Operation Enduring Freedom represents a remarkable victory. Clear direction from the top and operational excellence under difficult conditions are producing decisive results. The opening conflict of the 21st century has generated insights as to the evolving characteristics of modern warfare—and they merit scrutiny if the United States is to learn the right lessons and continue the needed transformation of its armed services.
No one in the Pentagon was poring over a map of Afghanistan on 10 September to figure out how to isolate Kabul or search the Tora Bora region. As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has noted, contending with uncertainty is a challenge. Planners cannot design specific forces for specific scenarios because they no longer can predict circumstances and adversaries with any precision. Thus, we need strategically agile forces that offer a broad "portfolio" of capabilities. Naval expeditionary forces are designed with this in mind, and their performance in the war on terrorism highlights their continued utility in joint operations.
Another lesson brought home by recent events is the need to be able to operate forward in politically acceptable ways. Before this crisis, some were ready to relegate carriers to the dustbin of history. Admittedly, ballistic and cruise missiles threaten U.S. power projection operations. But anti-access strategies can be overcome by avoiding fixed airfields and ports, and expanding the area of operations by using the sea as maneuver space.
Operational and geographic realities in the Afghan theater of war have shown the value of naval platforms in the new geopolitical environment. The USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) and two amphibious ready groups with embarked Marines provided platforms for various missions ashore while denying the enemy an opportunity to strike back. In a world where missiles are proliferating and asymmetric tactics are most likely, such platforms will become increasingly valuable. But sea basing is only a means to an end. To achieve operationally relevant objectives, any U.S. military force must be able to range across the battle space. Naval expeditionary forces can accomplish this in every dimension—sea, air, land, and across the span of electronics.
Missions accomplished by Task Force 58 underscore the potential of using this long reach for ship-to-objective maneuver operations. A tailored force flew more than 400 miles inland to an expeditionary site south of Kandahar, quickly seized an airfield needed for future operations, and conducted mobile air-ground "hunter-killer" patrols to block Taliban avenues of escape. Although the impressive ranges and tactical flexibility startled outsiders who pictured Marines storming ashore at Tarawa and Iwo Jima, it surprised no one familiar with the Marine Corps' legacy of innovation.
Ship-to-objective maneuver operations are dramatically different from the costly amphibious assaults of World War II, when the slow massing of combat power and supplies ashore perforce gave the enemy lucrative targets. For years, the Corps has explored new techniques for penetrating or maneuvering rapidly around defenses in the littorals to strike operational objectives far inland. Given advances in sea-based communications, fire support, and the MV-22 Osprey, such operations will be even more effective—and lethal—in the future.
The Marines have been thinking anew about tactics and technologies that have bounded past naval operations. The Hunter Warrior experiments directed by the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in 1997 explored the use of numerous small teams equipped with technologies that allowed them to determine locations and target enemy forces across a large, nonlinear battlefield. The trials demonstrated that merging information-age technologies with highly trained teams can provide amazing results. Tactics and technologies being used so successfully in Afghanistan today bear a marked resemblance to those efforts.
Harnessing creativity is essential to any transformation. It takes a sense of anticipation, willingness to experiment with new ideas—and considerable toleration for mistakes. Thanks to that outlook, the Corps was prepared for many of the "new tactics" proclaimed in recent headlines. The spirit of innovation first emanated from the schools and research agencies at Quantico, Virginia. Development of amphibious doctrine for World War II and the stunning success at Inchon during the Korean War owe much to that base and its Marines. The same spirit animated work over the past several decades to field the vertical takeoff and landing AV-8B Harrier, maritime prepositioning, tilt-rotor aircraft technology, the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force, and nonlethal weapons.
Enduring Freedom has shown that the Corps' relentless commitment to innovation still bears fruit. It also suggests that ongoing efforts to redefine naval operational concepts and better articulate how we will fight in the future are critical both to naval transformation and to the nation's security.
Lieutenant Colonel Hoffman, a reserve Marine Corps officer, is a strategic planning consultant with EDO Corporation.