Sea Control - Sea Control 162 - Redesigning the Marine Corps with Jon Frerichs and Mark Nostro

Episode Date: March 9, 2020

Links:1. Reinvigorating the Fleet Marine Force2. Joint Publication 3-32: Joint Maritime Operations3. MCWP 7-10 Marine Corps Componency4. To Be Most Ready When the Nation is Least Ready, the Marines Need a New Headquarters

You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. Today we're discussing the Marine Corps Gazette article, Reinvigorating the Fleet Marine Force Architecture, with one of its authors. Major John Frerichs is joining us. He's a Marine infantryman, a graduate of the School of Advanced Warfighting, and serves as a plans officer at European Command. His co-authors were Major Matthew Rolfing, a Marine Corps armor officer, also works at European Command, and Commander Brett Peterson,

is a U.S. Navy aviator, graduate of the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School, and also serves as a plant officer at European Command. As always, our views are our own and not representative of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, Department of Defense, U.S. Government, or European Command. So we have a different audience here than you were writing for in Marine Corps Gazette, John. It's going to require a little picture painting here to get folks to understand what the FMF is. So what is the Fleet Marine Force? Yeah, and I'd actually like to take a step back. And first, thanks for having me. So Commander Brent Peterson, myself, and Major Matt Rolfing, the three of us all work contingency planning within our respective commands.

It kind of dates back, the whole genesis of this, back to 2018. then Brent and Matt were working on one of the contingency plans and recognized that to really effectively conduct the planning that they were developing they had to facilitate a smoother transition or command relationship from competition to contingency basically was recognized back in early 2018 that you know a focus needed to be placed on the naval integration aspect of it when the common house planning guidance came out in 2019 in the summer time frame MAR-4 year, NAV-year, our respective commands, we're already really making efforts to integrate at the Echelon 2, so at the component level. One specific paragraph within the planning guidance really jumped out at us as an opportunity, and that was to reinvigorate the FMF.

The Marine Corps doesn't have any assigned operational forces to MAR-4 year or NAV-year, only forces aligned to planning. And so we saw this as an opportunity really to designate a Marine Corps unit to Sixth Fleet to better accomplish the integration at Echelon 3 and Echelon 4. You brought up the Commandant's Planning Guidance. You're the first Marine I've been able to talk to about it. How much of a sea change has that been within the Marine Corps? Because there's just been a flood of articles ever since the Planning Guidance was released. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would say it really had an impact across the broader DOD community. You know, I think it's a concept that has long been called for by many different leaders, to include General Neller, the commandant prior to him. But what it really did was started, I would say it laid out much clearer guidance and then was backed up by a implementation guidance plan that really set some very specific milestones, kind of pushing the service towards the integration that many senior leaders have been calling for in a while.

I think one thing to add on it, you know, a lot of Marines in some of the initial articles criticized, you know, how severe some of the change was and some of the guidance and some of the direction. And they thought that the Marine Corps was kind of doing it in isolation. I think one thing that's become clear to me with all the notes from both the SECNAV as well as the Secretary of the Navy or Secretary of the Navy and the CNO is that this was not done in isolation. You know, it wasn't the Commandant, you know, with a small team coming up with a bunch of good ideas. It's something that's been deliberately planned across both the Navy and the Marine Corps. And I think it really holds true promise if we can get behind this. I think you're right in that spirit of camaraderie. OK, yes, it goes back to 1775.

But if you look at the relationship between Admiral Richardson when he was CNO and Commandant Neller, like those two always appeared to be like best of friends whenever they were seen anywhere in public together. It was really it was good to see the services kind of grow together with these two personalities out in front. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, from a peer, as we look forward into a, you know, what we can probably anticipate to be a fiscally constrained environment moving forward for the military. I think it makes sense with regards to aligning our priorities and ensuring that we're we're capable of continuing to provide the force that the country needs from us. so back to the article a little bit here what is the fleet marine force as it exists today so i think that i mean that's a great question to start with you know there is no common definition of the fleet marine force and i thought you know the group of us as co-authors thought it was

important to be able to lay out our definition um you know so our definition fleet marine forces marine corps units that conduct naval operations in support of the fleet commander's concept of operations within a maritime campaign. And that pulls together a couple of different parts specifically from the Commandant's planning guidance, but also kind of has some historical roots as well. And I think, you know, when we started looking at, there's been a flurry of different activities from commands, from battalion all the way up through different three-star headquarters that have been in, you know, kind of in a rush to achieve or accomplish naval integration after the Commandant's planning guidance. One thing we've noticed as a group

