French Operations in Africa: Lessons for Future Leaders

Abstract

As the Marine Corps builds up the Special-Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force – Crisis Response (MAGTF –CR) under Marine Forces Africa (MARFORAF), there are valuable lessons to be learned from recent French military operations on the African continent. This essay gives some background on France’s historic interventions in Africa and makes recommendations for future changes to the force structure of the SPMAGTF-CR.

Background

Although the popular press in the United States often maligns the French military in general and France’s willingness to involve itself in Coalition military endeavors in particular, in reality, the French are both powerful and active in the realm of military affairs, especially when it comes to Africa.

France is the sixth most powerful nation in the world from a military perspective; in addition to a large and modern conventional force, it maintains a credible nuclear deterrent arsenal. Interestingly, the French military connection to its former colonial possessions in Sub-Saharan Africa does not extend to arm sales; while the French are the world’s fourth largest exporter of military hardware, (Rapport au Parlement, 10) exports to Sub-Saharan Africa account for only 5 percent of their total sales, and France has never made the Top Ten list of African arms suppliers compiled annually by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Historically, Russia and Ukraine have occupied the top spots on this list, but since 2006, China has edged out the former Soviet Republics as the preeminent supplier of military hardware in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Arms sales aside, France has long maintained strong economic, linguistic, cultural, political, and diplomatic ties to Sub-Saharan Africa, and this special relationship, dubbed  “la Françafrique” has existed to a greater or lesser extent from the end of the Colonial Era in the 1960s to the present day. The recurrent theme of la Françafrique most relevant to this paper is the French record of military involvement in Africa, which since the end of World War Two has dwarfed that of any other Western power, consisting of  37 major military operations in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa operations in the last 50 years (Griffin, 3) most of which have been conducted without the involvement of other Western states. France also maintains permanent bases in Mali, Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso, and has defense agreements with the governments of Cameroon, Central African Republic (CAR), Comoros, Côte d' Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Djibouti, Gabon , Senegal, and Togo. (Livre Blanc, 55)

By contrast, the United States is a relative late-comer to the stage of modern warfare in Africa. Bloodied by Somali insurgents, the U.S. pulled out of Somalia in 1995, and like most of the world was a mere bystander to the genocide in Rwanda. There has been a U.S. presence in Djibouti, Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) since 2002, but its focus has largely been on combating militant Islam and piracy in the Horn of Africa. Popular pressure from KONY 2012 campaign resulted in the dispatch of about a hundred advisors from the Special Operations communities, but the elusive warlord remains at large. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and its Marine Component, Marine Forces Africa (MARFORAF) were stood up in 2008, but were based in Germany because no suitable home could be found for them on the African continent. In the context of first the “Long War” and then the “Pivot to Asia”, Africa remains, as former AFRICOM Commander General Carter Ham observed in 2012, “not a part of the world that the United States military has focused on very intently.”

But that is likely to change. Africa has become a leading U.S. supplier of strategic natural resources, including oil, gas, and minerals, with Angola and Nigeria being two important suppliers of oil. The rise of non-state actors, including violent extremists and transnational criminal organizations engaged in trafficking drugs, people, and weapons is another reason, and is linked to the third driver of change; an increased emphasis on human security and the “Responsibility to Protect.” (Brown, 6-10) This latter has been described by David E. Brown as:

A post-Cold War paradigm that has reshaped the traditional notion of national security by arguing that a people-centered view of security is necessary for national, regional, and global stability.

Combatant Commanders like General Ham and his successor, General David M. Rodriguez , may be the key to changing this traditional perspective;  according to a recent RAND report, in the future, “the process of defining what U.S. overseas presence is needed is left largely to the regional theater commanders in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Central and South America.” This same report then completely ignores Africa in favor of discussing the Middle East and Asia as potential focuses for U.S. military efforts.

