What's Past is Prologue Gazette

www.mca-marines.org/gazette 47Marine Corps Gazette • July 2012

President Barack Obama’s re-cent remarks to the Australian Parliament announcing an ex-panded Marine Corps presence

in the Asia-Pacific should grab the at-tention of us all:

As we end today’s wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and mission in the Asia Pacif-ic a top priority. As a result, reductions in U.S. defense spending will not—I repeat, will not—come at the expense of the Asia Pacific.2

As the joint force rebalances from an emphasis on today’s wars to preparing for future challenges, the Nation will shift much of its focus back to where the modern Marine Corps was born—the Asia-Pacific. The Marine Corps must make the most of this rebalancing by understanding the environment, devel-oping operational wisdom, improving operational sustainment, and becom-ing more interoperable with allies and partners to meet the current and future security challenges of the Asia-Pacific.

Strategic Context Demographic, economic, and se-

curity factors are driving our Nation’s strategic rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific. Given these emerging national security considerations, we should ask ourselves some important questions as we refocus on this historically naval realm. What

are the implications of these emerging realities for the Marine Corps? How should we organize, train, and equip for this complex littoral environment? What organizational and individual

characteristics and attributes should we possess? What new operational concepts should we develop? How can the Marine Corps responsibly remain a key contributor to our Nation’s national security during these times of fiscal aus-terity? These are questions of the first order. The strategic and operational relevance of the future Marine Corps depends on getting the answers right. Our Nation’s strategic rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific presents several op-portunities to highlight the strategic and operational criticality of the Marine Corps. These opportunities become ever more imperative as joint operations ex-pand into two previously uncontested domains—space and cyberspace—and as we face increasing challenges from potential adversaries. As before, the Ma-rine Corps can leverage the flexibility, interoperability, and intrinsic expe-ditionary mindset of its MAGTFs to provide the joint force with the synergy to combine arms across domains. For four reasons, operating in the Asia-Pacific underscores the institu-tional strengths of the Navy-Marine Team. First, this is an area where Ameri-can forces must be forward deployed and forward engaged to mitigate the time, space, and logistical challenges of overcoming the tyranny of distance. Second, the maritime character of the

What’s Past Is Prologue

A Marine Corps future in the Asia-Pacific

by Cols William J. Bowers & Todd S. Desgrosseilliers &

LtCol Christian F. Wortman

“They may not need those Marines in China, but if they should be needed, we should feel much better with them on the other side of the Pacific than on this side.” 1

—President Calvin Coolidge to MajGen John A. Lejeune, 1927

>Col Bowers is assigned to the Joint Staff J–5, Strategy Division.

>>Col Desgrosseilliers is assigned to the AirSea Battle Office at the Pentagon.

>>>LtCol Wortman is assigned to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Strategy, Policy, and Force Development.

How should we orga-nize, train, and equip for this complex littoral environment?

I&Is_Jul12.indd 47 6/5/12 2:30 PM

48 www.mca-marines.org/gazette Marine Corps Gazette • July 2012

Ideas & Issues (amphIb Ops)

Asia-Pacific region, dominated by the Pacific and Indian Oceans, along with very limited basing rights in South and Southeast Asia, magnifies the need for naval expeditionary forces. Third, as our predecessors learned back in the 1920s and 1930s, planning for opera-tions in the Asia-Pacific is an excellent conveyor to move the imagination to-ward future concepts and capabilities that can also be applied globally. The amphibious assault, vertical envelop-ment, expeditionary airfield construc-tion, and integration of naval, surface, and airbased fires were all developed to achieve victory in the Asia-Pacific. And fourth, the Asia-Pacific is where the Marine Corps is most likely to serve national security interests as our Na-tion’s middleweight force. The region’s vast geography requires a uniquely ver-satile naval expeditionary force capable of performing everything from security force assistance, counterterrorism, mul-tidomain humanitarian assistance and

disaster relief, counterpiracy, enabling special operations forces, and coun-tering the spread of weapons of mass destruction to deterring conventional conflict between states, crisis response, and entry operations in antiaccess/area denial (A2/AD) environments.

