Is a Company Landing Team too small, or just right?

The Marine Corps is experimenting with a Company-sized Landing Team this summer. The COLT experiment will look into what a reinforced company can do. They will launch from ships far from shore (20 miles or more out) with minimal indirect fire support with them (60mm, 81mm, maybe two artillery pieces). The Navy likes being farther from shore, but the Marines are kind of on their own out there. Having only a company-sized force might leave you a little exposed for some missions.

This is a big deal for us because we normally think only of battalion-sized units as being able to operate independently. In addition, we'll be launching the CoLT from over the horizon (20+ miles out), that's the first time we're doing this over the horizon thing, although we first talked about it in 1997....what took us so long?

LCS as a C2 Node? Yep

When I discuss what I believe the LCS will be, my first point is that I believe it can be an outstanding C2 node for the littoral network. It has the potential to be the Command Ship of the inshore network, or COP. Consider what I mean in the context of this very interesting article from Aviation Week.

Persistent short-range tactical surveillance in the littorals is hampered by the short masts and restricted lines-of-sight of unmanned vehicles. A new U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) initiative to develop a multicomponent system called Navy Expeditionary Overwatch (NEO) aims to correct this. It uses data relays and ground, water and airborne platforms, manned and unmanned, to provide surveillance, security and communications for tactical operations.

NEO is based on existing technologies. Collaborating on it with the ONR are Northrop Grumman and the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, which will be its main user.

The intent, says James McMains, director of the ONR's Combating Terrorism and Navy Enterprise Integration Div., is for shore and other ground-based systems to share intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) data from unmanned aerial and surface vehicles. Combining these capabilities will be a force multiplier.

"It's a multiple system [whose components] work well with each other and go a long way toward satisfying mission requirements on water and land," says McMains. Water coverage includes coastlines, waterways and near-coastal ocean regions.

Read the whole thing at Aviation Week.

People think I am nuts that I advocate putting a Marine Battalion on Littoral Combat Ships, Joint High Speed Vessels, and Corvettes but I still believe that is where part of the future is for the Marines. I believe the Navy needs to design most of its irregular warfare and low end threat capabilities to tailor, or match, the Marines and integrate bottom-up. The future of Marine operations won't be large scale, over-the-shore assault so much as rapid littoral maneuver operations. Getting the Amphibs, LCS, JHSVs, and building corvettes to bring together the NECC and Marines, and link that back to the big blue fleet out to sea is the future of littoral operations.

I think it is hard for people to see that future when we have over 200,000 troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I don't think we will be an occupational military force for several decades when Iraq and Afghanistan end. Instead, we will be looking for ways to achieve national objectives without committing to long term troops on the ground. That means hit and run, surgical strikes, modern versions of classic gorilla style raid operations, and learning how to engage influence locally in cities without trying to occupy entire countries.

The Art of Battalion Command in Counterinsurgency: Part One - The Afghan Army

The Marine Corps University Counterinsurgency Leadership In Afghanistan, Iraq and Beyond: The Art of Battalion Command in Counterinsurgency transcript (PDF) is so good, I have decided to post the entire thing in four installments. I believe there are important insights in these discussions not only for Afghanistan, but in the context of US Navy discussions as well. The participants were:

Bing West, Correspondent, The Atlantic
Col. Dale Alford, Institute for Defense Analyses, USMC
Col. William M. Jurney, US Joint Forces Command, USMC
Col. David Furness, Marine Corps Liaison Office, US House of Representatives

Held on Wednesday, September 23, 2024 at 10:30 at the National Press Club, Washington DC, part one is the presentation by Bing West.

We were going to, in this panel, move from the general to the very particulars. You consider this the panel that deals with fighting in the trenches, the tackling and blocking that happens upfront in the line. And I was asked basically if I would establish the context for the three battalion commanders.

Dave had one-one. But, you know, what you received about these gentlemen really, really didn’t tell you the reason that they’re here. I mean, Bill Jurney, when we were in Ramadi, a lot of people, including, me didn’t think you could get that place under control, and Bill Jurney was the battalion commander who did it.

And Dale Alford, of course, is a legend because Dale went out to Al-Qa’im, 250 miles from Baghdad, and that place on the Syrian border was just totally out of control and with one battalion he established not only control out there but managed to work with the tribes so that after he left it continued to be quiet. And everyone felt that on the Syrian border that just couldn’t be done.

And so you do have the opportunity this morning or listening to a few people whose credentials are just absolutely remarkable.

Concerning the context, I’ve been to Afghanistan four times, I’d like to just focus it on that and I was there in April and May and again in June and July and I was on about 40 combat patrols up north and down south and so I’ll just tell you what really concerns me.

It’s very, very simple - that every valley has a mountain. And all the mountains are controlled by the Taliban and the watchers are everywhere. No American or Afghan patrol leaves the wire without being watched and reported on the whole way. And I’ll tell you, H.R., that really concerns me because it indicates that there’s a substrata of that society that we’re dealing with, and if everywhere you go they’re watching you all the time, this is a big, big problem.

May I have the next slide, please? Now, the way in which we had been - next slide, please - the way in which - this is the Korengal Valley but this could be anywhere in Afghanistan.

The way in which all the firefights had been taking place up until the last couple of months was very simple. We were fighting apaches who remained very, very hidden. You’d never get a distinct target and generally the ranges were 400 to 600 meters. And this is in the Korengal and we’re firing at targets that were firing at us 600 meters away but you had to go down a valley and up the other side so there’s no way you could close with them. So we automatically were using air strikes.

And H.R. was talking about company commanders having these indirect fires at their disposal. Yes, every single patrol has it, but we now have a new tactical directive that says, knock off using most of it because you’re also killing civilians. And that leads to a very big problem about what takes its place.

And there’s another element about Afghanistan that concerned me greatly. May I have the next slide, please? Look at this photo. This is Ganjgal where the four Marines and the ETT were killed last week and eight Afghan soldiers. I’ve been in Ganjgal a couple of times. The 1st of 32nd is there.

And we took this picture because they said, look behind us. And as you’re moving along in an MRAP to go to this one small hamlet in a ravine and next to the mountains, the kids were coming out right behind us and putting the rocks behind us in order to trap us, just like that. We sat down. We had shurahs with these people in Ganjgal. We did everything according to the book that you’re supposed to do for counterinsurgency for the last two years and they betrayed the Marines and the Afghan soldiers when they went into that village and that’s why they killed them all.

So there are some hearts and minds that you’re just not going to win. The politics of each valley differ but every single battle space owner, every single battalion commander that we now have in Afghanistan, could come to this meeting, give you a map of his area, and take a red line and show you the areas where he cannot go without getting into a firefight.

And to show you what’s happened in the firefights and the biggest concern I have about finishing them - will you show this firefight, please? This is a typical firefight. This is down south.

(Begin video segment.)

MR. WEST: This is Bing West with the Afghan Army, British advisors and United States Marines in southern Afghanistan.

MR. : So you start suppressing all the - (inaudible) - across a certain ground.

MR. : You can hear the incoming.

MR. WEST (?): See, those were the PKM rounds, the machine gun rounds that hit just above our heads.

(End video segment.)

MR. WEST: Stop. If you can get it going, once you try to get it going again. But the point about this firefight was it was from one compound to the next - why don’t you replay it and see if it will just start - one compound to the next. They were firing RPGs. It was an open field. You couldn’t determine whether there were women or children in that compound, therefore you were stuck. You had one or two options. You either withdrew or you went across the open field. We withdrew.

And the dilemma that we’re going to be facing - may I have the next slide please if that doesn’t work? The dilemma that we’re going to be facing in the future is that the more we have constrained our indirect fires, which has been the principal way in which we were doing this, you leave the question, or two big questions dangling out there at the battalion level: How do you finish the firefights?

Right now we’re not finishing firefights. So we’re not doing damage basically to the enemy. The enemy isn’t doing damage to us because we have our armor. But we have now an attrition warfare. We don’t have mobility warfare. The Taliban run circles around us because they’re not wearing heavy armor. They’re in much better shape, incredible shape. And as a result, they hold the initiative. They decide when to initiate a firefight. They decide when to stop the firefight. And we react to them and we’re not finishing the firefights. So we’re not killing the enemy.

Now, are we arresting the enemy? Excuse me. I used to say detain or something. Now we say “arrest.” No. The Afghans arrest practically no one. And the average number of arrests for an American battalion is one person every two months.

So we’re not killing them and we’re not arresting them. And the blocking and tackling them that are fundamentally essential are right now really lacking.

So we can put in more troops, but my concern about this is, if we don’t find a way of finishing these fights, we could be having this conversation a year to two years from now and the Taliban would still be intact.

And that basically leads to the other issue which is where are we going? Basically, if we’re managing what we measure, we have some adjusting to do in what it is we think we’re going to be doing in Afghanistan.

