The 2018 National Defense Strategy includes a Global Operating Model consisting of four layers : touch, blunt, surge, and fatherland. The reach layer is designed to allow the United States to efficaciously compete below the tied of arm dispute. In an earned run average of great ability competition, this implies forces that are capable of exposing malign behavior and countering negative rival influence, such as what China is doing today in the South China Sea. closely tied to these forces ’ actions are those in the numb level, who are to deter adversary aggression, and should deterrence fail anywhere in the liaison layer, quickly work on the identified badmouth behavior to degrade and/or deny the adversary from accomplishing its objectives. effective deterrence comes from convincing an adversary that aggressive actions that seek to compromise U.S. national security interests, including the security of our alliance architecture, are not worth the monetary value in lives, money, and resources .
| Contact Layer | Activities conducted in contested zones below armed conflict to expose malign behavior and counter influence. |
| Blunt Layer | Combat-credible and warfighting-oriented forces present forward to deter aggression or degrade/deny adversary objectives in a conflict. |
| Surge Layer | War-winning forces that deliver capable mass. |
| Homeland Defense Layer | Forces capable of defending the homeland in all domains. |
successfully operating in the contact layer requires 24/7/365 doggedness, combined with fix access to support from forces in the blunt layer. It besides takes stopping point cooperation and interoperability with allies and strategic partners. As the National Defense Strategy makes clear, America ’ second alliance architecture is a major comparative advantage in the increasing competition with China and Russia. Marines should not think of themselves operating in the contact or blunt layers entirely, or even alone with the Navy. many dozens of allies and strategic partners plowshare U.S. interests in preserving the rules-based order .
This article seeks to contribute to a negotiation that has endured for years and has particularly increased ahead of the approaching change at the top horizontal surface of the Marine Corps. We will offer a single core attribute for the Marine Corps, tied directly to the National Defense Strategy and its reach and blunt layer requirements. adjacent, we will explain what we believe should be the Corps ’ distinguishing attributes that give us our naval purpose. finally, we will describe the weather attributes the Navy-Marine Corps team can continue executing in hold of the modern strategic steering .
One Core Attribute
Spaeder highlights the need for service leadership to identify a single core assign to help clarify current confusion over the Corps ’ primary reason for being. We believe that this confusion stems from multiple factors. At a conceptual flat, the Corps has multiple relatively new steering documents that appear to suggest having to be able to execute a apparently endless number of possible mission sets. beyond this, at a more virtual, real-world level, Marines are presently engaged and/or training for a countless of missions, such as special purpose Marine air-ground job forces, equally well as the bequest large-scale amphibious articulation forcible entrance mathematical process from which the Marine Corps has frankincense far refused to budge. These tax forces presently support operations throughout the U.S. Central and Africa Command areas of operation, but are underutilized as a crisis answer pull, while rarely focused on specific naval missions. They are besides not focused on the Indo-Pacific, the National Defense Strategy ’ s priority dramaturgy. Further, the Corps ’ stream, so far decades-old, episodically rotating Marine expeditionary whole prototype is increasingly plagued by a miss of amphibious ship to support reliable combatant instruction defend. This paradigm besides doesn ’ thymine possess the perseverance required to consistently support liaison and deaden layer requirements .
consequently, we believe that it is necessity for the Marine Corps to reimagine and reprioritize itself. The Marine Corps ’ congress of racial equality property ought to be providing the american people a naval, modern infantry-centric pull that can conduct — persistently — sea control and sea denial operations in and around key nautical terrain, which includes deterring adversary forces from conducting operations which seek to undermine United States ’ and allied interests. Or, in the words of Mira Rapp-Hooper and Rebecca Friedman Lissner, we believe the Marine Corps should establish as its top priority assisting the Navy in “ preventing the emergence of close regional spheres of influence ” and “ maintaining free access to the global commons of the sea. ”
One need merely look at what is occurring in the Western Pacific today to appreciate why this mission is therefore vital to U.S. national security. China ’ mho island build up and mobilization crusade in the South China Sea was made possible because of a miss of U.S. naval forces operating within the area to prevent such actions. Over the past 12–18 months, the U.S. Navy has increased the frequency of freedom of seafaring operations in the South China Sea, but these operations have been highly ephemeral and much inconsequent to the haunting, gray zone nature of the conflict at hand. As a resultant role, the marines and sailors on a ephemeral and locally irregular Marine expeditionary unit have been, and most likely will continue to be, a non-long-term agent in the decision-making cycle of Beijing when China ’ south leaders decide to make another down grab. The same will probable be the case in the minds of many countries in the region, who have increasingly come to question U.S. purpose due, in part, to a lack of consistent naval force presence .
The Marine Corps must identify ways to operate persistently throughout the contact layer, which would ultimately add a definitiveness to the gray partition operations that China employs. Simply put, if state grab is illegal in international waters and, as recently emphasized by the secretary of state, goes against the interests of the United States and its allies, then it surely benefits the articulation push to have a avail dedicated to deterring and, if necessary, countering these littoral actions 24/7/365. frankincense, rather of prioritizing the current episodic and rotating Marine expeditionary unit employment prototype, much less the service ’ s large-scale amphibious assail impel design initiation dating back to World War II, the Corps should create — in entire partnership with the Navy — a new naval operational concept that enables haunting operations throughout the contact layer ’ south key maritime terrain .
