The Commandant Steps Up on 3.0 MEU's

....sort of....

This is another of my professionally-oriented posts. I realize many of you subscribe to this Substack for pithy stories of everyday life, but now and again I use this platform as a means for quickly disseminating my views on American Seapower.

General Smith

Commandant of the Marine Corps General Eric M. Smith has issued his “Commandant’s Planning Guidance”, as has been the custom of past Commandants. Like most Marine Corps policy statements, it is well-written and organized, and it is worth the short investment of time to digest. This essay is not an analysis of the entire document, something I will leave for others. I focus here on what I consider to be an extraordinarily authoritative statement made by the Commandant on page 12 of the document:

MARINE EXPEDITIONARY UNITS (MEUS) – 3.0 REQUIREMENT

The Amphibious Ready Group / Marine Expeditionary Unit (ARG/MEU) is the premier force offering of our Corps, and I will make all necessary investments to keep it that way. No other formation we offer as Marines is as responsive or flexible as a three-ship ARG/MEU. Forward deployed, the MEU provides our national leadership with combat credible forces that are persistently on-scene and contribute to deterrence, campaigning, crisis response, and combat operations. The ARG/MEU provides our Nation’s premier seabasing capability, which remains a national imperative and delivers unmatched flexibility without the need to first request access, basing, or overflight permissions prior to conducting operations. In a peer fight, the ARG/MEU can hold adversary overseas holdings at risk, and if necessary, expand the conflict to strain adversary resources in protracted conflict. For these reasons, the Geographic Combatant Commanders’ demand for ARG/MEUs greatly exceeds the Navy and Marine Corps’ ability to source them.

The Marine Corps has an obligation to meet Geographic Combatant Commander requirements for continuous MEU presence as an essential enabler of the Marine Corps’ Title 10 responsibilities. My intent is for the Marine Corps to provide Geographic Combatant Commanders with a continuous 3.0 MEU presence. The term 3.0 refers to heel-to-toe deployments of one MEU from the East Coast, one MEU from the West Coast, and the 31st MEU originating from Forward Deployed Naval Forces (FDNF) in Japan. I will continue to coordinate with the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) to realize this strategy, to include advocating for a 5 ship FDNF to support ARG generation and campaigning objectives. Each of our MEFs and MARFORs must prioritize MEU generation and employment to meet this requirement.

This statement deserves careful parsing. Let’s start with the heading. In it, the Commandant refers to 3.0 Marine Expeditionary Units (MEU) as a “requirement”. Later in the quote, he adds texture to it by saying:

My intent is for the Marine Corps to provide Geographic Combatant Commanders with a continuous 3.0 MEU presence. The term 3.0 refers to heel-to-toe deployments of one MEU from the East Coast, one MEU from the West Coast, and the 31st MEU originating from Forward Deployed Naval Forces (FDNF) in Japan

This is not a suggestion, a nice to have, or a desire—but a “requirement”. The word “requirement” is not without weight within the Department of Defense, as it creates a demand that must be resourced. “Requirements” are the invoices for the force that must be paid. As a nation, we do not always resource our requirements, a condition with which the Marine Corps has become well-aware during its storied and economical history.

The Commandant has come out and stated that continuous and indefinite (“heel-to-toe”) sourcing of 3.0 Marine Expeditionary Units to the geographic combatant commanders is a necessity in order to “provide(s) our national leadership with combat credible forces that are persistently on-scene and contribute to deterrence, campaigning, crisis response, and combat operations.” Good on the Commandant for avoiding the trap of pointing to the presence of MEU’s as the point of MEU’s, as their presence is simply a mode for employing them in the pursuit of the aforementioned missions (the most effective and rational mode).

Commandant Smith’s guidance is a useful course correction from that of his predecessor, whose tenure was marked by controversy over the degree to which important innovations in USMC employment appeared to be gained (resourced) by cannibalizing crisis response force structure. Smith makes no bones about the continuing importance of crisis response to the country, and the Marine Corps’ premier role in providing it.

Here is where the “…sort of…” comes in.

The ARG/MEU Team

In this essay from earlier this year, I addressed some of the things the Commandant makes priorities in his guidance, and also provided readers with some background on how the Navy and Marine Corps team up to provide crisis response. General Smith’s quotes above allude to this, but it is worth highlighting. The MEU is not self-transportable. In order for it to be deployed, it (the 2200 Marines and their gear) must (until some other, alternative mode of deployment is created) be transported on large, sophisticated Navy warships acting together as an “Amphibious Ready Group” or ARG.

Three MEU’s at a time operating all the time require ships. In the earlier essay, I did some history major math on how many ships that is, and it is worth an extended quote:

With the Marines stating a requirement for 3.0 MEU’s, four assumptions can be made:

• At three ships each, 3.0 MEU’s requires 9 amphibious ships to support the MEU as it is currently configured.

• Those 9 ships will be relieved eventually and enter routine maintenance periods in which they are unavailable to fill the requirement.

• After maintenance, those 9 ships will begin their individual workup periods, followed by group workups and then integration with their assigned Marines. Keep in mind, while these 9 ships are training, 9 ships are on station and 9 ships are in routine maintenance.

• Amphibious ships are built for endurance, not speed, and the earth is large. At any one time, 9 amphibious ships are in some form of transit to or from homeport.

Therefore, in order to provide the absolute MINIMUM number of ships required to support 3.0 MEU’s in the Marine Corps crisis response force, 36 amphibious ships are required. Given that ships will have two or three lengthy overhauls during their service lives (far longer than routine maintenance), continuous and indefinite support of 3.0 MEU’s could not be supported by thirty-six amphibious ships. So, let’s throw two more in for an overhaul fudge factor. This puts a realistic requirement for amphibious ships to support the Marines Corps stated desire for a 3.0 MEU presence at 38 ships.