And particularly - may I have the next slide, please? The question of what is our theory of victory. It seems to me if you read the assessment that I think that H.R. and others worked on - you read the assessment that McChrystal came out with the other days and you read it very careful, its theory of victory is not victory - it’s transition.

And when you look for how do we transition, it becomes a little bit fuzzy. And if transition is the name of the game, then the very best paper I’ve ever seen on it was written by actually Maj. Gen. Bob Neller when he was an obscure brigadier general out in Okinawa or something and had time to work it. It’s the best single paper that I’ve ever seen about how you transition.

But the problem we now have with the Afghan Army is very simple. We build it in our image. They’re all wearing armor. They’re all wearing helmets. They are no more mobile than we are. When you get into the firefight, they immediately turn to the advisor because only the advisor is permitted to call in the indirect fires. The minute you call in the indirect fires, you’re positioning the troops, you become the leader in the combat.

The Afghan leaders are absolutely the key to the success, but Mark Moyar’s - and that’s a good book he wrote - Mark has this fascinating section in the book where he interviewed something like 250 advisors. And they estimated that 65 percent of all Afghan battalions have poor leaders. And yet, our advisors have about zero effect on promotions in the Afghan system. So here I go.

I know that Pete Mansoor said, you know, Bing’s for these joint promotion boards but Gen. Petraeus had another way of doing it. I think, Pete, we’re out of time for being gentile in Afghanistan, and if we’re going to make a difference, I think we have to get more control over who’s in charge in the Afghan army.

The Art of Battalion Command in Counterinsurgency: Part Two - How We Think and Who They Are

The Marine Corps University Counterinsurgency Leadership In Afghanistan, Iraq and Beyond: The Art of Battalion Command in Counterinsurgency transcript (PDF) is so good, I have decided to post the entire thing in four installments. I believe there are important insights in these discussions not only for Afghanistan, but in the context of US Navy discussions as well. The participants were:

Bing West, Correspondent, The Atlantic
Col. Dale Alford, Institute for Defense Analyses, USMC
Col. William M. Jurney, US Joint Forces Command, USMC
Col. David Furness, Marine Corps Liaison Office, US House of Representatives

Held on Wednesday, September 23, 2024 at 10:30 at the National Press Club, Washington DC, part two is the presentation by Col. David Furness.

Thank you. I’d like to thank Marine Corps University for including me on the panel and so I join two of my friends and distinguished Marine officers.

Mark Moyar asked me to talk about battalion command in counterinsurgency operations. That’s kind of a broad left and right lateral limit. So what I’ll do is I’ll kind of define it to actions that we took prior to going into combat and then those that we did while we were in combat.

Now, these are no new ideas here. There’s nothing earth shattering. Most of them were borrowed from peers that I respect, like the two gentlemen to my right, things I learned while I served on the staff of the 1st Marine Division in ’03 and ’04, and things that I read through self-study. So I tried to apply them in a dynamic environment, and so here are some of the lessons that I learned.

There’s the agenda. Here’s how I broke up the topic. Just a little bit of orientation. Here’s Baghdad, Fallujah, and Ramadi. So my experience was all based in southern Baghdad in ’05 when I was commanding officer BLT 11, part of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. And then in ’06 at a place north of Fallujah, a place called Karmah which - or “bad karma” as we’d like to refer to it. But it was all eastern Anbar province, western Baghdad.

As you drill down, here’s Karmah. It’s about 10 kilometers northeast of Fallujah. The other little red dots are small villages that were my principal population centers in and around the area: Saqlawiyah, Sitcher (ph), Ganether (ph), (Abu Ghraib ?). I had part of the northern Zadon which was kind of a no man’s land at times. But this is the area in ’06 that I operated in when I was attached to RCT-5.

Pre-combat leadership - we’ve all said, you know, what’s the difference between a leading battalion and conventional battalion and leading battalion, counterinsurgency? And I think it was covered well by the brigade commanders and I won’t repeat it.

I will say it’s a decentralized fight. Everybody agrees with that. And if you’re going to be successful in a decentralized fight, you have to operate on commander’s intent. We all - no one will dispute that. But how do you get people to understand intent and be able to use intent? And then who really tells you about that?

What I learned from watching Gen. Mattis at the division level, go down to the PFC level and just embed his ideas, his thought process, what was important to him down to the private. I said, okay. That’s what I have to do when I get battalion command.

So what we did was everybody’s got philosophies of command, philosophies of training, philosophies of this and that, and I’m no different. I came into command with them and spent a lot of time trying to craft a language that actually meant something.

But I handed those things out, had a one pager for the Marines and NCOs. I had a more complex, a little longer version for staff NCOs and officers. I gave them out. I had them read them, and then in groups of 20 platoon size, I went around after they had read them and we had discussions. We had (team meetings ?). What am I talking about when I say this? What does this mean? What am I telling you to do?

And you try to operationalize it because you want them to understand in so that when they’re in that point where they have to make a decision and no one’s around and it’s corporal so and so, he can do it. He knows what Furness would want him to do and that’s probably the only thing - if that’s the only thing he can remember, it’s something he can fall back on and hopefully it gets him through that difficult decision.

So I think that’s the most important thing that you have to do right upfront as a battalion commander. You’ve got to put your fingerprints on your unit right from the start, the first day you grab the guide on.

And once they understand it, then you reinforce that every day by what Gen. Krulak used to say “leadership by walking around.” You’ve got to get out of your office, you’ve got to get away from the computer and you’ve got to talk to your Marines, and sailors, and you’ve got to - where they work, what do they care about, and everything they do, you give them a little, that’s the way I want it done, pat on the back, or hey, next time you do it, how about his way, you’re doing a great job, but you have to imprint what you feel is important into their brain housing groups.

The next point, individual small unit discipline is the key in counterinsurgency. Gen. Zinni once said that elite units are better at counterinsurgency because they have greater discipline. And discipline is what’s going to give you restraint, which is going to give you discrimination in the use of fires, and it’s the bedrock on which everything else is build. So you have to instill it.

With our op tempo going 100 miles an hour, discipline can sometimes fall by the wayside because we don’t have time to correct it right on the spot, you know, we’ll get to that later. Well, you can’t do that.

I think you have to be - somebody said, well, if you could do anything to a battalion to prepare it for counterinsurgency operations, what would you do? I thought for a minute and I said, I’d put him through recruit training, all as a group, and let a bunch of gunnies with Smokey Bear hats just beat discipline into them for 13 weeks. And I think when you came out the tactics are fairly simple but the discipline is hard to instill.

The sergeant major - I had a big long talk with staff NCOs and NCOs about their role in helping me attain a level of individual and small unit discipline which would carry the day when we got into this dispersed dynamic environment.

And I also told them is, your discipline will be your hallmark and it’s the only IO message that as a small unit in Iraq you control. You control how you’re perceived by the population, the way you walk out the gate, the way you wear your gear, how you carry your weapons, they instantly perceive that and that’s the only IO message that you control as a small battalion in this big, wide, long war.

The thing I focused more on in pre-deployment training is NCO training because, again, I think Gen. McMaster said it: That’s where it’s going to be won - corporal, sergeants, lieutenants. That’s where you have to focus on because that’s who is going to be way out there on the edge of the empire, the pointy end of the spear, like we say. Those are the Marines that are going to make those tough calls and if they’re not trained to deal with that type of decision making, if they don’t have the requisite excellence and their weapons handling and their small unit tactics, they’re not going to be able to do that job.

So we ran a battalion in house through the PTP and all the things you have to do with that, we ran a battalion in house. We call it the Leaders’ Course because there were some lance corporals that were filling NCO billets that got the training as well.

But the bottom line was we wanted to control how Marines would be led in 11. We didn’t have enough quotas for the great sergeants’ course or the division squad leaders’ course. You just couldn’t put them through the pipeline fast enough so we did it ourselves. It was each company took a block of instruction and it was basically a five-week course. It could have been better. I’m sure it could have.

But it was good enough and it focused on prep for combat, how to give an order, how to prep a unit to get out the door and do a mission, how to inspect them, how to do a post-mission critique and learn from what you did right, what you did wrong. And so you’re teaching them the skills that then you’re going to demand that they use when they get out there in a very challenging environment in Iraq.

We talked about language training. What I did on my first deployment - Col. Greenwood got DLI instructors from Monterey to come in the battalion. We had about a 60-day emerging course, 30 days in Camp Pendleton and then in the trans-Pacific - when you’re on the ships, you’ve got nothing to do. We had about 100 Marines at that time in language training, and then, when we go to Kuwait, the instructors went back home and we have a fairly good training base.

What I changed the second time I deployed as a battalion commander is I gave everybody the DLAB so we looked at people who had propensity to learn languages as we picked those people. And then like Gen. McMaster said, I look for people who just naturally had a gift of gab because we wanted to add those talkers in every squad throughout the battalion.

And so, with those two elements, we picked 150 Marines. They did a 90-day immersion course because I had the contacts with the instructions from the previous deployment, brought them down to Camp Pendleton, and that’s all these Marines did. They were Marines that already had a tour under their belt so as far as going through the PTP, again, with a five-month turnaround I felt I could assume risk without putting them through it. I didn’t ask anybody. But they didn’t do anything but study language.

