The Marine Coordination and Integration Unit: Laying the Foundation for the Marine Liaison Group

Abstract

As the United States Armed Forces consider the state of warfare in the 21st Century, they envision a period wrought with regional instability and conflict. The commanders-in-chief of the unified combatant commands are implementing peacetime military engagement programs as deterrence to regional instability. Coalition exercises are an essential component of these engagement programs. If peacetime military engagement fails, the United States intends to resolve regional conflicts through coalition operations, not unilaterally. According to the senior military leadership, the Marine Corps' will play a significant role in future coalition operations. While the Marine Corps prepares to operate in a coalition environment, it is also experimenting with new technologies and operational concepts. The exploitation of new capabilities, such as digitization and Operational Maneuver From The Sea (OMFTS), creates a dilemma for the Marine Corps because it is rapidly outpacing the military capabilities of most countries. In their study on the conceptual OMFTS force of 2015, the Marine Corps' OMFTS Working Group recognized this growing disparity in capabilities as a challenge to future interoperability with coalition forces. The OMFTS Working Group supported the creation of the Marine Liaison Group (MLG), an organization responsible for interoperability between a MAGTF and coalition forces. One of the critical interoperability issues for coalition operations is command and control (C2), but the OMFTS Working Group failed to address how the MLG would facilitate C2 interoperability. This paper picks up where the OMFTS Working Group left off by proposing a C2 interoperability concept, the Marine Coordination and Integration Unit (MCIU). The MCIU would facilitate C2 interoperability between a MAGTF and coalition forces. Since the MCIU is a concept, this paper defines the doctrine, organization, personnel, training, and equipment necessary to make the MCIU a reality.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1999
Accession Number
ADA526592

Entities

People

  • Kevin M. Jones

Organizations

  • Marine Corps University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Active Duty
  • Command And Control
  • Doctrine
  • Force Structure
  • Information Systems
  • Joint Military Activities
  • Language
  • Marine Corps
  • Military Strategy
  • National Security
  • Organizational Structure
  • Standards
  • Training
  • Unified Combatant Commands
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Maritime Combat Support and Expeditionary Logistics.

Technology Areas

  • Fully Networked C3
  • Fully Networked C3 - Command and Control