The Marine Corps Gazette is well-known for providing generations of Marines with a virtuous push-pull cycle of learning through which they can both share their ideas and arguments with other Marines through publication, and further benefit from those same Marines’ divergent thoughts and conclusions each month. While traditionally focused on tactical-level challenges and tactical excellence, the Gazette has never engaged in intellectual caution or retreat when confronted by larger operational or strategic issues and challenges—most memorably the Maneuver Warfare debates all across the 1980s, or discussions on Dr. Strange’s Center-of-Gravity Analytic Model in the late 1990s. It is in a spirit consistent with those broader operational-and-strategic-level discussions that this month’s edition is focused, and that logisticians and campaign planners across the force remain focused.
At the strategic level, logistics (sustainment) is a key component of deterrence. According to former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, the key to deterrence is that “it cannot be a bluff; it must be credible.” In the context of modern warfare, particularly against a peer adversary, deterrence credibility and prospects for prevailing are largely attained by solving three core challenges of operational employment: force mobilization and deployment, force closure, and force sustainment of operations.
• Force Mobilization and Deployment: This is the rapid aggregation and initial movement of forces from their home stations to the theater of operations. It sets the clock for the entire campaign. As maneuverists, we seek to create temporal warfighting advantages for the FMF via rapid deployments.
• Force Closure: This is the systematic assembly and compositing of the force, linking personnel with their equipment and initial supplies in actions that enable reconstitution of the force within the theater. It ensures the commander has the complete, ready force required to restore the pre-conflict status quo or terminate the conflict to our advantage.
• Force Sustainment of Operations: This is the continuous flow of everything needed to maintain and prolong operations—fuel, ammunition, spare parts, medical services, and personnel support. It is the most challenging and enduring problem when all domains will be actively contested.
Taking a page from Chinese naming conventions, I refer to these steps collectively as The Three Principal Moves, and they encapsulate the actions necessary to deliver comprehensive operational effectiveness.
The advent of modern warfare, however, has significantly complicated the execution of The Three Principal Moves. Unlike in the past, all actions of the force in each move will be contested simultaneously across all domains. As I stated in last year’s “Focus on Logistics” edition of the Marine Corps Gazette, successful operations in contested environments require us to think, act, and operate differently. Our historical successes are undeniable, but at the strategic and operational levels, those methods of deployment, force closure, and sustainment were effectively conducted in permissive environments; we could fly, sail, offload, and operate anywhere we wanted with minimal concerns about enemy impediments to those actions—and we did just that. Modern warfare does not offer such luxuries. Each domain will be contested to varying degrees throughout our conduct of The Three Principal Moves.
At the heart of this construct is a strong, resilient, and responsive logistics enterprise that enables equal success across all At the heart of this construct is a strong, resilient, and responsive logistics enterprise that enables equal success across all domains. Without the ability to sustain protracted fires through the creation of an inexhaustible magazine afloat, ashore, or in the air, then there is no combat credibility. If there is no combat credibility, then there is no deterrence. Yes—deterrence requires more than just advanced weaponry; it requires a demonstrated ability to sustain those forces in a fight, and the reality of modern war involving major power peer adversaries is that such a fight will most likely be protracted. A force’s ability to sustain operations in a protracted conflict will be the deciding factor in enabling that force to prevail.
At the operational level, logistics is the indispensable bridge that connects strategy to the tactical realities of the modern all-domain battlespace. It is the lifeblood that sustains combat forces, providing the necessary resources to project power, maneuver, and sustain the fight with endurance; logistics drives strategy, and it enables operations, particularly protracted operations. Far from being a mere administrative or secondary function, logistics is the determinant warfighting function. Logistics ultimately determines the success or failure of any military campaign, and well before that, it determines whether a force is ready. I support the conclusion of GEN Dwight D. Eisenhower, who observed, “you will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics.”
The Marine Corps Installation and Logistics Enterprise, including global prepositioned stocks and resilient infrastructure, directly prevents the FMF from reaching its culminating point in conflict. The culminating point is the point in time and space where a military force no longer possesses the superiority in combat power to continue its advance, forcing it to assume a defensive posture or retreat. This point is almost always reached due to the exhaustion of resources that drains a force’s will or depletes its ability to fight long before it is defeated in battle.
The true measure of Joint Force and naval power is not the total inventory of our equipment, but the ability to deliver that equipment at the decisive place, when needed, and keep it functional over time. When logistics is seen as robust, resilient, and redundant, it signals to an opponent that any initial tactical success will be fleeting, as the opposing force has the capacity to absorb losses and continue fighting indefinitely. As such, a strong logistics footprint is itself a deterrent effect.
I would like to thank all our authors and contributors, and encourage all consumers of the Gazette to continue to use it as a marketplace of ideas. I have repeatedly challenged you to “Think, Act, and Operate differently,” and I am greatly appreciative of how many have truly embraced that necessity. Over the past year, some tremendously innovative ideas have been developed across our Corps—by all ranks. This is the perfect venue to share how you have been thinking differently with your peers, and to challenge them to reconsider their assumptions, and further, ask themselves—what if I am wrong? Keep thinking. Keep writing. Keep challenging yourselves and each other. The time to act is now.
Stephen D. Sklenka Lieutenant General, U.S. Marine Corps Deputy Commandant for Installations and Logistics
There is a conversation we must have as a Corps. It is a difficult, uncomfortable conversation that strikes at the heart of our culture, our expectations, and the future of our warfighting readiness. In my estimation, there is a perfect storm gathering on the horizon, a storm that is now approaching our bases and stations. The collision of our necessary and ambitious modernization with the brutal reality of our fiscal constraints has brought us to a breaking point with facilities. We can no longer afford what we have, let alone what we say we need.
Installations serve as the crucible where Marines are forged and prepared for combat, providing the critical infrastructure for training, equipping, and deploying our forces. Failure to invest in these platforms directly compromises our ability to project power and deter aggression. Realistic training environments that simulate the complexities of modern warfare are essential, including ranges equipped with advanced targetry, urban training facilities, and cyber ranges. Investment in live, virtual, and constructive training capabilities allows Marines to hone their skills across varied, realistic scenarios, preparing them for the multi-domain battlefield they will face. This is the reason we exist; however, none of this can be accomplished without power, water, wastewater, and other basic utilities. Likewise, our commitment to warrior and family readiness through adequate housing, healthcare, and support services is not a luxury. A positive living environment is a necessity that directly impacts training, morale, and our ability to recruit and retain the high-caliber Marines and families that our Nation requires.
For two decades, as a Corps, we made the right and necessary choices. We prioritized the immediate needs of the warfighter in Iraq and Afghanistan, ensuring they had the weapons, armor, and technology to win on the battlefield. We consciously accepted risk in our installations portfolio, leveraging sustainment, restoration, and modernization funds to pay for urgent operational requirements. This was the correct answer at the time, but the installations bill is now due. The accumulated debt from years of deferred maintenance has collided with a perfect storm of external pressures: staggering inflation, a strategic pivot to the highly expensive Pacific theater, and the necessary, but costly, demands of accelerated Force Design modernization. The result is a fiscal crisis that threatens the very foundation of our readiness. As Marines, we must face this problem, attack, and win.
The challenge before us is not academic; it is a clear danger to our warfighting ability. The gap between what our installations require and the resources we receive is no longer a gap; it is a chasm. Analysis reveals an average shortfall of 55 percent between the requirement and the budget received for our facilities. Compounding this, military construction costs have exploded by an average of 30 percent since 2020, while unpredictable budget cycles and continuing resolutions have made long-term planning an exercise in futility. We are being asked to do more with less, but the laws of physics and finance are unforgiving.
The consequences of this resource crisis are not abstract. They are visible in the crumbling interior conditions of our barracks and the at-risk electrical grids that threaten our high-tech training simulators. The Marine Corps faces a $28 billion backlog in deferred maintenance, with a significant portion concentrated in the Pacific region, that grows each passing day. In a recent Naval Facilities Command analysis of 200 buildings in the East and National Capital regions, eleven percent were found to be at moderate to severe risk of structural failure. This is about operational risk. An F-35 is a museum piece without a powered hangar. A cyber warrior cannot train for network defense on a system that is constantly down. A Marine cannot maintain focus on their mission when their barracks room has mold, and the chow hall is closed for emergency repairs. For too long, we have viewed our installations as sanctuaries, administrative rear areas separate from the fight. That view is now dangerously obsolete. Our installations are operational platforms, integral to every phase of conflict, from deterrence to high-end combat. Continued underfunding is no longer a budget problem; it is an operational failure in the making.
But in this crisis lies our opportunity. This is not a time for despair; it is a time for action. The future we envision is one of operationally ready, resilient, and lethal installations that directly generate readiness, but more importantly, are ready to fight. Imagine our bases not as liabilities, but as unsinkable aircraft carriers and forward logistics hubs—the very springboards of power projection. From the shores of Camp Lejeune to the forward-deployed positions of Camp Hansen, our installations are part of the battlespace. This must be reality in today’s environment, and it is within our grasp if we have the courage to shed the institutional habits of a bygone era and forge a new, more disciplined path.
First, we must have the discipline to fund what is foundational. These are the must-pay bills: the minimum set of infrastructure, services, and security measures necessary, regardless of the installation’s mission, to sustain assigned personnel, protect assets, and support training. Think protection, power, water, barracks, and chow halls. These are not discretionary items to be traded away; they are the bedrock that underpins all other capabilities. This funding must be incorporated into every Program Objective Memorandum and remain untouchable—similar to the manpower account.
Second, for every new requirement, we will relentlessly pursue the concept of Minimum Viable Project. This is not about building cheap facilities; it is about building smart. It is the architectural equivalent of our “fight light” ethos—stripping away every non-essential feature and every square foot that does not directly contribute to putting rounds on target.
Third, we will attack our own footprint. We have too much aging, inefficient, and costly infrastructure. Our goal is to execute an aggressive, deliberate, and conditions-based demolition plan that reduces our total facility footprint by more than ten percent of the existing square footage. Every square foot we take off our books is a recurring cost we no longer must pay, freeing up resources to invest where they matter most. This is not retreat; it is shedding dead weight to become faster and more lethal.
Fourth, our first question for any facility requirement will no longer be where do we build new? but what can we renovate or repair? We must pivot from a reliance on new military construction to a smarter, more sustainable model of restoration and modernization. A well-renovated maintenance bay that is back in the fight in eighteen months is far superior to a new MILCON project that will not break ground for five years.
This is not just a theory; we at Marine Corps Installations Command are already on the attack. We have declared war on inefficiency. We are developing a portfolio of standardized facility designs, challenging the outdated Unified Facilities Criteria, and using more advanced construction methods. And we are leveraging new Other Transaction Authorities granted by Congress to accelerate project delivery. These are our proof points—concrete actions that demonstrate a faster, leaner, and more affordable model is not just possible but is already being implemented.
This brings us to the final, unavoidable truth. The principles of Minimum Viable Project, demolition, and renovation will make us far more efficient, but they cannot reverse decades of underinvestment by themselves. Efficiency alone cannot blunt a $28 billion maintenance backlog and simultaneously modernize our bases to support the exquisite and complex equipment of Force Design. To do that, the Service must make a committed, sustained investment in its platforms.
The professional, data-driven standard for maintaining a large and complex infrastructure portfolio is to fund Facilities Sustainment, Restoration, and Modernization at a set percentage of the total Plant Replacement Value. The Marine Corps must commit to funding our installations at a sustainable and consistent rate of Plant Replacement Value annually. This level of investment is not for building monuments. It is the fuel required to work off our crushing maintenance backlog, to execute our plan of targeted demolition, and to resource a sustainable cycle of repair and renovation that will ensure our platforms can support the warfighter.
The path ahead requires a unified effort and a profound cultural shift. It demands that our leaders champion the 80 percent solution that can be delivered now over the 100 percent solution that may never arrive. Our mission is to defend the force and our families, support the MEF, and improve the lives of our warriors. By embracing this new, leaner approach, and resourcing it appropriately, we are not diminishing our capabilities; we are sharpening them. We are converting fiscal discipline into a strategic advantage, ensuring our installations are the resilient, operational platforms our Corps requires to meet any challenge, anywhere on the globe. The storm is here, but we have a plan. We are Marines. We will attack this problem, and we will win.
That path forward, the bridge from our current crisis to our future vision, is built on a ruthless return to our core identity as a frugal and expeditionary force. It is not about simply asking for more money—though we must; it is about fundamentally changing how we spend every dollar we get. This new model is built on four unwavering principles.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MajGen Woodworth currently serves as Commander, Marine Corps Installations Command; Commanding General, Marine Corps National Capital Region; and Assistant Deputy Commandant, Installations and Logistics, Facilities and Services.
The Marine Corps has mastered the kill chain—finding, targeting, and engaging threats—through constant innovation in fires and maneuver. Yet, the logistics chain that sustains those operations remains underdeveloped. The Corps still lacks the doctrine, culture, and training mechanisms to command and control sustainment with the same rigor as combat functions.
Logistics too often becomes an afterthought. Resupply plans go unrehearsed, timelines drift, and the tempo collapses when sustainment fails. The absence of standardized logistics control measures and overlays on the Common Operational Picture (COP) prevents timely decisions about resupply, risk, and the protection of critical units. Meanwhile, the logistics combat element (LCE) generally operates without a clearly enforced training and readiness sustainment, leaving Marines underprepared for convoy operations involving live-fire and night maneuvers. This reflects a lingering bias that treats logistics as secondary to combat arms—an assumption incompatible with modern war.
As the 39th Commandant warned, contested logistics is now a top priority: the Corps must “close and sustain the force” in a communications-degraded, threat-heavy environment. We must move beyond merely supporting maneuver to making logistics a driving force that enables it. As Col Angell and Mark Schouten wrote, “Tactical prowess is irrelevant for a force that cannot get to the fight or lacks the material to endure.”1
This article proposes four lines of effort (LOEs) that will better enable logistics units and logisticians to catch up to other elements of the MAGTF we are supporting in all phases of an operation—from planning throughout execution. The purpose is to conduct business as deliberately, rehearsed, and agile as the kill chain itself: • Rehearse sustainment as you rehearse fires. • Make sustainment visible and controllable on the COP. • Train the LCE like an aviation squadron. • Institutionalize the logistics support playbook.
Together, these efforts will transform the sustainment of the MAGTF from a passive tail getting proverbially left in the dust into the proactive combat system as designed.
LOE 1: Rehearse Sustainment as You Rehearse Fires
In the Marine Corps, nothing is “ready” until it is rehearsed. Fire-support teams walk through calls-for-fire; maneuver units practice schemes of maneuver to friction-proof execution. Yet, logistics rehearsals remain rare. During MAGTF Warfighting Exercise 1-25, for example, the LCE operations officer was told to “hurry along” so more time could be given to the fires discussion. The result was brilliant maneuver plans that faltered when fuel, water, or medical evacuation failed to align. A concept of logistics support written in an order is meaningless unless commanders and logisticians walk through it together. Rehearsing sustainment at confirmation briefs and rehearsal of concept drills exposes critical gaps: Where are the resupply points? What are the unmasking criteria or decision authorities for redirecting support? How do logistics units conduct link-ups in a communications-degraded environment? Such questions belong at every rehearsal table.
Every field exercise should integrate sustainment rehearsals alongside tactical ones, using realistic injects such as casualty evacuation, link-up between supporting and supported units, and no-communications plans. Commanders should discuss the criteria to unmask logistics and make this known across the formation. Is it the supported company commanders’ authority to push forward a low-density, high-value logistics formation? Is
“The history of war proves that nine out of ten times an army has been destroyed because its supply lines have been cut off.” –GEN Douglas MacArthur
survivability more important than supporting the supported unit—how and who makes these risk-based decisions? These questions must be addressed with commanders across the MAGTF discussing decision-making criteria and authorities. Rehearsing sustainment with the same intensity as fires signals a cultural shift: logistics is part of the fight, not an administrative detail. The outcome is a MAGTF that fights with confidence, knowing the logistical links will hold fast and or support across is understood.
LOE 2: Make Sustainment Visible and Controllable on the COP
Today’s operations centers display impressive digital maps of maneuver units and fires. Yet, too often, logistics is invisible—convoys, refuel points, casualty collection sites are absent from the picture. Without that visibility, commanders are having difficulty with command and control of logistics formations as evidenced by the Marine Corps Logistics Operations Group during MAGTF warfighting exercise and other collective training events. Further, MAGTF headquarters often struggled to locate dispersed convoys or distribution sites. Leaders could not answer the simplest questions: How much water remains? When is the next resupply mission scheduled? This uncertainty paralyzed tempo. As MCDP 4 reminds us, “Logistics visibility provides insight on reach and endurance … shaping decisions to adjust tasks, priorities, and resources.”2 You cannot protect or maneuver what you cannot see or control—or it becomes unnecessarily difficult to communicate perceived air superiority to desperate units.
A logistics overlay—updated and layered onto the main COP—turns sustainment into a controllable system. Logistics-oriented tactical control measures, like rapid resupply points, ambulance exchange points, and other critical areas, should appear on every COP. When an infantry commander can plan around their next resupply, they can develop courses of action that are feasible and prevent culmination, as logistics is intended. In one MAGTF warfighting exercise instance, once LCE movements were plotted, the GCE coordinated fires to shield a convoy under threat—saving the sustainment flow from interdiction.
Technology can help. Emerging “LOGCOP” tools fuse data on convoy locations, stock levels, and maintenance status using real-time data. The goal is secure, near-real-time sustainment visibility without revealing positions to the enemy. However, the procedures matter more than the software: standardized logistics tactical control measures, clear update cycles, and mandatory log-status reporting must become habitual across the MAGTF. Commanders must enforce the importance of Logistics Status, akin to positional reports, to support the timely application of fires.
Once visible, sustainment becomes controllable. Commanders can dynamically redirect convoys, shift resupply priorities, or activate contingency routes. Logistics thus becomes a maneuver system—one that sets the fight’s tempo rather than merely trailing behind it.
LOE 3: Train the LCE Like an Aviation Squadron
While deployed as part of the 13th MEU embarked aboard the USS Makin Island on the WESTPAC 23.1 deployment, we observed the strict training and readiness standards, deck qualification landings, or night qualifications of the air combat element and asked why this does not exist in the LCE? This discipline ensures combat readiness. Yet, no equivalent culture exists for logistics formations. Too often, LCE units spend training time on administrative or garrison tasks rather than tactical proficiency.
Doctrinally, “effective logistics depends on continuous, challenging, integrated training.”3 However, many logisticians reach major exercises having never executed a live-fire convoy or having conducted night convoy operations. Yet, we can generally all agree that there is a need for logistics units to conduct force protection and conduct movement using the concealment of night. Why is it that we can track individual training like combat and physical fitness tests or cyber awareness, yet we do not know if our sustainment interval is maintained for operating crew-served weapons and driving vehicles at night? Both are critical individual tasks required to accomplish the collective tasks associated with the assigned mission of the LCE. The LCE formations must treat logistics as a warfighting formation, not a service provider, and begin tracking these intervals during weekly command meetings—like command and staff or review via existing systems such as the Marine Corps Training Information Management System. When logistics Marines train like aviators—constantly evaluated, continuously improving—the result is a force that can maneuver, survive, and sustain under pressure. In a peer fight, there will be no safe rear area.