And some of them I was amazed at how quickly they picked up conversational Arabic. And could they write it? No. Could they read it? A little bit. But they could speak it enough to where they could act on it on the street.

And everybody said this is a fight for information or intelligence. Well, if it is, you’ve got to talk to people to gain it. If you talk to them in their own language they are much more perceptive to talk to you because they realize most Americans don’t speak Arabic and they’re kind of impressed when you do.

And it’s one of those things, to build report which is the first key to starting up a relationship, and relationships mean everything in this culture. It really helped and I think it paid significant dividends. And I would even do more Marines if you could and for longer periods of time because I think it was that important.

Culture training was the same as every other unit. The basic infantry TTPs - they’re important but the tactics are not so - they’re not complex. The decisions are complex, and that’s again, what you focus on. You use your training always as a vehicle to put people and test their decision making through TDGs all the time so that you can do this.

Intelligence collection you had to spend a lot of time training on because we don’t routinely do it at the squad, platoon, and even battalion level. So we looked at a process to do that.

Here’s how I organized to solve the problem, and the only thing I’ll talk about on this slide is H&S Company - 245 Marines in H&S Company: cooks, bakers, candlestick makers. But what I used them for is to reinforce my main effort because I formed provisional security platoons out of H&S Company because most of H&S Company’s duties are to life support for the battalion. But when you live on Camp Fallujah, you don’t need any more life support. You’ve got more life support there than you do at Camp Pendleton.

So I put these guys out in the fight and they loved it. Every Marine or rifleman, they’re actually doing fixed site security so my infantry Marines, when they come back from an eight-hour patrol don’t have to stay on guard duty. They can either do mission prep or sleep, rest, do something else. But it increased my ability to maneuver.

ROE - the thing I’ll talk about at this is it’s a commander’s issue, and I taught it. Now, the JAG was with me for any technical questions but Marines don’t like lawyers. They don’t listen to them. And they don’t want to be talked to the guy who they think is a pencil-neck geek anyway. Most of your Marines didn’t go to college. They don’t understand lawyers and they don’t want to be told about a very critical part of their decision making process, which is a law of armed conflict, by somebody they don’t respect. They want to hear from their commanding officer. And so that’s why I taught it.

We reset - every time we pulled platoons out to give them a shower, hot chow, we reset and re-taught LOAC, and we went over vignettes that we had either done well or things we didn’t do well while we were executing the mission.

The thing you have to remember is your hearts of your Marines will harden overtime. If you don’t understand that, you miss the point. These guys are on third, fourth tours. They’ve seen buddies get killed, blown up. They may have been blown up themselves and come back to duty. It’s hard to tell them to like these people but you have to talk to about it in a relevance to the mission and how - treating them well and using the law of armed conflict. It benefits them as far as their legitimacy, as far as their ability to execute the mission and actually save fellow Marines’ lives.

Combat leadership - I’ll say this is the big thing: supervise, supervise, supervise. You come out there. Once you’re in the fight, you have to get out of that CP and go see every unit. I had, at one point, seven maneuver companies, 30 platoons. It took a week to see everybody face to face. When I talk about two levels down I’m talking looking the lieutenant in the eye, having him brief you on what he’s doing. You know what he should be doing because you’ve given him the order, but you’ve got to go out there and see them actually do things.

Again, the non-kinetic focus - what I’ll talk about here is the kinetics are easy. We get that. The non-kinetic civil affairs CI ops, IO, working with civilian leaders, that’s the hard part. I’m not saying going to guns is not important - and I think Gen. McMaster said it well: don’t ever lose a firefight, pursue those guys until you got them, that’s shooting. No one gets a free shot, is what I used to say. I don’t care how far you’ve got to chase them. Chase them, run them down, and kill them if they choose to oppose you. But focus your efforts of your staff, the battalion on the non-kinetic aspect of the fight.
Partnership - you’ve to eat, live and sleep with them to be effective.

And I don’t care about that. I’ll get to the last slide. The last bullet is if you remember nothing else, I would say - we had all these signs that said, complacency kills. And I told my Marines that that’s really not true because it’s the divine right of the PFC lance corporal to be complacent. That’s his right. He gets to do that. After he has his first firefight, he’s going to be complacent. He’s going to get comfortable in his environment and it’s his leadership that mitigates that natural phenomenon.

If his leadership isn’t caring, active, involved, he will be complacent and he will get himself killed because you didn’t have the balls to do it right, get in his face, jack him up, and make sure he did it right.

So that’s my presentation. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

The Art of Battalion Command in Counterinsurgency: Part Three - The Local Approach

The Marine Corps University Counterinsurgency Leadership In Afghanistan, Iraq and Beyond: The Art of Battalion Command in Counterinsurgency transcript (PDF) is so good, I have decided to post the entire thing in four installments. I believe there are important insights in these discussions not only for Afghanistan, but in the context of US Navy discussions as well. The participants were:

Bing West, Correspondent, The Atlantic
Col. Dale Alford, Institute for Defense Analyses, USMC
Col. William M. Jurney, US Joint Forces Command, USMC
Col. David Furness, Marine Corps Liaison Office, US House of Representatives

Held on Wednesday, September 23, 2024 at 10:30 at the National Press Club, Washington DC, part three is the presentation by Col. William M. Jurney.

Good morning. Dr. Moyar, again asked us to address a few points from the battalion perspective regarding lessons and experiences from Ramadi, ’06, ’07 timeframe.
I would start by saying that the employment concept of military forces is first and foremost based on getting at the enemy so that’s the perspective that I’m going to come from.

With an offensive mindset and not defensive you look for and go after that which allows you to take and maintain the initiative against that which opposes you. There is no cookie-cutter solution or template for this. And I think all too often, that’s what we see folks seeking, that there’s got to be one set template approach. And I would submit to you that that’s just not going to be the case.

However, in counterinsurgency, you can’t expect the key terrain to be the population. We’ve heard some folks talk about that today. So the question comes up as to whether you should be population focused or enemy focused. And I submit to you that the answer is yes. You cannot look at one without understanding the full implications to the other.

The key thing that I said just now was “understanding,” which is much different from assuming or misplacing your own Western bias onto the actions or reactions of particular events in a given AO. Wide variances can exist from one local area to the next, therefore you must account for and understand these specific nuances for each local area or community.

From that point, you can already see that an effective tactical concept of employment, by necessity is going to come predominantly from a bottom-up point of view.

Nevertheless, back to the question of population focus or enemy focus - in my framing of the two, I would submit that the population is viewed more as a means to get at the enemy versus a standalone end state. It’s not that CMO or civic actions should not be aligned to meet the needs of the people. It’s just that they have to be more closely aligned and prioritized by that which gives you the greatest tactical advantage to get to the enemy first.

Oftentimes, I’ve seen civil military actions that are not connected to either the needs of the people or anything else that ties to improving a unit’s ability to hurt the enemy.

Now, that’s not meant to be a disparaging comment about our civil affairs efforts but rather at the decisions of commanders because it is a commander’s decision no different than ordering an attack, which brings me to my next point which is that you cannot understand something that you do not live with, sleep with, and operate with every day and night.

Effective COIN operations in and around populated centers require a permanent, persistent, credible security force. It cannot be part time. You will not gain the level of understanding of the situation, nor the trust of the people if you’re not there 24/7.

The best security force is homegrown. It’s local. Some might think that I’m simply advocating the last experience in Ramadi with the Awakening. Actually, no. The Awakening was a growing movement that was making a difference outside the city of Ramadi in late ’06. And although it helped in providing new recruits for outside the city of Ramadi - which was a good thing - this movement and its recruits were from surrounding rural areas and they would not operate within the city proper. And therefore, not the ideal local type that you want, who knows the streets and knows the people.

Yes, at some point we hoped that a national identification of governmental forces transcends a struggling country psyche, but near-term COIN is not going to happen. Make no mistake.

The best security and sense of security for locals are a local, and that local security force will also know the area and its people in such a way that no level of cultural understanding will ever bring.

A local security force is the enemy’s worse nightmare come to town. If the enemy loses its ability to hide in plain sight, he then loses his freedom of movement and action. He also loses the ability to replenish its own ranks with new recruits. So you’re hurting the enemy and you’re meeting the essential needs within your AO for employment, money, prestige, honor, and even a sense of adventure for some by joining a legitimate government security force which also allows, culturally speaking, a desired venue to prove yourself a man and a warrior.

Some will argue that a 24/7 combined action battalion concept for partnering and entire battalion and its leadership with newly forming security forces in the populated areas is simply too risky. I would not disagree more. I submit there’s not only greater risk to the force but also an even greater risk to successful accomplishment of the mission if you choose to operate from some isolate disconnect FOB while conducting independent or intermittent partnered U.S. ops that lack permanent presence and a connection to the people.

