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Decades of dominance leaves a mark: It shapes the beliefs and behaviors of a nation and its military. Extended periods of hegemony for a nation, like long-standing market dominance for a business, encourages blind spots for changing markets, technologies, and competitors. Sustained success breeds complacency born of self-satisfaction. Under-examined strategy and policy assumptions are a particular concern for businesses and governments as a longstanding status quo becomes dogmatically locked in as received wisdom.

U.S. defense planning suffers from two under-examined assumptions. The first is that U.S. military force posture, capabilities, and capacities will be sufficient to seamlessly transition from deterrence to war in the first island chain, which stretches from Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines down to Borneo, forming the front edge of Asia facing the Pacific. The second assumption is that lines of communication to the western Pacific will be sustained to enable forward forces, the safety of U.S. civilians and military families with them, and timely reinforcements.

Critically, this is not an argument against forward-stationed and forward-positioned U.S. forces. It is an argument to ensure the Defense Department has realistically assessed the mobility, protection, and sustainment needs of these forces. A resilient force posture is essential, one that is fit for purpose in the most efficient manner possible given security, sustainment, and follow-on force demands. This is an instance where more is not necessarily better — at least initially.

World War II

In the decades leading up to World War II, the U.S. Naval War College held a series of wargames exploring potential war with Japan that contributed to the evolution of War Plan Orange, a plan that laid the foundation for the coming war in the Pacific. A major focus of the debate centered around how to protect U.S. assets in the Philippines should a war occur. There were two major schools of thought: first, rush the fleet to defend the Philippines; or second, take an incremental stepping stone approach across the Pacific. The former had the benefit of speed, while the latter provided time to build fighting and logistics capacity while concurrently challenging the adversary by extending their lines of communication and diminishing their military through attrition.

The most viscerally appealing option came to be known as the “through ticket”, where the fleet rushed directly to defend the Philippines — where the United States had substantial reputational and economic interests, given that it was a U.S. commonwealth during this period. The U.S. military had roughly 31,000 U.S. Army regulars, 277 aircraft, 14 surface ships, and 29 submarines. While the naval forces were antiquated, U.S. Army aircraft were modern, including 107 P-40 fighters and 35 B-17 bombers.

It was natural, therefore, for military operators to favor damning the torpedoes and rushing to defend the Philippines, and this perspective might well have held sway if not for the wargaming and analysis done at the Naval War College. This work demonstrated that the “through ticket” was not logistically feasible, the timing to intervene to counter an attack was a challenge, and a full-strength Japanese military in relative proximity to home waters could be overwhelming.

Similar dynamics are in place today. The United States has an even larger military presence across Japan, South Korea, and Guam and significantly greater diplomatic and economic interests throughout the region that are challenged by a rapidly expanding Chinese military. This environment suggests the need for a robust steady-state deterrence posture coupled with substantial rapid response capabilities should deterrence fail. Like the 1930s, the 2020s demand wargaming, modeling, and simulation to ensure U.S. instinctive responses are modulated by analysis, ensuring the most effective — vice the most emotionally appealing — strategy is selected.

Recent History

While the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review acknowledged the need to begin rebalancing the Department of Defense beyond the Middle East and the global war on terrorism, it was not until publication of the 2018 National Defense Strategy that there was unequivocal guidance to focus on great power competition, especially with regard to China, which was belatedly acknowledged as a near-peer competitor. Today’s national security and military planners are the product of this transition period and more broadly, part of the larger post-Cold War era when domain dominance and military overmatch were taken as a given.

Eight years after the 2018 National Defense Strategy, it is now generally accepted that China is not just a near-peer but a peer military power, particularly in the Asia-Pacific. Yet, even with this recognition of increased Chinese capability and capacity, beliefs and habits regarding the correlation of forces remain colored by past assumptions of overmatch. It is therefore important that U.S. analysts and planners guard against such preconceived notions of dominance born of decades of hegemony that may have created a cultural blind spot, leading to spurious conclusions like those of the “through ticket” advocates of the previous century. The Defense Department should do the hard analytical work to ensure it can flow requisite follow-on forces and sustain them once in place.

Given that China is presently more predominant in key military areas, in relative terms, than Japan was at the outset of World War II, it would be a mistake to simply assume the United States can adequately reinforce its forward bases, allies, and partners should conflict arise. War Plan Orange assumed 80,000 troops and 26,000 civilians in Bataan could resist for at least six months. These calculations were based on bad assumptions. After Pearl Harbor these forces were immediately placed on half rations. To avoid such a miscalculation in the future, planners should consider worst-case scenarios and plan courses of action that include the ability of surge forces to roll back Chinese forces, shape the theater for the introduction of additional follow-on forces, and open lines of communication for sustainment of forces and U.S. citizens (e.g., dependents, Department of Defense contractors) in the first island chain.

