Our nation has never had a security strategy more dependent on maritime power than in the recently articulated Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense and in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s amplifying November 2011 Foreign Policy article, “America’s Pacific Century,” describing our pivot to the Pacific. Our focus on the Pacific and Middle East, and the geography of each, makes naval forces central to national priorities. Unencumbered trade routes are essential to global commerce and thus are critical to our economy and our security. The Navy–Marine Corps team walks that global beat. It’s a great time to be a sailor or Marine.
But with this centrality comes significant responsibility. The naval services must continually evolve to counter the panoply of new challenges stemming from a combination of new technologies, a global marketplace of goods and ideas, and changing geopolitical realities. Enlightened self-improvement (bildung) is critical to ensure we continue to innovate and to turn those new challenges into new opportunities. The Navy must adjust its fleet architecture and the Marine Corps must develop new concepts, capabilities, and organizational constructs.
Tomorrow’s Agincourts
The future is uncertain, the littorals are densely populated with the discontented, potential adversaries abound, our economic asymmetrical advantage is shrinking, and our reliance on the proper functioning of the global economy increases with each tick of the debt clock. So what are we to do?
Tough challenges and wicked problems are why the United States has a Navy and Marine Corps. The Navy–Marine Corps team is thus poised for a potentially historic inflection point as new threats and new opportunities arise—if we are willing to change. Will we look clear-eyed at future threats and propose specific solutions as Admiral William Sims and Lieutenant Colonel Pete Ellis did for their generations, thereby seizing fleeting opportunity, or will we fall prey to the trivialities of adjective-laden ConceptSpeak and comfort ourselves in the conceit that our technical and operational ascendancy will remain unassailable?
Just as surely as a hail of arrows overwhelmed the armored knight at Agincourt in 1415, so will the precision-indirect fires of the future hybrid enemy compromise the protective shell of the up-armored Marine. Before we experience our Agincourt, we must think hard about future threats and recognize the tremendous opportunity emerging technologies offer for “amphibious maneuver warfare 2.0.”
Unlike recent generations, sailors and Marines of the next generation will again look to the sky and see danger. In sparest terms, the future adversary will be able to see us from afar, strike us from afar, and need not assume tactical dispositions other than those necessary to unleash the arrow. Avoiding detection will thus take on a new urgency, and operational and tactical maneuver will be essential. It will be a battle of signatures.
What if the French men-at-arms at Agincourt had lightened their load, peeled off in small contingents, entered the flanking wood line and attacked the archers from the rear? What would the Bard then have Henry say? Armor is no more the answer today than it was at Agincourt, yet our most recent acquisition actions indicate an increasing spiral of protection and logistically intensive heavy mechanization ashore and ever larger and more complex ships afloat. Ironically, many veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who appreciate firsthand the benefits of armored mobility in that specific environment, also recognize the future will be different and that ever larger and heavier vehicles are not the answer. It seems our requirements and procurement processes remain stuck fighting the last war.
Small Can Kill Big
The geometry of warfare is changing, and the Navy–Marine Corps team must respond with new organizational designs, new concepts of operation, and new capabilities. Before the advent of the precision-strike revolution, there was a largely symmetrical relationship between the size of opposing forces and systems. It took a large unit or a large weapon platform to successfully engage and defeat its equivalent. Now, however, precision allows small units and vessels to kill big units and vessels. Increasing precision, power, and proliferation of weapons make this asymmetry a critical driver in future warfare.
Highly capable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities are important enablers for long-range precision weapons. Importantly, advanced ISR is no longer the ascendant perch of the United States and its closest allies. Highly evolved systems are now available for purchase on the open market, and state and non-state actors are buying them. As with all technological advancements, early generations of systems provide substantial capability improvements but with a level of complexity that demands significant investment in enabling capabilities. We are now entering generational advancement in ISR and precision-weapon systems that provides the same technical results of earlier systems, but with much reduced dependence on enabling capabilities. This lower threshold for achieving competent employment, coupled with proliferation, is a boon for future hybrid adversaries. Recognizing our adversaries will have more ways to detect and engage us from greater range should inform how we design and then employ our future force.
Enemies will use their improving ISR assets to attack us from a distance with a growing inventory of precision-indirect fire capabilities from short-range mortars to long-range cruise and ballistic missiles. It will thus make sense to avoid being seen, not only to preserve tactical surprise, but also to avoid offering a targeting solution to the opposition. Physical, electronic, and multi-spectral signature control will be increasingly important. Historically, de-massing has been the prescription to reduce the consequences of indirect fires (casualty limitation), but in the future, avoiding detection also will be an important reason for reducing unit size and increasing dispersion (physical-signature reduction). Against certain adversaries, unit size may need to be reduced to team level or perhaps in the most challenging scenarios, limited initially to unmanned systems or sensors.