Lastly, I suggest that our tactical concepts of employment must pursue multiple lines of effort concurrently if you’re going to take the initiative.

Kinetic and non-kinetic, regular, irregular, conventional, non-conventional - you pick the moniker of the day. There are many. However, focusing on the enemy by only pursuing U.S. targeted raids, all under the framework of “clear, hold and build” are not enough to truly be on the offensive and take the initiative. They’re essential and they’re viable ops. But I would not suggest that such a narrow approach would be pursued.

I have seen time and again the limited activity of general purpose forces waiting on the big one, waiting on the big one to emerge for that game changing targeted raid, the kill or capture an all important individual. This single line of effort is simply not going to work in gaining you the initiative, nor will it work for a unit that simply follow a lockstep sequential approach along the clear, hold, build construct.

I suggest that building or holding one might in fact clear the enemy without a firefight. If so, then why would you limit yourself to only those tools that traditionally associate with conventional ops against a fixed enemy force especially when you can’t even find the enemy?

Therefore, you should cast your net wide along all viable lines of effort if they can help you get at the enemy. Actions that you take should either directly or indirectly lead to improving our ability to impose our will on the enemy.

Discussions of civil military ops, key leader engagement, training employment of local security forces, restricting lines of movement, population control measures, census taking, improving governance and essential services, all are techniques and methods to be applied and/or combined as a leader sees fit based on a continuous process that sees a tactical advantage at taking up such actions.

If not, then I submit that you’re likely putting men and women at risk for nothing. Moreover, you could actually be making your own situation worse by inadvertently disenfranchising the most critical element of getting at the enemy: the population.

And with that, I’ll turn it over to the Dale who I know has been on the ground in Afghanistan. Thank you. (Applause.)

The Art of Battalion Command in Counterinsurgency: Part Four - Culture and Terrain

The Marine Corps University Counterinsurgency Leadership In Afghanistan, Iraq and Beyond: The Art of Battalion Command in Counterinsurgency transcript (PDF) is so good, I have decided to post the entire thing in four installments. I believe there are important insights in these discussions not only for Afghanistan, but in the context of US Navy discussions as well. The participants were:

Bing West, Correspondent, The Atlantic
Col. Dale Alford, Institute for Defense Analyses, USMC
Col. William M. Jurney, US Joint Forces Command, USMC
Col. David Furness, Marine Corps Liaison Office, US House of Representatives

Held on Wednesday, September 23, 2024 at 10:30 at the National Press Club, Washington DC, part four is the presentation by Col. Dale Alford.

I’d like to start by saying us three on the stage here, first of all, we’ve known each other as brothers literally for 20 years. Our families, our friends, we’ve spent many, many hours over the last 20 years drinking beer together and on occasion sipping a glass of whiskey talking about this stuff. And what I just heard over the last 30 minutes, I could say again over and over and expanse on each of those points because we literally know what each other think. And that’s a unique thing about the Marine Corps that you need to understand.

What I will talk about - I was asked by Mark to talk about the lessons from Al-Qa’im and how they transfer to Afghanistan. I had an opportunity to command a battalion in Afghanistan ’04, came home for seven months, went back to Iraq with the same battalion, literally the same battalion, same five company commanders for the most part, the three - the XOs all just - that was an unique piece the 36 were able to do. And then this past year I spent nine months in Afghanistan working for a great soldier named Gen. McKiernan.

What I will say is what Bill said. It is population centric versus enemy centric? Yes. Again, it’s both. And you call look at al-Qaim and you can say we did Iron Fist, a battalion size operation - got to do everything that everyone believed that you would want to do as a battalion commander: shot rockets, dropped bombs, threw hand grenades, the whole bit - and then a regimental size operation, Steel Curtain, in order to take back the area of Al-Qa’im.

That was a means to an ends though. As we moved and did that, we literally dropped off platoons that built position and at the end of a 10-week period, we have 14 positions. And we immediately moved the Iraqi army in with us. I learned many of those things at the first tour in Afghanistan - mistakes made - and was able to use that the next year in Iraq.

And how does that transition to Afghanistan? Right now, what I see in Afghanistan, and I had the opportunity to travel around the entire country, visit many, many units including our NATO partners, that we’re completely an enemy-centric force.

We need to re-position a significant portion of our FOBs and COPs among the population because right now they’re not. The problem is they were built for CT missions in ’02 and ’03 and in ’04 in wrong locations for a population-centric COIN effort.

And the second thing is we talk about it a lot, we write about it a lot but we are not focused on the Afghan army and the Afghan police and the Afghan border police. We don’t live with them as partnered units. We consider partnering to link up and do operations. If you’re not sleeping with them, eating with them, and crapping in the same bucket, you’re not partnered and we’re not partnered in Afghanistan.

Real quick. COIN population centric is not about being nice to them like - (inaudible) - said. “Hearts and minds” gets confused sometimes. It’s about separating the population from the insurgents, protecting them, influencing them, and controlling the population, especially in the initial stages. And we talked about already about the enemy. It’s fluid; it hides in plain sight. The enemy does it.

And what do we mean by hearts and minds? I think, Dr. Mansoor, you brought up “trust and confidence.” I totally agree. The heart or the trust is that we’re in their best self-interests. We’re in their best self-interest. The people have to be believe that and in their mind or their confidence in us they have to believe that we are going to win, and when I say we, it’s the Afghan army and police with our support and their government. They have to believe that we’re going to win and we’re going to protect them. In their heart they have to believe we’re in their best self-interest and in their mind they believe that we are going to win. We’re failing to do that.

I’ll talk a little bit about if you’re going to do population-centric COIN and you’re going to live with the Afghan army and police, how do you do that? And the very first step is you really need to understand who you’re dealing with. I’m going to talk a little bit about understanding the Afghan people from my 17, 18 months experience in the country.

First off, this is a quote I found and I totally agree with it. They’ve learned to survive 30 years of war by hedging their bets. They’ve learned to play both sides. And they are still doing it. Why? Because they’re getting slapped on one cheek by their government and the other cheek by the Taliban. They don’t have a good choice and we’re not providing them a good choice because we’re not population centric, we’re not amongst the people, and we’re not with their army and police force. That’s the first step. I was pleased to see Gen. McChrystal’s paper that came out Monday that he’s writing about it. Now we’ve got to execute it.

The next thing is these people can read you better than any people I’ve ever been around including my uncles that live in north Georgia which are very similar to. (Laughter.) They live off the land. They’ve learned over their lifetime in order to survive how to read people. You’ve got to understand that when you deal with then on a daily basis. If you’re not sincere, they will see through you in a heartbeat and you will not be successful with them.

And the next point is about their problems. Their problem is they don’t have honor. They don’t have justice in their government. They believe that their government is corrupt. Whether it is or not, they believe it. And they don’t believe that they have physical security and a significant portion of the population doesn’t have food security four or five months out of the year; those three things, we - if we’re among the people and with their army - we can focus on those.

This is an important list. First bullet: The Afghans have based all their thoughts and decisions on history. When an Afghan looks at life, he looks backwards. He thinks about his history, he makes decisions off of his oral history that he knows of his society.

When we, the Western world, look at life, we look forward. We think about how we’re going to have a bigger house, we’re going to have a better retirement, I’m going to get a better car, I’m going to send my kid to college and get a better education, which in my case, it’s not very difficult to do.

When you deal with an Afghan, he makes decisions. You’ve got to know that. He looks at life 360 degrees from the way you look at life. It’s difficult for us to wrap our minds around and understand that. We must try better.

It’s an agricultural-based society which is extremely important and it was - and much of their agriculture was destroyed in past history and we must focus our effort and our development to bring that back. First thing is we’ve got to be there amongst them.

And then the rural versus the city - 80 percent of the population is a rural force, rural people. They don’t want electricity in many of the homes. We think they do. Why did Iraqis want electricity as soon as we - because they had electricity. The Afghan - many of the Afghans never had electricity. They want electricity to move water in their clinics and to schools but in their basic homes, they’re not begging for it, but we’re trying to give it to them in many cases. We need to understand them better before we try to help them.

And the last one, how do you get them to pick our side? This whole thing is about getting them to pick our side. Right now, they’re playing defense. They’re on defense because they’re not picking our side because they don’t believe in their heart that we’re in their best self-interest, and in their mind they don’t know if we’re going to win.

The Afghan culture, it’s like the Iraqi culture on steroids. It really is. It’s a weird mix between Pashtunwali and Islam, which in many cases are opposed to each other. And the parts where the insurgency really is, the East and the South - because this is a Pashtun insurgence, make no error about it - Pashtunwali is extremely strong even though something similar to Pashtunwali is throughout the rest of the country. And it is a great code. It is a very similar code that my uncles in north Georgia live by.

Understanding the people and their culture, and you need to do that because that’s all they have. That village elder that you deal with on a daily basis, if you’re doing this business right, his honor and his culture and his history is all he has in life and he will kill you for it.