Understanding the Environment The Pacific Command area of re-sponsibility is home to 5 important treaty allies,3 contains the world’s 2 most populous states—India and China—and the most populous Mus-lim state—Indonesia, and is home to 10 of the world’s 15 fastest growing economies.4 The Asia-Pacific consists of three main subregions—Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania, and South Asia—each with distinct and overlapping security challenges. Deep and long-standing security ties with South Korea and Japan an-chor American presence in Northeast Asia. Both allies face an antagonistic

and provocative North Korea, while also maintaining constructive, though occasionally tense, relationships with China. In Southeast Asia and Ocea-nia, China and India exert increasingly strong influences to advance their re-spective interests, although they are often in competition with the security interests of several middle powers in the region. Moreover, Southeast Asia has an array of subregional territo-rial disputes supercharged by vital sea lines of communications, resource and fisheries disputes, and potentially vast undersea energy deposits. In South Asia, India—the world’s largest democ-racy—manages a fragile relationship with its fractious and nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan, while also working to sustain its economy to improve the lives of its entire people. India, Bangla-desh, Burma, Vietnam, and Laos also balance their subregional relationships with that of their giant neighbor to the north—China.

The Asia-Pacific region. (Map from U.S. Pacific Command website.)

I&Is_Jul12.indd 48 6/5/12 2:31 PM


State and nonstate actors in the re-gion are developing A2/AD capabilities to challenge American forward presence and power projection. These A2/AD capabilities are reinforced by the Asia Pacific’s expansive maritime geography and limited U.S. basing access, giving any potential adversary a heavy home field advantage for logistics and sustain-ment. The uncertain impacts of climate and geologic change further magnify the geography’s challenging effects. Taken together, these factors tell us that operationally agile, sustainable, and interoperable forward deployed naval expeditionary forces will become more critically important for ensuring America’s future national security and defending our regional interests.

Developing Operational Wisdom Operational wisdom is the combi-nation of experience and intellect that enables individuals and organizations to make informed and correct deci-sions within a particular operational environment. Our current institutional and organizational thinking has had to accept some risk against the realities and requirements of effective engagement in the Asia-Pacific region. More than a decade of sustained land operations and suspension of the unit deployment program to meet pressing national re-quirements has caused us to lose some of our institutional competence at operat-ing from ships and in engaging with our Asia-Pacific partners. Moreover, in this complex environment, the stakes (and consequences) of even isolated incidents of “jackassery” and stupidity by poorly supervised Marines could jeopardize operational access across the region for the entire joint force. These challenges must be addressed and overcome by de-veloping operational wisdom, focusing education and training programs across a wide spectrum, from the strategic sig-nificance of individual actions to new thinking on enhanced regional training and presence. The desired end state is an emotionally and operationally wise force from private to colonel. Operations in the Asia-Pacific will create an inherent paradox. The tyranny of distance will compel us to operate in smaller and more distributed forma-