Service and joint planners should look at the numbers for lift, mobility, maneuver, and sustainment. Doing this due diligence is important for understanding both challenges and opportunities, especially the time, distance, and throughput requirements regardless of whether worst-case scenarios eventuate or not. Just taking amphibious ships as an example, the currently planned 31 amphibious ship inventory would require 100 percent readiness to lift the assault echelons of two Marine expeditionary brigades, yet current readiness is approximately 50 percent. Even with 100 percent amphibious ship readiness, ships would need to be transferred from other global commitments, thus exacerbating the challenge of mustering lift for an out of theater Marine expeditionary force. Certainly, maritime prepositioned shipping and strategic and tactical airlift contribute significantly in moving materiel, and there is additional common user shipping within Military Sealift Command, but that pool of ships is in decline as well. The primary point is not that marines need more amphibious ships or that other forms of sealift need to increase (which they do), but rather that in the near-term these structural problems cannot be resolved. If the military is to be effective in the near- to mid-term, planners should account for actual vice desired mobility assets (air, sea) and develop force postures and concepts of employment that work within these confines. Bounding a problem is the best way to drive creative solutions to daunting military problems like fighting a peer conflict without a preceding period of mobilization.

There are practical force design and development implications for getting the strategy wrong. The design of the nucleus of the World War II U.S. Fleet was influenced heavily by the treaty system that limited expansion of Pacific basing — the fortification clause of the Washington Naval Treaty. This restrictive clause turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it forced innovation in how maintenance and repairs were performed with limited permanent infrastructure. This was a powerful positive restraint that drove the creation of mobile dry docks, long-range submarines, and expeditionary water production capabilities among others. It also led the General Board to recognize the importance of advanced base and mobile base operations, such that the 1924 War Plan Orange document included a secret mobile base appendix. Accurately assessing capability and capacity requirements such as air and sea mobility, munitions availability, capacity of the defense industrial base, the national economy’s ability to absorb large increases in defense spending, the resilience of U.S. bases in the western Pacific, and the implications of tens of thousands of U.S. civilians located in the adversary’s primary weapons engagement zone could serve a similar purpose as the fortification clause by clarifying requirements and spurring innovative solutions that can work within real world strictures.

Current Planning

In April of this year, U.S. Army Pacific published a strategy focused on achieving positional advantage in the western Pacific, followed in May by a similar Marine Corps document, Pacific Marines Strategy 2025. The latter strategy calls for two Marine expeditionary forces (I and III Marine Expeditionary Force) “abreast” within the first island chain. This is a much larger force posture than was originally assumed in the Marine Corps’ Force Design 2030, which called for smaller, lethal, low signature, mobile, and sustainable forces able to operate over the competition continuum.

I Marine Expeditionary Force, located in California, presents an especially difficult mobility challenge given the shrinking amphibious, combat logistics, military sealift, and merchant marine fleets. If, for argument’s sake, one stipulates that two Marine expeditionary forces could be delivered, positioned (III Marine Expeditionary Force is already in the first island chain but not positioned optimally), and sustained, one should then ask the question: What relevant combat power do these large ground and aviation formations provide in the initial stages of the campaign? For example, a Marine expeditionary force in the Philippines would contribute combat power primarily through its aviation wing operating from a mix of fixed and expeditionary bases. Given that stand-in forces should be nested within a larger joint force that provides key enabling capabilities, planners should assess the correlation of forces between this joint force posture and the adversary. Analysts may determine that overmatch exists, just not in U.S. joint forces’ favor.

Given Air Force plans to redistribute forward stationed squadrons away from where they are most vulnerable and Navy plans to move surface ships away from the first island chain, service and joint planners should assess the contribution of a second U.S.-based Marine expeditionary force or additional Army elements against the overall U.S. force laydown in the initial stages of a conflict. All elements of the U.S. military should be tested for fitness within realistic mobility and logistics constraints. In the case of I Marine Expeditionary Force, what tradeoffs across the military are required to move this force as opposed to other force elements, and does it contribute favorably with relevant combat power?

Combatant command planners especially should ask, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?” If yes, what joint interdependencies such as Army air defense, Air Force airbase enablers, and Navy sensors and communications assets should be preserved in the first island chain to enable them? If the answer is no, plans should refocus on a more expeditionary stand-in force posture.

As originally conceived in Force Design 2030, Marine littoral regiments can be survivable and provide capabilities highly relevant to Indo-Pacific Command. These smaller, distributed forces will be seen and thus targetable, yet with the proper operational arrangements, they can be quite resilient. The objective for these units is not to defeat enemy surveillance that ranges from space-based sensors to individuals with cellphones, but rather to maintain adequate standoff, operate in complex terrain, employ military deception, and implement well-practiced tactics, techniques, and procedures for movement and displacement, all informed by robust early warning systems. These forces can provide situational awareness, close kill chains, offer cyber, space, and electronic warfare options to the combatant commander, and employ fires that would enhance host nation defenses. They clearly provide a demonstration of U.S. commitment to the region and contribute to deterrence against Chinese aggression toward Taiwan, while also establishing a firm perimeter against additional Chinese opportunistic aggression against Japanese or Philippine territory.