We’ll go through the Afghan army real quick. One thing I’ll say about it is you’ve got to leverage a culture. The leadership we’ve talked about already, the logistic of their force is weak and we had to work on that. You’ve got to accept chaos when you deal with the Afghan Army because it’s going to be there. And you’ve got to show that you’re committed and risk your life right beside them. If you don’t do that, they will not fight with you.

The army - I’ll talk about all three of them - the army is an extremely credible force especially at the company and below. The battalion and above, they’re struggling. Battalion and above is struggling because they’re trying to build the airplane while they fly it. And if we’re them all the time, which we’re not now, as a partnered force, we can make that a lot better. Advisors and mentors are not enough. We have to evolve for that. We had to start with a partnered force and evolve to mentors and advisors and then work our way out of a job. We got it backwards, I believe.

The Afghan police - there’s got to be a local-based police, as Col. Jurney talked about. It must be from the local area and the people have to know who they are. That’s where the intelligence comes from and I believe that we, as a general purpose force, have to live with the police force.
I can do some math for you really quick. How do you do that because there’s a lot of places. Let’s just say there are 360 districts. There’s 388 but we’ll say 360. I think an infantry battalion can do about 12 positions, 12 districts, and we’ve got some examples of this down south with the Marines in Delaram. You divide that and it comes out to be 30 battalions. Thirty battalions is 10 brigades. We’ve got to do some real math and tell some real truth about what it’s going to take if we’re going to do population-centric COIN because the police are the most important thing we’re doing and right now we’re not focused on it.

Those clusters in those districts, you’d be amazing at what happens when the Marines live with them or the soldiers. The governor, the district governor moves and he puts his house right by the police station. The district police chief moves right by the police station and stays there 24/7. The judge moves there. He can move the DSTs, the district support team out of PRTs into those areas. It becomes a cluster in those districts and that’s where it matters in Afghanistan, down at the district level. We’re failing to do that.

And last, the last piece is the Afghan border police, the forgotten soldiers. They are a paramilitary fighting force. If you want to get into a firefight in Afghanistan you go partner up with the Afghan border police. You’ll get all the fighting you want. We’re not doing it. And we must change the way we’re doing it and we must do some real math on what it’s going to take if we want to make a viable, stable Afghan country that no longer harbors terrorists. If that’s so, then there are some hard lessons, some hard decisions that have to be made about what’s going to take.

Thank you. (Applause.)

Marines On My Mind

A few weeks ago I ran into Bing West at the Current Strategy Forum, introduced myself, and asked him when he was going to Afghanistan. He told me he had to be there by last week, but they didn't tell him why.

Now we know. See here and here. The Marines have gone on the offensive and there are already a lot of issues to think about. I think Ibn Muqawama is hitting this point well over on Andrews CNAS blog, without Afghan government forces and civilian reconstruction experts a COIN strategy for Afghanistan can get off to a quick start, and long uncomfortable second quarter where time can stop.

If this President doesn't get the resources of the Federal Government behind the Marines in executing their mission, then it will be very hard to see the difference between him and the last guy.

All I am saying is I hope we are making big moves with a complete plan in place, and not simply doing something for the sake of doing something. If Obama wants to avoid the pitfalls of Bush, he needs to surge the State Dept. to Afghanistan to support the Marines. The Marines can win the battles, but it will take the PRTs to achieve a strategic victory.

One more thing. Springboard has long been one of the most active bloggers covering the issues surrounding the MV-22. Well, after sitting out that discussion for the most part, I've been reaching out to operators and maintainers to get more information. I'm not sure when, or where it is appropriate to discuss those issues yet, but I find myself coming to a conclusion different than some other MV-22 analysts.

I don't think the MV-22 is the technology problem folks are making it out to be, but I think that program has mega problems that will take a decade to work out. While I still have a lot of research ahead of me, my initial thought is to give the industry team a B+ for the program, and the Marines a big fat F, as in the acronym U-F'D-UP, in execution. The word that sums up the problems with the MV-22, and why it isn't in Afghanistan, is not logistics, or maintenance, or capability...

It is doctrine.

GAO Hammers Osprey

The executive summary.

As of January 2009, the 12MV-22sin Iraq successfully completed all missions assigned in a low-threat theater of operations--using their enhanced speed and range to deliver personnel and internal cargo faster and farther than the legacy helicopters being replaced. However, challenges to operational effectiveness were noted that raise questions about whether the MV-22 is best suited to accomplish the full repertoire of missions of the helicopters it is intended to replace. Additionally, suitability challenges, such as unreliable component parts and supply chain weaknesses, led to low aircraft availability rates. Additional challenges have been identified with the MV-22's ability to operate in high-threat environments, carry the required number of combat troops and transport external cargo, operate from Navy ships, and conduct missions in more extreme environments throughout the world. While efforts are underway to address these challenges, it is uncertain how successful they will be as some of them arise from the inherent design of the V-22. The V-22's original program cost estimates have changed significantly. From 1986 through 2007, the program's Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation cost increased over 200 percent--from $4.2 to 12.7 billion--while the cost of procurement increased 24 percent from $34.4 to $42.6 billion. This increase coincided with significant reductions in the number of aircraft being procured--from nearly 1,000 to less than 500--resulting in a 148 percent increase in cost for each V-22. Operations and support costs are expected to rise. An indication is the current cost per flying hour, which is over $11,000--more than double the target estimate for the MV-22. After more than 20 years in development, the MV-22 experience in Iraq demonstrated that the Osprey can complete missions assigned in low-threat environments. Its speed and range were enhancements. However, challenges may limit its ability to accomplish the full repertoire of missions of the legacy helicopters it is replacing. If so, those tasks will need to be fulfilled by some other alternative. Additionally, the suitability challenges that lower aircraft availability and affect operations and support costs need to be addressed. The V-22 program has already received or requested over $29 billion in development and procurement funds. The estimated funding required to complete development and procure additional V-22s is almost $25 billion (then-year dollars). In addition, the program continues to face a future of high operations and support cost funding needs, currently estimated at $75.4 billion for the life cycle of the program. Before committing to the full costs of completing production and supporting the V-22, the uses, cost, and performance of the V-22 need to be clarified and alternatives should be re-considered.

I am going to have to read the whole report before I comment about it, but my first impression is this looks like a real kick in the nuts to the Marines. I am interested in what are described as inherent design flaws. I've been wondering for awhile now if in an attempt to build a platform that is both airplane and helicopter, the Marines are willing to accept that the MV-22 has properties of both, but can never meet the requirements of either, and should be treated as something altogether different instead of attempting to pile on major vertical lift roles on the platform.

That theory would suggest a need for a medium-lift capability currently not on the drawing board.

I will say this though. The Wright brothers first flight was in 1903, and by 1923 airplanes were not exactly a beacon of reliability. If one considers the first real flight of a helicopter to be in 1924, the one must remember that by 1974, 50 years later, over 8000 helicopters were shot down in just the Vietnam War. The MV-22 is a complicated system, and I am curious if the GAO puts any sort of historical context into its analysis of conclusions.

The reason I say this is because by 1923, despite reliability issues, airplanes were recognized as an important military capability that military forces were investing in, including in the Navy. At no time since 1974 has any military service considered the helicopter too dangerous, despite its Vietnam record, to field as a necessary capability. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the expectations of the MV-22 could be too high, and the GAO response represents a warning that the Marines should take caution in their expectations for the MV-22 capability while it is still, at least historically, relatively young in its development as a reliable military capability.

Amphibious Operations and Sea Basing

The Marine Corps has released this paper, Amphibious Operations in the 21st Century (PDF) dated March 18, 2009, to inspire an intellectual renaissance in amphibious thinking and innovation. It has a companion paper, Sea Basing for the Range of Military Operations (PDF) dated March 26, 2009, a working draft that describes the use of seabasing for the range of operations as the Marines continue to formalize the concept into doctrine.

There are a bunch of ways to look at these articles, so I encourage anyone interested in Naval Operations or Marine Corps operations to read both and leave your impressions in the comments or on your own blog. Clearly I'll have more than one post on these two papers over time.

The two papers are very different. The amphibious operations paper is a solicitation of ideas, where as the Sea Basing paper is a pitch for a concept of operations. I really like the way the amphibious operations paper is put together, and I only see one flaw. I absolutely agree that OMFTS offers a substantially different way of thinking about amphibious operations, but it must be noted that it is only made possible by U.S. naval superiority and the amphibious operations paper skips the most important part of that enormous caveat.

The Navy has outright rejected, as in a full retreat at flank speed, operational requirements to command the surface of the water within 25 nautical miles of the coast, and in my opinion, has rejected intellectual evaluation of the requirements of the littoral in general by completely ignoring the effects of the local population on the sea. To this day, there is still zero evidence the Navy sees value in any warship capable of actual combat below the 9000 ton Burke class, and there remains persistent insistence by otherwise intelligent people that the Littoral Combat Ship, a barely armed thin skinned mothership, is somehow a littoral solution when the actual combat capabilities of unmanned systems is a fleet solution in every operational environment, nothing specific to the littorals whatsoever. If anything, the LCS is horribly designed for the littoral being too big, too expensive, too few, and poorly designed for the threat level most likely encountered. The Sea Lion makes more sense in the Littorals than the LCS, and the L in the LCS stands for "littoral"!