LOE 4: The Logistics Support Playbook
Even with rehearsed plans and trained units, combat chaos will disrupt communications and command. To thrive amid that friction, logisticians need tools that enable rapid, decentralized execution. The logistics support playbookis one such tool: a menu of pre-planned, flexible sustainment “plays” that can be executed with minimal comms—analogous to a fire-support matrix for logistics.
MCDP 4 emphasizes that maneuver warfare demands “flexibility and agility in our logistics plans … ensuring logistics itself does not become a critical vulnerability.”4 The playbook builds that flexibility by pre-deciding how to act when the unexpected occurs. It also enables the discussion between the supported and supporting units to conduct quick and detailed planning to enable link-up during execution.
Each “play” is a predetermined package of support or contingency action, rehearsed and encoded for quick execution. Suppose a battalion burns through ammunition repelling an ambush. Instead of drafting a long request, it transmits a simple code: “7-Eleven Option 1 execute.” Everyone already knows what that means—perhaps a six-pallet resupply of 155 mm, water, and MREs.
The LCE immediately launches the designated convoy “Lucky” to the pre-set linkup grid. A single burst transmission accomplishes what would normally take multiple messages.
These plays compress decision cycles, sustain tempo, and enable initiative at the lowest level. They embody mission tactics—allowing subordinate leaders to act within the commander’s intent even when cut off. Developing the playbook requires deliberate staff work. MAGTF planners identify likely sustainment challenges—emergency casualty evacuation, mobile fuel runs, alternate routes—and craft shorthand solutions. Each play includes triggers, responsibilities, and code words. Plays are standardized, disseminated, and rehearsed across the force. Used in the same manner as we observe any given Sunday.
The Marine Corps can perfect its kill chain, but without an equally disciplined sustainment chain, combat power will grind to a halt.
Like immediate-action drills, playbook codes do not restrict flexibility—they empower it. Because decisions are front-loaded, Marines can act faster when friction strikes. Training cycles should validate these plays, including emission control and degraded-comms scenarios. RAND analysis supports this approach: distributed operations require sustainment forces to “operate effectively with inconsistent communications.”5 The playbook provides precisely that capability. It also aligns with Force Design 2030 and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations concepts, emphasizing distributed, autonomous sustainment. Commanders, depending on the command relationships, must trust subordinates to execute playbook codes without seeking permission. That trust converts logistics from a centrally managed process into a responsive network. Like a well-drilled football team executing an audible, a MAGTF using its logistics playbook can adjust instantly—maintaining tempo given the anticipated fog and friction as part of the nature of war.
Logistics is commonly referred to as the linchpin of maneuver warfare. The Marine Corps can perfect its kill chain, but without an equally disciplined sustainment chain, combat power will grind to a halt. The four LOEs outlined here chart a path forward: rehearse sustainment like fires; make it visible and controllable on the COP; train logisticians to the same warfighting standard as aviators; and institutionalize the Logistics Support Playbook to thrive in degraded conditions.
These reforms rely upon and demand leadership emphasis, doctrinal updates, and cultural change. They require time, resources, and persistence. But their payoff is immense: a MAGTF capable of sustaining itself in any clime and place, with logistics functioning not as a vulnerability but as a decisive weapon system. To win tomorrow’s fight, the Marine Corps must go beyond the kill chain—and command and control logistics as deliberately as it commands and controls firepower.
Featured Photo (Top):An accurate logistics COP can ensure visibility of critical classes of supply including bulk fuel.(Photo provided by Cpl Eric Allen.)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Col Zimmerman is a Logistics Officer and is currently serving as the Commanding Officer of Combat Logistics Regiment 17, 1st Marine Logistics Group.
Maj Zimmer is a Logistics Officer currently serving as a Faculty Advisor at the Marine Corps Logistics Operations Group.
NOTES:
1. Col Aaron Angell and Jeff Schouten, “Leveraging Logistics above the MAGTF,” Marine Corps Gazette 107, No. 3 (2024).
Drones have provided significant tactical advantages to both sides during the three years of brutal fighting in the Russo-Ukraine war. So, it is not surprising that uncrewed autonomous and first-person view drones and other uncrewed platforms are being heralded as the war-winning technology of the future.1 This euphoria was magnified by Ukraine’s June 2025 Operation SPIDERWEB, which masterfully employed drones to attack Russian air bases approximately 2,500 miles from the static front.2 This led some commentators to declare that the attack was Kiev’s Pearl Harbor.3
Moreover, two authors have proclaimed that the “drone era” is a military revolution and will remove the element of fear from war.4 This is an astonishing statement given that human beings fight wars to intentionally inflict violence on others out of “greed, fear, and ideology,” making it unlikely humans will disappear from tomorrow’s battlefields.5
This article contends that drones and artificial technology (AI) will continue to transform how future wars are fought; however, technology alone is unlikely to generate the required vic-tories to qualify as the next revolution in military affairs (RMA).
Evolution or Revolution?
Drones have transformed the battlefield in Ukraine, but in an evolutionary rather than revolutionary fashion, as their impact falls short of the truly disruptive change that constitutes an RMA.6 Neither side has been able to decisively break through their opponent’s fixed, layered defenses and transition to sustained offensive operations necessary to achieve their respective political aims and “theories of victory.”7 A recent RUSI study concluded between 60–80 percent of Ukrainian first-person view, tactical drones failed to reach their target in 2024.8 Those that did were unable to destroy the armored vehicles they were trying to kill due to Russian electronic warfare jamming, poor weather, unfavorable terrain conditions, and operator error. A lack of Ukrainian artillery often prevented suppressive fires from being effectively employed with drones against Russian air defenses and dismounted soldiers protecting key targets. All told, first-person-view drones have proven most effective against enemy troops in the open. However, armies that disperse, conceal, maneuver with stealth, and deceive will likely lessen the effectiveness of adversary kill chains in the future.
… two authors have proclaimed that the “drone era” is a military revolution …
Revolutions in military affairs occur when a new technology is combined with innovative operational concepts and organizational adaptation to fundamentally alter the character and conduct of conflict.9 The RMAs dramatically increase the combat potential and military effectiveness of fighting forces relative to a specific adversary, but these three ingredients must be amalgamated before a true RMA is born.10
Revolutions in military affairs are rare occurrences—Andrew Krepinevich cites only ten since the 14th century.11 Nevertheless, premature pronouncements that a new RMA has arrived are not new. In 2004, Stephen Biddle cited six such examples: the inventions of dynamite, the machinegun, the naval torpedo, the airplane, strategic bombing, and the atom bomb.12 Biddle believed these new technologies led military thinkers of their day to overestimate the impact they would have on warfare.
This trend continues today and, on one level, it makes sense. War’s inherent brutality has long incentivized humans to seek short wars and “silver bullets” that can reduce its cost in casualties and national treasure. Moreover, the reliance on advanced technology has been a central pillar of the American Way of War since at least World War II, as the United States places greater emphasis on technology in planning and waging war than any other nation.13
Yet, in the context of the Russo-Ukraine War, drone performance has been exaggerated despite compelling evidence otherwise. Amos Fox argues that drones in protracted land campaigns, like Ukraine and Gaza, have proven strategically irrelevant given their inability to take or retake territory, hold ground, seal borders, and protect populations.14 Other studies question drone reliability and effectiveness.15 Thus, claims that drones have revolutionized the character of war deserve closer scrutiny.
Generating Leap-Ahead Combat Capabilities
As noted above, RMAs change the character of war because they generate an asymmetrical advantage in combat capabilities vis-à-vis one’s adversary. What is revolutionary is not the pace of change, but rather, the character of the change and the degree of overall improvement in military capabilities.16
Such improvement can occur absent new technology, as was the case with the 18th-century French “levee en masse” (i.e., forced conscription) that tripled the size of Napoleon’s Army in less than a year.17 It can also result from repurposing and imaginatively using old technology, as Germany did with tanks—first employed by the British in the 1917 World War I battle of Cambrai—by integrating armor with radio communications, airplanes, and mechanized infantry to generate a potent combined-arms team that became the blitzkrieg.18
Yet, it is important to acknowledge that the introduction of new technology is a key incubator that can alter the character of war, as witnessed with the precision-strike revolution that came of age in the 1991 Gulf War.19 Some three decades later, the precision strike RMA enabled the United States to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities in Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER.20 But battlefield context matters, as it took eleven weeks of bombing from fourteen NATO nations (some 40,000 aircraft sorties flown) along with the threat of ground invasion during Operation ALLIED FORCE before Serb leader, Slobodan Milosevic, backed down.21
Coming of Age
In almost all cases, new technologies mature more slowly than military planners and operators desire. The 1972 Linebacker II bombing campaign against North Vietnam expended approximately the same number of laser-guided munitions as the 1991 Gulf War.22 The qualitative improvements that allowed the same number of munitions to be exponentially more effective than their forbearers took nearly two decades.
The same is true with ground-launched anti-tank weapons systems. What started in the late 1970s with the Dragon and family of wire-guided missile systems eventually matured into the “fire and forget” Javelin that proved so effective against Russian armor in 2022.23
… RMAs change the character of war because they generate an asymmetrical advantage in combat capabilities vis-à-vis one’s adversary.
Drones, too, have a long lineage that traces back to 1917–1918 when the British and American’s respectively, developed the Aerial Target and Kettering Bug pilotless aerial platforms.24 Yet, it was not until the Vietnam War that drones were deployed in relatively large numbers.
In sum, a lengthy maturation process ensues before new technologies, innovative warfighting concepts, and organizational adaptations successfully combine to ignite revolutionary, leap-ahead combat capabilities. This time-consuming process is not exclusively the fault of tech developers, engineers, and an unwieldy defense acquisition process. Rather, lengthy, but essential, military experimentation must also occur to provide the Services and Joint Force practical insights into how its concepts and organizational design should be adapted to effectively campaign with the new technologies.25
Maintaining Asymmetrical Advantage
The competitive asymmetrical advantages new technologies bring to warfare are fleeting. Being a “first mover” or early adopter of enhanced capabilities incentivizes competitors to counterbalance, especially if the new capabilities are widely proliferated.26
Today’s rapid diffusion of technology means smaller powers and non-state actors can easily and cheaply manufacture or commercially acquire drones, satellite imagery, global communications devices, and a host of other technologies for battlefield use. The Houthis recently demonstrated this with their drone attacks against Red Sea shipping.27 Thomas Mahnken describes this phenomenon as one of “emulation,” which will continue to erode, if not eliminate, the comparative asymmetrical advantage drones and other emerging technologies afford the U.S. military.28
When the barriers of emulation are too high, adversaries will attempt to develop countermeasures to thwart new combat methods.29 As an example, to offset U.S. firepower and mobility advantages in Iraq and Afghanistan, the enemy’s weapon of choice was the improvised explosive device (IED)—the legacy “boobytrap.”30 Decades earlier in Vietnam, the Viet Cong used the low-tech entrenching tool to turn the Cu Chi area outside of Saigon into 155 miles of underground tunnels and mini-subterranean cities to counter America’s air power advantage.31
Thus, smart adversaries will rapidly emulate or develop countermeasures to negate the asymmetrical advantages afforded by real or faux RMAs. In Ukraine, the world has watched this process play out in realtime, which makes the Russo-Ukraine conflict a revolution in adaptation war vice a universal RMA.32
Weighing the Risk of Military Innovation
Military innovation is a “balancing act between destroying traditional ways of war and creating new ones,” a gamble that risks losing more by abandoning legacy capabilities than is created with new innovations.33 Past, but flawed high-risk bets about the changing character of future wars include the development of British armored doctrine before World War II;34 the U.S. Air Force embracing the long-range nuclear bombing mission in place of close air support and air superiority competencies needed in the Korean War; and the U.S. Army restructuring itself into Pentomic formations to fight on a nuclear battlefield.35 According to Kendrick Kuo, in each case, militaries divested themselves of critical capabilities and competencies they needed in the next war.36
… prudent observers of modern war are right to question any technology being championed as a “war-winner”…
Fear of missing the next military revolution and being relegated to “second mover” status can seductively entice force planners to bet and invest in the wrong RMA. Sir Lawrence Freedman argues that Ukraine’s drone environment is context-specific and may not be germane to future battlefields that are not characterized by static front lines and slow-moving, long-range drones that have trouble penetrating well-defended targets—in need of more effective integration with other traditional military capabilities such as aircraft, armored vehicles, and artillery—to prove decisive.37 Freedman is not alone in his thinking, which makes it risky to adopt the drone tactics, techniques, and procedures from the stalemated Russo-Ukraine War as a perfect template for future conflicts.
The Pitfalls of Technological Determinism
Historians Williamson Murray and McGregor Knox believe the lessons of history demonstrate that technological superiority does not guarantee success in war.38 In World War II, U.S. materiel and technological dominance still required grueling battles across the Pacific to the Japanese homeland before an exhausted and starving adversary ultimately capitulated.39 More recently, technologically-backward states like North Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan denied the United States its war aims, notwithstanding the latter’s overwhelming firepower advantage.
Clausewitz argued that war is fundamentally a contest of human wills, which means there is more to war than simply “blowing up targets.”40 Ultimately, human factors such as leadership, training, discipline, and doctrine—not weapons—are the final arbiter of battlefield success or failure. Thus, underestimating the tenacity and staying power of a technologically inferior underdog comes with a high price tag.
Forward into the Unknown
Until the Russo-Ukrainian War ends, both sides will continue to rapidly adapt. Lessons observed during the war’s early years may provide new insights that will help inform how the United States and other nations transform their militaries for future conflicts. However, rushing to judgment about the efficacy of specific technologies in a protracted war that has no clear end in sight only impedes this learning process. Thus, prudent observers of modern war are right to question any technology being championed as a “war winner” until the war being used as an exemplar is won.
The late British historian, Sir Michael Howard, remarked in a 1973 lecture on Military Science in an Age of Peace, “that whatever doctrine the Armed Forces are working on now, they have got it wrong. I am also tempted to declare that it does not matter that they have got it wrong. What does matter is their capacity to get it right quickly when the moment arrives.”41
Hopefully, Sir Michael’s prescient words will stimulate continued sober analysis of the strengths and limitations of drones and AI on the modern battlefield. This will require some intellectual humility that we may all be wrong, including this author.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Col Greenwood is a Research Staff Member at the Institute for Defense Analyses. He was an Infantryman who commanded the 15th MEU (SOC), served as Director of the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and completed multiple assign-ments in the Pentagon and on the National Security Council staff.
NOTES:
Tomas Milasauskas and Livdvikas Jaskunas, “FPV Drones in Ukraine are Changing Mod-ern Warfare,” Atlantic Council, June 20, 2024, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrai-nealert/fpv-drones-in-ukraine-are-changing-modern-warfare.
Kateryna Bondar, “How Ukraine’s Operation ‘Spider’s Web’ Redefines Asymmetric Warfare,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 2, 2025, https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-ukraines-spider-web-operation-redefines-asymmetric-warfare.
Roger Boyes, “Kyiv’s Drone Attack is a Pearl Harbor Moment,” The Times, June 3, 2025, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2025/06/02/ukraine-drone-strike-at-tack-russia-pearl-harbor/83987304007.
Antonio Salinas and Jason P. Levay, “Military Revolutions from the Spanish Tercio to First-Person View Drones,” War on the Rocks, May 15, 2025, https://warontherocks.com/2025/05/military-revolutions-from-the-spanish-tercio-to-first-person-view-drones.
Margaret MacMillan, War: How Conflict Shaped Us (New York: Random House, 2020).
Stacie Pettyjohn, “Evolution Not Revolution: Drone Warfare in Russia’s 2022 Invasion of Ukraine,” Center for a New American Security, February 2024, https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep57900.
Thomas C. Greenwood, “Why Ukraine’s Breakthrough Operations Are So Difficult,” The National Interest, December 31, 2022, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-ukraines-breakthrough-operations-are-so-difficult-207815; and J. Boone Bartholomees, “Theory of Victory,” Parameters 38, No. 2 (2008).
Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds, “Tactical Developments During the Third Year of the Russo-Ukraine War,” Royal United Services Institute, February 2025, https://www.rusi. org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/tactical-developments-during-third-year-russo-ukrainian-war.
Andrew F. Krepinevich, “Calvary to Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolutions,” The National Interest, No. 37 (1994).
James R. Fitzsimonds and Jan M. Van Toll, “Revolution in Military Affairs,” Joint Forces Quarterly (Spring 1994).
“Calvary to Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolutions.”
Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).
Thomas G. Mahnken, Technology and the American Way of War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008).
Amos Fox, “Drones Are Game-Changing, But They Are Not the Answer to the Inherent Challenges of Land Warfare,” Small Wars Journal, August 6, 2025, https://smallwarsjournal. com/2025/08/06/drones-are-game-changing.
Jakub Jajcay, “I Fought in Ukraine and Here’s Why FPV Drones Kind of Suck,” War on the Rocks, June 26, 2025, https://warontherocks. com/2025/06/i-fought-in-ukraine-and-heres-why-fpv-drones-kind-of-suck.
Andrew W. Marshall, “RMA Update,” Memorandum for the Record, Office of the Secretary of Defense (Washington, DC: May 1994).
Williamson Murray, “Thinking About Revolutions in Military Affairs,” Joint Forces Quarterly (Summer 1997).
Mark Cartright, “Blitzkrieg: The Lightning War Tactic of Combined Arms,” World History, November 28, 2024, https://www.worldhistory. org/Blitzkrieg.
David R. Mets, The Long Search for a Surgical Strike: Precision Munitions and the Revolu-tion in Military Affairs (Montgomery: Air University Press, October 2001).
Joseph Rogers, “What Operation Midnight Hammer Means for the Future of Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 23, 2025, https://www.csis. org/analysis/what-operation-midnight-hammer-means-future-irans-nuclear-ambitions.
Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: Nato’s War to Save Kosovo (Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press, 2000).
“Calvary to Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolutions.”
Charlie Goo, “American Dragon: This Missile Launcher Turns Tanks to Dust,” The National Interest, June 30, 2021, https://nation-alinterest.org/blog/reboot/american-dragon-missile-launcher-turns-tanks-dust-188853.
John F. Keane and Stephen S. Carr, “A Brief History of Early Unmanned Aircraft,” Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab Technical Digest 32, No. 9 (2013).
Tom Greenwood and Jim Greer, “Experimentation: The Road to Discovery,” Strategy Bridge, March 1, 2018, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/html/trecms/AD1223471/index.html.
John D. Maurer, “The Future of Precision-Strike Warfare: Strategic Dynamics of Mature Military Revolutions,” Naval War College Re-view 76, No. 3 (2023).
Alison Bath, “Navy Fired More than 200 Missiles to Fight Off Red Sea Shipping Attacks, Admiral Says,” Stars and Stripes, January 16, 2025, https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2025-01-16/houthis-navy-red-sea-missiles-drones-16500246.html.
Thomas G. Mahnken, “Weapons: The Growth & Spread of the Precision-Strike Regime,” Daedalus 140, No. 3 (2011).