of planners, though, that few have proposed clear definitions in terms of what is an FMF, what makes up naval operations or maritime campaigns, and what is the role of components within each one of these. I think at our respective commands, those are things that are very important to us, particularly in the contingency planning perspective, that I think if we don't clearly define, then we risk kind of having something that doesn't make a lot of sense. I will note The Amar Admin, one of the Marine Administrative Notes, 004 backslash 20, just came out on 6th January. It lays out a little bit of guidance, but I've got some concern within it, too. It says that all commands and units at or below the Marine Expeditionary Force level will be replaced with the term FMF,

and that our Deputy Commandant, CD&I, with the spirit of the reference, will publish guidance via separate correspondence with regards to the standardization and inclusion of the FMF. You know, that kind of begs an interesting question. So if now all Marine forces at the MEF and below are now FMF, I think it kind of takes away some of the meaning and the value of the true historical definition of fleet Marine force. What level do you see this initiative as? Is this an operational? Is this strategic? Tactical? Where does the FMF fit here? So I think our, you know, as a group of co-authors, our opinion is that it kind of bridges the tactical and the operational divide. I think that if you simply just break down fleet marine force, while there's an opportunity for the major fleet commands or type commands at the Echelon 2 for there to be an FMF relationship, but I go back to kind of the historical definition and looking at the numbered fleets and the role of marine forces and how they integrate within the numbered fleets. So it was back in 1933 that Major General Russell then built and established the first FMF, and it was specifically established as a purpose-built force that was under the direct operational control of then U.S. fleet. And I think that's important because now you're talking Marine Corps forces under OPCON of a naval fleet.

I think until we kind of get back to that and hold true to that meaning, I think we're kind of being disingenuous with the title FMF. Do we need to discuss the post-World War II Marine Corps independence here? Because this, I mean, this was one of the major sea changes from the Commandant's planning guidance is like, no, no, no, we're going to integrate more, not only with the Navy, but under the Navy in many cases where I've felt like over a long period of times, like the Marine Corps has kind of wanted to go its own way and be as independent as possible, up to and including a Marine Corps one-star commanding an expeditionary strike group. There's going to be some relevance in terms of kind of redefining what, you know, Marine Corps independence is. I go back to doctrine, though. And when you look at some of the joint doctrine that exists out there in terms of, you know, that defines the relationship and how we operate together, joint publication, three tech, 32 joint maritime operations, that publication alone breaks everything down from, you know, Navy composite warfare doctrine to maritime planning processes and products. and kind of really lays out how the Marine Corps as a service kind of fits within the larger construct of conducting maritime campaigns. Again, I think it's one of those publications that does a fantastic job of kind of laying it all out. However, we don't always go back and

reference it ourselves. I also think, you know, there's, and the Commandant discusses it within his planning guidance, a new Marine Corps operating concept. You know, it has been, I've seen it called the stand-in operating concept. But, you know, the Navy has distributed maritime operations. The Marine Corps has different enabling and functional concepts like low-key or littoral operations in a contested environment and EABO or expeditionary advanced base operations. But we don't really have right now a clear, I'd say, operating concept of how we actually integrate within the Navy. So I anticipate that the stand-in operating concept, when it gets published, will be able to provide some additional guidance and allow us to kind of

serve as a baseline for how we conduct those integrated operations in the future. You're the first Marine that I've been able to ask this question to directly. What actually is a stand-in naval force in the Marine Corps' opinion? I think that's one of the challenges is that there has been a lot of different interpretation in terms of what that is. When you look at within the global operating model, which has gone in and out of favor and I don't know where it stands anymore, and you talk in terms of the contact layer and then the blunt force and then the surge force, I believe that where the commandant is going is that if there's not a force that remains within the contact layer and presents a combat credible force or nemesis to the enemy, we'll have a much more difficult time bringing in that blunt force or the surge force when appropriate. So I think it's a concept that, you know, in recognition or understanding that some of the naval assets, particularly, you know, some of the larger ship assets might have to move out of the contact layer to be able to preserve that force and to be able to set the conditions to be able to bring in the rest of the joint force. But the Marine Corps sees itself as that stand in force who's capable of continuing to be a combat credible enemy or against the enemy to be able to allow that surge and blunt force to be able to come in. And I would extend beyond the, you know, just, you know, at the beach, but really looking at allowing the Navy, the big blue Navy to gain localized sea control to be able to bring in both the blunt force and the surge force.

