(A Marine Corps F-35B from VMFA-211 prepares to take off from the USS Essex (LHD-2). Preparing ARG-MEUs for the "fight to get to the fight" will require training that stresses the entire Navy-Marine Corps team in war-at-sea tactics.)
The 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) has re-prioritized the focus of U.S. strategic military planning toward great power competition with China and Russia. For their part, both the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps already were taking steps to support the strategy prior to its release. The Navy’s surface force created the Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (NSMWDC) in 2015 and issued the Surface Force Strategy in 2017 to re-focus its attention toward the high-end maritime fight. Similarly, the Marine Corps has taken steps towards re-imagining how expeditionary forces can be employed to support sea control and power projection in its Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE) concept.
These are steps in the right direction, but they will only succeed if there is also a concurrent shift in mindset in how amphibious forces are trained for the “fight to get to the fight.”[1] Amphibious ready groups and embarked marine expeditionary units (ARG–MEUs) need to develop their naval warfighting capabilities during the training and certification process – with a shift in priority toward the naval fight at sea.
No matter what the future total ship count of the U.S. Navy, the amphibious ship inventory will make up more than 10 percent of the total force. Therefore, continuing to think that amphibs will just carry Marines with little to offer the conventional maritime fight at sea is unacceptable. Defense of the Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) was always a hard concept to execute even with cruiser-destroyer (CruDes) assets assigned. Without CruDes support, defending an ARG is even more challenging; and it will be nearly impossible in a contested environment without properly harnessing capabilities resident in the MEU.
A MEU brings a significant amount of offensive and defensive firepower that can be used in naval warfare, but its full combat potential in this role has yet to be realized. The Marine Corps’ proposal to include the marine air ground task force (MAGTF) commander as the “expeditionary warfare commander” (EXWC) in the Navy’s composite warfare commander (CWC) architecture under the LOCE concept is a move in the right direction, but only if Marine sensors and weapons are integrated into the fight at sea. MEU aircraft can—and must—assist in developing the recognized maritime picture (RMP). Targeting and engaging surface contacts should also be important roles for Marine aviation assets. Unfortunately, this vital maritime role is routinely sacrificed to support MEU training and/or mission sets. Similarly, while AV-8B Harriers are not ideal counter-air platforms, ARG-MEUs were seldom required to practice the skillsets necessary to use them in that role. With the incorporation of the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter into the ARG-MEU inventory, counter-air skills now can, and must be, developed more fully.
To start, small changes in ARG-MEU training priorities and methodologies can significantly improve its maritime offensive and defensive capabilities. The traditional ARG-MEU’s supported-supporting relationship, where one commander has the lead for a mission while the other serves in a supporting role (i.e. the MEU commander leads an amphibious raid, the ARG commander leads a straits transit) is well established and understood, but is primarily oriented toward MEU missions at the expense of the ARG’s maritime roles. The relationship needs to be rebalanced to place naval warfighting skills on an equal footing with the MEU’s other core competencies.
(Photo: The USS Fort McHenry (LSD-43) launches a Rolling Airframe Missile.)
Next, the Navy and Marine Corps need to break down the ARG-MEU training stovepipes. Currently, the services use separate training exercises to certify deploying ARG-MEUs that do not adequately test their joint ability to operate in anything but a benign maritime environment. This structure needs to be adjusted so that the blue-green team is trained and assessed concurrently as a combined force. Additionally, a capstone event run jointly by the Navy and Marine Corps that includes a ‘whole fight’ scenario with the ARG-MEU simultaneously addressing maritime threats while planning and/or executing MEU missions needs to be added to the certification process.
Finally, in a high-end naval fight, the ARG-MEU should be expected to operate in close coordination with one or more deployed carrier strike groups (CSGs), ESGs and/or additional ARG-MEUs. Unfortunately, the amount of time allocated to support this type of training is almost non-existent and the understanding of the command and control (C2) required is sorely lacking. Yet while this is a known weakness, little has been done to address it. Composite exercises with the aforementioned groups/units need to be added to the ARG-MEU’s pre-deployment training syllabus. Following certification, a deploying ARG-MEU should mirror CSG training requirements by completing a Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFEX) that replicates operations within a larger composite maritime force to help develop and refine combined force C2 relationships, broaden the amphibious and maritime warfare knowledge base across both services, and build proficiency using Marine Corps capabilities as part of a high-end naval fight at-sea.
By developing the MEU’s naval warfighting skillsets, breaking down Navy and Marine Corps ARG-MEU training stovepipes, and adding a JTFEX following the ARG-MEU certification, longstanding weaknesses and capability shortfalls in the amphibious forces will be addressed. Doing so requires no new ships or equipment—just a shift in the mindset in “how” ARG-MEUs should be trained. This shift will make the blue-green team a far more versatile, resilient, and lethal force that will be ready to join the “fight to get to the fight.”
[1] Eckstein, “Neller: Marines Must Prepare to 'Fight to Get to the Fight' In High-End Littoral Warfare,” USNI News, September 21, 2017, https://news.usni.org/2017/09/21/neller-marines-must-prepare-fight-get-fight-high-end-littoral-warfare.
CDR Jones is a career surface warfare officer currently assigned as a senior military fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Most recently he served as the executive officer and commanding officer of Naval Beach Unit Seven (NBU-7)—the only command with combined landing craft air cushion (LCACs), landing craft utility (LCUs), and beach master units (BMUs) in the Navy—in Sasebo, Japan.