Over the past 17 years fighting counterinsurgencies, the Marine Corps has often operated within landlocked areas under the umbrella of uncontested air superiority. As the service transitions back to the sea, its ability to carry out its mission will require innovative solutions to the timeless challenge of seizing and defending advanced naval bases within contested air and maritime domains. The Marine Corps must increase its ability to seize, defend, and provide critical power projection from bases inside the enemy’s area of influence—what has become known as expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO).
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1. Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, “Marine Corps Functional Concept for Marine Air Ground Task Force Fires” (September 2017), 1.
2. Title 10—Armed Forces, U.S.C § 8063 (2018).
3. Charles D. Melson, Condition Red: Marine Defense Battalions in World War II, (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1996), 3.
4. “Sea-control operations” are designed to secure use of the maritime domain by one’s own forces and to prevent its use by the enemy. Sea control is the essence of seapower. See U.S. Navy, “Command and Control for Joint Maritime Operations,” Joint Publication [JP] 3-32 (7 August 2013), I-3. “Sea denial” is the partial or complete denial of the adversary’s use of the sea, with a force that may be insufficient to ensure one’s own forces’ use. See Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, “Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment” (2017), 26; “Power projection,” in and from the maritime environment, includes a broad spectrum of offensive military operations to destroy enemy forces or logistic support or to prevent enemy forces from approaching friendly forces within enemy weapons’ range. See JP 3-32, GL-6.
5. Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Operating Concept (MOC), How an Expeditionary Force Operates in the 21st Century (Washington, DC: Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, September 2016), 13.
6. Col. Art Corbett, USMC (Ret.), “Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations: Considerations for Force Development” (working paper), Marine Corps War-fighting Lab, Concepts and Plans Division, Marine and Naval Concepts, 27 July 2017, 3.
7. Navy, JP 3-32, xii.
8. Bryan Clark and Jesse Sloman, “Advancing Beyond the Beach: Amphibious Operations in an Era of Precision Weapons,” Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 15 November 2016, 25.
9. U.S. Marine Corps, “2018 Marine Aviation Plan,” 118.
10. Marine Corps, “Marine Aviation Plan,” 114.
11. Marine Corps, “Marine Aviation Plan,” 88.
12. Naval Technology, “RQ-21A Blackjack Small Tactical Unmanned Air System (STUAS).”
13. Marine Corps, “Marine Aviation Plan,” 89.
14. Raytheon, “Coyote UAS.”
15. AeroVironment, “Switchblade.”
16. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction, “Joint Training Policy for the Armed Forces of the United States,” CJCSI 3500.01H, 25 April 2014, B-5–B-6.
17. Chairman’s Instruction, “Joint Training Policy,” B-6.