Compass Points - Get Focused
Making Sense of Marine Capabilities
Compass Points - Get Focused
Making Sense of Marine Capabilities
May 3, 2024
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Where is the focus of the Marine Corps today? To focus means to place attention and priority in one area, and less attention and priority in other areas. Where is the focus of the Marine Corps today? Is the focus on "sensing and making sense" or is it on combined arms, amphibious operations?
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The USNI News is reporting on a Marine Corps training accident involving Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and sailors assigned to the Wasp Amphibious Ready Group.
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An “incident” off Florida on Wednesday evening involving two Navy air-cushioned landing craft, or LCACs, left 30 sailors and Marines with injuries, including five treated at a Georgia hospital, the Navy announced late Thursday.
The service began its investigation into the mishap, which happened off the coast of Jacksonville, Fla., during a pre-deployment training exercise with amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD-1) and amphibious transport dock ship USS New York (LPD-21), U.S. 2nd Fleet officials said in a statement posted online.
-- USNI News
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The cause of the accident is not yet known. What is known is that combined arms, amphibious operations require constant practice and constant focus.
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While the Marines from the 24th MEU were training, two Marine General Officers speaking at the Modern Day Marine Expo 2024 explained that there is a new focus in the Marine Corps and "blowing stuff up" is now considered out of fashion.
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That new Marine focus, sensing threats and passing data, has been part of how force design has evolved, Heckl said. “As we went on this force design journey, we started out we initially thought of blowing stuff up, very kinetically oriented, now we realize through the stand in force it’s really the capability of sensing and making sense,” Heckl said.
-- Marine Times
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Back before the difficult combat in Ukraine and Gaza, many experts agreed with the Marine Generals that future wars would be more about sensing data than about ground combat. Back in 2021 a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Meia Nouwens, an expert on the use of data for military advantage, was asked to predict what a conflict in Ukraine look like in the unlikely event that Russia invaded Ukraine.
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But what if the current tensions between the West and Russia over Ukraine . . . broke out into hostilities? What would that look like? "I think this would play out in a very fast-paced environment that's heavily reliant on the information domain," says Meia Nouwens, a senior research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) . . . .
--BBC
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Tell that to the Ukraine warriors struggling in a very difficult fight. They have discovered that there is more to modern warfare than info ops, there is grinding ground combat that recalls World Wars I and II.
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Ukraine is fighting in conditions very different from what the US and its NATO allies have fought through in recent decades. And while there is renewed interest in readying for a near-peer or even peer-level fight against an adversary like China or Russia, rebuilding the skills for great power conflict isn't something that happens overnight.
Lessons from the Cold War and World Wars have to be relearned, and some modern developments demand learning new ways of war from scratch. The war has often devolved into a grinding fight that features trench warfare and both sides relying on decades-old equipment. Many soldiers have described the war in Ukraine as resembling World War I and II more than any modern conflict, though there are also modern elements like drones and missiles.
-- Business Insider
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When the Marine Corps puts its focus on sitting on defense and "sensing and making sense" it means the focus has been taken away from combined arms, amphibious operations.
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It has been said that the Marine Corps modernization program, Force Design 2030, came from a desire to make sure the Marine Corps was ready to combat a peer competitor like China. Instead of a robust combined arms force, the Marine Corps would fragment itself into small, dispersed, missile units. Instead of focusing on actual combined arms, amphibious operations, the Marine Corps would focus more on "sensing and making sense." The years have gone by now. Modern conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza have shown modern warfare has not been transformed into solely a matter of gathering mountains of data and "sensing and making sense" but is still concerned with deterring, fighting, and blowing stuff up.
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The Marine Generals at the Modern Marine Expo 2024 went on to praise the great work Marines in Europe had performed previously using the G/ATOR radar system. The Marine Corps' G/ATOR ground radar system is a good system. It tracks information. It tracks incoming threats. The Navy, Army, and Air Force, however, have more and better radars. The Marines should be equipped with a good radar system, but Marines sitting and studying radar screens is not why the US nor the Combatant Commanders need Marines. Marines are needed not to sit and sense but to deter and fight through combined arms, amphibious operations.
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The Marine Corps will never be able to do as well those missions that the other services do better, but the other services will never be able to do as well what the Marine Corps does best.
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Sitting on defense and "sensing and making sense" will never substitute for a focus on amphibious operations that put Marines in position to "locate, close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or repel the enemy assault by fire and close combat."
