Sea Control - Sea Control 177 - NATO Amphibious Leaders Expeditionary Symposium

Episode Date: May 25, 2020

Link: Rand Corporation Report on NALES and NATO's Amphibious Forces

Hey folks, it's Jared. Thank you for listening. We have a naval integration heavy episode for you today with a pair of Marines. From the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Oscar van der Veen, from the U.S. Marines Major Justin Hooker, join us to discuss the NATO Amphibious Leaders Expeditionary Symposium, or NAILS, a concerted effort to better align NATO's amphibious forces. I also want to highlight CIMSEC's Project Trident. If you don't follow CIMSEC on Twitter, go do so now or visit the website at cimsec.org. If you're interested in Shaping the future of international maritime security, this is your opportunity. Just announced our second collaboration for Project Trident.

We'll be working with Stable Seas on ocean governance. More information on questions and content can be found on our website at simsec.org. Submissions can be emailed to content at simsec.org. With that, I'll turn it over to Kimbersman. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Hello, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. Today we're discussing the NATO Amphibious Leaders Expeditionary Symposium. My guests are Major Justin Hooker from the U.S. Marines

and Lieutenant Colonel Oskar van der Veen from the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps. As always, our opinions are our own and not reflective of any institution with which we may be associated. Gentlemen, welcome and thanks for coming on. Before we start, could you please each tell us a little bit about yourselves and your current positions? Oskar, I'd like to start with you, if you don't mind. Yeah, sure. Well, I currently work at NATO's Allied Maritime Command outcrop, and I work there as an amphibious planner.

I've been at Markham now for nearly three years. I really enjoy the work, working in the amphibious domain, and especially working with different nations' amphibious forces, like Spanish, Italian, British, American, Dutch, French, and recently working together with the Turkish amphibious forces. Very nice. and Justin, would you mind introducing yourself? Sure, Jared. Yeah, I'm a major at Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa and a foreign area officer. The MR4U is the component headquarters to Europe, and I serve primarily as a country desk officer for several Mediterranean allies

with amphibious forces, but I've also been the action officer for NAILS and its predecessor, AILS, since I checked into MR4U in late 2017. So then let's ease into this with the obvious question, and Justin, I'll start with you, is what is NAILS? Sure. So NAILS, as you said, is the NATO Amphibious Leaders Expeditionary Symposium. And I'll start, as you said, and then hand it off to Oscar really for what NAILS is, because the history, both of Marfoyer, we started it as AILS, so it was just the Amphibious Leaders Expeditionary Symposium, and then it transitioned over to OSCAR and MARCOM in late 2018. So, you know, like I said, MAR4U is the Marine Component Headquarters here in Europe. We work for the U.S. European Command, which is our regional

Joint Force Headquarters, and we try to get after EUCOM's requirements from a Marine Corps perspective. Well, back in 2016, so that's, you know, that's two years after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And as EUCOM and NATO, as they were tacking back to address the challenges that a more aggressive Russia was introducing, reintroducing into Europe, Marfoyer looked at the level of interoperability, the coordination among various Marine Corps in Europe, and thought we've lost some of the coherence, some of the cooperation that we enjoyed for so much of the 20th century. And so Marfoyer's commander back in 2016, Major General Neil Nelson, and the staff came up with AILS as a general and flag officer forum for collaboration on how NATO could approach

collective defense and deterrence from an amphibious perspective. And the first AILS session that we had was here in Stuttgart in 2016. And there were several more over the years. And the primary focus of AILS, as decided by those generals and admirals who participated, was that we amphibious allies needed to get back into the business of being able to operate under a common C2R architecture. They recognized that as a NATO amphibious task force, a NATO ATF, could very well have subordinate amphibious task groups or other elements from France, the UK, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey now is investing in amphibious capabilities. And that's not an exhaustive list of amphibious allies.