As far as I am concerned, until someone high up in the policy office sticks their boot up the ass of an important SWO and says 'control the littorals including that 25nm distance your doctrine currently ignores,' amphibious operations do not exist in contested environments, no matter how much flanking capability and speed the Marines build into their systems. Any Admiral making the intellectual argument of OTH control within 25 nautical miles of shore in the populated, contested littorals should be looked at in the context of the Army General in his fat FOB outside Baghdad in 2004 telling the President "everything is OK sir!" His buddy, the Admiral who talks about the ScanEagle identifying which fishing boat is friend and foe from 12,000 ft is the Air Force General preaching about the qualities of the F-22 in the fight against Al Qaeda.

Until the Navy operates sailors in the littorals, a necessity the Navy doesn't have any comprehensive strategic public discussion for today, amphibious operations by the Marine Corps does not exist in any but the most permissive environments. If I was the Marines, I would trade the EFV for a ~600 ton near shore corvette that can deploy a squad by rubber boat, and tell the Navy you want to operate these corvettes in squadrons of 4 and 16 as platoons and Companies. I would inform them that instead of fire support, the Marine Corps module for the LCS will be the C2 node for maneuvering these Marine Corps littoral corvettes, which when partnered with the Coast Guard bring a security solution to any operational environment. Bring the Marine vehicles and equipment in on JHSVs instead of using EFVs and increase your near shore fire support with the corvettes, because until the US Navy is under better strategic management the Marines are going to need to build their own inshore Navy if they want to conduct amphibious operations in the contested littorals. May sound sad, but without the prior mentioned boot up SWO ass, it is absolutely true.

And for the record, a long range deployable stealth RHIB that can do 25 knots back and forth from over 25nm, or even operate for a few days inside someones 25nm threat zone, is something we could be doing with technology today. We simply choose not to focus our attention on these types of things. It is a lot easier to make a stealth RHIB that can avoid ASMs than it is to build $5 billion destroyers displacing 14,500 tons. How about some realism in littoral warfare for a change from the SWOs? The Marine Corps better demand exactly that if they are serious about amphibious operations in the 21st century.

I like this amphibious operations paper. It is a call for ideas, and only whiffs on that 25nm littoral issue. Otherwise, good stuff.

Now lets look at the Sea Basing paper. Anytime a paper has a section titled "10-30-30 and the MCO Myopia" let me just say, HELL YES. The Sea Basing paper addresses “10-30-30”.

In 2002, a Joint Staff planning effort titled “Operational Availability 2003” examined the ability of the United States to achieve rapid victory in two nearly simultaneous MCOs. The Joint Staff concluded that U.S. forces should strive to “seize the initiative” within 10 days, accomplish initial “swiftly defeat” objectives versus one enemy within 30 days, and then commence “swiftly defeat” operations versus a second enemy in another theater within another 30 days. This became known as the “10-30-30” metric and was subsequently formalized by OSD in Strategic Planning Guidance. This emphasis on strategic speed to conduct multiple MCOs diverted intellectual rigor away from the blend of capabilities required to conduct a range of operations, leading one informed observer to remark “a decade or more of thinking about the strategic and operational implications of uncertain access and the need to improve joint sea-based maneuver options had come down to this: a single-minded DoN pursuit for an ability to conduct a brigade sized forcible entry in approximately ten days.”

That last quote comes from Bob Work, in Chapter 5 regarding Sea Basing of Newport Paper #26 (PDF). It is a breath of fresh air to see the Marine Corps come out and say “10-30-30” needs to take a hike. I contend the “10-30-30” metric has resulted in a decade of poor strategic thinking, and without question the way it has driven the operational side of Sea Basing development has resulted in a limited approach towards a Sea Basing concept. A real concern for the Marines should be how many bad ideas were sold into good ideas while being derived from such a terrible benchmark metric? In the opinion of many experts who have worked with the MSC, the MLP as designed looks like a poster child for poorly designed logistics. Will the MLP be able to evacuate a seriously damaged major surface combatant like the Mighty Servant II did with the USS Cole (DDG 67)? Wouldn't salvage qualify as a function of a sea base?

The Sea Basing paper hangs its hat in the end on the Expeditionary Warrior 2009 annual exercise in regards to the use of seabasing for the range of operations, further formalizing the concept as doctrine. One problem, according to InsideTheNavy published February 23, 2024 titled Marine Corps’ annual war game finds . . . SEABASING CONCEPT LACKS COMMON UNDERSTANDING, NEEDS UPDATING, there is still confusion regarding what Sea Basing is.

The game, dubbed “Expeditionary Warrior 2009,” revealed a lack of a common shared understanding of what seabasing entails, with some thinking of it more as a physical base at sea rather than a collection of ships that enable forcible entry or operation ashore without the assistance of a host nation, Lt. Col. Reid Bessenger, the operations officer of the wargaming division at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, said.

“It’s awfully difficult to get beyond that point if you don’t have a common baseline,” Bessenger said.

Bessenger said the game also appeared to show that additional information sharing requirements are needed for a joint seabasing operation involving international partners. It revealed the need for updating the seabasing concept of operations and development of more specific plans for how to leverage the seabase for foreign internal defense and counterinsurgency (FID/COIN) operations, the focus on this year’s war game held Feb. 2 to Feb. 6 in Maryland.

Logistics. Logistics. Logistics. Or is it? What does a sea base fighting piracy off Somalia look like? What does a Sea Base fighting Al Qaeda off the Sudan look like? What does a Sea Base supporting the collapse of North Korea look like? What does a Sea Base supporting the nuclear detonation in a modern major port city look like? Logistics is only part of the story, and forward operating bases perform a function further than a port in the middle of the ocean. Where is the landing pad for the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division? What, the "Joint" Sea Base cannot support an Army unit? Until Sea Basing has easily understood answers for what I think are pretty basic questions, "Joint" Sea Basing is a concept far from doctrine. I kind of wish the Marine Corps would have written this Sea Basing document like they did the Amphibious Operations document, specifically in the context of asking questions instead of stating answers.

For those looking for more information, there are new Sea Basing materials at the Marines new Sea Basing website. By the way, in some of the new documents on that page, it looks like the composition of the Sea Base has evolved towards only 3-4 ships operating within a more traditional amphibious readiness group organization. Something to check out.

Everything Hinges on QDR Decisions

“There are some folks that would say that the best way to do cooperative security is with small, cheap and benign little patrol boats operating in various areas around the world,” he said. “I would argue that the model that we have, with the Africa Partnership Station on Nashville, is a great way to do cooperative security.”

- Admiral Gary Roughead, Inside the Navy May 9, 2024

Inside the Navy (subscription only) ran an article on May 9th, 2009 called Roughead Amphibious Force Structure A Top Issue For Navy In QDR where the above quote comes from. Roughead goes on to add some details to his line of thinking.

“If I put five Country X sailors on one of our small patrol boats, and we teach them how to do maritime security, that’s great for those five sailors,” the admiral explained. “But consider what we’re doing with Nashville. She goes into an area and can still do, using the indigenous country’s capabilities, ways to do maritime security patrols. And oh, by the way, she has a well deck where you can bring boats in and teach and work with sailors from that other Navy on boat maintenance and boat repair, which is another way of teaching skills.”

Nashville also hosts officers who teach their counterparts in the various West African navies staff procedures, organization and maritime security constructs. And the ship is large enough “that if we want to have a maritime security conference to bring in other agencies from that country, we can bring them together,” Roughead added.

“At multiple levels we’re engaging and we’re working with not just the sailors who are responsible for the operations of their Navy, but with the leadership, and then being able to work in the broader maritime security construct,” he said. “For me, amphibious ships are great for that.”

Recently the H1N1 swine flu popped up among the crew of the USS Dubuque (LPD 8), which had been scheduled to conduct Pacific Partnership 2009, the annual medical diplomacy partnership operation in the southern Pacific. ADM Willard decided to keep the ship home, which turned out to be a smart decision as other crewmembers have come down with the bug. The replacment ship will be USNS Richard E. Byrd (T-AKE 4). HSV Swift conducted the global fleet station in central America earlier this year. My point is ships other than amphibious ships have been carrying out the security cooperation role even as fewer Marines are available on amphibious ships, so there is plenty of room for a debate whether or not the amphibious ship is the appropriate platform for security partnerships.

In general I disagree with the premise of what ADM Roughead is suggesting, as if the choice is somehow either small patrol boats or amphibious ships. This is an artificial choice, hopefully the QDR rejects these type of myopic opinions and takes a realistic view of ship types and missions.

