (radars, effectors, vehicles) and a Navy warfare center to integrate greatly reduces risk by avoiding the development of new systems and all the work associated with a new procurement. Took risk in leveraging the warfare center as the lead system integrator and managing the technical baseline to ensure an open systems architecture approach for rapid tech insertions.
Integrated Air and Missile Defense Roadmap Synchronization: Innovation in partnering closely with the Missile Defense Agency and PEO-Integrated Weapons System to ensure integration of Marine Corps groundbased air defense assets and Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar with Navy and joint mission threads and kill chains. This effort has no dedicated program manager or large staff and is a great example of cross-enterprise collaboration, embracing experiments and an environment well aligned to specific, integration and interoperability objectives.
Improving the Marine Corps’ pace of innovation adoption will only be as successful as our innovation culture is strong. A weak culture will lapse into compliance and not creativity. Striving for a yes-if attitude towards our stakeholders sets the foundation for resolving the cultural contradictions we face in our day-to-day balance of leading execution with purposeful innovation to improve capability. Let us add some more stories to the few examples outlined here and become indispensable members of the innovation ecosystem.
2. Whitney M. McNamara, Peter Modigliani, Matthew MacGregor, and Eric Lofgren, “Final Report of the Commission of Defense Innovation Adoption,” Atlantic Council, January 16, 2024, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/atlantic-council-commission-on-defense-innovation-adoption.
3. Marco Nink, “How to Weave Agility Throughout Your Corporate Culture,” Gallup, January 17, 2019, https://www.gallup.com/workplace/245999/weave-agility-throughout-corporate-culture.aspx.
4. Alison Escalante, “How the Navy Created a Culture of Innovation in Big Bureaucracy,” Forbes, May 4, 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisonescalante/2021/05/04/how-the-navy-created-a-culture-of-innovation-in-big-bureaucracy/?sh=158e48f8766f.
5. Pankaj Srivastava, “The Power Of Yes: Why The Yes Mindset Leads To Innovation And Creates Great Leaders,” Forbes, May 17, 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/05/17/the-power-of-yes-why-the-yes-mindset-leads-to-innovation-and-creates-great-leaders.
6. Information available at https://sma.nasaq.gov/sma-disciplines/safety-culture.
7. John Kamensky, “Five Paradoxes of an Innovation Culture,” Government Executive, January 30, 2019, https://www.govexec.com/management/2019/01/five-paradoxes-innovation-culture/154531.
8. Charles A. O’Reilly and Michael L. Tushman, Lead and Disrupt (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016).
Societal divisions, state tensions, and contested international norms are setting conditions for a volatile and potentially dangerous future. Although these conditions are not new to history, the addition of rapidly evolving demographic, environmental, economic, and technological developments present both tremendous opportunity and significant challenges to the Marine Corps.1 Given these conditions and developments, the Marine Corps seeks to continually refine its understanding of the future operating environment and refine relevant operating concepts to compete beyond 2030.
Most importantly, Marine Aviation must be able to deliver the lethality coefficient to the MAGTF, Joint Force maritime component command, and the broader Joint Force when called upon. To deliver the necessary lethality, Marine Aviation endeavors to lead-turn the acquisition of capabilities and advanced technologies through a Three-Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) plan, starting in fiscal year 2026. We will use Force Design 2030 and force modernization guidance as the strategic waypoint to address current challenges while setting conditions to compete in the next decade. In collaboration and coordination with the Commandant of the Marine Corps’ Office of Net Assessment and the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab’s Futures branch, Marine Aviation will continue to contribute to the strategic design effort by forecasting challenges out to 2040 and establishing a plan that allows Marine Aviation to outpace our adversaries.
Marine Aviation’s Project EAGLE is that plan. Project EAGLE’s embedded three-FYDP plan is the strategic lift vector of Marine Aviation to 2040. The objective is to achieve a framework that enables the Marine Corps to adjust the current Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution Assessments process to meet the correct future operational requirements. The approach seeks capabilities and technological innovations that exceed a single FYDP to provide informed predictability and flexibility. The unconstrained planning of future FYDPs provides opportunities to invest in the current FYDP in the procurement of future technology to match the changing environment and ensure Marine Aviation remains an integral member of the Joint Force.
Fundamentally, war is both timeless and ever-changing. As Marine Aviation adapts and evolves to the changing character of conflict, we shall remain true to our identity and honor all the hard aviation lessons learned over the years. Therefore, Project EAGLE is guided by the following priorities:
Support the MAGTF in force modernization efforts via the functions of Marine Aviation.
Ensure detailed collaboration and interoperability with the Joint Force maritime component command.
Support broader joint and coalition force efforts of interoperability and interchangeability.
Project EAGLE has three phases. These phases are specifically designed to support CMC 38’s initial force design guidance and CMC 39’s force modernization vision. In addition, Project EAGLE phases are intended to provide more analytical rigor to the Marine Corps’ budget planning and programming. These phases also provide an opportunity to communicate a clear and steadfast vision of Marine Aviation to the Department of Navy, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Congress, and industry.
Phase I: Framework Development
This phase began in the summer of 2022 and will continue to be refined throughout all phases. The following were areas of focus during Phase I:
Initial research and orientation of historical demographic, environmental, economic, and technological developments, and the impacts of these variables on the current environment.
Understanding the future operating environment and emerging trends.
Development and research of potential concepts and functions.
Initial development of lines of effort (LOEs), roadmaps, and key milestones out to 2040.
Project EAGLE placemat. (Image provided by author.)
Phase II: New CMC 39 Guidance
This phase began in the fall of 2023 and will continue to be refined throughout Phase III. The objective of this phase is to refine the vision and LOEs developed during Phase I and implement appropriate CMC 39 guidance at the beginning of fiscal year 2024. This phase will also include the publishing of the Aviation Plan (AVPLAN) in December of 2024. The AVPLAN has been a vital tool to communicate the Deputy Commandant for Aviation’s vision and direction to multiple audiences. This annual message will again transmit DC Aviation’s rudder steers and altitude changes to maintain alignment and focus on Marine Aviation’s core responsibility of supporting the MAGTF.
Phase III: Execution
This phase will begin in the summer of 2025 and will continue through 2040. Phase III will incorporate actions from Phase I and II and will introduce FYDP 41–45’s vision for planning.
Project EAGLE Has Five Lines of Effort (LOE) LOE 1: Concepts
Marine Aviation is looking at the viability of two new concepts: distributed aviation operations (DAO) and decision-centric aviation operations (DCAO) 2040. These concepts are nested with and support expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO), Stand-in Forces, and broader Joint Force operating concepts. These aviation concepts, which will be tested and developed via the Marine Corps’ Concept Generation and Development Process, will drive aviation strategy, doctrine, and acquisition planning.
DAO. As part of Force Design 2030 and force modernization, Marine Aviation must further its capabilities for operating in austere and distributed littoral environments as an essential element of the Stand-in Force, and in support of EABO. Included in this functional concept is the need to review the traditional functions of Marine Aviation.
DCAO 2040. The central idea of DCAO is to accelerate the decision cycle of the ACE to machine-level speeds using cutting-edge and emerging technologies. The intent is to enable the rapid composition and decomposition of a more distributed force achieving the benefits of mass while minimizing the risks associated with concentration. Current studies are underway to assess the full requirements and efficacy of DCAO 2040. However, DAO is the first step towards DCAO 2040.
LOE 2: Functions of Marine Aviation
Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-20, Aviation Operations, directs planners to consider aviation functions when conducting aviation planning and not the means available (i.e., weapons systems or platforms). The role of the Marine Aviation functions is to provide a framework for planners in planning aviation operations, but this requires having relevant aviation functions.
The existing six functions of Marine Aviation (offensive air support, anti-air warfare, assault support, aerial reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and control of aircraft and missiles) were critical to the Marine Corps’ success in conducting expeditionary land and amphibious operations. However, based on the changing global environment and technological developments, a modernized Marine Aviation functional framework is necessary for planners to approach today and tomorrow’s maritime campaigns. Current studies are underway to assess the efficacy of expanding the functions of Marine Aviation to better support joint and coalition forces in a maritime campaign.
LOE 3: Digital Data-Centric Culture
To maintain a competitive advantage in future conflicts and meet the current mission requirements, Marine Aviation will embrace a digital data-centric culture, equip the ACE with cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) tools and knowledge, and enhance the Marine Corps’ asymmetric warfighting capability leveraging AI and other emerging technologies. Marine Aviation is dedicated to creating a digital data-centric culture where AI agents serve as a force multiplier and a teammate in the ready room, on the flight line, in the field with our enablers, and in the cockpit. When fully integrated into aviation operations, AI agents will enable the seamless and rapid move from in, on, and out of the loop against our adversaries.
Becoming a data-centric and data-enabled organization will enhance Marine Aviation’s culture, risk management, efficiency, effectiveness, and decision making. Such a change requires leadership at all levels, trust in data, and investment in infrastructure, personnel, and training. Developing a digital data-centric culture within Marine Aviation will be challenging at first, but it is a key component to supporting force modernization efforts, DAO, and DCAO 2040 concepts.
LOE 4: Three-Future Years Defense Program
LOE 4 will address the specific priorities and allocation of resources and funding across the next three FYDPs to support the future vision of Marine Aviation encapsulated in Project EAGLE.
LOE 5: Roadmaps
The following proposed roadmaps for Project EAGLE involve multiple key stakeholders within HQMC and will require detailed collaboration and coordination across the enterprise for implementation.
Vertical Takeoff and Landing Development Portfolio.
MAGTF Unmanned Expeditionary Development Portfolio.
Aviation Command and Control and Ground Support.
Aviation Sustainment 2040.
Infrastructure Roadmap 2040.
Ranges Roadmap 2040.
Live/Virtual/Constructive Roadmap 2040.
Aircrew Recruitment and Retention Roadmap.
Structural forces, emerging dynamics, and advanced threats require a new and evolving Marine Corps operating concepts out to 2040. (Photo provided by author.)
Bottom Line
Structural force changes, emerging technologies, and advanced threats require new and evolving Marine Aviation operating concepts to deliver the lethality coefficient when required. First, DAO, DCAO 2040, and decision-centric concepts provide pathways into fighting in future operating environments. Second, the review of the six functions of Marine Aviation is essential to supporting EABO, joint operating concepts, and Force Design 2030. Third, transformational capabilities such as AI, ML, and the cultivation of a digital data-centric culture will equip Marines with digital tools and knowledge to enhance their warfighting capabilities within the ready room, on the flight line, in the field with our enablers, and in the cockpit. Project EAGLE reorients Marine Aviation’s lift vector and is the next waypoint in the Commandant’s vision for force modernization to ensure the Nation’s 911 force remains agile, dynamic, and ready.
>LtCol Robillard is currently assigned as the Lead Aviation Strategy and Plans Officer for Headquarters, Marine Corps Department of Aviation.
Notes
1. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Global Trends 2040–A More Contested World, (Washington, DC: 2021).
Information is a critical element of all military operations. This should not surprise us as our observe, orient, decide, and act (OODA) loops are fed by, make sense of, and inevitably generate information. Data is the fundamental building block of information, and one can increase the value of that data by adding additional context or fusing it with other data to convey a greater meaning to the viewer. For example, to an aviator, individual pieces of data such as airspeed, altitude, heading, and navigational data are all important for any given mission, and they can be fused to convey more information via a heads-up display. With this rudimentary data analysis and display, a heads-up display can accelerate an aviator’s OODA loop by conveying the needed data in one location, integrated with mission-specific alerts, which provides them with an information advantage. As described in MCDP 8, Information, using the right information can create decision, temporal, spatial, and other information advantages that can allow friendly forces to outmaneuver an adversary, which is vital based on the threats posed by peer adversaries.1
One of the greatest challenges on the modern battlefield is the time compression introduced by long-range, high-speed weapons and their ability to hold U.S. assets at risk.2 This sentiment of Wayne Hughes echoes throughout recent Marine Corps publications, including Force Design and A Concept for Stand-in Forces. The anticipated character of this future conflict necessitates the ability to rapidly observe, orient, and decide so the necessary actions can be taken within the time constraints introduced by enemy weapons. The longer any one of these processes takes, the longer it will take to complete an OODA cycle, which increases the difficulty of gaining a decision advantage.
The interrelationship between observation and orientation is critical in managing the time required to complete OODA cycles. If the data observed by a Marine is not managed in some way, the sheer amount of available data in a given situation, whether relevant or not, will slow the orientation phase because the Marine must discern what is and is not relevant and then attempt to make sense of what is deemed relevant. If instead the observed information was curated and formatted based on the needs of the Marine, the time taken by observation and orientation could shrink dramatically.
Friction, uncertainty, and complexity also tend to slow this process, and while this fog of war will never abate, it may be possible to lift some of the fog. If Marines can maintain access to relevant and trustworthy data, formatted on mission-specific displays it can provide the opportunity for continued situational awareness and lift some of the fog.
To succeed within this anticipated character of war requires technical change in our systems as well as operational changes in how we generate, share, and utilize that data to achieve the desired benefits in competition and conflict. The innovation required to achieve a faster relative tempo than our adversaries reside in the idea of data-centricity. This article first describes data-centricity and what it means to the Marine Corps from a doctrinal perspective. After making the linkage to doctrine, the article concludes with ways to implement data-centricity and some examples of what operational benefits could be gained. Please note that many of the examples provided are aspirational to show what is in the realm of the possible. Additionally, I intentionally use vague terms at times so Marines of every MOS can connect these thoughts to the systems they use to complete their mission.
Figure 1. Boyd’s OODA Loop with a time component.3 (Figure provided by author.)
What Is Data-Centricity?
The definition of data-centricity utilized by the DOD is “an architectural approach that results in a secure environment separating data from applications and making data available to a broad range of tools and analytics within and across security domains for enrichment and discovery.”4 In simple terms, this means that individual networks or information systems are enablers instead of the main effort. For example, GCSS-MC, M-SHARP, and NALCOMIS OOMA still play a critical role in data generation and storage; however, perhaps a greater value is when that data is fused and analyzed between systems and used to formulate decisions. Perhaps the data in each of those systems could contribute to a model that would reduce the time required to fulfill aircraft parts orders.
This approach enables Marines to utilize all useful data, regardless of system, to facilitate every warfighting function and solve operational problems. A Marine would need access to myriad systems if they wanted specific information pertaining to command and control, fires, force protection, information, intelligence, logistics, and maneuver for a given mission. In a data-centric framework, where the concern is providing access to data in these areas, Marines at all levels can have access to key information that is typically reserved for the combat operations center. It provides an avenue for fulfilling John Boyd’s belief that “technology and concepts should empower the person, not the other way around.”5 In this case, implementing data-centricity enables Marines to make decisions in a distributed environment when friction and uncertainty abound.