tions, from a more diverse set of naval platforms and for longer periods of time. At the same time, access to national- and theater-level assets through global information networks will integrate na-tional and theater assets into the full spectrum of operations, incorporating these at increasingly lower levels. This paradox will—by necessity—further flatten the Marine Corps’ organiza-tional command structures and their decisionmaking, compress the levels of war, and require ever greater levels of operational, tactical, and technical understanding and sophistication. This means we will need leaders who are as tactically and technically proficient as they are firmly grounded in ethics. These forces must have professionally competent leaders of character and emo-tional intelligence, with a capacity for understanding complex and dynamic environments. Leaders, and those who follow them, must also learn to thrive in strategically critical but culturally sensi-tive regions where expanded American presence depends on their professional conduct while under intense internation-al scrutiny. The Commandant’s initiative to create enlisted foreign area specialists and regional area specialists to increase regional, cultural, and linguistic exper-tise is a great first step, but we must go further. As our forces become even more distributed and empowered by technol-ogy, ensuring that this force is manned, trained, and equipped as proficient and ethical men and women of character will become a strategic imperative. We must also fully network our forces down to the small unit level to see and understand the environment and pass that information up the chain of com-mand and laterally to allies and partners. Moreover, as the geography of the Pa-cific drives us to operate more from the sea, the limited bandwidth of ships will further amplify the competing priorities between coordinating the actions of the fleet and those of forces ashore. Because the complex nature of operations in the Asia-Pacific will stress our people and the networks they rely upon, we must develop organizational wisdom as well. Focusing units, such as MEBs, on regions to develop habitual associations with partnered militaries is another

step toward building operational wis-dom. These MEBs should have stand-ing staffs, reachback capability to na-tional and theater assets, committed forces, and immediately deployable flyaway command elements that can operate from a variety of seabased plat-forms. Moreover, at least two of the Asia-Pacific’s subregions should have committed MEBs focused on most likely missions. The MEB assigned to Northeast Asia should focus on improving interoper-ability and combined arms training with Korean and Japanese forces to deter North Korea, while the MEB in Southeast Asia could operate from Aus-tralia or Guam and conduct security force assistance with regional militaries, support U.S. counterterrorism units, conduct humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercises and operations, and conduct counterpiracy and mari-time interdiction operations. Counter-ing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction should become a top prior-ity for both MEBs, especially where this activity occurs in the maritime domain. These initiatives—strengthening our efforts to develop leaders of character, networking down to the small unit level, and regionalizing MEBs—will develop greater operational wisdom.

Improving Operational Sustainment Improving operational sustainment will enable independent operations for longer periods of time, enhance our for-ward presence, and reinforce deterrence against potential regional adversaries. This will require us to broaden our definition of “expeditionary forces” to become self-sustaining, further expand the capabilities of Marine aviation, and operate from a more diverse set of naval platforms. Expanding our definition of expe-ditionary forces from “austere, lean, and lethal” to include “self-sustaining” means we must let go of our attachment to fixed logistics sites and airfields and develop tactical formations requiring less logistical support and increasingly mobile and self-protecting logistics for-mations. Given the region’s tyranny of distance and limited land operating ar-eas, reduced consumption by mission-

I&Is_Jul12.indd 49 6/5/12 2:31 PM



focused seabased forces is an operational imperative. Renewable energy is one potentially game-changing technol-ogy that could reduce vulnerabilities in all domains, lessen logistics support demands, and reduce our reliance on other states for access. It could also pro-vide improved operational agility and enhanced crisis response by allowing a greater distribution of forward de-ployed forces, better positioning them as crisis first responders. Ongoing ef-forts by the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory and Expeditionary Energy Office should remain a top priority, and perhaps be expanded. The time is also right for another quantum leap in the capabilities of Marine aviation. Our Commandant in the 1920s, MajGen John A. Lejeune, saw the importance of Marine aviation while his Marines were fighting in Haiti and Nicaragua and, with the support of LtCol Earl “Pete” Ellis, envisioned an

even larger role for Marine aviation in the future Pacific. World War II proved them both right. Once again the Asia-Pacific calls us to expand the capabilities of Marine aviation by improving expe-ditionary aviation support, retailoring the mix of platforms, and allowing more Marines to fly. Increasing our expeditionary avia-tion support capabilities will enable us to put more expeditionary airfields in more places and better operate across the Pacific’s blue highways. Self-sus-taining MAGTFs, operating from temporary and relocatable expedition-ary airfields and forward arming and refueling points (FARPs), combined with amphibious and nontraditional naval platforms, can complicate an adversary’s targeting and present them with a cost-imposing dilemma on where to commit finite resources. This will be critical to moving and maneuvering in an A2/AD environment.