“Weapons: The Growth & Spread of the Precision-Strike Regime.”
Jason Shell, “How the IED Won: Dispelling the Myth of Tactical Success and Innovation,” War on the Rocks, May 1, 2017, https://warontherocks.com/2017/05/how-the-ied-won-dispelling-the-myth-of-tactical-success-and-innovation.
MSW, “The Cu Chi Tunnels,” WarHistory. Com, July 15, 2020, https://warhistory.org/@ msw/article/the-cu-chi-tunnels.
Mick Ryan, “The New Adaptation War,” Substack.com, April 16, 2025, https://scsp222. substack.com/p/adaptation-war-with-mick-ryan.
Kendrick Kuo, “How to Think About Risks in US Military Innovation,” Survival, February-March 2024, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00396338.2024.2309077.
Kendrick Kuo, “Dangerous Changes: When Military Innovation Harms Combat Effectiveness,” International Security 47, No. 2 (2022);
“How to Think About Risks in US Military Innovation.”
“Dangerous Changes: When Military Innovation Harms Combat Effectiveness.”
Lawrence Freedman, “Are Drones the Future of War?” Substack.com, July 29, 2025, https://samf.substack.com/p/are-drones-the-future-of-war.
MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution, (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
Colin S. Gray, Weapons Don’t Make War: Policy, Strategy, and Military Technology (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993).
Pat Garrett and Frank Hoffman, “Maneuver Warfare Is Not Dead, But It Must Evolve,” Proceedings, November 2023, https://www.usni. org/magazines/proceedings/2023/november/maneuver-warfare-not-dead-it-must-evolve.
Michael Howard, “Military Science in the Age of Peace,” The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Journal 119 (1974).
2025 LtCol Earl “Pete” Ellis Essay Contest: First Place
As a Chinese amphibious task force advances toward a narrow chokepoint in the Western Pacific, a Marine littoral regiment positions itself to deny access. Traditionally, combat engineers relied on labor-intensive minefield emplacement. Alternatively, they used scatterable systems such as the Family of Scatterable Mines, which often had unreliable timers. Both methods left hazards that outlived their purpose and slowed friendly maneuver.1
Instead, a coordinated operation unfolds. A swarm of drones—ranging from small first-person-view (FPV) platforms to larger attritable aerial and ground vehicles—launches from cover. Carrying anti-tank (AT) and anti-personnel (AP) charges, they create a precise, reversible minefield in minutes. Command and control of the operation is meticulously structured; commanders authorize deployments after thorough assessments and monitor drone movements through secure communication channels. Support drones sustain concealment and command links, ensuring continuous oversight. Commanders maintain the ability to reseed or recover mines as the fight evolves, adjusting operations dynamically in response to battlefield developments. The enemy halts long enough for fires and maneuver to destroy the force.2
What once required days is now achieved with tempo and accountability, setting the stage for new operational approaches. Drone-delivered minefields—leveraging commercial swarms, quantum navigation in GPS-denied environments, and human-in-the-loop autonomy—transform mines into adaptive tools for distributed operations.3 By imposing disproportionate costs at minimal expense to Marines, they embody asymmetric warfare and deliver the “unfair fight” envisioned by Force Design 2030.4
Background
Minefields have long shaped combat. In World War I, belts of barbed wire and mines slowed offensives across no man’s land, forcing attackers into corridors exploitable by machineguns and artillery.5 During World War II, vast mine belts were used in North Africa, where both British and German forces emplaced hundreds of thousands of mines to control maneuver across the open desert.6 These examples demonstrate how obstacles amplify combat power by channeling an adversary into predetermined kill zones.
Legacy systems carried significant costs. During the Gulf War, scatterable mines produced high dud rates—over 1,900 unexploded mines were recorded at Al Jabar Airbase sector alone, with similar patterns across six other sectors in Kuwait—leaving hazards that risked civilians’ safety and delayed reconstruction.7 In Kosovo and Iraq, unexploded ordnance likewise undermined legitimacy and fueled political backlash. To mitigate such risks, the International Committee of the Red Cross codified restrictions in Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.8 As Marines consider innovations in mine deployment, it is essential to anticipate how humanitarian backlash could shape future rules of engagement. Building reversibility and accountability into mine warfare ensures operational effectiveness while preserving political credibility.
Recent U.S. policy shifts provide an opening. Executive Order 14307, Secretary of Defense guidance, and the revocation of National Security Memorandum 17 collectively restored authorities for drone integration and limited landmine employment.9 Together, these measures provide Marines with both the legal authority and strategic mandate to reinvent mine warfare. The challenge is to adapt these restored authorities responsibly, balancing combat effectiveness with humanitarian considerations.
Discussion
Drone-delivered minefields offer Marines decisive advantages over legacy systems. First, they provide precision and accountability. Using realtime kinematics Global Positioning System or quantum-enabled navigation, aerial and ground drones can emplace mines exactly where doctrine requires while producing digital logs that ensure accountability.14 Human operators play a critical role throughout this precision workflow, ensuring oversight and control. During deployment operations, human authorization occurs at key decision nodes, such as the initial activation of the system, confirmation of target coordinates, and upon any reseeding or retrieval of mines. This human-in-the-loop approach aligns with the emerging Department of War autonomy policy, providing reassurance to those skeptical of fully autonomous operations. In Europe, Marines supporting NATO could seed a river crossing in under an hour, delaying adversary armor long enough for fires to strike.15
Second, these minefields deliver dynamic control. Unlike fire-and-forget scatterables, drone-delivered obstacles can be armed, disarmed, and redeployed in minutes.16 This allows commanders to deny an avenue, reopen it for maneuver, and then reseed it as the fight evolves. Such reversibility ensures Marines preserve tempo while denying it to the enemy.
Third, drones enable doctrinal versatility. They can mass mines across a chokepoint to block reinforcements or cluster AT and AP mines to disrupt breaching efforts.17 This flexibility provides commanders with a scalable toolset for shaping enemy movement.
Fourth, drones create opportunities for deception and camouflage. Spray drones can obscure emplacements with terrain-colored coatings, while decoy mines generate false signatures.18 In practice, false fields force hesitation at critical moments and complicate adversary decision making.
Finally, drone-delivered minefields integrate seamlessly into the MAGTF and Joint Force. Obstacles become dynamic elements that complement fires, maneuver, and electronic warfare. Small FPV drones, such as the Neros Archer, offer an affordable near-term option for testing terrain-shaping tactics at the company level.19 By employing FPVs today, Marines can validate doctrine and reinforce the engineer community’s role as the Marine Corps’ countermobility specialists.
Technology Enablers
Civilian industries already demonstrate the feasibility of drone-delivered minefields. Drone swarms, such as those by companies like Verge Aero, synchronize hundreds of aircraft with centimeter accuracy during public light shows.20 These algorithms can be adapted for military use, enabling engineers to deploy mines with doctrinal precision. Proven swarm techniques provide Marines with an immediate advantage, eliminating the need for lengthy research cycles.
Commercial logistics proves scalability. Companies such as Zipline operate fleets of drones that navigate complex airspace and deliver payloads with precision and accuracy.21 These operations show drones can reliably carry ordnance-sized weights, providing confidence that swarms can sustain repetitive sorties in contested environments.
Artificial intelligence (AI) further enhances swarming potential. Vision-based AI allows drones to recognize terrain and optimize mine placement, while machine learning enables swarms to adapt mid-mission.22 This autonomy allows commanders to designate intent—“fix armor here” or “block this pass”—while swarms execute with minimal supervision.
Command-and-control resilience remains a decisive challenge. Army experimentation during MSPIX 2025 revealed that stacked drone swarms and RF decoys generated significant com-munication demands and integration challenges.23 Marines must learn from these lessons by prioritizing mesh networks, relay drones, and training in degraded environments. Building trust in autonomy and resilient communications will ensure these systems function under electronic warfare pressure. To mitigate electronic warfare threats, Marines will implement advanced electronic warfare training programs that simulate electronic attacks, equipping personnel with the skills to rapidly adapt and sustain operations. Regular drills will integrate electronic warfare scenarios with standard procedures, ensuring that Marines are adept at maintaining operational capability and communication integrity even when contested by adversarial electronic tactics.
Finally, quantum navigation and sensing offer a breakthrough. Recent demonstrations using magnetometers and gravimeters achieved centimeter-level accuracy without satellites, proving navigation without GPS is no longer theoretical.24 Russia and China have already been jamming and spoofing GPS in Ukraine and the Pacific, but ruggedized systems from companies such as SandboxAQ, Q-CTRL, and Infleqtion are being accelerated by DARPA and allied militaries.25 For Marines, quantum-enabled navigation ensures drone-delivered minefields remain accurate and accountable even under electronic attack.
Employment Options
Drone-delivered minefields enable doctrinally precise obstacle deployment. Using realtime kinematics Global Positioning System or quantum-enabled navigation, unmanned aerial system swarms can seed mines in fixing, turning, blocking, or disrupting patterns with each emplacement digitally logged for accountability.26 A commander could seed a river crossing in under an hour, delaying an adversary long enough for long-range fires to attrit the lead elements. Such speed and precision impose dilemmas without committing large forces.
Separate or clustered mines expand tactical flexibility. The AT mines delay armored formations, while AP mines deter dismounted infantry and breaching engineers. When clustered, these systems magnify effects, as engineers clearing AT lanes are disrupted by nearby AP threats.27 This layered approach forces adversaries to expend time and resources while Marines preserve tempo.
Reversibility provides commanders with dynamic control. Drone-emplaced mines can be armed, disarmed, and redeployed in just minutes rather than days.28 For instance, commanders have historically faced delays stretching up to 48 hours to reposition traditional mine systems. This rapid redeployment enables Marines to close a corridor to delay an advance, reopen it for friendly maneuver, and reseed it to deny pursuit. Such flexibility directly addresses long-standing criticisms of minefields as static liabilities by significantly reducing response times and enhancing operational tempo.
Drones also enable deception and counterattack facilitation. False mine-fields and decoys can create uncertainty across the battlespace, while commanders can predesignate corridors to allow counterattacks and then reseed behind them.29 These techniques transform obstacles from static hazards into adaptive enablers of maneuver.
Combat engineers must remain the primary operators of these systems. Countermobility, demolition, and terrain shaping are core engineer tasks and already own the training and readiness standards and demolition authorities.30 Anchoring these systems in the engineer community ensures doctrinal integrity and synchronization with fires. If the capability scales, a dedicated military occupational specialty for unmanned aerial system obstacles may be explored, but initial investment must remain engineer-led.
Lessons from Current Conflicts
Ukraine highlights both the utility and costs of legacy mines. Russian scatterable mines disrupted maneuver but left farmland contaminated for decades.31 Dud rates and the absence of digital control created hazards that slowed civilians and friendly forces long after combat. By contrast, Ukrainian forces adapted commercial drones to deliver precision charges against armored vehicles, demonstrating the potential of adaptive drone-enabled obstacles.32
Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 underscored the vulnerability of static defenses. Armenian mine belts slowed Azerbaijani advances, but swarms of Turkish-supplied drones systematically destroyed armor and artillery supporting the defense.33 The lesson for Marines is clear: without adaptability and synchronization with fires, modern reconnaissance-strike complexes will render fixed minefields ineffective.
Adversaries are rapidly innovating with unmanned deception. Russia has combined decoy drones with live systems to saturate defenses, while China’s precision drones demonstrate the potential for swarm deception at scale.34 These experiments show that adversaries are already exploring the same technologies Marines must adopt, and delaying risks ceding initiative in countermobility.
Coalition partners also highlight the importance of accountability. NATO allies in Eastern Europe and humanitarian groups in post-conflict zones face heavy clearance burdens from unexploded ordnance.35 Drone-delivered minefields, equipped with digital emplacement records and remote disarmament capabilities, could alleviate these challenges, reducing political costs while enhancing alliance interoperability.
Doctrine
The Marine Corps should update MCWP 3-17, Engineer Operations, and MCWP 3-12, Combined Arms Countermobility, to codify precision, reversibility, and deception as core tenets of mine warfare. Engineer units must add scalable “drone obstacle platoons” capable of supporting MLRs and MEUs. MARADMIN 416/25, which announced the fielding of the Neros Archer FPV drone, illustrates both the opportunity and the challenge of integration—momentum toward low-cost drone employment, but also the risks of dependency and doctrine lagging behind capability.36
Organization
The pioneer battalion provides the ideal structure for experimenting with drone-delivered minefields. Its littoral engineer reconnaissance teams and littoral explosive ordnance neutralization sections are already tasked with countermobility and terrain shaping.37 Embedding drone-enabled obstacle platoons within this formation would align with its campaign of learning mandate and validate swarming minefields in littoral terrain.
Doctrine and Concept Alignment
The Maritime Terrain Shaping and Area Denial (MTS-AD) Functional Concept emphasizes that the Marine Corps is not currently organized, trained, or equipped for scalable terrain shaping.38 Drone-delivered minefields directly fulfill these requirements by providing reversible, deception-enabled, and recoverable obstacles that assure friendly maneuver.
Joint Integration
The Army is investing heavily in terrain-shaping prototypes through the Army Applications Laboratory and MSPIX. Experiments have shown that stacked drone swarms, RF decoys, and autonomous unmanned ground vehicles are viable engineering tools.39 Marines should observe and shape these efforts while avoiding redundant costs—“let the Army spend, Marines adopt”—and focus resources on doctrine, naval integration, and operational tactics, techniques, and procedures.
FPV Options
The FPV drones, such as the Neros Archer, provide a near-term, affordable method to validate terrain-shaping tactics. They can deliver explosive charges, reinforce countermobility lanes, and be integrated into Service-level training exercises. By employing FPVs now, Marines can refine doctrine, build trust in autonomy, and accelerate field adoption without waiting for larger programs of record.40
Operator Ownership
Combat engineers must remain the primary operators of drone-delivered minefields. Countermobility and demolition are core engineer tasks, and the community already owns the training standards and authorities required for safe and effective obstacle employment.41 Anchoring these systems in the engineer community ensures doctrinal integrity and synchronization with fires. If the capability scales, a dedicated unmanned aerial system obstacle military occupational specialty may be explored, but initial investment must remain engineer-led.
Training
The Engineer School curriculum should incorporate swarming, digital accountability, and AI-enabled planning. Training must include degraded communications scenarios and integration into Service-level and coalition training exercises. Reserve units, drawing on civilian drone expertise, are particularly suited to accelerate adoption.
Materiel
Attritable drones with modular mine kits should be prioritized, supported by 3D-printed components to reduce logistics burdens. A pilot program fielded in both an active-duty and a reserve engineer unit within 24 months would validate the concept and refine tactics, techniques, and procedures.42
Facilities and Policy
The Marine Corps should establish ranges for inertly emplaced drone minefields. Current executive guidance permits experimentation, but accountability and coalition releasability must remain central. Early NATO integration will ease interoperability and strengthen legitimacy.43
Roadmap
Implementation should follow a phased approach. Year 1: demonstrate commercial swarming, Year 2: equip pilot units, Year 3: integrate into exercises, Year 4: establish a program of record. Future systems must incorporate resilient command and control, deception, and reversibility as mandatory features while framing employment as compliant and humanitarian focused.
Conclusion
In the 1950s, basketball slowed until the introduction of the shot clock forced tempo and creativity back into the game. Legacy scatterable mines have created a similar problem in maneuver warfare. They are static, unreliable, and strategically costly—slowing friendly operations, creating enduring hazards, and undermining legitimacy.44 Without reform, the Marine Corps’ countermobility capability risks irrelevance in an era defined by tempo and adaptability.
Drone-delivered minefields are the shot clock for maneuver warfare. They enable Marines to emplace, camouflage, arm, disarm, and redeploy obstacles in minutes. The opening scenario illustrates the point: a Chinese amphibious force was delayed for 36 hours, then destroyed in a withdrawal kill zone. The same logic applies globally: NATO shaping Russian maneuver in Europe, FPVs denying approaches in the Middle East, or drones rapidly seeding choke-points in the Arctic.45
The Marine Corps cannot afford to lag behind adversaries already experimenting with swarms and deception. Maintaining tempo and adaptability will determine whether Marines impose costs or suffer them. Drone-delivered minefields impose disproportionate costs on adversaries at minimal expense, embodying the essence of asymmetric warfare.46 Just as the shot clock revitalized basketball, these systems will revitalize Marine Corps obstacle warfare—ensuring engineers deliver the unfair fight envisioned by Force Design 2030.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Capt Trossen is a prior-enlisted Combat Engineer Officer with over 22 years of experience in the Marine Corps engineer community, serving in both enlisted and officer capacities. He has previously served as a Company Commander in an engineer company within a Marine Wing Support Squadron and as a Company Inspector-Instructor in South Bend, IN. He currently commands Company B, 8th Engineer Support Battalion.
NOTES:
U.S. Government Accountability Office, Military Operations: Information on U.S. Use of Land Mines in the Persian Gulf War, GAO-02-1003 (Washington, DC: GPO, 2002).
David Hambling, “Mine Craft: Ukrainian Drones Add a New Dimension to Mine War-fare,” Forbes, April 3, 2025, https://www.forbes. com/sites/davidhambling/2025/04/03/mine-craft-ukrainian-drones-add-a-new-dimension-to-mine-warfare.
Army Applications Laboratory, Engineer Operations: Autonomy Cohorts and Terrain Shaping Experimentation (Austin: May 2025); and Headquarters Marine Corps, MARADMIN 416/25, Guidance for the Fielding of the Neros Archer (Washington, DC: September 2025).
Headquarters Marine Corps, Force Design 2030 (Washington, DC: 2020).
Gary Sheffield, The First World War in 100 Objects (London: Imperial War Museum, 2017).
Ian Gooderson, A Hard Way to Make a War: British and German Minefields in North Africa, 1941–43 (London: Routledge, 2001).
Government Accountability Office, Military Operations: Information on U.S. Use of Land Mines in the Persian Gulf War.
International Committee of the Red Cross, Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices (Amended Protocol II to the CCW) (Geneva: October 1996).
The White House, “Executive Order 14307: Expanding Drone Integration to Increase Efficiency and Productivity,” June 6, 2025; Secretary of Defense, “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance,” (Washington, DC: July 2025); and The White House, “Revocation of National Security Memorandum 17 on Anti-Personnel Landmine Policy,” (Washington, DC: July 2025).
Timothy L. Thomas, “Russia’s Reflexive Control Theory and the Military,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies 17, No. 2 (2004).
Staff, “China Celebrates Lunar New Year with 3D Dragon Drone Display,” South China Morning Post, February 2021.
U.S. Army, Final Report–MSPIX 2025: Deep Terrain Shaping and Remote Breaching of Obstacles (Fort Leonard Wood: Army Applications Laboratory, May 2025).
Engineer Operations: Autonomy Cohorts and Terrain Shaping Experimentation.
Military Operations: Information on U.S. Use of Land Mines in the Persian Gulf War.
David C. Isby and Charles Kamps, Armies of NATO’s Central Front (London: Jane’s, 1985).
Emma Dodd and Caitlin Welsh, “Demining Ukraine’s Farmland: Progress, Adaptation, and Challenges,” CSIS, December 5, 2024, https://www.csis.org/analysis/demining-ukraines-farmland-progress-adaptation-and-needs.