Collectively known as VAULTIS, a data-centric approach makes data visible, accessible, understandable, linked, trustworthy, interoperable, and secure. Data needs to be exposed to a secure environment, so it is visible to authorized users. Those users must be able to access the data to leverage it. Users must be able to understand what the data means in terms of its content, context, and applicability to a given problem set. Data must be linked using data formats and metadata tagging to uncover relationships. The data must be trustworthy by coming from an authoritative data source so that one can be confident in the data and insights derived from it. Data must be interoperable to maintain the semantic and syntactic meaning of the data; otherwise, one risks spurious conclusions. Finally, the data must be secure and free from unauthorized use or manipulation.6
This is an evolution from the current framework, where data is tied to applications, and the application’s capabilities limit the secure utilization of the data. This limits the ability of Marines to utilize the data because exposing the data to advanced analytics and merging it with other relevant data becomes a tedious process of exporting, rationalizing, and importing data. From an operational perspective, it limits the ability of commanders to see inputs from multiple systems in a single integrated common operational picture. In both cases, the architectural framework limits the utility of data and hinders the development of advanced algorithms to include artificial intelligence and machine learning because of the limited amount of data and computing power available.
A data-centric approach can provide an information advantage by reducing the time required to arrive at well-informed decisions, thus increasing the tempo of one’s OODA loop. According to MCDP 1, “Time is a critical factor in effective decisionmaking–often the most important factor. A key part of effective decisionmaking is realizing how much decision time is available and making the most of that time. Whoever can make and implement decisions consistently faster gains a tremendous, often decisive advantage.”7 Our systems can help make decisions faster by leveraging the right data and applying the right context to it to accelerate the decision-making process. In terms of OODA loops, these systems work within the observation process so that when a commander observes information, it is presented and formatted to speed the orientation process and convey a more accurate mental model for a decision.
Facilitating decision making at the lowest level is imperative given the emerging character of warfare that necessitates decentralized operations. Customized common operational pictures should not only be available at the command post but to the Marines executing the mission as well. The decentralized nature of Marine Corps operations necessitates that Marines have access to as much information as is helpful and formatted in a manner that aids in mission execution.
Implementing Data-Centricity
For the Marine Corps to realize the benefits related to data-centricity, it must innovate within existing paradigms. One of Williamson Murray’s conclusions in Military Innovation During the Interwar Period was that the most important innovations impacted the context or character of the conflict. Within that volume, Alan Beyerchen proposed three key changes typically occurring for successful innovation. First, new equipment, systems, or devices initiate a technical change. Second is an operational change that refers to how the technical change can be utilized and integrated into other standard operating procedures. Finally, technological change is the resultant “context emerging from the interaction of technical and operational change with each other and the environment.”8 As this relates to data-centricity, the capabilities must harmonize with Marine Corps operations to out-maneuver an adversary.
Given that data-centricity is an architectural approach and not a solution in and of itself, the technical changes required span a wide array of efforts. Make no mistake, while some of these efforts sound simple, budgetary constraints, dependencies, technical complexity, and myriad other challenges abound. The following list is just an example of some of the high-level tasks that can improve data-centricity. Ensuring the visibility of data means hosting data sources (cloud, on-premises, tactical edge) so they can be exposed to platforms such as Jupiter, Advana, and Bolt or integrated into applications like Tactical Assault Kit. Perhaps the greatest issue of assuring data access is ensuring resilient, high-bandwidth network transport whether that be provided by satellite communications, fiber optic cables, or other terrestrial means. While this can be challenging for the Marine Corps to execute, this is further complicated when one attempts to extend visibility and access at the joint and coalition levels. This is the heart of Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control.
Establishing data catalogs, data formatting, and tagging standards are critical for understanding and linking data while ensuring interoperability. This sounds simple, but at the technical level, this can become complicated. Application programming interfaces can enable data to be shared between disparate systems; however, certain systems may need to be modernized to meet certain constraints of that system. To realize the benefits at the tactical edge, programs of record need to modernize not only to share data within an established framework but also so they can evolve as needed based on interoperability with the joint and combined force. Additionally, the data from those systems should be accessible and customizable on handheld devices powered by software such as ATAK.
One element of the operational change refers to how the capabilities can be utilized. At a high level, this means improving how we operate based on the ability to leverage data. For example, could predictive logistics algorithms create a heavier logistics push construct to make the most efficient use of surface and air transport? Could advances in the Manpower Information Technology Systems Modernization drive changes in manpower policy and the way in which boards, assignments, and retention are conducted? Any of these can prove true, but as a Service, we must be willing to evolve the way we operate based on the technical capabilities available.
Another element of operational change relates to how Marines interact with systems to generate data. Marines need to understand that the inputs they make into a given system can have downstream impacts on decision making. For example, if an aviation maintenance department wanted to discover ways to improve readiness by gaining maintenance efficiencies, they could compare data in NALCOMIS OOMA with other relevant data from M-SHARP and other databases. However, if Marines do not log their maintenance time appropriately on a maintenance action form (MAF), it will lead to false conclusions regarding the time to complete MAF. If pilots do not accurately log their flight time or generate MAFs, the resulting data may not reflect reality. In other words, if data is of poor quality, it will either be discarded from analysis which reduces the data points, or it will lead to spurious conclusions. Simply put, if one inputs garbage, the result will be garbage.
The synergy between the technical changes and operational changes can create technological changes that sometimes asymmetrically change the context of our operations. Access to relevant information, formatted in a mission-specific manner when provided to distributed forces, could introduce a new level of maneuver and agility to outpace a more rigid adversary.
Conclusion History demonstrates that institutions that had an appropriate grasp on the concept of future warfare and were able to balance a better fit between technologies, concepts, doctrine, and organizational change ultimately succeeded over adversaries who failed to do so.9 The benefits of data-centricity align with the roots of maneuver warfare by enabling Marines to generate speed and tempo by decreasing the time to execute OODA loops. Achieving this benefit requires significant investment in an array of technical and operational changes. Some of these changes can be made at the Service level, but many more require Marines at each echelon to innovate within their command to utilize these capabilities. Implementing data-centricity should not be seen as a buzzword but rather a means to implement elements of Warfighting and prepare ourselves as a Service for the next conflict—wherever that may find us engaged in competition, crisis, or conflict.
2. Wayne P. Hughes and Robert Girrier, Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2018).
3. Adapted from John Boyd, A Discourse on Winning and Losing, ed. Grant T. Hammond (Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 2018).
4. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “The Intelligence Community Data Management Lexicon,” DNI.gov, January 5, 2022, https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/IC_Data_Management_Lexicon.pdf. It should be noted that the use of this definition was directed by the DOD Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer in a memorandum dated 1 September 2023.
5. Ian Brown, A New Conception of War: John Boyd, the U.S. Marines, and Maneuver Warfare (Quantico: Marine Corps University Press, 2018).
6. Department of Defense, DOD Data Strategy, (Washington, DC: 2020).
>Mr. Uchytil is currently a defense contractor for Troika Solutions and provides support to the Information Plans and Strategy Division, Deputy Commandant for Information, Headquarters Marine Corps. He served a combined 26 years as both a Marine Corps Communications Officer and enlisted Marine Infantryman.
“While dependent on the laws of science and the intuition and creativity of art, war takes its fundamental character from the dynamic of human interaction.”
“War is both timeless and ever changing. While the basic nature of war is constant, the means and methods we use evolve continuously. … One major catalyst of change is the advancement of technology. As the hardware of war improves through technological development, so must the tactical, operational, and strategic usage adapt to its improved capabilities both to maximize our own capabilities and to counteract our enemy’s.” —MCDP 1, Warfighting
Critical Imperative or Call to Action
The Marine Corps needs a pragmatic reference for operating in and through the information environment. A 2021 RAND study identified that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army views information as a key enabler for success in a future conflict and the single most critical domain for success in contemporary and especially next-generation warfare.1 Leveraging this observation, the 2022 National Defense Strategy calls for a future force that is resilient—in that it maintains information and decision advantages, preserves command, control, and communications systems, and ensures critical detection and targeting operations. Additionally, the National Defense Strategy calls for a department that will improve the Nation’s ability to integrate, defend, and reconstitute surveillance and decision systems to achieve warfighting objectives, particularly in the space domain, and despite the adversary’s means of interference or deception.2 These are no small tasks in this age of advancing technology where competitors capitalize on technology and information activities to achieve objectives. While accomplishing these endeavors will require the DOD to examine the challenges across the entirety of the doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy framework to realize success, this discussion is focused on the influence of Marine Corps doctrine to realize these imperatives.
The Marine Corps is moving forward with generating doctrine that presents a path to achieving information advantages through the MCWP 8-10, Information in Marine Corps Operations. The June 2023 Force Design 2030 Annual Update identified that as the pace of change in the information domain accelerates, the Marine Corps cannot afford to allow doctrinal efforts to languish. It must keep pace with the emerging and evolving operational environment, as well as with the agencies and organizations that will be essential to its success.3 In support of this analysis, the Deputy Commandant for Information published its second “8” series doctrinal publication. This article will discuss the imperative for the MCWP 8-10 and review some key topics presented by the publication.
“Every action a Marine Corps unit or individual Marine takes or does not take has the potential to communicate a message.” —MCDP 8-10, Information in Marine Corps Operations
Changing Landscape
Leveraging information power is nothing new to the Marine Corps. However, today’s hyper-connected digital environment has created new and constantly evolving opportunities and challenges that impact Service and Joint Force operations from competition to conflict. This current environment poses challenges at all levels of command while simultaneously driving change across the Marine Corps and the greater Joint Force. Commanders across the Service are integrating information considerations into planning efforts and operations to generate multi-domain effects and achieve mission objectives. The speed and reach of today’s technology portend that tactical actions can have far-reaching, strategic information and influence implications. Both the accessibility and use of information can be a vulnerability as Marines can quickly upload digital imagery, videos, or other material that has not been appropriately vetted for release and share it on information technology platforms (social media, email, etc.) at the speed of the internet and at the cost of negating command narratives or blunting operational security actions. Recently, MajGen Ryan Heritage, the Commanding General of Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command and Marine Corps Forces Space Command, was asked about information and Marine Corps culture. He was quoted as saying, “I would tie that to the Marine ethos, Marine culture, and understanding how information is a key to warfighting and therefore every Marine a rifleman, every Marine needs to understand the power of information and where that’s applied and how they apply it.”4 With this in mind, MCWP 8-10 seizes the opportunity to address how all Marines can apply informational power by presenting innovative solutions to operational problems and strategic challenges within the information environment.
Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 8, Information
In June of 2022, the Marine Corps published MCDP 8, Information. With MCDP 8, the Marine Corps established its first Service-level information doctrine. This publication provided a foundational theory for leveraging the power of information, described the Marine Corps information warfighting function, and discussed the function’s mutually supporting relationship with other Marine Corps warfighting functions. MCDP 8’s framework supports the high-level understanding of the Marine Corps information warfighting function and introduces the three information advantages generated through its application: systems overmatch, prevailing narrative, and force resiliency. This foundational doctrine provides the context and theoretical framework that is expanded upon through the MCWP 8-10. MCDP 8 was written with an understanding of the continuously evolving global security environment and it allows for future subordinate doctrine to keep pace.
Operationalizing MCDP 8
MCWP 8-10 is a subordinate publication to MCDP 8. MCWP 8-10 supports the understanding and employment of the means for conducting information and how those activities generate an information advantage. It operationalizes the information warfighting function and tenets of MCDP 8 while serving as an intermediary doctrinal publication bridging the gap between the MCDP and the more detailed tactics, techniques, and procedures found in reference or tactical publications. It addresses a methodology for incorporating the four functions of information (generate, preserve, deny, project) and by extension, the information warfighting function into plans, operations, and day-to-day activities. Lastly, it presents principles for assessing successful outcomes and tools to support planners and operators alike in assessing if those activities generated the desired effects. As doctrine is authoritative and not directive, the MCWP 8-10 requires prudent judgment in its application. It is intended to provide a practical reference for all Marines to leverage the power of information to gain and maintain advantages across the spectrum of operations and activities. Additionally, it seeks to facilitate formal school programs of instruction and unit standard operating procedures to maximize the effectiveness of information activities.
General Information Activities … Presence, Posture, and Profile A key tenet of the MCWP 8-10 is the idea that creating and maintaining information advantages are not solely the responsibility of commanders and staff but rather the total force. MCWP 8-10 identifies that all operations and activities include inherent informational aspects that must be understood, synchronized, and leveraged as an integral part of planning and operations and that all observed Marine activities can be considered consistent, inconsistent, irrelevant, or contradictory to a prevailing narrative.5 With this in mind, all Marines would benefit from recognizing the important role that their everyday activities, whether deployed or at their home station, play in the greater context of creating or degrading a friendly information advantage. Every action, from the mundane to the worldly, is an observable activity that communicates a message. Though not specifically stated, MCWP 8-10 conveys the idea that while it is incumbent upon leaders to ensure Marines understand the prevailing narrative, command messaging, and desired outcomes, the responsibility to ensure actions are consistent with these outcomes resides with the individual Marine.
Both individual and unit actions leverage presence, posture, and profile to convey tactical, operational, and strategic messages. These messages may influence adversary actions or strengthen relationships with friendly forces to achieve an information advantage. Presence, posture, and profile can be visualized in the following ways. Presence may be the physical act of being in a location or a virtual space (such as social media and Internet platforms). Posture may be how one presents oneself through attitude, stance, comportment, etc. Finally, profile is the representative combination of presence and profile to communicate a message to adversaries and friendly forces alike. Conveying consistent, sound, and well-planned presence, posture, and profile helps to shape an operational environment that is advantageous to friendly forces and provides commanders with operational flexibility.
Figure 1. Six ITCC Phases.6 (Figure provided by author.)
Figure 2.7 (Figure provided by author.)Planning for Information: Information Tasking and Coordination Cycle and the Information Tasking Order
A hallmark of the MCWP 8-10 is the introduction of the Information Tasking and Coordinating Cycle (ITCC) and its output, the Information Tasking and Coordinating Order (ITCO). This is the first instance of a doctrinal Marine Corps process for integrating the employment and coordination of specialized information activities and capabilities that predominantly reside in units such as the MEF Information Groups. It establishes a predictable framework for planning, executing, and assessing information activities. Through a six-phase cycle, the ITCC supports the identification of objectives and outcomes; identifies the targets and relevant actors for action; evaluates information activities or capabilities available to achieve the objectives; generates an order for the execution of information activities and tasks; allows for detailed tactical-level planning, coordination, and execution; and identifies the necessity for assessing the effectiveness of the cycle to achieve the objectives. This cycle’s products, specifically the ITCO, become the commander’s mechanism to synchronize information activities with other communities’ cycles, such as aviation, logistics, fires, and maneuver.
The ITCO is the primary product of the ITCC. It conveys all aspects of the ITCC in a product that is approved by the MEF commander. The ITCC is generally understood to be an MEF-level process. However, it can be scaled to apply at any echelon of the organization to facilitate coordination, planning, and execution of specialized information activities to achieve overall operational objectives. While the ITCO identifies those activities of an operations order (situation, mission, execution, admin and logistics and command, and control), the focal point is conveyed through the identification of information tasks. It is through these tasks that the phases of the ITCC are captured and applied to organizations and units. The execution of these tasks along with the effects and outcomes then leads to the ability to assess results and validate if desired effects were achieved.
Assessing the Effectiveness of Information Activities
MCWP 8-10 addresses one of the more difficult activities when discussing information advantage—how to assess whether actions in and through the information environment are achieving the desired outcomes or effects. Rather than an assessment methodology, MCWP 8-10 presents guiding principles that should be addressed in phase six of the ITCC, emphasizing the necessity to integrate information activities and outcomes into the planning process. Evaluating effects against relevant actor perceptions, behavior, and capabilities is seemingly more challenging than conducting a battle damage assessment of the effects of conventional fires. As such, it is imperative to identify specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives while executing the first two phases of the ITCC. Objectives generated in phase one or phase two of the ITCC that inadequately address SMART criteria will lead to difficulty during phase three when planners identify capabilities to match against relevant actors and desired effects. The MCWP 8-10 suggests that when objectives follow SMART criteria for assessing effectiveness they directly lead to more valuable measures of effectiveness and measures of performance.