Expanding the reach, range, and ver-satility of our platforms will also miti-gate A2/AD challenges, most notably by leveraging the flexibility inherent in short takeoff and vertical landing aircraft. While the Joint Strike Fighter will be a “game changer” going far be-yond aviation, retailoring our mix of platforms to include more MV–22s, CH–53E/Ks, and KC–130s will sup-port more broadly distributed forces, enable us to concentrate them quickly when required, and better leverage aus-tere airfields and FARPs. These plat-forms could also enhance command and control with the addition of modular “plug and play” suites, particularly in MV–22s and KC–130s. Allowing warrant officers and en-listed Marines to serve as temporary pilots could also enable many tasks in the Asia-Pacific to be accomplished by leasing light, low-cost fixed- and ro-tary-wing platforms.5 These platforms would be additive to the suite of Marine aviation (not substitutive) and could be leased and flown by Marines while performing tasks in permissive and semipermissive environments, freeing up more expensive platforms and pilots for missions elsewhere. Given the limited political appetite for new American overseas bases, we should plan to operate from a more di-verse set of naval platforms and embrace placing our Marines under the tactical control of forward deployed fleet head-quarters when necessary. Gen Lejeune’s vision to “convince officers and men of the soundness of the doctrine that the future of the Corps would be determined by their ability to serve efficiently with the Fleet” will become truer than ever.6 As the demands upon the U.S. Navy’s amphibious fleet will continue to exceed availability, we should begin to imagine all ships as amphibious platforms capa-ble of delivering smaller but increasingly relevant and lethal force packages. These include aircraft carriers with embarked company landing teams,7 joint high-speed vessels, maritime prepositioning force ships, littoral combat ships, surface combatants, and even submarines. Sub-marines, in particular, are one platform that could be increasingly important to countering A2/AD strategies.8

Multinational amphibious exercises will be beneficial for the United States and its allies. (Photo by Sgt Rachael K.A. Moore.)

I&Is_Jul12.indd 50 6/5/12 2:31 PM


The Marine Corps should closely examine, experiment, and expand its employment opportunities for a wide range of force packages—from squads to battalion landing teams—across a greater variety of ships. In sum, more Marines on more naval platforms will get more American forces properly po-sitioned, making our crisis response, forward presence, and deterrence more operationally sustainable and ready.

Interoperability With Allies andPartners Forging interoperability with allies and partners is another crucial attri-bute to operating in the Asia-Pacific as it will lead to interdependent relation-ships enabling coalition operations, maximize security partner contribu-tions, and spread security responsibili-ties to a broader set of nations. This will require us to assign more Marines to serve on the military staffs of our allies and partners, rebalance our for-ward posture and forward presence, and develop new operational concepts integrating the institutional strengths of forward deployed naval expeditionary forces with those of allies and partners. The 21st century will be more about influence and access than command and control. This means, first of all, that we should increase the number of Ma-rines we have in influential posts in the Asia-Pacific by investing our best and brightest talent there now. The first step should be assigning officers as students to every intermediate-level school and senior Service school convened by one of our five Pacific treaty allies, as well as those countries (like India) identi-fied as engagement priorities. Elevating the importance of Marine attachés in the Asia-Pacific by reallocating officers from other regions would supplement this by adding to the number of Marine “influencers” we have forward in this region. This select group of officers could attend resident school in-country and, upon graduation, complete a follow-on tour within one of the Military Services of the host country. For longstanding allies, such as Australia, Japan, the Phil-ippines, South Korea, and Thailand, we could assign additional officers to