For their part, the French Ministry of Defense observes that Europe and Africa remain a lower military priority for the U.S., and suggest that that the European states most directly affected by Africa’s stability, and “disposant des moyens d’en assumer charge” (possessing the means to take charge) should plan to play the greater role in security for the African continent. (Livre Blanc, 29)  For their part in this role, the French government plans a quick-reaction force of 1,500 ground troops, including armored vehicles and helicopters, which can deploy within 7 days anywhere within 3,000 kilometers of the French mainland, or of a host-nation base, of which France has several to choose from in Africa. This force would be supported by an air component consisting of 10 fighter/attack aircraft and additional tactical transport and reconnaissance planes. The French military plans to use airstrikes to stall enemy advances in the 7-day window before their ground forces arrive. (Livre Blanc, 91) This force is intended to provide France with the capability to react autonomously to security crisis in Sub-Saharan Francophone Africa, indicating the significance placed on response time to emergent security issues. This construct even includes a naval component; not surprising, considering that three quarters of Francophone African countries border the Atlantic Ocean.

Sound familiar? It should. A “Security Cooperation MAGTF” was envisioned in the 2008 Operational Concept The Long War: Send in the Marines. Renamed the SPMAGTF-SC in MARADMIN 011/11, this notional MAGTF contained an infantry battalion, a Combat Logistics Battalion, and an Air Combat Element (ACE) as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Notional Security Cooperation MAGTF (The Long War: Send in the Marines)

What is currently in place, instead, is a SPMAGTF –CR (Crisis Response) comprised of 550 Marines from Third Battalion, Eighth Marines, supported by an ACE consisting of a Medium Tiltrotor Squadron of MV-22s augmented with2 KC-130Js. This force represents an increase of nearly 50 percent over the original SPMAGTF-CR, (which was stood up with a reinforced Reconnaissance company and 6 MV-22s) but it may fall short of what is required.

According to Expeditionary Force 21, Special Purpose MAGTFs:

…will assume a greater role in crisis response and generate greater capacity for forward presence in more locations. Based on GCC requirements, these organizations are tailored appropriately to conduct security cooperation activities with partner nations in order to develop interoperability, facilitate access, build defense and security relationships, gain regional understanding, and position for immediate response to episodic crises.

Further, according to this publication, “for the EUCOM/AFRICOM AORs, the goal is a single seabased MAGTF trained for both aggregated and disaggregated employment.” But is this future vision or the force currently in place correct based on the recent history of military operations in Sub-Saharan Africa? Missions executed not by the U.S. or NATO, but on a unilateral basis by French forces? Answering that question is the goal of this essay.

Discussion

To answer that question, it is useful to look to the French experience in two recent military operations in Francophone Africa; Opération Serval against Islamic and Taureg separatists in Mali, and Opération Sangaris against militias in the CAR.

The genesis for both operations was similar; in December 2012 and January 2013, Muslim military forces in both CAR and Mali mounted fast-moving campaigns against government forces. CAR petitioned France for support, but their request was rejected; within 4 months, the rebel forces would overrun the capital of Bangui and install their leader as the head of a transitional government.

In Mali, on the other hand, with Islamic and Taureg forces days away from seizing that country’s capital of Bamako, and with the coalition-building efforts of the United Nations and the African Union too slow to react, France intervened unilaterally, using Mirage jets and Gazelle attack helicopters to stop a column of enemy technicals that was moving on Bamako. The rebel offensive stalled, an although the French lost one Gazelle to anti-aircraft fire, sufficient time was bought to allow French units from Chad, Côte d' Ivoire and Senegal to converge on Bamako and form a contingency defensive force. Within 3 weeks, the French had a brigade-sized force engaged in systematically clearing the enemy from the towns of Timbuktu and Gao through a series of ground attacks and airborne assaults. Following that, French airborne and armored units, along with their African Union counterparts began the slow work of clearing the terrorist sanctuaries in the Ifoghas mountain range. (Tramond and Seigneur, 42) This rapid and sizable intervention stabilized Mali; the same cannot be said of neighboring CAR.