Conclusion
The ever-changing character of warfare requires new approaches to leverage the power of information. Gaining and maintaining an information advantage supports the other warfighting functions and Marine Corps and Joint Force operations as a whole. It accelerates the friendly command and control process to out-cycle the adversary. This translates into making quicker, more informed decisions thus increasing friendly tempo while degrading the adversary’s. MCWP 8-10 expands upon the tenets of MCDP 8 and provides Marines at all echelons of command the reference material to gain and maintain an information advantage through a practical, repeatable, and predictable framework. It delivers a functional publication for commanders, individual Marines, planners, and staff alike to leverage during planning and operations. It seeks to lay a foundation for the preparation, execution, and evaluation of all information activities thus increasing the options available to commanders in both competition and conflict. The publication of the MCWP 8-10, coupled with the MCDP 8, delivers a deliberate methodology for integrating information into all facets of warfighting to arm Marines for the challenges of current and future battlefields.
Notes
1. Scott W. Harold, Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, and Jeffrey W. Hornung, Chinese Disinformation Efforts on Social Media (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2021).
2. Department of Defense, 2022 National Defense Strategy, (Washington, DC: 2022).
3. Headquarters United States Marine Corps, Force Design 2030: Annual Update, (Washington, DC: 2023).
4. Mark Pomerleau, “Marine Corps’ New Information Command Needs a Common Operational Picture for Digital Landscape,” Defensescoop, January 5, 2024, https://defensescoop.com/2024/01/05/marine-corps-information-command-needs-common-operational-picture-digital-landscape.
5. Headquarters Marine Corps, MCWP 8-10, Information in Marine Corps Operations, (Washington, DC: 2024).
6. MCWP 8-10, Information in Marine Corps Operations.
Information in 21st-century competition, deterrence, and warfare
>LtGen Glavy is the Deputy Commandant, Information.
>>Mr. Schaner is a retired Intelligence Officer currently serving as the Deputy Director for the Plans and Strategy Division within the Deputy Commandant for Information.
The character of warfare is changing faster than most could have imagined a decade ago. In just the last four years, Russia invaded Ukraine, Azerbaijan resumed conflict with Armenia, Hamas attacked Israel, Houthis impeded the Red Sea, and China rammed Philippine vessels in the South China Sea. These events and China’s now frequent crossing of the Taiwan Strait median line highlight just how much the world has changed in recent years. We observe from these events that the character of warfare is now faster and more connected than ever before.1 War remains the ultimate contest of human wills and may be long-lasting, but battlefield engagements from sensor to shooter occur faster than ever and are decided quickly by converging multi-domain effects.2 Kill chains are evolving into complex but resilient kill webs. State and non-state actors are building kill webs by combining readily available capabilities to improve their maturing precision-strike regimes. For state actors, this includes using widely available low-cost sensors, publicly available information, commercially available sensor data, social media, and state-owned sensor data to employ a widening array of precision stand-off weapons, ranging from low-cost unmanned aerial systems and loitering munitions to long range hypersonic and ballistic missiles.
Highly connected technologies such as social media are also fundamentally transforming the battle over narratives. From the conflicts already mentioned to numerous other potential flashpoints in East Asia, opponents in competition and conflict and their supporting public are continually bombarded with messaging through an unending stream of videos, images, and other forms of communication. This messaging is aimed at influencing the enemy to quit, or rival public to acquiesce, or both. What is at the center of all this change?
Information—and the battle to dominate with it—is fundamentally transforming the character of warfare. The side that wins both the technical and cognitive fights for information will most likely succeed in battle and win in war. Peer adversaries understand this well. They are leveraging the global proliferation of sensors, abundant data, virtually unlimited computing power, artificial intelligence, social media, and hyperconnectivity to adapt, evolve, and in some cases transform their capabilities to offset historical U.S. military advantages.3
The Marine Corps must continue to adapt to meet today’s technology-driven challenges in our highly connected world. Marines who harness information to achieve decision advantage, combine multi-domain effects, close kill webs faster than the adversary, and influence the narrative will achieve advantage in current and future warfare. The Marine Corps’ adaptation will continue by learning from current events and taking advantage of the opportunities that access to data and information provides. FMFs are doing this today through formations like the MEF Information Group and the Marine littoral regiment, among others. We must do more.
The Commandant’s Task to DC I.
In anticipation of these challenges, the Marine Corps created the Deputy Commandant for Information (DC I) position and supporting organization in 2017. The DC I organization brings together the intelligence and information warfighting functions, plus the data and communications functions, into one organization, among other changes.4 From the beginning through today, the DC I team has worked hard to:
Develop new doctrine including MCDP 8, Information, and MCWP 8-10, Information in Marine Corps Operations, to help institutionalize the information warfighting function.
Establish the Marine Corps Information Command to help Stand-in Forces (SIF) connect with the authorities and permissions they need to operate, as well as leverage intelligence community (IC) capabilities.
Foster the MEF Information Group’s growth from a fledgling operational unit to a fully functional command that can command and control forces across the globe.
Establish the Network Battalions to secure, operate, and defend the Marine Corps Enterprise Network, providing global support to our MEFs and Marine Forces.
Create the new 17XX information maneuver occupational field by combining cyberspace, space, and numerous legacy information operations fields into a single coherent professionalized series.
Implement hybrid cloud through network modernization to prepare us for artificial intelligence (AI) enabled data-centric operations.
Establish the Information Development Institute to provide quality training, education, and experiences for information technology, cyberspace, and the data and AI civilian workforce.
All the above are necessary footings for what is coming next.
In August 2023, Gen Smith provided guidance affirming that information plays a major role in supporting his vision for the Marine Corps’ continued evolution. Additionally, Commandant Smith’s guidance recognizes the fundamental shift in the character of warfare, and that Marines, above all else, remain at the center. Echoing Col John Boyd’s simple but time-tested wisdom of “People, Ideas, Things—in that order,” Marines remain our ultimate source of strength and advantage. So long as warfare remains a contest of human wills, Boyd’s influence on the Marine Corps’ warfighting philosophy discussed in MCDP 1, Warfighting, still drives us to embrace, empower, and trust the creativity and ingenuity of our Marines. Our Commandant and the DC I recognize this and will always put Marines first. We will focus on Marines and enable their creativity by giving them the data, information, and cutting-edge technologies that are available today. Empowering and trusting Marines differentiates us from all our adversaries. It is what gives us a competitive edge. Our duty is to empower and trust Marines with 21st-century capabilities—so that we can fight and win 21st-century battles.
To move us faster in this direction, the Commandant tasked the DC I team to develop a top-level vision for information in the Marine Corps. This task requires us to deliver a unified vision for how data, information, communications, intelligence, cyberspace, space, electromagnetic spectrum, and all other information-based capabilities and functions across the DC I portfolio empower Marines and contribute as an integrated whole to joint warfighting. This is no small task. To build this vision we must apply what we learned over the past several years of Force Design to help drive the next phase—force development.
What Have We Learned So Far?
The Marine Corps is transitioning from a simpler view of the battlespace organized around physical maneuver combined with supporting arms to a more sophisticated view of all-domain combined arms. While we have made great progress in this transition in recent years, trend reporting from our MAGTF Warfighting Exercises shows we have more to do.5 The core challenge we face is how to create and sustain the ability to close complex kill webs while preventing our adversaries from closing them on us. To meet that challenge, we must help Marines understand the role of information and how to use data to enable and support that effort. Another primary challenge is helping Marines understand they are always in a narrative battle and giving them the tools they need to successfully fight that battle. These are information problems that we can and will solve.
To achieve the above, the Marine Corps must solve several human capital issues. Putting Boyd’s philosophy of “People, Ideas, and Things—in that order” into practice, we must first address an all-Marine education and training issue. Every Marine, especially commanders, must better understand their role in data-centric operations and how to integrate and exploit information across warfighting functions. Next, the Marine Corps must fix problems related to the development and retention of Marines and civilians serving in the information-related fields. These problems range from lack of specialization in essential high-demand, low-density skills to career stagnation and inefficient utilization. Additionally, the Marine Corps must overcome similar problems in producing and retaining sufficient personnel in the intelligence occupational fields.
The Marine Corps is not maximizing the use of data to empower people and help them make decisions. While data is at the root of all Marine Corps functions, missions, and activities, the Marine Corps’ data is not currently organized, structured, governed, processed, and presented in a way that allows for effective use or decision making. This suboptimal use of data puts Marines in a situation of seeking information-based advantages through constant trade-offs among data, intelligence, and communications needs. Until such time as we finally synchronize “information” into a single unifying concept that integrates these areas along with cyber and space, the Marine Corps will continue to fall short.
With respect to intelligence, the findings of force design-related analysis, wargames, and exercises match observations of the contemporary operating environment: winning the reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance (RXR) fight is critical. The Marine Corps Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance Enterprise (MCISR-E) must continue to modernize to anticipate and stay ahead of changes in the environment to enable Marines to win the RXR fight as part of joint competing and warfighting. The MCISR-E must incorporate the use of data and information technologies that enable rapid sense-making of large, multi-disciplinary data sets and intelligence feeds, as well as software-defined two-way connectivity across the Marine Corps and to the Joint Force and IC.
In a highly connected two-way data-centric environment the exquisite capabilities of the IC are instantly available, globally. The findings show a need to leverage this connectivity to enable SIF to not only be the eyes and ears of the Joint Force but also the IC. In response to this need, the Marine Corps established the Marine Corps Information Command to tie the SIF closer to the IC and global combatant commanders like CYBERCOM and SPACECOM. This connection crucially enables mutually supporting relationships between the SIF and combatant commanders—allowing for the exchange of data, authorities, and permissions, as well as using placement and access to generate effects.
We have learned a great deal from current events and the Marine Corps’ collective campaign of learning. We must now capitalize on what we have learned to continue improving.
Toward a Unified Vision for Information.
The diverse functions and capabilities within the DC I portfolio exist to help Marines and the Marine Corps gain or exploit some kind of information-based advantage or effect. The Commandant’s task to create a unified vision for information is a task to help him organize, train, and equip the Marine Corps to harness the power of information and technology for the purpose of gaining and exploiting information-based advantages and effects. This is the basis for “fighting smart” as a unified vision—a vision that draws directly from the last sentences of MCDP 1, Warfighting, which state: “Maneuver warfare is a way of thinking in and about war that should shape our every action … [it] is a philosophy for generating the greatest decisive effect against the enemy at the least possible cost to ourselves—a philosophy for ‘fighting smart.’”6
How do Marines fight smart in the 21st century? How do Marines develop insight, leverage their imagination, and innovate to adapt to disruptive environments? How does the institution deliver cutting-edge technologies to turn data and information into tactical advantages and combat power? How do Marines use these advantages to out-think, out-compete, and out-fight the adversary? These are some of the fundamental questions Fighting Smart will answer.
To build toward this vision and answer these fundamental questions, the Marine Corps must close gaps associated with the Commandant’s priorities of people, readiness, and modernization. Concerning people and readiness, we must educate and train individual Marines to know what to do with information and their role in using it effectively, and then match people to billets to take maximum advantage of their skills and available technologies. This includes integrating individual talent into realistic and challenging unit training. This combination enables a data-centric approach to operations. Commanders and Marines at all levels benefit from their ability to make better and faster decisions than the adversary, and their ability to manipulate or deny information to the adversary in ways that maintain or increase warfighting advantages.
With respect to modernization, we must improve our ability to combine all available data using advanced technologies to move relevant and trusted information in a timely manner—this makes distributed operations possible, as well as all domain RXR through a modernized MCISR-E. Additionally, combining all available data enables ally, partner, and Joint Force integration into all-domain combined arms to close joint and combined kill webs, which greatly increases the potential dilemmas Marines can create for their adversaries. To accomplish this, the Marine Corps must develop an organizing concept and formations that integrate signals intelligence, electromagnetic spectrum operations, and cyberspace operations.
To leverage data for battlefield advantages, the Marine Corps must learn from current events where adaptability through rapidly engineering software applications and data solutions at the point of need has proved advantageous. The 18th Airborne Corps provides a prime example, demonstrating the effectiveness of deploying a skilled team of software coders and engineers to dynamically create data solutions that support evolving missions and the commander’s need for information. Our MEF commanders should possess similar capabilities.
Toward a Fighting Smart Institution
Service leaders and staff can also fight smart by modernizing to support institutional operations. Leaders and staff at all levels benefit from their ability to organize, structure, govern, and process data in ways that allow for effective use and decision making. Modernizing data-centric operations at the institutional level would greatly improve institutional planning; force design and development; acquisition; budgeting; recruiting and retention; assignments; training and education; force generation and employment; posture decisions; strategic communication, and installations and logistics planning.
Fighting Smart applies to all Marines, emphasizing the instant and interconnected global nature of the information environment. It underscores the visibility and potential consequences of actions and words by all, including civilian Marines and support contractors. Achieving a unified information vision necessitates practicing information discipline—maintaining professionalism and awareness that every word and action is visible globally. This recognition can either enhance or hinder the Marine Corps’ reputational narrative, affecting public perceptions both domestically and internationally.7
To continue the Marine Corps’ evolution, we must also implement changes to how we conduct defense acquisitions. Marines recognize the need to go faster, with operational commanders using O&M dollars to acquire capabilities. External leaders and Congress have long called for changes. Marine Corps Systems Command recently reorganized to enhance acquisitions, but more work remains. The Commission on Defense Innovation and Adoption, in its January 2024 publication, underscores the urgent need to swiftly adopt cutting-edge technologies from commercial and defense sectors. Doing so will enable the timelier delivery of high-impact solutions to the warfighter.8
This necessitates a fundamental shift in focus within our programs of record to emphasize software requirements over hardware. This shift also requires our programs to allow for rapid software modifications and updates to ensure our warfighters can maintain a competitive advantage by fusing and correlating data to drive decisions, actions, and outcomes. Organizations like the Marine Corps Software Factory are designed to support and enable rapid software development. Fighting Smart will identify necessary actions to steer the Marine Corps toward crucial reforms in requirements development and acquisitions, as well as in providing software development support to FMF.
Where Are We Headed?
Fighting Smart is a way of operating that turns data and information into combat power by enabling Marines to make better decisions at a faster pace than their adversary while using data as an asset that makes all-domain command and control and combined arms more effective. To take full advantage of this operating method, the Marine Corps needs to educate and train its people in how to create and sustain it. Every operating approach relies on skilled people to make it work—Fighting Smart is no different. Marines must know how to get the most from data to make it effective.
Fighting Smart will look familiar to most Marines. It will read like other major Service-level initiatives (e.g., talent management) that were developed over the last several years. However, a key difference is that Fighting Smart will relate to and enable these other initiatives, especially the Commandant’s three major priorities mentioned above. Additionally, Fighting Smart will establish directed actions and areas requiring further study within specific focus areas. In the current draft, these areas include mobilizing talent, achieving data-centricity, modernizing the MCISR-E, and enabling 21st-century combined arms. Fighting Smart is expected to be published in June 2024.