be planners within their navies and, where they exist, Marine staffs. These officers could be foreign area officers (but not required) and would afford more Marine officers the opportunity to become more culturally attuned to the Asia-Pacific. As an incentive, at the appropriate time in their careers, these officers would be ideal candidates to command units within the regional MEBs described above. Rebalancing forward posture and forward presence would also improve interoperability and enable interdepen-dent relationships. Forward posture—the geographic positioning of military capabilities and capacity outside the United States—should be planned, bal-anced, and executed within the context of the joint force. Forward presence—the aggregate total of forward postured forces plus rotational units—should ac-count for the increasing importance of South and Southeast Asia. For example, if the Army decides to move one of its corps headquarters to mainland Japan, the Marine Corps should move its III MEF headquarters to Australia, shift-ing its focus to an environment well suited for the institutional strengths of naval expeditionary forces. This would broadly distribute two corps-level joint warfighting headquarters and expand the opportunities for interoperability and interdependence by facilitating

more exercises and contacts with more allies and partners. New operational concepts should also be developed to account for the Pacific’s maritime geography and the contributions of allies and partners. Two areas of increasing importance are enabling special operations forces from the sea and leading development of complementary, multidomain entry op-erations. We’ve learned over the past 10 years that every special operations force mission is fundamentally a joint mission at some level, requiring integration of special operations forces with general-purpose forces. But in the post-Balad and post-Bagram environments, naval expeditionary forces will play a larger role in enabling these specialized joint

Test force packages across a variety of Navy ships. (Photo by Sgt Richard Blumenstein.)

AUCTION• SKS Viet Cong rifle• USMC Ball program autographed by LtGen Victor H. “Brute” Krulak• Flag from Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan• Much more! Auction open to all.

Auction of Military Memorabilia and 3/3 Reunion

Live auction at Branson, Mo., Aug. 3, 2012. Online bids accepted until Aug. 2, 2012.

To view items and to bid, go to:http://www.33USMC.com/auction.html

All proceeds to go to the 3rd Bn, 3rd Marines Memorial Foundation.

I&Is_Jul12.indd 51 6/5/12 2:32 PM



forces. The Marine Corps must capital-ize on this by developing new concepts for naval forces to enable, integrate with, and leverage special operations forces from a broader set of amphibious plat-forms. All scheduled naval and even joint exercises should have an embedded experimentation component. We must not let preoccupation with certification requirements for current operations act to the detriment of developing future capabilities. For example, the recent-ly concluded BOLD ALLIGATOR 12 demonstrated that these objectives do not need to be mutually exclusive, as a special operations force mission was planned, coordinated, and deconflicted with a general-purpose experimental landing force that “owned” the larger area of responsibility. Capitalizing on scheduled exercises such as these re-duces operational tempo on the force and injects trained and ready forces, vice exercise pickup teams, into critical capability development activities. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently released the Joint Op-erational Access Concept (JOAC) calling for development of new concepts for complementary, multidomain opera-tions in an A2/AD environment. The most recent of these nested concepts—the air sea battle concept—is a limited objective operational concept calling

for greater inter-Service, cross-domain integration to shape the A2/AD envi-ronment to maintain freedom of ac-tion in the global commons. Other concepts remaining to be written in-clude entry operations, crisis response, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and sustainment operations in an A2/AD environment. These areas are ripe for a meaningful Marine Corps contribution. Entry operations and crisis response should become Marine Corps priorities under the JOAC rubric. While the Ten-tative Manual for Landing Operations, written in 1934, was “the most com-prehensive and detailed effort to think through the numerous problems involved in amphibious operation[s]” up to that time, this groundbreaking document did not address space, cyberspace, or interop-erability with allies and partners.9 The expanding amphibious capabilities of many Pacific powers, in particular Aus-tralia, India, Korea, and Japan, which have, or are building, amphibious fleets and ships, highlight the potential for ally and partner contributions to joint entry operations. With the requirement to in-tegrate space and cyberspace capabilities and allied and partner contributions into any combined multidomain entry opera-tion, the Marine Corps is ideally suited to help make JOAC’s “cross-domain synergy” an operational reality.10

