Compass Points - CRS Report on the LSM
9 Short Answers to 9 Crucial Issues
December 28, 2024
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It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
-- Theodore Roosevelt
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Ronald O'Rourke, a CRS Specialist in Naval Affairs, has produced many quality reports for the Congressional Research Service, his latest covers the Medium Landing Ship (LSM). The report is packed with information on the Marine Corps and the LSM. The author, however, could not have predicted that just as his report was published, a late breaking development has changed the entire issue of funding the LSM.
Before getting to the latest LSM funding development, it is worth looking at the inception of the LSM. No one should be allowed to pick up a wrench to start building the LSM, without first examining more fundamental questions. The first question is 'why?' Is there any good reason to build any LSMs? The LSMs have been proposed as a crucial part of the Marine Corps' controversial plan to place Marine missile units on islands in the Pacific. Before any answer can be given about constructing the LSM, questions need to be asked about Force Design itself and about its related operational concept, EABO - Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations.
In his LSM report, Ronald O'Rourke lists 9 issues for Congress related to the LSM, Force Design, and EABO. In addition, O'Rourke provides a substantial index of published articles that explore the LSM, Force Design, and EABO. The answers to the issues he raises are contained in the articles O'Rourke lists and others.
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9 Short Answers to 9 Crucial Issues
About the LSM, Force Design, and EABO
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Force Design and EABO Operational Concept
Another potential oversight issue for Congress concerns the merits of Force Design and the EABO operational concept that the LSM is intended to help implement. Debate on the merits of Force Design and the EABO concept has been vigorous and concerns issues such as:
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CRS Issue #1
• whether Force Design and the EABO concept are focused too exclusively on potential conflict scenarios with China at the expense of other kinds of potential Marine Corps missions;
Short Answer:
Yes, over the last four years, the Marine Corps has become too focused on a plan to place small Marine missile units on Pacific islands, instead of staying focused on global crisis response.
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Article Excerpt:
Despite much impressive rhetoric about China’s global ambitions, most U.S. actions still tend to focus on territorial China, as though it were merely a defensive, regional power. Nowhere is this more evident than in the much-ballyhooed Marine Corps modernization — essentially a divestment of global force-in-readiness capabilities to fund a stationary and relatively insignificant anti-ship missile force positioned in China’s front yard.
The Marine Corps’ short-sighted divestment of its general-purpose forces has been compounded by the Navy’s tepid commitment to amphibious shipping, including sufficient maritime prepositioning ships. A “strategic pause” in shipbuilding is not likely to create enhanced deterrence. Equally concerning is the Marine Corps’ shift in emphasis from requiring amphibious ships capable of operating in all climes and places to regional “shuttlers” that are slow, defenseless and, by Marine senior leaders’ own admissions, must run and hide when the shooting starts. Their mission is simply not survivable in an age of persistent geospatial surveillance.
-- By Paul McHale and Charles Krulak. "We cannot counter China’s ambitions without a global strategy" - The Hill
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CRS Issue #2
• the ability of Marine forces to gain access to the islands from which they would operate;
Short Answer:
Particularly in the Pacific, even nations friendly to the US would be extremely reluctant to have US Marine missile units deployed on their territory. If they allowed it, China would ratchet-up the pressure until the host nations told the Marine missile units to depart. The proof is not a single Pacific nation has allowed the US Marines to deploy operational missile units on foreign territory.
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Article Excerpt:
[China recently warned the Philippines against using any US missile system.]
“I want to reiterate that the introduction by the Philippines of such a mid-range missile system, which is both strategic and offensive, is a provocative and dangerous move in coordination with external forces to create regional tensions, incites geopolitical confrontation, and provokes an arms race,” Mao was quoted in the Global Times as saying.
-- By John Eric Mendoza, “PH has right to allow US missile system despite China’s opposition – DND" -- Inquirer
https://www.inquirer.net/423906/ph-has-right-to-allow-us-missiles-after-chinas-opposition-teodoro/
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CRS Issue #3
• the ability to resupply Marine forces that are operating on the islands;
Short Answer:
Even after 4 years there is no demonstrated method to transport, supply, reinforce, and evacuate Marine missile units distributed along islands in the Pacific.
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Article Excerpt:
In another scenario, an MLR moved onto the Philippine islands north of Luzon. There, it could attack Chinese forces that moved south of Taiwan, but again resupply was impossible, limiting its value.302
-- By Mark Cancian, et al., "First Battle, Next War - Wargaming Chinese Invasion of Taiwan" -- CSIS
https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan
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CRS Issue #4
• the survivability of Marine forces on the islands and in surrounding waters;
Short Answer:
Marines isolated on remote islands in the Pacific cannot be supported and are at risk of being either targeted and destroyed or overrun and forced to surrender like the garrison on Wake Island at the start of World War II.
