4. Remain a Resilient Force. Casualties are inevitable in war. Marine combat units, such as infantry battalions, cannon artillery and rocket batteries, and helicopter and fixed-wing squadrons, must be of sufficient size with sufficient manning and equipment to continue functioning after taking casualties.

5. Retain Our Offensive Orientation. Maneuver warfare will remain our doctrinal approach to warfighting, whether sea-based or ashore. While continuing to embrace the three main elements of combat power—maneuver, fires (lethal and nonlethal), and information—we will continue to focus on maneuver, enabled by combined fires and information, as the dominant regime on the battlefield. Marine forces will continue to be defined as balanced air-ground-logistics task forces with appropriately sized command elements, specializing in combined arms and maneuver warfare to retain the initiative and defeat our adversaries with minimal casualties to ourselves. Our focus is on the “single battle,” an integrated deep, close, and rear fight in which each phase complements and supports the other. A balanced MAGTF must possess the capabilities (especially long-range precision fires) to shape the deep battle and the robust indirect fires needed to win the close and rear fight. Tactical aviation, rockets, and missiles are essential for shaping. Marine infantry, properly supported by fires—especially close air support and cannon artillery fires—and information, are dominant in the close and rear fight. Marine infantry is no less important today than in past wars and is an essential component for conducting decisive operations.

6. Retain a Reservoir (“Toolbox”) of Capabilities. The Marine Corps will continue to task-organize for missions, including everything from Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief to sustained combat against a peer or near-peer competitor. This toolbox must include the full range and depth of maneuver, fires (lethal and nonlethal), information, protection, mobility/counter mobility, and sustainment capabilities that will allow Marine forces to respond immediately and decisively to global security threats. A toolbox that has been emptied or seriously depleted of necessary capabilities is a recipe for disaster.

7. High State of Readiness. Our units and our Marines must remain ready to immediately deploy anywhere and at any time, fight any foe, and win. We are and will remain the Nation’s 9-1-1 force, its premier expeditionary force-in-readiness.

8. Youthful Force. The strength of the Marine Corps is the individual Marine. We are a force of young men and women, predominantly first-term enlistees. A young force is not only more flexible but also best suited for the expeditionary nature of the Marine Corps. Our Marines must remain ready for adventure, eager for overseas deployments, and willing to march to the sounds of the guns.

9. Shared Ethos. Marines are not defined solely by their weapons and equipment, but more broadly by their history, culture, traditions, and warrior ethos. These are the intangibles that make us different. They are the underpinnings of our combat readiness. We will not lessen our standards to accommodate those who may simply be looking for a job. We must retain our ethos of selfless service to the Nation, where every enlisted Marine is a rifleman, and every officer is a rifle platoon commander. This is who we are.

Combat Developments

To remain ready, relevant, and capable of responding to global crises and contingencies, we must continue to adapt to new and unforeseen challenges and threats. To guide our combat developments, we will:

1. Continue to embrace a Concepts Based Approach to Requirements Determination. We will leverage the Marine Corps Combat Development Process to develop the necessary doctrine, organizations, training and education, equipment, facilities, and support required to implement our operational concepts. We are confident that a concept-based approach to requirements will identify deficiencies in command and control, ground capabilities (armor, fires, mobility, and counter-mobility), air capabilities (fixed and rotary wing and unmanned aerial vehicles), and combat service support/sustainment. This approach will identify capabilities needed today and in the future.    

2. Focus on Needed Capabilities. The evolving role of long-range precision munitions and unmanned systems, loitering munitions, discriminating munitions, cyber operations, security, spectrum denial, miniaturization/nanotechnology, remote/autonomous operations, and biomimicry will necessarily change approaches to mobility, intelligence, command and control, fires, aviation, and information operations. Our near-term focus will be on the development and rapid fielding of anti-unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and anti-loitering weapons defenses; point and mobile defense against precision-guided munitions (PGM); improved electronic warfare (EW) systems; and electronic and physical decoy systems. Many of these capabilities are already under development. Examples include expeditionary long-range precision rockets and missiles and more effective short-range air and missile defense systems, which are required now and in the future. Other examples include long-range unmanned systems with Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and EW; enhanced reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance systems; and more capable radars and communications systems, which are necessary to enhance integration into joint and combined networks.

3. New Concepts and Capabilities. We may need to revise some current operating concepts and capitalize on new technologies with military applications as necessary to remain ready, relevant, and capable. But before discarding existing concepts or adopting new concepts and technologies, we will fully validate them through open and unbiased wargaming, experimentation, evaluation, and lessons learned, in which the total force participates and provides feedback. Buy-in from all stakeholders is essential.

4. In the future, we will avoid unwise reductions in the force structure and equipment required to fight and win battles to self-fund new organizations and capabilities, as this approach entails unacceptable and unnecessary risks to national security. We must retain required capabilities until replacement capabilities are operationally tested, evaluated, and fielded. Finally, we will seek additional funding for new capabilities from Congress. National security demands no less.

5. Training and Education. The individual Marine, imbued with our core values and warfighting ethos, remains our most important warfighting asset. We will continue to prepare our Marines for the rigors of combat in our time-tested manner and through new and innovative approaches to training and education, some of which will:

Capitalize on immersive and augmented reality training to maximize and expand training opportunities. For example, twenty-first-century Louisiana-style Maneuvers would not be restricted by military reservation or training area boundaries.

Maximize remote and distance learning/training opportunities.

Provide a centralized, world Class Opposing Force (OPFOR) trained in adversary tactics, available to remotely support training from the battalion to the MEF level.

Develop small unit leaders able to operate in the fog and friction of war, make sound decisions, employ combined arms, and, if required, operate in a decentralized and austere environment.

Rapidly cultivate and expand digitized Professional Military Education (PME) libraries, oral histories, and lessons learned—accessible worldwide and searchable.

Conclusion

Unlike Force Design 2030, Vision 2035 is a roadmap for a better way forward. It provides the conceptual foundation for the development of supporting concepts and the identification and fielding of specific capabilities the Marine Corps requires to meet its Title X and Goldwater-Nichols responsibilities, congressional intent, and the global challenges of the twenty-first century. It restores infantry and combined arms as the central components of Marine Corps operations. It ensures the Marine Corps remains ready, relevant, and capable of responding to the crises and contingency requirements of all combatant commanders, not just some.

Good concepts—those that are inclusively vetted, objectively war-gamed, and fairly tested—are the sure catalysts for combat developments. Thirty years ago, the Marine Corps adopted a forward-looking vision, Operational Maneuver from the Sea (OMFTS), that soon identified, among other far-reaching capabilities, the requirements for tilt-rotor aircraft, over-the-horizon assault landing craft, and long-range precision fires. It was also the stimulant for our doctrine of Maneuver Warfare.

Vision 2035 is no less forward-looking than OMFTS was in its time. Vision 2035 is not a look backward. It will provide the Marine Corps Combat Development Process the grist necessary to identify and develop the capabilities—organizations and force structure, equipment, doctrine, logistics, and sustainment—needed to restore maneuver and respond quickly and effectively to worldwide crises and contingencies. Vision 2035 will ensure the Marine Corps remains the Nation’s 9-1-1 force.

General Charles Krulak USMC (Ret) is a career infantry officer. His last assignment was as Commandant of the Marine Corps.

General Anthony Zinni USMC (Ret) is a career infantry officer. His last assignment was as Commander, United States Central Command.

Image: Flickr/U.S. Navy.