The United States is in the midst of a new Cold War against an old foe. Russia has awakened from years of decay following the fall of the Soviet Union and once again seeks to be a dominant world power.1 It has been developing and refining ways to gain the upper hand in a clash with U.S. and allied forces, with its actions in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and other places causing a resurgence of involvement in European defense as embodied in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).2 Its new methods of waging war blur the lines between conventional and unconventional forces and operations.
As a result, the chances of a conflict with Russia or its proxies are higher than they have been in decades. While U.S. diplomats strive for peace, Marines must support their efforts by preparing for war. The Corps must recognize Russia’s warfare advances and develop countertactics.
How Russia Will Strike
Russia will attempt to make U.S. forces blind and deaf so they cannot see the battlespace or communicate, and to inhibit troop mobility so it can use mass fires to inflict heavy casualties. It will do this in a number of ways.
Disrupting Global Positioning Satellites
Adversaries will attack Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, which would severely handicap U.S. forces’ ability to navigate. Troops would have to use manual means of navigation, such as maps and compasses, pace counts, and terrain association—skills that have become lost arts as Marines have grown dependent on GPS devices.
A disruption in the GPS network also would affect the service’s ability to target and use supporting arms such as artillery and close air support. Location devices would be challenged to identify a grid reference location, and certain precision-guided munitions would lose their guidance. As a result, fires could be less accurate and less responsive, as they would require more time to be adjusted onto their intended targets. Not only would this cause higher expenditures of ordnance, but it also would slow tempo. A spoofing attack, where GPS devices display inaccurate coordinates, would need to be successful only once to compromise all friendly grids and force the U.S. military to seek alternate methods of determining location.
Disrupting Communications Networks
Adversaries will attempt to disrupt command-and-control by meaconing, intruding, jamming, and interfering with U.S. communication networks.3 Should they succeed, they would prevent U.S. firing units and observers from communicating with each other. Without the ability to talk, artillery will remain idle and bombs would not leave aircraft wings. One of the Marine Corps’ greatest strengths—its ability to deliver and integrate supporting arms—could be crippled. Russia also would attempt to locate Marine units and target them by tracking electronic emissions. If it can successfully disrupt communications networks, it also may be able to slow or disrupt troop movements, as many units would remain in place until communications could be reestablished. This could leave units in precarious positions for long periods of time, making them targets for indirect enemy fire or ground assault.
Challenging Mobility
Adversaries will challenge U.S. mobility with surface-to-surface fires, surface-to-air fires, and underground explosives. They understand that logistics and the ability to sustain the fight are the Marine Corps’ great strengths.4 Using a variety of weapon systems, including conventional artillery, rockets, antiaircraft missiles, and mines, they will seek to ground U.S. aircraft and prevent land transport from moving.5 This would severely inhibit U.S. forces’ ability to insert/extract, reinforce, and resupply forces and consequently would cause troop movements to become sluggish. Movements would be short and close to supporting forces. Marines could lose the initiative.
By reducing Marines to stationary masses with little situational awareness and limited means to support themselves, adversaries hope to quickly overwhelm U.S. forces with massed fires and close combat. They have seen the United States’ unwillingness to take significant casualties and its risk aversion in recent campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they hope, after they have mauled this handicapped force, that the United States will come to terms or give them space to pursue their next objectives.
This is the battle Russia wants to fight, but this must not be the battle the United States gives Russia. The Marine Corps can prevail, but only if its vulnerabilities are recognized and addressed.
Overcoming Challenges
How can U.S. forces overcome these challenges? With superior leadership, proficiency in individual and small-unit skills, decentralization of command, dispersion of forces, mastery of camouflage and concealment, increased mobility, and physical and mental toughness. Essentially, the Marine Corps must get back to fundamentals.
Traditional Navigation and Commander’s Intent
Troops must not become complacent and rely solely on GPS for navigation. Marines at all levels and occupations must know how to navigate using traditional methods. This should be as natural to a Marine as cleaning a rifle.6
To be effective when the fog of war is made thicker by enemy actions, leaders at every level will need clear commander’s intent: simple plans and flexible parameters that give them the latitude to execute. On-scene leaders—company commanders, platoon commanders, and squad leaders—must have the authority to act in the situation that confronts them, because they may be on their own. Senior commanders will need to trust their subordinate commanders to accomplish the mission, and subordinate commanders should be proficient and competent enough to earn and maintain that trust.7
Dispersed Forces and Covert Operations
To deny the enemy the rich targets it seeks, Marines must disperse. Large bases will be a thing of the past.8 Effective dispersion has many implications. First, units will have to move independently, which means smaller units. For example, platoons might have to move by squads and link up before an objective. This means junior officers and especially squad leaders will have to be more proficient in their skills and stronger in their leadership abilities. They will need to be able to navigate to a point, fight their way through an enemy contact, take care of their wounded, maintain their equipment, and hold their units together before moving on to the next task. The Marine Corps must continue develop its noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and junior officers, because the mission will require it.
Years of conducting overt operations with the purpose of exhibiting a noticeable presence have eroded Marines’ skills in functioning undetected. Strict noise and light discipline and effective camouflage of personnel, equipment, and positions will mean the difference between life and death. To survive in this environment, Marines must be masters of these arts.
