Author: Ambershay Cooper

If MCDP 1 Warfighting is our Gospel, James Mattis and Bing West’s Call Sign Chaos is the Acts of the Apostles.  They make a persuasive case for unleashing lower-level initiative and generating tempo through trust.  Using personal anecdotes, military history, and ancient philosophy, they prove the following thought progression:

• Leaders are humble.
• Humble people do not pretend to be omniscient.
• Lacking all the answers, leaders must trust their team.
• Teams built on trust win.

Mattis’s humility comes across on the dust jacket (subtitle: “Learning to Lead”) and permeates every page within it.  The most revered Marine officer of modern history does not try to present “5 tips for leadership success!” Instead, with a biting, self-effacing wit, he describes growing up from a hitch-hiking bar fighter into a Secretary of Defense, with his “forty years of education” funded by the American people (XIII).  

His humility is central to his argument.  By stripping away the infallibility typically ascribed to him by the meme generation, he shows his receptiveness to others’ ideas. He said of his time as Commanding General of 1st Marine Division during the march to Baghdad, “I wanted all hands to pitch in, with the value of good ideas outweighing rank.” Those hands then covered four hundred miles over seventeen days to overwhelm the Iraqi Army (110).

They did so in large part because Mattis trusted his subordinates. Enabled by a humility that prevents feelings of omniscience, he insists twice that “operations occur at the speed of trust” (65, 156). Senior leaders’ lack of omniscience is not only an acceptable human condition; it is preferable in maneuver warfare. We generate tempo by condensing our collective Observe-Orient-Decide-Act loop. Lower-level leaders at the point of friction should produce the best ideas. When they do, decisions and actions are near-simultaneous, informed by the very latest observation, and implicitly oriented by higher’s intent two levels up. That is the speed of trust.

Trust does not exist for its own sake.  It is the vital instrument by which Marines achieve national security ends. Mattis shows that from Desert Storm to Iraq and Afghanistan, his model of building teams based on trust carried the day. In teams built on trust, “It was always subordinate initiative that got my lads out of the jams that I got them into, my mistakes being my own” (238).

Mattis and West’s book is essential reading for all ranks as we seek to maintain our warfighting overmatch in an evolving operating environment. Younger Marines will double-time their preparations to take charge. Older Marines will remember anew the urgency to unleash subordinate initiative in an atmosphere of trust. As the co-author said of George Washington, so we must say of him: if it’s good enough for Mattis, it’s good enough for you and me.

—Captain Edwin Powers

reviewed by Col Chris Woodbridge, USMC(Ret)

CALL SIGN CHAOS: Learning to Lead. By Jim Mattis and Bing West. New York, NY: Random House, 2019.ISBN: 978-0812996838, 320 pp.

In his novel, El Club Dumas,1 Spanish author Arturo Perez-Reverte observes, “There are no innocent readers anymore … To the information the author provides he’ll always add his own.” To be honest, I am not an innocent reader of Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead. During my 30 years in the Marine Corps, I served directly under Gen James N. Mattis’ command three times, always two echelons down the chain of command: for example, me at platoon, him at battalion, me at battalion, him at division, and so forth. This is also the first time I reviewed a book that I appear in, however briefly. This is relevant only in that I was close to some of the events and many of the Marines mentioned in the book, and I bring my own views to the reading. What follows is not “the rest of the story,” but my opinions of the book shaped by my personal experiences.

I also need to add that writing this review has been challenging since a minor print and television media frenzy has grown around the General’s first interviews since his resignation as Secretary of Defense. The questions and discussion in these public interviews have all seemed to focus on everything but the book. A situation perhaps best illustrated by Jeffrey Goldberg in his article for the October edition of the Atlantic, wherein he describes the General’s departure from the current administration:

Here is where I am compelled to note that I did not learn any of these details from Mattis himself. Nor did I learn them from his new book, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, which he wrote with the former Marine officer Bing West. The book is an instructive and entertaining leadership manual for executives, managers, and military officers. Mattis is a gifted storyteller, and his advice will be useful to anyone who runs anything. The book is not, however, an account of his time in service to the 45th president.2

So, if you expect a “tell-all expose” about the Office of the Secretary of Defense in President Donald J. Trump’s administration, you will be disappointed. As the General explains in his introduction, his resignation “is how my public service ended; now I will tell you how it began.”

