This article, authored by two expert artillery officers, evaluates the impacts of the Expeditionary Advance Base Operations (EABO) and Stand-in Forces (SIF) concepts on combined arms. The authors expose the ugly truth that both concepts are almost exclusively based on integrated naval operations and fires, not on combined arms fires in the traditional sense. They correctly conclude that I and II MEF are essentially force providers to satisfy III MEF SIF requirements. Training for rotational forces will necessarily focus on naval integration, not combined arms.
This fact, coupled with the elimination of tanks and the drastic reductions in cannon artillery and aviation, will eventually destroy the combined arms expertise that has characterized Marine Corps operating forces since World War II. The end of the article brilliantly sum up the issue: “… the Marine Corps must recognize that EABO is a niche capability suited for a narrow range of flashpoints and applications.” To ensure the long term relevance of the Marine Corps as the premier force-in-readiness, “the total force must remain structured, equipped and trained with combined arms capabilities ready to be deployed under scalable MAGTFs . . .”
Marine Corps Gazette (mca-marines.org) October 2022
The Adverse Impact of Force Design 2030 and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations
by Col Michael P. Marletto (ret) & Col Stephen W. Baird (ret)
The Tentative Manual for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) is an operational concept that is incompatible with Marine Corps culture and tradition to answer our Nation’s call to serve in any clime and place. It compromises and seriously impairs Marine Corps capabilities to rapidly form, deploy, and fight scalable self-contained combined-arms teams across the spectrum of conflict . . . .
. . . The emerging EABO doctrine proposes a fundamentally different way of organizing and employing forces. This new approach calls into question if units organized, trained, and equipped for EABO are in fact capable of successfully answering the bell for worldwide contingencies in support of other combatant commanders.
Col Marletto is a career Artillery Officer. He has extensive artillery and operational level experience, including command of a direct support artillery battalion, command of 11th Marines during the attack to Baghdad, Assistant Chief of Staff G-3 Operations for I MEF (Forward) in Iraq, and Deputy Director of the MAGTF Staff Training Program.
Col Baird is a career Artillery Officer. He has extensive artillery and operational level experience including command of a direct supportartillery battalion, Assistant Chief of Staff G-5 Plans for I MEF, Chief of Staff 1st MarDiv, and Chief of Staff for U.S. Marine Corps Forces Central Command during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
https://mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Adverse-Impact-Marletto-and-Baird.pdf