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'Effective concentration can only be obtained when the opposing forces are dispersed; and, usually, in order to ensure this, one's own forces must be widely distributed. Thus, by an outward paradox, true concentration is the product of dispersion. '
-B.H. Liddell Hart, Strategy
In his Commandant 's Guidance, Gen Michael W. Hagee challenged all of us to maintain and extend the Marine Corps' traditional excellence in warfighting. While leveraging our institutional strengths to assist in fighting the global war on terrorism, the Commandant urged us "to carefully preserve the strengths of our past while not losing the flexibility to contribute to tomorrow's unique national security needs."l Building upon our heritage and core competencies, our Corps has historically anticipated the need to adapt to the ever-changing face of battle. It is once again time to reexamine the challenges of a new century and their implications for how we are trained, organized, and equipped.
The purpose of this article is to lay out a new approach called distributed operations. The concept is introduced in its current form to promote discussion and begin the discovery phase of adapting to better contribute to the evolving needs of our Nation in the 21st century.
Distributed operations is an additional capability that is applicable across the full range of military operations. The concept responds to changes in the current and projected security environment and builds upon the vision set forth in Operational Maneuver From the Sea (OMFTS). It describes how adaptive Marine maneuver forces provide an enhanced, immediate response capability required by the combatant commanders today. This capability gives joint commanders an improved ability to gather persistent and actionable intelligence and conduct battlespace shaping and precision targeting missions. The associated training, techniques, and equipment sets provide naval forces with the ability to rapidly create and exploit enemy vulnerabilities across the range of military operations. The additional capability that future Marine air-ground task forces (MAGTFs) will bring to the joint fight complements and extends those expeditionary competencies currently available to the Nation.
Security Environment
OMFTS highlighted the necessity of preparing for "chaos in the littorals." The combination of the inherent complexity of the littorals and future adaptive adversaries generates new operational challenges for forward deployed expeditionary forces. Future conflicts caused by unrest,...