View From The Hill
Meeting Tomorrow’s Challenges Today
As co-chair of the Navy/Marine Corps Caucus and as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I know that there are extremists around the world who would destroy freedom and kill innocent people if our armed forces were not there to stop them. Our men and women in uniform know that no matter how hard they work there is always someone out there trying to devise a way to take away the freedom of those they are fighting to protect.
Today, we are a nation at war. We are fighting a determined enemy in a battle that we cannot afford to lose. If we should falter, the implications for the world would be unthinkable. We must also prepare for the next foe, whether that foe is asymmetric in nature, as with the global war on terror, or symmetric as with another peer competitor. Whether it is operations, logistics or planning—it is clear that all facets of the military increasingly require a “purple” approach. Each branch of our military must train with and fight along side the other and integrate with our coalition partners from other nations. The global war on terror is best fought not only by the United States, but by nations capable of securing their own borders, enabled and enhanced by training and operational support from the U.S. military.
Special operations forces play a significant role in U.S. military operations. As a result, the Bush administration has given SOF a greater responsibility for planning and conducting worldwide counterterrorism operations. The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) called for an increase in SOF beginning in Fiscal Year 2007. To meet this growing and varying demand, the Department of Defense directed the formation of the U.S. Marine Corps Special Operations Command (MARSOC).
Activated in February, MARSOC is the Marine Corps services component to USSOCOM. MARSOC will man, organize, train and equip Marine special operations forces (MARSOF) to accomplish their mission. MARSOC headquarters will be responsible for identifying Marine special operations-particular requirements. It will develop MARSOF tactics, techniques, procedures and doctrine.
It is expected that when fully operational, MARSOC will consist of 2,515 personnel and contain five subordinate elements: the Foreign Military Training Unit (FMTU); the Marine special operations battalions (MSOB) East and West; the Marine Special Operations Support Group (MSOSG); and the Marine Special Operations School (MSOS).
While the formation of MARSOC is new, Marine Corps units have been engaged in special operations-like missions for quite some time. In recent history, Marine expeditionary units—special operations capable, established in 1987, maintained a highly trained maritime special purpose force capable of conducting a wide variety of special missions. In support of the global war on terrorism, a significant amount of Marines are assigned to teams that are responsible for training and advising local units in various countries including Iraq, Afghanistan and Georgia.
Although MARSOC will not reach full operational capability until 2008, there are plans to deploy the first Marine special operation company (MSOC) with a Marine expeditionary unit, and deploy teams from the FMTU to execute missions in support of our combatant commanders overseas before the end of this year.
MARSOC’s 24 FMTU teams will fill the gaps of the work currently being executed by other special operations units engaged in the global war on terror. The two core tasks of FMTUs are foreign internal defense (FID) and unconventional warfare (UW). The Marine FMTUs will support all five geographic combatant commanders, with the first scheduled to carry out a mission in support of U.S. European Command.
The FMTU’s mission would include assessing, advising, training and assisting the friendly host nation forces. The FMTU would be working to enable these forces to support the government’s internal security and stability, to counter subversion, and to reduce risk of violence from internal or external threats.
The purpose of a FID campaign is to train foreign governments to keep the peace, while a UW campaign consists of clandestine operations and training by U.S. SOF to fight by, through and with surrogate forces against an enemy force for future success. The FMTU will constantly work to set conditions for success to prevent the U.S. from going to war in a future-focused operations environment.
For instance, a small FMTU may be deployed to a north African nation to train indigenous security forces in order for that nation to be able to provide security against insurgents operating in the region. Success of these actions would significantly reduce the reliance upon American forces to commit large numbers of troops to quell a full-blown uprising. This preemptive action provides a significant return on investment for our nation’s people, resources and treasure.
MSOBs East and West are tasked with training, equipping and providing qualified Marine forces for worldwide special operations. These MSOBs will provide command and control for the MSOCs, which will be deployed with Marine expeditionary units. The MSOB will include four MSOCs, each with 97 to 118 people depending on mission requirements. The companies will be comprised of experienced force reconnaissance and infantry Marines taken from the Corps.
Marine Special Operations Support Group (MSOSG) supports specific capabilities for worldwide special operations missions as directed by MARSOC. MSOSG provides arms planning, K-9 support and special operations communications. MSOSG can deploy scalable detachments of support as directed by USSOCOM.
Marine Special Operations School is responsible for recruiting, screening, assessing and selecting MARSOC Marines. Once Marines are selected and assigned to MARSOC units, they will be trained and certified to SOF standards by the MSOS’s Special Missions Training Branches on both the West and East Coast.
SOF can be deployed to a target point quickly and back up forward forces to halt disruptions to peace in certain regions. To accomplish this, the military must emphasize strategy and operations to ward off enemies. Using SOF, as well as other capabilities, we can rapidly strike mobile and fixed targets with precision. Our enemies, such as insurgents in Iraq, shoot and run, leaving us with a short time to strike. DoD aims to reorient its worldwide posture by enabling forward forces to swiftly defeat an adversary’s objectives with only a few reinforcements. Using SOF is among the key aspects of this total shift.
U.S. forces are spread around the world for specific operations. Marines and soldiers are rooted in warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. Other troops are stationed in secure bases in Europe and the Pacific. We need to adjust our strategies to require the fewest backup forces to accomplish operations. Limited resources can leave the military vulnerable on other fronts.
The MARSOC provides a unique combination of land components and maritime expeditionary capabilities across a wide range of missions. As USSOCOM forces continue to prosecute the global war on terrorism, the MARSOC will become a significant partner. While some of the final details are still new and evolving, one can be certain that USSOCOM will be enhanced significantly by the intangibles of the Marine Corps’ culture, discipline and leadership that MARSOC brings to the fight. President Ronald Reagan once stated, “Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don’t have that problem.” Without their presence there are situations around our world that could erupt into violence and bloodshed greater than most of us dare imagine.
The MARSOC will be beneficial in today’s war on terror, as we fight a smaller enemy who is not willing to engage in traditional warfare. DoD’s shift in operations to a quick and agile military requires that MARSOC and the training it brings to special operations keep us ready for future trends in responding to our enemies. ♦.