Charles Krulak, Anthony Zinni
In the rush to restructure the Marine Corps from a global force focused on uncertainties to a regional force focused on the certainty of a single threat (China’s Navy), the Marine Corps jettisoned many capabilities needed to fight and win today and in the future. The magnitude of these divestments is reflected in the accompanying graphic.
The multiple years’ gap between the divestiture of currently needed force structure, equipment, and logistics and the arrival of new capabilities with proven effectiveness and in sufficient quantity poses a substantial risk to national security. These cuts were unwisely made to self-fund unproven capabilities in the future. Although some of the future innovations may prove useful, the unnecessary cuts will adversely affect the Marine Corps’ ability to respond quickly and effectively to global crises and contingencies and come dangerously close to contravening U.S. law and Congress’ intent.
Title X, U.S. Code states in part: “The Marine Corps … shall be so organized as to include not less than three combat divisions and three air wings. … The Marine Corps shall be organized, trained, and equipped to provide fleet marine forces of combined arms … and shall perform such other duties as the President may direct…” The Marine Corps is in the process of undercutting what, over time, have become Title X expectations.
If the reorganization of forces in the Pacific proceeds as currently planned, the Third Marine Division will cease to be a “combat division” as envisioned under Title X. The Marine Corps will be left with two “combat divisions” and a two-star administrative headquarters unable to maneuver combat formations in the traditional sense.
The cuts in infantry regiments and battalions, divestiture of tanks, and significant cuts in cannon artillery and aviation seriously degrade the effective application of combined arms in the close and rear battles, where winners and losers are ultimately decided. Simply stated, Marine infantry and combined arms are no longer the central components of Marine Corps Operations.
The capability of the Marine Corps to “perform other duties as the President may direct” will be significantly constrained by insufficient amphibious shipping, inadequate maritime prepositioning, and too few appropriately sized combined arms teams built around Marine infantry.
The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, among other provisions, elevated the Marine Corps to full service componency within the combatant commands. As envisioned, the services would organize, train, and equip the forces, and the combatant commander would integrate and employ them. The Marine Corps Stand-in Forces (SIF) and Expeditionary Advanced Based Operations concepts essentially ignore service componency by assigning and subordinating the operating forces in the Pacific under a fleet commander, apparently with little or no coordination with the combatant commander. This approach precludes a more expansive role of Marine forces to meet combatant commander and national security requirements. It is a clear step backward.
The will of the 82nd Congress, as expressed in 1956, stated in part that “the nation’s shock troops [Marine Corps] must be the most ready when the nation is generally least ready… to provide a balanced force in readiness… to suppress or contain certain international disturbances short of large-war.” The divesture of combat formations and capabilities, coupled with the myopic focus on sinking the Chinese Navy’s warships in the Southeast Pacific, is rapidly transforming the Marine Corps into a regional force narrowly focused on a single threat. The Marine Corps is increasingly unable to respond to global crises and contingencies across the spectrum of conflict.
The Marine Corps is on the wrong path. The path currently charted is clearly at odds with congressional mandates and intent. The Marine Corps is less capable today of responding to global crises and contingencies than three years ago. Restoring needed capabilities that have been unwisely discarded and pursuing new innovations, some of which are currently under development, will make the Marine Corps more ready to answer the Nation’s 9-1-1 call. By restoring Marine infantry and combined arms as the central components of Marine Corps operations, Marine forces will remain the ultimate arbiter in the close and rear battles.
Current Environment: Offensive Versus Defensive Operations
The mostly unstated premise of Force Design 2030 is that advancements in sensors and precision munitions have changed the character of warfare, fundamentally tipping the balance between the offense and the defense to the latter. Proponents of this theory argue that technological advances have rendered maneuver all but impossible. According to them, anything that moves can be detected, targeted, and destroyed. To accept this conclusion is to acknowledge that the Marine Corps can no longer respond quickly and effectively to global crises and contingencies across the spectrum of conflict. We reject this conclusion.
While these arguments may have limited merit, they fail to appreciate the lessons of history, specifically that for every new capability fielded, a counter capability is nearly always developed, rendering the original development obsolete or manageable. History is replete with examples where military planners mistakenly believed technological advances had rendered offensive operations outdated or impossible.
As an example, the French concluded from their devastating losses in World War I that the offense was no longer a viable method of waging war. The manifestation of their ill-conceived beliefs was the Maginot Line. On the other hand, the Germans leveraged innovation and technology to develop the Blitzkrieg, which simply bypassed the French’s monument to failed thinking in a matter of days.