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Article Excerpt:
We know from experience that lightly armed, isolated units inside “contested” areas can be easily overwhelmed by superior forces. One needs to look no further that the Marine Defense Battalions formed prior to World War II. These battalions were manned and equipped with the best trained and most modern equipment then available. Not long after the Japanese attacked Peal Harbor, the garrison at Wake Island was overwhelmed and the battalion on Midway would have suffered the same end had the U.S. Navy not defeated the Japanese aircraft carriers in the waters offshore during the epic Battle of Midway. The same fate awaits the SIFs if isolated inside the contested areas. They cannot hide. They will be found, and if judged a threat, destroyed.
By Anthony Zinni & Jerry McAbee, "Marine Corps Stand-In Forces: A House of Cards" -- Real Clear Defense
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CRS Issue #5
• how much of a contribution the envisioned operations by Marine forces would make in contributing to overall U.S. sea-denial operations; and
Short Answer:
A comprehensive set of war games run by CSIS found the Marine missile units made little or no contribution to sea-denial or the defense of Taiwan.
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Article Excerpt:
The cornerstone of the new capabilities is ground launched anti-ship missiles. This new Marine missile force comes at the loss of substantial Marine Corps combined arms capabilities needed to fight and win against global threats other than the PLAN. The loss of tanks, assault breaching equipment, and every type of bridge in the inventory along with significant reductions in infantry, cannon artillery, and fixed, rotary, and tilt-rotor aircraft were not balanced against any new systems replacing them. For some items like tanks and bridging, there was no plan to provide Marines with alternative capabilities. As a result, the Marine Corps is acquiring too many and the wrong types of missiles and associated systems at the expense of other necessary weapons, especially those necessary to support the requirements of combatant commanders outside the Indo-Pacific region or perform a different type of mission.
By James Conway & Jerry McAbee, "Duplication and Obsolescence: The Marine Corps’ Missile Dilemma" -- Real Clear Defense
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CRS Issue #6
• potential alternative ways of using the funding and personnel that would be needed to implement EABO.46
Short Answer:
Marine missile units, funding, and personnel should be used instead to help restore, enhance, and expand the global, always ready, combined arms, Marine 9-1-1 force.
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Article Excerpt:
The Marines went too far in their shift from counterterrorism to great power competition with China. By divesting too much of their proven combat capabilities to invest in small, dispersed units (termed Stand-in Forces or SIFs), they lost the capability to remain relevant in other regions where U.S. interests are threatened and conflicts are more likely to occur.
-- By Walter Boomer, James Conway, & Anthony Zinni, "To Remain Relevant the Marines Must Adapt to a Changing World" -- Real Clear Defense
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Potential oversight questions for Congress include the following:
CRS Issue #7
• What are the potential benefits, costs, and risks of the EABO concept?
Short Answer:
Benefits of EABO are minimal, while costs and risks are exorbitant.
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Article Excerpt:
Major changes have occurred in the security and operational environments that were not foreseen in 2019. DOD and all the Services must reevaluate previous transformation decisions and strive to create a balanced joint force that can meet global, not just regional challenges. Thus far, the changes made to support EABO and Force Design have resulted in a Marine Corps that is less ready and less capable of confronting global threats. The loss of conventional combined arms capabilities at the Marine Expeditionary Brigade and Expeditionary Force levels are serious and will require time and money to redress.
-- By Walter Boomer, James Conway, & Anthony Zinni, "To Remain Relevant the Marines Must Adapt to a Changing World" -- Real Clear Defense
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CRS Issue #8
• What work have the Navy and Marine Corps done in terms of analyses and war games to develop and test the concept?
Short Answer:
The best and most recent wargames have been run by CSIS which concluded there would be little or no significant contribution from the Marine missile units.
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Article Excerpt:
. . . Although these units [MLRs and MDTFs] could contribute to the fight, neither played heavily in most scenarios. The problems of operating inside the Chinese defensive zone were insurmountable. In several games, the U.S. player tried to move an MLR onto Taiwan by air or sea, but in all cases the unit and transportation assets were destroyed while trying to transit the extensive Chinese defensive zones.301 In most scenarios, political assumptions prevented any U.S. forces from being pre-positioned on Taiwanese or Philippine territory before the conflict begins.
-- By Mark Cancian, et al., "First Battle, Next War - Wargaming Chinese Invasion of Taiwan" -- CSIS
https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan
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CRS Issue #9
• Would EABO be more cost effective to implement than other potential uses of the funding and personnel?
Short Answer:
Because EABO is not logistically supportable, using funding and personnel to restore, enhance, and expand the Marine global MAGTF would provide greater value.
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Article Excerpt:
“. . .ultimately did more harm than good.”
The Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations.