Conclusion
Fighting Smart represents an expanding opportunity for 21st-century combined arms, extending beyond traditional domains to include space, cyberspace, the electromagnetic spectrum, and the information environment. It embodies converging effects from multiple domains to drive advantages and outcomes. Taking Boyd’s philosophy to heart, people and their ideas, empowered by data and technology, are at the center of Fighting Smart. It is Marines, not technology, who will ultimately maintain the Marine Corps’ competitive edge. Future success demands data-literate training, including AI/ML training within applicable areas of the Marine Corps. Fleet Marine Forces and the supporting establishment require a workforce with specialized skillsets for improved decision making.
People empowered by data are also central to modernizing the MCISR-E. Modernization and Joint Force relevancy require the Marine Corps to function as an RXR force in both competition and conflict, engaging in a daily fight for information and influence. Modernizing the MCISR-E is essential to help close kill webs, which makes 21st-century combined arms possible. A modernized MCISRE also helps create decision advantage and Joint Force resiliency as well as supports understanding and competing in the battle for narratives.
Achieving the above hinges on empowering people with data, providing necessary education and training, and enhancing the institution’s speed in delivering data-centric capabilities. Fighting Smart serves as a blueprint for the Marine Corps’ evolution in the technology-driven, highly connected world, addressing the need for organizational adaptability to meet modern challenges and reduce the warfighter’s operational risks.
Notes
1. John Antal, “The First War Won Primarily with Unmanned Systems, Ten Lessons from the Ngorno-Krabakh War,” Madscriblog, April 1, 2021, https://madsciblog.tradoc.army.mil/317-top-attack-lessons-learned-from-the-second-nagorno-karabakh-war.
2. Ibid.
3. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, Final Report: National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, (Washington, DC: 2021).
4. Headquarters Marine Corps, Marine Corps Bulletin 5400, Establishment of the Deputy Commandant for Information, (Washington, DC: 2017).
5. Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command, Marine Air Ground Combat Center, Final Exercise Report for MAGTF Warfighting Exercise 2-23, (Twentynine Palms: 2023).
>LtCol Gillett is Combat Engineer Officer who is currently assigned to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a CMC Fellow. He was previously assigned to 3d MLG, III MEF as the Commanding Officer of 9th Engineer Support Battalion.
The most pronounced strategic military impact of the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union on the United States was the shift from maritime, air, and space superiority to one of supremacy. Multi-domain supremacy ushered in a period where the United States sat at the apex of a unipolar global system defined by an absence of existential security threats and a lack of comparable nation-state competitors, which led to a focus on crisis response and irregular warfare. In the last decade, the rise of regional challengers in Europe and the Pacific ended America’s “unipolar moment” of unilateral military supremacy.1 Strategically, this shift caused a reassessment of military strategy, organization, and doctrine and reoriented strategic policy from an exclusive focus on expeditionary deterrence to a more traditional balance between expeditionary response and nation-state deterrence. In the case of the Pacific, the United States faces an adversary with the capability to disrupt, deter, and limit the United States’ military effectiveness while offsetting other elements of national power that have been foundational to America’s grand strategy since the fall of the Soviet Union.2
The United States military is in an inter-war period that, like the 1930s pre-World War II era and 1945 to 1949 pre-Cold War era, is focused on developing capabilities necessary to meet global and regional challenges. Modernization has rightly focused on command and control, intelligence, fires, and maneuver in developing a force capable of deterring challenges to the status quo, providing flexible options for crisis response, and, if necessary, defeating an adversary in conflict.3 Though there has been substantive progress in the development of these capabilities, recent calls from Marine Corps and Joint Force senior leadership for modernizing the joint logistics enterprise reflects an acknowledgment that a relative combat power gap exists between strategic ways and means due to an inability to deliver and sustain capability in uncertain or hostile environments.4
Logistics modernization through investments in contested logistics and a global positioning network offers a measurable means to influence and deter peer adversary activities in the region by reinforcing strategic perceptions of credible military capability while demonstrating commitment to the defense of regional allies and partners.5 Logistics forces have the organic means to be a decisive capability in maintaining operational access and generating flexible response options in a competitive campaign against a capable nation-state actor. The artful application of the functions of logistics, fused with other joint capabilities, offers opportunities to conduct operations that can persist, shape, and deter without the escalatory signaling associated with the deployment of kinetic capabilities. The non-escalatory, dual purpose, and soft power nature of logistics in competition offers latent deterrence options that have been undervalued in the era of expeditionary deterrence but are critical to future strategic and operational success because the presumption of uncontested operational access to a crisis area has been directly challenged creating substantive strategic risk.
This article advocates that logistics forces bring credibility to general and immediate deterrence by ensuring that military forces deployed in response to a crisis have the speed, endurance, and capability to influence an adversary’s risk calculations, reinforcing strategic signaling. Additionally, logistics forces provide unique dual-purpose capabilities that reinforce the application of other strategic tools and build relationships with allies and partners in a manner that makes the United States the partner of choice with domestic audiences.
Logistics in Immediate Deterrence
United States’ strategic deterrence failed in March 1950 with Joseph Stalin’s communication to North Korean Kim II Sung, “The Soviet Union has decided also to satisfy fully this request (invasion of South Korea) of yours.”6 This approval ultimately resulted in the North Korean invasion of South Korea on 25 June 1950 and was based on the perception that in the unlikely event that the United States responded to the invasion, there would be insufficient time, based on United States military capability, to stop the North Korean offensive and was thus the invasion was a perceived fait accompli.7
Conversely, the United States achieved strategic success during Operation Vigilant Warrior in 1994 because of a three-year investment in regional forward operating sites and cooperative security locations facilitated by low visibility and persistent deployments of support forces. These investments resulted in the development of mature infrastructure and robust regional stocks that were supported by the appropriate experts to operationalize those capabilities in crisis.8 These factors directly enabled the deployment and in-theater equipping of 4,000 combat troops in two days, with a further 36,000 moving to the region within three days, in response to the movement of two Iraqi Republican Guard Divisions to the Kuwaiti border. The speed of the response, compared to the 30 days for deployment required during the Gulf War, surprised Saddam Hussein and was the “primary source of U.S. deterrent power” in coercing, through signals, Iraqi withdrawal and de-escalation.9
Since 1945, the United States has been strategically involved in 368 international crisis events that met three criteria in the International Crisis Behavior database:
A threat to one or more basic values;
An awareness of finite time for response to a value threat, and
A heightened probability of involvement in military hostilities.10
In 52 cases, the United States overtly deployed conventional military forces with the result of de-escalation or termination of the crisis in 73 percent of cases, escalation of the crisis in 15 percent of cases, and no definitive impact on the crisis in 11 percent of cases.
While speed is relative to the perceived threat and the rate at which a crisis unfolds, time is a finite and decisive resource in crisis response. On average, the speed at which forces were deployed from the initiation of the crisis to the first arrival of forces into the crisis area, using the International Crisis Behavior database, was 35.15 days for crises that resulted in de-escalation. In contrast, the speed of the crisis deployment was 57 days for cases that resulted in escalation.11 These findings, combined with historical case studies, indicate that speed is an unambiguous tool to signal capability and credibility. Furthermore, a critical enabler to facilitate speed is investment in strategic transportation, regional infrastructure, and regional pre-positioning as was demonstrated in the dataset by a mean speed of 48.71 days for deployments to immature theaters as compared with a mean of 14.88 days to a mature theater where personnel, infrastructure, and pre-positioned stocks were available in the crisis region.12 Thus, in all 52 cases, previous investments in transportation, pre-positioning, and forward positioning provided the foundation that enabled or inhibited the composition, speed, and influenced the credibility of crisis deployments.13
A robust sustainment network signals credible capability to an adversary and credible commitment to allies and partners. A crisis scenario in the Western Pacific would likely require forward forces to disperse regionally to act as the stand-in force until reinforced through global deployments.14 Based on current forces in the area, forward-positioned ground forces will require initial transportation of between 27,000 and 36,000 tons of personnel, equipment, and supplies regionally.15 Following dispersal, these forces would require between 300 and 600 tons of fuel, water, food, and ammunition daily for ground forces, with an additional 2,500 to 3,500 tons, mainly fuel and ammunition, required daily for aviation formations.16 The additional strain placed on strategic and operational transportation assets, moving forces, equipment, and supplies to reinforce the region magnifies the significance of logistical requirements. A significant crisis deployment from the continental United States, using five divisions and ten air wings as a baseline, would require the movement of roughly one million tons and would require, given optimal conditions, one month or more to complete.17
Logistics investments in general deterrence proportionally reduce, but do not eliminate, the strain on strategic and operational transportation systems in crisis through pre-positioning and forward positioning. Infrastructure, supply, equipment, and sustainment investments in volatile regions allow for the rapid deployment of credible forces that arrive with the necessary support to endure and deter immediately, increasing strategic credibility in crisis. Additionally, the proportional reduction of strategic transportation requirements transitions deployments in mature regions from expeditionary response to conventional strategic response where the threat and an adversary’s access to maritime, air, and space domains is at risk, improving the deterrence credibility and capability and reducing the probability of escalation.
Perceptions of Military Credibility and Capability
A lack of investment in sustainment creates a strategic and operational capability and credibility gap in the Western Pacific, undermining deterrence. A 2023 study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies reveals a series of salient tensions in response to a Taiwan scenario that presents significant risks in escalation and conflict. The two most significant findings related to logistics were the United States must respond rapidly and with its full capabilities to prevent Taiwan from falling, and movement of the intra-theater lift of forces, equipment, and supplies became untenable based on China’s anti-access capabilities early in the conflict, resulting in an abrupt reduction in the capability of combat forces.18 Thus, speed and endurance are two significant factors in the credibility of deterrence and effectiveness in combat against a peer adversary and are qualities that are directly shaped by logistics posture.
Investment in logistics modernization and capabilities in strategically contested regions offers a means to provide latent deterrence through the placement of multipurpose capabilities, which can be overt or concealed, and enhance capability across the spectrum of conflict without the impediment of being explicitly threatening or escalatory.19 The Joint Force has already begun this process through investments such as the Pacific Deterrence Initiative allotment of three and a half billion dollars into the development of main operating bases and the one-hundred-million-dollar investment in Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement sites in the Philippines.20 However, these investments provide a linear capability that does not align with the envisioned network and require operational and tactical investments to create a multi-tiered strategic and operational mosaic.21
Forward positioning of logistics forces and investments in a distributed network offers a means to reduce the initial burden on transportation networks during crisis deployments, increasing the speed of the deployment and thus bringing credibility to strategic signals. While agreements with partners and allies will not afford unfettered access, investments reduce transportation requirements, generate flexibility, and provide endurance that is not solely dependent on strategic and operational transportation capabilities.
Support to Allies and Partners
The Marine Corps stand-in-force concept emphasizes the necessity for a persistent presence in a contested area to disrupt an adversary in competition and form the “leading edge of a maritime defense in depth” in crisis and conflict.22 Access to contested areas is the core of the concept, with the most significant assumption being that political elites and populations of allied and partner nations will permit access to sovereign territories. Historically, the success or failure of basing agreements with allies depends on available resources, shared threat perceptions, and the cost to political leaders by the domestic audiences.23 Tactical formations offer a means to provide access by leveraging capabilities that do not present a similar threat perception, compared to traditional combat formations, to domestic and international audiences, enabling persistent access to locations inaccessible to other conventional formations.
Domestic audiences will fundamentally view infrastructure construction and repair, medical and dental services, water production and distribution, transportation, and other capabilities differently than combat formations and thus offer alternative and multi-functional solutions in developing agreements. For example, the April 2023 United States-Philippine bilateral announcement of four additional Enhanced Cooperation Agreement sites drew domestic condemnation, leading to statements by senior Philippine officials that the bases would be used primarily for logistics support.24 While a review of 1,430 media reports from February 2023 to August 2023 related to United States-Philippine agreements and regional geopolitical conditions reveals a balanced domestic debate, statements and reporting by leaders indicate that capabilities that are directly applicable to such military operations as humanitarian assistance and natural disaster response stimulates an alternative narrative and represent an opportunity to align operational and strategic ways, means, and ends.
Implications to the Logistics Enterprise Campaigning. Nested with stand-in force and Joint Force requirements, logistics forces link campaign phases by providing a persistent presence that builds, maintains, and supports strategic and operational investments. Construction of infrastructure by engineers, embedding medical personnel in host nation hospitals, and maintaining stocks and equipment intended to provide responsiveness to natural and man-made disasters all represent activities that facilitate speed and capability in crisis response, bring credibly to strategic signals, and reinforce relationships with allies and partners across a range of time horizons.
General Support in Competition. Establishing a global and regional network to support operations in competition, crisis, and conflict is beyond the organic capabilities of combat formations. In order to build a regional capability that is adaptive, nested, and credible, logistics must evolve from a traditional focus of providing direct support for operations, investments, and activities to one of general support focused on persistent forward presence and increasing regional capacity. The logistics enterprise has a responsibility for the maintenance, development, and operation of main operating bases as key nodes; however, the development and operation of forward operating sites and cooperative security locations will play a critical role in evolving the logistics network from a linear and inflexible network to one that is multi-dimensional, resilient, and diverse. This requires an evolution in logistics formation’s doctrinal employment in competition.
Prioritization of Effectiveness over Efficiency. Effective deterrence requires a degree of risk in the allocation of finite resources. Developing a logistics network requires investment in nodes that may never be employed, where partner policies and strategic priorities change, resulting in expansion or reduction in access, or where elements of the network are out of position in the transition from general to immediate deterrence. However, the most significant risk to the credibility and capability of the joint force is a lack of investment, leading to strategic insolvency. Tactical and operational logistics formations are crucial in limiting risk by shaping through sustained investment while providing strategic flexibility in a crisis.
Conclusion
The employment of logistics forces directly imparts credibility and capability to strategic deterrence through both latent and active capabilities. Logistics and sustainment are essential to deterrence, crisis response, and the effectiveness of operational command and control, fires, intelligence, and maneuver capabilities. Fundamentally, logistics formations bring credibility to strategic signaling in general deterrence and enable tactical and operational effectiveness in crisis and conflict only through investment in competition.
Joint logistics formations’ primary task in the Pacific must be establishing, developing, and sustaining a multi-nodal, distributed network that is ruthlessly opportunistic in the application of engineering, maintenance, supply, transportation, medical, and other logistics functions. Even in competition, opportunities will be fleeting, and a force with the dexterity, creativity, and resources to exploit opportunities will be the force with the initiative and credibility in competition.
Logistics forces offer an optimal and uniquely postured capacity to facilitate access through organic capabilities, enhance perceptions of America’s commitment to allies and partners, challenge the adversary’s core deterrence calculus, and build credible capability into contingencies by enabling crisis deployment speed and endurance. Strategic transportation is finite, and every cubic foot of food, water, building materials, maintenance parts, and other supplies, forward-positioned or pre-positioned, reduces competition in the movement and sustainment of decisive capabilities in crisis and combat.
Notes
1. Barry R. Posen, “From Unipolarity to Multipolarity: Transition in Sight?” in International Relations Theory and the Consequences of Unipolarity, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
2. The White House, National Security Strategy, (Washington, DC: 2022).
3. Headquarters Marine Corps, Tentative Manual for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations, (Washington, DC: 2022).