Furthermore, if you expect deeply touching insights into the character of Jim Mattis the man, you will also be disappointed by the book. Likewise, if you expect a chest-thumping first-person battle narrative from “Mad Dog Mattis,” you truly do not know who the General is. However, if you expect a collection of carefully curated biographical vignettes that carry fundamental lessons on leadership, then you will be pleased with this book. Above all, this work is worth every Marine’s time to read. Call Sign Chaos will also be of particular value to all who serve in the joint force, the Defense establishment, as well as students of national defense, strategy, history, and military affairs.

The book is organized into three parts. The first, “Direct Leadership,” uncovers the General’s “origin story” from youth in Washington State through early ship-board deployments to the Western Pacific and subsequent recruiting duty. This part continues through his first combat experiences as a lieutenant colonel while commanding a battalion in Operation DESERT STORM and concludes with his command of Task Force 58, the first U.S. and allied “brigade” into Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. This first part demonstrates the General’s grounding in personal leadership at the tactical level where personal preparation— mental, physical, and spiritual—and immediate presence in the lives of the Marines you lead are crucial to success. As a lieutenant serving as a platoon commander in his battalion, we all learned from him the moral imperatives of leadership in war—lessons many of us took into our own commands in the sequels to the so-called First Gulf War.

The second part, “Executive Leadership,” begins by following General Mattis in combat again, covering his time in command of the First Marine Division during the initial invasion of Iraq and early stability and counter-insurgency operations through his assignments at MCCDC, I MEF, U.S. Joint Forces Command, and NATOs’ Supreme Allied Command for Transformation. Among this part’s vignettes are the details of an incident that has not appeared in the official histories of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. Shocking and controversial at the time was the decision to relieve Col Joe D. Dowdy of command of RCT 1 during the “march up” to Baghdad. The General’s decision is described over three pages and it is clear he neither took the action lightly nor second-guessed his choice once made. Although General Mattis’ stated intent “involved speed as the top priority,” the commander of RCT 1 “expressed his heartfelt reluctance to lose any of his men by pushing at what might seem to be a reckless pace.” Col Dowdy was relieved immediately and replaced by one of the General’s most trusted subordinate leaders, then-Col John Toolan. As a lieutenant colonel, Toolan had served as the Operations Office, 7th Marines, when then-Colonel Mattis commanded the 7th Marine Regiment and was responsible for the “Chaos” callsign.

A second vignette continues a theme that resonates throughout the book: the frustration and squandered lives, resources, and opportunities for victory that attend upon political and strategic incoherence at the national level. Not unlike the missed opportunity to trap Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda forces at Tora Bora in 2002, described at the end or “Direct Leadership,” what the General refers to as his worst day in the Marine Corps came in 2004 during the abortive first battle of Fallujah: 

I believed I had let my men down, having failed to prevent the attack in the first place and subsequently failing to prevent a stop once we were deep inside the city. It was a tough time for me, because higher-level decisions had cost us lives, but now was not the time to go inward. You must always keep fighting for those who are still with you.

The third part, entitled “Strategic Leadership,” deals exclusively with the General’s time commanding U.S. CENTCOM. Since the establishment of CENTCOM in 1983, only fourteen men have served as the geographic combatant commander for this complex, dynamic, and volatile area of responsibility. This period of the General’s service is probably the least relatable for even the most experienced, mature, and well-read military reader. The book does a credible job of breaking down this barrier to understanding by detailing the daily routine, or personal battle rhythm, the General demanded of himself and his staff. The sheer intellectual stamina and personal discipline required to operate at this level is a testament to the exceptional character of such leaders. Sadly, much of this section describes the friction and frustration born from failures to frame and articulate a coherent national strategy for the region.