Headquarters Marine Corps, Force Design 2030 (Washington, DC: 2020).
Staff, “Operation False Target: How Russia Plotted to Mix a Deadly New Weapon among Decoy Drones in Ukraine,” Associated Press, November 2024, https://apnews.com/video/ukraine-drones-russia-aerospace-and-defense-industry-war-and-unrest-76742f121c4d-4081a87b504b1a48afc7.
Force Design 2030.
Staff, “Flight Control System,” Verge Aero, n.d., https://verge.aero.
Paul Scharre, Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War (New York: W.W. Norton, 2018).
U.S. Army, Final Report–MSPIX 2025: Deep Terrain Shaping and Remote Breaching of Obstacles (Fort Leonard Wood: Army Ap-plications Laboratory, May 2025).
David Hambling, “GPS Just Became Optional for Military Navigation. Quantum Sen-sors Are Why,” Forbes, September 2025, https://www.forbes.com.
U.S. Department of Defense, “DARPA’s Robust Quantum Sensing Program,” Defense. gov, 2025, https://www.darpa.mil/research/programs/roqs-robust-quantum-sensors.
Military Operations: Information on U.S. Use of Land Mines in the Persian Gulf War.
International Committee of the Red Cross, Anti-Personnel Landmines: Friend or Foe? (Geneva: ICRC, 1996).
Emma Dodd and Caitlin Welsh, “Demining Ukraine’s Farmland: Progress, Adaptation, and Challenges,” CSIS, December 5, 2024, https://www.csis.org/analysis/demining-ukraines-farmland-progress-adaptation-and-needs.
“Operation False Target: How Russia Plot-ted to Mix a Deadly New Weapon among Decoy Drones in Ukraine.”
U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Task List (MCTL), Engineer Section (Washington, DC: 2023).
Anti-Personnel Landmines: Friend or Foe?
“Mine Craft: Ukrainian Drones Add a New Dimension to Mine Warfare.”
Michael Kofman and Leonid Nersisyan, “The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War: Lessons for Future Conflict,” War on the Rocks, December 2020.
“Operation False Target: How Russia Plotted to Mix a Deadly New Weapon among Decoy Drones in Ukraine;” and “China Celebrates Lunar New Year with 3D Dragon Drone Display.”
International Committee of the Red Cross, Amended Protocol II to the CCW (Geneva: October 1996).
Headquarters Marine Corps, MARAD-MIN 416/25, Guidance for the Fielding of the Neros Archer (Washington, DC: September 2025).
U.S. Marine Corps, Pioneer Battalion Concept of Employment (Quantico, VA: Capabilities Development Directorate, February 2024).
U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Func-tional Concept: Maritime Terrain Shaping and Area Denial (Quantico, VA: Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration, July 2022).
Final Report–MSPIX 2025: Deep Terrain Shaping and Remote Breaching of Obstacles.
MARADMIN 416/25.
Marine Corps Task List (MCTL), Engineer Section.
U.S. Department of Defense, “Drone Operator Career Field Development,” Defense. gov, 2025.
“Executive Order 14307: Expanding Drone Integration to Increase Efficiency and Productivity”; Secretary of Defense, Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance (Washington, DC: July 2025); and Revocation of National Security Memorandum 17 on Anti-Personnel Landmine Policy.
Military Operations: Information on U.S. Use of Land Mines in the Persian Gulf War. Force Design 2030.
“Operation False Target: How Russia Plot-ted to Mix a Deadly New Weapon among Decoy Drones in Ukraine”; and “China Celebrates Lunar New Year with 3D Dragon Drone Display.”
2025 LtCol Earl “Pete” Ellis Essay Contest: Second Place
On an early morning outside Jõhvi, Estonia, a Marine Corps light armored reconnaissance (LAR) company occupies a screen along a narrow corridor of farmland interspersed with pine forest. One hundred kilometers to the southwest, a MEU and a NATO battlegroup stage to seize key terrain across the Baltic. Bound to the road network due to heavy forest, the company pushes its eight-wheeled, 25mm armed light armored vehicles (LAV-25) forward, establishing observation posts and seeking to gain and maintain contact with the advance guard of an approaching enemy battalion tactical group. Mounted in vehicles designed in the 70s and fielded in the 1980s, the company’s mission is straightforward but unforgiving: provide early warning of enemy activity and provide decision space for higher-echelon commanders.
Within minutes, the company is in contact. Overhead, small drones loiter freely, marking positions for enemy artillery and dropping shaped charges onto the static and exposed LAVs. First-person-view (FPV) quadcopters slip under the dense canopy, striking the vehicles concealed in hasty hide sites. Enemy infiltration teams mounted on civilian all-terrain vehicles probe the screen line, dismounting to bypass the company’s fixed observation posts to sniff out routes for exploitation. What began as a classic security mission for which LAR has trained for 40 years, unspools into a disaggregated unmanned aerial system (UAS) and sensor fight for which the Marines are ill-equipped. As the fight deteriorates, radio nets clog with reports of enemy precision fires, mobility kills, and rapid attrition. The company evaporated faster than any retrograde or recovery plan could absorb.
As the firefight built ashore, unmarked commercial watercraft, part of a “shadow fleet” operating under layered ambiguity, sailed the coastal traffic patterns north of Jõhvi.1 Exploiting flags-of-convenience paperwork, Automatic Identification System gaps, and routine harbor clutter, a 30-person raid force disembarks, quickly moving inland along forest tracks to harass the main NATO supply routes. Using low-power radios, commercial quadcopters, and cached munitions, the infiltration team stages hasty ambushes, lays counter-mobility obstacles, and cues indirect fire from standoff positions. Their aim is tempo vice destruction: delay, disrupt, seed doubt. In under two hours, the LAR company is combat ineffective. Friendly vehicles are fixed, the MEU’s screen penetrated, and LAR is violently pulled into a reality its design and doctrine were never built to endure.
What happened outside Jõhvi was not just a tactical failure—it was a systems failure. It exposed the growing gap between legacy platforms and modern threats, between the doctrine we have and the fight that is already here. Additionally, it also clarified the path forward. This article proposes a restructured four-platoon LAR company: two security platoons, a reconnaissance platoon, and a fusion platoon. This practical and immediate concept bridges the gap to evolve the LAR force from a platform-bound screen line into a modern sensor-enabled, reconnaissance-integrated network. By leveraging fieldable technology and rethinking organizational structure at the company level, this model provides MAGTFs with a scalable advantage: sensing earlier, making decisions faster, and imposing costs across domains and environments. This evolution of LAR is more than a one-off fix; it reflects a broader challenge across the Marine Corps: how to adapt legacy systems and structures to meet the demands of a rapidly changing fight without waiting for the perfect solution.
The Challenge
The issue facing the Corps’ LAR community is not direction; it is velocity. The ongoing transformation within the LAR community mirrors the larger shift across the Marine Corps. Central themes include disciplined experimentation under Force Design: aggressive use of accessible, often commercial off-the-shelf technology; preparation for new vehicles and tools; and the development of concepts of employment that meet today’s tasks while anticipating tomorrow’s fight. Force Design’s message to the LAR community is unambiguous: transition from platform-centric LAR to all-domain mobile reconnaissance inside the emerging mobile reconnaissance battalion—integrating land, maritime, and unmanned reconnaissance to link sensors to shooters and build joint/combined kill webs in contested littorals.2 This shift pushes LAR into the multi-domain fight while demanding we fully embrace new ways of sensing and communicating. These shifts enable us to generate aimpoints and close kill chains without friction and redundant reachback. Layered over this is a familiar strain of insecurity about identity and purpose, an unease that has long shaped debates inside the Corps, which some (half-jokingly) call the “platypus syndrome.” Change is assumed; tempo is the test; LAR must evolve fast enough to preserve core advantages while integrating pervasive digital capability.
Much good work is already on the table, but more must be done in the near term. LtCol John Dick and 3d LAR demonstrated the value of a bottom-up approach: building organic FPV strike teams inside the ground com-bat element, training to a repeatable cue-confirm-strike drill, treating power, electromagnetic action, and airspace as fire-support problems, and deliberately using commercial tools to balance cost, sustainment, and risk.3 Maj Brent Jurmu, Maj Brandon Klewicki, and LtCol Matthew Tweedy emphasize the structural need for change: move now toward the mobile reconnaissance battalion, prioritize sensing over platform identity, organize for teaming between manned and unmanned systems, open-architecture command and control to enable any sensor to feed any shooter, and resource resilient communications, power, and logistics as combat enablers rather than afterthoughts.4 Retired Col Philip Laing’s earlier thesis reinforces this by asserting that LAR is a mind-set, not a hull. The focus must be on reconnaissance pull, tempo, deception, dispersion, and mounted—dismounted integration—while warning against let-ting the vehicle define the unit.5
A company of UTVs and LAVs occupy positions in a densely forested hide site. (Photo provided by author.)
What these contributions do not fully solve is the immediate bridge between what LAR and the MAGTF currently retain and what we need next. We require a tactical force construct that operates with legacy LAVs and available light vehicles yet delivers stand-in sensing and fast sensor-to-shooter handoffs. This includes a practical gear list, training progression, and command-and-control habits that work tomorrow morning, not just in the out-years. Additionally, we must prioritize survivability, particularly armor survivability, ensuring that our vehicles can withstand emerging threats while maintaining operational flexibility. That is the bridging solution.
The Bridging Solution
What follows is a concept of employment and equipment, validated by Apache Company’s role within 2d LAR’s Task Force Destroyer during our Baltic deployment in the summer of 2025. The concept preserves LAR’s core reconnaissance and security functions while providing a practical framework to integrate enhanced sensing, fusion, and shaping capabilities expected of next-generation formations. Drawing on recent conflicts and years of community experimentation, the design postures usable capabilities now with the equipment on hand while providing on-ramps for the force to swell additional kit to expand our force offering. The result is a highly mobile, flexible formation that leverages existing assets and tactics, creates clear on-ramps for accelerated fielding of new sensors and systems, and reduces operational risk while preserving maneuver and survivability. The design works at the company level for MEU and MAGTF requirements and scales to a three-line company battalion construct. Finally, this sensor-laden formation travels well. It nests naturally within the Joint Force and exploits the Marine Corps’ inherent strength, our expeditionary character.
How Apache 2d LAR Fights
Apache Company was organized around three complementary platoon constructs that executed concurrent reconnaissance and security. The company can cover a 20 km² land area of operations and sense more than 30 miles off the coast. In effect, Apache fielded a multi-domain, long-range sensor company and stood up company-level command, control, communications, and computing with mostly on-hand equipment. The company was reinforced by 2d LAR’s intelligence section, Marine Forces Europe and Africa, II MEF 2d MarDiv enablers, and a few proactive contract partners. This concept has been greatly influenced by the vision outlined by Dr. Jack Watling in his book Arms of the Future.6
Reconnaissance Platoon
Built on ultra-light vehicles and operating near/on the contact line, the platoon carried long-range communications, Group-1 sUAS, multi-domain sensors, and medium direct-fire weapons (machineguns and recoilless rifles). Small in signature and highly mobile, it served as the company’s contact element—confirming or denying information requirements from higher and contributing new information to feed the intelligence cycle through timely ground reporting to the fusion platoon. It executed rapid ambushes to harass, disrupt, and buy time in restrictive terrain. By trading armor for speed, the platoon consistently punched above its weight.
Security Platoon
Positioned in depth behind the reconnaissance platoon, the security platoon operated LAV-25 and anti-tank variants. It preserved the company’s freedom of maneuver by providing armored overwatch and reinforcement for the reconnaissance platoon. From a relative standoff, it employed stabilized, long-duration sensors and Group-1 sUAS to detect and track enemy axes of advance. This posture enabled us to orient killing systems without becoming decisively engaged. As the company’s backstop, it delivered the armored punch to interdict maneuver, absorb pressure, and maintain tempo.
Fusion Platoon
Operating from a suite of LAVs tailored to specific mission requirements and a small complement of utility task vehicles (UTV) for last-mile mobility and logistics, the platoon provided Group-2 sUAS, mesh communications to tie into higher headquarters, a light surveillance and reconnaissance coordination center package, and expeditionary sustainment and maintenance inherent to any LAR formation. It was also where, as Apache dubbed it, a “Reconnaissance Integration Network” was exercised: information drove decisions, and mission command stayed forward. The fusion platoon pulled feeds from the furthest-forward sensors and pushed critical data across the battalion network, working in near real time with the S-2 to turn raw detections into targetable tracks. With our company dispersed to provide significant “depth by default,” our maritime domain awareness team employed sensors, meshed with partner-nation feeds, and flew group-2 sUAS over the littorals. Fusion packaged and distributed; battalion prioritized and matched effects. The result was a rapid targeting rhythm by which reconnaissance, security, fusion, and the S-2 moved as one system.
We did uncover a few key gaps, however, in lethality and sustainment. To supercharge the next iteration, the company must leverage the full potential of our force by enhancing both capability and reach. First, field command-launch units to amplify our armored killing power, enabling faster, more agile responses to emerging threats. Expand UTV capacity for increased power generation and cargo carry, allowing for sustained operations in austere environments. Integrate additional sensors to broaden our sUAS screen and strengthen the fusion network, improving situational awareness and intelligence flow across units. Bring in the next wave of sUAS and counter-UAS tools to stay ahead of evolving threats in the air. Finally, provide access to, and training for, modernized data-driven targeting software that seamlessly connects company-level targeting with MAGTF and joint fires, ensuring precise and synchronized engagements. These enhancements would not only elevate LAR’s operational capabilities but also ensure it is an even more effective and indispensable asset to the broader mission, increasing efficiency, accuracy, and the ability to project power across the deep battlespace.
Advantage
Together, these three elements produced a survivable, organically supported company that sensed, decided, and acted at the tempo the deep fight demands; feeding higher headquarters while shaping the fight in front of it. Following the Baltic deployment, Apache stood up a second security platoon, establishing one reconnaissance platoon, two security platoons, and a fusion platoon, for a total of 31 vehicles: 20 LAVs and 11 UTVs.
This concept of employment shows how LAR can evolve from a legacy cavalry formation into a modern stand-in sensor ecosystem. It retains traditional reconnaissance and security capabilities while posturing to absorb new technology as it arrives. Light reconnaissance brings agile, low-signature sensing and harassment. Armored security preserves freedom of maneuver, provides lift and power, and delivers the kinetic punch. Fusion, as the sensor and sustainment hub, closes the sensor-to-shooter chain and keeps the company supplied and computing forward.
The outcome is a formation that can operate independently for ten to fourteen days, answer commanders’ priority information requirements in stride, and sustain operations across littoral terrain while contributing to the broader kill web. It aligns with past experimentation proposals while refocusing on the enduring tasks of reconnaissance and security. This modern formation turns today’s kit into near-term advantage.
A LAV-25 followed by a UTV make movement along a wooded corridor in the Baltics. (Photo provided by author.)
The Counter
At the tactical edge, legacy hulls with bolt-on tech are delicate. Power and computing are often the first to fail; when they do, the “sprint” stops. Edge-level processing, exploitation and dissemination and target formatting can compress time but widen risk: deconfliction with close air support; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; long-range fires on a tight MSR turns into information overload, and one bad grid buys fratricide. A LAV used as a node is still a hot, loud, tall target, often easier to find than to fuel. Adding maritime domain awareness to land feeds risks data overload and slower decisions, and roles blur: infantry battalions already field scouts and recon battalion owns the deep fight. Where does an LAR stand-in sensor company end and its missions begin?
This construct is built to fight through the loss of fragile links, with Group-1/2 feeds treated as temporary: valuable when up, replaceable when not. We layer sensors and plan graceful degradation, reverting to traditional methods if the network fails. First-person-view provides precision fires, task-organized and rationed by target value, with conventional fires as backup. Edge-level processing, exploitation, and dissemination safeguards ensure target packets follow rules of engagement, grid-quality checks, and restricted-operating-zone discipline to prevent fratricide. Light armored vehicles as nodes operate from defilade, acting as generators and routers before becoming targets. Endurance is key, supported by low-mobility screens, low signature-long duration observation, and pre-staged supplies. Light-armored reconnaissance is self-sustained, with maintenance, recovery, power, and logistics under armor that outranges infantry battalions. Maritime domain awareness is just another sensor lane, with priority information requirements and named areas of interest feeding into a fusion platoon, which in turn generates tracks and releasable aimpoints for higher echelons. Light armored reconnaissance and recon overlap naturally in the deep fight, but LAR is uniquely equipped to push deep and extract without relying on external lift or sustainment, supporting operations beyond a single frontage.
The stand-in sensor company concept is not a concept for the distant future. It is a working answer to today’s problem: how to turn legacy formations into lethal, relevant forces across all domains. Apache Company’s construct shows that with the right organization and fielded tools, a LAR unit can deliver the decisive advantage MAGTFs need: sensing early, striking fast, and shaping tempo in complex, contested terrain. It proves that innovation doesn’t always mean waiting on new platforms; it means rethinking how we fight with what we have. The LAR community’s evolution is a microcosm of the Corps-wide challenge: adapt fast, fight smarter, and build toward the future without waiting for the perfect solution. This is not about replacing cavalry, it is about making it and the MAGTF writ large matter in the fight ahead.
Reconnaissance platoon occupies a hide side and inserts dismounted teams. (Photo by Cpl Xavier Alicea)
Tomorrow’s Fight
Capt Ellis awoke with a start and quietly replayed the dream where his legacy company was torn apart; unprepared for the battlefield he now faced. Reality would be different. He stepped into his enhanced LAV-C2 and oriented on the sensor displays and the common operational picture. Hours before the enemy advance guard pushed toward Jõhvi, geospatial stand-off sensors flagged movement along likely avenues of approach. Tucked into hide sites with vehicles camouflaged, Apache’s reconnaissance platoon confirmed with Group-1 systems and set hasty ambushes to disrupt the axis of advance. As the column entered the kill zone, direct-fire systems killed the lead and trail vehicles, fixing the formation. At the same time, Group-2 platforms observed and adjusted long-range fires, streaming feeds to the fusion platoon and higher.
While the fight built ashore, the maritime picture stayed warm: Automatic Identification System and coastal radar returns, rapid reports, and Group-2 pay-loads over the water fed the battalion to track craft along the coast. A suspected grey-fleet vessel broke pattern north of Jõhvi; the cue moved from S-2 through fusion to the northern security screen. A UTV team maneuvered to the beach exits, found the landing sites cold, and laid obstacles and observation to deny a raid force its easy off-ramps.
Ten kilometers behind the FLOT (forward line of troops), security platoons screened in depth, watching the contact forward and reorienting on alternate approaches as the enemy tried to bypass the kill zone. In coordination with fusion, they finalized a rearward passage once reconnaissance platoon finished its harassment and shaping mission against the lead trace.