The daunting task of prevailing in a Mature Precision Strike Regime (MSPR) is no more challenging than developing the amphibious capabilities that most military experts and planners thought impossible 106 years ago. History has shown that innovation and technology, if properly pursued, can significantly mitigate or overcome any military problem.
Future Challenges
The United States will continue to face a diversity of threats from state and non-state actors. Potential adversaries will threaten our national security interests, our economic prosperity, and our freedoms. The future security environment will be characterized by increasing great power competition and the rise of peer and near-peer competitors. Though China and Russia will probably remain the most dangerous threats, they are not the most likely threats. We cannot ignore regional competitors such as North Korea and Iran. We will need to guard against the unique challenges they present and not simply look at them as “lesser and included” threats.
Failed and failing states, violent extremist organizations, and competition for resources will also present unique challenges to the international order that will require a coalition of military forces to establish security and stability among competing factions.
Much of this uncertain future will remain unknown until events begin to unfold on the world stage. Two certainties are known and enduring.
First, the United States will remain a maritime nation with global interests. Freedom of the seas for global trade will be as important in the future as it has been in the past. The Pacific theater will increase in importance due to growing economies in the countries that border the Pacific Ocean and the amount of trade that transits its waters.
Second, the nature of war will not change. It will remain a chaotic, brutal, bloody, and inhumane endeavor.
We recognize that the character and face of war may change in response to innovation and new technologies. The Marine Corps has always adapted to changes in the security environment. The twentieth century presented its own distinct set of security challenges, as have the first two decades of the twenty-first century. The proliferation of long-range precision weapons and sensors and recent advances in other guided munitions and unmanned systems present their own set of unique and seemingly implacable problems. Nevertheless, as we have noted previously, for every advance in technology, a counter capability can and will be developed, rendering the advance either ineffective or obsolete. To meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, we will pursue innovation and technological advancements that will provide U.S. Marines with the capabilities required to fight and win.
A Vision for Global Response in the Age of Precision Munitions
We propose an innovative alternative approach to meet future challenges, one that will retain the strengths of the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF). We will leverage innovation and technology to ensure the Marine Corps remains the Nation’s 9-1-1 force and retains the capabilities necessary to fight and win across the spectrum of conflict, anywhere in the world. It is not narrowly focused on the confines of the Western Pacific. Our approach is different than Force Design 2030. It is a concepts-based approach to requirements determination to meet uncertain contingencies, not a threat-based approach focused on the certainty of identifying a single potential adversary.
While recognizing the overriding importance of the Pacific region and the fact that China will continue to challenge U.S. security interests in the region and elsewhere, our vision is to restore the ability to maneuver, regain the initiative, and respond quickly and decisively to threats anywhere in the world.
Ours is not a look backward. It is a forward-looking approach that recognizes and appreciates the multiple and diverse security threats facing our Nation in the twenty-first century, an approach that leverages innovation and technology to ensure that U.S. Marines remain capable of global response. Our vision is built on the following pillars:
1. A Marine Corps that is immediately ready to respond to crises and contingencies anywhere in the world. China is the most dangerous threat but not the most likely threat. We will remain the Nation’s 9-1-1 force for global employment.
2. A Marine Corps that is relevant, manned, and equipped to support the Secretary of Defense’s requirements with scalable, flexible, adaptive, and lethal forces. The combatant commanders (CCDRs) must be able to employ Marines as “rheostats,” forces of combined arms that can be enlarged or reduced as necessary to deter aggression or respond to hostilities. MAGTFs tailored to specific operations and missions provide CCDRs with flexible, adaptable, and lethal forces that are task organized and sustainable for operations across the spectrum of conflict. Marines will retain the capabilities to operate independently or as part of a joint or combined force.
3. A Marine Corps that is capable of fighting and winning in any conflict. Marines will retain the capabilities to task organize balanced air, ground, and logistics teams under an operational command element able to respond to the full range of crises and contingencies, everything from humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to sustained land combat against a peer competitor.
4. A Marine Corps that has the capacity to rapidly converge and build to a Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF). Marines have historically arrived on scene quickly and in echelons that can operate separately or rapidly build to a corps-size MEF. Usually first to arrive, a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) can be quickly scaled to a force significantly larger by landing additional MEUs, Air Alert Forces, the Fly-In Echelon of a Maritime Prepositioning Ship (MPS), Marine Expeditionary Brigade(s) (MEB), the arrival of all or part of one or multiple MPS squadrons, and the arrival of follow-on forces. Every MAGTF (MEU, MEB, MEF) has an operational command element that can be joined and connected to the higher headquarters. Each of the separate parts can be drawn upon as separate units or are capable of conjoining to form larger units. Just as important, the units can operate separately or composite in an expeditionary environment.
