As the Marine Corps sails further into the 21st century, the service has reached another era of reform and transformation. Like any era of significant change, it has brought with it debate and discussion across both the Corps and the wider defense establishment. The introduction of Force Design 2030, the tentative doctrine of Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations, and the concepts surrounding employment of Marine Corps formations as a “stand-in-force,” have begun reshaping the way the Marine Corps sees the future of conflict and their role in it.[2] In the new book From Hegemony to Competition, students and scholars at Marine Corps University have followed in the wake of Pete Ellis, bringing together the work of eight students from the Marine Corps Command and Staff College and the School of Advanced Warfighting to consider the implications of change and to ask critical questions about the Marine Corps’ new concepts and doctrines. In doing so, editor Matthew Slater and the team of contributors provide vital thinking on the complexities of the Marine Corps’ future, and help to identify the issues that will challenge the service’s success.
When taken as a whole, the studies included in Hegemony to Competition do an excellent job of illustrating the wide expanse of topics that the Marine Corps will need to address as the service continues to develop its doctrine and concepts surrounding Force Design 2030, Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations, and the stand-in-force. From logistics to service interoperability, from alliances and partnerships to the development or redevelopment of creative Marine Corps unit structures, from the Indo-Pacific to Northern Europe, the authors offer a great deal to think about. Perhaps the greatest strength of this collection of work is that it expands the questions that are being asked and provides creative ideas about those questions. All of the authors offer solutions and recommendations, some of them more convincing than others. But the solutions are not necessarily the point. What these chapters offer is opening salvos in exchanges about these topics, hopefully engendering wider and more creative discussions in open source analysis, which can lead to clearer thinking in the classified realm as well. Additionally, the work offered here lays bare the inaccuracy of claims from those older marines and naysayers who claim that no study, wargaming, or development was done or is being done on these concepts.
The first two chapters presented revolve around the challenges and questions of logistics in the Marine Corps’ new approach to their missions. It’s a professional topic that often introduces more complexity than just thinking about tactics, but these examinations reveal that the question of logistics is itself a tactical, operational, and strategic level question. Major Staffod Bouchard examines the tactical level of resupply for the stand-in-force’s smaller and distributed units. Sustainment is always a unique challenge based on environment and available resources, and Bouchard’s discussion of the future implications of fuel, food, and power requirements reveals that while military discussions of logistics often lead with armament or ammunition, there are basic needs at the tactical level that require creative solutions and new technologies. For all the the criticism that was aimed at Secretary Ray Mabus’s “Great Green Fleet” efforts, as we enter the 2020s it becomes apparent that the same technologies that might be considered green also improve efficiency and help the sustainability of military units, not in terms of the climate crisis but for their ability to remain effective in the operational environment. Major Gloria Lueddke examines the electromagnetic spectrum and the communications and cyber needs of a distributed force of small units, itself a logistical challenge for the operational level that becomes a greater and greater necessity for Marines in the 21st century.
