As the United States’ crisis response force, the Marine Corps prioritizes readiness above capability, capacity, or any other goal. Maintaining this level of readiness in the wake of the 2013 budget sequester has come at the expense of investing in training and future capabilities for the Corps. The Cipher Brief spoke with retired Marine Corps Lt. General George Flynn about the challenges to the Corp’s readiness.
The Cipher Brief: What is the state of USMC readiness right now and what are the challenges, such as bureaucratic, technical, structural, standing in the way of improving readiness?
George Flynn: Military readiness is defined as the ability of military forces to accomplish assigned missions. The keys to maintaining the right levels of readiness are having the right people, capable equipment, adequate supplies, predictable and sufficient fiscal resources, and the time to train.
Readiness is an expendable commodity that takes time to build and can be expended faster than it can be regenerated, and it is also often in competition with much needed modernization efforts. This is the context of the readiness challenge faced today.
The Marine Corps, as the Nation’s forward deployed crisis response force, continues to accomplish an ever increasing number of presence and response mission sets while at the same time regenerating readiness levels across the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF). This focus is in alignment with a statement General Robert Neller made in interview in September when he said, “… I think the top two things are readiness of the force overall and Force 2025 as we move forward.” In order to be ready to respond to future missions while at the same time modernizing the force, the Marine Corps is working to keep in balance the readiness of today’s force with the readiness of tomorrow’s. This is a difficult challenge in itself, and it is further challenged by the demands of operational tempo, budget uncertainty, and acquisitions delays.
Over the past 15 years of operations, equipment service life across the MAGTF has been utilized at a pace that for some items of equipment have outpaced planned service life and also outpaced programmed modernization efforts. This does create a dilemma in budgeting, because it requires choices to be made between sustainment of older equipment and the procurement of new more capable replacements.
For example, today the Marine Corps continues to make some investment in amphibious assault vehicles (AAV) in order to ensure that it can maintain its AAV capability while it awaits the fielding of its replacement – the amphibious combat vehicle (ACV). In addition, the Marine Corps continues to fly its fleet of F/A18s while it simultaneously introduces the F-35 to the fleet.
Introduction of new equipment capabilities is difficult in itself, but when you add in the need to maintain a high tempo of operations, the choices can be difficult and a level of risk must be assumed. So far the Marine Corps has been able to meet the challenge while mitigating the risks.
Lastly, there will never be enough money within the Department of Defense for all things. Choices will have to be made. You can have anything you want but you can’t have everything. This said, stability and predictability in the budget process could significantly enhance the ability to meet the readiness challenge while at the same time mitigating the risks associated with the choices that must be made.
TCB: What does the USMC need to look like, in terms of composition, in order to face future threats and challenges?
GF: In September, the Marine Corps published the Marine Corps Operating Concept, “How an Expeditionary Force Operates in the 21st Century.” It describes what needs to be done to build the future force. It has five critical tasks and issue areas: integrate the Naval Force to fight at and from the sea; evolve the MAGTF; operate with resilience in a contested-networked environment; enhance the ability to Maneuver; and exploit the competence of the individual Marine.
Using this concept as a guide, the Marine Corps is currently in the midst of determining what the Marine Corps of 2025 should look like in terms of organization and capability. In addition to retaining the ability to conduct integrated fire and maneuver across the range of military operations, the Corps will need to add and enhance its ability to conduct information operations; cyber operations; electronic warfare; military deception; and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations within the force structure levels provided by the Congress. In addition, other traditional military capabilities to include engineering, mobility, and counter mobility operations must also be maintained and in some cases enhanced.
TCB: How do the USMC’s readiness needs differ from other branches of the armed services—challenges for Marine Corps aviation in particular?
GF: As the Nation’s crisis response force, the Marine Corps must focus on maintaining a balance among all elements of the MAGTF. As a combined arms force by design, the Marine Corps must be able to field operational relevant capabilities in order to be ready for the unexpected. These capabilities must be integrated and enable conduct of operations across all warfighting domains to include cyber.
With regard to aviation, it should be noted that over the past decade, every aircraft in Marine Aviation has been modernized, replaced, or is in the process of being replaced by significantly more capable and potentially “game changing” capabilities. The MV-22 and the F-35 are two examples.
Lastly, as a Naval Force the Marine Corps relies on the Navy to provide it with the means to conduct operational maneuver at and from the sea to both support and conduct sea control and power projection operations. Key to this warfighting partnership is the maintenance of sufficient and ready amphibious warships.
TCB: How has the USMC responded to the challenge of maintaining readiness during a tight fiscal environment, and are there sacrifices that must be made in this type of environment?
GF: As in the past, the foundation of Marine Corps readiness is the individual Marine. Because the Corps is able to recruit and retain quality men and women, the individual Marine continues to be the primary reason why the Corps has been prepared to meet the wide range of missions assigned and the challenge of maintaining readiness during a tight fiscal environment.
In order for the individual Marine to remain the key reason for the Corps’ mission success, sufficient force structure is needed to ensure that deployment to dwell times (time between deployments that allow for training and unit/equipment reset) can be developed that allow for both the time to train and the right quality of service and life. Ongoing Marine Corps efforts to develop the best structure for the future coupled with an increase to end strength should help mitigate personnel challenges. In addition, enhancements to the live, virtual, and constructive training paradigm could go a long way in providing the training needed to maintain required readiness levels more effectively and in some cases, more efficiently.
Lastly, the Marine Corps has proven that it has done the analysis needed to make the hard choices to ensure that mission readiness for today’s fight will not risk the capabilities needed in the future force.
