The Marine Corps' Urbanized Amphibious Future Domain
By Midshipman Second Class Charles J. Anspach
February 2021
Proceedings
Vol. 147/2/1,416
Now Hear This
As of around 1998, the majority of politically significant urban areas—upwards of 75 percent—outside allied and ex-Warsaw Pact states are within 150 miles of a coastline; 60 percent are within 12 miles. Given the Marine Corps’ role as an expeditionary, and amphibious, force in readiness, it is clear that many future urban battlefields will be within its domain, whether it be for peacekeeping, humanitarian support, or outright combat. While the Corps does have an urban warfighing doctrinal guide (the aging MCWP 3-35.3: Military Operations in Urban Terrain [MOUT]), a few urban warfare training centers, and ongoing research (Project Metropolis II), the current focus of Corps’ leaders is a shift back toward the service’s amphibious roots. This shift likely is largely to counter China’s growing aggression in the Pacific region, in which there is highly urbanized terrain. Thus, it is necessary for the Marine Corps to simultaneously prepare for future urban operations while also returning to its amphibious role.
Marine Corps Urban Warfare
In 1999, following observation of the chaotic Russian operations in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, Marine Corps General Charles Krulak created the concepts of the “three-block war†and the “strategic corporal.†The three-block war has three elements: humanitarian aid, peacekeeping, and mid-intensity conflict (high-intensity conflict would make humanitarian aid impossible and peacekeeping irrelevant). In essence, General Krulak imagined an urban environment in which a Marine may, in one block, have to deal with displaced persons; in another block, carry out crowd control; and in a third block, return fire on a hostile combatant. The second concept—the strategic corporal—simply states that a junior noncommissioned officer must be aware of what his actions mean on a strategic level, as it may have strategic-level impacts (negative or positive), especially in the contemporary information age. More concrete Marine Corps tactical and operational concepts are outlined in MOUT, which provides an outline of how to conduct operations in dense urban areas. However, the publication is more than two decades old and, as such, Marine Corps Warfighting Lab (MCWL) is researching necessary options to prepare Marines for the rigors of modern-day urban and subterranean operations.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2021/february/marine-corps-urbanized-amphibious-future-domain
