AY 2009-2010

Amphibious Forcible Entry - A Strategic

Imperative
MILITARY STRATEGY AND LOGISTICS

MR. THOMAS HAUSER

KEVIN MARK MCCONNELL, YC03, USMC

SEMINAR 3

COLONEL CARL FOSNAUGH, PRIMARY FACULTY ADVISOR

The Industrial College of the Armed Forces

National Defense University
Fort McNair, Washington, D.C. 20319-5062

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not reflect
the official policy or position of the National Defense University,
the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.
 The United States is a maritime and insular nation. Oceans separate us from ninety

percent of the world's population and from our interests overseas. These interests, framed within

the context of Globalization, which is defined as "the international interaction of information,

financial capital, commerce, technology, and labor at exponentially greater speeds than

previously thought possible, are critical to political and economic survival."1 In order to secure

our interests, to support our allies overseas, to respond to crises the nation must maintain control

of the seas. Inherent in sea control is the ability U.S. Naval forces to rapidly project power from

the sea in the littoral regions of the world. A sea-based, expeditionary, amphibious forcible entry

capability is a strategic imperative, essential to our ability to project power, both soft and hard,

from the sea and to secure the maritime domain.

The last sentence of the opening paragraph above is filled with terms that, while familiar,

often mean different things to different people; therefore it is worth a few words to provide a

common understanding of each of the terms.

Seabasing is a naval capability that provides joint force commanders with the ability to

conduct selected functions and tasks at sea without reliance on infrastructure ashore.2 A sea-

based force does not rely heavily on the buildup and maintenance of warfighting materiel ashore.

Instead, materiel is retained aboard ships at sea and moved landward only as required by the

combat forces ashore.

By definition, an expedition thus involves the deployment of military forces to the scene

of the crisis or conflict and their requisite support some significant distance from their home

bases. Expeditionary operations involve the establishment of forward bases, land or sea, from

which military power can be brought to bear on the situation. Expeditionary operations may be

undertaken by air, land, and sea forces.3

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An amphibious operation is a military operation launched from the sea by an amphibious

force, embarked in ships or craft for the primary purpose of introducing a landing force ashore to

accomplish the assigned mission. Amphibious operations take place across the Range of

Military Operations (ROMO) and are categorized into five types: assaults, raids, demonstrations,

withdrawals, and amphibious support to other operations.4

“Forcible entry” is a joint military operation conducted against armed opposition to gain

entry into the territory of an adversary by seizing a lodgment as rapidly as possible in order to

enable the conduct of follow-on operations or conduct a singular operation.5 Thus, an

amphibious assault, is one method of forcible entry.

To sum up the definitions and provide context for the remainder of the paper, a sea-

based, expeditionary, amphibious forcible entry capability provides the means for the United

States to achieve forward presence and a rapid response capability, without the need for a large,

permanent buildup of forces ashore. The capabilities, in terms of troops and equipment, needed

to provide for forcible entry on the high end of the spectrum are essentially the same as those

needed for accomplishing all types of amphibious operations across the ROMO. This capability,

and the need for it, is fraught with misunderstanding and criticism.

Operation Chromite, the amphibious landing at Inchon, Korea in September 1950, was

the largest amphibious operation conducted since World War II, and it was the last large scale

amphibious operation ever conducted by U.S. forces. This fact is the root of much criticism of

amphibious forcible entry. Military and civilian personnel involved in capability development

efforts and resourcing decisions often assume that "amphibious forcible entry capabilities" are an

area of traditional warfare in which the United States can accept risk. This idea has lead law

makers to call for the termination of equipment programs, like the Marine Corps' Expeditionary
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Fighting Vehicle, which is a critical enabler of future amphibious forcible entry capabilities. It

has also led to the Navy's reticence to engage in long-term ship building plans to support both

amphibious and sea-basing requirements, favoring instead, carriers and submarines. Secretary of

Defense Robert Gates has also publically questioned the need for such a capability but his more

reasoned approach, directed the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review to look at "how much"

amphibious capability the military will need in the future.6 Admittedly, with the demise of the

Soviet Union as a global peer competitor, it is unlikely that U.S. forces will be required to

engage in a large scale amphibious assault against a hostile beach but it is also because of the

post Cold War world order that an expeditionary amphibious forcible entry capability will

remain a relevant and critical element of U.S. power.

Threats to the United States come from a varied and widely dispersed group of nations as

well as from transnational groups and non-nation state actors. The increase in international trade

brought about by globalization has also increased trade in, and availability of, increasingly lethal

weapons. Access to these weapons by hostile forces will shape both the offensive and defensive

capabilities of expeditionary forces. Those expeditionary forces able to respond rapidly yet

maintain protective distances from threat systems will be in increasing demand.

Adding to future challenges is the likelihood of diminishing overseas access by U.S.

forces. Shifting political alliances, internal strife, and sovereign sensitivities are steadily

increasing thus limiting U.S. access to forward bases, staging areas, and transportation routes.

Even allies may be more hesitant to grant access for a variety of reasons. For these reasons,

since the end of the Cold War, U.S. military forces have contracted from large, forward deployed

permanent garrisons to more centralized forces based inside the United States. This has meant

that all U.S. forces have had to become more expeditionary and deploy from U.S. bases to meet
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global commitments. The deployments are often made more challenging by political and

geographic conditions and hostile activities. Turkey's refusal to allow the U.S. to move forces

through the country to Iraq at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the current

difficulties of supplying forces in Afghanistan are illustrative of these challenges. A sea-based,

amphibious expeditionary force provides "a valuable degree of sovereign and secure access" to

address these challenges.7

The ongoing demographic shift of populations toward the world's coastlines where

competition for increasingly scarce resources and a simultaneous bulge in the young male

population is likely to be exploited by both extremist and criminal elements. The resulting social

and politically has the potential to cause disruptions requiring rapid and decisive response. Thus,

the littorals are the objective area for the majority of the world's future crises and these areas are

within the operational and tactical reach of amphibious forces.