They recognize, these participants recognize, that we needed to be able to cohere all of this really awesome capability under a common framework to increase our interoperability and support NATO's collective defense and deterrence requirements. So AILS was our way to start to get after that. And we brought RAND in to help identify the right C2 model, you know, RAND, the research and development think tank from, you know, back in the States, all with an aim to inject our findings and recommendations into exercises. We came away with coherence on the need for a centralized ATF headquarters, you know, task force level, subordinate to the maritime component commander as a recommendation for amphibious C2 in Europe. You might think, of course, well, duh, you need that. That's obvious. But remember, we're doing this in a NATO context. There's lots of different national perspectives on C2, lots of different national perspectives

on the role of amphibious forces, where they fit into a maritime component, the requirement even to need to scale up. There's different threat perceptions. So we're doing this together. And our last ALES event was in the summer of 2018 when we had a C2 war game at NATO's really awesome Joint Warfare Center in Stavanger, Norway. When we got done with that, there was a lot of coherence and agreement about, yeah, the centralized ATF headquarters, there's a lot of goodness there. We need to get after that in exercises. And at that time, our commander was

Major General Sanborn, and he got together with a few of the other generals and flag officers from the ALES participants and made a recommendation to SACEUR, who was General Scaparrotti at the time, to transition this over to NATO. At the time, Marcom's commander was Vice Admiral Clive Johnstone of the Royal Navy from the UK. And so that's what we did. November of 2018, we did a formal handoff to Marcom, and they've picked up the football, as it were, and here we are.

And I'm sure Oscar will say all this, but NAILS is so much more than what AILS is. I mean, AILS, we started it, but where it's gone under NATO, So, you know, I couldn't have imagined when we did that transition a year and a half ago. So, Oscar, you want to, I guess, talk about what NAILS is? Can I can I jump in here with a follow up question real quick? Because you mentioned back in the business of and Oscar, I'll actually direct the question to you. Is this something that NATO has been in the business of doing in the past? Like back during the Cold War times, were the different NATO Marine Corps, different NATO amphibious forces commonly working together?

Well, that's a good question. I think they already did. One of the earliest examples of working together of two different amphibious marine corps is the UKNL Amphibious Force, which started already in the 1970s. But that was a smaller scale. I think we need a bigger scale now, and that's where the challenge is as well. Thank you. And then, yeah, if you want to just pick up where Justin left off there talking about what NAILS is in comparison to AILS, please. Yeah, sure.

So, actually, the first thing that NATO did when they took over EALS was actually put the end of NATO in front of EALS and it turned into NAILS. So, that was the first enhancement. And Comarcom, he also set up a NAILS delivery board structure, which is a board meeting held at flag officers' level. And they meet roughly two to four times a year on the different NATO partners who has a substantial amphibious capability. And in preparation of those boards, you have the working group. Those working groups are at the level of major up to colonel, and they prepare actually the products for the delivery board. So the working group is actually the real horsepower behind NILS. And preparing those products and having those discussions is actually a lot of fun and rewarding work to do.

You build a consensus between several nations with amphibious forces, how they're going to employ amphibious forces in the future. So, the working groups, they meet roughly four to six times a year. And if you add that all up, the working groups and delivery boards, there's a lot of focus, energy, and momentum to tackle all those potential challenging problems that we have with NATO and amphibious forces. So, under NAILS, within Marcom, all amphibious efforts are mainly focused on supporting NAILS. Thank you. So, what are the biggest issues facing NATO's amphibious forces? So I think we already touched that on the AILS level. It is basically the interoperability at scale. So the challenge is to have several nations, amphibious forces,

to smoothly, seamlessly work together in one command and control element. Also, so fairly recently, several nations like the United States, the United Kingdom, and also the Netherlands, they developed future concepts how to employ these amphibious forces. So the Marine Corps developed the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations, EVO, UK Royal Marines came up with the Future Commander Force concept, and the Dutch Navy came with the Future Littoral concept. So it's important to streamline these concepts with each other. Justin, do you want to hook in? Yeah, and Oscar, you're absolutely right.

I think it's also about removing the stereotype that amphibious capabilities are outdated, that we somehow want to go and save Private Ryan all over again. That's not it at all. These future concepts are all about how we support the joint force from the littorals in an anti-access area denial A2AD environment. A modern NATO ATF can operate in disaggregated fashion, quite unlike the ATFs of the past. Of course, joint forcible entry might be a requirement, but that's not the primary lens that we're looking through. So you both have mentioned command and control at various points in your answers.

