The Marine Corps faces significant challenges as we emerge from a decade of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and seek to reinvigorate our culture of conducting combined operations from the sea. A number of these challenges lie in what has been described as a “return to our amphibious roots”—an expression directed at highlighting our service-unique capabilities and countering the misperception that the Marine Corps is a second land army. Framing the problem in these terms, however, also contributes to the erroneous impression that we are looking back rather than forward; that tradition is somehow distracting the Corps from the important questions that will drive innovation required to succeed in increasingly complex future security environments.
These misperceptions invariably lead some to question why the United States needs an amphibious capability at all, asserting that the massive landings of World War II will never be repeated in this age. It is true that tactics evolve, and we would hope to never again face the scale of conflict we confronted in Europe and the Pacific during the past century. However, the requirement for amphibious capabilities persists. And just as there will always be a need for air forces to gain and maintain air superiority, there will always be a need for amphibious forces to launch from the sea and conduct actions ashore to achieve results against an enemy or respond to acts of nature.
While the means to achieve our objectives have changed over the years, transitioning from biplanes to jets in the case of air forces and from the venerable Higgins Boats of World War II to the Landing Craft Air Cushion and MV-22 tiltrotor aircraft in the case of amphibious forces, the need for over-the-beach capabilities has never diminished. This is because of a simple, unassailable fact: Conducting amphibious operations from a secure sea maneuver area or seabase does not depend on basing rights or gaining access to adjacent countries’ infrastructure. This allows amphibious forces to engage across the range of military operations, unencumbered by many of the restraints imposed on land-based units. An amphibious naval force’s ability to rapidly project and sustain combat power ashore in the face of armed opposition, while retaining the flexibility to maneuver or withdraw just as quickly, is an important capability these forces offer combatant commanders. For examples of this in the modern era, we need look no further than U.S. Central Command’s introduction of conventional forces to Afghanistan in 2001 by Task Force 58, an amphibious force.
‘Sea Control’ and ‘Capabilities to Maneuver’
Today, the task the Marine Corps and our Navy counterparts face is to develop modern means to project and sustain power from the sea with the proper-sized force to be decisive against potential enemies armed with simple or sophisticated anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities. This force must use America’s advantage of sea control and the Navy’s and Marine Corps’ tested capabilities to maneuver around enemy strengths and employ forces against inland objectives, while commanding and sustaining those forces from a seabase.
This challenge, most recently issued in 2009 by the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps, is being undertaken on the East Coast by U.S. Fleet Forces Command (USFF) and U.S. Marine Corps Forces Command (MARFORCOM) through the Bold Alligator series of exercises. The objective is to deploy combined naval forces in large-scale amphibious operations against adversaries who represent the type of hybrid threat our nation faces today, with an eye toward the future. The series, which was built on a planned annual rotation of live and synthetic exercises, began in 2010 with an all-synthetic (i.e., no live maneuver forces) program conducted with staffs on board amphibious ships pierside in Norfolk and other static locations.
The most recent iteration of the series, Bold Alligator 2012 (BA12), concluded in February as a blended synthetic and live-force exercise. It included a combined naval force of 27 ships, more than 15,000 personnel, and forces from nine coalition partner nations, making it the largest such exercise on the East Coast in a decade. Using observations collected during BA12, we can inform future training of the amphibious operating forces that will very likely be required to protect vital national interests well into this century.
As the nation’s expeditionary force in readiness, the Marine Corps provides the nation with a responsive force fully prepared to employ as a Marine air-ground task force across the range of military operations, which when combined with our Navy counterparts becomes a naval amphibious force. Our mindset requires that we remain a ready force, and our core competency lies in the ability to conduct expeditionary operations anywhere in the world today, thereby creating decision time and space for America’s leaders.
It is the Navy and Marine Corps’ combined amphibious capability—to rapidly project and sustain combat power ashore in the face of armed opposition—that provides combatant commanders the most flexible crisis-response options necessary to face the challenges of today’s complex operating environment. This is illustrated in part by the demand for the routinely deployed three-ship amphibious ready groups (ARGs) with approximately 2,200 Marines and sailors of the Marine expeditionary units (MEUs) embarked. However, the demand far outstrips today’s capacity in terms of available forces and amphibious shipping. And even when present, a single ARG/MEU is simply not large enough to take on a modern, sizable, well-trained adversary. Consequently, the Navy and Marine Corps must be able to provide ready forces capable of forcible entry from the sea, at a level above the ARG/MEU.
Force of Choice: The MEB
Marines have been continuously forward-deployed as MEUs (or their Marine Amphibious Unit predecessors) for decades. A MEU embarked on board an ARG provides a quick, sea-based reaction force for a wide variety of missions such as seizing a port or airfield, amphibious raids, noncombatant evacuation, or disaster response. The MEU is designed for forward engagement and crisis response, but not to decisively defeat an adversary. The Marine expeditionary brigade (MEB), however, is primarily intended as a contingency response force capable of forcible entry to facilitate the introduction of follow-on units. Quantitatively, the MEB brings more combat power to bear than a MEU and is the appropriate force for larger-scale contingency operations. As such, the MEB can be considered the expeditionary force of choice for joint operational access from the sea when properly paired with Navy forces.
The Marine Corps has long been a part of the American naval tradition, serving alongside (and often subordinate to) a Navy command. It is, of course, a necessary and historically successful relationship. As former Commander, USFF, Admiral John Harvey often said: “At the end of the day, ships can’t sail on land and Marines can’t walk on water.” As with the ARG/MEU team, the MEB cannot act alone. Its Navy counterpart, the expeditionary strike group (ESG), offers greater capacity than the ARG in two key areas.