In addition to the precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and restrictions on “boots on the ground” troop strength in Afghanistan, this period was marked by the wave of popular uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East that came to be known as the “Arab Spring.” Although heralded by some as the ushering in liberal democracy in the Arab world, the General and others such as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates were

wary about the consequences of the uprising … Democracy was not preordained to emerge from what was unfolding, I didn’t have a crystal ball but a quick glance at history reminded me that every society has its own carrying capacity for making change. I was concerned that if traditional Arab societies proved unable to assimilate sudden political change, something worse would erupt.

Throughout this dynamic time, the General travelled constantly throughout the region employing three lines of effort:

First, I reassured out traditional friends that we stood with them in defending their security against the terrorist threat, Second, I made it clear that we would not tolerate Iranian incursion violating their territorial integrity. Third, I reinforced our ambassadors’ efforts and encouraged regional leaders to be responsive to and inclusive of all their people. I saw this all as buying time for them to make reforms aligned with their societies’ carry capacity. 

The book further illustrates this point regarding “carrying capacity” for change by drawing the stark contrasts between Egypt and Syria: “To see what might have happened had the Egyptian military not acquiesced to the will of millions of Egyptians in the streets, we need only look to Syria.” Here again, the theme of strategic incoherence at the national level plays out through the period of “red lines” and inaction. Consequently, “And American lives today with the consequences of emboldened adversaries and shaken allies.”

General Mattis took command of CENTCOM with two threats in mind: “stateless Sunni Islamist terrorists, and the revolutionary Shiite regime in Iran. By the end of Strategic Leadership, it was the situation with Iran that eroded the General’s trust and “traction” within the Obama administration. In December 2012, the General departed CENTCOM “a region aflame and in disarray. The lack of integrated regional strategy had left us adrift and out friends confused. We were offering no leadership or direction.”

The book closes with a section titled, “Reflections.” This section is close to a tutorial on national defense and military science. The first part, “Lethality as a Metric,” is based on a deep understanding of the unchanging nature of war and the General’s years of experience leading forces in combat:

The need for lethality must be the measuring stick against which we evaluate the efficacy of our military. By aligning the entire military enterprise … to the goal of compounding lethality, we best deter adversaries, or … win at the lowest cost to our troops’ lives. 

Reflections’ second part is “The Art of Leading,” which, as the title suggest, provides a first person description of the General’s personal leadership and how he drew upon the Marine Corps way of war in his own authentic warfighting style. This section expands upon two recurring themes from throughout the book. First is the gratitude for the Vietnam veteran Marines who trained and mentored the General in his formative years in the Service. This debt is expressed repeatedly in the book and is best stated here: “I had been shaped and sharpened by the rough whetstone of those veterans, mentored by sergeants and captains who had slogged through rice paddies and jungles fighting a tough enemy every foot of the way.” The second theme is, of course, the importance of reading history and “studying one’s craft.” His advice here is clear, if aspirational, for many: “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, learning from others who went before you, you are functionally illiterate—you can’t coach, and you can’t lead.” 

The final part of “Reflections” and the last paragraphs of the book is “The Need for Allies.” Perhaps added here, for those readers who “skip to the end,” these paragraphs are the closest to discussing the General’s service as the Secretary of Defense. The advice here is broad and addressed to those who make national policy: “History is compelling. Nations with allies thrive and those without wither.”

Call Sign Chaos is an important addition to any professional military reading list. Each section of the book will resonate more with different readers based on their own level of leadership and years of service. In this manner, the book is crafted to add as much value for sergeants and captains and it does for colonels, senior SNCOs, and generals as well as elected and appointed policy makers. Credit must also go to co-author “Bing” West and editor Will Murphy. This writing team has produced a thoroughly useful handbook for leaders housed inside an engaging and uniquely authentic memoir.

Notes

1. Arturo Perez-Riverte, The Club Dumas, translated by Sonia Soto, (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1996).

2. Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Man Who Couldn’t Take It Anymore,” The Atlantic, (Online: October 2019), available at https://www.theatlantic.com.

by William Treuting
Although Ready Player One is a work of fiction, it is replete with lessons applicable to the current and future Marine Corps. Below are a few examples of the valuable lessons I was able to extrapolate from the text; each is paired with several recommended articles published in the Gazette that share relevancy to the topic. While I do not wholly accept the arguments of many of the articles mentioned, they are important contributions to the debate over how to best adjust to the changing technological trends in today’s world.
• The virtual world has intangible value that has consequences in the physical world. The OASIS, despite being a virtual environment, serves as both the primary escape from the poverty and mundane lifestyle of the physical world. The value and importance of the OASIS to people’s daily lives causes it to become a target to those wishing to exploit the simulation for their own benefit, as is the case with Innovative Online Industries’ desire to find the Easter Egg to control the OASIS. Marines, of all ranks and ages, need to understand the value and importance of the virtual realm to the average citizen. While the OASIS was an all-encompassing virtual-world, contemporary examples can be found in many social media and entertainment platforms. For many people who rely on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Reddit for information and entertainment, these platforms are the vital channels through which many operate and communicate on a daily basis. Similar to how IOI understood that controlling the OASIS was crucial to controlling real-world assets in Ready Player One, both friendly and adversarial forces in contemporary society are attempting to manipulate and control the virtual world to further their personal agendas. Ready Player One provides Marines with a comprehensible allegory through which to view the significance of the virtual world and how it is a critical target for those wishing to influence the physical world. For those interested in this concept, I recommend:
-The Bigger Picture, Capt Eric Abrams, April 2019
-Public Affairs Qualification Course Graduates, Col Riccoh Player, April 2019
-Information Warfare, Col Russell Zink, USMCR, April 2019
-Cybersecurity, 2ndLt Paul Hwang, April 2019
• Humans must be able to outpace and outmaneuver obstacles posed in the virtual world. The central protagonist in Ready Player One, Wade Watts, undergoes a variety of obstacles based on pop-cultural references to find the Easter Egg and control the OASIS. Wade’s success stems from his ability to accurately comprehend and anticipate the nature of the challenges that he faces. However, Wade’s struggle is further enhanced by IOI’s attempts to secure control of the OASIS, often resulting in direct confrontations in both the real and physical world. This added pressure from an external power forces Wade to think outside of the box and find ways to leverage his strengths over IOI. Wade allows himself to be captured by IOI, allowing him access to their facilities. Once he infiltrates the organization, Wade is able to hack into IOI’s network and secure critical information from the adversarial organization. Despite being a work of fiction, Ready Player One demonstrates the importance of innovation in the virtual world. Current and future Marines will operate in an increasingly technologically driven and connected world. With adversarial forces developing advanced capabilities to exploit weaknesses, Marines will have to remain one step ahead to both outpace and outmaneuver any enemy’s attempt to leverage the virtual world. Suggested reading on this topic include:
-Future Cyber Evolution, Lt Col M.E. Tobin, April 2019
-Cyberspace, Capt Steven Marion, April 2019
-Tactical Cyberspace Warfare, Maj Byron Owen, April 2019 (web article)

Is the 02xx community’s current enemy analysis output applicable in the environment described by the Commandants Planning Guidance? The CPG sets out a clear and concise challenge to the force. Operate inside actively contested maritime spaces. The implications can be revolutionary as this guidance provides a forcing function for full integration of all aspects of the Information Environment into the Intelligence picture. Simply stated: The displaying of threat rings for the max effective ranges of enemy weapons systems and calling it a finished planning product is simply not going to be good enough. Range rings do not accurately describe how planners should understand enemy capabilities and Commanders should no longer accept them. Instead, threat synchronization matrices (doctrinal, but rarely used) must include detailed subsystem threat analysis in identifying enemy critical vulnerabilities that when exploited facilitate persistent operations inside the A2/AD envelope.   

