EVENTS

Date:	Thursday, August 18, 2005
Time:	8:45 AM -- 3:00 PM
Location:	Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

August 2005

The Future of the United States Marine Corps

As the forward deployed and rapid response force of the United States military, the Marine Corps has played an unparalleled role in projecting America’s conventional military strength throughout the world. With the global war on terror’s alteration of the strategic environment, the Marines must develop and transform--particularly their doctrine, training methods, and military tactics--in order to assure adaptability and innovation. Panelists at an August 18 AEI conference considered how the war on terror has challenged Marine Corps strategy and to what extent the Marine Corps will work with the other forces as it prepares to wage non-conventional warfare.

Panel I: The Role of the Corps in United States National Security Strategy

Colonel Mackubin Thomas Owens
USMC (Ret.), U.S. Naval War College

What role does the Marine Corps play? Does the United States actually need a Marine Corps? Scholar Samuel Huntington has argued that the strategic concept of any service can be defined by the role and purpose which it plays in implementing national policy. The corps has been founded on the idea that it provides a flexible expeditionary force which comes from the sea on short notice, sustains itself from the sea, and returns to the sea when an operation is done.

Although the United States Army is capable of launching from the sea, the army’s strategic concept is that it fights and wins the land wars. The Marines, on the other hand, flexibly adapt in the face of necessity.  The Marines use the commons of the sea as both a maneuver space and as a base from which to apply force. The natural concept which arises from this strategy is the sea base.

Many argue that the army is increasingly moving in the direction of an expeditionary force. Marines, on the other hand, can act as soldiers in the army, but they are not designed to fight the operational battle. The question which we must ask ourselves is to what extent we want to see both the army and the Marines adopt or maintain expeditionary capabilities. If both services possess this capability, there may be redundancy in the services. However, we must not confuse effectiveness with efficiency and conclude that redundancy in war is dangerous. Efficiency demands that one achieve the greatest output with the smallest input. In reality, war is not a labor of efficiency but rather demands an effective operational strategy. Thus, should the army and the Marines assume expeditionary responsibilities, we can be assured that both will be providing a force which provides utility to the nation.

Max Boot
Council on Foreign Relations

The United States Marine Corps is a service for the intellectual. The marine, often under siege by penny pinchers on Capitol Hill, has always been challenged to define his utility. As a consequence of these experiences, the corps actively embraces new missions and reexamines its strategic concept.

The corps has watched its missions change dramatically over the years. In the eighteenth century, the Marines served as shipboard guards while during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the corps assumed missions as imperialist constabularies. In 1930, the Marines’ strategic concept transformed yet again, laying the foundation for the Marine Corps’ island-hopping campaign during the Second World War. Today, the Marines have added humanitarian assistance and pacification to their responsibilities.

Does it make sense to spend $7 billion dollars to sustain an expeditionary force? The last full scale amphibious assault was at Inchon during the Korean War. Although we should certainly retain some amphibious assault capacity, it is unlikely that we will be landing on an Iwo Jima anytime soon. The Marines, on the other hand, need armored vehicles that will protect them as they patrol Iraqi streets. Furthermore, the Marines could easily use the Nighthawk, a two-engine aircraft, instead of the Osprey. Our Marine Corps may not be making the right weapons purchases, but it is certainly more on task than the air force, which insists on purchasing the F-22 aircraft. Weapons systems are less important to the Marines, for the heart of the corps is grounded in the high quality of the fighting men and women.  A true revolution in Marine Corps strategy will involve a reorientation of the corps, particularly with the education of Marines in regional culture and languages.

Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hoffman
Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities

The United States Marine Corps needs soldiers capable of executing three different but important tasks. First, we must cultivate a Marine Corps capable of forcible entry. An argument can be made that the United States will be competing with powers which may strive to shut America out of particular regions. The United States must be capable of moving its troops to designated areas and of assuring potential allies and coalition partners of protection. A Marine Corps capable of forcible entry will serve as a deterrent to those aggressors and enemies.

The corps must also be postured for irregular warfare. The Marines must be prepared to call upon their “small war” experience and embrace the present environment of “small” and “irregular” warfare. As the future environment will require extensive urban combat, the Marine Corps must prepare to serve as a fundamental component to special operations. The Marines will be required to execute information operations, influence population in urban areas, and attain knowledge of regional language and culture in order to successfully be the master of the four block war.

Last but not least, the Marines must be prepared to focus on future long-term threats. These threats, such as the rise of China, will require the Marines to think beyond the transformation of the greater Middle East and consider how the future environment may materialize.

