Sea Control - Sea Control 604: Operationalizing Marine Military Police for Base Defense

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

Bio: Lieutenant Colonel Bobby Fowler is the Provost Marshal at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, and an operational planner with extensive experience in the Pacific Theater.

Oh, shipmates, welcome back aboard Sea Control. I'm your host, Brian Kerg, and our guest today is Lieutenant Colonel Bobby T. Fowler, the Provost Marshal at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, and an operational planner with extensive experience in the Pacific Theater. Today, we'll be discussing his article, From Patrol to Protection, Operationalizing Marine Military Police or Base Defense, which appeared in the March 2026 edition of the Marine Corps Gazette. As a reminder, all views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. government, any of its departments or military services, or any other organization

with which we are affiliated. Bobby, welcome aboard Sea Control. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your professional background? Yeah, first of all, thanks for having me, Brian. I appreciate it. Well, I'm a military police officer by trade, but I've spent a significant amount of time outside of that community in both joint billets and, as you mentioned, operational planner billets in both 1MEF and 3MEF. The bulk of my career has been in the Pacific, so my passions and my professional interests are deeply tied to that area. Right now, I'm the provost marshal at Camp Pendleton, which is the largest, most dynamic PMO in the Marine Corps, which made the topic of base defense very pressing to me as I was authoring that article. Thank you very much for that quick summary.

Just for listeners, for context, Camp Pendleton is an absolutely sprawling base, especially as far as Marine Corps bases go. I think you can enter one side and try to get to another one of the camps, one of the many camps or areas across this base. And it could easily take you well over an hour and 15 minutes, an hour and 30 minutes, depending on where you're going or the route you take. It is a city unto itself and then some. So all that to say, let's pivot to your article itself. So for the listeners, Bobby, could you walk us through the big blue arrows on your article's core thesis? Like, what is your elevator pitch? Yeah. So I guess if I was going to say my elevator pitch for the article, I would just say that in the era of great power competition, we really need to

fundamentally shift our mindset within the military police community. For a long time, we've seen our bases as safe rear areas, and that's really no longer the case. Our installations, both here at home and abroad, are on the front lines. They're critical to our ability to project power into the theater of combat if required. Therefore, MPs must evolve from our traditional law enforcement roles to become what I would say the primary force for base defense at our installations. And really what the article tries to do is outline a roadmap for how we would achieve that by changing our mission, modernizing our equipment, and reorganizing our structure to ensure that we can project power and support sustainment of the joint force during conflict.

Great rundown right there. And just to look back a little at our own time, you know, planning on other problems out in the Pacific, out in three Marine Expeditionary Force in particular, one of the buzzwords or phrases we heard time and time again and often used ourselves was that those were no longer just bases or just stations or just protected areas, but that as you put it, they were power projection platforms. And yet you took a look at this very important platform for projecting U.S. military power and it might just be protected by, again, the entry control point at the main gate by some gate guards. And that's really the only visible sign of a force protection of these very

important platforms. So let's unpack what you just laid down a bit more by starting with the importance of those bases and stations. So in your article, you discuss them in relation to the operating environment. Could you explain why they are so important to U.S. forces and why they might make for a tempting target for adversaries? Absolutely, Brian. So our bases and stations around the world are absolutely critical to U.S. forces, and you really can't overstate their importance in the operating environment we have now. So they're really the bedrock of our military power. They serve as platforms on which we can project combat power forward. So, you know, our overseas bases in particular, as we found in Okinawa, those in the Western Pacific will absolutely be

on the front lines in any conflict we have with the peer adversary, because they're right there in the weapons engagement zone. They're essential for immediate combat power projection, and they'll also serve as the nodes for reception, staging, onward moving, and integration of our forces. And I would also offer even our bases in the continental U.S. are crucial for generating logistical support and deploying reinforcements as required in the operating areas. So when we think about the bases and stations, we've long thought about them as safe havens. And what I try to really stress in the article is that they're not that anymore. They're critical, not just for operating within the WES itself, but for projecting that power forward from here

in the continental United States. So what you're saying, it implies a transformation of the role of the military police as a community, which is really what your article is all about. And it also provides other important context about the argument of discussing the historical role of military police and how the MP community was impacted by force design 2030, in particular, the fate of the law enforcement battalion. So listeners may not be familiar with that historical context or the fate of the law enforcement battalions. Could you discuss this in a bit more depth? Yeah, absolutely. So just for some historical background, the presence of military police and the operating forces in the Marine Corps has ebbed and flowed for decades, right?