So, you know, if you look at, you know, within the Indo-Pacific and the different island chains that exist within there, being able to provide that access. And I would say similar, you know, historically, if you want to go back to World War II and you look at Guadalcanal and really what the operations in and at Guadalcanal provided, that kind of penetrated the outer layer of the Japanese, you know, offensive and defensive forces, and then allowed an avenue of approach for both the Navy and the Marine Corps and the Army to be able to continue the movement up to the north towards the remainder of the operations. So again, it's a force that helps set the conditions and kind of opens that outer layer to be able to allow the remainder of our search force to be able to come in. So what's been your experience working with the Navy on this project so far?

How long have you guys been actively working this out of UCOM? And then, yeah, what has your experience been working with the Navy? Again, this was in kind of in development, I would say, prior to my arrival at the command, which was late summer of 2019. Again, it dates really back to 2018 as they were working on one of the contingency plans. And they simply recognized that to effectively operate and accomplish, you know, what the combatant commander was asking of both Marfoyer and Navier, that there had to be a greater emphasis placed on some of the naval integration aspects within it. It was within 2019 when the Commandant's Planning Guidance came out. I think that kind of – and then upon my arrival, kind of internal to our own kind of staff shop reinvigorated some of the discussion and really had us start kind of re-whiteboarding out what would be an optimal level of integration, both at Echelon 2. So at the component level, at Echelon 3, the numbered fleet level, and then even down at Echelon 4, you know, down at the tactical level.

I think, again, there's a lot of different probably right answers that are out there. But I think we need to have the conversation, most importantly, in terms of what some of those different integration levels are, whether it's the same across the larger Navy and Marine Corps or whether, you know, different components are going to look differently moving forward into the future. John, you all are currently serving at the combatant commander, the European command level. Have you sketched out in any detail what your theoretical force, 6 FMF, would look like? So I'd say, you know, we have what we would want or desire. But as of right now, you know, Mar 4 Year at the component level doesn't have any Marine Corps forces assigned directly to the European theater.

Navier has 6 Fleet as an assigned force. Also, in comparison, MARFOR Indo-Pacific, you know, has multiple Marine Corps units also assigned directly to them for operational employment. So it kind of puts MARFOR here in an answering bind when you talk the execution of campaigning or kind of steady state competition, because we don't have any assigned Marine Corps forces. It's just whatever is allocated through the global force management process. So realistically, I'll tell you, any Marine Corps force that ends up getting assigned to NAVIR or MARFOR year as an operational component to our respective commands would be of benefit and allow us, I'd say, to more effectively execute campaigning within our theater. Do you imagine six FMF existing as a four-deployed force in the future, or is your calculations here being that theoretical until we get forces assigned, or it's going to be a stateside unit? So I think at a minimum, you need a headquarters element to be able to facilitate transition to contingency. You know, being involved in the contingency planning, what we've seen is that, you know, particularly at the operational level, if there's not an established headquarters who's capable of transitioning from campaigning to contingency, we're slowing down the process and not executing it as effectively as we could.

So at a minimum, I would say a headquarters element that's aligned and OPCON to Sixth Fleet would be of benefit and allow the Marine Corps to more effectively transition to contingency should that need arise. And the other interesting piece of this that's specific to European command is the rebirth, if you will, of Second Fleet and thus to FMF, the assigned Marine Corps force there. There's some, I think the Navy is wrestling with this itself as far as like, where is Second Fleet going to be responsible in the event of any sort of contingency operation? Where are they going to fit in? What's the relationship between Second and Sixth Fleet going to be? Is there going to be a relationship? Is Marine Corps having these same discussions as far as two versus six? Yeah, you know, and I'll be upfront in that, you know, the Marine Corps has not adopted the construct that we've proposed by any means. I think there's still a lot of questions regarding what the FMF construct looks like moving forward. You know, from a Marine Corps perspective regarding Second Fleet and Sixth Fleet, though, and sitting, you know, at the component level and watching NAV year from a contingency perspective, look at what the role of Second Fleet would be, both going back historically in terms of the role Second Fleet used to have to what the role of Second Fleet might be within the future, in particular within sea control within the Atlantic.

I think there's a lot to be determined from the Marine Corps officer in the room or on the podcast right now. I tell you, I don't think I'm necessarily the right one to be making that recommendation. But I think the larger Navy has seen some tension in between 2nd Fleet and 6th Fleet, has some questions that they need to work through and be able to define what some of the specific roles and responsibilities are, both in state-to-state campaigning as well as contingency execution. So what has been the reception to your article within MAR-4 year and the broader Marine Corps community? So I think within MAR-4 year, it's largely been supportive. You know, it was something that we kind of floated around a lot of the staff. I would say broadly, you know, the Marine Corps, there are not a large population within the Marine Corps that understands Componency. I certainly didn't, and I'm still learning Componency prior to my arrival, you know, at the command.