4. Staff, “A Conversation with General David Berger, Washington, DC,” Brookings Institute, May 23, 2023, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/fp_20230523_usmc_berger_transcript.pdf; Richard R. Burgess, “USMC Calls for GPN,” Seapower, February 23, 2023, https://seapowermagazine.org/usmc-calls-for-gpn; and Jen Judson, “U.S. Army Has a ‘Gigantic Problem’ with Logistics in the Indo-Pacific,” Defense News, March 29, 2023, https://www.defensenews.com/land/2023/03/29/us-army-has-a-gigantic-problem-with-logistics-in-the-indo-pacific.
5. Kristen Gunness, Bryan Frederick, Timothy R. Heath, Emily Ellinger, Christian Curriden, Nathan Chandler, Bonny Lin, James Benkowski, Bryan Rooney, Cortez A. Cooper III, Cristina L. Garafola, Paul Orner, Karl P. Mueller, Jeffrey W. Hornung, and Erik E. Mueller, Anticipating Chinese Reactions to U.S. Posture Enhancements, (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2022), https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1581-1.html.
6. Allan Reed Millet, The War for Korea, 1950–1951: They Came from the North(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2010).
7. Jonathan Mercer, “Emotion and Strategy in the Korean War,” International Organization 67, No. 2 (2013).
8. Seth G. Jones and Seamus P. Daniels, “U.S. Defense Posture in the Middle East,” CSIS, 2022, https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/220519_Jones_USDefensePosture_MiddleEast_0.pdf?VersionId=60gG7N1_4FxFA6CNgJKAbr24zmsKXhwx.
9. W. Eric Herr, “Operational Vigilant Warrior: Conventional Deterrence Theory, Doctrine, and Practice,” (thesis, School of Advanced Air Studies, 1996).
10. Michael Brecher, Jonathan Wilkenfeld, Kyle Beardsley, Patrick James, and David Quinn, “International Crisis Behavior Data Codebook, Version 15,” ICB Project, 2023, http://sites.duke.edu/icbdata/data-collections.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Mark F. Cancian, Matthew Cancian, and Eric Heginbotham, “The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan,” CSIS International Security Program, 2023, https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/230109_Cancian_FirstBattle_NextWar.pdf?VersionId=WdEUwJYWIySMPIr3ivhFolxC_gZQuSOQ.
15. Gordon I. Button, J. Riposo, I. Blickstein, and P.A. Wilson, Warfighting and Logistic Support of Joint Forces from the Joint Sea Base (Santa Monica: RAND, 2007).
16. Ibid.
17. Michael O’Hanlon, The Science of War: Defense Budgeting, Military Technology, Logistics, and Combat Outcomes(New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009).
18. “The First Battle of the Next War.”
19. Kristen Gunness, Bryan Frederick, Timothy R. Heath, Emily Ellinger, Christian Curriden, Nathan Chandler, Bonny Lin, James Benkowski, Bryan Rooney, Cortez A. Cooper III, Cristina L. Garafola, Paul Orner, Karl P. Mueller, Jeffrey W. Hornung, and Erik E. Mueller, Anticipating Chinese Reactions to U.S. Posture Enhancements (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2022), https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1581-1.html. Also available in print form.
20. Department of Defense, “Pacific Deterrence Initiative,” OUSD, March 3, 2023, https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2024/FY2024_Pacific_Deterrence_Initiative.pdf; and Staff, “Fact Sheet: U.S.- Philippines 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue,” Department of Defense, April 11, 2023, https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3359459/fact-sheet-us-philippines-22-ministerial-dialogue.
22. Headquarters Marine Corps, A Concept for Stand-in Forces, (Washington, DC: 2021).
23. Bryan Frederick, Stephen Watts, Matthew Lane, Abby Doll, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Meagan L. Smith, Understanding the Deterrent Impact of U.S. Overseas Forces, (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2020).
24. Staff, “Marcos: PH Won’t Allow Use of EDCA Sites for Offensive Operations,” CNN, April 10, 2023, https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2023/4/10/marcos-edca-sites-not-for-offensive-operations.html.
>Col Angell is a Logistics Officer currently assigned as the Director, Logistics Combat Element Division within Headquarters Marine Corps, Combat Development and Integration.
>>Mr. Schouten is a retired Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel who has helped update and refine doctrine, publications, and strategic guidance for logistics within the Marine Corps, to include the update to MCDP 4.
Marines traditionally focus on the tactical level of warfare. The FMF is a tactical fighting force—always ready to fight and win. Yet, the reach of our FMF depends on the naval and joint logistics enterprise (JLEnt) to get us to the fight and enable the force to persist in a contested environment. The rise of precision and long-range strike capabilities within the arsenals of our Nation’s adversaries changes the logistics calculus at all levels of warfare. The ability to effectively strike U.S. installations, ships, and aircraft almost anywhere in the world using all-domain capabilities means enemies can actively attack the military logistics system in depth. The Marine Corps must account for these attacks in ways not truly considered since World War II.
The JLEnt, and particularly the Navy in the maritime environment, provides the mission-critical operational and strategic-enabling capabilities for the Marine Corps to operate in any clime and place. In an increasingly contested environment, Marines must closely manage logistics posture and maximize resources to gain an operational advantage. Understanding how logistics above the tactical-level impacts operations is key to ensuring forces have feasible plans with resilient forces to ensure tactical success. Marines must be deliberate in taking steps to understand and leverage operational and strategic logistics capabilities to ensure the force can persist in the contested environments that we are already operating in today.
Operational Logistics for Marines
Operational logistics (OpLog) enables campaigns by linking the strategic means of war to its tactical employment in a specified geographic area. OpLog is inherently a Joint Force effort because of the direct relationship to theater posture and campaign plans managed by the respective theater geographic combatant commander. Logistics at this level includes setting the theater with forces, footprints, and agreements to ensure the supplies and associated distribution systems are appropriately postured to support campaigning as well as the rapid transition to crisis or conflict. Among many organizations conducting OpLog, some of the most significant are the Army Theater Sustainment Command, the Navy Fleet Logistics Centers, and the forward footprint of the Defense Logistics Agency. Logistics professionals are those who can effectively plan, collaborate, and orchestrate these OpLog capabilities across the competition continuum.1
Today, forces will have to fight to get to the fight through a contested environment. Historically, the Marine Corps has had the task of seizing and defending advanced naval bases. These advanced naval bases and expeditionary advanced bases are necessary to sustain the force in the fight. Just as in World War II, Marines will not be given the luxury of permissive port offloads, unfettered aviation operations, and iron mountains of supplies. These realities drastically impact the sustainment options available to commanders. Feasible battle plans in contested environments require intimate knowledge of how forces can be positioned, resourced, and sustained over time. Understanding the challenges and opportunities of OpLog helps commanders make viable plans and maximizes options for the force. This applies to the logistics capabilities within the FMF as well as the theater and local resources that can be made available.
Marine forces may also be assigned a role in executing limited OpLog tasks, particularly in contested environments. Forces and other resources must be dedicated to managing and preserving advanced bases and transportation assets that create theater distribution systems. Of note, advanced bases are key nodes in theater distribution systems, which may include permanent main operating bases or temporary advanced naval bases and expeditionary advanced bases. These locations are each critical nodes in the theater sustainment web that must be staffed and resourced to both meet the needs of the forward force and create resiliency of the base to take a hit and keep on operating. Marine forces will be expected to contribute to operating and defending advanced bases across vast operating areas, at remote locations, or in immature theaters that other forces cannot access. For example, the size and maritime nature of the Pacific Ocean may exceed the capabilities of the Theater Sustainment Command and require Marine Corps investment and reinforcement in specified locations to support joint forces. Conversely, a naval expeditionary force (Navy and Marine team) may be the first available force capable of reaching objective areas where there are no joint capabilities and sparse infrastructure to provide OpLog support to special forces or joint aviation platforms.
Strategic Logistics for Marines Strategic logistics (StratLog) provides the Joint Force with the means of war by providing the resources needed to conduct campaigns. This includes getting to the fight and feeding the theater network from global sources. Logistics at this level focuses on installations, acquisition and procurement, enterprise inventory management, global health services management, strategic lift, and large-scale mobilization. Many StratLog functions are conducted by designated agencies and organizations to support the entire Defense Department, such as U.S. Transportation Command’s role as in providing strategic lift or inter-theater transportation. Additionally, each Service headquarters manages StratLog functions associated with manning, training, and equipping the force to fight. Marines that participate in StratLog efforts harness global resources, increase JLEnt interoperability, and facilitate naval expeditionary operations over broad time horizons.2
Most StratLog is performed by organizations outside of the Marine Corps, yet Marines influence these global resources. Marines develop requirements and inform solutions to ensure Marine Corps warfighting equities are accounted for in operational planning as well as long-term institutional planning. This coordination involves identifying capability and capacity requirements that drive investment in strategic lift capabilities (ships and aircraft) as well as the necessary infrastructure to sustain the force globally. It also involves providing input to policies that impact Marines globally, such as force health protection policies established by the Defense Health Agency. StratLog capabilities from outside of the Marine Corps are critical for ensuring Marine Corps forces have global reach and sustaining power.
The Marine Corps has StratLog capabilities and uses staffs balanced with FMF-experienced Marines and business-experienced civilians to drive programs across the Service every day. While most of these capabilities are not directly tied to the Marine Corps Task List, these are all mission-critical pillars required to build and sustain Marine Corps expeditionary lethality. These capabilities include installations management across 25 bases and stations, the acquisition and lifecycle sustainment of all weapons systems, and the global inventory positioning to maintain a balance between enterprise force readiness and prepositioning programs for global responsiveness and integrated deterrence. Each of these Marine Corps StratLog capabilities aligns with discreet regulations, and they are all mutually supporting to provide Marine forces ready to fight.
How to Improve Marine Corps OpLog and StratLog Awareness and Execution OpLog and StratLog are critically important to tactical success and the long-term health of Marine Corps forces. Marines must learn to effectively leverage the Marine Corps StratLog capabilities and the JLEnt to ensure the FMF is maintained at a high state of readiness and globally responsive. Changes in organization, doctrine, and talent management will provide necessary enhancements to transform enterprise resources to FMF lethality and adaptability. The following are four specific recommendations.
First, include OpLog and StratLog issues in Service-level exercises and wargames. Marines have been reluctant to explore force closure and protracted sustainment issues because these operational challenges often come at the cost of tactical readiness objectives. This tendency is out of balance because tactical prowess is irrelevant for a force that cannot get to the fight or lacks the material to endure over time. OpLog and StratLog issues are also often disregarded because they are the responsibilities of agencies outside of the Marine Corps. However, not incorporating realistic theater and global logistics challenges to sustaining Marine Corps employment concepts dismisses fundamental problems that should be addressed prior to conflict. These types of rehearsals can form the foundation for Service requirements and capability gaps.
Second, analyze, assess, and inform the organization and resourcing of Headquarters Marine Corps, Marine component commands, and the supporting establishment that relate to the execution of OpLog and StratLog. Understanding how these organizations relate to force generation, force deployment, force closure, and force sustainment is crucial to informing the level of investment and risk the Marine Corps should take. Current and emergent discussions regarding integrated deterrence, operating across the competition continuum, and contested logistics are relevant for the FMF today and tomorrow. These discussions inform Service-level decision making regarding roles, relationships, and resources across the Marine Corps and the JLEnt. Changes in how other agencies and Services intend to overcome the challenges of great-power competition require coordination for adjusted relationships between organizations.3 Reviewing how the Marine Corps Installations and Logistics Enterprise conducts OpLog and StratLog functions may result in better equipment, resource efficiencies, and improved alignment and interoperability throughout the Joint Force.
Third, capture OpLog and StratLog definitions, relationships, and activities in Marine Corps doctrine to ensure this understanding endures. A consolidated reference for OpLog and StratLog can make issues more accessible to Marines much like MCWP 3-40.8, Componency, describes Marine Corps integration into Joint Force operations. Currently, logistics at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels are addressed differently across various publications and require updates to capture what has been observed through the Force Design Campaign of Learning. Taking inventory of applicable publications and then prioritizing sequenced efforts to update these publications is necessary. These are the publications that tie to Marine Corps training and education programs, and these publications are what Marines leverage as guides to effectively sustain forces in the most challenging operating environments. While updating publications does not seem like an impactful activity, these changes are necessary to ensure lessons from the past and present are carried into the future.
Lastly, invest in long-term talent management efforts to develop and assign the right individuals for critical enterprise logistics positions. In comparison to the vast manpower requirements across the FMF, billets within Marine Corps and JLEnt organizations that conduct OpLog and StratLog activities are limited. Further, few Marines directly engage with OpLog and StratLog activities, and those that do, typically gain this experience near the end of their respective careers. Notably, these few Marines have a disproportionate impact on setting the force and setting the theater for warfighting readiness and battlefield success. Many of these billets also require highly specialized training and education in acquisitions, contracting, environmental management, or land management, all of which may pull Marines away from the traditional career paths related to their primary military occupational specialties. Navigating career paths that balance FMF experience and these OpLog and StratLog skills requires attention at the individual level to align education, fellowships, and assignments. To ensure the Marine Corps remains competent and current, identifying and investing in manpower to take on these OpLog and StratLog billets is critical.
Summary The Marine Corps is a tactical fighting force that thrusts forward from a foundation of operational and strategic logistics capabilities. Marines must master their understanding of these capabilities to ensure the Marine Corps has the operational reach to be a global expeditionary force. The more that Marines learn early how the entire JLEnt gets them to the fight and sustains them in the fight, the more they will understand what is possible in combat. Additionally, some Marines will be assigned the responsibility to conduct and provide oversight of OpLog and StratLog. This is particularly relevant for Marines involved in force generation and force deployment from homestation and then force closure and force reconstitution in the theater of operations. It is necessary to enrich our best Marines today with this understanding before they are assigned to positions where they will influence and be in charge of setting the theater to achieve campaign success. Every Marine must remain tactically competent, yet the more Marines understand the operational and strategic-level sinews of war, the more ready Marines will be to fight and win.
3. Examples include the transition of responsibilities between Defense Logistics Agency and Transportation Command, Army cross-functional teams, the Navy’s Transforming Logistics for Great Power Competition, and Air Force Doctrine Note 1-21 “Agile Combat Employment.”
Improving quality of life through management, modernization, and material
>MajGen Maxwell is the CG of Marine Corps Installations Command.
>>Maj Boivin is the Legislative Aide for Deputy Commandant, Installations and Logistics. At the time of submission, he was serving in the same role for CG, Marine Corps Installations Command.
LCpl Puller is excited. After graduating from Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island as platoon guide and earning a meritorious promotion, he graduated at the top of his class at Marine Combat Training aboard Camp Geiger, NC. Now that he is on his way to Camp Lejeune from Fort Leonard Wood, a smile comes over his face—he is going to the fleet! Finally, no more squad bays, foot lockers, and listening to 30 other Marines snoring at night.
He looks forward to meeting his new roommate and settling into his role as a motor transport operator at 1/2 Mar. He arrives on base just before 1900; the battalion is secured for the day, but the duty NCO is prepared for new check-ins and directs LCpl Puller to a transient room until the barracks manager can provide him his permanent residence in the morning. After waking up and getting himself put together, LCpl Puller’s squad leader takes him through the time-honored tradition of the check-in sheet. After completing the bulk of his sheet, he finally meets the barracks manager, Cpl Krulak.