The Commandants mandate facilitates actions spanning Phase 0 to Phase 4 operations and requires a whole of government effort. From maintaining, strengthening, and creating new alliances; identifying favorable terrain (human and physical) for employment of required systems and personnel, finding gaps in enemy sensing coverage, understanding the enemy targeting cycle, and best methods to reduce our own signatures; operating inside the enemy weapons engagement zone (WEZ) is a tremendous challenge demanding innovative changes to our force and how we sense the battlefield.  

In his visionary Gazette article (worthy of republishing) from Aug 2016 titled HIMARS, MajGen Simcock outlines basic T/O requirements for forward positioned task forces: “force protection (maneuver, air defense, cyber, information warfare), firepower, logistics, and battlespace awareness…to enable Joint force freedom of action.” (p. 25) This organizational framework for USMC support to Dynamic Force Employment considerably shrinks the distance between MAGTF tactical actions and strategic impact.

Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) as a foundational product to the Marine Corps Planning Process takes on a heightened responsibility under the CPG and the paradigm MajGen Simcock describes. The IPB must now integrate an expanded evaluation of enemy capabilities that includes radars, communications, and sensing capabilities. Most importantly step three analysis must include vulnerabilities of named systems that contribute to persistence inside the weapons engagement zone.

Intelligence Support to the MAGTF operating to enable Dynamic Force Employment is a monumental task requiring tight integration and orchestrated leveraging of the disparate capabilities nested in the nascent MEF Information Group (MIG). But the principles of MCDP-1 endure. The enemy still has surfaces and gaps and maneuver warfare dictates we identify and exploit weak points. Persisting inside the enemy WEZ directs intelligence planners to find and articulate those gaps as part of a broader force survivability plan. 

—Lt Col Brad Fultz

To read the complete CPG please go to: https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/142/Docs/%2038th%20Commandant’s%20Planning%20Guidance_2019.pdf?ver=2019-07-16-200152-700

General Berger is looking forward to meaningful dialogue regarding the CPG.

As military professionals, Marines and Gazette readers your insights and comments are uniquely valuable. Write about it! To add your ideas to the CPG dialogue, comment here on the Gazette Blog, or go to https://www.mca-marines.org/forums/topic/commandants-planning-dialogue/.

by Maj Brian Kerg

As a smarter colleague often tells me, this is a great time to be a Marine! The CPG signals a lot of positive change. I welcome the challenge to respond to the CMC’s latest guidance and hope many others join in to create a much needed dialogue on the changes to come.

This will be the first of several posts. In the spirit of making my thoughts digestible and avoid an overtly lengthy post, I’ll respond to each idea piecemeal. If any readers would prefer to continue a dialogue offline, please do contact me directly.

To begin:

“The Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) cannot be our only solution for all crises. Instead, we are defined by our collective character as Marines and by fulfilling our Service roles and functions prescribed by Congress.”

I would challenge us to go a step farther and say that the MAGTF cannot be our primary solution for all crises. At this point, we have become as reliant on the MAGTF as a construct as the Army has historically been reliant on the Brigade Combat Team (BCT). That is, we rarely think/plan to send in anything less than a MAGTF in response to any contingency. Whether the solution could be solved with a team of hand-selected SME’s or a force package that is as small as a company, our default reaction is to assemble an entire MAGTF and hurl it at the problem.

Shouldn’t we simply tailor the package to the problem? The primary principle of the MAGTF’s utility is that it can be tailored to the mission, but we are now beholden to the MAGTF construct and are afraid to break with it. We should be more agile than the Army, and we won’t be as long as we are married to the MAGTF as our primary response option. To this point, current, ‘regular’ SP-MAGTF rotations are not even a requirement for any given mission, but appear to largely be a byproduct of PP&O advocacy. How many combatant commanders have leveraged these SP-MAGTF’s in response to real world missions? Would they be more inclined to ask for Marines if we did not respond with, ‘you get the entire SP-MAGTF or you get nothing’? If the combatant commander only needs a rifle platoon, can’t we just give him a rifle platoon? The danger here is that the Army may very well become more responsive than the Marine Corps, and the President’s or the Combatant Commander’s first thought may very well be, ‘Send in the Army’. This is in no way a knock on the capabilities of the Army, but if the Army can do what the Marine Corps is supposed to do, why maintain a Marine Corps?