Can you explain what you mean by Componency? Yeah, absolutely. You know, so there is a Marine Corps warfighting publication, 7 Tech 10 Marine Corps Componency, signed back in April of 2018. It really does a fantastic job of kind of laying out the specific roles and responsibilities, you know, the history and relationship to the combatant commanders, the role within the national military command structure, as well as the specific component support functions, you know, that the component is responsible for. You know, I'll say the Marine Corps components across the Marine Corps are not the same. You know, you have largely varying staffs and sizes and kind of responsibilities based on historic structure. So Marine Forces Korea, very different than Marine Forces Central Command, very different than Marine Forces Indo-Pacific. And again, I would say of note, probably Marine Forces Indo-Pacific, which was historically called FMF PAC, has probably one of the largest and most influential roles,

particularly based on the fact that they've got a large chunk of assigned forces directly to that command. So, Componency, again, I always refer people back when they have questions regarding Componency, go back to our doctoral publications, the Marine Corps Warfighting Publications, 7 Tech 10, because it does do a fantastic job of laying out both the historical context as well as the current roles and responsibilities. Excellent. Thanks, Sean. So, what is next for your team there? Are you guys working on any other articles or projects? Yeah, so we've got one more article that we're working with. We're looking for publication, hopefully within War on the Rocks. It proposes a larger change to Headquarters Marine Corps structure and really specifically starts defining the relationship between what we would consider operational units and then some of the institutional functions. I think when you look at Headquarters Marine Corps right now, there's been a lot of varying degrees. You know, some are kind of functional component, some play very functional roles, some play more of an advocacy role, and others, you know, play very specific kind of warfighting function roles. And I think we've kind of convoluted some of the intent of what Headquarters Marine Corps should be. So within the FMF construct that we've proposed, we went back and we said, if we could start with a clean slate, how could we best create a headquarters Marine Corps that would be aligned and function well within the Navy, but also support some of the FMF construct that we developed.

So hopefully we'll see that published within the next couple of weeks. The article, Reinvigorating the Fleet Marine Force Architecture, can be found in the November 2019 web edition of the Marine Corps Gazette and the January 2020 edition of the Marine Corps Gazette. We'll also post it to our show notes. Where can we find you online? Yeah, so Twitter is probably the best professional handle. Hoplite Marine, H-O-P-L-I-T-E-M-A-R-I-N-E is my Twitter handle. It's kind of where I try to keep most of my professional postings and publications. All right.

Thanks a lot, John. And for our listeners, thank you for turning in, and we'll see you next week. Aloha, Shoemates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. This is Part 2 of our Reorganizing the Marine Corps podcast. In Part 2, we're discussing the War on the Rocks article, To Be Most Ready When the Nation is Least Ready, the Marines Need a New Headquarters, with two of its three authors. All of our usual caveats apply.

Our opinions are our own and not representative of the institutions with which we're associated. So, gentlemen, thanks for coming on. I'd like to start by giving you the chance to introduce yourselves. Today we have John Frerichs and Mark Nostro here. John, why don't you start since you appeared in Part 1. Hi, Jared. Thanks for having me back on. Again, my name is Major John Frerichs. I'm an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps by background,

but currently serving as a planner at Marine Forces Europe in Stuttgart, Germany. And Mark, go ahead. Yeah, hi, Jared. This is Mark Nostro. I'm a Marine Corps armor officer and recently departed Marine Corps forces, Europe and Africa, and currently serving back in the 1st Marine Division. Well, thank you both for coming on and really appreciate the article. You know, John will talk about what your future plans are now that you've redesigned the entirety of the Marine Corps with your last two articles. Let's start with what problem you're trying to solve when you wrote this. Yeah, and I'll go ahead and kick it off.

I think it was less so a problem than kind of identified as a risk and opportunity perspective. So going back to our original article, as we started looking at kind of redesigning the Fleet Marine Force and potentially different force design elements within that, we identified that if the headquarters didn't change, there was a likelihood that some of the change that General Berger, the current commandant, is trying to implement might not necessarily stick around. And Mark, from your side, similar approach? Yeah, the thing that I would add is the place that John is currently serving, where I recently came from, a Marine component within a joint command. So Marine Forces Europe and Africa is the Marine Corps component within both U.S. European Command and Africa Command. And that was a really interesting job for me and an opportunity to see the interaction where the service and operational chains of command meet and in observing the interaction between headquarters Marine Corps, the combatant commands and the joint staff and also Secretary of Defense really showed me, I think, some some ways that we could be better. But I would definitely echo what John said about if you look at how the Marine Corps is attempting to make change going forward, the biggest risk is probably the way that that change or that initial idea will meet resistance or just bureaucratic inefficiency as it as it goes out into the larger institution.