Marine Corps stand-in forces can be made more expeditionary by leveraging joint force and host nation interdependencies. Some view interdependencies as a weakness, and there is a certain logic to this if there are no resource constraints, but this is not the world the joint force inhabits. When the Marine Corps chooses to minimize joint interdependencies, it should assess the costs and benefits of this greater independence. Army logistics and air defense, Air Force airspace management, and Navy long-range precision fires and kill web command and control enable more agile, expeditionary employment options for Marine forces, thereby reducing the need for U.S.-based Marine expeditionary force enablers. Which approach provides combatant command-relevant capability most efficiently, sooner? Additional analysis is required.

Less can be more when it means providing efficient and achievable combat power without initiating a death spiral of protection and logistics requirements, where increases in one category demand increases in the other. In short, be relevant, be resilient, be practical.

Iterative wargaming and modeling and simulation are required to explore a wide range of possible conflict scenarios to ensure planners don’t assume a “through ticket”, when geography, resources, economics, and correlation of forces suggest a series of local tickets for surge forces to get to their final destination might be better. The military should honor the substantial challenges of a general war, and by so doing, develop concepts of employment for deterrence and conflict that are effective and achievable within plausible resource and capability levels.

Location, Location, Location

Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps strategies addressed above are right to emphasize the benefits of positional advantage on the ground, as well as the benefits of being close to allies and partners, but how this is accomplished matters. All stand-in and follow-on forces should pass the relevant combat power test and be configured for movement within available air and sealift limitations (no fairy dust). They should be survivable and resilient. They should also be highly trained in large-scale joint and combined arms operations.

All-domain training is essential for the joint force, and force posture is a critical determinant of how this is accomplished. Forces should be positioned to facilitate joint and combined arms training affordably and with the requisite training areas for conducting maneuver, fires, and electromagnetic spectrum operations. Joint and combined exercises are essential, but full-spectrum live fire training cannot be done in the first island chain. Locating large formations outside the first island chain offers better, cheaper training opportunities with the added benefit that they are not as susceptible to manipulation by the adversary should they intentionally trigger indications and warnings that would cause U.S. and allied forces to take reactive defense measures. This type of manipulation can be done much more easily to a force located in the adversary’s primary weapons engagement zone, such that U.S. forces will need to execute defensive tactics, techniques, and procedures including dispersal of forces to other locations within and beyond the first island chain.

In any major conflict, follow-on forces will be essential. Fortunately, controlling time, tempo, and place of engagement is best accomplished by forces located initially beyond the first island chain. Marine Corps crisis response forces and the larger joint force should be configured to act as highly trained surge forces. For example, Marine expeditionary units could be configured with Marine littoral regiment-like capabilities and key enablers currently provided by the larger Marine expeditionary force formations. These forces should fit as seamlessly as possible within Army, Air Force, and Navy command and control, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, air defense, and logistics networks.

Conclusion

“Can do” thinking won’t do when it comes to war with a peer adversary. Like the planners of the 1920s and 30s, today’s planners should do rigorous wargaming and analysis to explore under-examined assumptions and second-order effects that may be the product of belief systems formed in an era of unquestioned overmatch.

Stand-in forces are critical for deterrence and warfighting and therefore need to be relevant, sustainable, and survivable in even worst-case scenarios. This will almost surely mean these forces will need to be light, mobile, and expeditionary while being complementary to highly trained and ready surge-forces pre-allocated to mobility platforms — thus able to rapidly shape the theater and roll back key Chinese capabilities, all while leveraging stand-in forces’ abilities to sense, cue, shoot, and perform cyber and electronic warfare operations. Using the traditional amphibious vernacular, Marine stand-in forces conduct advanced force operations, while rapid response (specific timing dictated by mission, enemy, terrain) naval forces provide the screening force for the fleet and additional surge capabilities.

With the right analytically informed actions, stand-in forces can bolster deterrence and joint and combined warfighting. It’s a tough challenge, but a solvable one. The United States got the big planning questions right leading up to World War II, but just five years later, in the same theater, it underestimated the adversary at the beginning of the Korean War — resulting in the destruction of Task Force Smith, among other tragedies. To repeat the success of World War II and avoid the failure of the initial stages of the Korean War, we need service and joint analysis — especially modeling and simulation — that repeatedly examines the hard questions, challenges untested assumptions (Not just ready, but ready for what, when, where, and for how long?), and quantifies the physical challenges (time, distance, movement, maneuver) associated with a big war far from home. No more Task Force Smiths! Stand-in forces and stand-in citizens (contractors, dependents) deserve nothing less.

Noel Williams is a fellow at Systems Planning and Analysis. His work is focused on Marine Corps strategy, policy, and force design.

The views in this article are those of the author and not those of the Marine Corps, the Defense Department, or any part of the U.S. government.

**Please note, as a matter of house style War on the Rocks will not use a different name for the U.S. Department of Defense until and unless the name is changed by statute by the U.S. Congress.

Image: Cpl. Joseph Helms via U.S. Marines