And we kind of saw our zenith of activity happen during the global war on terror. So from 2003 to around 2012-13 timeframe, you saw MP companies that were resident within each one of the Marine Corps' major subordinate commands, like the Divisions, the Marine Logistics Group, the Marine Airwings. Those guys were really, really engaged in the counterinsurgency fight that was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the activities that they were conducting in those areas led to the creation of law enforcement battalions within each Marine Expeditionary Force in 2012. And so those battalions existed for about 10 years, but a host of issues existed within the battalions that I think made them ripe targets for when we decided to start shaping the force structure that we have

in the Marine Corps as part of, you know, overarching force design efforts. They were kind of an easy cut to make, to make room for more niche capabilities that we need to face a pacing threat that we face today. And so when those battalions went away, really it left all of our military police forces within the Marine Corps, within the supporting establishments. So really running the police departments for all of our installations. That's really good context. And also, I think for the listeners, exposes some of the other challenges of what tasks remain to military police, in particular for force protection.

And there's so many parallels we could make as the force has transformed. And this is true across history, but if you change a certain branch or functional area and you take away a capability or a skill set, it becomes very difficult to grow that back rapidly. And you may not realize what you've got until it's gone, in a sense. So let's turn it back to you and dig into the real meat and potatoes, which you're calling for. So in the article, you discuss that paradigm shift for the MP community, specifically that it must embrace base defense as a core function. So could you discuss what this would look like and how you'd recommend that the Marine Corps pull it off? So I would say right now, your military police at every one of our bases and stations has an intimate working knowledge of what that base and station needs to be defended. They know all the gaps in its infrastructure, perimeter issues, entry control point issues, et cetera.

So they're already poised to run that base defense mission time now. For us to truly embrace it as a community, I would say that we have to get after four key topics. The first, doctrine and training. You know, right now, the military police community is heavily rooted in law enforcement as one of our key functions, and that'll always be the case. But we kind of have to execute a paradigm shift within our own community to rewrite our doctrine and our training pipelines to ensure that it embraces this base defense concept. We'd also have to get after modernization. And so most of our military police stations that we have in the Marine Corps, our provost marshal's offices, are crumbling facilities. We're using outdated, often secondhand police equipment.

What we would have to do is modernize that equipment to keep pace with the pacing threat that we face. So updated C2 equipment, updated things like sensors, maritime cameras, things like that that would actually help us get after really a multi-domain approach to base defense. We'd have to reorganize. So I think reorganization would be a huge part of this. Right now, the provost marshal's offices at our largest base of the station, we have three of them at Camp Pendleton, Camp Lejeune, and in Okinawa. These are sprawling organizations, 400 or 500 people. However, they're not really designed or structured to get after base defense. So I recommend in the article that we reorganize those large PMOs to become basically an operating military police battalion. So that way it's able to be commanded and controlled in a way that would actually allow those forces to get after base defense. And speaking of command and control, that's really the last point. We would really need to standardize that across the board. Right now, every single provost marshal's office works for a different boss.

Some work for their base commander. Some work for their operations officer at their respective base or station. Some work for security and emergency services type managers or leaders. And what we would need to do is make sure that across the board, we all have the same boss and that we're working for the same leader in competition in the steady state that we would be working for if we were to transition to crisis and conflict. all excellent points and i'd love to unpack them all here but i'll just offer for the sake of time that i really find your last point compelling namely working for the same commander that you would in competition in crisis just uh you know some good operational planning 101 like transitions are ripe with risk whether that is you are transitioning from command and control relationships you're transitioning from one battle space to another something like the forward passage of lines moving forces through you know transitioning them through different things like that That is always a significant challenge and is always rife with risk, in particular with C2 relationships. So if that's not clear through and through from, again, competition to conflict, that's just going to expose gaps that will create additional friction should that time come.

So with respect to all the very incredible arguments you just laid down, there is a ready counter argument, but you also identify that your piece. And by that, I mean, how else commanders might address base defense responsibilities, namely by tasking combat arms formations to assume this role. Like, hey, I don't have a lot of MPs, but I got a lot of grunts, so I'll just task them to do it. But you argue that this is infeasible. Could you explain why? Yes. So, I mean, the combat arms formations, I mean, that's a I would say that in the Marine Corps, that's often an easy button that we hit, because, as you said, we have a lot of them. We have a lot of infantrymen. We have a lot of artillerymen. And, you know, it runs the gamut of combat arms capabilities. And while it seems plausible on the surface, when you start to dig into it, it really would not work. So the first reason is that in a contingency scenario, those combat arms formations are going to be in high demand.

They're probably written into operational plans that are going to pull them forward. So they're not even going to be around to be tasked with this particular mission. The second thing I would offer is that our military police at each base and station have a pretty deep institutional knowledge about the base or installation on which they serve. They know the vulnerabilities. They know the strong points. They know what they need to be looking out for at each one of their respective locations. And then lastly, you know, MPs have a established long standing relationship with their local and federal law enforcement partners in the area.