Justin, how would you describe the arrangement in use by the U.S. military for amphibious operations? And then, Oscar, if you don't mind contrasting what NATO's amphibious command and construction look like. We'll start with you, Justin. Yeah, Jared. So our joint amphibious doctrine just went through a rewrite in the last probably 18 months or so. I think January last year is when it was when it came out. And we wrote out of the doctrine at that point, CAF, Commander Amphibious Force, is not in U.S. amphibious doctrine anymore. Now, what we look at from a U.S. lens is all about changing the supportive and supporting relationship, you know, between the CADF, the commander of the amphibious task force, so the Navy flag officer, and

the CLF, the commander of the landing force, the Marine who leads the landing force. And so at different phases of the amphibious operation as it's prosecuted, who is supported and who is supporting will change over time. Now, NATO's doctrine is broader than that. It makes mention of the U.S. model, but it also offers other options or other variations because the nations have different models. Some have CAF, some have CLIF, subordinate to CADF, and what AILS did and what NAILS is continuing to do

is at least get after the recognition that regardless of what it looks like, you need that ATF headquarters, you need that centralized ATF headquarters to see to whatever the amphibious force looks like so that the Maritime Component Commander can worry about the broader fight and the ATF headquarters is focused on the amphibious requirements. Thank you, Justin. Yeah, to elaborate on that. So NATO's amphibious doctrine is indeed broader. We have to be quite flexible in NATO because all different nations might have a different model. Some are similar to the US doctrine, others have just completely different setup because of their history. You have a KDEV-CLIF supporting-supported relationship, but you also have integrated KDEV-CLIF. So with NATO, we're fairly flexible in the doctrine, and we're looking for the right solution for the right situation.

So if the situation asks for a certain C2 model, then we'll adapt accordingly. Thanks. Oscar, you had mentioned that there are a number of pre-existing relationships between different NATO naval infantry and Marine Corps formations. You talked specifically about the UK and the Netherlands working together. What are some of those other relationships, and how are you attempting to use those relationships to strengthen the command and control structure? Yeah, so another example of a bilateral relationship is the Spanish and Italian amphibious force, CF. They were established in 1996, and the other one that I mentioned was the UKNL since 1972. They started when you only had black and white pictures, so yeah, that's a while ago. So we try to extend those interoperability for large amphibious landing forces beyond those two bilateral relationships.

So we're trying to expand it, integrate other nations as well. Another good example is that the German Sea Battalion, the German Navy, they're also integrated now in the Dutch amphibious landing force. Either you integrate them or you make them more interoperable. There's space and options for both. So that's how we try to enhance it. And Justin, I've gone through several of the reports reading about how you arrange the forces specifically in the different war games. You talk a little bit about those pre-existing relationships and how you try to capitalize on those during the war games. Yeah, sure. So, you know, we, as Oscar sort of explained, you know, what those relationships were, and we, you know, Ailes and Nailes still was all about making use of what we have now of existing relationships and existing formations. You know, those forces exist, those relationships exist, we should be able to cohere them.

And so the reason that in the Ailes war games, we leveraged those existing relationships in the subordinate ATG formations. So, for example, in Stavanger, we had four underneath a combined – underneath a CADIF and CLIF staff that was made up of all the ALs participating nations and the leaders for the war game. The CADIF was Vice Admiral Lindsey, Deputy Fleet Forces Commander at the time, and the CLIF was Lieutenant General Porlakis, who was Commander of Marine Forces Command, both out of Norfolk, Virginia. And then the subordinate ATGs, we had a French unilateral, a U.S. unilateral, and then Spanish, Italian, and Dutch-British working together. So four ATGs. And the whole reason that this was – we wanted to go after this is you leverage the existing relationships. But also if NATO had to – if the balloon went up and we had to go fight tonight, well, in many cases, that's who we'd be fighting with. Those habitual relationships enable a faster force generation.