So how is headquarters Marine Corps structured now and how does that different from the other service headquarters? So I was recently having a conversation with another Marine, and he actually characterized headquarters Marine Corps as a multi-headed hydra, something that's just kind of evolved to continue to satisfy us and has these different heads that just kind of eat up different portions of the organization. So I think that, you know, in short, it's this organization that's evolved due to different, you know, force structure initiatives and due to meet different problems throughout the last couple of decades. But there hasn't necessarily been a holistic review or analysis of what Headquarters Marine Corps is and how it should be constructed to best serve the commandant. And in general, it's structured with some deputy commandants beneath the commandant of the Marine Corps, each with their own portfolio that they're responsible for, many of whom are both a staff officer in terms of their responsibility, but also a commander of some part of the supporting establishment. So it's got installation and logistics. It's got plans, policies, and operations. It's got programs and resources. And more interestingly, I think from the perspective that we took, it has a deputy commandant for aviation who's strictly charged with aviation-related matters and then a deputy commandant for information that's a relatively recent addition that also is attempting to coalesce and lead some of the information-related capability development that the Marine Corps is doing. Just going back to the component perspective, I think one thing that's become very clear while on this position and interacting with some of the other COCOM staff is that there's largely just a lack of understanding in terms of just pure naming convention of how headquarters Marine Corps is structured. So while most of the other services kind of have a standard or somewhat standard numbered headquartered staff, the fact that the Marine Corps doesn't often leads to kind of confusion with regards to where different people should be integrating or conducting activities within the Marine Corps.

So, John, you say a standard numbered staff. Can you explain what you mean by that? Just not every listener is going to be familiar with the way our larger staffs are organized or even our smaller staffs, for that matter, when you look at the Marine Corps and the Army in particular. Yeah. And, you know, some people will throw around the term Napoleonic staff. I think that has a lot of negative connotations that come with it as well. But specifically starting to look at numbered staff and having specific staff function roles and responsibilities. So in general, across all the different services, the number one, whether it be the N-1 within the Navy, the G-1 within the Marine Corps, will have functions focused on administration and personnel. The two is typically intelligence, three is typically operations, and so on. Okay, so then what are you proposing for the Marine Corps staff?

So I think what we're proposing is kind of threefold. One is the reorganization and alignment along the lines that John just said of the principal staff function. So providing the Commandant with Marine Corps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and on up to perform those staff functions in terms of oversight, advising, and staff responsibilities. And then secondly, separating that from the supporting establishment, which is then somewhat reorganized and consolidated into three distinct supporting establishment commands that perform a lot of the service specific responsibilities to man, train, equip Marine Corps forces. And then thirdly, which John, I think, has talked to you about in the past, is the realignment of the operational Marine Corps into consolidated naval components that include both Navy and Marine Corps forces. John, anything to add to that? No, just and again, focusing that the numbered staff is becomes completely bifurcated. So that numbered staff doesn't have some of those dual roles in terms of also being a commander for a an organization or element down below it.

So that numbered staff is purely responsible to advise and inform the commandant in his roles and responsibilities. And then those major type commands or major subordinate commands become the ones responsible for focusing and directing the Marine Corps in support of his Title X responsibilities. So I have a couple of questions based on just what you've outlined here that we didn't discuss pre-show, but the Navy combines the three and the five in the OPNAV staff and the two and the six. Would your idea be to match that organization or just come up with a Marine Corps specific organization that those are individual commanders rather than attempting to combine those? So we did propose that the Marine Corps does combine the three and a five, which would largely currently come out of elements of both Marine Forces Command, as well as primarily out of plans, policies and operations or PPNO within the Marine Corps. When we looked at the role that and how the Navy has integrated the two and the six, I think there was still some tension with regards to specifically how the Marine Corps as a ground element looks at the function of intelligence. And we didn't necessarily feel comfortable combining those two elements. So we chose to keep those two separate. My second question, based off of what you had proposed, was have you run any numbers