All of the aforementioned challenges highlight the importance of being able to project

our National power into the world's littoral regions comprising the area from blue water open

oceans that must be controlled to support operations ashore to that area inland that can be

supported and defended directly from the sea.8 Sea-based, expeditionary, amphibious forces

enable the United States to maintain forward presence, respond to regional instability and crisis

and observe sovereign boundaries in the least intrusive way, without the requirement for host

nation support or over flight permissions, until such an intrusion is necessary to maintain U.S.

interests.

The objectives articulated in the National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy,

National Military Strategy and the National Strategy for Maritime Security, indicate an

increasing need for flexible, adaptive and decisive military power projection that is immediately
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responsive to uncertain and ever-shifting locations. These strategic directives foresee a future of

reduced overseas basing and an increase in the deployment/employment of expeditionary forces

in response to the full spectrum of crises. Sea-based expeditionary amphibious forces provide

credible combat power that can deter aggression and promote regional stability through forward

presence, defeat an enemy through superior combat power delivered at the place and timing of

our choosing, and that can enable introduction of follow-on forces by providing sustainable

combat power along strategic access points. Beyond the ability to conduct forcible entry,

expeditionary, amphibious forces are suited to the range of operations requiring the mobility and

combined arms capabilities inherent in their makeup. That range of operations extends from

military engagement, security cooperation, and deterrence activities to crisis response and

limited contingency operations, and if necessary, major operations and campaigns.9 The

additional advantage of a sea-based, expeditionary, amphibious force is that it can be positioned

and re-positioned almost indefinitely in response to changing military, political and/or

environmental conditions.

To accomplish these operations in light of the proliferation of weapons and technologies

designed to defeat ships and ground combat equipment, modern expeditionary amphibious forces

will have to employ multiple means to simultaneously protect friendly forces and maneuver

against the enemy. As noted earlier, sea-basing limits U.S. forces' footprint on foreign shores

thereby providing an element of protection. Additionally the U.S. Marines developed the

concept of Operational Maneuver from the Sea (OMFTS) specifically to address challenges of

operating in the littorals. The key principles of OMFTS include: using the sea as maneuver

space; focusing on the operational objective; generation of overwhelming tempo and momentum;

emphasis on intelligence and deception; integration of all organic, joint, and combined assets
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available.10 The principles of OMFTS apply across the ROMO, from Major Combat Operations

to Small Scale Contingencies.

Still, critics who cite the mostly land-based U.S. military commitments since Operation

Desert Storm in 1991, argue that the need for an amphibious force is past, obviated by weapon

technologies and the unlikelihood of facing a peer competitor in the future. The facts indicate

otherwise. In the last twenty years, U.S. amphibious forces have responded to crises at least 104

times. All five doctrinal types of amphibious operations are represented in that number

including at least four assaults and maybe even more notably, more than 75 characterized as

"other amphibious operations," including humanitarian and disaster response.11 More recently,

sea-based forces have expanded the number and nature of cooperative activities with new

partners in a expanding global regions. This expansion reflects an increased demand from

geographic combatant commanders for forward deployed amphibious forces capable of

conducting security cooperation, regional deterrence, and crisis response.12

Unfortunately the term "forcible entry" and the notion of amphibious forces elicits

images of wave after wave of Marine landing forces assaulting the beaches of Iwo Jima or U.S

Army an Allied landing forces storming the beaches of Normandy and those images could

threaten the existence of U.S. Amphibious capabilities. Modern expeditionary amphibious

forces, however, provide the national command authority with the most flexible, most

responsive, and most adaptive means of projecting U.S. power to meet the challenges of what the

Marines refer to as "chaos in the littorals."13 As a maritime nation, dependent on the sea for

survival, it is a strategic imperative that we maintain an amphibious power projection capability

to assure access to the maritime domain at the time and place of our choosing.
 Endnotes

1. Richard L. Kugler and Ellen L. Frost, eds., The Global Century: Globalization and
National Security (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2001), Forward.

2. United States Marine Corps, Seabasing for the Range of Military Operations,
(Quantico,VA: Marine Corps Combat Development Command, 2009, Forward.

3. USMC, MCDP 3: Expeditionary Operations, (Washington DC: Headquarters US

Marine Corps, 1998), 31-36.

4. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-02: Amphibious Operations,

(Washington, DC: 10 August 2009), I-2.

5. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-18: Joint Forcible Entry Operations,
(Washington, DC: 16 June 2008), I-1.

6. John T. Bennett, "Gates: Cutting FCS Tough; Amphibious Study Needed," Defense
News, Electronic Edition (7 April 2009), http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4028658 (15
November 2009).

7. Authur H. Barber III and Delwyn L. Gilmore, "Maritime Access: Do Defenders Hold
All the Cards?" Defense Horizons, No 4 (October 2001): 1,
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/DefHor/DH4/DH_04.htm (November 15, 2009).

8. USMC, Amphibious Operations in the 21st Century, (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps
Combat Development Command, 18 March 2009), 2.

9. Ibid, 4.

10. USMC, Operational Maneuver from the Sea: A Concept for the Projection of Naval
Power Ashore, (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps Combat Development Command, 4 January 1996),
5.

11. Douglas King and John Berry, "Amphibious Prowess Still a Cor(e)ps Need,"
Proceedings, vol 135/11/1281 (November 2009): 41.

12. Ibid.

13. USMC, MCDP 3: Expeditionary Operations, (Washington DC: Headquarters US

Marine Corps, 1998), 2-26.
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