Former Marine Commandant General David Berger laid out a bold vision for reform in Force Design 2030, resulting in the divestment of legacy systems including armor, artillery, and infantry.52 Force Design 2030 aims to reorient the Corps toward supporting a campaign of naval maneuver, projecting power from the littorals by denying maneuver to an adversary while creating options for friendly naval maneuver.53 Fundamental to this effort are two related concepts. First, expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO) establish littoral bases that provide fires, sensing, or logistical support to the maritime component.54 Second, the stand-in force is envisioned as a low-signature littoral force that can survive, maneuver, and generate effects within an adversary’s weapons engagement zone.55
To sustain a network of dispersed operations in a littoral environment against a lethal adversary, the Marines have updated their logistics doctrine.56 The Corps clearly recognizes the need to be lighter and more mobile and able to operate coherently despite strict signature management.57 These updates bring more questions than answers, however, and not all the answers may be favorable to EABO. Three major flaws in logistics still plague the Marines’ new concepts.
. . . As it is, the sustainability of the concept is in question despite the Marines planning for a mere three Marine littoral regiments—begging a question of utility.65 If unresolved, these problems could echo the situation of the Japanese on Guadalcanal in 1942. The isolated Japanese lodgment was intended to improve Japan’s operational air and naval reach, yet it proved so costly for the Imperial Japanese Navy to support that it ultimately did more harm than good.66
-- By LtCol Zachary S. Hughes, "Giving Our “Paper Tiger” Real Teeth," JFQ 115, 4th Quarter 2024
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-- CRS LSM Issues for Congress p.16
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There is a new development with the LSM program. USNI News is reporting that the experimental Landing Ship Medium (LSM) has had its RFP pulled. This means the LSM will not move forward now or possibly ever. The LSM was to be a key part of the controversial plan to place SIF missile units on islands near China.
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The development of a new landing ship, key to the Marines Corps’ island-hopping strategy in the Western Pacific, is on hold due to Navy concerns over cost, USNI News has learned.
After receiving bids from industry, the Navy canceled the request for proposals for the Landing Ship Medium, a beachable platform crucial to how the Marine Corps envisions itself operating in a conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific under its Force Design plans.
“We had a bulletproof – or what we thought – cost estimate, pretty well wrung out design in terms of requirements, independent cost estimates,” Assistant Secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition Nickolas Guertin said at an American Society of Naval Engineers symposium last week.
“We put it out for bid and it came back with a much higher price tag,” he added. “We simply weren’t able to pull it off. So we had to pull that solicitation back and drop back and punt.”
A Marine Corps spokesman acknowledged the difficulty in developing an affordable platform that can effectively shuttle Marines around islands and shorelines.
-- USNI News
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The news that the Navy has pulled the LSM RFP may spell the end of the Medium Landing Ship and is also, at a minimum, a tremendous setback for the Marine Corps' long stalled and controversial program to place small missile units on islands in the Pacific. If the value of building the LSM was clear, it would be built. But the value of the current LSM is not clear. This is a negative vote for the entire island concept. Policy makers are becoming more convinced that the Marine missile concept is duplicative of missile capabilities the Navy, Air Force, and Army have already deployed. The Navy may be trying to get out ahead of DOGE by cutting the LSM now. There are still too many questions about the Marine Corps' entire plan for island-based missile units.
Compass Points salutes Ronald O'Rourke for his expert CRS report on the LSM. Now that the RFP for the LSM has been pulled, it is back to the drawing board for the LSM and the first question that should be written on the drawing board is 'why?' Instead of continuing the Marine Corps' misguided focus on the LSM and Marine missile units in the Pacific, it is time for the Marine Corps to return its focus to worldwide, combined arms, crisis response.
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CRS - 12/19/2024
Navy Medium Landing Ship (LSM) (Previously
Light Amphibious Warship [LAW]) Program:
Background and Issues for Congress
By Ronald O'Rourke, Specialist in Naval Affairs
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46374
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USNI News - 12/17/2024
Landing Ship Medium Program Stalled Over Price, Navy Cancels Industry RFP
By Mallory Shelbourne
Checkmate. End the charade. Shut it down. Hold the guilty accountable. Special panel to conduct an investigation of active and retired flag officers for violations of the law.
Reconstitute the force as fast as possible as designed by a Blue Ribbon Group which must be presented by June, 2025. Group must be retired Marine Flag Officers with staff support.
Recall two retired Marine Flag Officers to an active duty stint of two years as CMC and ACMC. Reconstitute three modernized Active Duty MEFs by December 2026. Time is running out. What was broken over five years must be fixed in two.
The paper tiger, all but a few saw has been exposed in real “peacetime”terms-funding. How long will it take to reconstitute the force? The hunter’s saying, “looking ain’t seeing” is ever so true.