Expeditionary airfields, vertical short takeoff and landing (VSTOL) aircraft, and task-organized logistics organizations are just some of the capabilities that enable Marine units to function in austere environments. The MEF command element will provide direction for how the various components come together to function seamlessly and effectively. Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm (Saudi Arabia/Kuwait 1990-1991), Eastern Exit (Somalia 1991), Provide Comfort (Turkey and Iraq 1991), Sea Angel (Bangladesh 1991), Restore Hope (Somalia 1992-1993), and Task Force-58 (Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001-2002) proved the concept. The demand for large, scalable Marine Corps forces grew in the major war plans in Korea, Central Command, and European Command.
An indispensable component of all four of these pillars is rapid deployment and sustainment, made possible by a robust fleet of amphibious ships, strategically positioned maritime prepositioning squadrons, and air alert battalions. Forward-deployed Marine Expeditionary Units and on-call air alert battalions must be immediately available to support all combatant commanders, not just some combatant commanders. Additional amphibious shipping must also be available to support larger amphibious formations that are required to respond to emerging requirements in multiple theaters or satisfy multiple combatant and sub-unified commanders' deliberate planning requirements. A properly configured and strategically based Maritime Prepositioning Force, comprised of independently deployable squadrons, is also required to support the immediate deployment and employment of MAGTFs that are tailored to support emerging or known requirements. The number of amphibious ships and maritime prepositioning squadrons must be driven by the requirements, not by budgeting considerations, which are always decided by Congress.
Enabling Capabilities
To remain ready, relevant, and capable, Marine Corps forces must be enabled by capabilities that allow them to respond quickly, maneuver freely, and persist in friendly as well as hostile environments. These enabling capabilities are:
1. Engagement. Engagement reassures our friends and allies. It builds trust and interoperability while increasing partner capability and capacity. It promotes deterrence, provides access, and facilitates the transition of U.S. and coalition partners to hostilities, if necessary.
2. Forward Presence. Forward presence also promotes deterrence and shortens the response time to developing crises and contingencies. Marines must retain the capability to forward deploy aboard U.S. Navy ships, to operate ashore indefinitely during rotational deployments to temporary or semi-permanent locations, and to excel during training, exercises, or other operations.
3. Forward Basing. Forward basing is a core component of deterrence. It facilitates rapid response to theater-specific threats. The forward basing of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF) and Maritime Prepositioning Squadron Three in the Pacific is a recognition of the importance of the region to U.S. economic and security interests and a check on Chinese aggression in the region. It also demonstrates the U.S. commitment to our regional friends and allies and demonstrates our willingness to fight and, if deterrence fails, win.
4. Crisis Response. Crises cannot be left to fester. U.S. Marines must remain capable of responding quickly and decisively to the full range of emerging crises and contingencies, everything from Noncombatant Evacuation Operations (NEO) and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief to sustained combat operations ashore. Forward basing and forward deployment of expeditionary Marine forces, such as MEUs and Special Purpose MAGTFs, are essential components of Crisis Response. The capabilities that the Marine Corps has traditionally brought to the table are flexible and adaptable.
5. Power Projection. The capability to project power is a fundamental component of maneuver and the offensive. Marines must remain capable of expeditionary forcible entry with Marine Expeditionary Brigades/Forces (MEB/MEF) to gain and maintain access and to conduct sustained operations ashore in support of CCDR requirements.
6. Sustainment. The capability to sustain the force is an essential component of crisis response and power projection. An old military adage is, “amateurs talk tactics while professionals talk logistics.” Marine forces must retain the full range of maintenance and logistics support necessary for expeditionary operations, including robust and readily available maritime and land-based prepositioning.