on whether this grows or shrinks the staff? So we did. We developed a pretty extensive Excel spreadsheet and kind of overlaid that with the current general offshore construct. And we believe, particularly where some of the efficiencies are gained, both within the consolidation of the major subordinate commands and then some of the consolidation of staff in support of the operational chain of command, particularly within the integrated naval components that we would actually save on general officer staff. We didn't look down below general

officer level, but I believe, again, that based on bringing some of those staffs together and reducing some of the redundancies that you would also see staff sizes shrink. Have you received any pushback on that? Because I've lived through some staff reductions. And one of the arguments that goes on is always like, well, you know, then who's going to take care of these different mission areas? Or are we going to stop doing the mission areas? Did you address it by mission area as well? Are you looking at just numbers of personnel? I think it was focused primarily on mission area. So looking at organizationally, you know, what are these different components and commands? What are the specified roles and responsibilities that they have to perform?

to be able to execute what's being asked of them and then looking at what is the general officer staff or construct that would be required to be able to support that, particularly within the naval component, the integrated staffs, you know, looking at who the current commander is at the Navy and then ensuring that there's an appropriate rank match or, you know, one down to be able to provide that level of leadership and meaningful integration at echelon. Mark, anything to add on any of those topics? Yeah, I think anecdotally, I have heard of a RAND study that looked at headquarters Marine Corps and what extent of the staff work conducted there actually left the organization either down or up. And it was overwhelming majority of it was internally focused.

So I think there is efficiency to be gained and understanding the concern in terms of mission area and loss of staff bandwidth that comes with reduction or reorganization. But I do think there's, like John said, an efficiency to be gained, and certainly some of it can be done through realignment of what is currently in place with a net neutral outcome is, I think, where we approached it initially was we couldn't justify going forward and saying we needed a larger staff, but at a minimum, with the numbers in place, we think this model would be more effective. Thanks, Mark. You mentioned the RAND study. I'll go look for that online and see if I can find that to drop in our show notes. But the next question I have is, why is it an important metric that the majority of the staff work is being done for internal purposes? What does that tell you? And before I send you on a wild goose chase, I think that may just be one of those staff officer joke studies. But I think the concern about things that are all internally focused is that it becomes just churn and it becomes things that don't necessarily lead to productive output in terms of organizational action or are necessarily requirements. And it can be things that are just done because we've always done them or done to feed the model that is in place in terms of staffing. And certainly the other anecdotal perspective on the way in which Headquarters Marine Corps currently functions is that there's a significant desire for consensus and that there are competing power centers at the deputy commandant level that are not only principal staff officers, but are also what's called advocates for their particular part of the Marine Corps organization. And that leads to sort of parochial perspectives, whether it's talking about how aviation interfaces with the rest of the Marine Corps and how it is resourced relative to the rest, but even down within the ground combat element through very specific capabilities and organizations that have their own equities and that are desiring to advance their initiatives, whether well-intentioned or not,

but certainly come from a very parochial perspective in the way that that particular advocacy process has been run. And, Jared, I'd like to give a specific example of that. Yeah, absolutely. Just some historical background. So in 1999, the Commandant at that time, Commandant Jones, established what was called the Marine Requirements Oversight Council. And it was specifically designed to improve the requirements review process. It was a body to advise the commandant on validating requirements and ultimately make recommendations in terms of major force structure initiatives. That has unfortunately become a larger kind of decision making body.

But as different leaders have gotten attached onto it and as Mark identified, as advocates started getting assigned and having voting privileges within that council, essentially kind of evolved into this larger monster where no decisions are made now. So everyone and all the advocates have their own opinions and perspectives. And therefore, since there's no kind of central agreement in terms of direction, there is no advice coming back to the Commandant out of that body. And all they do is prolong decisions and push them to the next council and push them to the next council. So it's a system that, you know, Commandant Jones put in place to help facilitate his decision making. Unfortunately, because of the lack of some of the checks and balances, it has kind of evolved into a decision-making body that makes no decisions. So is your proposal then to do away with that council entirely?