Clearly, in order to prepare for the present and future, the Marine Corps will have to take operational risks and refrain from optimizing the force for a single strategic environment. We must cover every potential threat. As the Marines prepare for forcible entry, irregular warfare, and long-term challenges, we will have to anticipate, not simply react to, global crises.

Panel II: Operational Challenges for the United States Marine Corps

Lieutenant General John F. Sattler
U.S. Marine Corps

The Marine Corps, an adaptable force, improves its skills as it incorporates the lessons that it learns in Iraq. The great challenge is to be able to define the lessons learned, capture them, and not simply throw them into document form. Instead, the Marines must evaluate how they will actively integrate the lessons learned into Marine doctrine.

Extremely important is training soldiers in these lessons so that they can implement them during their tours of duty. Flexibility leaves room for officers to enthusiastically embrace a malleable training package. As a consequence, the next unit to arrive in Iraq can be a foot taller and a step faster than the enemy. Marines understand that improving their tactics and strategy is a responsibility, not a choice. We have failed as an institution if we do not learn from our mistakes. Every warrior must be taller, faster, and stronger than the warrior who returns. Acquiescence with the status quo will breed complacency and give the enemy an opportunity to get ahead. With marine creativity, we can take decisive action and run ahead of the Iraqi insurgency.

F. J. “Bing” West
U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.)

Americans join the United States Marine Corps because there is something inherent in them which drives them to become Marines. The same marine patriotism resident at Iwo Jima pervaded the corps in Fallujah. Marines are hunters. We cannot consider our soldiers to be the victims of this war: when they are on the battlefield, the jihadists are the true victims.

To a large extent, 65 to 70 percent of our Marines only remain in the service for a single tour. Thus, after sacrificing approximately four years, they return home to pay a price in terms of their future careers. Thus, it is clear that society owes these Marines a chance to develop real workplace skills upon their return. We must develop a program, similar to programs after the conclusion of World War II, that supports soldier education. We must help those who come back from war. Simply sporting a bumper sticker on a car does not do enough. Regulations, on the other hand, must be changed so as to give credit where credit is due.

The American people maintain highly unrealistic expectations about force protection. Although we have casualties in Iraq, these casualties are minimal and are as low as we are likely to experience in any sort of military engagement. The Iraq casualty count is dramatically less than that in Vietnam. However, the American people focus on the body count, rending the nation apart. We are not a united country. As such, the senior operational staff must take this reality into consideration when planning for future operations.

Keynote Address

General Michael W. Hagee
U.S. Marine Corps

The U.S. Marine Corps is the nation’s force in readiness. The corps has demonstrated this over the past couple of years by placing 60,000 men in Kuwait, sending a Marine Expeditionary Force 400 miles into Afghanistan, and stationing Marines in Haiti in less than thirty-six hours. We are the nation’s expeditionary force with the purpose of projecting sustainable military power ashore.

Contrary to some organizations and individuals, the Marines do not believe that the basic nature of war has been transformed. First, whether we are facing a low or high intensity conflict, we are facing a thinking enemy. Our enemy responds quickly to changes in our tactics. Second, the battlefield of both the present and the future will continue to be uncertain, chaotic, and dangerous. Technology will help to resolve but will not be the answer to present and future challenges. Instead, we will need to increase the capability of our men and women so that they can thrive in a variety of environments. These soldiers must be capable of making decisions without having complete information.

We are absolutely incapable of affirmatively determining where we will fight our next war. In fact, most of us never would have predicted that we would currently be waging wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Dr. Barry Posen correctly stipulates that the American military possesses command of the commons--it controls the space, air and sea in the near-, mid-, and long-term. Below 15,000 feet, however, we face different challenges on land and in urban environments. We must question whether or not we possess the necessary capabilities to adjust to these new environments. We must consider the advantages of sea-basing as a national and joint capacity. Sea-basing will provide a set of strike, defensive, logistics, and command and control capabilities.

Education will also be transformational. In the battlefield, the most important thing that we can give a marine is the ability to make good decisions. We have stood up both a foreign military training unit and a Center for Advanced Cultural Learning at Quantico. Every enlisted and reserve marine will be assigned to a particular region of the world and will have the opportunity to learn about this region’s culture and language. As such, education is one of the greatest keys to preparing our military for future threats.

Panel III: The Transformation of the Corps

Lieutenant General Jim Mattis
U.S. Marine Corps

It is vital that the Marine Corps change, for it makes little sense to remain dominant in areas that have become increasingly irrelevant. With new strategic challenges come new paradigms within which we must operate. American society is blessed with its free competition of ideas and its ability to flexibly adapt to shifting challenges.