At the same time the French were clearing the last of the major Malian cities of Islamic separatists, rebel forces in CAR overran the capital of Bangui, and the “Seleka” militias, officially disbanded after their success against the government forces began a campaign of killing (often by machete), looting and rape in both the cities and the countryside. Christian “anti-balaka” (anti-machete) militias rose up in response to the Seleka, and by December 2013, with hundreds dying in the capital, French President François Hollande authorized a 1200-strong intervention force under the mandate of UN Security Council resolution 2127, and visited them less than a week later, declaring that “Il était temps d’agir.” (“It is time to act.”)

Today, despite the actions of the French and African forces to disarm militia groups and stop the violence, CAR remains in chaos. The Christian anti-balaka militias gained an upper hand after the disarming of the Seleka by international forces, resulting in a mass exodus of Muslims into neighboring countries to avoid the killings. Contrast this with Mali, where the enemy threat has now been functionally suppressed, Chad has withdrawn its troops, and a combined French/German brigade –sized force will take up the mantle of training the Malian army to handle future conflicts.

Lessons Learned

The French experience in Opérations  Serval and Sangaris should lead us to conclude that the probable enemy force will be similar to the forces that we’ve previously encountered in Afghanistan; light infantry with little access to armor, but capable of  using “technicals” (light wheeled vehicles) to move quickly and employ anti-aircraft weapons. They are also likely to disappear into the populace or inaccessible hinterlands if pressured. Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) have been less prevalent in these operations than during Coalition operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, but they have been used and French soldiers were killed by these devices.

Terrain can and will vary from desert to mountain to jungle; and the tyranny of distance has the potential to be challenging in Africa, a continent nearly four times the size of the United States. The conflict zones in Mali and CAR have often been well beyond the range of assault support range and combat radius of un-refueled MEU shipboard assets.

The mission will likely begin as a “block, drive back and clear” series of operations, with the final phase running concurrent with providing security and engaging in the civil/military operations necessary in a post-conflict environment.

In these phases, armor and close-air support were vital to French success; armored cars, light tanks, and infantry fighting vehicles were required to win the fight, sometimes after crossing distances of 3,000 kilometers from their port of debarkation to the battlefield. Expeditionary logistics and communications proved a particular challenge, according to Maj. Gen. Olivier Tramond, Director of the French Army Doctrine Center:

The huge dimensions of the Malian theater are well beyond the theoretical area of operations for a single brigade. The broadband global area network and other satellite communications systems proved indispensable but are not in the standard army inventory and cannot be used on the move.

Tactical and strategic airlift has been another issue; prior to Opération Sangaris, France was obliged to solicit strategic and tactical lift from several allied nations, including the United States and other members of NATO. Ultimately, this resulted in British C-17’s and Belgian C-130’s supporting the operation. The current SPMAGTF-CR already has sufficient tactical lift in its complement of KC-130J and MV-22 aircraft, but operational planners must coordinate strategic lift with external agencies. While the U.S. Air Force possesses significant strategic assets and would normally be the “go-to” agency for this type of support, the French experience suggests that obtaining strategic lift from European partners may give such allies an “easy” means of supporting a military operation without committing combat troops themselves, and thereby be a useful tool for coalition-building.

Finally, the response time (and size of the response force) in the case of emerging crises, especially those involving violent extremism or ethnic violence, will play a critical role in determining the outcome of the situation, for better or worse. Situations can go from bad to worse in a matter of days; months of deliberate planning time or movement of forces will not suffice to forestall instability and human tragedy. The timeline of both the conflict in CAR and Mali, along with earlier examples in Rwanda shows that response must come within days of the initial events, not weeks or months.