Ground maneuver will change in important ways as well. Typically, at lower tactical levels, ground forces maneuver to concentrate, cross the line of departure, and then conduct a frontal, flank, or envelopment attack against an enemy position. Maneuver is designed to bring the small arms of the infantry force to bear on the enemy. This form of maneuver is certainly not going away, but will likely lose its prominence with hybrid adversaries. Increasingly in the future, ground forces will maneuver to optimally engage with precision-indirect fire weapons, rather than maneuver to mass for direct assault (See Figure 1). This form of maneuver requires us to think differently about the lay of the land: What in this case constitutes prominent terrain? A hilltop or even reverse slope might be the last place a defending unit might want to locate. Critically, the attacker need not mass to conduct this form of attack. Small units need only locate in a position best suited for employment of their precision-indirect fire weapons. The intervening micro-terrain, historically so vital to endowing a defensive position with its advantage, evaporates since the attacker need never traverse it. Critically, for us, this form of maneuver does not require an opponent to ever mass—typically what we desire to allow us to engage with our precision weaponry. This disaggregated enemy will challenge our ISR and engagement capabilities.
Abilities Napoleon Would Have Envied
New threats and new forms of maneuver will significantly impact our force-design and force-sizing decisions. The fundamental calculations for force sizing have a long history that is still relevant today. Napoleon sized his divisions and corps to facilitate movement and logistics. He performed a mission analysis to ensure his formations were adequately sized and equipped to avoid defeat in detail; thus a division or corps could withstand an unexpected assault until an adjacent division or corps could respond to assist. This same logic will apply to how we size and distribute our forces in the future. Unlike in Napoleon’s day, however, we have the ability to increase the relevant combat power of a unit with nonorganic capabilities and thus partially mitigate the tyranny of distance.
For example, we can reinforce a threatened ground force with air, naval, or space forces to allow adjacent units time to maneuver for better mutual support. It is as if Napoleon’s key lieutenant, Murat, could employ substantial elements of Davout’s forces without the normal limitations of time and distance. How would the Battle of Borodino be played out in 2030? This ability to field nonorganic capabilities increases the power density of a unit in much the same way increased power density of a reactor bestows great advantage to a nuclear submarine. It allows a smaller unit to perform the mission of a larger unit with a vital reduction in relative logistics demand (See Figure 2). This is critical because distributed operations will challenge traditional forms of logistical sustainment. Potentially, smaller units with proportionately smaller logistical demand will help offset the greater distances involved in resupplying widely distributed forces.
The increasingly distributed nature of the battlespace will also make it essential for our future forces to be efficiently mobile, thus giving them the ability to maneuver against the adversary in any domain with maximum efficiency. Increased power density of relevant combat power and efficient mobility will allow smaller forces to be more agile without creating unsustainable logistics demand. For example, boats are very efficient in the water, aircraft are very efficient at moving distances, and small, personal, or team-size all-terrain vehicles are very efficient at moving small units cross-country. Ultimately, the next great revolution in efficient mobility will occur when exoskeletons will allow the straight-leg infantryman to be the most efficient means of movement—just as he was at the beginning of armed combat. The more we focus on increasing unit-power density and maximizing efficient mobility, the greater our chances will be of maintaining our conventional force superiority.
‘The Enemy Gets a Vote’
Of course, there are no free lunches in the real world. As muddy roads or muddled commands encumbered the movement of 18th-century corps, broken communication links and cyber attacks can expose units dependent on non-organic sensors and fires to danger. We must always recognize that the enemy gets a vote and carefully determine the size of areas of responsibility, level of dispersion, and the ratio of organic to nonorganic fires capabilities needed to avoid defeat in detail.
If we choose wisely, technology offers important ways to mitigate these concerns. Just like increased power density discussed previously, increased computing density is allowing the decentralization of precision weapons. Squads will be able to employ sensors and weapons that only force commanders can employ today. Weapons are becoming increasingly autonomous and less reliant on a battle-management network. The U.S. Air Force has turned the destruction of integrated air defenses into an art form, and for this reason future adversaries are less likely to rely on a centralized command-and-control system. Latest-generation shoulder-fired antiaircraft weapons in the hands of a hybrid adversary will be wickedly resistant to systemic destruction.
We have invested heavily in our aviation assault support and must take full advantage of it to be able to strike from ranges that allow for the survival of our amphibious shipping. The increasing man-portable air defense (MANPAD) threat is a substantial concern to vertical envelopment forces, but new concepts of operations and new capabilities may actually reduce the threat below that of traditional ship-to-objective maneuver (STOM) concepts. STOM vertical envelopment was potentially risky because it called for deep penetration of the vertical-assault force, thereby changing the mission profile for the assault-support aircraft. It called for the majority of the mission profile of our assault waves to be over enemy territory. This approach becomes exceedingly parlous when MANPADs are abundant. Initial joint-force shaping is certainly one important element that can allow for this type of maneuver, but adopting an infiltration approach to vertical assault offers important advantages over typical STOM assaults.