Inside the company’s architecture and surveillance and reconnaissance collection cell, Marines worked with the battalion S-2 (intelligence section) in near realtime: pushing critical data up and pulling refined intelligence down. Targets were packaged, prioritized, and effects queued for ultimate impact. At higher echelons, commanders saw rapid updates and live feeds through the shared portal. Decision cycles accelerated with expanded options made possible by a symbiotic relationship between sensors, intelligence, and higher echelon fires. In practice, the stand-in sensor construct bought time and space for follow-on forces now shifting from one area of operations to the next and shaping the fight before it fully arrived, ashore and along the coast.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Capt Marshall is the Company Commander of Company A, 2d Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2d MarDiv.
NOTES:
Michael Kofman and Matthew Rojansky, “Russia’s Growing ‘Dark Fleet’: Risks for the Global Maritime Order,” Atlantic Council, September 30, 2025, https://www.atlanticcoun-cil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/russias-growing-dark-fleet-risks-for-the-global-maritime-order.
Headquarters Marine Corps, Force Design 2030 (Washington, DC: 2020).
John Dick, “From Concept to Capability–Building an Organic FPV Strike Team in the Ground Combat Element (Part I),” The CX File, July 9, 2025, https://thecxfile.substack. com/p/from-concept-to-capability-building.
Brent Jurmu, Brandon Klewicki, and Mat-thew Tweedy, “Equip the Mobile Reconnaissance Battalion Now,” Marine Corps Gazette, May 2024, https://www.mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/Jurmu-May24-WEB.pdf.
Philip Laing, “More Than a System: LAR as a Mindset” (master’s thesis, Marine Corps University, Command and Staff College, 2011).
Jack Watling, The Arms of the Future: Technology and Close Combat in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023).
The authors represent a diverse team from the G-5 Directorate, comprised of active duty, retired, and civilian professionals. Their backgrounds and experience include Special Operations, Intelligence, Hard Target Defeat, Fires, Logistics, Engineering, Communications, Strategy, Plans, and Assessments. This article is a culmination of more than two years of research and collaboration.
Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARFORSOC) Turns Enduring Challenges into Enduring Advantages.
Positioned globally at the forefront of our Nation’s toughest problems, we see opportunity where others are consumed by obstacles. Our actions, often conducted with partners, shape environments to favor U.S. interests and create Joint Force advantage across the competition continuum. Marine Special Operations Forces (MARSOF) embrace irregular warfare (IW) and are equally adept at direct and indirect approaches to push-back, thwart, disrupt, or degrade pacing and acute threat timelines to a point that adversaries are overmatched and no longer capable or willing to threaten global stability.
The character of warfare has evolved, but the nature of warfare has not. Warfare is a complex interplay of continuous and changing elements. Changing actors in warfare, once limited to nation-states, continue to develop new methods and challenge internationally accepted rules of war. Private military companies now play significant roles, blurring lines with non-state actors and terrorist organizations. These groups introduce new tactics with increasingly accessible technologies, transforming how objectives are achieved through emerging styles of warfare. From swords to nuclear weapons, technology has also transformed battlefields, connecting operators to multiple domains, resulting in new definitions like cyberwarfare that threaten U.S. interests and regional stability. Regardless of these changes and evolutions, lethality will remain the bedrock of our purpose.
MARFORSOC leveraging technology. (Photo provided by author.)
We deter adversaries through bolstered partner resilience, building capacity through relationship cultivation founded on trust. This trust is earned and fostered through persistent professional presence and credible actions, yielding the Raiders’ reputation as proficient experts in lethality and a preferred partner. We sense and make sense in dynamic environments, illuminating and characterizing the underpinnings of adversary intent. We posture and position to achieve maximum effects by linking any sensor to any shooter. Should competition escalate to a crisis, our shaping operations deliver asymmetric, indirect, and non-attributable options, setting conditions with expansive sensor-to-shooter ratios that minimize collateral damage and deter adversaries from further escalation. If deterrence fails, our efforts will create conditions for tactical, operational, and strategic advantage in conflict, achieving eternal regret from our enemies and deterring those planning to challenge our resolve.
Marine Forces Special Operations Command’s Strategy, Operating Con-cepts, and Force Design Will Shape Environments to Create Advantage for the United States and Our Allies and Partners.
As MARSOF shaping operations mature and tasks transition to another joint or multi-national force, MARSOF shifts focus to providing decisive actions that support the Joint Force in large-scale combat operations. Combined joint–modular SOF formations like a Special Operations Task Force (SOTF), Marine Special Operations Company (MSOC), and Marine Special Operations Team (MSOT) demonstrate the agility required to meet dynamic global challenges, preserving regional stability, preventing large-scale conflict operations through preparation of environments, and prevailing in war. Creative solutions are critical at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels to produce viable solutions that prepare the Joint Force for high-end conflict. Marine Special Operations Forces will create unignorable dilemmas that interdict, disrupt, and defeat adversaries’ and enemies’ abilities to generate effects across domains at all levels of warfare.
Figure 1. Marine Special Operations Forces: How we fi ght across the continuum. (Figure provided by author.)
Mission, Value Proposition, and Commander’s Intent
Mission
Marine Forces Special Operations Command recruits, organizes, trains, equips, and deploys task-organized, scalable, expeditionary MARSOF world-wide to accomplish special operations missions assigned by the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) or the geographic combatant commanders (GCCs) via the theater special operations commands (TSOC).
Value Proposition
Marine Forces Special Operations Command provides special operations capabilities to solve key operational problems that provide the Joint Force advantage in competition through conflict.
Commander’s Intent
Marine Forces Special Operations Command will deploy forces that integrate at the intersection of SOF and conventional forces battle spaces that provide interoperable and interdependent capabilities to achieve GCC and TSOC priorities and requirements. Marine Special Operations Forces will be forward deployed with SOF-peculiar capabilities, leveraging their unique skills and expertise against pacing and acute challenges to provide Joint Force advantage.
Marine Forces Special Operations Command: “How We Fight”
Threat-informed.
SOF-peculiar operations, activities, and investments capable in all domains and forms of warfare.
Adapting to the evolving operating environment at the speed of war.
Providing special operations capability to enhance the Marine Corps’ stand-in force (SIF).
Campaign approach to maximize the effects of special operations, activities, and investments.
Component concept informed to synchronize MARFORSOC modernization and employment.
Threats and Challenges
Our Nation’s adversaries and enemies have studied the Western democratic ways for the last 40 years. They watched as we prevailed in conflict in all domains and environments. They form and employ their styles of warfare across the span of the competition continuum to exploit perceived gaps and weaknesses using our cultural norms and style of free and democratic governance against us.
Several adversarial states are engaging in a great-power competition that directly threatens U.S. national security. Compounding the security issue, a broader group of states is facing threats to their sovereignty and internal security. These persistent threats and malign activities of our adversaries build regional pressure and create instability and uncertainty that undermine the status quo and threaten our allies’ and partners’ borders, international commerce, and way of life for billions of people.
China’s agenda through the “100 Year Marathon” intends to replace the United States as the global leader and secure deference to its interests at a global scale.
The Chinese Communist Party will attempt to preempt challenges to its reputation and legitimacy, undercutting U.S. influence, intending to fracture our alliances and partnerships and change global norms that favor its authoritarian system. As an imminent threat, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will press Taiwan on unification, an effort that will create geopolitical challenges not only in the South China Sea but across the globe.
Figure 2. Illustration of threats and challenges, world leaders, and areas of influence. (Figure provided by author.)
The PRC combines its economic influence with its growing military power to create diplomatic and technological dominance for a grand strategy to strengthen Chinese Communist Party rule with the intent to expand what it considers its sovereign territory. China intends to fully modernize its military by 2035 and develop the People’s Liberation Army into a world-class military by 2049 to achieve its goal of becoming the global hegemon.
China’s pursuit of space dominance, evidenced by increasingly capable and threatening space systems, endangers U.S. national security. China remains a significant and persistent cyber threat to the U.S. Government, private sector, and critical infrastructure networks. China’s cyber espionage and export of surveillance, information, and communications technologies increase the threats of aggressive cyber operations against the United States, with the risk of creating strategic instability by denying the free flow of information in cyberspace.
In a different style, Russia also directly threatens the United States to assert leverage regionally and globally. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in unthinkable destruction. Russia remains a resilient and capable adversary across all domains with the intent to project interests and influence globally to undermine the United States, Western alliances, and partnerships. Russia will remain a serious foreign influence threat, continuing to divide the Western alliance’s threatening U.S. global standing by creating instability in the U.S. homeland and far abroad.
Russia will remain a key space competitor despite facing difficulties from the effects of additional international sanctions and export controls, domestic space-sector problems, and increasingly strained competition for program resources within Russia.
Iran will continue to threaten U.S. interests, allies, and influence in the Middle East and intends to entrench its emergent status as a regional power while minimizing threats to the regime and the risk of direct military conflict. Iran will remain a threat to Israel and U.S. allies and interests in the region well after the Gaza conflict. Iran will probably continue arming and aiding its allies to threaten the United States as well as backing Hamas and other nonstate actors who seek to disrupt the peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device. Since 2020, however, Tehran has stated that it is no longer constrained by any Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action limits, and Iran has greatly expanded its nuclear program, reduced International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring, and undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device if it chooses to do so. June 2025, Iran’s nuclear facilities Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan were significantly degraded from strategic U.S. strikes.
The Strategy
The United States 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) advances a strategy focused on countering PRC malign activity and influence and strengthening our valued alliances and partnerships. The NDS seeks to prevent the PRC’s dominance of key regions while protecting the U.S. homeland and reinforcing a stable and open international system. Consistent with the 2022 National Security Strategy, a key objective of the NDS is to dissuade the PRC from considering aggression as a viable means of advancing goals that threaten vital U.S. national interests. Conflict with the PRC is neither inevitable nor desirable. Marine Forces Special Operations Command can best support that intent by shaping and preparing the environment through cooperation in strategic competition. This posture and shaping will also best prepare the Joint Force for conflict if deterrence fails and moves to conflict. The United States’ priorities demand the whole government’s options to interact with the PRC that are favorable to our interests and leverage all elements of national power to compete from a position of strategic power.
Integrated deterrence is how we will align policies and activities to sustain and strengthen our ability to compete, tailored to specific regional norms and competitors’ interests. Strong and resilient global alliances and partnerships are our greatest strategic advantage and the center of gravity for our approach. We will strengthen major regional security architectures with our allies and partners based on complementary contributions; combined, collaborative operations and force planning; increased intelligence and information sharing; new operational concepts; and our ability to persistently project the Joint Force globally.
Marine Forces Special Operations Command will support integrated deterrence by leveraging Joint Force functions, posture, capabilities, and net-works, both current and emerging, to deny adversarial influence and freedom of movement. Marine Forces Special Operations Command’s priority will be to increase the lethality and survivability of U.S. platforms and systems that the PRC may seek to target. We will employ and develop operational concepts that connect to and support the joint warfighting capabilities designed to counter PRC aggression. Alliances and partnerships will be strengthened and broadened through joint capabilities demonstrated in multilateral exercises and bilateral training events. The combined development of warfighting technologies, intelligence, information sharing, and combined planning for shared deterrence challenges all support the elements of integrated deterrence protecting the regional status quo.
Through global forward presence and strong relationships with our valued partners, MARFORSOC counters the unrestricted and hybrid forms of warfare, denying their influence and capability by outpacing their tempo and denying them freedom of maneuver in their areas of interest.
Marine Forces Special Operations Command supports integrated deterrence as part of the Joint Force achieves military advantage through the employment of Joint Force capabilities in a campaign approach. Campaigning is the conduct and sequencing of logically linked military activities to achieve strategy-aligned objectives over time. Campaigning initiatives change the environment to the benefit of the U.S. and our allies and partners while denying and disrupting malign competitor activities.
Irregular Warfare
The character and form of war are constantly changing, yet its fundamental nature remains the same. Great-power competition remains a national security challenge—a shift from conducting over two decades of continuous conflict against violent extremist organizations—the requirement for mastery of counterterrorism persists. While sustaining the experience from the last two decades, we will sharpen the additional capabilities required for great-power competition and modern warfare, which includes dynamic and complex conflict.
Irregular warfare is a form of warfare where states and non-state actors campaign to assure or coerce states or other groups through indirect, non-attributable, or asymmetric activities, either as the primary approach or in concert with conventional warfare. The term “irregular” highlights the character of this form of warfare, which seeks to create dilemmas, increase risk, and impose costs on adversaries to achieve a position of advantage. Irregular warfare may employ the threat or use of organized armed violence for purposes of deterrence or compellence to secure an advantage over an adversary. States and non-state actors may conduct IW when they cannot achieve their strategic objectives through nonmilitary activities or conventional warfare.
Marine Forces Special Operations Command supports the IW approach through special operations peculiar operations and activities. This is best accomplished through a service approach, massing the unique IW capabilities of the Marine Corps as part of a SIF.
Irregular warfare, supported by SOF, counters the adversarial forms of unrestricted warfare and hybrid warfare. This modernized approach is applied across the entire competition continuum, where MARSOF shapes and prepares the environment in cooperation, strengthening alliances and partnerships while building regional experience. When needed, MARSOF is postured to support the Joint Force’s transition to conflict by increasing the lethality and survivability of all warfighting functions through expertise in targeting and a thorough understanding of the environment and threat that can only be achieved over years of regional exposure.
Modern Warfare and the Operating Environment
The global dynamics and international relations continue to evolve. Warfare today is conducted with unprecedented complexity and tempo. Technology drives a series of signifcant advantages and threats that must be managed to achieve and maintain the initiative. In the next few years, conflict will occur through miscalculation and miscommunication between states, like previous wars, where the competition to secure rare natural resources, economic advantage, and ideological differences force states’ power and influence to clash and then conflict. The combinations of improved sensors, automation, and artificial intelligence with hypersonic and other advanced technologies will produce more accurate, better-connected, faster, longer-range, and more destructive weapons, primarily available to our existing adversaries, but some within reach of smaller states and non-state actors. The proliferation and distribution of these capabilities create vulnerabilities to our valued allies and partners while threatening our homeland. This environment increases strategic tension and the risk of escalation.
Figure 3. Global armed conflict location and event data. (Figure provided by author.)
Strategic surprise is a continuous critical concern; the enemy’s most dangerous course of action is modern conflict initiated with a devastating opening salvo of modern weapons across all domains. The enemy will strike not only our military but also those civilian systems and nodes linked to our critical infrastructure simultaneously before we can conduct a counterattack. Because of the range and accuracy of modern weapons, the enemy would not have to reveal an extensive positioning of forces beforehand, providing the opportunity to attack with limited to no strategic warning.
The proliferation of high-speed and exceedingly accurate lethal weapons will call into question the survivability of expensive, high-value platforms and weapons systems that are difficult to quickly replace. One potential mitigation strategy could be the further development and implementation of distributed forces and operations. This is an area where the appropriate employment of SOF can mitigate the threat to the joint platforms by disrupting the enemy’s ability to command and control, sustainment, and movement of those threat weapons systems before they can attack the Joint Forces.
The threat states will continue to maneuver in the irregular space with unrestricted warfare and hybrid warfare employing deniable proxies and private military companies. Although the use of proxies is not new, the way that they are controlled and employed across all domains requires complex solutions, often tailor-made for SOF who thrive in politically sensitive and uncertain environments.
In addition to actual combat operations undertaken by proxy or otherwise deniable forces, this type of conflict will include a spectrum of non-kinetic actions that could be undertaken either independently or in support of a conventional military component, such as attacks on undersea fiber optic cables, cyber operations, GPS jamming and spoofing, and information operations. Ultimately, the choice of new technologies and the development of war-fighting concepts are likely to depend on the unique threat perceptions, strengths, and vulnerabilities of individual actors. Potential actors range from great and regional powers to non-state actors, such as insurgent and terrorist groups. National and organizational cultures, as well as internal dynamics, will play a role in how adversaries adopt and employ new technologies.
Marine Corps Conventional and Special Operations
To deter and defeat our Nation’s threats, the Marine Corps must synergize the capabilities and capacity of the conventional forces and SOF. This synergy should target the adversary’s ability to influence during competition and the enemy’s capacity to maneuver, sense, and target United States, allies, and partners in conflict.
Conventional Marine forces and MARSOF offer unique capabilities to support combatant commanders. The interdependence between conventional and special operations is supported by the commander’s operational design and priorities. Capitalizing on ForceDesign, the Marine Corps’ unique force offering of MAGTF and SOF provides a resilient and capable platform for planning, coordinating, and synchronizing operations that increase operational effectiveness.
Improving synergy between conventional forces and SOF requires interoperability, necessitating the integration of Marine Corps processes, capabilities, and units to ensure mission success.
The SIF is an ideal structure to capitalize on the success of MARSOF operations. The SIF with MARSOF are small, lethal, low signature, mobile, distributed units of action that operate across the competition continuum within contested areas as the leading edge of a maritime defense-in-depth designed to intentionally disrupt the plans of potential or actual adversaries.
Depending on the situation, stand-in forces are composed of elements from the Marine Corps, Navy, Coast Guard, SOF, interagency, allies, and partners.
The maritime domain is the nexus of all domains, where the convergence of sea and land forces provides the capability and capacity to persistently campaign to defeat our adversaries and enemies. As a part of the SIF, MARSOF operates in the maritime domain, conducting SOF core activities. This design concept synchronizes the entirety of the combined and Joint Forces and is critical to outmaneuver the overmatch presented by our threats and challenges. Marine Special Operations Forces have proven to be a SOF multiplier by connecting elements of our nation’s resources and the combined multinational alliances and partnerships.
Marine Forces Special Operations Command will achieve operational effects through the appropriate authorities, policies, and permission processes. Department of War issuances of instructions and memoranda related to SOF activities continue to develop and mature based on evolving requirements. Through this lens, MARFORSOC will maximize SOF’s peculiar operations and activities.
Understanding the approval and permissions process is paramount to MARFORSOC’s ability to conduct strategic shaping and reconnaissance (SSR) and multi-domain direct action (MD2A)-related operations. Every mission necessitates appropriate statutory and fiscal authorities with specific Department of War guidance, operational authority, and permissions.
Command relationships: While in the continental United States, SOF is under the combatant command authority of the commander of USSOCOM. When directed, USSOCOM provides U.S.-based SOF to the GCCs. The GCCs normally exercise combatant command administrative control authority of assigned SOF and operational control (OPCON) of attached SOF through the TSOC. Marine Special Operations Forces deploy following the Joint Staff guidance articulated through USSOCOM via the Global Force Management process. Deployed MARSOFs are transferred for specified periods and support the GCCs who employ SOF with OPCON exercised through their respective TSOCs. Operational control and tactical control are the predominant formal command relationships through which a Joint Force commander exercises command and control of forces. The commander of Marine Forces Special Operations Command retains administrative control of deployed MARSOF.
Supported-supporting relationships provide a means of promoting flexibility and adaptability. There often will be multiple, concurrent supported and supporting commanders, equating to a mutual support relationship requiring clear priorities by the common higher commander. Supporting relationships may prove familiar and desirable in many circumstances, but the application of OPCON and tactical control relationships, driven by a detailed mission analysis, must be carefully considered when appropriate to achieve optimal unity of effort and unity of command in support of Joint Force operations.