7. Technology. Technology will continue to change and evolve. Every capability will sooner or later be rendered ineffective or obsolete by a counter-capability. The Marine Corps must continue to leverage technological advances and innovative procurement strategies that make the operating forces more adaptive, maneuverable, lethal, and survivable
Enduring Requirements and Capabilities
Enduring requirements are a set of capabilities and values that define U.S. Marines. They are unassailable. We must continue to embody the characteristics and attributes that make us different. These enduring requirements include:
1. Compliance with Title X United States Code (USC), Goldwater-Nichols, and Congressional Intent. Title X mandates that the Marine Corps be organized with not less than three combat divisions and three aircraft wings—a force of combined arms capable of conducting amphibious operations and subsequent land operations in support of U.S. national interests. We will retain our air-ground-logistics combined arms approach to warfighting and our naval character. Our reserve establishment will be a reservoir of the most essential and high-demand combat capabilities, not necessarily a mirror image of active forces. Goldwater-Nichols established independent Service components to support the functional and combatant commanders. Service componency is the Marine Corps’ “plug” into CCDR requirements. We will retain our Service independence and provide properly manned and equipped Service component headquarters to furnish operational-level support to all functional and combatant commanders. When tasked, the Marine Corps will be capable of serving as a Joint Task Force Headquarters or Functional Component Command. Finally, we will continue to fulfill the Congressional Intent that the Marine Corps be most ready when the Nation is least ready. Few Americans remember it, but when the North Koreans invaded the south in June 1950, the nation’s military had been drastically cut from its wartime high in 1945 to disastrously low levels. The President and the Congress believed that the next war, if there ever was one, would be nuclear and ground forces would be extraneous. The North Korean ground invasion was a nasty wake-up call. Although greatly reduced, the Marine Corps had kept its powder dry. Its equipment was well maintained, and its Reserves were well-trained and ready. Within a month, it had an air-ground-logistics combined arms task force embarking to become the fire brigade that was crucial to stopping the North Koreans at the Pusan perimeter. By September, it had a division ready to go on the offensive on the beaches at Inchon. That was truly a 9-1-1 force.
2. Remain the Nation’s Premier Expeditionary Force-in-Readiness. We will remain capable of deploying, persisting, and fighting in austere environments. Being expeditionary is more than combat organizations and equipment. It is a mindset that allows U.S. Marines to function and persevere under harsh extremes in climate and terrain and endure deprivation.
3. Remain a Versatile Force. The Marine Corps will remain capable of independent operations, special operations, and joint and combined operations. Our approach of task-organizing for the mission, coupled with our expeditionary capabilities and outlook, will allow Marine forces to operate globally in support of all emerging or ongoing requirements.
4. Remain a Resilient Force. Casualties are inevitable in war. Marine combat units, such as infantry battalions, cannon artillery and rocket batteries, and helicopter and fixed-wing squadrons, must be of sufficient size with sufficient manning and equipment to continue functioning after taking casualties.
5. Retain Our Offensive Orientation. Maneuver warfare will remain our doctrinal approach to warfighting, whether sea-based or ashore. While continuing to embrace the three main elements of combat power—maneuver, fires (lethal and nonlethal), and information—we will continue to focus on maneuver, enabled by combined fires and information, as the dominant regime on the battlefield. Marine forces will continue to be defined as balanced air-ground-logistics task forces with appropriately sized command elements, specializing in combined arms and maneuver warfare to retain the initiative and defeat our adversaries with minimal casualties to ourselves. Our focus is on the “single battle,” an integrated deep, close, and rear fight in which each phase complements and supports the other. A balanced MAGTF must possess the capabilities (especially long-range precision fires) to shape the deep battle and the robust indirect fires needed to win the close and rear fight. Tactical aviation, rockets, and missiles are essential for shaping. Marine infantry, properly supported by fires—especially close air support and cannon artillery fires—and information, are dominant in the close and rear fight. Marine infantry is no less important today than in past wars and is an essential component for conducting decisive operations.
6. Retain a Reservoir (“Toolbox”) of Capabilities. The Marine Corps will continue to task-organize for missions, including everything from Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief to sustained combat against a peer or near-peer competitor. This toolbox must include the full range and depth of maneuver, fires (lethal and nonlethal), information, protection, mobility/counter mobility, and sustainment capabilities that will allow Marine forces to respond immediately and decisively to global security threats. A toolbox that has been emptied or seriously depleted of necessary capabilities is a recipe for disaster.
7. High State of Readiness. Our units and our Marines must remain ready to immediately deploy anywhere and at any time, fight any foe, and win. We are and will remain the Nation’s 9-1-1 force, its premier expeditionary force-in-readiness.
8. Youthful Force. The strength of the Marine Corps is the individual Marine. We are a force of young men and women, predominantly first-term enlistees. A young force is not only more flexible but also best suited for the expeditionary nature of the Marine Corps. Our Marines must remain ready for adventure, eager for overseas deployments, and willing to march to the sounds of the guns.
9. Shared Ethos. Marines are not defined solely by their weapons and equipment, but more broadly by their history, culture, traditions, and warrior ethos. These are the intangibles that make us different. They are the underpinnings of our combat readiness. We will not lessen our standards to accommodate those who may simply be looking for a job. We must retain our ethos of selfless service to the Nation, where every enlisted Marine is a rifleman, and every officer is a rifle platoon commander. This is who we are.