Looking at that quote again seven months after I wrote it, I must nuance it a bit. In the last sentence, I should have ended it with the words “…at least 38 ships.”

The problem with General Smith’s utterly reasonable and necessary desire (now “requirement”) to provide 3.0 MEU’s in service to America’s crisis response needs, is that current “requirement” for amphibious ships is 31 ships, a figure born of the previous Commandant’s trade of “legacy” force structure (amphibious ships) for new and innovative capabilities (the earlier requirement had in fact, been 38 ships). In his guidance, General Smith attempts to finesse things with this statement:

The congressionally mandated minimum inventory of AWS provides for no fewer than 31 AWS, with a mix of 10 LHAs and 21 LPDs. As we look toward the future, the requirement for the number and availability of AWS will be driven by the combined Navy and Marine Corps’ requirement to generate a 3.0 presence globally. To meet the material and personnel readiness goals associated with a 3.0 MEU requirement, the United States Navy will likely require increased resources across multiple Future Years Defense Programs (FYDP). In the meantime, our MEFs and MARFORs must find creative solutions in lieu of perfect remedies to meet Combatant Commanders’ requirements.

Note the language. He and USMC friends on Capitol Hill are fond of citing the 31 ships as a “minimum”, but anyone familiar with Defense Department budgeting knows that when a minimum is provided, that is what will be funded. Smith knows that 31 ships cannot possibly support 3.0 MEU’s (and is badly stretched in today’s budget environment to support 2.0 MEU’s), and there is a stack of paper long enough to stretch from Marine Corps Base Quantico to his Pentagon office that backs this up. Stating forcefully that the nation needs (“requirement”) 3.0 MEU’s at a time without JUST AS FORCEFULLY stating the requirement for the shipping to support them is a lost opportunity and undercuts the logic of the MEU requirement.

Why Not Just State The Amphibious Ships Requirement?

I imagine there are a number of reasons that the Commandant did not state a new (and appropriate) amphibious ships requirement.

The first is that he has to work within the bureaucracy that he is assigned, and that means within the Department of the Navy. He and his Navy counterpart—the Chief of Naval Operations—work for the Secretary of the Navy. The Secretary is in charge of the Department’s “shipbuilding” plan, and given the resources available and planned for building Navy ships (think: defense budgets) , building additional amphibious ships to realize the 3.0 MEU requirement would either require additional resources, or it would sap massive resources from other Departmental priorities like destroyers, submarines, airplanes, and weapons. Since additional resources are unlikely (see: Capitol Hill incompetence, Executive Branch indifference), Smith’s stating of a requirement that would severely impact other priorities would be unpopular in the Secretary’s staff meetings.

Secondly, the ongoing labor shortage in the shipbuilding industrial base makes talking about building MORE ships seem inappropriate to some, given our inability to meet even modest increases in demand.

Finally, there is an irreducible and incompressible element of hostility to what the ARG/MEU contributes to national defense, centered in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Their hostility is bound up in the sense that these ships are large and vulnerable, and that building more of them takes resources away from capabilities that would be more desirable in a shooting war with China.

None of these reasons justify timidity.

As I stated earlier, before the previous Commandant, the amphibious shipping requirement was 38 ships. The total actually owned and operated did not exceed 34, but the requirement did not change in the face of insufficient resources. Put another way, the other priorities got mostly funded and the amphibious shipping requirement was mostly funded. Were Smith to state what he needs, a similar equilibrium would be reached.

As for the labor shortage and the industrial capacity of our shipbuilders, steady, increasing demand is the best way to draw a vacuum on the labor market and encourage new entrants into the trades.

Finally, OSD’s hostility to amphibious shipping stands in stark contrast to the will of the Congress as expressed in its 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which changed the mission of the Navy from a singular focus on war-fighting to a broader inclusion of peacetime security and protection of national prosperity (in addition to the enduring war-fighting role). Smith is on solid ground when he cites the centrality of crisis response to the nation’s security; now he needs to be just as insistent in stating what he needs to do so.

Parting Thoughts

There was another very interesting portion of the Commandant’s guidance that caught my eye, a statement that helps clear up some of the confusion in and around USMC shipbuilding requirements.

LITTORAL MANEUVER

An organic shore-to-shore surface connector capability is critical to supporting the mobility and sustainment of MLRs and the SIF. The procurement of no fewer than 35 Medium Landing Ships (LSM) remains the Marine Corps’ main effort to build this capability and is separate from the congressionally mandated 31 AWS. The LSM is not an amphibious warship; it is a connector that provides a unique capability.

When the LSM was conceived, there arose a sense that the simple nose-counting of amphibious ships in a new era of USMC maneuver at sea was inadequate, and to the extent that it was still done, there was an unholy attempt to “blend” the LSM requirement into the amphibious ship requirement as a means to soften the impact of cannibalizing nearly 20% of the amphib force and make it look like MORE amphibious ships were being fielded, not fewer. The Commandant squashes this like a bug, rightfully stating that the LSM is a “connector”, and not a ship. Continuing attempts to conflate the two should be resisted. I am not a fan of the LSM, but my objections will decline as the number of traditional amphibs increase.

Finally, the Navy’s recent announcement of its intent to FINALLY exercise authorities granted it by the Congress to bundle the acquisition of amphibious ships should be applauded, both as a cost savings measure and as a means to signal consistent demand to a reticent labor market. The nation needs more of this, and Congress needs to keep applying the carrot and the stick to the problem.