Compass Points - Seize the SLOCs!

Build the global 21st Century MAGTF

Compass Points - Seize the SLOCs!

Build the global 21st Century MAGTF

May 27, 2025

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There is good news and not so good news. The good news involves a recent North Korean ship launching ceremony. The not so good news involves the Marine Corps' 21st Century MAGTF (Marine Air Ground Task Force).

First the good news. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was standing at the VIP grandstand watching the launch of his new 5,000 ton warship when the ship unexpectedly keeled over and sank. Bad day for North Korea is a good day for the US.

In addition to North Korea, the US has other global adversaries including Iran and Iranian proxies, Russia, and particularly China.

Over the next weeks and months, what military challenges will the US face around the globe? No one can say for sure. All that can be predicted is the US will face military challenges.

Most likely some or all of the next military challenges will directly or indirectly involve the world's SLOCs - Sea Lines of Communications.

The importance of SLOCs have been understood long before 1890 when Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote his famous book on naval strategy: The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783.

From Mahan to USINDOPACOM today, the focus is still on the SLOCs.

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In the event of armed conflict and in collaboration with allies and partners (A&P), U.S. forces are willing and able to safeguard navigational freedoms and protect global sea lines of communication (SLOCs) and chokepoints.

• SLOCs are the principal maritime routes between ports used for trade, military, or other purposes. Chokepoints are constricted passageways (e.g., straits) that separate oceans and seas; they are relatively narrow, heavily trafficked, and sometimes in regions vulnerable to instability.

• The naval concept applicable to protecting/securing SLOCs and chokepoints is known as sea control. When necessary during armed conflict, lawful sea control may deny or limit an adversary’s ability to threaten SLOCs and chokepoints or use them for war-supporting shipping.

-- USINDOPACOM

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Across hundreds of years, the importance of SLOCs has never declined What does it take to protect the SLOCs today and to exercise SLOC sea control? It takes maritime power.

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The U.S. National Military Strategy (NMS) of promoting stability and thwarting aggression via power projection is inextricably linked to SLOC passage. The three essential components of the NMS are peacetime engagement, deterrence and conflict prevention, and fighting and winning the nation's wars. Key to this strategy is the forward deployment of forces, especially for crisis response.

-- LtCol Reynolds B. Peele, USMC

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A dozen years ago, as Marine Corps presence in the Middle East was winding down, many combat development Marines at Quantico began to envision an upgraded Marine Corps re-oriented to global great power competition once again. The solution? The 21st Century MAGTF. The idea was to enhance the MAGTF with new technologies including missiles, drones, sensors, communications, and more. Increase the number of MAGTF always forward deployed on the world's oceans, and make the Marine Corps once again the nation' always ready and always reliable global, combined arms, crisis response force.

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Conclusion

To fight and win the Nation’s battles in the future, we must innovate to meet the challenges of adaptive and innovative adversaries. To achieve this, we will leverage and exploit any and all military research labs, individual Marines, and commercial outlets. Ultimately our ability to successfully execute as a 21st century MAGTF greatly depends on the extent to which we accomplish the above points and:

• Integrate as a full partner with the Navy, special operations forces, and the joint force because Marines both contribute to and benefit from unique and complementary capabilities across the range of military operations and across all five domains.

• Master the implementation of 21st century combined arms as our means to conduct maneuver warfare across all domains because we will exploit every opportunity to gain an advantage.

• Design and protect our command and control and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance networks as a multi-source information-sharing architecture that reliably serves disparate MAGTF elements because distributing actionable information keeps operations in chaotic environments rom becoming chaotic operations.

• Configure the MAGTF to fight and win when it fluidly distributes and concentrates elements because maneuver warfare and combined arms create combat power at any scale.

• Enable small units to achieve greater effects because they can leverage the full combat power of the MAGTF and naval/joint forces.

• Overcome the enduring obstacles to leveraging and sustaining commercial off-the-shelf systems because affordable “70 percent” solutions now are better than outdated solutions 10 years from now.

The 21st century MAGTF is within our reach. Even as the Marine Corps defends the Nation abroad, the institution is driven to rapidly innovate to meet the challenges of the emerging operating environment. This comprehensive program, properly resourced and focused, underwrites the MAGTF’s contribution to the joint force and the Marine Corps’ role as our Nation’s expeditionary force in readiness.

-- The 21st Century MAGTF

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The 21st Century MAGTF would give the US a constant ability to rapidly arrive at a SLOC anywhere in the world to deter, assist, or fight. Unfortunately, the idea of creating the upgraded and enhanced, global 21st Century MAGTF was abandoned before it began. Instead, Marine leaders choose a defensive, regional, experiment where Marine missile units would be placed on islands off the coast of China. Instead of upgrading the combined arms units, equipment, and capabilities needed by the 21st Century MAGTF, combined arms units, equipment,and capabilities were destroyed or degraded.

Now after nearly a half dozen years of effort, the Marine Corps does not have the 21st Century MAGTF and it does not have even a single operational missile unit off the coast of China. While the Marine Corps is sometimes still called America's 9-1-1 crisis response force, the reality is something much less. To keep constant focus on the SLOCs of the world, the Nation needs several Marine MAGTFs constantly forward deployed on the oceans of the world. Too often today, however, the Marine Corps does not have even one. It is time for the Marine Corps to turn its focus away from the unfortunate detour to missile units off the coast of China, and back to focusing on the 21st Century MAGTF and worldwide crisis response.

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USINDOPACOM

TOPIC: LAWFUL SEA CONTROL TO PROTECT SEA LINES OF COMMUNICATION AND CHOKEPOINTS

https://www.pacom.mil/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=ArRfVhzA3CE%3D&portalid=55

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MARITIME CHOKEPOINTS:

KEY SEA LINES OF COMMUNICATION (SLOCs) AND STRATEGY

By LtCol Reynolds B. Peele, USMC

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE, CARLISLE BARRACKS, PA

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MCA Marine Corps Gazette • February 2018

The 21st Century MAGTF

https://www.mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/15-21st-Century-MAGTF.pdf