Combat Developments
To remain ready, relevant, and capable of responding to global crises and contingencies, we must continue to adapt to new and unforeseen challenges and threats. To guide our combat developments, we will:
1. Continue to embrace a Concepts Based Approach to Requirements Determination. We will leverage the Marine Corps Combat Development Process to develop the necessary doctrine, organizations, training and education, equipment, facilities, and support required to implement our operational concepts. We are confident that a concept-based approach to requirements will identify deficiencies in command and control, ground capabilities (armor, fires, mobility, and counter-mobility), air capabilities (fixed and rotary wing and unmanned aerial vehicles), and combat service support/sustainment. This approach will identify capabilities needed today and in the future.
2. Focus on Needed Capabilities. The evolving role of long-range precision munitions and unmanned systems, loitering munitions, discriminating munitions, cyber operations, security, spectrum denial, miniaturization/nanotechnology, remote/autonomous operations, and biomimicry will necessarily change approaches to mobility, intelligence, command and control, fires, aviation, and information operations. Our near-term focus will be on the development and rapid fielding of anti-unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and anti-loitering weapons defenses; point and mobile defense against precision-guided munitions (PGM); improved electronic warfare (EW) systems; and electronic and physical decoy systems. Many of these capabilities are already under development. Examples include expeditionary long-range precision rockets and missiles and more effective short-range air and missile defense systems, which are required now and in the future. Other examples include long-range unmanned systems with Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and EW; enhanced reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance systems; and more capable radars and communications systems, which are necessary to enhance integration into joint and combined networks.
3. New Concepts and Capabilities. We may need to revise some current operating concepts and capitalize on new technologies with military applications as necessary to remain ready, relevant, and capable. But before discarding existing concepts or adopting new concepts and technologies, we will fully validate them through open and unbiased wargaming, experimentation, evaluation, and lessons learned, in which the total force participates and provides feedback. Buy-in from all stakeholders is essential.
4. In the future, we will avoid unwise reductions in the force structure and equipment required to fight and win battles to self-fund new organizations and capabilities, as this approach entails unacceptable and unnecessary risks to national security. We must retain required capabilities until replacement capabilities are operationally tested, evaluated, and fielded. Finally, we will seek additional funding for new capabilities from Congress. National security demands no less.
5. Training and Education. The individual Marine, imbued with our core values and warfighting ethos, remains our most important warfighting asset. We will continue to prepare our Marines for the rigors of combat in our time-tested manner and through new and innovative approaches to training and education, some of which will:
Capitalize on immersive and augmented reality training to maximize and expand training opportunities. For example, twenty-first-century Louisiana-style Maneuvers would not be restricted by military reservation or training area boundaries.
Maximize remote and distance learning/training opportunities.
Provide a centralized, world Class Opposing Force (OPFOR) trained in adversary tactics, available to remotely support training from the battalion to the MEF level.
Develop small unit leaders able to operate in the fog and friction of war, make sound decisions, employ combined arms, and, if required, operate in a decentralized and austere environment.
Rapidly cultivate and expand digitized Professional Military Education (PME) libraries, oral histories, and lessons learned—accessible worldwide and searchable.
Conclusion
Unlike Force Design 2030, Vision 2035 is a roadmap for a better way forward. It provides the conceptual foundation for the development of supporting concepts and the identification and fielding of specific capabilities the Marine Corps requires to meet its Title X and Goldwater-Nichols responsibilities, congressional intent, and the global challenges of the twenty-first century. It restores infantry and combined arms as the central components of Marine Corps operations. It ensures the Marine Corps remains ready, relevant, and capable of responding to the crises and contingency requirements of all combatant commanders, not just some.
Good concepts—those that are inclusively vetted, objectively war-gamed, and fairly tested—are the sure catalysts for combat developments. Thirty years ago, the Marine Corps adopted a forward-looking vision, Operational Maneuver from the Sea (OMFTS), that soon identified, among other far-reaching capabilities, the requirements for tilt-rotor aircraft, over-the-horizon assault landing craft, and long-range precision fires. It was also the stimulant for our doctrine of Maneuver Warfare.
Vision 2035 is no less forward-looking than OMFTS was in its time. Vision 2035 is not a look backward. It will provide the Marine Corps Combat Development Process the grist necessary to identify and develop the capabilities—organizations and force structure, equipment, doctrine, logistics, and sustainment—needed to restore maneuver and respond quickly and effectively to worldwide crises and contingencies. Vision 2035 will ensure the Marine Corps remains the Nation’s 9-1-1 force.
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