Spain and Italy both have amphibious brigades, but that brigade is not – the whole brigade is not held at high readiness every day. There's elements of the brigade are, but not the whole brigade. So if you're going to clear the benches to go, you're going to leverage those habitual relationships because that's who's going to be able to fight tonight. Thank you. So to transition from the theoretical to the practical a little bit here, have the theoretical discussions at NAILS translated into the larger exercise that we've seen in Europe the last few years? And I'm thinking mostly about Trident Juncture and then what part of Defender 2020 was able to be executed. Yeah, I'll jump on that. So yes, we have seen this translate into the larger exercises, but actually Trident Juncture, not so much. So Trident Juncture was good for a lot of reasons. It got 2MEF, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force from Camp Lejeune over to do a large-scale exercise in a way that hadn't been done in a long time. So that's all goodness, but it did not see a C2 model that was fully integrated like what Ailes and Nails seeks to achieve. But Baltops 19, Trident Jupiter 19, both did. And Baltops 19 in particular was a live exercise, the whole thing, and it was an excellent model.

You had Commander of Expeditionary Stripe Group 2, Admiral Gilman at the time, and the commander still is the commander of 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, General Neary, Cadiff and Cliff, respectively. And we pieced together, it was one ATG was a British-Dutch formation with some other nations bolted on, and then the other one was a U.S.-Spanish ATG. And so I think it worked really well. A lot of good lessons learned, particularly about authorities of the Cadiff-Cliff. We learned some lessons about, particularly for the UST2 model that supported supporting how the Marines make decisions, how the Navy makes decisions are different. And those are lessons that we've forgotten since we haven't done this kind of stuff in a while. And so that was it was a really valuable exercise for that. Can you tell me a little bit more about Trident Jupiter?

Because I had heard of everything you talked about up until you mentioned Trident Jupiter. What was that exercise? Where did that take place and what happened? Yeah. And Oscar, feel free to tell me if I say something wrong or incomplete here. But, you know, Trident Jupiter was more of a – was a virtual exercise. Strike 4 NATO led the – acted as the – I think they were planning a task force role for that, if I'm not mistaken, or NCC. I can't remember which. But General Neary, underneath Strike Force NATO, acted as, it's funny, I said what I said earlier about, you know, the U.S. wrote CAF out of its doctrine, but General Neary kind of acted like CAF for that exercise and rolled up the commander of ESG-2 now actually was his deputy for that particular exercise. And they created an integrated ATF headquarters staff to see to that particular exercise. Oscar, you want to add anything? No, not right now. You were spot on there. Thanks. Oscar, maybe you can tell us what was the most recent NAILS event and what was the outcome of that?

Yeah, so the most recent NAILS event was held in mid-January. Due to COVID-19, we didn't have any other events. But the event mid-January was an interesting one because Marcom visited actually the NATO headquarters at Brussels in Belgium. There, Com Markum informed the 29 military representatives of all nations. Now we have 30 since North Macedonia joined. And there he explained the unique characteristics and advantages of the amphibious forces and how they can be utilized during baseline activities and current operations up to crisis or maximum level of effort.

So basically briefed them on their unique characteristics and how to best utilize. We think it went quite well, this event. The nations received the briefs well and the discussions that we have. However, we don't know yet what the result, the true outcome is. That needs to be determined when, for instance, the military committed the sites regarding the employment of amphibious forces. So we basically planted the seed, which was basically most of it information. And from there, we need to wait and see what they do with that information. Thanks, Oscar. And sort of a follow-up question for that is, what is the plan to codify some of the lessons learned here that began with ALES and are now being further developed by NAILS?

Justin, you want to answer that one? I can, sure. Yeah, I mean, I would say before COVID put all of our work on hold, you know, we were getting ready to move towards a NAILS exercise progression that would see us really scale up. You know, so the working groups that Oscar mentioned before, that's where we were going to get after, you know, identifying the exercises. Again, leveraging what we have now, the exercises that we have now, not looking to create new stuff to where can we glom on. Maybe there's an exercise in 22 that we want. We know that there's three amphibious nations already committed to. Well, let's try and get the other ones on board so we make it bigger and better. You know, the exercise series like ball tops is always attractive.