Recommendations

The notional SPMAGTF described in Expeditionary Force 21 is supposed to “conduct security cooperation activities with partner nations… and position for immediate response to episodic crises.” Based on lessons learned from recent French operations in Africa, our current regional SPMAGTF-CR structure is probably not sufficient to excel in either capacity, lacking in particular the combat airpower required to blunt enemy ground attacks and buy time for U.S. or African ground forces to aggregate and engage.

Recognizing that speed, surprise, security, sustainment, and concentration of effects are the modern military principles (Van Avery) most applicable to crisis response in Africa, the future Marine presence in Africa should look more like the notional SPMAGTF-SC envisioned by General Jones in The Long War, with the addition of the AH-1Z and “Harvest Hawk” KC-130Js needed to execute offensive air operations in accordance with those principles.

To engage in ground combat, we’ll need a light armored presence, and bringing in the required number of vehicles from ship-based  inventories may not be feasible, especially as ship-based assets may not be readily available to meet an emergent need, especially if tensions continue to rise around the Black Sea. Engaging with French and African states to obtain the rights to preposition vehicles and stores at existing French bases in Sub-Saharan Africa (possibly in exchange for providing a more robust communication architecture in the region) would be one way to overcome this challenge.

Summary

U.S. commanders acknowledge that Africa has so far received short shrift from the American military, and French defense officials don’t believe that is likely to change.

But there are political, military and economic factors that will likely result in a greater future U.S. involvement in African security affairs, and the Marine Corps is positioned to remain the “go-to” force for both security cooperation and crisis response in the region.

In planning for operations across the spectrum in Africa, the SPMAGTF commander will create stability on a daily basis by administering an “ounce of prevention”, using their culturally and linguistically knowledgeable troops to engage in theater security cooperation and build the capacity of African allies. But they will also be ready at a moment’s notice to deliver “a pound of cure” if armed violence breaks out.

Drawing on the lessons of the past, strategic-level military and political leaders of the future will no doubt be aware of how very quickly violence in Africa can spiral out of control, and what a devastating effect that can have on current and future stability, and will therefore be quick to utilize their “Force in Readiness” to forestall genocides, the takeover of weak states by fundamentalist religious groups, and similar tragedies which have played out all too often in recent years upon the African stage.

Napoleon Bonaparte once said “Prenez du temps de délibérer, mais quand le moment pour l'action est arrivé, cessez de penser et entrez.” - “Take the time to deliberate, but when the moment to act arrives, stop thinking and take action .” It’s time for the Marine Corps to do the deliberate planning and preparation required so that next time action in Africa is required, we are prepared to engage to decisively overcome the threat and secure U.S. interests. If we do not, we will likely see the mantle of security guarantor retained by France, and the resulting regional influence and strategic benefits will continue to accrue to them, instead of the U.S.

Maj Edward H. “UTAH” Carpenter is an Aviation Logistician and Foreign Area Officer.

Bibliography

Livre Blanc: Défense et Sécurité Nationale, Ministère de la Défense, 2013

Rapport au Parlement 2013 sur les exportations d’armement de la France, Délégation à l’information et à la communication de la Défense, 2013

Hollande à Bangui: « Il était temps d’agir » pour éviter « un carnage »,  Libération, December 10, 2013, accessed at : www.liberation.fr/.../2013/.../hollande-ira-en-centrafrique-en-rentrant-d- afrique-du-sud_965393

Maj. Gen. Tramond, Olivier and Lt. Col. Seigneur, Phillipe, Early Lessons from France’s Operation Serval in Mali, ARMY, June 2013, pages 40-43

Brown, David E., AFRICOM at 5 Years: The Maturation of a New U.S. Combatant Command, U.S. Army War College Press, 2013

Griffin, Christopher, French Military Interventions in Africa: French Grand Strategy and Defense Policy since Decolonization, Paper prepared for the International Studies Association 2007 Annual Convention, 2007

The Long War: Send in the Marines, Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, 2008

LCDR Van Avery, Christopher E. 12 New Principles of Warfare, Armed Forces Journal, July 2007 accessed at: http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/12-new-principles-of-warfare/

This is Not an Air War!

