The Baby with the Bath Water: Managing the Evolution of Expeditionary Naval Forces in the 21st Century

Abstract

To meet the needs of the Regional Combatant Commanders in the 21st Century, the Marine Corps must consider breaking the current Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) paradigm in favor of more tailored and mission-focused expeditionary forces. Analysis of the future security environment suggests the following trends: surprise will occur, so the issue is how to mitigate its effects; the maritime domain and littorals will remain critical to any future stability; instability is likely to occur where a nexus exists between poverty, extremism, nationalism, oppression, natural disaster, etc.; future threats will include smaller scale contingencies and counterinsurgency as well as peer or near peer state-based forces; terrorist groups and networks will operate to disrupt regional/global stability; and the Middle East, South Asia, the Pacific Rim, Africa, and Latin America are areas likely to see increased instability in the future. Based on the GCC requirements for distributed, regionally focused, forward-based forces capable of a wide array of missions ranging from security cooperation to humanitarian assistance/disaster relief to combat, it is likely that the current composition and employment of MEUs will be inadequate to cover the increasingly diverse mission sets required. While the concepts of the GFS and the SCMAGTF do not completely overlay the MEU, there are striking similarities. The role of amphibious shipping as well as the training necessary to build the cohesive Navy-Marine Corps team required to carry out the missions described are two major parallels between these new concepts and the proven capability of the MEU. With some modification, perhaps a more adaptive MEU would be more appropriate for the future security environment. MEUs should be tailored to the needs of the GCC in the following ways: tailored ARGs; additional MEUs; varying lengths of deployment; and task organized, trained, and equipped based on the requirements of the GCC.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2008
Accession Number
ADA505030

Entities

People

  • Farrell J. Sullivan

Organizations

  • Marine Corps Combat Development Command

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • C4I
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Amphibious Operations
  • Amphibious Ships
  • Asia
  • Combat Forces
  • Combat Operations
  • Command And Control
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Employment
  • Geographic Regions
  • Humanitarian Assistance
  • Middle East
  • National Security
  • Naval Operations
  • South America
  • United States
  • Warfare

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Maritime Combat Support and Expeditionary Logistics.
  • Political Violence and Terrorism Studies.