In 2019, the Proceedings team decided to dedicate the April issue to expeditionary warfare. Given the rapid force modernization and development of related operational concepts in the Marine Corps, we knew there was plenty to publish, but expeditionary warfare is more than just the Marine Corps. Last year we had a rare article on Naval Special Warfare (NSW) by Navy SEAL Rear Admiral H. Wyman Howard. It has been too long since we have received any submissions from the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC) community—SeaBees, port security, explosive ordnance disposal, diving, and salvage—but we are working to rectify that. Next year we hope to have the Marine Corps, NSW, and NECC all represented. If you are a member of the NSW or NECC communities, start writing now! We want to hear from you. (Marines, please keep writing.)
The lead article in this issue is “Marine Corps Adaptation: The Future Is Now,” by Brigadier General Kyle B. Ellison and the Experiment Division Staff at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. Addressing the need to shift back to naval infantry roles and the rapidly changing threat landscape, General Ellison and company write, “The proliferation of long-range precision sensing and fires complexes, miniaturization and ubiquity of once exquisite combat systems, and changes to command-and-control. . . changed the character of war.” Harkening back to the Navy’s huge investments in experimentation, wargames, and exercises during the interwar period, General Ellison and team highlight the ways the Marine Corps is developing, experimenting with, and testing new warfighting concepts today.
Over the past several years, we have featured informative and insightful articles about the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy by Jim Fanell and Mike Dahm. Joining them in the canon of PLA analysis, but with a key twist, are Conor Kennedy and Marine Colonel Scott Stephan, who look at Force Design 2030 through the eyes of the PLA. We predict “The PLA Is Contemplating the Meaning of Force Design” will be one of the most-read articles in Proceedings this year, and it highlights the important work of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the Naval War College.
In this month’s American Sea Power Project article, retired Navy Captain Jeff Kline’s “Sea Power and the Operational Level of War: Linking Means with Ends” connects the means of warfare and the strategic ends. Captain Kline, a professor of practice at the Naval Postgraduate School, does a superb job describing how fleet composition and capacity choices Congress and the Department of the Navy make directly influence the national security effects the Navy and Marine Corps can (or cannot) have. It is a foundational article.
In this month’s heritage section, Denis Clift looks back on 150 years of “Expeditionary Warfare” as it has appeared in our pages. Tripoli, Chapultepec, Tarawa, Guadalcanal, and Inchon are all covered, but who knew that Marine 2nd Lieutenant (and later Commandant of the Marine Corps) Wallace Greene captured the pre-Revolutionary War story of “Piscataqua’s Pirates” in a 1932 article? It is the daring story of a landing force of New Hampshire men capturing an English fort on the Piscataqua River four months before the battles of Lexington and Concord. Mr. Clift brings alive this and many other naval expeditionary stories from our archives.
Next month is the International Navies issue, with inputs from the senior leaders of many allied and partner navies and coast guards. Until then, safe steaming!