While an excellent infantryman, Cpl Krulak is still trying to figure out his new role as the unit’s barracks manager, a position he assumed two weeks ago. Unfortunately, he is still waiting on access to the barracks database because his email account was not set up, but he reviews his spreadsheet and sees an unoccupied rack in Room 201. After assuming that the room is in good order, he scans a key card and hands it to LCpl Puller. After exiting the office, Puller grabs his sea bags and starts walking down the catwalk to his room. He pauses in front of 201, takes a deep breath, and opens the door to his new home.
Here. Right here is a critical juncture in the relationship between a Marine and the Marine Corps. This is where the institution shows how it values the fundamental and physiological needs of Marines like LCpl Puller and invests in retaining them for the long term. The Commandant of the Marine Corps said as much in his August 2023 Guidance to the Force: “To recruit and retain the best we will focus on improving our barracks, base housing, gyms, chow halls, child development centers, and personnel policies. I view QoL improvements as direct contributors to a more capable and lethal force. Marines can always do more with less, but it is my job to make sure you do not have to do so with your living conditions or those of your families.”1
The Marine Corps prioritized FMF readiness and modernization over its installation infrastructure, including barracks, which has contributed to unacceptable barracks conditions.
The Marine Corps will improve its readiness by improving the conditions of barracks and demonstrating our commitment to Marines. As the Service that lauds itself as the most ready, it must set the conditions necessary to prepare Marines mentally and physically. A foundational element of this readiness is the physiological need to provide a space for warfighters to rest and recharge, which begins at the barracks. As leaders, we are obligated to provide Marines with safe, clean, and comfortable housing. Marines and our Nation that sends them to us should expect nothing less.
To accomplish this, the Marine Corps is implementing a multi-pronged approach to improve its barracks characterized as Barracks 2030.
Barracks Management Today, when LCpl Puller is checking into his new unit, he will report to the barracks manager. This position is typically held by an NCO, a position Marines are not formally trained for and hold for one year. Cpl Krulak did not ask for the barracks manager billet, nor was he trained at the School of Infantry to execute his newly assigned role. Unfortunately, this often leads to inconsistent management and poor service to residents.. Due to the needs of commands and the lack of alternatives, units identify NCOs to perform the duties of a property manager with limited, to no, training and routinely hold for less than one year.
To improve the management of its barracks, the Marine Corps will hire civilian personnel to provide oversight and management of its barracks portfolio that mirrors private sector property management industry standards. Beginning in the Summer of 2024, the Marine Corps will begin hiring civilian personnel into these new positions to alleviate the pressures on operational units. Professionalizing the management workforce with civilians can improve the oversight of room conditions and address systemic backlog issues such as tracking inventory and maintenance. A part of this change was upgrading the work request management systems. At Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, the Marine Housing Office experimented with a barracks maintenance app, which allows Marines to scan a QR code and submit a work request for maintenance issues. This trial period informed improvements in the app before a broader fielding to the other installations.
This new management process will not absolve senior leaders from their role in the oversight of their barracks. Professionalizing the management of barracks with civilians will provide the continuity and requisite knowledge needed to ensure barracks standards are improved over time. This allows improved awareness of barracks quality for commanders and where to focus efforts for structural and quality of life improvements.
In addition to assisting commanders in the day-to-day barracks management responsibilities, the Marine Corps will implement a new resident advisor program. This voluntary program will allow one or two SNCOs to reside in a barracks with “resident advisor” like duties similar to colleges and universities. Ultimately, each barracks will have two SNCOs that live in the building and provide mentorship like a resident advisor program in a college dormitory. This also assists SNCOs who are living geographically separated from their families to receive quarters while assisting commands in good order and discipline at the barracks. The program can enhance living standards, ensure resident safety, and increase the leadership presence during off-duty hours. Today, the initial tranche of resident advisors are living in barracks aboard Marine Corps Air Station Miramar with the respective commands lauding the new program and the additional oversight and mentorship it provides Marines living in the barracks.
Currently, entire barracks buildings are assigned to commands, regardless of whether they can fill all rooms. Conversely, centralized billeting, which is employed by other Services, will assign rooms with no regard for a Marines’ unit. This means that LCpl Puller could be placed on the opposite end of the base from where he works with Marines from several different commands. To balance these two approaches, the Marine Corps will move to centralized unit allocation management, which assists in helping units maintain unit integrity while maximizing the available barracks rooms on base. Changing how the Marine Corps assigns rooms by rank will also assist in using more buildings.
The room configurations differ across all bases and installations. Depending on duty location and rank, a Marine can expect to have one or two roommates while potentially sharing a head with another room. As the Marine Corps matures its force, it must provide billeting commensurate with a Marine’s rank and responsibility. Current configurations of barracks will remain, with future designs moving toward NCOs having their own private space with a shared bathroom and common area.
There are over 150,000 bed spaces available in the 658 barracks the Marine Corps maintains. Of these, about 88,000 are currently filled. It is unproductive to pay for rooms not in use. A vehicle not driven in a year will have components breakdown due to non-use. Similarly, rooms that do not receive regular cleanings and upkeep will fall into disrepair. By assigning NCOs their own rooms, the Marine Corps can increase occupancy while acknowledging seniority within its ranks. Ultimately, this can improve the morale and quality of life for Marines to rest, reset, and recharge. All these initiatives will substantially transform how we manage our barracks. But in order to ensure the long term health of our infrastructure we must invest in the buildings as well.
Barracks Modernization Through the end of the 18th century, troops were customarily housed in private houses, inns, and other existing facilities, despite being a grievance listed in the U.S. Declaration of Independence (and banned by the Third Amendment). It was also considered bad for the soldiers’ morale to continuously relocate, and consequently, a movement began for constructing permanent barracks wherever troops were regularly stationed. In the 19th century such buildings, mostly of brick, appeared all over Europe.2 In modern times, iterations of the barracks spanned various shapes and sizes, and as recently as the 1990s, Marines were still residing in squad bays.
In the early 2000s, the Marine Corps increased the size of its force by tens of thousands to meet the demands of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the short-term impacts were positive, the long-term sustainment of the increased barracks inventory became insurmountable. The Marine Corps currently operates 658 barracks buildings worldwide with 112 (17 percent) of these buildings in poor or failing condition.
To mitigate these impacts, the Marine Corps will review its inventory and right-size the number of barracks it owns and operates to ensure adequate space for the current force and an adequate sustainment inventory. This will improve our financial position and allow us to maintain the remaining barracks at a higher standard. There are numerous financial levers the Marine Corps can pull to right-size the number of barracks; these funding levers include new construction, demolition, renovation, and modernization. The Marine Corps cannot build its way out of this problem; it must focus its efforts on demolition, restoration, and modernization, which it will begin in 2024 and aim to be complete by 2031.
Maintenance processes will also need to change with a smaller inventory. The Marine Corps will mirror private hotel industry practices during its barracks renovations. While private hotel companies will renovate sections or rooms as they become available, the Marine Corps waits until a certain period (e.g., 25 years) before shutting down the entire barracks, relocating Marines, and then completely renovating the building. The Marine Corps’ methodology in updating its facilities inconveniences Marines, particularly when they must move multiple times during the same enlistment because of poor construction practices. During these renovations, the Marine Corps needs to account for the readiness impacts on the current generation of Marines.
Similarly, maintenance contact teams will be contracted to work for the installation housing offices. These contact teams will be available to respond to emergent maintenance requirements, much like private hotel companies have maintenance workers who can provide immediate assistance to maintenance requests by hotel guests. This is currently being successfully modeled at MCAS Miramar.
Another area where the Marine Corps will address unsatisfactory barracks conditions is specifically at Camp Pendleton, CA. Hearing the complaints from Marines living in barracks about the lack of air conditioning, particularly at Camp Horno (which literally means Oven in Spanish), the Marine Corps is developing a comprehensive plan to install new air conditioning units in the area. While this is expensive and difficult due to the original design of the buildings, it is a necessary improvement following the increasing heat waves occurring in Southern California. Notably, the Marine Corps reallocated funds to begin the renovations in the summer of 2023.
Fixing Fixtures, Furniture and Amenities Our current accommodations, including furniture and amenities, are inadequate to recruit and retain the best talent. Rooms do not need to to mirror the $3,000 apartment out in town but are more closely aligned with dormitories of colleges and universities. When LCpl Puller makes it back to his barracks room after a long day at the motor pool, he needs a space to reset and recharge and an area to foster comradery with friends.
Some of these expectations are assured in the Marine Corps’ Unaccompanied Housing Guarantees and Resident Responsibilities, which requires Marines receive safe, secure housing that meets health, environmental, and safety standards; has functional fixtures, furnishings, appliances, and utilities; have access to common areas and amenities; and fast maintenance and repair when something breaks. Published in June 2023, this document establishes the standard every Marine can expect from their command for their rooms. New oversight from civilian managers will assist in this oversight and enforce standards during check-in and check-out procedures. Until this structure is established, it is critical that leadership advocate on behalf of their Marines to ensure barracks receive the attention necessary to resolve room issues quickly, including room fixtures.
Fixtures and furniture in Marines’ barracks are old, worn down, or broken. Currently, the Marine Corps’ 32-year lifecycle timeline has been insufficient to provide Marines with quality and reliable furniture and fixtures and impacts only 2,600 (or 3 percent) of Marines living in the barracks seeing new furniture each year. Updating the refresh cycle to a 10-year investment will outfit the barracks with more current fixtures and furniture and impact 8,700 (or 10 percent) Marines annually. The furniture ordering process will also be overhauled, centralizing the funding and standardizing furniture packages—to include washers and dryers—for different barracks types to leverage more buying power.
Ultimately, the Marine Corps must understand what its current force looks for in a barracks room. This may include kitchenettes, improved connectivity for gaming, or better recreation rooms to gather with friends. Thoughtful investments in amenities and recreation rooms can mirror amenities provided by private apartments out in town but should reflect what the current generation of Marines want. A well-intentioned billiards room will become a wasted space if the real desire is a recreational room with multiple gaming stations.
Barracks for the 21st Century What was LCpl Puller’s reaction after he opened his door? Was it disappointment about the condition of the room or pride in a clean and well-furnished home as a Marine joining his unit? His response hinges on the actions the Marine Corps does or does not take to improve its buildings. The glaring shortfalls in the current barracks inventory are evident and changes must be made. The undercurrent of these changes is mindfulness for Marines’ mental health, well-being, and readiness.
During a period of budget uncertainty, these solutions will be done at a tempo that allows for the prudent use of taxpayer dollars. Although immediate solutions are preferable, a recent Government Accountability Office report published in September 2023 “found that oversight and funding has been lacking for years” [and] “It will take years to address the chronic neglect and underfunding.”3 The Marine Corps cannot overcompensate with significant sums of money that cannot be spent smartly and risk investing in the wrong initiatives because it must spend money now.
The Marine Corps already shows a willingness to reallocate fiscal resources to tackle immediate challenges like barracks air conditioning in Camp Pendleton or updating 75-year-old barracks in Quantico. During his confirmation hearing, then Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen Eric Smith told Congress: “Taking care of Marines is a warfighting function. Otherwise, they cannot focus on the mission at hand. Barracks, chow halls and gyms are a key to retaining Marines, and investments in quality-of-life initiatives are truly warfighting needs.”
By improving the barracks through professionalizing management, modernizing infrastructure, and providing better amenities, the Marine Corps will provide its warfighters with a home appropriate to the professionalism and readiness we demand.
The individual Marine is the foundation of the Marine Corps being the most ready when the Nation is least ready. The Marine Corps must provide the necessary conditions to be ready—a ready home creates a ready Marine, which enables a ready force.
Notes
1. Gen Eric Smith, A CMC Guidance to the Force, (Washington, DC: 2023).
United States Marines: America’s Expeditionary Commandos
>Maj Schillo is qualified in multiple military occupational specialties, to include Expeditionary Ground Reconnaissance Officer. He has deployed to combat multiple times, in both Iraq and Afghan campaigns, and deployed on a WESTPAC MEU. He is currently serving with Combat Development and Integration, Headquarters Marine Corps.
The purpose of this article is to initiate a thoughtful and exciting conversation among Marines and across the Marine Corps so we can realize who we are, who we have always been, and how we, as a Service, can best step into our important role within the Joint Force, the DOD, across the intelligence community, and in support of the whole of government for 2030 and beyond. This conversation should be a good and healthy conversation, not fear-based or designed to foment extreme reactions to evolving capabilities and skillsets, but a conversation through which we all better understand who we are, where we are going, and how to codify, own, and communicate who we have always been as we prepare for the future. Marines are known as America’s first to fight in any clime and place. The time is now to ensure that our Service’s role is articulated, codified, and implemented across the Joint Force through DOD policy and that the Marine Corps’ unique and relevant roles and capabilities are solidified through and within those policies. Additionally, we must effectively communicate our unique roles and capabilities through accurate and appropriate nomenclature and terminology as our Service steps into a critical place of importance aligned with the Joint Force and in support of the whole of government for 2030 and beyond. Across these efforts, we must communicate our unique capabilities and skillsets not only across the Joint Force but to our partners, allies, and our adversaries. The tone and tenor of this writing are informal, relaxed, and somewhat excited because that is how good conversations are. From good conversations, come good things—including good change. Semper Fi.
This article offers perspective and discussion on viewing the Marine Corps’ role through a Joint lens and recommends implementation of DOD-level policy to codify Marine Corps roles and responsibilities within the Joint Force in support of Force Design 2030 and beyond. It also proposes adopting the historically accurate term “commando” as a qualification-based naming convention to more accurately communicate and differentiate Marine Corps skills and capabilities within the Joint Force and across the whole of government. Lastly, it recommends an associated training solution to streamline numerous current programs of instruction (POIs) into a single well-resourced Marine Corps Commando course to enhance lethality, align and standardize training efforts, and ensure qualification of both officers and enlisted Marines across numerous occupation fields in the skillsets needed to operate in austere and geographically dispersed environments—agnostic of MOS.
These efforts are inextricably interconnected and mutually supporting. They are addressed together to synchronize policy, messaging, and marketing of Marine Corps organizational skills and capabilities, and the streamlining of qualification-based training to enable the Marine Corps to step into a perpetually relevant high-impact role within the DOD and across the whole of government. As such, the Marine Corps can lead the Joint Force in enabling the United States to effectively gain and maintain a dynamic advantage within great-power competition (GPC) to 2030 and beyond.
The conversation within and surrounding this article is intended to energize and excite Marines and the Marine Corps as we shape our own destiny, scope our operational futures, and lead the Joint Force in evolving to meet national and theater-level strategic objectives. To do this effectively, we as Marines must know who we are and who we have always been as a Corps before we can chart our course to the future in support of Force Design 2030 and beyond. Now is the time to remember our past, adapt to the present, and forge our own future. Let’s have a good conversation.
