{"id":35345,"date":"2017-09-21T15:02:14","date_gmt":"2017-09-21T15:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2017\/09\/21\/marines-taking-multi-domain-battle-to-the-littorals\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:26:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:26:33","slug":"marines-taking-multi-domain-battle-to-the-littorals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/c2-comms\/2017\/09\/21\/marines-taking-multi-domain-battle-to-the-littorals\/","title":{"rendered":"Marines take multi-domain battle to the littorals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

All the services in one way or another are exploring and adopting their practices into a more holistic \u201cmulti-domain\u201d approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a future fight against a near-peer competitor, the decision cycle will be significantly tighter than years\u2019 past. Forces will have to seamlessly incorporate effects in all five domains of war; land, sea, air, space and cyberspace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Marine Corps is working in conjunction with the Army on the emerging concept of multi-domain battle \u2015 an update to the Army\u2019s air-land battle concept \u2015 the Marines are also working to, as the commandant said, get back to their naval roots as it applies to littoral operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, the Marines introduced the Marine Corps Operating Concept, which described a service unprepared to face a peer adversary in the year 2025, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said Sept. 20 at the Modern Day Marine expo in Quantico, Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One item that was addressed in the concept was how the service can better work with Navy shipmates as part of naval integration, Neller said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As such, he noted that Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, the commander of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, wanted a concept that talks about how Marines will operate within the future battle space as part of a naval force in a maritime campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The end result: \u201cLittoral Operations in a Contested Environment,\u201d a document released in mid-2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the document doesn\u2019t present any new ideas for an informed audience, Neller noted that it has to be put into the context of the fight during the previous 16 years. \u201cWe\u2019ve been fighting a sustained land campaign ashore,\u201d he said, adding that the focus of the Marines, the Army and Special Operations Command has been to go to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, conduct a stability operation, and repeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have to fight to get to the fight. We just went,\u201d he said. \u201cWe haven\u2019t had to fight to get to the fight since World War II.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the Marines need to be able to fight and win in contested environments, a process that involves fighting just to get to the battle space; adversaries will use shore-to-sea missiles, cyber, electronic warfare, and aerial and subsurface unmanned systems to disrupt friendly forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is what this concept is about; we need an approach, we needed an approach, we have to continue to work on an approach that treats the littorals, that area \u2015 not just necessary shallow water or brown water \u2014 but [in] the area where you\u2019ve got, air, land, sea, under the sea, the normal domains of combat, how do we operate to get there, how do we operate to get on that land where we can provide our maximum capability,\u201d Neller said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a land, air, sea operation, but it\u2019s going to involve space, it\u2019s going to involve information, it\u2019s going to involve the electromagnetic spectrum; all things that we haven\u2019t had to think about in the past 15 to 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Marines recently conducted a major exercise in California that sought to game how emerging technologies such as unmanned systems might be used as the first wave to storm a beach. The Ship to Shore Maneuver Exploration and Experimentation, or S2ME2, Advanced Naval Technology Exercise, focused on how the naval force projects power in a 21st century contested environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Marine exercise takes aim at emerging technologies<\/a>]<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the exercise, the Marine Corps released a special notice listing five capability concepts, which were determined to be the keys to success for a future threat environment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n