While I think that is an interesting topic, this was the key quote for me in the article.

An additional key Navy discussion area for the QDR will be irregular warfare, and “what are the components that make that up,” Roughead said, including the role of Naval Expeditionary Combat Command and riverine forces...

“For the first time, we did a force structure assessment on expeditionary combat command, and, remarkably, as we went out into the [combatant commands], there was not a definitive requirement that came through loud and clear on riverine,” he said. “So I want to get into that.”

Roughead noted that holding the discussion about irregular warfare component plans, including NECC, during the QDR process will allow the Navy to more effectively factor in the military’s ambitions writ large.

Riverine gets a lot of attention because of Iraq, but I do wonder where the irregular warfare component plans for the Navy will fit in, and how well will these plans align with the Marine Corps. With the Marines developing the SC MAGTFs, my question is what does the matching Navy component look like? Does it include an amphibious ship? Should it? Is the JHSV a more appropriate platform? Is this where the Influence Squadron has legs?

One last quote from the same article.

In an April 15 interview, Brig. Gen. Ronald Johnson, who directs the Corps’ operations division, told Inside the Navy that the 38 amphibious ship requirement “is the absolute bare minimum,” a figure generated with “an extreme amount of rigor and risk.”

The Marines are sizing their amphibious force based on what operations conducted in Fallujah, which is basically two full Marine Expeditionary Brigades. Is this the proper metric? What about Sea Basing? Why didn't Gates cancel the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle?

These are just a handful of questions I look forward to discussing this week. Be sure and check out the history of amphibious operations between 1990-1999 and 2000-2009 to get a feel for what the Marines have been up to since the end of the cold war.

Phase 0 Operations For Failed States MIA

The question continues to be asked, what is the solution to the piracy problem? The question was posed by the Senate during the nomination process of Ray Mabus and Bob Work, just like it is continuously asked every where else. I think there are plenty of good ideas, although I am not sure which ideas would be seen as compelling at this time. For example, I think as part of the arsenal of soft power, the United States maritime services need to have the strategic capability to organically establish a Coast Guard, but all of the supporting reasons and analysis of this idea would take three thousand words, at least. Perhaps some other time.

What the question reveals is what bothers me. First, the question reveals the reality that the answer doesn't exist. Nobody in the Navy knows, and before that is considered a problem it is still being debated whether this is a problem to be solved by the Navy, or the Coast Guard. The policy suggests this is law enforcement thus a Coast Guard problem, because if it was a Navy problem we would be discussing use of force and rules of engagement, a conversation I have not seen in public.

What the question also reveals however is even more troubling. The United States National Defense Strategy, National Security Strategy, Cooperative Maritime Strategy, and virtually all operational guidance produced for decades has never specifically addressed how the military would manage this issue. Cooperation with allies is not an end of strategy, it is a way to execute a strategy. There is no strategy for piracy with an end that is currently possible under the limitations of current policy.

Somalia is a failed state, which leads me to a question. Where is the PPT that discusses Phase 0 shaping operations for failed states. I have spent considerable time lately researching Phase 0 concepts for both the Navy and Marines, and I have not seen any analysis regarding shaping operations, what is called Phase 0, for failed states. None.

Piracy is a symptom of a failed state, just like hunger, violence, drugs, and an abundance of other illegal activities. If the Navy or Marines had Phase 0 plans for a failed state, then those plans would be in motion right now. For whatever reason, all Phase 0 planning conducted by the Navy and Marines has been based on a Westphalian system of sovereign states assuming governments that could be worked with.

If I was the Navy, I would be calculating the cost of developing, building, deploying, and sustaining at sea for an extended period of time a Coast Guard in the ungoverned waters off a failed state. A cost comparison of that effort against what it is currently costing the international community in their anti-piracy efforts would determine whether that idea is even realistic. I would suggest that because there is no plan to organically generate a Coast Guard for a foreign country, the process of building the Iraqi Coast Guard has been a painfully expensive and time consuming exercise.

If I was the Marines, I would be asking whether the SC MAGTF has properly accounted for the conditions of a failed state for Phase 0, because from everything I have read it does not. This raises an important question, if Phase 0 is the population engagement to build working relationships and partnerships, does Phase 0 for the Marines in regards to a failed state begin at sea? After all, there is a population at sea who as recently as Tuesday, appears to have segments fed up enough with the troublemakers that they are willing to confront them. That suggests there is something to be gained by a population engagement exercise at sea, if we had the distributed, persistent presence to actually engage the population in a meaningful way.

The case for small ships that can support squads of Marines, and enough of those small ships to insure the integrity of platoons, perhaps even company's of Marines can be made, but first we have to accept the possibility that a requirement for Phase 0 operations for failed states exists. As of today, as evidenced by our mostly unsuccessful reaction to Somalia piracy, the possibility that a requirement for Phase 0 operations for failed states does not appear to exist in either the Navy or Marine Corps.

It is one thing to suggest the need to address piracy specifically is not a strategic priority for the maritime services, but it is strategically unsound to suggest that the absence of Phase 0 strategic, tactical, and operational capabilities that curb symptoms of failed states is an acceptable condition.

The Amphibious Ship Plan Evolves Towards FY 2010

Zachary M. Peterson had an article in InsideDefense (subscription only) over the weekend discussing some of the ongoing discussions on Navy-Marine capabilities for the new shipbuilding plan expected to be released with the FY 2010 budget. The first section of the article covers the tentative agreements regarding amphibious ships.

The draft Naval Operation Concept reveals the need for a 38-vessel amphibious ship fleet consisting of 11 amphibious assault ships (LHA/D), 11 transport dock ships (LPD), 12 dock landing ships (LSD) and four additional LPD and LSD vessels. Only 33 amphibious ships are currently resourced in publicly available service budget plans.

The two services agree that the San Antonio-class LPD-17 hull should be used for the LSD ship replacement instead of pursuing a new design.

There is a lot here. First, it looks like the agreement is for 11 ESGs, with the forward deployed ESG getting 2 LSDs as per normal operations. That LSD also acts in the role of a Global Fleet Station platform with CARAT and several other annual exercises, so there is nothing abnormal about the 11/11/12 combination. What is new is the agreed upon arrangement for 4 additional LPD/LSD type vessels, which look to me to be 4 large ships for the other 4 desired Global Fleet Stations the Navy wishes to incorporate into a joint services operation in Latin/South America, East Africa, West Africa, and the Persian Gulf/Mediterranean Sea regions.

As we have noted many times on the blog, the amphibious ship is the hardest working type of ship in the US Navy in the 21st century. The data says all that needs to be said regarding the requirement.

They are flexible platforms that bring together a wide variety of capabilities that can effectively perform the range of mission profiles from soft power to forward afloat staging bases to even assault roles when necessary. They are the rapid responders when crisis breaks out on land, and best fit the most often called upon requirements of the US Navy when problems occur, whether it is Hezbollah/Israel or a natural disaster, the amphibious ship, not the aircraft carrier, is the type of platform sent into to help out people.

I am also very pleased the Navy will capitalize on the LPD-17 hull for the LSDs. The LPD-17 hull can be reconfigured to support the new LCAC(X) which is expected to be bigger, and due to size and with built in hanger facilities the LSD will become a much more capable ship by reusing the LPD-17 hull. It will be interesting to see when in the new shipbuilding plan the Navy replaces current LSDs, because the current LSDs have some life in them. It will also be interesting to see if the Navy arms up the LSD(X) based on the LPD-17 hull with VLS, which would not be a bad way of adding a bit of forward firepower with both ESSM and Tomahawks.

This plan changes the Sea Basing concept (thankfully), but many questions remain.

MPF(F) is conceived to be composed of 14 ships, including two LHA(R); one amphibious assault ship (LHD); five cargo ships (T-AKEs and T-AKs); three Large, Medium-Speed, Roll-on/Roll-off (LMSR) ships; and three Mobile Landing Platforms (MLPs). Initial operational capability is planned for around the FY-16 to FY-17 time frame.

In a Feb. 18 presentation at the annual meeting of the National Defense Industrial Association’s expeditionary warfare division, Rear Adm. Robert Wray, the deputy commander of Military Sealift Command, noted that several courses of action (COAs) are still under discussion to meet the aviation capability for MPF(F).

The article goes on to highlight four courses of action under consideration:

• The program of record without big decks with three modified LMSR platforms;
• The program of record without big decks with four modified LMSRs;
• The program of record with two converted Tarawa-class LHAs by 2021 with the potential for a third conversion in the 2030s and interim plan to rotate an active big deck as the third MPF(F) big-deck ship;
• A commercial ship conversion to an aviation-capable platform.

In the article, this is also included for context.

The Navy’s position, according to a Feb. 25 briefing slide, is that MPF(F) big-deck capabilities are “dependent on affordability,” while the Marine Corps’ position is to pursue the best COA to fulfill the requirement.

In other words, the Navy is committed in a bean counter kind of way, while the Marines appear committed.