Conclusion This article proposed that optimizing for the Asia-Pacific region would high-light the Marine Corps’ institutional strengths as a forward deployed and forward engaged expeditionary force-in-readiness, serve as incentive for devel-opment of new operating concepts and capabilities, and showcase our utility to the Nation as a middleweight force able to respond to crises quickly across the spectrum of military operations. It then explained how we could do this by understanding the environment, devel-oping operational wisdom, improving operational sustainment, and becom-ing more interoperable with allies and partners. However, there will be risk, requiring difficult decisions, in optimizing for the Asia-Pacific. For example, providing regionalized MEBs with standing staffs and committed forces will come at the expense of current robust headquarters staffs. Expanding the capabilities of Ma-rine Corps aviation will involve moving some force structure from the Marine logistics groups, which have resupplied Marines so brilliantly across the brown highways of the Middle East and South Central Asia, to the MAWs, which will have to do so across the Asia-Pacific’s blue highways. Sending more officers to study and work abroad with more allies and partners will deprive some of the Pentagon’s cubicles of its best ac-tion officer talent. There is also the risk that regionalization for the Asia-Pacific will leave us less ready for contingencies elsewhere. While these tradeoffs and risk will be difficult for some to accept, our his-tory shows that capabilities inspired and developed for the Asia-Pacific resulted in a much broader application for the Ma-rine Corps as a whole, from amphibious landing craft to employment of the heli-copter to construction of expeditionary airfields. Moreover, the Commandant of the Marine Corps has already set us on this path with his planning guidance and the more recent Force Structure Review Group. Optimizing for the Asia-Pacific by developing operational wisdom, improving operational sustain-ment, and becoming more interoperable with allies and partners will ensure that

Develop forces capable of responding quickly. (Photo by Sgt Richard Blumenstein.)

I&Is_Jul12.indd 52 6/5/12 2:32 PM


we’re institutionally ready to operate in the Asia-Pacific, or anywhere else our Nation decides to “send in the Marines”!

Notes

1. Lejeune, MajGen John A., The Reminiscences of a Marine, Dorrance and Company, Philadel-phia, PA, 1930, p. 481.

2. Obama, President Barack, Remarks to Aus-tralian Parliament, Canberra, Australia, 17 November 2011.

3. These allies are, alphabetically listed, Aus-tralia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand.

4. Flournoy, Michele, Under Secretary of De-fense for Policy speech, “DoD in Future Security Environment,” Arlington, VA, 28 April 2010.

5. This was proposed by LtCols Jason Bohm and William Bowers in “Expeditionary Security Cooperation Teams,” Marine Corps Gazette, November 2011, pp. 44–47.

6. Lejeune, p. 465.

7. For more on this topic, see Col Vincent Goulding, USMC(Ret), “Enhancing Company Operations for Real,” Proceedings, U.S. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, April 2010, pp. 76–77, and LCDR Benjamin Armstrong, “Nothing Like a Good Maritime Raid,” Proceed-ings, February 2010, pp. 40–45.

8. For more on employment of Marines from sub-marines, see LtCol R.B. Peele, Capt P. Petronzio, and Capt G.W. Smith, Jr., “Combat Power Pro-

jection: Forward From (Under) the Sea,” Marine Corps Gazette, June 1995, pp. 12–15.

9. Murray, Williamson, and Col Allan R. Mil-lett, USMCR(Ret), Editors, Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, Cambridge University Press, England, 1996, p. 75.

10. Dempsey, GEN Martin, USA, Joint Opera-tional Access Concept, Joint Staff, Washington, DC, 17 January 2012.

>Authors’ Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

Engage with coalition partners in the Pacific theater. (Photo by Cpl Garry Welch.)