            As the Marine Corps ends over a decade of sustained combat operations and is reduced to its lowest force structure in recent history, leaders at all levels need to be more adaptive than ever. The Marine Corps has faced similar problems in the past but still managed to drive excellence and innovation in the process (i.e. amphibious warfare doctrine in the 1930s). Facing tough challenges ahead, it is an ideal time to think seriously about the ways the Marine Corps will ensure it continues to identify and spread excellence throughout the organization. 

Two Stanford professors, Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao have written a thought provoking new book, Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling For Less, that addresses this problem. The term “scaling” is not a Silicon Valley buzz word; it is something that our most innovative leaders do as a matter of course. It involves spreading excellence from those who have it to those who do not. An easy example to conceptualize this term is entry level Marine Corps training. The Marines start with the same basic raw material as any other service, but those who emerge afterwards are completely unique in their beliefs and actions. Another example of a scaling effort would be the efforts of the Marine Corps Center for Lessons Learned to take the best practices of units fighting in Helmand Province and spreading them to other Marines across the organization.  

Scaling Up Excellence thoughtfully examines both success stories and failures in the battles to spread excellence. Pulling no punches (United Airlines takes quite a beating), the authors demonstrate that rolling out snappy PowerPoint presentations or conducting one-off “training stand-downs” will not work (these quick-fixes are equated to dropping a few “smart-bombs” and declaring victory). As the authors say in the first chapter this is more like a ground war than an air war. Scaling is a long-term effort requiring tremendous energy and perseverance.

            Sutton and Rao have distilled the hard learned lessons of scaling into five crisp principles and seven mantras that are elaborated on through very interesting case studies.  

            One principle, described by the authors as “cutting the cognitive load”, describes the need to relentlessly cut complexity during these endeavors, but in doing so sometimes cuts go too deep. Consider the route that some organizations take to eliminate middle managers as an organization grows. While cutting what may appear to be unnecessary levels of supervision may seem like a good idea at first, this often results in employees being unable to function effectively. The authors cite good data on why managing teams (without sub-team managers) that grow past seven and into double digits becomes increasingly ineffective (for more on this see George Miller’s magical number concept) Large enterprises are often too complex to operate in with unstructured teams.

           

            To elaborate on this point the authors use the example of the Marine Corps fire team. As described by James Webb in a 1972 Marine Corps Gazette article, the smallest Marine fighting unit in World War II was the infantry squad, which Webb referred to as the “12-man mob” because one leader could not provide adequate control over so many people in combat. To fix this problem the squad was broken down into three, four-man fire teams, each with their own leader. Battlefield performance improved because the squad leader was able to focus on his team leaders instead of trying to direct all of the members of the squad.    

            The complex issues facing the military are not abating. The need for continuous innovation and adaptation to face these challenges and threats is paramount. For all Marine leaders, be they at the fire team or general officer level, reading Scaling Up Excellence is an excellent starting point to deepen your understanding of this process. The authors end with practical advice on how to scale effectively and demonstrate that organizational success depends not on how good some of its people are, but how those with excellence can spread their beliefs and actions to those that need them. 

USMC Budget at War on the Rocks

I have a post up today on War on the Rocks about the coming budget battle from the USMC's perspective. The service makes both the naughty and the nice list. On the nice side, the USMC has positioned itself very well to retain a goodly portion of funding and structure as a 9/11 force:

The Marine Corps owes much of its good position to faithful service in Iraq and Afghanistan and, as usual, good public relations. The American people are justifiably shy of waging long-term land wars, but do not seem to associate the Marine Corps with those endeavors – even though the service has participated in every one. The service has successfully portrayed itself as a forward-deployed, quick-reaction force that is not designed to be a second land army. It has maintained currency as an amphibious force while not limiting itself solely to that mission. In fact, the Corps is looking forward not just to a return to the missions it performed before 9/11, but also to a significant increase in missions. The service is currently setting up reaction forces for EUCOM and AFRICOM, PACOM, and SOUTHCOM independent of ongoing Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) rotations as well as expanding security cooperation efforts around the globe. While the other services seem to be fighting their budget battles with new concepts and new papers about their strategic contributions, the Marine Corps seems to be focusing on getting back to being a forward-deployed force in readiness. The Corps’ budget will certainly shrink, but it also has an opportunity to increase its relevance.