In my opinion, the success of the MPF(F) depends almost entirely on the Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) and the Test Article Vehicle Transfer System (TAVTS) .

MLP will provide the vehicle transfer system that permits transferring personnel and equipment from a between the Large, Medium-Speed, Roll-on/Roll-off Ships (LMSR) to the MLP and smaller craft to facilitate delivery of combat ready forces from the sea base in support of reinforcement missions. An MLP will have two surface interface points for loading, launching and recovering two Landing Craft-Air Cushioned (LCACs) vehicles near-simultaneously. It will carry up to six LCACs. Each MLP will have berthing to accommodate brigade forces during the employment and reconstitution phases of the operation.

The MLP will be able to travel at the rate of approximately 20 knots and have a range of approximately 9,000 nautical miles. The Navy intends to procure and build a total of three MLPs. The first MLP is expected to be delivered in 2015.

TAVTS is described as:

The Test Article Vehicle Transfer System (TAVTS) will demonstrate the transfer of vehicles between a surrogate Maritime Pre-positioning Force (Future) (MPF(F)) Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) ship and a side port platform on a large medium-speed roll-on/roll-off (LMSR) ship.

The two primary components of TAVTS are a self-deploying ramp system that will be mounted to a surrogate MLP and a self-deploying sideport platform system that will be mounted to an existing LMSR ship. The TAVTS system is intended to operate through sea-state 3 conditions.

In other words, the Navy is looking to build bridges between ships for vehicles to drive on up to sea state 3 instead of using cranes. This will be interesting. I for one prefer cranes, because with cranes the Navy can maximize the use of existing sea lift much better than relying on specifically configured ships with side hatches. I guess I'm a big skeptic that the idea is to build a capability at sea that would essentially replace the need for a port on shore, but we are doing it without cranes? Maybe a big crane ship instead of the 4th LMSR?

Either way, the plan calls for a bunch of sealift ships that form a system of systems approach, and whenever we are talking about system of systems approaches that use highly specialized types of ships, redundancy appears to be an after thought. No other program quite tells the story of fighting the last war like the Sea Basing program, because it literally is being justified due to how Turkey denied access for the Iraq war.

A few thoughts:

1) The Navy appears sold on the Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) concept. How much compatibility exists between the existing sea lift of the US and foreign nations and the MLP will decide if this is an effective platform. If it can't support US, allied, and most importantly, chartered sealift ships, the MLP is a waste of money, period.

2) Any aviation strategy for Sea Basing that can't support the 2nd BCT, 101st Airborne Division is a Marine Corps centric sea base concept that fails to meet the requirements for a joint capability. Congress should reject funding for any Sea Basing aviation concept that can't meet this requirement.

3) Where are the oilers? The biggest problem with the sea basing concept isn't the idea regarding how to get troops to land, but how to sustain troops from sea once we get them on land. The single largest factor that limits support is fuel. The sea basing capability is expected to be a major asset in major disasters. Well, if Katrina is the lesson, the necessity for fuel is a major aspect of dealing with the problem. Not every country is going to have fuel stations everywhere like we did in Mississippi and Louisiana.

I like the idea of 38 amphibious ships, that seems to match up very well with the emerging challenges likely to be faced, mostly from places without well developed ports around South America, Africa, and southeast Asia. As for the Sea Basing idea, I'm still waiting to see how this idea is either Joint or backwards compatible with everything the MSC/TRANSCOM already uses today.

The Downdraft Could Do What?

The Marine Corp Times has been running regular articles about the upcoming Osprey deployment on the USS Bataan (LHD 5). I read articles like this because I guess I'm kind of caught up in the unique nature of the Osprey.

I want to believe in tilt rotor technology and I love the specifications of the Osprey on paper, but I'm too familiar with the history not to be a skeptic. The MV-22 is certainly expensive, but considering how much sunk costs there is in this platform, it would be a terrible waste not to get as much out of the R&D already spent.

However, in reading the article I came across something that, well...

But the aircraft’s power creates unexpected challenges.

For example, Kouskouris said flight deck operators are reluctant to land an Osprey next to smaller helicopters such as the AH-1 Super Cobra or the UH-1 Huey because the tilt rotors’ massive downdraft could blow the smaller aircraft off a deck spot. He has formally asked for this restriction to be included in the Osprey’s future training programs.

Say what? Is this a potential tactic I wonder? Could an Osprey be cruising along at 14,000 ft, spot a SUV of bad guys, switch on the tilt rotor and swoop down close to the ground and actually flip the SUV with the downdraft? Then land, jump out with some Marines, grab the bad guys, and zoom away.

I don't know, I don't hang around helicopters but maybe once a year, and I've never seen an Osprey, but that paragraph just kinda jumped off the page. It sounds like that could be a problem, and it probably isn't going to sit well with some people if a H-1 does end up blown off a ship.

It has been suggested we will likely soon learn a lot about the Osprey because it may get a chance to prove itself in Afghanistan. The same article goes on to note another Osprey specific operational issue.

The speed and range also raise new questions for Marine strategists. The old CH-46s typically flew ashore with close-air support from the Cobras and Hueys. But those smaller, slower helicopters can’t keep up with the Ospreys on long-haul missions.

Marines said some options for providing Ospreys with close-air support include:

• Using AV-8B Harriers, which are fast enough to keep up with the Ospreys and can provide fire support.
• Flying the Hueys or Cobras first so they’ll show up at the same time as the faster-moving Ospreys.
• Pre-positioning the smaller, slower aircraft on a ship closer to shore so they have less distance to travel and can arrive simultaneously with the Osprey.

When I talked to General Conway last year, I asked him if he could describe what the MV-22 / F-35B capability will allow the Marines to do. I wrote down that he said "It will give us the capability to reach out a very long distance and get to a lot of places very quickly, a unique capability that Marines have never had before from sea."

Media Worth Checking Out

There are a couple of media items worth checking out. Christian interviews Dakota Wood of CSBA, who I think I need to get on the blog to discuss his excellent report (PDF). That is a good conversation on VH-71, EFV, MV-22, JSF, Seabasing and distributed operations.

Armchair Generalist discusses a Frank Hoffman video worth looking into.

Report: More Amphibious Ships in New Shipbuilding Plan

The amphibious ship is the dreadnought of the modern era at sea, at least when looked at from the perspective of prestige globally and how virtually every major naval power is adding amphibious ships to its list of capabilities. Some have called the emerging 21st century era the Expeditionary era. While I don't think expeditionary warfare must mean amphibious warfare, the flexibility of amphibious ships in tackling modern maritime requirements is unmatched by other platforms, which is why I share the General's pause for optimism.

From Key To Future Seabasing Efforts Conway: Marines Need Amphibious Ships, Prepositioning Vessels by Zachary M. Peterson, Inside the Navy (subscription).

“There’s a new Navy shipbuilding program out there that I don’t think has been made public yet, so I won’t talk about it,” Conway told reporters Jan. 23 at a breakfast in Washington. “It gives me pause for optimism on the subject of amphibs.”

The commandant may have been referring to yet-to-be-released ship force structure numbers anticipated to include a higher number of amphibious ships. The numbers are expected in the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard’s Naval Operations Concept, which was supposed to be released last year but has been held up due to the inclusion of the force structure numbers.

Marine and industry sources tell Inside the Navy an amphibious fleet larger than 33 vessels is expected in the document.

This move would put the future force structure of the US Navy into alignment with maritime strategy in my opinion, but it also means something has to give. If we give to amphibious ships, we take from somewhere else.

The most likely scenario is we reduce the number of nuclear aircraft carriers to at least 10, potentially fewer. The next most likely scenario is fewer submarines, which accepts risk at the high end of war. While submarines are smarter platforms for the future Navy than DDG-51s, more DDG-51s will win that debate.

We will have 62 DDG-51s for almost 2 more decades, the difference between 62 and 70 DDG-51s is purely an industrial consideration to the shipyards, not strategic to the Navy, so in keeping shipyards working it is not necessarily a bad thing. CG(X) is the most important ship in development, and someone in the Navy needs to be saying this as often as possible. We know it won't be built on the DDG-1000 hull, and we know it will probably use many technologies developed with DDG-1000. We also know CG(X) will be the centerpiece of the Navy's ballistic missile defense priority as we move into the 21st century. The more CG(X) is discussed, the better in my view.

The least likely scenario is the LCS buy is reduced from 55, although that would be where I would start cutting current plans. While the LCS is not a wasted effort, the platform has capabilities worth replacing the mine ships with even at a cost of $550 million. However, it doesn't solve many existing littoral warfare challenges even if others claim it does. We are still missing that small combatant, what I think should be ~600 tons and cost $100 million, a ship built to do the dirty work in the littoral.

Regardless, more amphibious ships is a great start. Using the Seapower 21 analogy from last night, the Navy has decided big surface combatants were a bad idea, and has gone with more amphibious ships (which can be big motherships) instead. This move is perfectly aligned with maritime strategy, and news worth being optimistic about in my opinion.