Marine Forces Special Operations Command Campaign Plan
Campaign Plan
As MARFORSOC continues to develop and implement its operating concepts, it seeks to accelerate and expand MARFORSOC’s impact in challenging and uncertain operating environments. This framework calls for impactful interoperability across the SOF enterprise and intentional integration with the Joint Force. This campaign plan combines the component’s organizational and operational responsibilities into a single framework that guides MARFORSOC’s overall objectives over the next five-year period. This guidance will empower and inform MARSOF at every echelon to have impactful interactions with its SOCOM components and the larger Joint Force. The overarching guidance of ends (why), ways (how), and means (what) shapes all staff actions and decisions at MARFORSOC. Specifically, this framework details four lines of effort (LOEs) (Capability Development; Positioning; Integration, Interoperability, and Interdependence; and Tactical Lethality and Survivability) to unify effort.
Ends
The “Why.” To pursue favorable outcomes through fully interoperable forces at the battle-space intersection of SOF and conventional forces to best achieve unified action for the Joint Force.
• Joint Force Increased Lethality • Joint Force Increased Survivability • Information/Influence Dominance • Decreased Enemy Ability to Conduct Operations • Decreased Enemy Ability to Conduct • Command and Control
Ways
The “How.” This is the methodology of how MARFORSOC achieves our operational approach.
• Joint Warfighting Functions • SOF Global Disposition • SOF Access and Placement • Conventional Force–SOF Integration, Interoperability, Interdependence • Force Design • Multi-Domain Approach • SSR • MD2A
Means
The “What.” Marine Forces Special Operations Command prioritizes resource investments to achieve desired outcomes.
• Joint Fires Network • Accelerated Modernization • Alliances and Partnerships • SIF • Bilateral Maritime Mobility • Autonomous Robotic Combat Systems and remotely crewed Unmanned Systems • SOF Tactical Sensor Arrays • Distributed Logistics
LOE 1: Capability Development
Develop and integrate capabilities to support Joint Force objectives by keeping pace with the evolving requirements.
LOE 2: Positioning
Continuous forward deployment of MARSOF that supports (regional/global) Joint Force objectives, enabling continuous deterrence and rapid response through positional advantage.
LOE 3: Integration, Interoperability, and Interdependence
Develop and foster strong integration with the Service and other joint combatant command and Service partners to create unified action across the joint battle space. Develop and foster strong, interoperable capabilities and integrated relationships to create complementary effects across the SOF enterprise of USSOCOM and allies, and partner SOF.
LOE 4: Tactical Lethality and Survivability
Marine Forces Special Operations Command focuses on tactical lethality and survivability to live, survive, fight, and thrive in denied or contested spaces. Marine Forces Special Operations Command identifies the characteristics necessary to fight in the modern operating environment, leveraging lessons from Ukraine, Israel, Karabakh, and USSOF enterprise’s experiences in recent and ongoing operations. Focus is placed on the MSOC level while addressing aspects that affect the SOTF. The MSOC (reinforced) will remain the base unit of action while understating aspects will affect the SOTF.
Marine Forces Special Operations Command Operating Concepts
The design of special operations capabilities unique to the culture of the Marine Corps that can support the Joint Force across the competition continuum requires the development of concepts that manage the development and employment of the force that paces with the national requirements, operating environment, and threats. Currently, MARFORSOC maintains two concepts to provide special operations peculiar effects across the competition continuum.
Strategic shaping and reconnaissance connect activities conducted by special operations elements in cooperation, competition, and conflict to gain awareness of adversarial intentions and capabilities to deter, disrupt, deny, or increase the adversary’s risk. Strategic shaping and reconnaissance encompass a wide array of skills and equipment to provide shaping and influence effects. Effects are achieved through a hybrid approach utilizing selected SOF core activities and programs applied through special and intelligence operations, direct and indirect actions, and the persistent development of ally and partner relations.
The SSR concept of employment coordinates and synchronizes MARSOF elements conducting SSR, possessing the capability to operate in the competition continuum, and transition to conflict if deterrence fails. The elements employ capabilities that provide target analysis against networks in competition and conflict. Emphasis is placed upon the confidence to find, follow, and fix strategic mobile targets, critical nodes, and infrastructure. This includes assessments of weapons-of-mass-destruction-related networks and nodes to determine intent and provide the supported commander with current and detailed collections against a specific network, facility, or individual.
Strategic shaping and reconnaissance may include gathering information on cross-domain activities or the environment, such as the meteorological, hydrographic, geographic, cyber, space, and characteristics of a particular area. Strategic shaping and reconnaissance may also include assessments of those critical threats against the Nation’s interests.
Multi-Domain Direct Action represents MARFORSOC’s capability to orchestrate and deliver effects through the execution of joint fires or application of sabotage techniques across multiple domains that integrate cyber activities, non-kinetic disruptions, and precise lethality. This approach allows for the coordination of small-scale strikes to deliver high-value effects during crises and conflicts. Multi-domain direct action ensures that the Joint Force maintains an advantage by providing options for rapid and targeted actions.
Figure 4. Illustration of connecting any sensor to any shooter. (Figure provided by author.)
Conclusion: Marine Forces Special Operations Command’s Theory of Success
In Conclusion, MARFORSOC’s theory of success focuses on providing impact to an adversary by delivering multiple complex problems that they must address to achieve their national objectives. This approach creates both strategic doubt and operational friction for the adversary while strengthening our valued allies and partners. “How We Fight” imposes costs on the enemy by presenting significant challenges that cannot be ignored. Capitalizing on the persistent MARSOF global employment, the low signature elements operating in politically sensitive and uncertain environments deny adversarial freedom of movement and their ability to influence. Shaping and preparing in competition increases Joint Force lethality and survivability, ensuring victory in conflict.
Notes:
1. A key operational problem is a concise statement that identifies a crucial deficiency or challenge hindering the achievement of desired military objectives.
Human-enabled targeting within the first island chain
Humans are more important than hardware, and every human is a sensor. Focusing on humans as a meansof crowd-sourcing intelligence, by as-sisting them with technology (both old and new), Marine Forces Special Op-erations Command (MARSOC) can fundamentally transform the way we gather intelligence as an organization. Below are three vignettes, all taking place in a futuristic scenario of a cross-strait invasion, that highlight potential use cases of a crowdsourced, versatile, and human-centric platform to find, fix, and finish. All the vignettes incen-tivize intelligence gathering on threat networks and utilize crowdsourcing to both source and verify information. The proposed crowdsourced kill web is persistent and reliable, offering cel-lular capabilities in a contested environ-ment and high frequency (HF) digital capabilities in a denied environment. Overall, a crowdsourced kill webs offer MARSOC the ability to transform the way we do intelligence gathering by turning every human in the contested littoral environment into a thread in the kill web.
Vignette 1: Freedom of the Seas
Somewhere in the Philippine Sea: Capt Remy was steaming toward his favorite fishing grounds north of his hometown in Luzon. He had been fishing these grounds since he was a kid, but he had not been back here in a couple of months. Back in the day, he did not have to worry about getting boarded by Chinese Coast Guard vessels, but their patrols of this area had kept Remy away for the past couple of months. Remy was not a political guy, but when someone came after him and affected his ability to make a living and feed his family, it felt like a personal attack. He was struggling to make ends meet, and every time he got pushed off the fishing grounds, all he could think about was the sunk cost going down the drain. Last week, his buddy showed him this app on his phone. He said this was a way of making some quick cash out on the boat in case you got run off by anyone while trying to stand up for his fishing rights at the same time. He was not too sure at first, but after a couple of days of mediocre catches, Remy was warming up to the idea of standing up for his fishing grounds, and it did not hurt that he could make a quick buck at the same time. Just then, through a break in the fog, a Chinese Coast Guard vessel appeared, cutting a collision course straight across Remy’s bow. As he changed course to avoid a collision, Capt Remy pulled out his phone and snapped a pic of the Chinese Coast Guard vessel. As the loudspeaker harassed him in broken propaganda, he changed his course for home and resigned himself to another day without a catch. Once he had cleared the vessel, he took out his phone to look at the picture. Remy was done dealing with getting chased off his fishing grounds; he was done coming home without anything to show for it. With bitter resolve, he opened the app and uploaded the picture, filled out a couple of details, and hit the submit button. Remy’s report was quickly validated via AI, and he was rewarded with $50 into his PayPal.
Operations Center: Got another one, Capt Kim said to himself. Reports had been flooding in since his intel fusion cell had launched the crowdsourced intel program earlier this week. Higher (headquarters) did not seem as bought off on the idea as he had initially hoped, but they did grant him and his team two months to beta test it, and he knew that was all the time he needed to show how game-changing this capability would be. As the reports flowed in, Kim and his team assisted the AI program in sorting and grouping the reports as it automatically compiled intel summaries and updated the common operation picture accordingly. Reports came in of varied qualities, but users were incentivized financially to provide as much detail as possible, and once the report was corroborated via other modes of intelligence, they were rewarded.
“I still don’t get why you’re wasting your time with this,” Kim’s coworker, LT Smith, snarled.
“You still don’t get it, do you? We have essentially created a crowdsourced intelligence platform for the entirety of the Pacific. Fishermen, merchant marines, recreational pilots, sailors, everyone that is out there with a smartphone in the littorals is a sensor working for us.” Kim retorted defiantly.
He knew it would work; nobody bought an idea on the first sell. Everybody said it would be too expensive, but unmanned sensors could be expensive too and often less reliable. Drones crashed, sensors broke, and weather caused delays, but humans could persist and prevail.
An HC-130J Super Hercules airplane crew from Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak observes two Russian Border Guard ships and two Chinese Coast Guard ships approximately 440 miles southwest of St. Lawrence Island on 28 September 2024. This marked the northernmost loca-tion where Chinese Coast Guard vessels have been observed by the U.S. Coast Guard. (Photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Travis Magee.)
Vignette 2: Return of the Coast Watcher
Two weeks have passed. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) invaded Taiwan and established a total blockade of the first island chain. In addition to the blockade, PLA Cyberspace Forces eliminated all cellular and satellite services.
Ishigaki Island: On the island of Ishigaki, Henry Smith, an Australian studying abroad, just summited the final step of the Tamatorizaki Observation Platform. This is crazy, Henry said to himself as he set down his backpack and started setting up his kit. Henry’s grandfather was one of the legendary Australian Coast Watchers in the Solomon Islands during World War II. Maybe I’ll get a shoutout in the his-tory books one day too, Henry thought to himself as he finished tuning his five-watt QRP (ham radio speak for “reduced power”) HF radio. He pulled out his old bird-watching binos and focused them on a Chinese warship on the horizon. Henry had flown into Ishigaki about three weeks ago, unaware of the global turmoil mounting in the South China Sea. Cell and satellite services had been nonexistent for at least two weeks; he figured this was pretty serious and he might as well try to make a difference. Luckily, he happened to bring his ham radio equipment along, hoping to get some Summit on the Air contacts from this remote Pacific island during his short vacation. Summit on the Air was an amateur ham radio organization that rewarded people based on their ability to establish “contacts” from remote summits utilizing portable ham radio equipment. As both a ham radio and outdoor enthusiast, Summit on the Air was the perfect hobby for Henry to challenge him both physically and intellectually. Until this moment, he had not realized it also happened to be the best preparation for being a modern-day Coast Watcher out there. He jotted down the description, heading, and estimated speed of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Warship on his notepad and quickly translated the message into Morse, connected his paddle, and started transmitting.
Operations Center: Beeeeep-Beeeeep-Beep-Beep-Beep. GySgt Johnson shot up from his desk and flipped over his coffee as the squawk box in front of him burst to life, beeping out Morse code in a hurried tone. Johnson could hardly contain his joy as he opened SOF-Chat to translate the message. He was not sure if he was more excited about the first intelligence report they had received in days or because of his absurd idea to monitor the ham radio Military Auxiliary Radio System band had actually yielded fruit.
“Sir, you’ve got to get a load of this,” Johnson hollered, motioning to Capt Kim furiously with one hand as he copied down the message with the other.
“This is the gold,” said Kim as he alerted the command operations center, resulting in a flurry of battle drills. Once the strike had been prosecuted, Kim came back over to Johnson and said flatly, “We need more intel, our system hasn’t yielded any reporting since the blockade started, and the cellular networks went down. Is there a way to pair our app with ham radios so we can get back to crowd-sourcing intel and building targeting data?”
“I’m glad you asked, sir. I have been going back and forth with VK7JQP, that’s our boy on Ishigaki, and I think we may have a solution. Unfortunately, not everyone out there has a ham radio kit like our man VK7JQP, but he recommended an existing low-cost commercial-off-the-shelf kit for under $200, pairing a small five-watt QRP HF radio, smartphone, a small solar charger, and a simple set of instructions. The smartphone will be preloaded with our app capable of pulling targeting data from a video of the target and then automatically sending that data in an HF data package through the radio. Sir, if you can get your team to adjust our system to receive reports over HF digitally, we’ll be able to build back the kill web and end this blockade.” Johnson sat back, excited that his ham radio knowledge had finally paid off.
Vignette 3: Contested Littoral Coast Watchers
On the outskirts of Hualien in Taiwan: It was early morning, and the fog was thick along the eastern coast of Taiwan. Weilong walked down the shore with his younger brother, Yi, and looked for a break in the surf where they could cast their lines. The PLA soldiers had not made it to Hualien yet; for now, the mountains protected them. The coast was a different story; the PLAN patrolled there and would harass anyone along the beach, forcing them to fish in the morning fog. Food had grown short in the city, but luckily, Weilong and Yi’s father, who came from a line of indigenous Taiwanese people, taught them at an early age not to rely on the grocery store. As Weilong and Yi walked toward their morning fishing spot, Wei-long spotted a strange box floating in a tide pool. Before he could caution his younger brother to be careful of the foreign object, Yi jumped upon the box, hauled it to the dry sand, and ripped it open. Weilong hurried over and peered inside, reached into his hand, and pulled out a small, cheaply made smartphone, something that looked like an old radio with a string of wire, a small solar char-ger, and an instruction manual. Weilong opened the instruction manual and read the introduction page:
To the People of Taiwan, you have been unjustly occupied, and the United States is here to help. Inside this box is a ham radio, a phone, and a solar power charger. If you follow the simple instructions in this manual, you will be able to fight back and reclaim your homeland in a peaceful manner. All you must do is follow these simple instructions. Every report you send up is a day closer to breaking the blockade and reclaiming your homeland.
Weilong flipped through the other pages and skimmed the instructional graphics as he went. He had played around with walkie-talkies when he was younger, but that was about the extent of his radio knowledge. The graphics clearly laid out how to set up the antenna, utilize the radio, and send reports via the phone. What the hell, he thought. Might as well do something instead of sitting here waiting for the PLA to come take our land.
“Come on, Yi, we got work to do,” Weilong said to his brother, and they headed up into the mountains to break out of the fog layer and start their unknown journey to submit the first intel reports on PLAN movement on the east coast of Taiwan since the war had begun.
The crowdsourced kill-web system would prove pivotal in turning the tide of the PLAN blockade, providing crucial targeting data on PLAN vessels that would facilitate the joint kill web and lead to the liberation of Taiwan. It was entirely instrumented by allies, partners, and concerned citizens submitting crowdsourced intelligence reports of PLAN ship movements along the coast. Opening the app and following a set of simple instructions, users take a video of the enemy threat system. Artificial intelligence analysis built into the app pulls all relevant targeting information from the video and transmits that data to the paired radio system in binary code. That code is then sent via HF digital transmission to a distributed network of processing centers where AI and human analysts sort the data and compile firing solutions. Even after the PLA found such radios and learned of the existence of the program, they were unable to hinder the mass influx of reporting.
Conclusion
Overall, crowdsourced kill webs will give MARSOC the ability to transform the way we do intelligence gathering by turning every human in the contested littoral environment into a thread in the kill web. Through this simple, low-cost, resilient, and commercial off-the-shelf solution, we will enable allies, partners, and concerned citizens to report on threats in a timely, safe, and nearly untraceable manner. The crowdsourced kill web system is built on the premise of open-source intelligence gathering, utilizing both smartphone and ham radio technology to build intelligence awareness in both permissive and denied environments. Humans will be more important than hardware in the fight to come. Crowdsourced kill webs will enable allies, partners, and concerned citizens across the littorals to join the fight to protect their homeland.
>Capt Ignotus is an officer serving in MARSOC. He is writing under a pseudonym due to security concerns.
The Commandant’s Rapid Response Essay Contest: Second Place
The Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron (HMLA) has long served as the Marine Corps’ rotary-wing utility and attack aviation workhorse. Centered around the UH-1Y Venom and the AH-1Z Viper, the HMLA structure was born of Cold War legacy platforms updated to meet post-9/11 operational demands. While the H-1 upgrade program succeeded in modernizing those platforms with improved powerplants, rotor systems, and avionics, the strategic environment has since changed. As the Marine Corps pivots to great-power competition, the legacy of the H-1 plat-form must be re-evaluated.
The 1990s decision to continue with the Bell H-1 Upgrade Program instead of shifting to the Sikorsky H-60 series was appropriate for its time. It allowed for parts commonality, reduced acquisition costs, and leveraged existing maintenance infrastructure. However, the assumption underpinning that decision—that the HMLA structure could meet future expeditionary and distributed warfare needs—no longer holds.
Background: Proven Performance in a Changing World
The H-1 aircraft have served admirably across decades of conflict. The UH-1Y offered a major step up in survivability, digital cockpit integration, and mission flexibility, especially when paired with the AH-1Z. The platforms boast 85 percent parts commonality, a critical enabler in logistics efficiency during Operation ENDURING FREEDOM and MEU deployments.
However, those successes were rooted in a context of low-intensity conflict, permissive airspace, and robust forward operating bases. Today’s reality is defined by dispersed operations, denied logistics chains, anti-access/area-denial environments, and contested maritime domains.
In parallel, the Marine Corps has introduced the Stand-In Forces (SIF) concept—a doctrinal shift focused on persistent, forward-deployed units operating inside an adversary’s weapons engagement zone. These forces must be agile, survivable, and interoperable with joint and partner forces.
The Role of Rotary-Wing Close Air Support in the Future Fight
The Marine Corps possesses a deeply rooted close air support (CAS) culture, forged through decades of joint operations and integrated fires. This institutional knowledge enables Marine aviators to work seamlessly with ground forces and Joint Terminal Attack Controllers, making the Marine Corps the go-to Service for CAS in the Joint Force. The enduring emphasis on combined-arms operations reinforces the value of rotary-wing CAS as an essential tool in contested and austere environments.
Marine AH-1Z Viper and UH-1Y Venom helicopters with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 263 (Reinforced), 22nd MEU (Special Operations Capable), fly in a formation during operations underway in the Caribbean Sea in September 2025. (Photo by Sgt Tanner Bernat.)
As unmanned aerial systems proliferate and prove effective in conflicts such as the Russo-Ukrainian War, questions have emerged regarding the enduring relevance of rotary-wing CAS. While drones offer low-risk, long-endurance surveillance and precision strike capabilities, they cannot fully replace the flexibility and responsiveness of manned rotary platforms.
Rotary-wing CAS provides commanders with realtime decision making, coordinated fires, and the ability to adapt to dynamic ground combat conditions. Helicopters are not only weapons delivery platforms; they are versatile airframes that can deploy and support drone operations, serve as airborne command and control nodes, and offer casualty evacuation or resupply under fire.