Who We Are and What We Do … from a Joint Perspective From a multi-Service and joint perspective, the Marine Corps’ role, both historically and in emergent concepts, can be summed up in two words: expeditionary reconnaissance. The Marine Corps writ large is an expeditionary reconnaissance Service across all warfighting functions for the Joint Force. Traditionally, that role has been framed through the lens of the Marine Corps’ role in naval operations, as outlined in Title 10, Section 5063, which states the Marine Corps must “provide Fleet Marine Forces … for service with the fleet … in the seizure or defense of advanced naval bases and for the conduct of such land operations as may be essential to the prosecution of a naval campaign.” Naval campaigns are part of joint campaigns, which means that the Marine Corps is acting in accordance with Title 10 requirements in support of a joint campaign. In fact, the Marine Corps is specifically tasked in DODD5100.01 to “Seize and defend advanced naval bases or lodgments to facilitate subsequent joint operations” (emphasis added).1 Even through a historical lens, this means that the Marine Corps is the expeditionary reconnaissance Service for the Joint Force as part of the Naval Service.
The Marine Corps is often the first in and often the last out, now more postured to serve in a persistent stand-in role, answering information requirements for commanders and shaping the battlespace for the Joint Force—through all its actions and across all warfighting functions. Interestingly, this is the same role of recon and force recon elements within the MAGTF—reconnaissance and battlespace shaping for the MAGTF. The Marine Corps, as a Service, fulfills the same expeditionary reconnaissance role for the Joint Force that recon and force Recon Marines fulfill for the MAGTF. When looking at the strategic, operational, and even tactical picture through a joint lens, the expeditionary reconnaissance role is the same role that the Marine Corps writ large fulfills for the Joint Force and even some other governmental elements across the instruments of national power. The Marine Corps is America’s expeditionary reconnaissance Service, designed for limited-scale, self-sustaining operations in austere environments—combat and otherwise—who, when task organized into tactical units, work directly for a specified commander at echelon. The historic and doctrinal appropriate military term for this type of unit and the individual warrior of which they are comprised is a commando.2
Marines are America’s Expeditionary Commandos. (Photo by Cpl Aziza Kamuhanda.)
For decades it was openly recognized and acknowledged across the DOD, within American society, and even globally that the Marine Corps was the first to fight and America’s 911 Force. The Marine Corps has historically blazed the trail for the rest of the U.S. military, operationally and conceptually, even though we have failed to capitalize on numerous opportunities to codify those advancements, roles, and capabilities through law and DOD policy. As we again lead the way for the Joint Force to 2030 and beyond, we must not repeat our past failures, we must now codify the Marine Corps as the Nation’s expeditionary reconnaissance Service and the DOD executive agent (DOD EA) for expeditionary reconnaissance. This does not change who we are. It simply officially codifies who we have always been, especially from a multi-Service and Joint perspective, and solidifies Marine Corps roles and relevance within the Joint Force and in support of Force Design 2030 and beyond. Now is the time to codify our role and solidify our future.
For clarity, when saying we are an expeditionary reconnaissance Service, that does not mean that our duties culminate with multiple six to eight-person teams geographically dispersed answering information requirements and conducting disruption operations, even though that may be a part of it; nor does it mean that we cease using combined arms or maneuver warfare; nor does it mean that we stop meeting traditional theater-level or Global Force Management requirements; nor does it mean we change who we are as a Corps. In fact, the opposite is true. Even though we may like to think that we are a decisive effort in large-scale combat operations, from a joint perspective the Marine Corps serves as a force that conducts self-sustaining expeditionary operations, limited in time and scope, in which we collect data to answer information requirements in support of the fleet commander’s, joint task force commander’s, or geographic combatant commander’s (GCC’s) decision-making cycle and are postured to conduct combat or non-combat shaping actions to secure footholds through which to flow other forces either into or out of an area. Even our influence operations are designed to support such actions. These operations are clearly all-domain expeditionary reconnaissance—certainly from a Joint Force perspective—even if from within our Marine Corps internal microcosm we call these forcible entry, amphibious raids, embassy reinforcement, non-combatant evacuation, humanitarian assistance, sensing, influence, etc. From a Joint Force and whole-of-government perspective, the Marine Corps conducts different types of all-domain expeditionary reconnaissance operations designed to inform higher-level decision-making cycles or create time and space, through combat or non-combat operations, to support other follow-on actions.
To continue the illustration through the lens of more recent concepts, the Marine Corps Stand-In Force and recon/counter-recon roles even more perfectly demonstrate the Marine Corps’ function as the expeditionary reconnaissance Service. Even though we have MOSs trained and tasked to conduct reconnaissance for the MAGTF or other formations, from a Force perspective expeditionary reconnaissance writ large across all warfighting functions is what the Marine Corps does as a Service—even if it has yet to be properly articulated or codified in doctrine or policy. This is why the Marine Corps has historically been viewed as an elite Service, not a special force within a larger, less specialized force. MAGTFs are the commandos of the Joint Force via the Naval Service, and we must acknowledge, own, communicate, and market that fact.
From all appearances, the Marine Corps seems to be intentionally moving more and more into the expeditionary reconnaissance space for the Joint Force while simply updating our approach and tool kit to do more effectively what we have always done but now in both physical and non-physical domains. As ever, the Marine Corps as a Service and across all warfighting functions conducts expeditions in any clime and place, now including the cyber, information, and space domains to answer information requirements for fleet commanders, joint task force commanders, or GCCs to inform decision points and be ready and able to conduct associated full-spectrum, all-domain operations (battle-space shaping from a joint perspective) to create physical maneuver space for follow-on elements of the Joint Force or create cognitive maneuver space to influence actors in a way which does not require an increase in the further buildup of U.S. forces. This is an all-domain expeditionary reconnaissance from a Joint Force and even whole-government perspective. This is what the Marine Corps has always done and who we have always been, we are currently just finding ways to accomplish the mission in new climes and places (e.g. new domains, within GPC and beyond.) The Marine Corps is and has always been the Nation’s expeditionary reconnaissance Service. We need to build on that fact as we adapt to new domains and codify within the Joint Force through DOD policy now.
Let’s Make it Official: Solidify and Codify Marine Corps Roles by Assignment as DOD EA for Expeditionary Reconnaissance To solidify and codify the Marine Corps’ roles as the Joint Force’s expeditionary reconnaissance Service, the Marine Corps should be assigned as the DOD EA for expeditionary reconnaissance by either the Secretary or Deputy Secretary of Defense, or Congress.3 A DOD EA is defined as:
The DoD Component head, or official required in statute, to whom the Secretary of Defense or Deputy Secretary of Defense has assigned specific responsibilities, functions, and authorities to provide defined levels of support for operational missions, or administrative or other designated activities, that involve 2 or more DoD Components.4
The DOD further describes the concept of EAs as such: “DOD Executive Agents (DOD EA) designations are specifics, responsibilities, functions, and authorities assigned by the Secretary or Deputy Secretary of Defense to the head of a DoD Component, typically the Secretary of a Military Department” and are “most often used when the Secretary of Defense decides a DoD-wide support function or task would be most effectively, economically, and efficiently carried out if assigned to the Secretary of a Military Department.”5
Even though assigning DOD EA specifically to a DOD component, vice a secretary of a military department, is less common it can be done in situations where the “DOD Component (typically a Defense Agency or a Combatant Command) has substantial responsibility to execute a very noteworthy task or the function is particularly sensitive and/or complex, as differentiated from its overall organic mission.”6 As stated above, in some cases, Congress can specifically direct the establishment of a DOD EA.7 Currently, it appears that no other Service is assigned the function of expeditionary reconnaissance. The Marine Corps should be immediately assigned as the DOD EA for expeditionary reconnaissance, and this should be codified through updates to DODD 5100.01, Functions of DOD and Major Components, Enclosure 6. This will benefit the U.S. Government, the Joint Force, the Marine Corps, as well as U.S. partners and allies.
By assigning the Marine Corps as the DOD EA for expeditionary reconnaissance, the U.S. Government and the Joint Force would enable a streamlined and standardized process for certifying and validating training requirements, operating procedures, and reporting procedures across the Joint Force and potentially the whole of government where appropriate. This will directly result in promulgating unified standards, requirements, and procedures across DOD and beyond. As the Marine Corps takes the lead in these efforts for the DOD, this will streamline reconnaissance methods and standards between Services and functional components. It will also streamline information reporting across all types, means, and methods of expeditionary reconnaissance, resulting in a smoother-flowing system across the DOD for more rapid formulation of information from across multiple domains into actionable intelligence. This can then be used to directly enable joint, combined, and whole-of-government operations. As the standards develop and solidify across the DOD, they could be exported as appropriate to key partners and allies resulting in more effective communications and intelligence sharing in current and future multi-national operations—which will be key to success within GPC. This will not detract from any other Service or functional component conducting reconnaissance training or operations, nor would it detract from current Marine Corps Global Force Management requirements. It simply enables the Marine Corps to take on the role within the Joint Force of validating and certifying reconnaissance requirements, training, procedures, and reporting. This would be done in a similar fashion as the Army’s EA role for all parachute training and the Navy’s EA role for all diving and explosive ordinance disposal training. Furthermore, this would solidify the Marine Corps’ tactical role and relevance as the go-to force for expeditionary reconnaissance within the Joint Force, in perpetuity, potentially even enabling the Marine Corps to establish a Joint Reconnaissance Training Center—justifying access to funding and authorities not previously available. This is talent management at a joint level, which codifies the Marine Corps as an integral and indispensable part of the Joint Force now and well beyond 2030.
Where We Are Going: Differentiating the Marine Corps’ Market-Share within the Joint Force So how does the Marine Corps, through a joint lens, effectively articulate, communicate, and differentiate its market share from other Services and functional components?
Marines acting as the Nation’s Expeditionary Commandos: 31ST MEU–Golf Company Marines operating from the sea, on the land, and in the air. (Photo by by Cpl Brennan Pries.)
We have already discussed how the Marine Corps is and has been the Nation’s expeditionary reconnaissance Service and even how our combat and non-combat operations are designed to be self-sustaining, limited in scale, and pave the way for follow-on Joint operations tied to operational and strategic objectives. That means that most—if not all—Marine Corps tactical operations, from a joint perspective, are either some type of advanced force effort to answer information requirements (i.e. reconnaissance) or they are follow-on battlespace-shaping operations within the larger reconnaissance picture which culminates in a planned withdrawal (i.e. a raid). Again, all these actions pave the way for and are in support of joint operations, with the Marines as a Service conducting forward expeditionary reconnaissance operations. As stated before, this is why the Marine Corps has historically been viewed as an elite Service, not a special force within a larger, less specialized force.
As stated earlier, the historically accurate military term for units and the warriors who conduct these types of operations is commando.8 That same term accurately communicates elite combat unit capabilities but still differentiates the smaller elite group from larger not-as-elite Army infantry formations. That term communicates skills and capabilities retained by Marine Corps units which are based on but also exceed traditional infantry skills. That term also communicates that a force can operate within territory potentially controlled or influenced by an adversary—as a stand-in force might. The term commando has its roots in deep military history that is much older than one might initially consider.
Even though the term is used currently by the United Kingdom’s Royal Marines, it goes back further than that. The term was used by the Dutch Afrikaans-speaking Boers during the Boer Wars of the late 1800s and early 1900s.9 The Boers used this term to describe their all-volunteer horse-mounted scouting and raiding parties, whose hit-and-run guerrilla-style tactics were very effective at sabotaging and disrupting large-scale British operations, communications, and logistics.10 The Boer “Kommando” operations were so successful that the British reverted to controversial scorched-earth tactics across thousands of farms to eventually pull out a so-called victory—something that would likely result in crushing political repercussions or even allegations of international war crimes today.11 The British eventually won because of their brutal tactics, but in today’s GPC environment, the results could be very different. This makes one consider the potentially significant impact of dispersed commando operations when looking at smaller nations versus larger nations—specifically the potential for the Marine Corps and its partners within INDOPACOM—influencing and shaping the actions of larger-nation adversaries there. The term commando even has deeper roots than South Africa. It can be traced all the way back to the late or Vulgate Latin word commendare, which is the root word for the words command, commander, commend, commendation, and commando.12 All these terms have to do with authority: ordering, recommending, entrusting, or bestowing.13 When looking at ancient Roman military formations, two units emerge that appear very similar Boer Kommandos, Royal Marine Commandos, and Marines: the Roman Exploratores and Speculatores, who conducted operations designed to answer commander’s information requirements and shape the battlespace ahead of and in conjunction with their respective legions.14
If one considers a Roman legion, operating in the far reaches of the empire, it could be considered similar to a modern day joint task force. The Exploratores were troops, many of whom were horse-mounted, who conducted long-range reconnaissance for the Roman commanders and operated ahead of the legion’s main body.15 Given their mobility, they could have been used as a persistent reconnaissance and battlespace-shaping force while maintaining a limited-scale raid capability and even fighting as light cavalry during pitched battle. This sounds very similar to LtCol Adam Yang’s description of the Marine Corps Stand-In Force as a “Maritime Cavalry” element in his September 2022 War on the Rocks article—certainly a commando function from a historical perspective.16 The Speculatores conducted deeper reconnaissance and forward battlespace shaping for Roman commanders through more clandestine and persistent reconnaissance and intelligence operations.17
Given that these units conducted operations to answer information requirements and shape the battlespace for the Roman commander ahead of the main body—and the Latin word commendare communicates ordering, recommending, entrusting, or bestowing, and is the root word for both commander and commando—one can see the logical evolution from the Latin of the military term commando. The commander of a large military formation, also referred to as a commandant (sound familiar?) in some Latin-based European languages, directly orders and entrusts a group of elite troops to operate ahead of the larger less elite force and conduct reconnaissance, raids, and battlespace-shaping operations in support of the commander’s end states.18 Following that linguistic evolution, one can see how these types of elite units and their warriors, over time, became referred to as commando.
Marine Corps 03XX and combat arms are more than infantry from a Joint Force perspective. (Photo from DVIDS.)
When comparing these Roman units to current Marine Corps capabilities, parallels can be drawn between the Exploratores and Marine reconnaissance/force reconnaissance and light-armored reconnaissance units. When looking at the Speculatores, parallels can be drawn between Marine reconnaissance/force reconnaissance and other elements within the Marine Corps Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Enterprise. That would make these units the MAGTF’s commandos. As outlined previously, what Marine reconnaissance/force reconnaissance, light-armored reconnaissance, and certain Marine Corps Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Enterprise elements do for the MAGTF, the MAGTF and the Marine Corps—as a Service—do for the Joint Force, across all warfighting functions. Therefore, Marines are the Joint Force’s commandos via the Navy. We always have been. Now is the time to recognize and own who we are and who we have always been: Marines, America’s Expeditionary Commandos.
Concerns and questions surrounding the Marine Corps infantry and their role may immediately rush to mind. Well, what if I told you that from a joint perspective that Marine Corps infantry is not actually infantry; you guessed it, they are commandos whose operations largely consist of raid operations at echelon. This is so because, from a joint perspective, the Marine Corps should always be prepared to turn over seized areas or battlespace to the Army occupation force, conduct a planned withdrawal, and be prepared for follow-on raid operations. Of course, shoot-move-communicate infantry skills are baseline training for all Marines, officers and enlisted. All Marine Corps combat-arms units, and the infantry field especially, are and have always been more than simple infantry personnel. We are and always have been America’s Expeditionary Commandos. We, as a Corps, must recognize that and claim that reality now. By continuing with an inaccurate infantry naming convention, we are hurting our marketability to the GCCs, our Marines, and our Nation by failing to differentiate our market share.
