Directed by the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the Marine Corps embarked on a multiyear process of learning and iterative transformation.1 Collectively, these efforts are known as Force Design, which aims to prepare the force for great power competition. A common vision of future conflict took root, characterized by an adversary whose prolific sensors and precision stand-off weapons could deter, or outright deny, freedom of maneuver to the fleet and joint force.
Marine Corps stand-in forces (SIFs) would weather area-denial weapon systems inside their engagement zones to disrupt an adversary’s coercive
measures. From this vantage point, Marine formations would support the delivery of fires and lead the joint force reentry. Marine Corps intelligence is the centerpiece in maintaining a forward, multidomain network to sense the operating environment, expose adversary intentions, and identify targeting solutions to destroy adversary systems.
Evolving Intelligence to Force Design
Marine Corps intelligence must critically assess its posture and evolve current tactics to meet the Force Design vision. Three design elements should be closely considered as part of the Marine Corps’ intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance modernization efforts:
First to fight—forward. Intelligence operations seek to support commanders’ decision-making by reducing uncertainty about the environment and the enemy.2 It is suboptimal to hold intelligence-collection forces in reserve or at analytic centers waiting for the next crisis. Marine Corps intelligence forces must be forward, focused, and persistent to understand the environment and adversary intentions. In a sense, intelligence forces are always in conflict and must always be forward.
Marine Corps intelligence is a SIF. SIFs are “small but lethal, low signature, relatively simple to maintain and sustain forces designed to operate across the competition continuum within a contested area as the leading edge of a maritime defense-in-depth in order to intentionally disrupt the plans of a potential or actual adversary.”3 SIFs will hinder adversary attempts to employ counterintervention strategies. Strategic warning and targeting are central SIF objectives and routine intelligence functions. Long gone are the days of intelligence forces colocated with the maneuver unit to offer “force protection/indications and warning.” Modern weapon systems and information technology capabilities necessitate that intelligence sensors be positioned well forward of a maneuver unit, perhaps months or years in advance of conflict. Further, dedicated intelligence personnel must be paired with intelligence sensors to analyze and make sense of the environment.
Reconnaissance-counterreconnaissance (RXR) experimentational units and intelligence formations from rotational forces, such as those with Marine expeditionary units (MEUs), are not sufficient to serve as a SIF. They offer only intermittent intelligence coverage. The Marine Corps must commit to deploying intelligence forces on a sustained “heel-to-toe” rotational basis. This means rotational forces such as MEUs would often deploy from home stations with a reduced organic intelligence capability but find a more robust intelligence force already forward.
For example, deliberately emplaced signals intelligence teams distributed throughout a combatant command’s area of responsibility and under the direction of an RXR commander could support a MEU in theater as well as the joint force. Long before the MEU arrives, the signals intelligence teams would be monitoring signals of interest and sensing and revealing intelligence of adversary intentions. Of course, this vision would require the cooperation of an allied or partner network to permit the deployment of these forces. Yet, with today’s global instability, nations with a common enemy may be more amenable to hosting U.S. intelligence forces, particularly when they can benefit from enhanced intelligence sharing.
Extreme ownership. Like any organization, the Marine Corps must wisely invest its finite resources in a few areas while accepting it cannot be fully ready for every contingency. Marine Corps intelligence operations, activities, and investments must be organized to prepare for conflict with the pacing threat, China.
The Second Marine Expeditionary Force (II MEF) must then devote its attention to preparing for conflict with Russia, the other principal U.S. adversary. Diffusion of intelligence resources across too many issues would limit the Marine Corps’ preparedness for the most consequential fight. It is wiser to be prepared for the worst and pivot to a less significant contingency rather than be spread thin and find it necessary to organize on short notice for an existential fight.
Distributed networks. The intelligence cycle is a process that begins with identifying requirements, moves to collection and data processing, and ultimately produces intelligence analysis for a customer’s use.4 The process drives the intelligence force structure of collection managers, collection platforms and operators, and analysts. Intelligence operations require intelligence federation—the practice of involving a network of collection, analysis, and production centers. Federation is frequently thought of as “reach-back support,” although it may include partners operating across the battlespace.5
Partners may include personnel elsewhere in combat support agencies within defense intelligence, with other intelligence agencies, or in the Marine Corps itself across MEF formations. Each component with its own expertise contributes to the collective intelligence picture. Analytic centers in the network should be in continuous operation to address national security challenges, with emphasis on intelligence production pre-crisis. Analysts operate in competition as they might in conflict, while also establishing relationships, developing target knowledge, and confirming system interoperability. Never should planners be concerned with “who will [produce, exploit, and disseminate] their collection.” Rather, networked intelligence makes use of all available sources to the production benefit. Defining roles, relationships, and responsibilities in a federated intelligence model should begin immediately with the inclusion of Marine Corps intelligence formations in a globally integrated network of intelligence producers.
The Marine Corps has always adapted and evolved to meet its mission. As it does so again, the service’s intelligence force must follow suit. Marine Corps intelligence professionals and their equipment should be staged within adversary weapon engagement zones and operating well in advance of conflict. They will be a SIF. And Marine Corps intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance will be organized around a network of other intelligence formations to the benefit of the Marine Corps and the joint force. This is just doctrinal intelligence, although possibly a more aggressive, proactive application of it. The Marine Corps is built for this fight.
1. White House, National Defense Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: White House, 2018).
2. U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 2: Intelligence (Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 2018): 13–14.
3. U.S. Marine Corps, A Concept for Stand-In Forces (Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 2021), 4.
4. U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 2-10: Intelligence Operations (Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 2021), 3-1.
5. U.S. Marine Corps, Intelligence Operations, 4-10; and Joint Staff, Deployable Training Division, Intelligence Operations, 3rd ed. (Washington, DC: Joint Staff J7, 2019), 1–5.