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The US does not have the need nor the budget for a Marine Corps that focuses on "sensing and making sense." The Nation needs a Marine crisis response force available around the globe 24/7/365. That small global Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) onboard Navy amphibious ships arrives at the crisis quickly. A MEU arrives with the units, equipment, and capabilities to deter, assist, and fight. But even with the MEU offshore, a crisis may continue to grow. When that happens, then larger Marine Expeditionary Brigades and Marine Expeditionary Forces must be ready to quickly augment and reinforce the small MEU with Fly-in-Echelons and Maritime Prepositioning Ships. Combined arms, amphibious operations involve a much more difficult set of missions than just sitting on defense and sensing and making sense. If the Marine Corps is to set the standard for combined arms, amphibious operations, then that is where the Marine Corps must maintain its focus.
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Where is the focus of the Marine Corps today? The Marine Times article that quotes the Marine Generals at the Modern Marine Expo 2024 is headlined, “Marine Corps’ new Force Design approaches are paying off in operations” When the Marine Corps puts its focus on sitting on defense and "sensing and making sense" it means the focus has been taken away from combined arms, amphibious operations. But combined arms amphibious operations require constant practice and constant focus. Without the focus, without the practice and preparation on combined arms, amphibious operations, Marine units are not given the opportunity to grow proficient. Along with the entire Marine community, Compass Points sends out prayers to the Marines and sailors of the Wasp ARG/MEU and their families and friends.
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USNI News - 05/02/2024
30 Sailors, Marines Injured in LCAC ‘Incident’ During Wasp ARG, 24th MEU Training Off Florida
By Gidget Fuentes
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Marine Times - 05/02/2024
Marine Corps’ new Force Design approaches are paying off in operations
By Todd South
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Business Insider - 05/02/2024
The US spent so much time fighting insurgents that it forgot 'what it means to actually fight a war,' a US vet in Ukraine says
By Sinéad Baker
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-forgot-how-to-fight-real-war-veteran-in-ukraine-2024-5
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BBC - 12/29/2021
What does future warfare look like? It's here already
By Frank Gardner, BBC security correspondent
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-59755100
Every 10 November General Lejeune's message is read. For him and for so many that both preceded and followed him, every word of that message has meaning. In these times I find the fourth paragraph both relevant and concerning:
"This high name of distinction and soldierly repute we who are Marines today have received from those who preceded us in the corps. With it we have also received from them the eternal spirit which has animated our corps from generation to generation and has been the distinguishing mark of the Marines in every age. So long as that spirit continues to flourish Marines will be found equal to every emergency in the future as they have been in the past, and the men of our Nation will regard us as worthy successors to the long line of illustrious men who have served as "Soldiers of the Sea" since the founding of the Corps."
On the one hand some senior Generals are posing in public and before Congress as "worthy successors" even as they in private work to cancel (disinvite, censor, ignore, and slander) the very culture that gave rise to term "Marine" coming "to signify all that is highest in military efficiency and soldierly virtue."
In these times, we learn of Generals demeaning fighting as outdated and merely "blowing up stuff;" we read of abject leadership failure from top to bottom in the housing for Marines; we see Generals lobbying for a ship that is "designed to blend in with civilian ships" and "run and hide" when the shooting starts. The list is long and not worthy of the word Marine.
"Worthy successors" --- Not even close..
Most of us truly felt a deep obligation to give our all to earn those words. What has happened? What will it take to recover a true Marine ethos?
Since the founding of the Corps, Marines have always believed in the words of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest: “War means fighting and fighting means killing.” Now we are being told by a senior Marine general that “War means sensing and sensing means passing data.”
I’m not sure how this new message squares with the ACMC’s recent testimony before a SASC subcommittee that essentially said the Marines are ready to deploy anywhere, at any time, fight any foe, and win. Are the Marines going to defeat their foes with fire and maneuver or by sensing and passing data to the Army, Navy, or someone else to do the heavy lifting?
Words matter. Words are important. Headquarters Marine Corps needs to get the message right. Is Force Design intended to restructure and reorganize the Marine Corps into a more lethal, kinetic killing force or into a passive sensing and passing data force? Given the divestments in infantry, armor, cannon artillery, assault bridging and breaching, and aviation, one may conclude it’s the latter. This could also explain why the Marines are investing in subsonic missiles (as opposed to longer range hypersonic missiles) that will be largely ineffective against a peer competitor in the not too distant future, if not already.