First, the ESG staff provides a greater range and depth of amphibious and expeditionary warfare planning capability than the amphibious squadron, the Navy command element of an ARG. Second, and perhaps more important, the ESG provides the level of combat power and lift necessary to operate ashore across the range of military operations. Whether executing a large-scale evacuation mission, humanitarian response directed at disaster-stricken nations, or engaging in full-scale combat, the ESG provides the depth necessary to meet these broad-scoped tasks well beyond what an ARG or a group of surface combatants alone could accomplish. Only the size, weight, and scope of this force, supported by a carrier strike group (CSG) and Military Sealift Command (MSC) ships, can provide a commander with the combat power necessary to execute large-scale expeditionary missions from the sea. Capabilities such as complex counter-mine warfare, regimental-level fires and airspace control, and command and control of a full amphibious operating area require the ESG/MEB.
As referenced previously, Task Force 58’s achievements in Afghanistan—seizing Kandahar Airport and establishing a forward operating base at Camp Rhino among them—are exceptionally noteworthy when discussing the relevance of amphibious capabilities. However, it is important to point out that a proper ESG/MEB as described here is not simply a command element placed over a number of ARG/MEUs. A complete ESG/MEB certainly may integrate one or two ARG/MEUs already in the area of operations as first responders, but it will also bring with it a regimental landing team, a reinforced Marine aircraft group, and a combat logistics regiment; all alongside a supporting CSG, additional surface combatants, MSC shipping, and other multinational naval forces. As the battle space matures, the ESG/MEB/CSG will likely become part of a larger joint task force, taking the shape of numbered task groups beneath the combined/joint force maritime component commander.
Training the Naval Team
Though the BA12 scenario and threat environment were more complex than in Bold Alligator 2011, the most recent iteration reveals our ESG/MEB-sized naval forces to be in the early part of the “walk” phase of the “crawl, walk, run” approach. Certainly, the February exercise was successful in demonstrating what a naval force of this size can do, but more important, it exposed areas where the “blue-green” team must focus future training.
One of the greatest lessons of BA12 was the importance of integrating 2d MEB and ESG-2 staffs, who worked closely together throughout the planning process and mission execution. The ESG and MEB commanders played a key role in establishing this relationship by setting the tone for their staffs. Renewing and fostering this type of integration between Navy and Marine Corps commanders and staffs is central to the success of any amphibious operation and must remain a key feature of all future training.
BA12 was also a significant step toward restoring “amphibiosity” to our expeditionary DNA. Many participants, from novices to veterans, had never participated in combined naval amphibious operations prior to the exercise. Comments from Navy and Marine participants alike noted a lack of expertise with the details of amphibious operations, as well as a lack of familiarity working with their sister services. Practicing these operations at sea is the key to regenerating the necessary expertise and fostering familiarity.
From a matériel perspective, embarking a MEB on board amphibious assault shipping further reinforced the need for the Marine Corps to become a lighter, more compact force than the heavy force we have become in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also consequent to long-term engagement in those areas, we discovered where some Marine Corps communication equipment is incompatible with Navy systems and identified circumstances where service information-management policies differ. As we move forward, we will rely a great deal on Marines serving on the waterfront—combat cargo and communication Marines assigned to ship’s company on board amphibious assault ships—to help us address these issues.
Beyond the immediate exercise lessons, BA12 helped identify and validate challenges the services face as we pursue development of the Single Naval Battle (SNB) approach. As a framework for thinking, planning, and executing naval operations, SNB seeks to align actions throughout the maritime battle space—at sea and on land—as well as in the air, space, and cyberspace domains. With this in mind, the exercise experimented with amphibious command relationships alongside the Navy’s Composite Warfare doctrine and conducted a trial of a non-doctrinal “Amphibious Warfare Commander.” It also presented the opportunity to re-examine the supporting/supported relationship between the ESG/MEB and the CSG, which will continue to be a focus area of future iterations. The Bold Alligator series and exercises like it offer the opportunity to explore doctrine and experiment with the types of command relationships that will aid SNB’s development.
Over the Horizon
BA12 is an enormous stride in the right direction, but it is by no means the final destination. Though we were able to experiment, USFF and MARFORCOM are still working to determine the optimal means to command and control naval forces. And while we exercised the concept from the seabase, we will continue to challenge ourselves to look harder at our ability to sustain and support our forces operating ashore, from the sea. Similarly, as these types of exercises progress and our force becomes more proficient in large-scale amphibious operations, we must continue to increase the depth and complexity of the likely threat to ensure we are adequately prepared for the types of A2/AD environments we will certainly face in the future.
USFF and MARFORCOM have developed a Campaign Plan for Amphibious Operations Training that will set our naval forces on a clear path to increasing proficiency in large-scale amphibious operations. This will allow for building on each exercise, turning lessons identified into lessons learned. It is also an excellent example of the services’ commitment to training our naval force, not just in an exercise context but also through planning conferences, academic seminars, and professional military education. Moreover, it will serve to advance development of SNB and allow lessons learned to be shared across our global naval force.
Our leaders have charged us to be the most ready when our nation is least ready—a charge that does not stipulate that we be prepared to conduct operations only at the small end of the range of military operations. In addition to the standing, forward-deployed, naval quick-reaction forces we have maintained afloat for decades, we must also stand ready to provide amphibious naval contingency response forces capable of forcible entry. Amphibious capabilities at the higher end remain essential to our national security and protecting our interests. America is, after all, a maritime nation. When we consider that 95 percent of the world’s commerce moves over the oceans, or that half of the world’s oil passes through six major sea-lane choke points, the relevance of a strong naval force is crystal clear. The Navy and Marine Corps together share the common view that the type of investment in amphibious naval forces represented by the Bold Alligator series serves our national interests and stands to mitigate substantial risk in the future security environment.