Compass Points – CMC CPG – Section 11

Marine Expeditionary Forces

Compass Points – CMC CPG – Section 11

Marine Expeditionary Forces

September 19, 2024

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The Commandant recently issued the Commandant’s Planning Guidance (CPG) which provides his personal, broad review of the Marine Corps highlighting issues, challenges, and opportunities.

Nearly at the beginning of the new CPG, the Commandant sets a clear expectation that the CPG is to be read and discussed throughout the Marine Corps, "I expect all Marines to read this Planning Guidance and leaders to discuss its key concepts with their Marines." 

It is good to hear the Commandant wants robust discussion about the CPG. In fact, not only does the Commandant call for discussion at the beginning of the CPG, when he reaches the conclusion, he once again calls for robust CPG feedback:  "Sergeant Major Ruiz and I look forward to hearing your feedback, and we expect and need your bottom-up refinements to this top-down guidance."

Marines are not shy and already Marines on active duty and veteran Marines are wading into the CPG page by page.

Compass Points has begun receiving detailed, insightful, and often pointed CPG comments and analysis. If the Commandant and the Sergeant Major "look forward to hearing your feedback" they should subscribe to Compass Points and benefit from the wisdom and experience of Compass Points readers.

The CPG is divided into 25 sections from INTENT to CONCLUSION.

Readers are encouraged to read the CPG and provide comments on one or more of the 25 sections. Below are comments and analysis of the CPG section 11 - Marine Expeditionary Forces.

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39th Commandant’s Planning Guidance

Comment and Analysis

Section 11. MARINE EXPEDITIONARY FORCES - pp 10 - 11

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MARINE EXPEDITIONARY FORCES

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CPG -- Our Marine Expeditionary Forces (MEFs) are both our primary force generators and warfighting headquarters.  As we continue to modernize through fiscal and personnel restraints, we must recognize that all MEFs can no longer perform all tasks equally.

Comment & Analysis -

If ever a section in a document to be signed by the Commandant needed to be scrubbed by his staff, it is this one.

To the close observer the problems of MEFs that can no longer perform appears to be a self-inflicted wound.  Is it not the purposeful divesture of operational capabilities that led to this sad state of affairs?

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CPG -- We must adapt our traditional approach of balanced MEFs toward a more flexible approach that leverages each MEF’s unique structure, location, and resources to fullest effect.

Comment & Analysis -

In the past the MEFs were roughly comparable. The MEFs have diminished because of the actions taken to implement Force Design 2030.  Move away from Force Design 2030 and the MEFs once again will be stronger and more comparable.

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CPG -- Our MEFs are necessarily different from one another in size, capabilities, and mission, due to both the geopolitical realities of their assigned regions and the prioritization of limited resources. The deliberate task organization of our MEFs will allow us to more efficiently allocate resources and prioritize training time to meet more refined missions. Further, subordinate elements of each MEF must be ready to task organize with any other element, or MEF, quickly and effectively.

Comment & Analysis -

For decades the basic construct of all three MEFs was the same.  This enabled elements of each MEF to operate under other MEFs with minimal adjustments when deployments or contingencies required.  To the degree there were disparities between MEFs it was largely due to constrained resources that curtailed the number of Marines, weapons, and equipment allotted to certain units.  The “geopolitical realities of their assigned regions” was handled by training and equipping, task organizing, or techniques such as cross-attaching, not changes of structure.  For example, Marine MAGTFs responsible for the northern flank of Europe trained for cold weather operations while those assigned missions in the Middle East trained for desert operations.  Moreover, units possessed the knowledge and skills needed to composite with other units and did so in exercises and operations, for example, the compositing of 15^th MEU and 26^th MEU as Task Force 58 in the early phases of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001.

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CPG -- I MEF

I MEF remains our globally deployable MEF, focused on major contingency operations in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) Area of Operations (AOR). As our largest MAGTF with ready access to large-scale live-fire ranges and amphibious landing sites, I MEF is best poised to focus on power projection and offensive operations in support of major regional conflicts. As such, I MEF will retain significant combat power. When individual I MEF units are tasked and resourced to support sea denial missions, those units are capable of training to the appropriate skills for those tasks as needed. During competition, I MEF supports USINDOPACOM objectives and postures throughout the AOR. In crisis, they immediately maneuver to gain early positional advantage shoulder to shoulder with III MEF. In conflict, I MEF conducts amphibious operations and Combined Joint Forcible Entry Operations (CJFEO) to support allies and partners and to open the competitive space by threatening adversary interests elsewhere. Due to the expansiveness of the USINDOPACOM AOR and its priority within the NDS, it is imperative that we protect I MEF from emergent taskings to non-priority theaters.

Comment & Analysis -

One could certainly question the wisdom of this alignment, especially as the potential for conflict within the NATO region intensifies.  The demands of EABO and SIFs have stripped II MEF of much of its combat power as illustrated by the loss of a third of the 2^nd Marine Division’s infantry regiments, all its tanks, breaching equipment, and bridging.

