By Robbin Laird

II Marine Expeditionary Force supports service and Combatant Commander’s initiative as required. At the same time, II MEF is in transition and must focus on preparing for future operations, and shape new ways to do so while being able to operate now. This is hardly an easy challenge, but one which II MEF must meet head on.

In my discussions with the CG of II MEF, Lt. General Beaudreault, he underscored that he had a first-rate team to help him meet this challenge. During my time at Camp Lejeune, I had a chance to meet a number of these leaders and certainly can reinforce what the CG told me.

At the command, the head of G-35, Future Operations is Colonel Ryan Hoyle. He noted in our discussion that for the command, a look ahead in an 18-to-24-month period is the focus of future operations. But as we discussed, the focus on change was coming through exercises but also working ways to rework the Marines ability to integrate with the Navy and with allies to shape evolving capabilities for the future fight.

His background is diverse, and very impressive. I mention this because if you want someone to work through how to work a way ahead with the force in being, it is clearly an advantage to have someone with wide-ranging experience with the current force, but also with enough experience in working with non-Marine joint and allied forces focused as well on change. Among other experiences, he has been aide to camp to the Deputy Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Amphibious Staff Officer and exercise planner at NATO’s Special Operations Headquarters. And he has a Masters of Science in Political Science from the Israeli National Defense College. There is probably no force in the world which has work joint integration in a more challenging political and military environment than the IDF.

He brings this experience to the current challenging task of transitioning and preparing for the future fight while reshaping the force in being.

How do you do this?

And how is II MEF approaching this challenge?

In the discussion, there are a number of takeaways which provide answers to these difficult questions.

Where appropriate, I will quote Col. Hoyle, but I am not holding him responsible for all my takeaways from the discussion.

The Israelis provide an interesting case because post-Abraham accords, they are focusing on their ability to have a strategic reach to be able to deal with threats on their periphery. It is no surprise than that the IDF is operating a core USMC capability, the F-35, and are adding the latest capability, namely, the CH-53K.  The IDF increasingly is focused on becoming more mobile and expeditionary which brings them closer to the USMC trajectory of change as well.

Col. Hoyle noted that they work within a 18 month and two and a half year planning cycle and work “to align resources to achieve the objectives that the CG or higher headquarters have given us. This is in terms of exercise preparation and providing forces of operations.” He reminded that as well as the Atlantic operations, II MEF provides forces deployed to Okinawa as well.

He has the naval integration portfolio in his shop as well which encompasses amphibious training and deck and well deck certification for those ships as well.

According to Col. Hoyle: “We coordinate the entire MEU program from the formation of the force to the integration with the Navy and their deployments with both NAVEUR and MARFOREUR in terms of their tasks in support of those commands.”

The refocus on Naval integration is a major challenge.

As I noted in an earlier piece, in effect, what is happening is co-evolution of the Navy and the USMC, which means that they are working for more integration, but there are centers of excellence each will have different from one another.

It is best conceived as a Venn diagram where one is shaping enhanced overlap but recognizes that each side of the Venn is different.

If one looks at the North Atlantic as a chessboard, how do the Navy, the Marine Corps (and the USAF) and allies work the pieces on the chessboard?

How do the Marines use their afloat resources differently with the fleet?

How does the fleet fight differently with those afloat assets integrated into the fight? How do mobile or expeditionary bases play into the effort?

What pieces are placed on the chessboard which the Marines can or might be able to provide?

How do the Marines work force integration with allies afloat or ashore to provide for more integrated warfighting solutions?

With the current amphibious fleet in the Atlantic region not likely to get new ships any time soon, how can the Marines work more effectively with allies afloat? Clearly, the current integration of Marines onboard HMS Queen Elizabeth is an example or operating Ospreys off of French amphibious ships.

A key challenge which is being worked but which is strategic in character is reshaping C2 to allow for force integration in a contested fight. Cleary, command guidance is required, and empowering tactical decision making at the edge.

As the Navy and the Marines work with allies newly highlighted areas of operation, such as the High North, the challenge will be to shape flexible or modular task forces which can demonstrate interactive interoperability to expand what Marines can contribute, rather than deploying them in isolated force fragments.

Col. Hoyle put the goal of the transformation effort in the following terms: “How do we provide operational flexibility to the fleet commander, to the combatant commander, to cause the decision calculus of the adversary to change?

“To do so, you need capabilities with which to project that force, whether it’s afloat capabilities or whether it’s basing rights somewhere and having the proper airframes in order to project that force.”

In short, the focus needs to be not simply on new ways to do naval integration.

The focus has to be on effective forces that an adversary sees as viable and capable of shaping a deterrent outcome.

As Col. Hoyle put it: “You have to have your high-end capabilities demonstrated to be effective in order to ensue deterrence, because if you are not demonstrating that you have the capabilities, then no—one is really deterred.”

Featured Photo: A United States Marine Corps V-22 Osprey assigned to the USS Iowa Jima lands at the Glasgow Prestwick Airport on May 17, 2021.

The aircraft is in Scotland as part of NATO exercise Formidable Shield.

Formidable Shield is a multinational exercise, taking place in the region of the North Atlantic Ocean around the United Kingdom and Norway.

U.S. Air National Guard photo by Senior Master Sgt. Vincent De Groot

By Robbin Laird

While reshaping how it will operate in the future, II MEF has to be ready to fight now. And to do so for 2^nd and 6^th Fleets as well as EUCOM. This means reshaping what it can do but to rework how it is integrated with the NAVY and the evolving joint force.