In this new approach, single sorties will emplace teams or sensors to detect and thwart MANPADS (See Figure 3). They will find, flush, and fix as necessary to grind down enemy systems that pose a threat to assault aviation. Waves of rotorcraft in the assault will be replaced by individual sorties, and routes will be not be repeated. A distributed operations force is well suited to selectively and discretely build combat power to address air defense threats while maintaining a reduced signature and minimizing aircraft exposure in the early stages of an assault.
ACEing A2/AD
Gaining access through amphibious assault remains a vital capability for a maritime nation with global trading interests. For this very reason, anti-access and area-denial capabilities (A2/AD) are being designed and fielded to thwart our ability to assure this access.
Fortunately, a naval force has the tremendous advantage of littoral maneuver, which allows it to control the timing and tempo of the engagement. A joint naval force that contains low-signature, long-range, precision-strike capability can engage at ranges beyond the reach of an adversary. Shaping can thus begin from a position of advantage. A naval force also possesses the critical attribute of efficient mobility, allowing it to engage effectively while retaining survivability and sustainability.
Despite these advantages in the shaping phase, emerging A2/AD systems will provide increasing challenges to the projection of ground forces ashore. These new threats require a rephasing of the assault and maximum use of all means of efficient mobility to attack rapidly from greater distances.
Rephasing—don’t lead with the surface assault. Joint shaping will likely be the first essential step, but once the decision to project ground forces ashore is made, there is no need for the assault to land surface craft first. This becomes rather intuitive if one considers projecting maximum relevant combat power, in whatever form, as the objective of the initial assault. A thorough mission analysis will guide the commander in choosing what’s relevant.
This construct offers tremendous flexibility to the commander for development of concepts of operation and fully leverages all elements of the joint force at the right time and place. Much of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force’s combat power resides in the air combat element (ACE), and it is very likely that the ACE will provide the most relevant initial increment of combat power. If we are confronted with an A2/AD defense, we can project necessary combat power ashore initially with the ACE and with unmanned systems. We need only put in sufficient ground combat forces to find, fix, and flush enemy forces. Rather than leading with the blunt-force blow of a sledgehammer, we will attack with the fine edge of a dagger, introducing unmanned systems, special-operations forces, reconnaissance forces, and light infantry forces in a progressive scaling of capability to ensure maximum effect with reduced signature and minimum logistics costs (See Figure 4).
The tip of this dagger should be unmanned systems. The Marine Corps was the first service to aggressively field tactical unmanned aerial vehicles. We must continue this leadership through exploration of unmanned solutions for gaining initial access and for sustained operations ashore. Because the Corps’ unique contribution to the joint force is amphibious assault, its focus should be on unmanned surface craft, breachers, and other specialized capabilities for amphibious operations while cooperating with the U.S. Army to explore unmanned systems for sustained operations ashore. For decades, the Corps has developed concepts to avoid a repeat of the Battle of Tarawa. Taking the infantryman out of the initial surface landing of an amphibious assault will convince even the most casual observer of the changed nature of forcible-entry operations.
Facing Challenges with Flexibility
The Navy–Marine Corps team must follow its planning imperative to focus on the enemy and avoid focusing internally on its latest acquisition desires. Given the changing geometry of battle, we must explore the formulae required for success, and unlike squaring the circle, it is readily achievable if we are able to innovate and update our fleet architecture, organizational design, and concepts of operation.
As the nation’s rapid-response force, we have little if any room for adaptation once a crisis occurs. Going first has its drawbacks, and since we can’t know the future, we must maintain a flexible force that can be quickly tailored for a specific challenge and just as easily reconfigured should an adaptive adversary so dictate.
The Navy–Marine Corps team must organize and train as it fights. Purely ad hoc task organizations reduce responsiveness, unit cohesion, and limit training opportunities. Naval forces must regularly train together at the brigade/ESG level. For example, the Marine Corps’ combined-arms exercises at Twentynine Palms, California, should become a naval combined-arms exercise.
A standing naval headquarters that combines the functions of the former brigade and amphibious group headquarters would ensure that sailors and Marines work together on a daily basis. If it were the higher headquarters for forward-deployed expeditionary forces, it could facilitate rapid crisis response by scaling up forward-deployed forces with U.S.-based response forces also under its supervision. The new standing naval headquarters should also develop a close mission-oriented relationship with the Special Operations Command to include regular training during workup and deployment. Finally, naval experimentation will be essential to develop specialized unmanned amphibious systems. Taken together, these organizational and technical naval initiatives will breathe life into our Single Naval Battle philosophy.
The magnitude of the present budget constraints, coupled with a substantial and lethal range of threats, offers a historic opportunity for a renaissance in amphibious warfare built on promising new technologies, new organizational designs that recognize the imperatives of unit cohesion and coherence, and new concepts of operations that use the complete toolbox of the joint forces. It’s a tremendous confluence of challenges that should be a powerful catalyst for innovation. Innovation or obsolescence—the choice is ours. We should . . . attack!!