Right. So here at Camp Pendleton, I work pretty cordially on a routine basis with the Oceanside Police Department, the Orange County Sheriff's Department, local partners like or federal partners like the Border Patrol, ICE, FBI. whereas a combat formation just a random infantry battalion or artillery battalion that would try to take on that mission would not have that same context would not have those same relationships and so while it might look like a good idea on the surface the combat arms formation just really wouldn't work for this particular mission i think that's a very compelling way to get after the critics or the people that are saying or might suggest that a combat arms formation could handle the same role and frankly you see similar challenges when people try to do a one-for-one swap within the same community when those communities might be aligned to different

functions so let's just take a logistics or engineers right a marine wing support squadron versus a combat logistics battalion they both provide logistics but one is suited and tailored and trained specifically to do it for marine aircraft groups and with those groups within a MAW so they have that knowledge whereas a CLB a combat logistics battalion would not have that for the air wing, but would certainly have it as far as sustaining, say, the combat arms formation with which it has a direct support relationship. Within communications, same thing. I am in a Marine Wing Communications Squadron. We have those relationships and that expertise and experience with the Marine Air Command and Control System, the MAX, with all the agencies that reside within it.

But 9th Comm Battalion might not. And I and my Marines might not be able to do the same thing for the meth that the 9th Combat Battalion does. So I say that to say, even within the same MOS, how those forces are templated will yield different relationships and expertise. And so you're talking about different MOSs entirely in combat arms formations don't do the functions you do. So it's basically like asking them to do something,

not only for which they're not trained, but for which they lack those habitual relationships that you already have generated and can exploit. So I'll stop repeating your argument in different ways and get back to you. So days after your article hit the streets in the Marine Corps Gazette, which, again, made the March 2026 edition available not long ago, as of this recording, it is now March. So it's in print. Now you can go pick it off the magazine rack. And then starting only a few days ago before this recording, we were witness to the opening phase of Operation Epic Fury that combined U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran.

And this has been characterized so far by the exchange of missile salvos, drone strikes, and integrated air and missile defense. But it also carries risk of other asymmetric attacks that have characterized the Iranian operations across the globe. And this makes your article frighteningly prescient. Could you describe potential threats an organization like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, And outfits like it might pose to bases, stations and rear areas and how MPs might be more involved in defending against them. Yeah, absolutely, Brian. So when I wrote the article, I certainly didn't have any idea that this was going to pop off in Iran. And I'm certainly no Iran expert, but, you know, anyone who is even remotely abreast of current events can see that they have a long and storied history of gray zone mischief through their many proxies. Right. And so when we think about especially here in the continental United States, when we look at what they could potentially do to us here, a few things come to mind.

First, the classic lone wolf actor attack on a gate or on a piece of critical base infrastructure. That's one small UAS and drone strikes on some of our key capabilities on our bases. And then I would say targeted attacks against military personnel. And that's kind of an old standby that we've heard horror stories about for years. But again, if you look at the things that Iran has done in previous decades, when it comes to some of their asymmetric activities, just a few that pop out that could easily happen here in CONUS, which means that our MPs, even now in the steady state, have to be very prepared and ready to adapt to and deal with if required. all great insights and even when if we were to lean forward into some of the implications of power projection platforms we tend to focus on the first island chain we tend to think of that in terms of striking distance with relation to say china as a primary threat right uh and yet

we sortie much of our combat power or generate much of our combat power from many of our bases and stations back here and so they are just as critical as those that are forward and so if i were an adversary and I was thinking of where to hit, I would think the same thing. So I think it'd be a very powerful argument and now, unfortunately, a very timely one because of the current threat that we're facing and the current conflict we're in. So we're getting near on time here. Are there any other insights regarding this topic that you'd like to discuss? Not really, Brian. It'll be interesting to see, especially with these recent developments, what kind of conversations are generated within the Pentagon and the joint force leadership establishment. Maybe as we start to

reflect on this problem more with the current events going on, the dialogue and the conversation on this topic can move forward in a way that's meaningful and can yield some positive change going forward. And finally, while I'm not sure if you have a massive online following, is there someplace where listeners should find you online? And what else are you working on these days? You're completely accurate. I have no online following. I am woefully behind the curve in regard to social media and online presence. But I will say what I'm working on right now is, as you know, I'm very interested in the Philippines and the activities that occur in the Philippines. And so right now I'm working on a piece talking about the strategic importance of the Batanas Islands, a small group of islands in the Luzon Strait.

While we often talk about the importance of the Philippine archipelago as a whole, I think those particular islands are of key strategic interest as we start to look at the pacing threat and some of the challenges we may face in that region were we to come into a conflict scenario with the pacing threat. Well, it sounds like a very topical issue for Sea Control and for all the listeners and members of the Center for International Maritime Security. So when you finally get that thing published, we'll have you back on to discuss it in more detail. So, hey, Bobby Fowler, thank you so very much for joining us and sharing your insights today. And we wish you fair winds and following seas. To listeners, bravo Zulu for tuning in, and we'll see you next time. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 Thank you for watching.