There is certainly utility in the MAGTF, but the second line of the above statement from the CPG should drive force design, generation, and planning. Let us tailor the force to the mission, rather than trying to squeeze a MAGTF into every mission-sized hole.

“The focal point of the future integrated naval force will shift from traditional power projection to meet the new challenges associated with maintaining persistent naval forward presence to enable sea control and denial operations.”

Presently, we spend a lot of resources rotating Marines on Unit Deployment Programs (UDP) and similar deployments that don’t meet this intent. Yes, putting more Marines on Okinawa gives them the chance to deploy and learn a thing or two about the III MEF AOR, but this doesn’t reinforce sea control/sea denial.

To better meet the CPG’s intent of naval integration, why not think of the UDP and similar deployments as an Expeditionary Advanced Base (EAB) Deployment, or as a Dynamic Force Employment (DFE) Program?

That is, for an EAB Deployment, put Marines in either expeditionary locations inside a potential adversary’s threat envelope, where they can rehearse capabilities that provide this sea control/sea denial? Alternatively, for a DFE program, put Marines in not necessarily expeditionary locations, but in locations that are inside the threat envelope, where they could be rapidly shifted in purpose to provide sea control/sea denial?

This would not necessarily require an abandonment of the UDP, but simply repurpose/re-aim the UDP. Don’t just dump Marines on Oki and hope to God and Chesty Puller that they can lock on meaningful range time, or against all odds get their artillery over to Fuji to pull off some fire missions. Put them somewhere and employ them in a way that directly meets this goal of the CPG, which in turn meets the goals of the NDS.

Finally, these deployments could be used in a meaningful way to respond to hostility in the Pacific. Presently, we respond to aggression or sharp power in the INDO-PACOM AOR by doing freedom of navigation ops. This doesn’t stop the Chinese from continuing to lean on other states in the region, or stop them from building artificial islands, or to otherwise act in ways that are harmful to international norms, the free flow of markets, etc. They would be checked much more meaningfully by a EAB deployment or a DFE deployment that provides the US and our allies with sea control/denial in response to such actions. The regular exercise of such capabilities would also better prepare the force to do it for real should they be called upon to do so.

“Reinvigorating the FMF can be accomplished by assigning more Marine Corps forces to the Fleet, putting Marine Corps experts in the fleet Maritime Operations Centers, and also by shifting emphasis in our training, education, and supporting establishment activities.”

Presently, there are a handful of Marine officers attached to both US Fleet Forces Command (USFFC) and US Pacific Fleet (PACFLT), and to other naval headquarters. Low hanging fruit to support the above intent is to make these Marines available for use in the MOC at key times, or to become more integrated in MOC activities so they can surge the MOC when necessary to better support Fleet operations.

As an example, I have just been attached to USFFC as part of a waterfront support memorandum between MARFORCOM/US Fleet Forces Command, and work as the Fleet Amphibious Communications Officer in the USFFC N6. I literally work in the same building as the USFFC MOC. I inject myself into MOC activities only through personal initiative and because my leadership gives me the freedom to do so. This function, to support the above, shouldn’t be incidental or personality driven, but can be directive and permanent so naval integration at this level becomes habitual. This could be forced through direction from HQMC. USFFC/PACFLT could balance the injection of Marines currently assigned to them into their MOCs, while also juggling their primary billets, under the cognizance of the respective Fleet Marine Officer (FMO) assigned to each fleet. FMO’s could assess the impact of MOC involvement on each individual billet and weight the effort accordingly.

Alternatively, some billets could be restructured to divest USFFC/USPACFLT of the current billets, but provide a 1-for-1 swap of billets in the MOC. I.e., lose an officer in a functional area, but attach them to the MOC. Assessment of impact by the current billet holders, their current leadership, and the FMO can help in discussions for such restructuring. Such restructuring may not be appropriate in all instances, but it could be in some, and even one Marine SME in each MOC will provide incredible potential for naval integration of the Marine Corps into fleet operations.