But, it's mismanagement of the EFV program and the danger of the F-35B's high cost balance things out.

 On the acquisitions side, the Marine Corps still has a serious problem caused by the cancellation of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. While HQMC has already begun a program to acquire a replacement, the requirements are not very different from the EFV and the cost may well be just as harsh in 2020 as it was in 2011 when the EFV was cancelled. It is unlikely that the Department of Defense will accept another run at developing a new system that produces another massively expensive vehicle. The current Assault Amphibious Vehicle (AAV), procured in 1972, is 41 years old and has been upgraded twice. It cannot last forever. To be sure, it has been decades since direct amphibious assaults have been the preferred method of entry and the Marine Corps has other effective assets to perform the mission . But, in the event that an opposed amphibious landing becomes necessary, the lack of a modern, armored ship-to-shore connector may become the single point of failure for joint expeditionary operations. This is an issue not just for the Marine Corps. Historically, the Army has been called upon to conduct amphibious assaults as much or more than the Marine Corps, and if troops cannot gain a lodgment ashore, there is little need for Navy and Air Force efforts to overcome A2/AD systems. When discussing maneuver and movement, the Joint Operational Access Concept makes no distinction between Army and Marine forces. Gaining and Maintaining Access, an Army and Marine Corps concept, lists “amphibious ships and surface connectors” as “must possess” capabilities to conduct opposed and unopposed landings. Thus, a replacement for the AAV is a problem for, and should be seen as an investment for, the joint force as a whole.

If you haven't yet, check out War on the Rocks and their deep bench of excellent posters.

Putting the “Landing Force” in Air-Sea Battle: What Now, Lieutenant Colonel?

At The Basic School, almost every Marine officer has experienced the “What now, Lieutenant?” moment. You’ve sketched out a battle plan worthy of Rommel himself, and then a question is posed by a fellow student, an instructor raises a quizzical eyebrow, and you find yourself suddenly on the spot.

Lieutenant Colonel Tlapa’s recent award-winning essay Putting the “Landing Force” in Air-Sea Battle begs a similar question.

Certainly, the essay hits all the right buzzwords; “reverse A2/AD”, “away game”, “cross-domain synergy”, and features the obligatory historical case study in VADM Barbery’s amphibious landing at Lae in 1943. This case study is such an egregious case of apples and oranges that it bears remarking on. Lieutenant Colonel Tlapa’s thesis is that a MEU can seize islands to form “pockets of local domain superiority” but his historical case study is of a beachhead made, not on an island, but on the coast of Papua New Guinea, and where the landing of the Australian 9th Division, supported by Naval gunfire from 5 destroyers was only half the story; the other half being the immediate airborne seizure of the airfield in neighboring Nadzab by a U.S. parachute regiment to allow the follow-on insertion of a brigade from the Australian 7th Division by C-47 transport aircraft.

Map of the Battle of Lae

In the end, the defending Japanese brigade-size force elected to withdraw rather than fight, and managed to successfully evacuate the bulk of its combat strength; the Allied seizure of Lae was not due to a quick in-and-out insertion of a small, hardened MAGTF-style element, but was instead an attempted double-pincer envelopment utilizing airborne and amphibious troops with a 3-1 numerical advantage, supported by robust naval gunfire and air support. General McArthur and VADM Barbery certainly did establish “local domain superiority”, but it’s hard to see the relevance of that battle to the future operations being examined in the essay.