Moreover, CAS conducted from helicopters fosters joint terminal attack controller integration and enhances combined arms effectiveness. This layered approach ensures redundancy and resilience on the battlefield—qualities that are critical in peer or near-peer engagements. A hybrid model that combines rotary-wing CAS with drone capabilities will likely dominate future battlefields.
The MH-60S platform, especially with the armament kit making it an Armed Black Hawk (ABH), supports this hybrid future. It can deliver suppressive fire, coordinate strikes, or act as a launch and relay platform for unmanned aerial systems. Its ability to integrate into naval operations and expeditionary bases makes it a critical enabler of persistent close air support in contested environments.
The Case for the MH-60S/ABH: Flexibility, Interoperability, and Logistics
In addition to its combat utility, the MH-60S enhances the Marine Corps’ ability to contribute to joint operations in other mission areas. When embarked aboard amphibious shipping, Marine-operated MH-60s can augment search and rescue capabilities, providing rapid response and recovery for personnel in distress. This dual-purpose role strengthens naval force protection and humanitarian assistance during expeditionary missions.
MH-60S Sea Hawk on the fl ight deck of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78). (Photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Brianna Barnett.)
The MH-60S with the ABH kit offers substantial operational and logistical benefits over the current HMLA construct:
Multi-role Capability: The platform performs armed reconnaissance, vertical assault, medevac, ISR, armed escort, and anti-armor missions when equipped with the ABH kit.
Naval Integration: Designed for shipboard use, the MH-60S seamlessly operates from amphibious ships (LHDs, LPDs) and other amphibious platforms.
Logistics Commonality: Shared components with the MH-60R/S enable integration into the Navy’s global sustainment architecture.
Interoperability: Already fielded by partner nations, the platform enhances joint and coalition mission execution.
Growth Potential: Capable of incorporating mine detection systems, extended range tanks, and directed energy weapons in the future.
Since logistics often relies on commercial services and contracted sustainment pathways, the Marine Corps would benefit from the MH-60’s alignment with allied logistics infrastructure. The widespread use of H-60 variants across more than 30 countries enables the Marine Corps to tap into allied nations’ parts programs, boosting availability and mitigating domestic logistical shortfalls in a contested or resource-constrained environment. Logistics operations could also hide in plain sight by leveraging the parts commonality with host-nation inventories, allowing Marine Corps supply and maintenance activities to blend with existing allied infrastructure, reducing the visibility and vulnerability of logistical nodes in contested environments. The Marine Corps could also further increase resilience by prepositioning key supplies with allied forces who operate the same platform, ensuring rapid access to critical components in theater and enabling quicker recovery from attrition or supply chain disruption. This global adoption also enables greater coalition interoperability and access to multinational sustainment hubs during joint operations.
Furthermore, the H-60’s operational pedigree is unmatched among rotary-wing platforms. The platform’s modularity has allowed for adaptations across mission sets—from humanitarian assistance to special operations. Most notably, a stealth-modified version of the Black Hawk was used in Operation NEPTUNE SPEAR—the mission that resulted in the killing of Osama bin Laden. This high-risk, high-precision operation demonstrated the H-60’s adaptability, stealth modification potential, and elite mission success under extreme conditions.
Another distinct advantage of the H-60 platform is its ability to conduct aerial refueling, reducing the reliance on aviation-delivered ground refueling. In distributed maritime and expeditionary environments where forward arming and refueling points may be limited or compromised, this capability allows for greater operational endurance and tactical flexibility. Aerial refueling extends mission range and dwell time for rotary-wing platforms, enabling deeper penetration into contested areas without the logistical risk associated with groundbased refueling operations.
The Marine Corps already has VH-60N pilots stationed at HMX-1. These pilots could act as the instructor cadres during the transition. These seasoned pilots possess institutional knowledge of the H-60 platform and could assist in converting both the training pipeline and the fleet, ensuring a smoother and faster implementation of the MH-60 transition.
Organizational Implications: From HMLA to HMMA
Adopting the MH-60S would require structural changes to the HMLA designation and table of organization and equipment. The HMLA designation would need to shift to Marine Medium Attack Helicopter (HMMA) Squadron, reflecting the new platform’s capabilities and dual-role nature. The Marine Corps would require table of organization and equipment changes, as well as updates to training pipelines and maintenance protocols. Since the MH-60 variant can perform both utility and attack missions, the total number of aircraft fielded may be reduced allowing for streamlined fleet management.
Additionally, the reorganization of personnel will be necessary. Fewer aircraft could lead to a surplus of qualified aircrew and maintainers. Rather than reduce manpower, the Marine Corps should repurpose this talent to establish an aviation liaison company modeled after air naval gunfire liaison companies. Instead of coordinating fires, this unit would consist of experienced pilots and maintainers focused on building aviation capacity with allied and partner nations. These teams could deploy to enhance coalition air interoperability, provide training, and strengthen forward aviation operations in alignment with SIF objectives.
This transformation is not without cost, but the benefits are profound. In an era of constrained logistics, dispersed operations, and joint warfighting, the Marine Corps cannot afford to field legacy systems that fail to meet the threat.
Recommendations
Initiate a phased replacement of H-1 aircraft with MH-60S variants equipped with ABH kits.
Redesignate HMLA squadrons as HMMA and revise the table of organization and equipment accordingly.
Integrate training and maintenance pipelines with Navy MH-60R/S programs.
Enhance forward-deployed logistics nodes to support MH-60 operations under SIF doctrine.
Partner with allied forces operating MH-60 variants to standardize coalition interoperability.
Stand up an aviation liaison company to expand partner capacity and joint mission support.
A New Acquisition Opportunity: Capitalizing on Army Transition
The Army is transitioning from the H-60 platform to the Bell V-280 Valor tiltrotor, a move that will phase out thousands of existing Black Hawk helicopters. The Marine Corps could take advantage of this transition by acquiring surplus Army H-60s at a reduced cost and converting them to the MH-60S variant. This would accelerate modernization while avoiding the cost of new airframe production.
Additionally, the Marine Corps could mothball the legacy HMLA fleet. By placing H-1 airframes in long-term preservation, the Service would retain surge capacity for major conflicts while focusing current efforts on building a more integrated and survivable rotary force aligned with SIF doctrine.
The Bell V-280 Valor. (Photo: Courtesy of Bell/U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center.)
Conclusion
The H-1 program has served the Marine Corps with distinction, yet the emerging operational environment demands more. The MH-60S variant—with its modularity, interoperability, and logistical advantages—provides a pathway to modernize Marine aviation. Combined with doctrinal shifts like SIF, adopting the H-60 strengthens the Corps’ ability to operate forward, fight distributed, and support allies and partners across the globe.
Modernizing to the MH-60S not only responds to current operational needs but also prepares the Marine Corps for future contingencies by leveraging the broader DOD ecosystem. If the Marine Corps acquires surplus H-60s from the Army, then it allows for cost-effective transition and rapid fielding. With the excess aircrew and maintainers, the Marine Corps has the capacity to establish liaison elements modeled after air naval gunfire liaison companies and enhance strategic partnerships while preserving legacy platforms for potential large-scale conflict and providing depth in the force.
This transition supports the Marine Corps’ enduring role as a premier crisis response force, ensuring aviation remains a lethal, flexible, and forward-postured capability. Rotary-wing CAS—when aligned with SIF principles and integrated across the naval and Joint Force—remains indispensable. Rethinking HMLA is not merely about replacing platforms but evolving the Corps’ posture to prevail in the contested, distributed fight of the future.
> Maj Healy is a Faculty Advisor at Expeditionary Warfare School.
One of the central premises of Marine Corps Force Design was the evolving relationship between precision and mass. The Marine Corps subscribed to the thesis that precision strike was rendering mass increasingly obsolete. While the Service correctly recognized the changing character of war, its diagnosis missed some critical points. Mass remains a crucial component of warfighting, albeit with changing characteristics. Precision alone is an insufficient counter for mass. Precision weapons must be employed at a scale that brings their own character of mass—the emerging trend of precision mass.1 The misdiagnosis has led the Service to focus on the wrong prescription. The Service has made significant investments in exquisite precision-strike capabilities. While these systems mark revolutionary change for the Marine Corps, they follow troubling trends in the DOD, focusing on exquisite, low-density acquisition projects. To be sure, these are highly lethal and capable systems, but they may be too low-density to contend with the mass that our pacing adversary will bring to a conflict. The Marine Corps must reckon with this emerging trend and undertake a course correction to embrace precision mass.
Strategic Context This argument begins from a recognition that many aspects of the Service strategy are sound. Specifically, the focus on China as the pacing threat and the regional focus on countering China in the Western Pacific are sound. The focus aligns well with the strategic guidance in the 2018 National Defense Strategy and its subsequent updates. It also aligns with the strategy of denial, which has been espoused by top civilian policy leaders within the Pentagon—the strategy which states the United States’ primary objective is to deny China regional hegemony in Asia, and the best way to do so is to contest in the Indo-Pacific.2
In China’s pursuit of regional hegemony, Taiwan is the most significant prize—and the prize for which China would most likely resort to force and war with the United States and its allies to achieve. To that end, the Marine Corps developed concepts focused on securing and maintaining key maritime terrain within the first island chain, within China’s weapon engagement zone, of its highly capable precision-strike capabilities. These concepts envision Marines deployed across key maritime terrain in survivable and risk-tolerant formations—conducting sea-denial operations and extending the reach of the Joint Force through organic precision strike, target acquisition for joint prosecution, and disrupting the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) targeting cycle through reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance.
While this strategy is sound, the question is whether the Service has chosen the right tools. To implement this strategy effectively, the Marine Corps must possess a scalable form of precision fires.
The Emergence of Precision Mass Despite the Marine Corps’ efforts to shift from mass to precision, evidence from recent conflicts suggests that mass has evolved rather than faded into irrelevance. Michael Horowitz described the trend of precision mass in Foreign Affairs3 and elsewhere as the ability of militaries to reintroduce mass to the battlefield, despite many predictions that precision was antithetical to the existence of mass on future battlefields.4 However, the return of mass is not mass as it was; heavy, armored vehicles and large formations still exist, but they are held at risk by low-cost, attritable, precision systems increasingly imbued with autonomy. Employed at scale, these systems demonstrate the evolution of mass.
Unmanned precision systems are nothing new. Perhaps the most compelling example of the capabilities of exquisite precision-strike systems against traditional mass is the incident referred to as the “Highway of Death,” the name describing the carnage unleashed on the Iraqi Army retreating from Kuwait in 1991. There are numerous additional examples from the long wars of the Middle East. Archives are full of drone footage of insurgents burying improvised explosive devices next to a road, only to be killed by a Hellfire missile. Precision strike was also a key component of the “by, with, and through” counter-ISIS campaign. The United States has also perfected a form of surgical precision, evidenced by events like the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, where MQ-9s conducted surveillance and delivered a bladed variant of a Hellfire meant to eliminate a specific target with minimal collateral damage. Other types of warheads can also be delivered with the same precision, making high-value targets such as armored vehicles and the concentration of traditional mass on the battlefield a liability. This type of precision led some to believe that mass was becoming a relic of the past.
This is far from the case. We have seen in recent conflicts that powerful state actors (namely Russia), seeking to pursue objectives through force, still utilize mass as an instrument. The war in Ukraine still features all the traditional features of mass, including sizable infantry formations and armored vehicles, but this mass must contend with the proliferation of precision. Both Ukraine and Russia have forms of exquisite precision weapons, but the true evolution is the increasing ubiquity of precision-mass systems.
This new type of precision weapon differs in key aspects from exquisite precision. In general, these systems lack the kind of surgical precision described above and are generally less capable compared to exquisite systems on a one-to-one basis. However, with less exquisite capability comes a cheaper price tag, and it is feasible to produce at a scale that keeps costs per system orders of magnitude cheaper. These precision mass systems are also often used as single-use munitions or one-way attacks rather than platforms that must be survivable.
Precision mass systems have been utilized at the tactical and operational levels. At the tactical level, first-person-view drones have become ubiquitous in recent conflicts, including the Ukrainian War, the Syrian Civil War, and the war in Gaza.
At the operational level, the Iranian-designed Shahed drone has become the poster child for the precision-mass movement trend. The Shahed 136 is a group 3 unmanned aerial system (UAS) designed for one-way attack missions, with open-source operational range estimates ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 miles.5 The Shahed 136, and its Russian-produced variant Geran-2, has become a favorite of the Russians to conduct long-range strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, cities, and fixed military targets. The Russians heavily utilize them, despite their slow speed, loud noise, and relative ease of interception by various forms of air defense. The redeeming quality of this weapon is its cost and ease of manufacturing. At an estimated cost of $30,000 per unit and with a large initial supply from Iran, now supplemented by domestic Russian production, the Russian military has turned a seemingly crude tool into an effective operational capability.6
Data on the usage of Shaheds throughout the conflict demonstrates how the effectiveness of a weapon like the Shahed increases as it scales.7 In Figure 1, each point represents a Russian attack with Shahed-style drones, as shown by the date and the number of drones in the attack. The attack size has grown as the conflict continues, with a notable increase beginning in the summer of 2024.
Figure 1. Size of Russian Shahed swarms over time. Data source: Petro Ivaniuk, “Massive Missile Attacks on Ukraine,” Kaggle, n.d., https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/piterfm/massive-missile-attacks-on-ukraine. (Image source: Author.)
This increase in mass has come with an increase in effectiveness. Early in the war, when attack sizes were small, Ukrainian air defenses routinely achieved shootdown rates of 80 to 100 percent—a cumulative shootdown rate of 85.6 percent between September 2022 and September 2024. This changed when the attack sizes began to increase. In August 2024, Russia sharply increased the number of Shaheds in a single attack. The increase in attack volume resulted in a decline in the shootdown rate—Ukrainian air defenses could not keep up. Figure 2 shows that, as of this writing, the Ukrainians have been unable to catch up.
With shoot-down rates hovering around 60 percent, an attack of 150 Shaheds will see about 60 find their way through defenses to hit a target. This is not an impressive figure by the standards of exquisite precision systems. Still, due to the affordability and scalability of Shaheds, they remain a preferred weapon of the Russians and a powerful example of the utility of precision mass.8
In addition to the Russian use case, the Shahed and other systems like it have also been used in the Houthi campaign to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea. The Houthi campaign featured the weapons in a different context, but most notably, they did not employ the systems in large, massed attacks. For the most part, these systems have been used in small enough attack sizes that the surface combatants in the area have been able to defend against the threats.9 (As an aside, this does not mean the attacks are not having the desired effects, as global shipping has been massively disrupted.) However, U.S. ships have had to contend with these threats and expend air and missile defense capacity. In theory, if these one-way attack drones were employed in mass, they could overwhelm a ship’s defenses and begin to hit the target.10 Understanding this maritime use and the potential against surface targets is especially relevant for the Marine Corps.
Figure 2. Monthly Shahed shootdown rate throughout the conflict. Data source: Petro Ivaniuk, “Massive Missile Attacks on Ukraine,” Kaggle, n.d., https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/piterfm/massive-missile-attacks-on-ukraine.(Image source: Author.)
What the Marine Corps Missed Marine Corps modernization was primarily built around the stand-in force in the Western Pacific. As previously stated, the scenario of gravest concern is China attempting to reunify with Taiwan by force. The operation would feature a massive amphibious invasion if Beijing pursued this goal militarily. Between the PLA Navy with its surface combatants, landing craft, support vessels, and Chinese maritime militia, the number of ships would be counted in thousands.
In response to this challenge, the Marine Corps designed its force around exquisite programs like Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, MQ-9A, and Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM). This approach presumed the predominance of precision. However, precision in insufficient quantity cannot overcome mass. While highly capable, the Marine Corps’ focus on exquisite systems will be limited in number, expensive to field, and optimized for high-value targets. They are not well-suited to deal with the sheer volume of platforms that would be involved in a cross-strait invasion. While these weapons can credibly hold high-value targets at risk, when fielded in low density, they will not be sufficient. Moreover, the use of these exquisite systems represents a reliance on complex kill chains, which will be discussed in more detail below.
This is where the Marine Corps missed a critical opportunity. The Service failed to anticipate the emergence of precision mass—using large numbers of lower-cost, expendable, and increasingly autonomous munitions. The Marine Corps is ill-equipped to deal with the mass it would encounter in a Taiwan invasion scenario.
Missile Math: Salvo Analysis A critical component to achieving mass is scalability and affordability. It is obvious that precision mass systems are cheaper on a one-to-one basis. However, to achieve these effects, they must be employed in mass. Do cost savings hold when considering employment in mass?
As a preliminary example, consider the engagement of a Luyang III-class destroyer. The cube root rule is often used to determine the amount of ordnance required to sink a ship.10 The rule says that the cube root of the ship’s total weight in thousands of tons is a good planning factor for the weight of explosives in thousand-pound bomb equivalent units required to sink it. In this example, the Luyang III weighs 7,500 tons, which, according to the cube root rule, would require approximately 1,957 pounds of explosive ordnance to sink. The table below shows the minimum number of hits required from several weapons to sink a Luyang III, along with the associated cost. Here, two anti-ship munitions are compared to the Shahed-136.
The Shahed requires many more hits to bring the minimum ordnance to the target, but it does so at a fraction of the cost. However, this does not account for the defensive capabilities of the targeted Luyang III. A Shahed or similar munition does not have the countermeasures to get past a ship’s multi-layered defense like the more exquisite systems do. Instead, they would rely on being employed in mass to overwhelm defenses and score enough hits to sink the ship or damage it past combat effectiveness.
To apply this to the Luyang case, we could expand our minimum salvo analysis by conservatively stating that a Luyang destroyer can comfortably intercept two well-aimed anti-ship missiles. This would mean the minimum salvo would have to be increased to 5 Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) at $9.5 million, or 4 LRASMs totaling $12.8 million. A Luyang and its layered defenses could easily handle small formations of Shahed-like attacks. The ship could likely handle swarms measured in scores. There will, however, be a saturation point, and at the cost of the NSM salvo at $9.5 million, this could buy 316 Shaheds, or in the $12.8 million LRASM case, this could buy 426 Shaheds. The saturation point of defenses involves some guesswork and would require testing and development of tactics. But for illustrative purposes, if the saturation point were 50 or 100 drones, you could effectively engage 6 or 3 ships, respectively, at the same cost of one NSM engagement.11
This imagined long-range one-way attack capability may also be utilized in other ways. It could be used as part of a complex attack, combining these low-cost munitions with high-end anti-ship missiles and non-kinetic munitions. It is also true that these systems are a better match for the many hundreds of landing vessels that would be present in a Taiwan invasion scenario. The Joint Force will not possess enough precision missiles to target every PLA Navy and maritime militia vessel involved in the invasion; therefore, precision alone will not be sufficient. In this case, mass must be countered with mass. One-way attack drones, deployed at scale, present a feasible option for doing so.