Personal Weapon Proficiency and Improved Mobility
Supporting arms capabilities, namely, artillery and close air support and the ability to integrate them, are some of the Marine Corps’ strengths and adversaries will go to great lengths to limit them.9 If they succeed, Marines will have to rely on the tools at hand: organic weapon systems, fellow Marines, courage, and their wits.
They must be not only proficient in their personal weapons, equipment, and small-unit tactics, but also confident in applying these without supporting arms. Rifles, machine guns, rockets, and hand grenades will be primary instruments. Company-level mortars have a place in this fight, but they will be employed differently. If radio nets are disrupted, Marines will need to know how to fire indirectly, direct alignment, handheld, and bipod-assisted handheld modes. Perhaps there will be a rebirth in the use of field phones and slash wire between the gun line and the observer. In this regard, the future lies in the past.
To operate effectively in this heavily contested and dispersed environment, Marines will have to improve mobility. Forces need greater off-road capabilities on rugged terrain and to be more foot mobile. Marines will have to hand carry their own logistical requirements, which means carrying fewer nonessentials. Radios, batteries, and body armor need to become lighter. But most of all, Marines must be tough.
Toughness and Cross-Training
Physical and mental toughness will be the primary requirements in battle. Marines must be prepared to slog great distances with large loads, endure hardship in an austere setting for long periods, withstand the elements, and withstand the efforts of the enemy. The stoicism and physical toughness of Marines will be the foundation from which they will not only survive, but triumph.
In addition, and vital to succeeding in this type of struggle, the Marines must expect to take casualties.10 They should know how to treat and evacuate the wounded and what to do with the remnants of their units after battle. Every Marine should be trained to know the jobs not only of the Marines beside them, but above them as well. If a machine-gun team is decimated, someone still has to man that weapon. If a platoon commander or platoon sergeant is taken out, someone must step up. This applies especially to non-infantry Marines, because many will find themselves a rifleman. In this type of combat, the infantry will be engaged and take heavy casualties.
Likewise, Marines must expect to replace these losses, as there still will be objectives to be taken and missions to be accomplished. Every Marine needs to be a rifleman, continue to attack, and maintain the initiative. This is wholly consistent with Marine Corps history: at places such as Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Chosin, and Hue City, depleted infantry ranks were filled with cooks, clerks, mechanics, and anyone else who could help accomplish the mission. Marines will accomplish the mission.
The Marines Can Win
The U.S. military’ powerful and advanced status is not guaranteed, as others seek to circumvent its strengths. Assuredly, the U.S. military research-and-development establishment is developing new technology and equipment to stay ahead of its adversaries, but the armed forces cannot rely solely on technology to get troops through the battle. The ranks must innovate. Fortunately, Marines already possess much of the knowledge and skills that will give them the edge in this fight. Leaders need to train and develop Marines to be prepared to meet these challenges.
Russia is developing and refining ways to avoid the Marine Corps’ strengths, counter them, and turn them against U.S. forces. They seek to use U.S. networks and systems as levers to paralyze and subdue Marines and other troops.11 The United States must be prepared to meet this challenge and adapt and overcome in chaotic environments. Marines must test themselves at every opportunity, be disciplined in peace so they act out of reflex in war, and train hard before the day of contact. Because when Russia employs its best efforts to make U.S. forces blind, deaf, and lethargic in battle, Marines must be prepared to make maximum use of their best equipment: themselves.
1. Roger N. McDermott, “Russia’s Armed Forces Undergoing ‘Unparalleled’ Transformation,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, 13 August 2009.
2. Roger N. McDermott, “Russia’s Conventional Armed Forces and the Georgian War,” The U.S. Army War College Quarterly Parameters 39 (Spring 2009): 65–80. Courtney Kube, “Russia Has Figured Out How to Jam U.S. Drones in Syria, Officials Say,” NBC News, 10 April 2018. Paul McLeary, “Russia’s Winning the Electronic War,” Foreign Policy, 21 October 2015.
3. Sydney J. Freedberg, “Maps & Jammers: Army Intensifies Training Vs. Russian-Style Jamming,” Breaking Defense, 18 March 2016.
4. Sebastien Roblin, “The Russian New Warfare Doctrine Has the Army Worried Enough to Make a Manual About It,” The National Interest, 11 February 2018.
5. Jacek Siminski, “Pro-Moscow Militants in Ukraine Are Decimating Kiev’s Air Force,” Business Insider, 2 December 2014. Jack Losh, “Land Mines in Ukraine’s East Put It among World’s Most Dangerous Areas for Civilians,” The Washington Post, 18 November 2017. Joe Gould, “Electronic Warfare: What U.S. Army Can Learn From Ukraine,” Defense News, 2 August 2015.
6. Asymmetric Warfare Group, Russian New Generation Warfare Handbook, 1st ed. (U.S. Army, 2016), 35.
7. Asymmetric Warfare Group, Russian New Generation Warfare Handbook, 37–38.
8. Asymmetric Warfare Group, 40–41.
9. Asymmetric Warfare Group, 48–49.
10. Asymmetric Warfare Group, 49–50.
11. Dave Majumdar, “How Russia’s Edge in Electronic Warfare Could ‘Ground’ the U.S. Air Force,” The National Interest, 26 April 2016.