I think it would be. We don't specifically address that. Or it would be to trim it back down to a core group of individuals that actually have the authority and ability to make those recommendations for the decisions for the commandant to make. Okay, so moving on, what's actually required to make your proposal a reality? Is this something that would require legislation, or is this something the Marine Corps can decide to do and effectively execute itself within a period of months? No, I think from our analysis, the overwhelming majority of this, particularly if you remain neutral in terms of personnel change at the general officer or at the total force structure level, is well within the purview of the Marine Corps on its own. But I think seeking, you know, buy-in and consent, not consensus,

because I think we just talked about the difficulty and the issues with seeking that, but congressional and cross-department support for this initiative, I think, is beneficial in the context of the larger change that the Marine Corps is trying to achieve. And that's part of this, as we continue to look at, that continued to strike me, both in looking back at periods of change that were successful or unsuccessful in the evolution of the Marine Corps and at institutional change in general, that the ideas that the Commandant has put forward and even some that were – that his predecessor, General Neller, articulated have struggled when they have been brought forth into the larger institution for action. And I think that's part of what I found interesting in looking at this was that you may initially approach this and say that trying to change your organizational structure while trying to change your force composition is too much, but that really breaking some of that institutional inertia is critical to be able to achieve your end state. John, any additional thoughts on that? Yeah, I would add that I think it's holistically within the Marine Corps' capability of doing it. I think larger than that, though, the Secretary of the Navy absolutely has the ability to be able to make and implement the changes that we've recommended.

When you go back to U.S. Code Title 10, which is the law that actually governs how the different military services are constructed and the roles and responsibilities of the service, The powers bestowed upon the Secretary of the Navy over both the department or over the Navy itself, as well as the United States Marine Corps, is fairly large and holistic. So if you, I think with the support of the Secretary of the Navy, then it is absolutely within the Commandants and the Secretary of Navy's ability to be able to make those changes. I realize neither of you are aviators, but you went in on sort of the Deputy Commandant for Aviation. We already talked about these different interest groups and what kind of influence gets wheeled there. Can you explain the influence of the deputy commandant for aviation versus his counterparts? So I'll start simply and just say, you know, power is will also follow, you know, the money. And so when you look at I've seen various resource allocation maps that are out there for the Marine Corps.

But the most recent one that I saw for 2018, you still have approximately a third of the total money for the Marine Corps going towards aviation modernization or aviation readiness. So that's $73 billion out of $230 billion as a baseline budget. For perspective on the other side, total ground unit readiness is only $13 billion. So just pure dollars, when you start looking at it, DC Aviation, you know, having a third, being responsible for advocating for a third of the total Marine Corps budget has an inherent power base within that. I guess I'm thinking about how I want to phrase this. Is that not just a function of the cost of the platforms? It's relatively, relatively speaking, it's cheaper to generate infantry than it is, say, an F-35. No, and that's fair. But I would say when you go back and you look at the historical models, when the Marine Corps used to solely acquire and utilize aircraft, either from other services, particularly within the Navy, or even other countries, military services, that price and the allocation of funding was a lot less. So as we've kind of gone towards taking some of our specific platforms, being both the vertical joint strike fighter as well as the MV-22s, you've seen that proportion towards the Marine Corps aviation grow significantly.

And I think the other aspect of that is the independence with which the deputy commandant for aviation operates across sort of the budgetary horizon from the other deputy commandants. And that being an area where you could see increased integration. Yes, F-35s are more expensive than M-4s, but the way in which they are intended to operate with the joint naval force and with the rest of the elements of the Marine Corps, it's important to ensure that that is looked at holistically rather than independently. Mark, can I ask you to explain a little bit more what you mean by the independence that the Deputy Commandant for Aviation works with versus his counterparts? Yeah, so I think some of what John was just saying in regard to the share of the budget and the way in which the Deputy Commandant for Aviation works with NAVAIR and with other external agencies, whether in procuring new equipment or in advocating for the operational money that the Marine Corps needs to maintain the readiness of its aviation forces, is in many ways independent of the other existing structures for programming. planning budgeting uh that the remainder of the marine corps is operating within so let me just ask the layman's question and would it be appropriate for your ground forces to partner more closely with the armor or i'm sorry with the army or is that just a bridge too far never gonna i think in general that that is true and to some of what john was saying about

do you pursue independent capabilities that are uniquely best for your requirements right whether you're talking about an mv-22 or an amphibious assault vehicle or do you seek efficiency with a sister service or with another country in the development of your equipment so you know do you do you find a frigate design that is out there uh that's already being manufactured by another country successfully or do you make your own do you uh design your own tank or do you buy what the army uh is already fielding and that in general historically the marine corps has sought to uh take advantage of of the army and the navy and the much larger programs that they are running for acquisitions got it and i i think i can say at this point that the answer to your frigate

question is definitively no so neither of you are aviators do you feel like you have an relatively unbiased opinion on the deputy commandant for aviation at this point it's like i know we don't have any aviators on the podcast and they are kind of the sworn enemy of my community however do you feel like there's a relatively unbiased opinion that you've given here is that Go ahead, Mark. Yeah, the only thing I was going to say is as I have looked at this more and thought about it more, and I come from a very small community within the Marine Corps in terms of the armor element, which is very small, but I think what I have tried to approach both in thinking about what the Commandant has said about where he wants to go