With insufficient amphibious lift to carry the assault elements of a MEB and enough MPF ships to provide sustainment or to support a fly-in echelon—all needed to build to a corps-level MEF—how would I MEF conduct a Joint Forcible Entry Operation and if required transition into sustained operations ashore?

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CPG - II MEF

II MEF will be the Marine Corps’ crisis response force-in-readiness, able to quickly task organize battalion and regimental-sized forces under a MAGTF construct. As the Service Retained MEF, II MEF is not specifically assigned to a Combatant Commander and must necessarily remain flexible for a wider range of contingencies. This is not to mean “be ready for everything, everywhere, at all times.” I trust II MEF leadership to plan against their assessment of a “pacing contingency,” in accordance with the priorities of the NDS.

Comment & Analysis -

It was not too many years ago that the Marine Corps prided itself on its ability, readiness, and willingness to accept any mission.  The words “any mission, any time, any clime and place” expressed the mindset and proven capability of all the Corps’ operational forces; they stood prepared to meet the nation’s call on short notice -- “most ready when the nation was least ready.”  That outlook had reached the stature of a tradition.  It seems now, however, that the Corps picks/accepts only the missions it wants.

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CPG - While we must recognize capacity limitations, II MEF should be our first resort as our continental U.S. (CONUS)- based “911 Force” for planned and emerging requirements to U.S. Central Command, Africa Command, European Command, Southern Command, and Northern Command. In a major contingency, II MEF can provide augmentation, reinforcements, or headquarters to the other MEFs, and it will remain a Joint Task Force enabled Headquarters. In the event of a major protracted war, II MEF can shift focus to provide a second general-officer MAGTF headquarters.

Comment & Analysis -

This paragraph is anything but clear.  What sort of Marine Corps force makes up a force of “first resort”?  If II MEF is to “provide augmentation, reinforcements, or headquarters to the other MEFs” in a major contingency, what Marine Corps forces will it have under its command as a “Joint Task Force enabled Headquarters”? What exactly is a “general-officer MAGTF headquarters”?  None of these questions would be relevant if the MLR/SIF construct had not denuded II MEF of capabilities to the extent that it now appears to be more akin to a brigade-level force.

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CPG - III MEF

III MEF will remain our main effort MEF as we campaign to deter the PRC. It will provide USINDOPACOM and PACFLT with a “fight-now,” Stand-in Force capability to persist inside an adversary’s WEZ, create a mutually contested space, complicate adversary decision making, facilitate the larger naval/joint campaign, and build partner capacity. Uniquely equipped with the MLRs, III MEF must stand ready to seize and hold key maritime terrain within the littorals, effect sea denial through long-range precision fires and ubiquitous sensing, and set conditions for follow-on actions by I MEF and the Joint Force. III MEF is similarly postured to provide rapid response to regional crises throughout the Indo-Pacific and it is critical that we sustain a robust crisis response capability inherent within the MEF.

Comment & Analysis -

For a Stand-in Force to persist inside an adversary’s weapons engagement zone it will need sustainment, that is, a means of logistics support and casualty evacuation, which the Corps maintains it cannot accomplish without Landing Ships Medium.

What will III MEF’s MLRs and embedded SIFs do while waiting for sufficient LSMs to become available, which could be in excess of ten years?  Will a SIF with short-range, subsonic anti-ship missiles be of much value to the combatant commander ten years from now? 

Without infantry regiments how exactly will “III MEF . . . seize and hold key maritime terrain within the littorals”?  Artillery, including rockets and missiles, are the “King of Battle,” but it is a truism that infantry remains the final arbiter of war and III MEF will have no infantry force larger than one or two separate infantry battalions.  What exactly is the “robust crisis response capability” that III MEF is to sustain”?

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CPG -- III MEF will continue to develop and experiment with the MLRs as a vehicle for integrating new capabilities into the operating forces, supported by a standing MLR force development team within DC CD&I. We must continue to develop innovative solutions to provide increased range, magazine depth, and sustainment options for our MLRs. Similarly, it is imperative that the Service continues to fight to source the high-demand but low-density occupational specialties that maximize the capabilities of the MLR.

Comment & Analysis -

For those Marines who actually understand the Corps’ combat development process as it was in its prime, one very important question comes to mind when they read words like, “continue to develop and experiment with the MLRs as a vehicle for integrating new capabilities into the operating forces, supported by a standing MLR force development team within DC CD&I;” why did the leaders of the Corps make major divestments of weapon and equipment, stand down operational units, ask for funds for new types of weapons and equipment, and restructure three entire regiments before it had thoroughly evaluated the Force Design 2030 concept?  There is no obvious answer other than professional malpractice.

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Compass Points appreciates all the discussion about the current Commandant’s Planning Guidance and the discussion about the future of the Marine Corps.

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Compass Points – New CMC CPG

Wading into the Guidance

September 10, 2024

https://marinecorpscompasspoints.substack.com/p/compass-points-new-cmc-cpg