Compass Points - Balanced MAGTF
Marine leaders see the need to rebalance.
April 16, 2024
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The skilled performance of US military forces helping Israel defend against the aerial precision munitions attack by Iran, has badly damaged the foundations of Force Design 2030. The US Navy does not need to hide from the precision munition threat of Yemen, Iran, China or anyone else. The US Navy can and will continue to patrol the seas. Force Design 2030's foundational misconception that the power of precision munitions required the Navy to exit from China's Weapons Engagement Zone and required missile toting Marine units to disperse on isolated islands off China’s coast, has been shown to be a prediction badly off target.
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With "Force Design 2030" now officially reduced in name and emphasis to "Force Design" it is time to rethink and rebalance. Under the misguided Force Design 2030, the Marine Corps swerved from a focus on global forces to regional forces, from forces embarked on amphibious ships to forces isolated on islands, from offensive fighting units to defensive sensing units, from world renowned Marine Air Ground Task Forces to little noticed Marine Littoral Regiments.
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Where does the Marine Corps go now? What should the future Marine Corps look like? It is time for the Marine Corps to rebalance its thinking, rebalance its forces, and steer toward a better future. Fortunately, there has been much good discourse about how the Marine Corps best serves the Nation.
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Even the current Commandant's frag order 01-2024 talks about the importance of "task-organized combined arms air-ground task forces."
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We are and will remain a naval expeditionary force that fights from the sea as task-organized combined arms air-ground task forces. With Force Design in place, we will continue our proud history as our Nation’s expeditionary shock troops that can deliver combat power from sea to land – now with the additional capability to project power from land to sea. As a globally present and persistent force, we remain inextricably linked to naval campaigns, and we will be forward deployed with both conventional and special operations forces, ready to transition at a moment’s notice in times of crisis.
-- FRAGO 01-2024
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In their remarks, "The Need to Rebalance the MAGTF" Charles C. Krulak and Anthony C. Zinni discuss "the essential components of a balanced MAGTF."
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The essential components of a balanced MAGTF remain its air, ground, and logistics elements. Air elements, with fixed, tilt and rotary wing aircraft must be capable of operating from ships or specially designed expeditionary airfields. They must be capable of performing six designated functions: offensive air support, anti-air warfare, assault support, air reconnaissance, and control of aircraft and missiles. Ground elements, consisting of infantry, artillery, armor, light armor, and combat engineers, must be trained and capable of task organized employment as light, medium, or heavy forces. Logistics elements must be capable of supporting the combined arms forces with supply requirements, maintenance, transportation, general engineering, health services, and other combat service support. The command elements must be trained and capable of providing the necessary command and control for a wide variety of missions.
-- General Krulak and General Zinni
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The publication, Vision 2035, provides a longer review of what capabilities the Marine Corps must build to ensure, "A Marine Corps Able to Respond Globally in the Age of Precision Munitions."
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We believe the Marine Corps should be focused instead on the uncertainties of global threats, which requires the ability to conduct offensive operations. Our vision reduces risk to national security. By leveraging innovation, technology and the Combat Development Process, the Marine Corps can regain its offensive capabilities, which will enable Marine forces to respond quickly and effectively anywhere in the world.
-- Vision 2035, Introduction
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In his "Vision & Strategy 2025" General Conway advocated for "agile expeditionary forces, able to act with unprecedented speed and versatility."
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Though our Corps has recently proven itself in “sustained operations ashore,” future operational environments will place a premium on agile expeditionary forces, able to act with unprecedented speed and versatility in austere conditions against a wide range of adversaries. We must be a two-fisted fighter — able to destroy enemy formations with our scalable air-ground-logistics teams in major contingencies, but equally able to employ our hard earned irregular warfare skills honed over decades of conflict. Our Corps must serve credibly as a persistently engaged and multi-capable force, able to draw upon contributions from our Total Force, in order to address the full range of contingencies the future will undoubtedly present. In short, we must be prepared to move with speed, “live hard,” and accomplish any mission.
--General Conway, Vision & Strategy 2025
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There is wide agreement among Marine leaders about the importance of the global crisis response MAGTF. It is time for the Marine Corps to focus less -- much less -- on limited, isolated, island, missile units and far more on robust, global, forward deployed Marine MAGTFs. It is time to rebalance the MAGTF and rebalance the Marine Corps.
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Compass Points salutes all those on active duty and off, and all the friends of the Marine Corps -- including those in Congress -- working every day to help rebuild and rebalance the Marine Corps.
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US Marines
FRAGO 01-2024
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Compass Points - Balanced MAGTF - 01/29/2024
THE NEED TO REBALANCE THE MAGTF
Generals Krulak and Zinni discuss the need to rebalance the MAGTF today.
https://marinecorpscompasspoints.substack.com/p/compass-points-balanced-magtf
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The Chowder Society II
Vision 2035
A Better Way Forward for the U. S. Marine Corps
Foreword by General C.C. Krulak and General A.C. Zinni
https://mega.nz/file/crxlUJoC#G-Wh2nlQllKnIXUuCvCdolmQEWg_fk4_Jv6KQuRe3us
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U.S. Marine Corps
Marine Corps Vision and Strategy 2025
Foreword by James T. Conway General, USMC, 34th CMC
Let's focus on one sentence from FragO 01-24 highlighted in today's post: "With Force Design in place, we will continue our proud history as our Nation's expeditionary shock troops that can deliver combat power from sea to land - now with the additional capability to project power from land to sea."
How much combat power can today's Marine Corps deliver from "sea to land"? Not much! With 31 amphibious ships and 40% availability and only 7 MPS ships in two MPSRONS (down from 20 ships in 3 MPSRONs as late as 2018), the Marines would be hard pressed to globally source a MEB. And given the divestments in tanks, cannon artillery, assault breaching/bridging, etc.), the MEB would not have the combined arms capability (and probably training) needed to fight and win against most of our nation's adversaries.
And we "now" have the "additional capability to project power from land to sea." Really! I wonder if Greg "Pappy" Boyington would agree with that statement if he was still around? Since Marine aviation has always been able to project power from land to sea, I assume this gratuitous comment refers to the 14 Naval Strike Missile (subsonic with an unclassified range of 115 NM) batteries and the 3 TLAM (subsonic with an unclassified range of about 1,000 NM) batteries. This speed and range of these missiles make them increasingly obsolete against a peer or near peer competitor in the future.
Bottom line - - while the highlighted sentence in the FragO is technically correct, it is certainly misleading. The capabilities of today's operating forces (Navy and Marine Corps team) are a shell of their former selves
Generals Zinni, Krulak and Conway have reinforced the point that the Marine Corps cannot follow the path of the WWII Japanese Special land Forces hunkered down in relatively marginal sized units living in caves with unpredictable supply and reinforcement. The real-time laboratory that has shown the traditional Marine Corps Air-Ground Team to be the viable warfighting organization is the Ukraine. Artillery, air power, support from the sea, drones, HIMARS, hypersonic missiles, and cyber support is the team for the next fight. Although it has been 55 years since I sat in a muddy foxhole in Vietnam and called in 105 and 155 artillery fire, I doubt that if we were configured in the Force Design organization, and a company of VC were 200 yards from overrunning my position that I would be able to call in missiles danger close. Get rational members of Congress to review this Force Design, reallocate the money to rebuild the Marine Corps and amphibious shipping, and let's get on with the job of keeping America safe.