and in thinking about our organizational structure and sort of power centers is that the more you set aside your parochial community bias for what is best for for you or what you think that will will do for the whole and the more you approach it from a holistic perspective the the better i think your solutions are and some of that may not lead to your community growing or uh being the the center of attention but that's the way i look at it is what's best for the institution as a whole to accomplish our responsibilities and i think in some ways uh subordinating some of that aviation independence back to the larger institution will produce that best outcome. Go ahead, John.

Yeah, and I'd say, you know, I think inherently everyone is biased. So to say we're approaching it completely unbiased, not necessarily a fair question. But I would say, to Mark's point, you know, when you look at some of the historical trends and you look at the rise and influence of DC aviation, I think it is a hard argument not to question whether it has grown too big and whether it is currently eating too many of the resources that the Marine Corps has. And I think when you look at the continued fielding of very expensive, exquisite manned platforms that, you know, whether you're talking about the new CH-53 heavy lift helicopter or the F-35 that are in opposition to the direction that the Commandant

says he wants to go in terms of cheaper more risk-worthy uh more unmanned platforms you have to question whether we are institutionally all thinking the same way and moving in the same direction thanks now i asked this last one uh when we recorded part one um so john i'm gonna ask you first but the second podcast was recorded quite a bit later and your articles have been in circulation for longer have you got any response from any senior folks on this yeah i think the So overall, the responses have remained positive, I think, which is kind of the same framework that I provided last time. We have had several senior leaders reach out and express support and appreciation, I think, for the perspective as well as the research behind the actual article. So we've had some senior leaders kind of pull the thread and challenge some of our line of thought and how we reached some of the conclusions we did.

And I think more than anything else, when they saw that there was a logic train behind it and that the article was researched, they were much more appreciative and respected the argument once they kind of had that basis. Mark, have you heard anything? Yeah, similar to what John said. And the thing I would add is that in some of these articles where we've challenged sort of the status quo, you anticipate getting a very visceral reaction or getting kind of put back in your place. But overall, I would say across the board, the feedback has been positive and no one has said, man, you're way out in left field on this. Everything is great the way that it is. So I think there is a recognition from junior to senior level that there are things we could do better. There are institutional paradigms that need to be reevaluated and that this is an opportunity to to adjust some of the things that we've done for a long time to get better as an institution. So now that you've finished restructuring the Marine Corps, I'm going to ask you what's next.

John, I'll start with you. Do you have any more articles brewing? No, no articles at this point. Kind of focusing back on my primary assignment and family. But I'd say, you know, as much as anything else, I sit and wait and I'm eager to see what some of the force design initiatives are released. You know, and going back to the senior leaders who have reached out, you know, for those who are interested, I'll continue to provide any sort of perspective or research in terms of the background to our article to hopefully help inform kind of some of the coming changes. And I guess I think you guys, like us, are waiting on the CNO to release his guidance as well, correct? Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, with the naval integration efforts that we've seen thus far, I would be shocked if there's the guidance doesn't come out kind of in parallel and in unison, you know, with informed by one another moving in a common direction. Yeah, I guess I should clarify, not trying to call out the CNO. Don't at me. But Mark, anything else that you're working on right now? No, like John said, primary duties and family eat a large percentage of my time. But as he also said, watching as this goes from sort of whiteboard drawing and force design and fleet architecture, conceptual level to implementation is going to be really interesting. And watching some of these or other changes that have been talked about come to fruition, I think is going to be a really interesting time.

I'd like to thank my guests, John Frerichs and Mark Nostro. The article, To Be Most Ready When the Nation is Least Ready, The Marines Need a New Headquarters, can be found on War on the Rocks, and it will be available in our show notes. Gentlemen, where can we find you online? Handles at Hoplite Marine on Twitter. Yeah, and Jared, as I told you, I'm pretty much stuck back in the 20th century, so you can't find me online. Yeah, marknostro at earthlink.net. All right.

Well, thank you very much. And to our listeners, thank you for listening, and we'll see you next week. A pot of rum and a pot of gin, oh. Where can I put it in the alley? A pot of wine, both white and red, oh. Put it on the shimbo now. So help me, Bob, I'm putting it in the alley. Where can I put it in the alley?

Help me, Bob, I'm putting it in the alley. Put it on the shimbo now.