The expeditionary advanced basing operations (EABO) concept centers around the Marine Corps and Navy providing an “inside” force to the naval and joint fight at littoral choke points. Marines would use various land bases and platforms across key maritime terrain to establish a persistent and agile posture to emplace and extend weapons, networks, sensors, and unmanned systems inside an antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) environment.1
EABO enables the force “outside” the A2/AD envelope, comprising the brunt of U.S. warfighting capability and capacity in a great power maritime conflict, to unleash its firepower at the right time and place.2 But for EABO to work well, a heightened level of Navy and Marine Corps command-and-control (C2) interoperability and integration is required. To realize this, the Marine Corps should embed its Marine air-ground task force (MAGTF) in the Navy’s composite warfare construct (CWC), adding a littoral warfare commander (LWC) alongside the other naval warfare commanders.
Preparing for EABO
The EABO concept demands a Marine Corps and Navy C2 structure that is vertically integrated for better interoperability. With the Navy using the CWC construct and the Marine Corps the MAGTF, for decades, the services have dissimilar systems to support each C2 structure.3 To make matters worse, operations in Iraq and Afghanistan the past 18 years have short-circuited remedies to improve naval C2 integration planned for the 1990s post-Cold War environment.
An EABO-capable naval force requires a significant doctrine, organization, training, material, leadership, personnel, and facilities (DOTMLPF) overhaul, especially when it concerns operational C2 structure. This must be a true blue-green effort—more than can be realized by amphibious ready group/Marine expeditionary unit (ARG/MEU) teams, which only composite and train together right before a deployment or crisis.
The ultimate goal of naval C2 overhaul is a Navy or Marine Corps officer in command of an agile Navy–Marine Corps team that can operate within the enemy’s precision weapon ranges and has reach-back capability to “outside” force capital assets for decisive action. EABO, predicated on the peer threat’s growing ability to deny access to critical geographic areas, demands the Marine Corps refine its operational C2 structure and embed within the Navy’s existing construct.4 Placing the MAGTF in the CWC construct will force the development of better interoperable C2 support systems and enable a more efficient use of naval power.5
The idea of a more interoperable and integrated naval force is nothing new. Documents and concepts from the early 1990s, such as Forward…From the Sea, Operational Maneuver from The Sea and the Naval Expeditionary Force (NEF), were centered around the perceived need for better naval integration.6 This idea resonates in the Chief of Naval Operations’ and Commandant of the Marine Corps’ “Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment” concept, from which EABO emerged. Now, in a more contested and less certain environment, the Marine Corps must go further to support EABO and embed its warfighting C2 structure and systems within the Navy.
Littoral Warfare Commander
A new C2 structure for EABO directly support the Marine Corps Operating Concept’s call for the Navy and Marine Corps to integrate command structures.7 The CWC construct merges warfighting functions under an individual commander and delegates authority to functional commanders.8 There are currently five principal commanders in the CWC structure: the air and missile defense commander (AMDC), the antisubmarine warfare commander (ASWC), the information warfare commander (IWC), the strike warfare commander (STWC), and the surface warfare commander (SUWC).9 Since the early 1990s, there have been several articles about the MAGTF or amphibious force establishing a foothold in this construct to enhance naval and joint operations.10 As we are now in a new era of great power competition, the imperative to create a Navy–Marine hybrid LWC is more urgent than ever.
The LWC could be modeled on an ARG/MEU or expeditionary strike group/Marine expeditionary brigade (ESG/MEB) team with key naval enablers to support EABO. The LWC would be a command on par with the five established naval warfare commanders working for the CWC. A littoral-focused force, capable of quickly shifting and resourcing the assets required to meet a fast-changing threat environment, would enable EABO and provide the naval force commander the flexibility to leverage MAGTF assets most effectively. This structure also enables the Marine Corps and Navy to evolve out of the outdated combined amphibious task force/commander landing force (CATF/CLF) C2 structure and into one that is more flexible and better suited for the future operating environment. The CATF/CLF structure made sense for a traditional amphibious assault and amphibious raid operations. However, EABO requires a different approach.
Marine Corps Headed in the Right Direction
One recent example of naval integration is the Naval amphibious force, Task Force (TF) 51-5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (TF-51/5) construct currently postured in the U.S. Central Command (CentCom) area of responsibility. There, a Marine Corps brigadier general commands both Marine Corps and Navy forces under one structure. The general has a land-based special purpose MAGTF, an ARG/MEU, an expeditionary sea base, an expeditionary health services unit, and an expeditionary fast transport. This gives the CentCom commander an impressive combination of capabilities that can be quickly deployed anywhere in his area of operations.
Integrating the MAGTF into the CWC structure does risk Marine Corps warfighting cohesion, however. For example, if a MEU were operating in the Navy’s CWC, it would be at risk of subordinate elements being detached to support the needs of a functional commander (AMDC, ASWC, etc.). If the Marine Corps were to lose its ground or air combat elements to the AMDC, the MAGTF would be ineffective as a cohesive fighting force. However, it is time the Marine Corps let go of this fear. What makes the CWC so resilient and effective is its flexibility to maneuver lethal, state-of-the-art capabilities to bear in a time and place of the CWC’s choosing—the essence of EABO. An efficient use of resources at decisive times to fight inside the enemy’s threat ring is now the top priority. Decentralized, disaggregated, and distributed operations will maximize the commander’s ability to mass fires and effects decisively.
The MAGTF embedded within the CWC construct will enable a naval force that can command and control in contested, distributed, and time-constrained environments—vital to successfully executing EABO missions. Without a significant C2 overhaul, the Marine Corps cannot adapt to the new operational paradigm. TF-51/5 is a good step, but it is not enough to support the full range of EABO missions. Future Navy–Marine Corps teams need to go further, learning from and improving upon the TF-51/5 model.
1. Department of the Navy, “Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment,” 13.
2. “Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment,” 13.
3. Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Operational Maneuver from the Sea, Washington, D.C. January 1996.
4. “Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment,”11.
5. David M Cayce, “Composite Warfare Commander,” Marine Corps Gazette, 79, Issue 3 (March 1995).
6. Burton C Quist, “Naval Expeditionary Warfare Update,” Marine Corps Gazette 80, Issue 3 (March 1996).
7. Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Operating Concept.
8. Brian P Cyr, Thomas C Gillespie, Steven M Lesher, and Patrick D Minor, “Composite Warfare and the Amphibians,” Marine Corps Gazette 76, Issue 11 (November 1992).
9. U.S. Department of Defense, Joint publication 3-32: Command and Control of Joint Maritime Operations, (Washington, D.C.: 8 June 2018), 11–15.
10. Cyr, et al., “Composite Warfare and the Amphibians;” Wallace C Gregson, “Keeping Up with Navy Doctrine,” Marine Corps Gazette 74, Issue 2 (December 1990); Kevin J. Stepp, “Naval Command and Control,” Marine Corps Gazette 76, Issue 11 (December 2016).