MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. -- The Navy-Marine Corps team must continue to find new ways to fulfill engagement and crisis response requirements despite operational access challenges and an uncertain future security environment, Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. John. M. Paxton said at the outbrief for Expeditionary Warrior 2014, the Marine Corps’ Title 10 wargame.
Paxton was joined by other senior Marine and defense leaders.
May 9 at The Clubs at Quantico during the outbrief for the wargame, which occurred in February and involved more than 120 participants from the U.S. services and nine partner nations.
“I think we have become fixated with the great things we have done for the last 12 years,” said Paxton. “The point of this game was to take a look at the uncertain future environment, one with a lack of access and the need to really do power projection. We need to look at everything in terms of where the joint community is going. It would be foolish to think we’re going to do this just as a Marine Corps or Navy-Marine Corps team.”
The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory’s Wargaming Division conducts Expeditionary Warrior annually to identify and examine key issues related to future Marine Corps operational capabilities and concepts. This year, EW14 focused on examining how an integrated maritime operations center and a regionalized Marine Expeditionary Brigade headquarters can best fulfill engagement requirements and provide crisis response and in a rapid fashion.
In the wargame, participants explored ideas from Expeditionary Force 21, the capstone concept and capability development guide for the Marine Corps in the next 10 years. Expeditionary Force 21 advocates strongly for a middleweight, naval, expeditionary force in readiness that is biased for action, with one-third of the total force forward-deployed and standing MEB command elements as enablers for immediate crisis response.
“As we look at our forward-stationed and forward-deployed forces out there, and the time that you have to bring these forces together for crisis response … that’s where, in Expeditionary Force 21, we really look at the Marine Expeditionary Brigade to bring in the necessary command and control,” said Lt. Gen. Kenneth J. Glueck Jr., the commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command. “They will make sure that we get the right-sized force to the right place at the right time.”
As seen in recent real-world crisis response operations, the Marine Corps is increasingly unlikely to conduct an operation on its own, but instead jointly and with other nations.
“When you look at the coalition aspect, there will be language barriers, our forces will use different communications systems, and that’s the way it’s going to be. That’s reality,” said Glueck. “Whatever we do, it will not just be a U.S.- or Marine Corps-only operation — it is going to be a joint, coalition operation. Getting a joint-qualified headquarters in there is invaluable, and we looked at how to do that in different ways during this wargame.”
EW14 split participants into three groups to test different models for Naval Expeditionary Strike Group and MEB command element integration. The wargame also examined how a maritime operations center consisting of both Navy and Marine Corps personnel could support the employment of the ESG/MEB command element during a crisis response scenario in a fictional African nation.
According to Col. Timothy M. Parker, the deputy director of Futures Directorate at MCCDC, the biggest takeaways included the need to continue exercising different methods for ESG/MEB integration, building interoperability with partner nations, a deeper study on the manpower implications of more Navy-Marine Corps integration, and the importance of determining proper command and control for aviation assets in crisis response.
Paxton highlighted several upcoming exercises the Marine Corps can use to put the lessons learned during EW14 to the test, and ended his remarks by thanking everyone for their efforts.
“This was truly a great exercise, and I commend and applaud everyone for their hard work,” said Paxton.