It Is Time to Separate Control from Command: Supporting Argument to Why the Marine Corps Must Integrate into the Navy's Composite Warfare Concept

Abstract

The development of future concepts, such as expeditionary advance based operations, distributed operations, and stand-in forces, continues to drive the Marine Corps to evaluate how they will execute future operations. As a result, the Marine Corps is currently going through a significant force design restructure and evaluating their current doctrine to ensure that they nest within the Navy's littoral operations in a contested environment concept. One area that the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General David H. Berger, wants to evaluate is the Marine Corps's integration into the Navy and, more specifically, into the Navy's composite warfare concept. This paper serves to provide an analytical lens to evaluate why the Marine Corps must integrate into the Navy's composite warfare concept and the best method for effective integration. The Navy's composite warfare concept provides a structure that separates control from command. The composite warfare concept provides commanders centralized guidance via commanders intent, a collaborative planning environment, and decentralized control reinforced through command by negation. Capitalizing on command by negation provides an added degree of freedom for subordinate commanders to use their initiative in executing their mission. Additionally, mission command, above all else, allows subordinate commanders to achieve unity of effort in a dynamic environment composed of numerous threats across multiple domains. The addition of an expeditionary warfare commander within the composite warfare concept will codify the Marine Corps's ability to separate control from command to achieve a distinct advantage over their adversaries in future operating environments.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 29, 2021
Accession Number
AD1178001

Entities

People

  • Mitchell G Guard

Organizations

  • Marine Corps University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Amphibious Operations
  • Coast Guard
  • Command And Control
  • Department Of Defense
  • Electronic Warfare
  • Expeditionary Warfare
  • Information Operations
  • Landing Forces
  • Marine Corps
  • Military Organizations
  • National Security
  • Naval Operations
  • Naval Warfare
  • Navies (Foreign)
  • Navy
  • Second World War
  • Task Forces
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Maritime Combat Support and Expeditionary Logistics.