During my visit to II MEF at Camp Lejeune, I had a chance to discuss with the leadership at the MEF on the challenges of so doing and shaping a way ahead. I have also had the chance with my colleague Ed Timperlake in visiting Second Fleet, to discuss with C2F leadership the challenges of working a co-evolution with the USMC, and with the Nordics on what they view as the kind of force engagement by the Navy and Marines which dovetails most effectively into their own force transformation and reworking of European defense.  These are three trajectories in motion and the challenge is to work effectively ways to ensure convergence on effective approaches.

During my visit to Camp Lejeune, I had a chance to discuss the challenges of shaping the way ahead with Col. David S. Owen, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations (G-3) and LtCol Jon Erskine. For an enhanced focus on working with the U.S. Navy both officers have significant relevant experience. Among other aspects of his background, are several years of at sea experience with MEUs, and on carriers. With regard to LtCol Erskine, he was a Navy surface warfare officer who later became a Marine.

The current USMC Commandant has highlighted the importance of integration with the U.S. Navy as it focuses on the high-end fight. And to do so by finding ways for the Marines to operate in the weapons engagement zone or the WEZ. Another way to put this is to shape the ability of the Marines to operate as an “inside” force to support the “outside” force.

As the discussants at the Future Amphibious Forces, 2020 Conference last December put it, in working these kinds of issues the key question is both the strategic and tactical purpose of force redesign. As the moderator of the day, a noted former British General, highlighted at the end of the day, “We have had a very good conversation throughout the day about the future of amphibious forces.”

But as he also noted, the key challenge really was to sort through where one wanted to take those forces in terms of “what kinds of wars or conflicts were being prepared for or prioritized.”

His question underscored the core challenge facing any discussion of the way ahead for Maritime special forces or amphibious forces: What is their role in the high-end fight?

What is their role in crisis management?

And how related are the answers to these two questions?

Put another way, focusing on amphibious forces and their future quickly takes one into the realm of warfighting capabilities now, the next five years and the decade ahead.

In turn, the question is posed as well with regard to what capabilities are desired and for which concepts of operations to shape what kind of warfighting outcome?

In other words, there is no single force design which will easily embrace the range of options or be able to answer the question of prioritization for the warfighting approaches for the high-end fight.

As Col. Owen put it quite clearly in our discussion, “Above all, even if we are focused on enhanced naval integration, what we are really focused on is warfighting and how best to do it.”

It is clear that figuring out how the Marines can fight, survive and best deliver a desired combat effect while operating in the WEZ is challenging. As Col. Owen put it: “We need to figure out how best to operate within the WEZ. We have operated as MAGTFs, and MEUs and that entails bringing a force that is wholly. Capable. A MEU is a little suitcase of MEF-wide capabilities that can deliver scalable effects. It is a Swiss Army Knife. With a focus on the inside force approach, we are acting as an enabler for the joint or coalition force. How best to do so?”

One way to look at the force re-configuration is for a Marine Corps formation to operate, as Col. Owens noted, “to facilitate decisions in a larger kill web. For example, a Marine Corps Reconnaissance force could be part of a larger formation with tentacles which it extends to enable the force either through its own resources or tapping into other capabilities, such as the P-8.”

For LtCol Erskine, as a former SWO, he has very relevant domain expertise to work the problem of how Marines can contribute to a distributed kill web firing solution. He underscored the importance of working the sensor/shooter “mesh.” As he noted: “How do you connect any sensors on the battlefield to provide targeting quality data into a system and route it to the right decision-maker who has the authorities to either employ that weapon or coordinate it with other fire-decision authorities?”

If one is putting Marines inside the WEZ with strike weapons, those weapons clearly need to be integrated with the other services, to ensure that combat effectiveness is the outcome, rather than fratricide, negative impacts on the tactical situation or impacting negatively on the strategic crisis management decisions which need to be made as well in a conflict situation.

Marines in a kill web reconnaissance situation as an inside force might be aides to the process of finding targets and then passing those targets to the right shooter and use an asset they do not even own. As LtCol Erskine highlighted: “You could reach out to a JSF that’s in your engagement area, or you could reach out to a ship at sea or any aircraft flying through your airspace to pass the appropriate data for a firing solution. It may not even work for you as a Marine Corps unit.”

In effect, the goal is for the Marines to work with the joint and coalition force to shape a “fires network of things.”

For enhanced Navy and Marine Corps integration, clearly one challenge to be met is how to shape an integrated maritime campaign. How do you coordinate fires on land with fires at sea? As LtCol Erskine underscored the challenge: How do I provide those fires in support of the fleet from land-based capabilities and vice versa?”

As VADM Lewis put it in our discussions with Second Fleet, he put this challenge as one of enabling the fleet and the joint and coalition force to be able to operate either as supporting or supported elements dependent on the combat situation.  Shaping such a flexible combat capability is clearly a work in progress, and when where II MEF and C2F are key innovators in shaping a way ahead.

Featured Photo: U.S. Marine Col. David S. Owen is presented the Legion of Merit during a change of command ceremony for II MIG on Camp Lejeune, N.C., June 7, 2018. Owen relinquished his command of II MIG to Col. Jordan D. Walzer. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Caleb T. Maher)