Let’s examine first a key contradiction inherent in this concept; it will supposedly create a defensive node within “the threat ring of the adversary” that is highly reliant on use of X-band radar, in an electromagnetic environment that is expected to be dirty; in other words, we anticipate the opponent will be using jamming and other countermeasures such as the Avtobaza system that Iran has alreadyacquired from Russia. These systems can both target and jam X-band fire-control radars and disrupt missile data links. This raises a serious question about the viability of Theater High Altitude Air Defense, (THAAD) “Iron Dome”, and Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM) to function as advertised in the very environment which Lieutenant Colonel Tlapa himself believes will exist when we put our modified MEU ashore to create. Further, while he acknowledges early on that “we must attain local air and sea control long enough to offload the landing force,” he does not explain how that challenge will be resolved in an anti-access, area denial (A2/AD) environment.

Which brings us to the next issue; actually putting a MEU ashore on any one of the various locations suggested; the Senkakus, Paracels, Spratlys, or one of the small islands in the Strait of Hormuz.

Let’s deal with these locations separately, starting with the Strait of Hormuz. The islands in question, Siri, Abu Musa, Farur, and Greater Tunb are little more than 5 miles wide, are host to Iranian military forces, and sit well within the shadow of mainland Iranian air defense missiles, radars, and anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM) sites. So, what now, Lieutenant Colonel? How do we put the MEU ashore into what becomes effectively a five-mile square kill box which, in the case of Greater Tunb and Farur can easily be covered by mainland rocket artillery such as the Fajr-3? In the ramp-up to any offensive US actions, the Strait will likely be mined; island garrisons will likely make sure the beaches and all mobility lanes are seeded with IEDs or conventional anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines. Assuming that we can get the landing force ashore (and either V-22’s through the Iranian air defense artillery network or landing craft past fast-boat swarms, submarines, ASCM, and mines would be tricky) one then wonders - getting the MEU ashore accomplishes what, exactly? It creates an “Iron Dome” over, well, itself. It takes a full MAGTF out of the fight, without functionally tying up any significant enemy force. It leaves them vulnerable to continuous pounding from mainland rocket artillery on two islands, and (if the Iranians are smart and position Fajr-3 or equivalent units on each of the four islands) interlocking indirect fires from multiple directions on any of the islands. One the plus side, it would create an “unsinkable battleship” armed with LRASM to defeat Iranian ships out to 600 NM, which does a nice job of covering the entire Strait – until you run out of missiles (an 8-cell launcher weighs 13 tons – empty!) Or until you run out targets worth shooting; the Iranian Navy only has 5 frigates and 3 corvettes! Opening the aperture, another 26 targets may present themselves if Sina and Houdong-class missile boats are considered; the rest of its forces are either underwater, or so small and numerous that the cost of a LRASM (which are still not operational, despite the fact that Lieutenant Colonel Tlapa talks about “leveraging current capacities”) would not justify a launch.  Bottom line; there are cheaper, faster, less risky ways to destroy Iranian missile boats than putting a modified MEU ashore on a tiny island.

Now let’s make a literary “Pivot to Asia” to address the viability of this operational concept in the South China Sea.

Operational Concepts - OPNAVINST 5401.9

It’s worth pausing to address the idea of operational concepts; they are what links technical and tactical innovations (singly, or, quite often, combined) into a method of achieving strategic aims. In OPNAVINST 5401.9 such concepts are described as:

A visualization of future operations that describes how a commander, using military art and science, might employ capabilities necessary to meet future challenges and explore potential opportunities.

However, just as there are offensive and defensive “plays” in most sports, so there can be operational concepts which work better in the defense than the offense, or vice versa. 