Naval in Character and Purpose
Are we naval in quality or in aim ? First it is important lie out a vocabulary which will assist in understanding our judgment. The Marine Corps takes great pride in its naval “ heritage. ” This inheritance defines the historical significance that the Navy-Marine Corps team has had on America ’ mho security and prosperity. The Navy-Marine Corps Team has proven to be a mighty couple in facilitating the state ’ mho defense from serving on naval transportation to combat the barbary pirates to conducting amphibious assaults during World War II and in the Korean War to hundreds of amphibious operations ( although not deliberate assaults ) since the 1950s. This singular tandem has proven its worth to the american people repeatedly and systematically .
The Marine Corps has displayed a serial of naval “ characters ” throughout its history. We believe that this “ character ” must continue to evolve to the stream era of great baron competition. We define “ quality ” as the traits that describe an entity. The dominating trait that has described the Marine Corps ’ naval character from a effect design perspective in the past 70 to 80 years has been the lead of amphibious assaults. We believe that this fictional character must evolve for multiple reasons. First, at the most basic tied, large-scale amphibious assaults against peer threats will likely continue to be excessively politically dearly-won, good as they were when President Truman ultimately decided to employ nuclear weapons to help end World War II rather of sending thousands more Americans across contested beaches on the japanese home islands. Second, and possibly most importantly, successfully implementing the National Defense Strategy requires the Marine Corps to think a lot differently about its responsibilities in the contact and numb layers. continuity, distributable, and littoral are among the traits that should describe the Marine Corps ’ evolving naval character.
This leads us to the Marine Corps ’ purpose : We identify a “ naval purpose ” as our reason for universe. The purpose of the Marine Corps is to be the blend arms, close-combat warfighting arm of the Navy, and we believe this purpose is enduring. The Marine Corps ’ distinguishing attributes are that it is designed to operate on the bring and sea as a conterminous engage environment and to be the force of choice in the contact layer, all with the finish of deterring and defeating adversary forces using the ocean and land as both maneuver space and a close fight killing battlefield. Disputed areas that are frequently associated with great power rival are nautical and littoral in nature. The Navy-Marine Corps team is ideally suited to control these areas across the contact and blunt layers while buying policy makers a invaluable benefit of determent and preventing fait accompli strategies from coming to fruition in the grey zone .
The Enduring
Our overarching focus, the core assign described above, is a effect volition, manned, and equipped to operate as the Nation ’ sulfur sentinels in the contact level, dispersed throughout key maritime terrain. While the Corps ’ main concentrate must be this core assign, we have an opportunity to simultaneously leverage the singularity of the Navy-Marine Corps team in support of other key missions, including humanitarian help and Disaster Relief and serving as extra combat ability if required for operations in the numb level. The nation will continue to require a crisis reaction capability and the Marine Corps should continue to play a function, but not at the expense of its core attribute .
specific to human-centered aid and calamity relief missions, consider, for example, the 2010 earthquake that struck Haiti. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, a character of naval power that we envision operating at the seam between the contact and blunt layer, was steaming its manner from Virginia to the Middle East when the earthquake hit. due to its organic mobility and implicit in tractability, the Navy-Marine Corps Team was cursorily diverted and effectively assisted the U.S. Agency for International Development and U.S. Southern Command. similarly, consider in 2015 Marines conducted a long-range movement from Okinawa to Nepal to assist after another earthquake strike. We envision operations such as these, along with noncombatant evacuation operations, embassy reinforcements, and tactical recovery of aircraft and personnel, continuing to be contribution of the Navy-Marine Corps Team ’ south mission set. And our forces operating persistently in the reach layer can serve as the first ones on-station to help inform subsequent actions from the remainder of the roast force when such missions are required .
This same type of Marine expeditionary units can serve as a credible source of battle world power if and when required. More specifically, if ( and when ) contact forces are required to transition into conducting blunting operations, the units can serve as timely strengthener. One such method for support could be the use of the “ Lightning Carrier ” concept. Such a concept, leveraging sea-based aviation-delivered sensors and fires, could increase the survivability of forces in the contact layer should they ever come under attack. We can besides envision future scenarios where multiple Marine Expeditionary Units could be required to reinforce forces in the contact layer, such as what occurred with Task Force 58 concisely after the 9/11 attacks .
Closing
The dialogue regarding the roles and mission of the Marine Corps in light of newfangled strategic steering and not so subtle attempts to downplay the service, is a much-needed discussion. Who am I ? Who are we ? We are a naval expeditionary service that responds when the Nation calls. We should be characterized as the service that is ready and will to deter adversary aggression below the level of arm conflict and if need be, is combat-credible enough and supported by quickly deployed organic forces to blunt that aggression. The Marine Corps should focus on conducting these operations in and around key nautical terrain, persistently and in a distribute manner ; specifically where competitors employ a grey zone scheme. This will bring clarity to the ambiguity and doubt that competitors seek to employ against the United States. The Marine Corps will provide policy makers with a coerce that has dedicated itself to maintaining our nation ’ mho competitive advantage in an old age of capital power rival if it operationalizes the concepts outlined herein .
Gordon Emmanuel is a marine infantry military officer presently serving as a battalion executive officeholder.
Justin Gray is a nautical infantry officer presently serving as a battalion operations officer .
The opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not reflect those of the U.S. Marine Corps, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government .
U.S. Marine Corps photograph by Lance Cpl. Margaret Gale