With the outbreak of war comes the testing of doctrine. Although Marine Corps doctrine has held up over the past three years, we cannot claim that it is perfect. War has continued to be characterized by friction and uncertainty. Although the character of this war is different than those of years past, this war may very well last a generation with different levels of intensity.

We must not patronize this enemy; they mean every word that they say. There will not be any reconciliation with this enemy, for they despise free people because of their freedom. We are currently waging a war of ideas and must increasingly prevent these individuals from gaining a foothold in the minds of others. As we fight this war, we will see that non-state actors will become increasingly relevant. Allies in this fight will be vital to our success.

 With many of our forces tied down in Iraq, the need for expeditionary and highly maneuverable forces remains. We must maintain the capability for amphibious landing and forcible entry. Because irregular warfare is foreign to us--and not the enemy--we must address the enemy’s tactics and strategy rather than constructing or developing our own. The U.S. Marines currently dominate the seas and the skies, but we are hardly dominant on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq. To wage this fight, we will need to return to our extensive small wars experience from 1920 to 1945, learning from both our traditional fighting and integrating lessons from irregular warfare. Stability operations will be a vital and fundamental part of winning the war on terror. War, more art than science, will also force us to take a closer look at politics and the political implications of our actions. We will not win this war by technological development but rather by shifting to more irregular forms of warfare, examining our past experiences, and becoming increasingly comfortable in this new environment.

Michael Vickers
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

When we discuss Marine Corps transformation, we must ask the following questions: For what are we transforming? Why transform at all? To what will we ultimately transform? The dominant Department of Defense vision argues that we must adopt network-centric warfare and joint integration. We will implement technology, such as stealth and precision technology, to move a step ahead of the competition.

This Department of Defense vision suffers, however, from two flaws. First, this vision is disconnected from strategic challenges, particularly in Iraq. Second, the American military cannot adopt a one-size-fits-all transformation strategy, for the joint force structure is not going to solve all of our problems.

The idea that we will require the same capabilities for dealing with both Islamic radicals and a rising China is laughable. As such, a single joint transformation is highly dangerous. As the navy and the air force become increasingly worried about the rise of China due to the maritime implications, the new triad of the army, Marines, and Special Operations Forces become increasingly preoccupied by the global war on terror and the threat of weapons of mass destruction. Although these forces will undeniably need one another for addressing these two problems, the transformational requirements of the different services are hardly identical.

For a long period of time, the military has assumed that it is advantageous to replace labor with capital. Yet, as we look at the different strategic challenges, ground forces need more labor, while the navy and air force require more capital. Clearly there are different needs for transformation.

Although the Marine Corps may be able to do with a slightly smaller force, the Marines must become increasingly familiar with irregular warfare. It must also more deeply consider not only combat operations but also protracted stability operations. To this end, sea-basing will become increasingly important. Sea-basing will provide a freedom of action and allow us to project power from the sea.

How will we pay for changes in the force structure? We can assume that there will be modest growth, if any, in the defense budget. Thus, we will be forced to embark on transformational changes without additional funding. Yet, it is absolutely necessary that we hedge for future threats and crises rather than assume that they will not happen. We need the military to be prepared for problems with both a rising China and radical Islam.

Robert O. Work
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

Every one of the 175,000 Marines is an asset to the nation. As we discuss transformation, we must remember that technology does not make the Marines the powerful force that they currently are. For a true transformation in the corps, we must look to the individual soldier.

Marines have been forced to change, transform, and adjust based on the changing security environment ever since the founding of the United States. During the eighteenth century, the Marines were responsible for fighting alongside sailors. With the advent of the oceanic era, Marines were increasingly sent overseas as a battle force asset. During the transoceanic era, during which time Marines became a national asset, these soldiers served as vital component to American national security. Now, during the post-9/11 period, the Marine Corps has been forced to question its duty, role, and responsibility to the nation.

Marines now must ask themselves about potential challenges from nations such as Iran and North Korea. Will the Marines be fighting traditional or irregular wars? In this context, the Marines must be careful to not become too much like the Special Operations Forces and abandon its link with the Department of the Navy. The environment of the future requires us to consider how we can project power over intercontinental distances and throw the enemy off balance. To do this, we must cultivate our forced entry capability. We must also recapitalize the amphibious fleet. Our key transformation initiatives must include examination of distributional challenges, sea-basing, urban combat, and the development of exoskeletons. Only by addressing these issues will the Marine Corps be prepared to wage the wars of the future.

AEI research assistant Melissa Ann Wisner prepared this summary.