You know, the U.S. large-scale exercise, that will continue to be attractive, which is sort of a Bold Alligator 2.0, a redone, larger Bold Alligator series. So that's good. And there's national exercises like Mariaperto with the Italians, the Spanish Fleet exercise, and elsewhere across the AO that offer lots of good opportunities. And so because the working group is made up of all the amphibious allies, there's an opportunity. They can offer their exercises. We can identify what the exercise objectives are. and then try and build a force to get after them. And Justin, I'll follow up to that.

Do you anticipate any changes to U.S. Marine Corps doctrine based on what's going on with NAILS, or is this something that you feel will remain kind of localized to the European theater? Oh, goodness. So I would say maybe, but the Marine Corps, as I'm sure you know, is undergoing so many changes right now that I can't even begin to foresee how NAILS would affect it. I mean, we're looking at, you know, naval integration in an entirely, I say an entirely new way, but in a lot of ways, it's going back to what we did a long time ago.

But, you know, I could foresee a world, you've got combined naval component to UCOM. So the Marines and the Navy are together, and we're getting after stuff together in a much more integrated way. And I think that certainly if we go that route, that'll have implications for how the U.S. contributes to and does see to within NATO and nationally. Thanks. And Oscar, Justin just hinted at all the changes going on in the Marine Corps. We've actually talked about it quite a bit with different Marines here on Sea Control. How aware are you at MARCOM of the impact that the Commandant's planning guidance is? I think you mentioned EABO earlier, but the Commandant's planning guidance is changing a lot for the Marine Corps. Are you tracking that in MARCOM? Yeah, good question. So yeah, indeed, we're tracking that. And I mean, it will have its influence since the US and the United States Marine Corps is a big player. However, each nation will choose their own path, and they will come with their own concepts, depending on how they are organized and what kind of history they have. But, yeah, we keep an interesting and close eye on, OK, what are the developments within the U.S. Marine Corps? And certain nations choose to maybe adapt it or adapt accordingly to it or maybe to fill up a niche where they can fill up a niche that the U.S. Marine Corps doesn't have. So how it will affect each different nation, I don't know.

But with interest, we're following it for sure. Thank you. And then has the stand-up of the U.S. Second Fleet affected this process at all? Yeah, I mean, for sure. I'll jump in and say that, I mean, Second Fleet acted as the maritime component for Ball Tops 19. So, you know, this was their opportunity. Admiral Lewis, their first major exercise in Europe. And so that was a lot of goodness there for them. And they are – so Oscar mentioned the NAILS Delivery Board. Every nation who has an amphibious capability target is on the board. But the U.S., we're a little weird.

So our flag and general officers on the delivery board, we've got two admirals and then one general. So the general is my boss. He's a major general harvester. He's a commander at Marine Forces Europe. But we have two admirals because those two admirals have dual hats. So you've got Admiral Frank Keddie, who's commander of Sixth Fleet, and also Strike Tornado. And then you've got Admiral Lewis, who's commander of Second Fleet and also JFC Norfolk. So, you know, I would say, yeah, Second Fleet is very much invested in this and they're the, you know, they own ESG-2.

So a lot of equity there as well. Really a question for both of you, too, is what influence does the Marine Corps have and the U.S. Marine Corps have within NATO? I understand they're probably the largest set of amphibious forces that would be accessible to NATO. But I also think that the footprint is comparatively small when you look at what the Marines have in the Pacific. So I don't know if we want to start with Oscar to get the NATO view of that and then come back to Justin. Yeah, so it's interesting. Yeah, they have an influence and indeed they're a large capable force. But on the other hand, depending on where they would operate, they might not be the first force present.

So we also need to rely on other more rapidly deployable forces. But yeah, we keep a close eye on them and interesting to follow. Sometimes size does matter. Sometimes being small and very quick and responsive is a very unique capability as well. I would say that right now, just kind of joking, you know, our mil rep is Lieutenant General John Love, right? So that's helpful. But in truth, our point, the Marine Corps remains very much focused, as you said, on the Pacific. And so one of our major talking points is that the interoperability that we have with these NATO allies is relevant worldwide.