GET MEMBER VALUE PRICING! JOIN TODAY!www.mca-marines.org • 1-866-622-1775

Celebrate the Historic Achievements of Our First Black Marines

www.marineshop.net • 888-237-7683The MARINE Shop: 300 Potomac Ave., Quantico • 703-640-7195

The MARINE Shop at Camp Lejeune: Bldg. 84, Exchange Annex, Hadnot Point • 910-451-7500

with the

Newest, In-Print Addition to the USMC Professional Reading ListAvailable NOW!

Your purchases at The MARINE Shop help fund MCA&F Programs that support Marines!Learn more at www.mcafdn.org.

THE MARINES OF MONTFORD POINT0807861766Member Value Price: $17.06Non-Member Price: $18.95

INTO THE TIGER’S JAWAvailable SOON!MCA&F is working NOW to get this one back into print!

MCABookAdThird_0512.indd 1 6/4/12 8:41:00 AM

Join the debate.Go to www.mca-marines.org/gazette/forum. Don’t

forget our blog at mcgazette.blogspot.com.

Join the Debate

I&Is_Jul12.indd 53 6/8/12 8:46 AM


Ideas & Issues (LeadershIp)

Over the last 10 years the Ma-rine Corps has adapted to an increasingly complex envi-ronment in places such as

Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Horn of Africa, Haiti, and Korea, as well as missions in the United States. Many of these conflicts are rooted in the human dimension and defy full understanding and scientifically derived solution sets. Today’s NCOs must operate in this new world disorder, and in order to be suc-cessful, they must be empowered by the Marine Corps. Prior to this new world disorder, the NCO was tacti-cally focused on issues such as moving formations and repairing, operating, and maintaining equipment. Previously the NCO corps did not need to know the big picture or have awareness of the strategic and operational environment. The Marine Corps’ current dilemma is how to prepare the NCO corps for this change in cultural dimension. The solu-tion is not an easy one. It will require a shift, bought into by the whole Marine Corps from private to general, that edu-cation is as important as training, and it must start from day one.1

Background By shifting the focus of attention from training to education, the Ma-rine Corps will teach NCOs how to think vice what to think. This will allow NCOs to operate successfully in ever-increasing distributed operations. This shift is necessary because the decentral-ized battlefield requires squad leaders and fire team leaders to make strategic-level decisions and execute those deci-sions beyond any officer’s observation. Officers do not necessarily know exactly what is happening at the squad and fire

team levels. The disconnect between officers and NCOs is imposed by the reality of the battlespace and not by any flaw in military hierarchy. This discon-nect requires that NCOs be provided a strategic education that empowers them to make decisions that will have positive strategic consequences. It is no longer sufficient for Marines of any rank to merely be trained and proficient in items such as weapons employment or office administration. The Marine who

understands why he is employing his weapon, whether gun or pen, will have much greater success in today’s com-plex battlespace. To give the NCO this strategic education the Marine Corps must use a building block approach starting as early as the rank of private. The Marine Corps can accomplish this goal by revamping the current courses offered by the Marine Corps Institute (MCI), as well as working closely with Marine Corps University (MCU) to develop standardized tools that back up the MCI courses. Leaders can use these tools in the development of their Marines into strategic thinkers and also to prepare them for follow-on educa-tion.2

The Strategic Corporal

A building block approach

by Capt Calleen Kinney

>Capt Kinney wrote this article while a student at Expeditionary Warfare School, academic year 2010–11.

Teach our NCOs how to think, not what to think. (Photo by Cpl Reece Lodder.)