Designing the Kill Chain Kill chains prosecuted by exquisite precision systems, such as the NSM, are often described by the sequence of discrete events: find, fix, track, target, engage, and assess (F2T2EA). This sequence is intuitive and straightforward, but the process can often involve multiple systems, significant data inputs, and a complex web of command relationships to ensure the kill chain functions properly. Much of the stand-in force’s warfighting role concerning the Joint Force is built around some aspect of the F2T2EA cycle. The initial focus on long-range, anti-ship fires heavily emphasized the engagement part of the chain. As the Service has learned and made evident in its subsequent updates, focusing solely on engagement is insufficient. As the Service was forced to reckon with this, the value proposition evolved to include reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance, and more recently, focused on serving as the joint terminal attack controller of the Joint Force.12 In short, the Service seeks to add value across the F2T2EA targeting cycle—doing jobs it is suitable for it based on its geographic placement.
The by-product of this focus has made the Service’s value proposition dependent on continuous connectivity with the Joint Force and intact command and control. A cursory search of contemporary Chinese military thought reveals that joint communication will undoubtedly be a target, and a conflict would likely involve periods of varying levels of communication and command and control degradation.13 Given this likelihood, the Marine Corps should evaluate its Service strategy and ensure its value proposition is not brittle in the face of likely enemy actions.
This is where precision mass enabled by autonomy offers an alternative. A kill chain designed around precision mass enabled by autonomy can compress the required steps and reduce reliance on fragile enabling components. Again, consider the use of a Shahed-like long-range, one-way-attack drone by Marine forces in a Taiwan invasion scenario. In this scenario, the PLA invasion fleet could only feasibly use a finite number of maritime routes. Utilizing pre-conflict indications and warnings, the routes may become more evident. To employ these one-way attack drones, the kill chain can be reduced to
Find or confirm the approach corridor, and have drones fly out to pre-designated kill boxes.
Targets are acquired by onboard computer vision or other appropriate AI models.
Targets are engaged autonomously.
This model reduces the kill chain to “find, target, engage,” thus eliminating the need for persistent tracking, human-in-the-loop decisions, and complex data fusion during execution. This approach also allows for massed fires, which are critical for achieving the desired effects of saturating air and missile defense systems. The C2 burden of the entire F2T2EA cycle would make it near impossible to accomplish these massed fires and would make fires impossible in the case of denied C2 communications.
This shift simplifies operations, allows for massed fires, and removes dependencies on the other systems that could make the kill chain brittle. This is especially prescient when some of the Service’s targeting platforms are far from survivable. Notably, MQ-9 shootdowns by Houthi rebels have become a routine event.14
Precision mass, in this context, is not just a cost-effective strike option—it is a way to diversify and harden the Joint Force’s approach to targeting, making it more resilient in a degraded communications environment. Ultimately, larger magazine depths of less expensive munitions and autonomy could enable the prosecution of more targets, adding efficiency to the cycle.
Implementation and Challenges The Marine Corps’ failure to recognize and adopt precision mass can be symptomatic of larger DOD acquisition trends—a focus on exquisite acquisition projects led to a particular and limited view of what precision could be. Ironically, the course correction needed may also come from the larger DOD. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Replicator initiative was created to help build this type of attritable precision mass systems. Part of the initiative signals to the U.S. defense industry that this capability is desired and needed. This is crucial, as industrial capacity has played a critical role in operationalizing these weapons at scale for both Ukraine and Russia.15 In this initiative, OSD has essentially taken the Field of Dreams approach: if they build it, the services will come. Replicator skipped the Services-led capability development process. Instead, OSD is buying systems, and it is up to the Services to turn them into a capability.
However, OSD alone will not save the Marine Corps. For these systems to become a capability, the Service must ultimately take action. Specifically, the Marine Corps must create organizational structure, develop concepts, define its own requirements, and take other actions across the DOTMLPF spectrum.
From an organizational structural perspective, this will be a challenge. Employing an operational capability, such as a long-range one-way attack, at scale will likely require an O-5-level command structure. However, this will likely mean considering further cuts to the existing structure beyond Force Design’s initial shuffle—a challenging proposition.
The existing use cases described in this article, along with the proposed compression of the kill chain with autonomy, offer a starting point for creating concepts to employ precision mass; however, they require detailed attention and refinement. These concepts can enable the Marine Corps to write requirements tailored to its specific needs.
It is essential to stress that discipline in the requirements process is crucial. Requirements creep is real, and it can undermine the value proposition of these systems. The value proposition of precision mass is highly contingent on affordability. Should this be done in an undisciplined manner, people in the process will see a group-3 UAS being developed and desire it to have a modular payload for every possible scenario, make it resilient to every form of adversary attack, and be able to operate in any imaginable environment. The result will be an overpriced Frankenstein, highly capable, unaffordable, and low-density—back to where we began.
Conclusion The Marine Corps was bold in implementing Force Design. Its focus on the evolving interplay of precision and mass led to the bold move of shedding tanks and adopting precision fires. However, course correction is needed. In the Marine Corps’ most challenging warfighting scenarios on the horizon, it will have to contend with mass. Precision is a part of the answer in countering this mass, but it must scale. Embracing precision mass offers a viable way ahead.
>Maj Barlow is a Combat Engineer Officer. He most recently served as an Operations Research Analyst with the Operations Analysis Directorate, Combat Development & Integration. He is currently a student at the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School, U.S. Naval War College.
Notes
1. Machael Horowitz, “Battles of Precise Mass: Technology is remaking War—and America Must Adapt,” Foreign Affairs, October 22, 2024, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/battles-precise-mass-technology-war-horowitz.
2. Colby Elbridge, The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021).
3. Ibid.
4. Michael Horowitz and Joshua Schwartz, “Stealth and Scale: Quality, Quantity, and Modern Military Power,” War on the Rocks, December 18, 2024, https://warontherocks. com/2024/12/stealth-and-scale-quality-quantity-and-modern-military-power.
5. Uzi Rubin, “Russia’s Iranian-Made UAVs: A Technical Profile,” RUSI, January 13, 2023, https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russias-iranian-made-uavs-technical-profile.
6. Ibid.
7. Data available in open source. Petro Ivaniuk, “Massive Missile Attacks on Ukraine,” Kaggle, n.d., https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/piterfm/massive-missile-attacks-on-ukraine. Note: data last updated on August 25, 2025. Data included in graphics up to July 31, 2025, to avoid truncating monthly numbers.
12. General Eric Smith, 39th Commandant’s Planning Guidance, August 2024, (Washington, DC: March 2025).
13. Relevant concepts: Informatized Local Wars and Systems Confrontation and Systems Destruction Warfare.
14. Luis Martinez, “Houthis Shoot Down Growing Number of US Drones,” ABC News, April 2025, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/houthis-shoot-growing-number-us-drones/story?id=121099082.
15. Sean Harper, “Factory-to-Frontline: How Ukraine’s 2025 Drone Surge is Reshaping the Battlefield,” War Quants, March 2025, https://www.warquants.com/p/factory-to-frontline-pipeline.
The Uncomfortable Teacher The Houthis are not the type of adversary the Marine Corps typically studies for operational inspiration. As a non-peer, non-state actor labeled a terrorist group, they lack the prestige, professionalism, or legitimacy usually associated with doctrinal case studies. Yet, over the past year, Houthi forces operating out of Yemen have managed to challenge the security of global shipping lanes, draw sustained U.S. naval and air power into a secondary theater, and impose billions of dollars in operational and economic costs, all without fielding a navy or an air force.1
This comes at a time when the Marine Corps is transforming through concepts like Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations and Stand-In Forces, emphasizing distributed, resilient operations in contested maritime environments. While their methods are often illegal and morally indefensible, the Houthis’ impact offers a unique opportunity for doctrinal reflection. The Marine Corps should, by no means, admire the Houthis’ ideology. Rather, the Marine Corps must extract operational lessons from unlikely sources to adapt to future fights. The following sections will explore how the Houthis, through asymmetry, survivability, and adaptation, achieve outsized effects, and how those principles can inform the Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR) and broader force design for the modern era.2
While their methods are often illegal and morally indefensible, their effects are undeniable. If the Marine Corps is serious about fighting and winning in austere, distributed environments, it must be willing to study even the most unlikely sources. The Houthi case offers hard-earned lessons in survivability, asymmetry, and operational economy that should inform how the MLR and broader force structure evolves for the future fight.3
Strategic Asymmetry: Cost vs Consequence Houthi forces have demonstrated a mature understanding of asymmetry. Rather than destroy U.S. naval assets outright, they use cheap munitions such as commercial drones, modified cruise missiles, and explosive-laden boats to impose strategic costs. Each intercepted missile or drone requires an expensive response, often in the form of a $1–4 million missile from a U.S. destroyer. In total, U.S. defensive operations in the Red Sea and surrounding areas have cost upward of $1 billion in munitions and operational expenses alone, with additional billions in indirect costs such as rerouted shipping and higher insurance premiums.4 By comparison, the cost of the Houthi weapons themselves, such as $10,000 drones or $100,000 cruise missiles, is negligible in scale.
Beyond economics, the Houthis use drone swarms and loitering munitions to saturate and deplete air defense systems before launching a follow-on strike. In January 2024, the Houthis struck the Marlin Luanda tanker in the Gulf of Aden, causing a significant fire and proving that these lower-end systems can achieve kinetic results.5 Their most notable success came in June 2024 when a Houthi explosive-laden unmanned surface vessel (USV) struck the MV Tutor, sinking the ship and killing one crew member.6 This layered threat model is tactically simple but strategically shrewd. The goal is not necessarily to achieve a kill; rather, it is to force the United States and its allies into a continuous, expensive, and unsustainable defensive posture.
The Marine Corps should take note. As future stand-in forces operate inside contested maritime zones, they will need ways to impose cost and uncertainty without relying solely on exquisite, high-end platforms. A modern application of asymmetry could involve pairing low-cost decoys, unmanned systems, and loitering munitions with more capable fires to overwhelm adversary defenses. In this way, even systems that fail to achieve kinetic effects can still achieve operational leverage by shaping enemy behavior.
Survivability by Simplicity One of the most effective aspects of the Houthi model is its survivability. They maintain a distributed and mobile network of launch platforms that are often abandoned or hidden immediately after firing. Trucks are used as mobile launchers for cruise missiles and ballistic systems, often concealed in civilian areas, caves, or terrain features until moments before launch.7 Their use of emission control prevents early detection, and their units disaggregate immediately after firing. In February 2025, a Houthi launcher was observed firing a Quds-4 cruise missile and then being driven into a civilian market to avoid retribution.8 Communications are kept minimal or emission-controlled, and once an attack is executed, personnel disperse into civilian terrain or simply leave the launcher behind. This not only frustrates intelligence and targeting but also preserves the force for continued operations. The United States has not been able to consistently eliminate these systems pre-launch, despite a robust intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) presence.9
The Marine Corps, particularly MLR units, should learn from this. Survivability in the modern fight is not just about armor or stealth. Survivability also consists of being hard to find, fast to fire, and quick to disappear. Doctrinal emphasis on mobility, concealment, and operational discipline can make U.S. forces just as elusive, without sacrificing accountability or legitimacy. The Houthis have proven that a force does not need to win the ISR battle to survive it.
Diverse, Attritable Toolkits: A Naval Combined-Arms Dilemma The Houthis field a layered suite of weapons that presents a genuine combined-arms dilemma for naval forces. Their toolkits include anti-ship cruise missiles, land-attack cruise missiles, anti-ship ballistic missiles, USVs, and loitering drones. Quds-series missiles are estimated to have ranges exceeding 800 km, while their anti-ship ballistic missiles have struck ships as far as 450 km from shore.10 None of these systems individually outmatches U.S. capabilities, but together they generate a threat environment that is difficult to counter. Ships defending against USVs must stay close to the waterline, leaving themselves vulnerable to ballistic attack. Those focused on air threats may miss surface drones closing in below radar coverage. In one attack sequence, U.S. destroyers were forced to intercept multiple drones and missiles simultaneously, each requiring precision munitions worth millions of dollars.11
For the Marine Corps, this underscores the importance of fielding multi-domain fires within each littoral unit. A mix of kinetic systems from low-cost drones to mobile anti-ship missiles, combined with electronic warfare and ISR platforms, can multiply effects. The Houthis have shown that quantity and diversity, even at low quality, can complicate enemy decision making and slow their tempo. The MLR must adopt a similar mindset: present layered, redundant, and hard-to-counter threats that punch above their cost.
Civilian Integration and Spotting Networks Another hallmark of Houthi operations is their use of civilian infrastructure and population networks for ISR. Fishing vessels double as spotters, visually identifying ships and relaying coordinates via handheld radios or encrypted apps. In multiple instances, commercial ships were identified in port or in transit by civilian spotters before being targeted by drones or cruise missiles.12 Civilian buildings conceal launchers and drone facilities. While this violates the Law of Armed Conflict, the tactical value is undeniable: their sensors are cheap, persistent, and embedded in the battlespace. Without violating ethical norms, the Marine Corps could adopt a version of this approach. In the Pacific, partnerships with allied fishing cooperatives, coastal villages, or maritime agencies could form a “civilian sensor net” that extends ISR reach well beyond the line of contact. Training and equipping local partners with basic observation tools would enable persistent awareness without overcommitting precious ISR platforms.
Imposing Strategic Effects Without Strategic Assets Perhaps the most sobering aspect of the Houthi model is its ability to impose global consequences without possessing any strategic assets. The Houthis have no navy, no air force, and no space capabilities. Yet, through irregular adaptation and operational imagination, they have shaped international shipping patterns, tied down two U.S. carrier strike groups, and forced NATO allies to reposition naval assets to the Red Sea.13 The sinking of the MV Tutor, the disruption of oil exports, and the rerouting of commercial traffic around the Cape of Good Hope all serve as examples of strategic effects generated by non-strategic means.
This should provoke introspection in the Marine Corps. Are we over-relying on exquisite platforms and strategic infrastructure to produce effects that could be achieved more flexibly? In an era of stand-in forces, cost-imposing tactics, and contested logistics, the ability to act imaginatively with limited means will define effectiveness. The Houthis’ methods show that operational leverage comes not just from capability but also from mindset. For the MLR, this means thinking more like an insurgent force embedded in a peer conflict: lethal, elusive, and unburdened by legacy systems.
Vignette: Luzon, 2028 Dawn broke over the western coast of Luzon as an MLR operated in near silence from a concealed position twelve kilometers inland. A Chinese Type 055 destroyer had been operating aggressively in the Bashi Channel, supported by drone swarms and long-range ISR aircraft. The MLR’s command node, decentralized and mobile, received a coded message from a local fishing cooperative. The vessel had tracked the destroyer visually for the past six hours and confirmed its current position within strike range. A low-cost drone swarm was launched first with dozens of quadcopters flying erratically toward the Chinese ship, each carrying decoy electronics. As the destroyer activated its radar and fired interceptors to neutralize the swarm, the Marines triggered a coordinated release of loitering munitions from concealed positions along the coast. Simultaneously, a pair of unmanned surface vessels launched from a hidden estuary began their approach.
With enemy defenses saturated and distracted, two modified Naval Strike Missile platforms emerged from hardened terrain shelters, fired their payloads, and immediately shut down. Marines relocated the launch vehicles within minutes. By the time the Type 055 realized it was under real attack, it had less than 20 seconds to react. One missile struck amidships. The damage forced the People’s Liberation Army Navy to withdraw all major surface combatants from the Luzon Strait for the next 72 hours, effectively shutting down the corridor to Chinese naval operations and buying critical maneuver space for joint forces operating in the Philippine archipelago. The vessel lost propulsion and was forced to withdraw under tow.
The Marines never held terrain. They never used a tank. And they never engaged in a direct firefight. But by combining deception, distributed fires, local ISR, and low-cost saturation tactics, they accomplished what a billion-dollar ship could not: denying the sea to the enemy.
As the unit exfiltrated and reestablished a fallback position further south, a company gunnery sergeant remarked, “We never thought we’d borrow tactics from a Yemeni militia. But today? It worked.”
From Imitation to Innovation While the Houthis present a unique and unlikely source of tactical insight, the goal is not imitation—it is transformation. The Marine Corps must examine what makes Houthi tactics effective, discard the illegal and unethical, and adapt the rest into a professional, scalable doctrine suited for great power competition. That means embracing low-cost, modular capabilities that degrade enemy systems. It means devolving initiative to the lowest levels so Marines can act fast and independently. It means integrating local partnerships to expand awareness in ways that satellites and drones cannot. In short, it means embracing a mindset that values effectiveness over tradition. We cannot afford to wait for peer adversaries to teach us what the Houthis already have. The lessons are available now, but only if we have the humility to learn.
We Say, “More With Less”—They Live It The Marine Corps often touts its ability to do more with less. But in the Houthis, we see a group doing exactly that and achieving strategic effects. They do not just stretch limited resources; they maximize them in ways that challenge even the most advanced militaries. We succeed against them today because of our economic and technological advantages, not because we out-innovate them. That luxury will not exist against a peer adversary.
Studying the Houthis does not require endorsing their ideology or unlawful tactics. It requires the humility to recognize that innovation often comes from the edges of the battlefield, not the center. If the Marine Corps is to remain a stand-in force capable of imposing cost, denying terrain, and surviving in a contested environment, it must look beyond tradition, even if that means learning from our enemies.
>Capt Gunn is the Camp Operations Officer for Camp Schwab, Okinawa. He is an Infantry Officer and will be attending Maneuver Captain’s Career Course in January 2026.
>Sponsored by The 1st Reconnaissance Battalion Association and the Marine Corps Association in honor of LtGen Trainor’s lifetime of exceptional military service and journalistic excellence.
Notes
1. David Lynch. “Houthi attacks are starting to reshape shipping flows,” The Washington Post, January 17, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/01/16/shipping-houthi-attack-energy-prices.
5. Kathryn Armstrong, “Oil Tanker damaged in Houthi Missile Strike,” BBC News, April 27, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68909912.
6. David Gritten, “Cargo Ship Tutor Believed to Have Sunk in Red Sea after Houthi Attack,” BBC News, June 20, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqqqxx9lprpo.
7. UN Panel of Experts on Yemen, Final Report, January 2024.
8. CENTCOM Press Briefing, February 18, 2025.
9. Ibid.
10. Asa Fitch, “How Yemen’s Houthis Are Ramping Up Their Weapons Capability,” The Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-yemens-houthis-are-ramping-up-their-weapons-capability-1524664569?ns=prod/accounts-wsj.
11. Jonathan Lehrfeld, “April Red Sea Recap: Fight Against Houthis Continues After Lull” Navy Times, May 1, 2024, https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2024/04/30/april-red-sea-recap-fight-against-houthis-continues-after-lull/#:~:text=By%20Jonathan%20Lehrfeld,no%20injuries%20or%20damages%20reported.
12. United Nations Security Council, “Letter Dated 11 October 2024 From the Panel of Experts on Yemen Addressed to the President of the Security Council,” October 11, 2024, https://docs.un.org/en/S/2024/731.
13. International Maritime Organization, “Communication from the Secretary-General of Member States’ Representatives,” November 25, 2024, https://wwwcdn.imo.org/localresources/en/MediaCentre/Documents/Red%20Sea%20Incidents%20MS%20version%2025-11-24%20-1-.pdf.