And a lot of these guys are – a lot of these countries are allies that would go to – we would fight alongside anywhere because of our history and our relationships. But also, I mean, the Marine Corps, nonetheless, its concepts, EABO, very, very relevant for this theater, and we're doing work now with RAND to help assess where and how we should do EABO here. Even though the Marine Corps is focused elsewhere, nonetheless, if there's a conflict or a crisis, of course the Marine Corps goes where we're sent, and of course we're not going to shy away from a crisis. So, obviously, we have to pay attention to what's going on out here anyway. Thanks. So, we've both mentioned the Pacific now, and there have been an increase in the number of articles about what should NATO's relationship with China be. Is any of that trickling over into the conversations about NAILS and the way amphibious forces should be constructed? I guess I'll ask Oscar first. Thanks for the good question.

It is, of course, an area that NATO is looking as well. I think we're mostly looking at, okay, how can we look at the threat, whether it's from Russia or China? I think that the kind of threat is the same, and how do we build a capable response to that? So, yeah, as a common answer, I would say we're looking at the threat, and based on that, we adapt our forces, whether it's China or Russia or any other opponent. Justin, anything to add on that one? I mean, I would say certainly China colors much of what the Marine Corps is thinking about nowadays. And a lot of the stuff we work on is, again, going back to the Marine Corps future concepts, the exportability of that. I mean, you can train and do things in this theater in Europe that you can't do in the Pacific, the climate, the access, that kind of stuff.

And so there's a lot of preparation that we can do here that's relevant for what we might have to do there. Thank you. That sort of wraps up the list of questions that I had and the other ones that I thought of as we were having discussions here. Any final thoughts from either of you on NAILS or AILS? I would just say one thing, and I heard – I would quote Admiral Bléjean, who's a French deputy at Marcom. He said it at an amphibious conference in Madrid a couple years ago, I guess now. But, you know, he said that SACEUR's AO is inherently littoral, and that's just not something that we think about in NATO. You know, NATO in the Cold War, very much a land-dominated organization. Of course, there were lots of things the U.S. Navy and the Marine Corps did on the periphery, but it was still very much focused on a European land war in a lot of ways. And I think what we're trying to do with NAILS is help raise the awareness of the effect that we can have in the littorals using the sea as maneuver space. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.

I had written an article back in July of 2019 about NATO's Navy's NATO wargaming series. And the pushback that I continually ran into is like, oh, well, no, NATO doesn't really care about its naval forces as much. I mean, they do care about them, but everyone seems to be focused on the slant fight, whereas the Navy's and NATO's amphibious forces can be a source of fires, can be a source of reconnaissance, can be a source of maneuver space. So thank you for bringing that point out. Any final points from you, Oskar, on any of that? No, I totally agree with Justin. The only thing is that I'm glad now is that NAILS, Transitioning for NAILS, is a platform where we can really now pull all the Infusion countries together and actually make a more powerful suggestion within NATO to use them to the maximum capabilities. So I'm looking forward to that.

Thank you. I'd like to thank my guests, Justin Hooker and Oscar Van Der Veen. Justin, where can we find you online? Is there anything else that you're working on right now? Well, I mean, if you want to find me online, I guess through the Mar4Ures public affairs section that's on our website. But, yeah, I mean, the other thing I do, I mentioned that I'm a desk officer. And so a lot of the – some of the really cool stuff we're working on also is the Commandant's planning guidance is directing us to look at alternative platforms. and even before that came out

Marfo Euro was running hard in conjunction with Navier to put marine force packages on allied ships so how we could employ, embark Ospreys and other marines aboard a Spanish ship or a French ship or whomever and get to business with

them and that's been pretty exciting and we've had a lot of fun doing that. A lot of good stuff with the Dutch and the Brits too. Thank you and Oscar, where can we find you online and do you have any projects that you're working on? Yeah, no other projects. I'm fortunate that I can just focus all my

attention on nails, which it needs and deserves. If you want to get in contact with me, just google Marcom and Northwood. Then you'll come up to the public affairs space. There you can just ask to get into contact with me.

Then we'll take it from there. Thank you both again for joining us. To our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next week. Thank you. We'll be right back.