To understand why, from a joint perspective, all Marines are qualified as infantry personnel, we must go back to a Marine Corps World War II-era MOS manual. The United States Marine Corps Manual of Military Occupational Specialties, NAVMC 1008-PD (Revised) of June 1945 outlines the infantry officer “1542,” infantry chief “812,” and the rifleman “745.”19 Of specific note, the infantry officer and infantry chief were the only MOSs that specifically contained the “infantry” naming convention.20 Of course, mortarmen and machinegunners existed, but the description of the rifleman was very telling:
Loads, aims, and fires a rifle, and employs hand grenades and bayonets to destroy enemy personnel and to assist advance against an enemy position. May operate a flame thrower. May perform supervisory duties incident to the control coordination, and tactical employment of a fire team or one or more squads.
Must be capable of field stripping, assembling, and performing minor maintenance of weapon. Must have general familiarity with the fundamentals of infantry tactics. Should be proficient in the use of such weapons as a rifle, automatic rifle, carbine, pistol, rocket launcher, rifle grenade, hand grenade, flame thrower, and bayonet. Should be proficient in the techniques of hand-to-hand combat.21 When reading the description of a rifleman, while not using terminology as detailed as current Training and Readiness (T&R) standards or terms that have evolved since 1945, it becomes clear that this rifleman is nearly identical to the Marine Corps infantryman today, specifically when considering the emergent Company Arms Room concept.22 Therefore, the phrase every Marine a rifleman is intended to communicate that every Marine is qualified in infantry skill sets as a baseline. This is evident in the infantry T&R standards across the Marine Combat Training program of instruction (POI) through which every non-infantry enlisted Marine is trained. The same is true for Marine Corps officers and is evidenced in the length and focus of The Basic School when compared to the Army Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course (IBOLC). The Basic School is a 29-week long course, for all Marine Corps officers regardless of MOS, which focuses on infantry-centric T&R standards and culminates in a “war” between two reinforced infantry companies. The U.S. Army’s IBOLC is a 19-week course, specifically for U.S. Army Infantry Officer Platoon Leaders, which focuses on similar infantry skills as The Basic School but appears to not go as far in the company-level reps and sets within that course.23 This is not to take anything away from the outstanding training that the Army conducts across its occupational specialties but merely to point out that within Marine Corps training and qualifications, from a joint perspective, infantry skillsets and qualification are the baseline for every single Marine, both officer and enlisted. Every Marine a rifleman and every officer a rifle platoon commander communicate that all Marines are qualified as infantrymen, especially from a joint perspective. This is one of the things that makes us so unique within the Joint Force and across military services globally. This is a key component of our ethos. We cannot and should not ever forget this fact. In fact, we need to recognize and own this fact and build upon it now. The Marine Corps needs to acknowledge that infantry qualification is already the baseline for every Marine, and from a joint perspective, what we have considered Marine infantry and even other combat arms and support to combat arms fields are really Marine Corps Commandos. As such, we must evolve our training solutions, qualifications, and naming conventions to reflect this fact and differentiate our unique Marine Corps market share within the Joint Force and across the whole of government.
Now is the time to recognize and codify what Marines have always been–America’s Expeditionary Commandos, via the Navy. (Photo by Sgt Chris Stone.)
If we want to communicate the fact that the Marine Corps is an elite Service, specifically within our combat-arms formations, we must not continue to insist on infantry as the naming convention of our 03XX MOSs when the word itself is historically relatively derogatory when communicating capability sets, since infantry are “foot soldiers, [a] force composed of those too inexperienced or low in rank to be cavalry” and is derived from the same root word as infant.24 Additionally, continued use of the term infantry for Marine Corps 03XX MOSs fails to differentiate the Marine Corps’ unique capabilities and market share from those of Army infantry. This could have potentially negative impacts when seeking missions from the GCCs, our customers; seeking funding from Congress; and seeking best-suited recruits across our Nation. By adopting the term commando to distinguish Marines who already are or who will become qualified as such across Marine combat arms and support to combat arms formations, we will begin to effectively distinguish and communicate the Marine Corps’ essential market share within the Joint Force and across the whole of government.
What the United States Marine Commando Course and Qualification Concept Could Look Like While this term should be adopted as outlined above, the Corps should not limit commando qualification training only to specific MOSs. It should certainly be required across all ground combat arms, reconnaissance, and certain Marine Corps Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Enterprise occupational specialties and also with support to combat arms billets within these units and formations. The reasoning behind this is that within the littorals, island chains, mountains, rivers, and jungles (specifically in INDOPACOM), no matter what a Marine’s MOS may be the skillsets required to operate effectively within those environments between line of departure and objective rally point on any movement are:
Small unit patrolling, scouting, and associated mission planning.
Small boat operations and associated combat swimmer techniques.
Long-range communication and call-for-fire training.
Small arms and claymore employment training to effectively execute immediate action drills while patrolling and scouting.
Commando qualification training, across multiple MOSs, would work much in the same way Ranger School works in the Army. If someone is going to a ground combat arms, “Victor,” or reconnaissance unit within the Marine Corps, or maybe even a Marine Littoral Regiment, no matter what their MOS is they must first graduate commando qualification training to ensure that they have a common baseline in the necessary hard skillsets outlined above to not only survive but effectively do their job in those environments, thrive in cooperation and competition, and win in combat—no matter what their MOS may be. However, the commando qualification will likely not be a requirement for personnel in units that do not require those skill sets to effectively do their job.
Interestingly, the Marine Corps already has a standing POI that trains all the needed skillsets outlined above. That is the Basic Reconnaissance Course, the course that qualifies reconnaissance Marines in their primary MOS. If the Corps uses Basic Reconnaissance Course as a baseline and integrates key elements of the relatively new Infantry Marine Course and the long-standing Infantry Officer Course to create a streamlined Marine Corps Commando course, then the Corps will have established a single streamlined and consolidated qualification-based training course to enhance lethality, increase survivability, and qualify Marines across multiple MOSs in the hard skills needed to win within GPC and beyond. As this occurs, the Corps can divest from multiple duplicative POIs across numerous fields and reinvest wisely for maximum capability gain. Skills previously trained across numerous POIs (to include some elements of officer training, scout training across multiple MOSs, combat swimmer courses, small boat courses, etc.) could all be streamlined and consolidated into a single tailored POI which would become the standard for being qualified as a Marine Corps Commando. Of course, a grandfather plan would be built into the concept to recognize those who have already completed similar training and attained these types of qualifications previously within their Marine Corps careers.
Specifically, for the Victor units, this concept would train and qualify all infantry Marines going to these units in the amphibious and scouting skillsets previously only trained to within Marine reconnaissance schools and thus enabling Victor units to have Marines fully qualified to conduct scouting and amphibious operations upon arrival to their units from entry-level training. Once at the Victor units, the battalion gunners could then build commander-driven weapons packages to reinforce the arms room concept—with Marines attending additional follow-on formal schools as needed. For other combat-arms units, it would provide the same baseline training and commando qualification while enabling their units to focus on whatever their specified function may be. Furthermore, this in no way detracts from the absolute necessity of the Marine reconnaissance/force reconnaissance units and the associated skillsets, capabilities, and MOSs. In fact, this concept codifies a required commando qualification course (note: currently met under Basic Reconnaissance Course T&R standards) for all recon Marines, including recon officers. This continues to ensure that all hard skills and current follow-on qualifications are achieved; however, with the commando qualification becoming the baseline training across numerous occupational fields, the door can now be open for potential follow-on cross-training and certification in specific disciplines which enables relevant, timely, and effective all-domain reconnaissance, across numerous echelons, without divesting any of the current capabilities achieved within the Marine recon occupational field.
As the Marine Corps moves toward 2030, it must be able to sense, make sense, and act across all domains in support of the Joint Force and the whole of government. The “act” part may include various types of further sensing and reconnaissance, counter reconnaissance, precision limited-scale raids, securing footholds for follow-on forces, larger-scale combat operations, building naval kill-webs, and other key actions with high-impact outcomes at the operation and strategic levels. It may include information collection, influence operations, or reconnaissance for and facilitation of expeditionary logistics. It may include partnered operations or interactions with U.S. or foreign diplomats or also support to the intelligence community. The possibilities are endless. By adopting the term commando, and the associated qualification training, we are differentiating our market share across the Joint Force and accurately communicating the role the Marine Corps has always filled and will continue to fill. This term communicates that the Marine Corps is owning its role in the Joint Force as an elite, mature, and combat-capable force that conducts expeditions in austere places and can operate across the entire sense, make sense, and act spectrum. By establishing Marine Corps Commando qualification training, available to numerous Marines—regardless of MOS—we are ensuring that these Marines have the hard skills and survivability to win in dynamic and austere environments.
Marine Corps Commandos–it’s not just the 03XX’s. A joint terminal attack controller with 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, I MEF Information Group. (Photo by LCpl Gadiel Zaragoza.)
Finally, Marines should be recognized by being authorized to wear a Marine Corps Commando badge upon graduation from the course. By awarding a badge, we are incentivizing and recognizing their efforts in achieving this qualification, at an extremely minimal cost, which will likely result in increased opportunity and feeling of fulfillment across that population equaling higher retention. As with most other demanding qualifications (not primary MOSs, but qualifications) such as Naval aviator, astronaut, aircrew, Marine Corps combat aircrew, Naval parachutist, explosive ordnance disposal, or combatant diver, a qualification badge should be associated with achieving the Marine Corps Commando qualification. Napoleon Bonaparte said, “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of coloured ribbon,” the same is true of Marines and certainly would apply to a Marine Corps Commando qualification badge.25 Let us start recognizing our Marines for what they have achieved within the Service and leverage that to positively and more effectively communicate our capabilities and unique skillsets across the Joint Force, to the GCCs, to Congress, and to the American people.
Actions Now for Beyond 2030 … Immediately, the Marine Corps should be assigned as the DOD executive agent for expeditionary reconnaissance and fulfill that role and function as a Service across the DOD. As the marker of the year 2030 is fast approaching, we must consider the role of the Marine Corps beyond that time as well. Understanding that as Marines we have been the ground combat force for the Naval Service and must maintain that role, we must also understand that we support the Joint Force through all our actions. As this article has articulated repeatedly, from a Joint Force perspective those actions are all types of expeditionary reconnaissance—across all domains and warfighting functions. When the Marine Corps becomes the DOD EA for expeditionary reconnaissance, we will have taken the first step in codifying and solidifying our future as an indispensable, unique, and relevant asset—as a Service—to the Joint Force and within the DOD in perpetuity. Since every operation, both now and in the future will require the movement of things and people (an expedition) to sense, make sense, and act on information in some way, shape, or form while being prepare to take follow-on actions, the assignment of DOD EA for expeditionary reconnaissance codifies the Marine Corps’ role as the lead across expeditionary reconnaissance considerations for these types of operations—forever.
Additionally, the Service needs to immediately recognize that infantry qualification is the existing and historic baseline for all Marines. The Service must also recognize Marine Corps combat arms and certain support to combat arms elements for who and what they have always been—Marine Corps Commandos. Such a term is historically accurate and differentiates the Marine Corps’ market share from other Service and functional components across the Joint Force. As such, the Marine Corps needs to establish a Marine Corps Commando course to qualify both officers and enlisted—not tied to only specific MOSs but to required skillsets—and adopt naming conventions across the Service that reflect this qualification. Additionally, the Corps must institute a grandfather plan for current Marine Corps combat arms and support to combat arms personnel who have already qualified in these skills across their careers and establish a Marine Corps Commando qualification badge to visually communicate capabilities and qualifications accurately to the Joint Force, to GCCs, to Congress, and to the American people.
For the last twenty-plus years, the Marine Corps has been used as a second land army, much in the same way it was in Vietnam. This has caused Marines to forget who we are and from where we came. We have forgotten who we are as Marines; we have forgotten that we are an elite Service, leading the way for the Joint Force across many operations both special and otherwise. In forgetting who we are and failing to adapt our perspective, we have ceded our role to others and become force providers to others doing our missions in our place. Historically, we have led the way for the rest of the military across air, land, and sea. We have reconned, scouted, and raided; we have seized key terrain, secured footholds, and cleared entire cities leading the way for the Joint Force and other Services; we have blazed their paths and spearheaded the way for others as part of the Joint team; we have fought and bled and died in any clime and place and across all-domains for our country, for other peoples’ countries, for our families, and each other. Going back to 1775, we are and have always been Marines—America’s Expeditionary Commandos.
Now is the time to recognize and reclaim who we are and who we have always been as we take on our correct roles within the Joint Force. Let us remember who we are; let us help our Joint Force and our Nation remember who we are; and let us make our adversaries remember who we are. Now is the time to build on our history, adapt to the present, and forge our own future. As we, the Marine Corps, take the next steps outlined in this article we will continue to shape ourselves, our Marines, and the generations of Marines to come to lead, fight, and win within GPC and beyond.
We will adapt. We will overcome. We will blaze the way for others. We will go where others fear to tread and make a way for them—on this world and others—because we are Marines. We have a limitless future ahead. It is time to write our next story.
I will see you on the objective. Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat. Semper Fidelis.
Notes
1. Department of Defense, Department of Defense Directive 5100.01, Functions of the Department of Defense and Its Major Components, (Washington, DC: 2010). Incorporating Change 1 September 17, 2020.
3. Department of Defense, “Welcome to DoD Executive Agent Program,” Department of Defense Executive Agents, n.d., https://dod-executiveagent.osd.mil/Default.aspx.
4. DOD Directive 5101.01, 8.
5. “Welcome to DoD Executive Agent Program.”
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. “Commando.”
9. Matt Fratus, “Why Today’s Commandos Trace Their Lineage Back to South Africa’s Boer Wars,” Coffee or Die Magazine, May 21, 2022, https://coffeeordie.com/commandos-boer-wars.
10. Ibid.
11. Staff, “Boer War,” The Army National Museum, n.d., https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/boer-war#:~:text=Between%201899%20and%201902%2C%20the,not%20without%20adopting%20controversial%20tactics.
12. Word Sense Dictionary, s.v., “commendare,” https://www.wordsense.eu/commendare/#Latin.
13. Ibid.
14. David Friel, “Exploratores and Speculatores,” Imperium Romanum, n.d., https://imperiumromanum.pl/en/roman-army/units-of-roman-army/exploratores-and-speculatores.
15. Ibid.
16. Adam Yang, “Call the Maritime Cavalry: Marine Corps Modernization and the Stand-In Force,” War on The Rocks, September 13, 2022, https://warontherocks.com/2022/09/call-the-maritime-cavalry-marine-corps-modernization-and-the-stand-in-force.
17. “Exploratores and Speculatores.”
18. Ibid.
19. Headquarters Marine Corps, NAVMC 1008-PD (Revised), Manual of Military Occupational Specialties, (Washington, DC:1945).
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. United States Army, “Mission & Task Organization” and “IBOLC as part of Initial Military Training,” Fort Moore, August 9, 2022,
https://www.moore.army.mil/infantry/199th/ibolc/content/pdf/IBOLC%20Course%20Curriculum.pdf?2SEP2022.
25. Staff, “Quotation Napoleon Bonaparte,” English Club, n.d.,
https://www.englishclub.com/ref/esl/Quotes/War/A_soldier_will_fight_long_and_hard_for_a_bit_of_coloured_ribbon._2632.php.