And in fact, the operational concept which Lieutenant Colonel Tlapa proposes is quite sound; from the perspective of the home team. In fact, a similar concept was the cornerstone of my 2011 thesis for the Indonesian Navy’s Command and Staff College: Konsepsi Pembangunan Postur TNI AL Masa Depan Yang Mampu Mengatasi Ancaman Maritim Guna Mendukung Pertahanan Dan Keamanan Nasional Dalam Rangka Mewujudkan Pertahanan Regional – English translation – “Development Concept for the Indonesian Navy to Enable it to Overcome Future Maritime Threats to National Security in the Framework of Developing Regional Defense.”

In that report, I explained how Indonesia (and in the future regional partners such as neighboring Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines)  could utilize 12-15 small, strategically placed islands armed with Akash, Mistral, and Brahmos missiles to prevent incursions by adversary naval or air forces at a relatively low cost to equip and maintain. Also, fairly easy to set up, and to make mutually supporting – if you emplace them as defensive measures on your sovereign territory far in advance of any conflict.

What Lieutenant Colonel Tlapa proposes – standing up a single similar strongpoint, unsupported by others, in the middle of an air and sea environment where the adversary will be dominant in one or more domains and where there are multiple claimants to recognition under international law (none of which includes the United States) – would be neither easy to set up nor to maintain long enough to be strategically relevant. A good defensive play for the home team; a terrible offensive play for the away team.

A look at the map gives us an idea why.

Take the Senkakus – the largest is less than 3 square miles in size – and sits well within the range ring of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) rocket artillery. It’s also within the air defense range of the S-300 and S-400, both of which are owned by the Chinese, and their diesel submarines could operate freely within our notional LRASM range ring.

Thus, aerial and surface re-supply of any forces ashore would be highly problematic. There are slightly larger islands in the Paracels and Spratlys – some of which are already garrisoned by PLA forces, and one can be certain that those forces could and would be rapidly increased in the ramp-up to any military engagement in the area.

Range Ring of the DF-21 Missile

These islands are safe from shorter-range rocket artillery, but well within striking distance of the DF-21. More problematic is the sheer number of islands in both the Paracels and Spratlys. The MAGTF envisioned by Lieutenant Colonel Tlaba can occupy exactly one, leaving over 30 islands (in the Paracels) or over 100 islands in the Spratly’s open for the adversary to plant a similar force. Of course, China and several other interested players already maintain garrisons in the Spratlys and the Paracels.

Again, the first challenge is getting the MEU within striking distance of any of these locations during a time of war; all the Asian navies field significant submarine forces and most are building more. The anti-ship version of the DF-21 threatens, as do naval mines and preponderant numbers of small vessels (122 missile boats being the greatest threat). All the islands are well within striking range of the Chinese air forces; the PLA-Navy can bring over 100 strike aircraft to the fight; the PLA-Air Force could easily triple that with plenty of reserves. And of course, this operational concept, as it is written, requires the landing force to get ashore before it can employ any significant air-to-air or anti-ship capability. Supposing that, by some miracle, our Marines make it ashore, and their radar is not degraded by adversary jamming.

Now, the problem is the opposite of the Strait of Hormuz; instead of too few good targets, they will have too many. Our THAAD missiles may knock down 3-6 attacking aircraft before they are overwhelmed by even a small “swarm” attack; the “Iron Dome” will take out about 20 missiles, but then it, too, runs out of Shlitz. The notional MAGTF lacks ground-to-ground rocket artillery to compete with anything the adversary has emplaced on any of the many neighboring islands, and it’s clear that even if allowed ashore, it can swiftly be wiped out by a fairly small element of a potential adversary’s forces.

I’ll address the myth of “parity” in a future post; for now, while I applaud Lieutenant Colonel Tlaba for putting forward an idea in support of the Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC), the fact that it was selected for the Lieutenant Colonel Earl “Pete” Ellis award makes me wonder if senior leaders might seriously consider it a good idea. It’s not. This might have been a revolutionary concept back when Lieutenant Colonel Ellis was still alive; today it’s a recipe for disaster.

Maj Edward H. “UTAH” Carpenter is an Aviation Logistician and Foreign Area Officer.