Marine Corps Infantry Dilemma

The Marine Corps is not manned, organized, trained, or equipped to compete against near-peer adversaries in the current and future operating environment. The 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps General David H. Berger recognized this delinquency and directed the Marine Corps to focus on force design and warfighting as two of five focus areas in his July 2019 Commandant’s Planning Guidance. 

As alarming, the Marine Corps infantry community, as currently designed, has limited utility in future maritime fights. 

The 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) correctly identifies a future in which the advantage joint forces have over near-peer competitors is diminishing. This is most evident in the Indo-Pacific where China’s military and government trajectory threatens to invalidate previously successful operating concepts, especially for U.S. naval forces. The normal freedom of navigation, airspace dominance, and maneuver activities the Navy has taken for granted in the maritime domain is no longer a reality. 

The NDS approach is a long-term strategic competition with near-peer adversaries. By being more ready than its competitors for war, the United States can deter war. To be competitive, the naval force needs to become more lethal and relevant for the future operating environment. This force will be forward postured and strategically predictable, yet operationally unpredictable. 

As part of the joint force, the naval elements will be required to execute three emergent concepts in support of NDS objectives. The first concept is the Navy’s distributed maritime operations—an operational-level approach that proposes a more capable distributed naval footprint to compete against near-peer competitors in the contested maritime environment.¹ The second concept is the naval forces littoral operations in a contested environment. This is a concept that describes naval units operating in a contested environment to inform innovation and refinement of naval forces organization, training, and equipment. The third concept is the expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO). EABO is a naval concept that describes how naval forces will operate and persist inside the contact and blunt layer of a contested maritime environment in support of fleet commanders’ areas of operation. 

Each of these naval concepts, and the NDS objectives, should lead to a mission and organizational alignment review for the Marine Corps, with devoted focus toward naval operations. Fortunately, the Marine Corps already has started to consider some organizational changes required as part of Force Design 2030, General Berger’s top priority. However, force design and force development could take years. On considering existing force design efforts, three new realities emerge—major paradigm shifts—for the Marine Corps to comprehend and address:

1. The Marine Corps will be employed primarily in competition, with a “be prepared to” if competition escalates into conflict.

2. The Marine Corps will be employed under the operational design of the naval commander. 

3. The Marine Corps infantry will secure key maritime terrain and support the naval commander’s concept of operations. In competition, infantry will predominantly carry out defensive missions.

The new naval operating concepts highlight long-range land and sea-based fires, anti-ship missiles, distributed maritime operations across contested environments, use of sea-based connectors and platforms capable of maneuvering forces quickly across the littorals, and remote-sensing capabilities that feed a larger situational awareness and C2 system with fire-direction quality data. Those units, capabilities, and systems may exist at some capability level within current naval forces but will require major development and upgrades to meet the future mission. How the Marine infantry fits into these new concepts of operation and with what systems is a serious question.

Marine Corps force design, force development, operating concepts, and employment models for years has required Marine infantry battalions as a key element of an amphibious landing force to conduct forcible entry from the sea onto an opposed beachhead. From-the-sea employment models included ship-to-objective maneuver (STOM), operational maneuver from the sea (OMFTS), and joint forcible entry operations (JFEO). This was all in the context of power projection in a state of conflict.

Thriving in Competition

So, what happens when higher-level guidance directs the joint force toward “competition” against a near-peer adversary, but not seeking “conflict?” History tells us force design must adapt to the technological advances of competitors and future operating environment, or risk becoming irrelevant. This is where the Marine Corps infantry finds itself today. Does the Marine infantry codify offensive based operations, counterinsurgency, and combined arms maneuver in a “conflict” scenario as it has in the past? Yes—to document lessons learned and best practices. However, more important, the Marine infantry needs to look forward to identify infantry roles and MOTE analysis for EAB operations against a near-peer adversary in a competition scenario. Relying on past operations’ force designs will be of marginal use for the future fight. 

In this new competition, the Marine Corps is expected to maintain Marine expeditionary units (MEUs), with an infantry battalion serving as the core of the ground combat element, providing predictable employment for some of the currently authorized 24 battalions. MEUs are also expected to continue to provide forward presence, crisis response, and power projection. 

The capability gap to be filled is how many infantry battalions the Marine Corps requires to support the MEUs, Marine expeditionary brigades (MEBs), and emergent naval concepts; what missions they will execute; and what will the Marine infantry battalion look like. This requires no small amount of analysis and decision making, as the Marine Corps infantry accounts for over 21,600 active duty and 7,200 reserve Marines—roughly 15 percent of the Corps. From a Marine Corps force and organizational design, every other element of the Marine air-ground task force (MAGTF) and supporting establishment pivots based on the roles and operating concepts of the infantry. 