I&Is_Jul12.indd 54 6/5/12 2:32 PM


When To Start and Standardization The need for better educated NCOs has not gone unnoticed by the senior leadership of the Marine Corps. The Commandant states as one of his top priorities, “We will better educate and train our Marines to succeed in dis-tributed operations and increasingly complex environments.”3 He further states, “We will invest more in the edu-cation of our NCOs and junior officers, as they have assumed vastly greater re-sponsibilities in both combat and gar-rison.”4 Again, later in the Comman-dant’s Planning Guidance, he states that one of his tasks for the Commanding General, Training and Education Com-mand, and the President of MCU is to provide recommendations to increase professional military education (PME) available to NCOs and SNCOs.5 This falls in line with the popular phrase, “strategic corporal,” meaning that deci-sions made by a single corporal can have strategic consequences. There are several articles on the subject from Gen Charles C. Krulak’s “The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War” (Marines Magazine, Washington, DC, January 1999) to Kevin D. Stringer’s article, “Educating the Strategic Corpo-ral: A Paradigm Shift” (Military Review, Fort Leavenworth, KS, September-Oc-tober 2009). All of the articles focus on the NCO and specifically the education that can be provided to the NCO. The ranks below that are rarely mentioned. The flaw in this focus is that proper education and the ability to think stra-tegically requires a building block ap-proach. The use of the current standard for education across the globe provides a good example. To attain a doctor of philosophy degree an individual must complete all of the levels of primary education, obtain a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree, and complete a doctorate-level program. Each level of education builds upon the last. The Marine Corps already applies this idea to its recruitment of officers as they are required to be college graduates. This gives the Marine Corps the confidence that the officer has the ability, dedica-tion, and willingness to learn, as well as the mental maturation required for follow-on education.

Currently the Marine Corps has neglected to apply this building block approach to the development of the strategic corporal. The primary tools available to Marines below the rank of corporal are the courses provided through the MCI. These courses range from math to pistol marksmanship. The MCI website states:

The MCI provides approximately 250 courses supporting most of the occupa-tional specialties in the Marine Corps. The focus of the entire curriculum is to provide in-service training to upgrade technical and professional skills.6

Yet none of the classes required for ju-nior Marines cover the important issues facing Marines today, such as cultural awareness and counterinsurgency opera-tions. As of today most of the courses MCI offers are not mandatory. Cur-

rently the only course required prior to getting promoted to corporal is Course 0037, “Leading Marines.”7 All other courses taken by Marines are either picked by the leadership of the unit or selected by the individual Marine with the approval of at least his training NCO. This system of education and professional development is insufficient to keep up with the educational require-ments needed to develop the strategic corporal. However, this system could be easily upgraded to meet the require-ments, as well as set a new standard for enlisted professional development. One other major issue with educating young Marines today is standardization. MCI courses and MOS training are the only standardized training enlisted Marines get prior to attending a corpo-ral’s course. This leaves the education portion of a Marine’s professional de-velopment up to his senior leadership.

There are two major issues with this system. First, if the senior leadership has no interest in formal education, then the Marines will never get it. Second, the leadership that is interested in the pro-fessional development of their Marines can develop courses based on their own personal experience and views. The first issue of senior leadership being disinter-ested and unengaged in the professional development of their Marines is not eas-ily solved and, quite frankly, a matter for a completely separate article. The second issue, the one that affects the quality and standardization of material being taught, can be resolved.

Recommendations First, this new standard for enlisted professional development could be pro-duced through the current MCI by re-moving out-of-date courses and adding

courses that focus on cultural aware-ness, current events, and the current operating environment. These courses should be developed by MCU to ensure that they fall in line with current PME courses. There should be several courses on each subject with each course on a particular topic building on the last. This approach will help with retention of the information and allow the sim-plest of courses to be required of pri-vates and the more complicated courses required of corporals and above. These courses also need to be made available online, tied into MarineNet, and avail-able in print so they can be worked on in any clime and place. Once current relevant courses are injected into the MCI, these courses need to be required for promotion so that the Marines who are really dedicated to the idea of a bet-ter Marine Corps can be retained, and those who are not interested will be

First, this new standard for enlisted professional de-velopment could be produced through the current MCI by removing out-of-date courses and adding courses that focus on cultural awareness, current events, and the current operating environment.

I&Is_Jul12.indd 55 6/5/12 2:32 PM

What's Past is Prologue Gazette

Documents

Transcript of What's Past is Prologue Gazette