Marine Infantry Battalion 2030

The Marine infantry battalion of 2030 may find itself performing missions that have been long forgotten. It may include a new role as sea-based ship escorts operating in advance of, alongside, and in proximity to U.S. Navy ships, Allied ships, and even commercial vessels transiting through geographically challenging sea chokepoints. As the Commandant’s Planning Guidance and naval concepts remind, the Marine Corps’ purpose is to support the naval commanders concept of operations. As the Marine Corps supports the naval concept of operations, the Marine infantry will have a role to fulfill as well, and securing ship transit is a possibility.

Securing maritime terrain is a key task for the naval force and, in support of this task, the Marine Corps infantry must shift its focus outward. Since World War II, the Marine Corps has kept central to its identity the ability to conduct amphibious landings against an opposing force. This makes sense in a conflict scenario where the naval force intends to advance forcibly onto land for further major combat operations. However, in competition, the employment looks different: Naval forces, including Marine infantry, occupy key maritime terrain hosted by allies or like-minded nations, and focus their attention outward. Instead of attacking the beachhead, they protect the beachhead. This may prevent near-peer forces from invading and occupying key terrain. 

The Marine Corps has shown evidence of infantry capability improvement efforts including the growth of the Marine infantry squad to 15 Marines from 13, an increase of an assistant squad leader and a squad system operator. While this effort is currently nascent, it is a first step in improving the infantry community. 

Critical Skills Needed for Infantry Marines

There is no full answer as to what the Marine infantry will look like in 2030, but there are some indications and other useful comparisons to guide an infantry force design effort. 

• The focus needs to shift from offensive-based operations to defending naval concepts of operations. Secure and defend key maritime terrain is the new norm. Attack, close with, and destroy the enemy is an “as required” task. 
• The infantry needs to become expert in understanding and employing forces in contested maritime environments “in competition” to support the naval force in execution sea control, sea denial, and distributed maritime operations. 
• The infantry needs to advance the contextual intelligence of junior infantry Marines, lest they commit a tactical mistake provoking an escalation from competition to conflict. The strategic corporal mind-set is a good step-off point. 
• All missions need to be integrated with host nation military and law enforcement units. The joint force and Marine Corps are not going it alone. The United States shares common interests with nation-states in the Indo-Pacific that also have vested interests in sovereignty, continuation of international commerce routes, and upholding international norms. Bilateral military cooperation and integration between infantry units needs to occur down to the squad level. 
• The infantry needs to become expert in fire-support coordination and execution. This includes integration of long-range sea-based, land-based, and aerial delivery munitions from the naval and joint force, and host-nation forces. Marine infantry already is proficient at integrating organic Marine fires on a target, but not at integrating external fires capabilities on naval targets in support of the naval commander. Marine air naval gunfire liaison company capabilities offer a better start point for consideration. 
• Marine infantry supports the naval commander, whether that is a Marine or Navy senior officer. Focusing purely on supporting the MAGTF is an insufficient model. Unlike recent examples, it is highly unlikely a MAGTF alone will be directed to conduct sea control, sea denial, or EAB in the area of operations. Marine Corps commands in Afghanistan and Iraq secured geographic areas of operations with land-based concepts and formations that are not transferrable to a naval campaign in the maritime domain. 
• Distributed maritime operations require seasoned leadership and battlespace understanding across all domains in a complex competition scenario. Other units can and do provide that understanding and can integrate and enable joint force operations in contested and gray zone environments now. They are special operations forces (SOF), and Marine infantry needs to closely examine and understand how Marine Corps Special Operations Command and other SOF man, organize, train, and equip their forces towards that complex environment. 

General Berger states in his planning guidance, “Force design is my number one priority.” He further states, “We will divest of legacy defense programs and force structure that support legacy capabilities. If provided the opportunity to secure additional modernization dollars in exchange for force structure, I am prepared to do so.”

For the infantry community, the MAGTF, the Marine Corps, the naval force, and the joint force, Marine infantry needs to identify how it will contribute to the future fight. If the infantry community recommends no or minimal change, then the guidance is clear—divest of legacy force structure and legacy capabilities, including some of the Marine infantry.

The Marine Corps must determine what role the infantry will play in EABO and littoral operations, and what it will need to be successful.