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The Marines Played A Critical Role

The horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., ushered in a new era in American history, national security, and world geopolitics. Within hours of these devastating assaults by a mere twenty-one Muslim terrorists, President George W. Bush had declared the United States to be at war against terrorism worldwide. That war, of course, continues.

Since those attacks, American military and intelligence services have worked at a feverish pace to improve intelligence gathering and make U.S. forces lighter, more flexible, and more effective at fighting and winning "asymmetrical wars" against small widely scattered groups of unconventional warriors. The most prominent group - enemy number one - is Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda. That group and a host of others like it possess no end of resolve and a voluminous supply of recruits ready to go to war against the United States and, indeed, all Western institutions. No small number of these terrorists are prepared to die for their cause without hesitation. They are a formidable enemy.

The Marine Corps has a long and admirable tradition of anticipating emerging threats on the horizon and adapting to them effectively. This capacity goes far in explaining the Corps' remarkable institutional success in the twentieth century. The Marines continue to stay ahead of the curve. General Al Gray, commandant of the Corps in the late 1980s and early 1990s, didn't have Bin Laden in mind when he introduced maneuver-warfare doctrine to the Marines in 1989, but the mind-set and approach to war behind that doctrine are clearly conducive to combating terrorism. As we have seen, the Marines' current doctrine places extraordinary emphasis on outthinking the enemy, on keeping him off balance by striking at his weakest points and "playing with his head." Its emphasis on decentralized decision making and bold action, too, seems appropriate for taking on modern terrorist groups. The creation of "special operations capable" Marine expeditionary units - another Gray innovation - as well as a strong emphasis on urban combat training, and preparing Marines to fight the threeblock war that General Chuck Krulak has championed, also promise to put the Marines in good stead for confronting modern terror.

The first battle of the new war unfolded in Afghanistan in Operation Enduring Freedom. The ultra-fundamentalist Taliban regime there was very friendly to Al Qaeda. Bin Laden's major training bases, and the Taliban regime as a whole, were the targets. That war was conducted largely by U.S. Army Special Forces, who trained and led indigenous forces who were already deeply hostile to the Taliban, and it was largely successful in breaking the back of both Al Qaeda and the Taliban in that country.

The Marines played a critical role in the early days of the war, and Marine infantry and an unknown number of Marine Force Reconnaissance personnel remain in Afghanistan. In November 2001, it was Marine Task Force 58, a force drawn from two amphibious ready groups sailing in the North Arabian Sea off the coast of Pakistan, that established the first air bases from which American forces would prosecute the war.

Task Force 58, under the command of Brigadier General James N. Mattis, who would later lead the entire 1st Marine Division to war against Iraq, consisted of forces drawn from both the 15th and the 26th MEUs. On November 25, six CH-53 Sea Stallions flew about 150 combat-ready Marines 650 miles from the sea to a deserted airfield fifty-five miles southwest of the city of Kandahar. The helos had been refueled in the air by a KC-130.

Within hours of landing in a remote, mountainous region of Afghanistan, a platoon of the 15th MEU's Force Reconnaisance Marines mounted their fast-attack vehicles - heavily armed, light, and very fast vehicles used by U.S. Special Forces - and set off on a long-range reconnaissance patrol. On December 6, the Force Recon team conducted a successful ambush of a Taliban convoy carrying rocket-propelled grenades and other weaponry intended to be used against U.S. forces. After taking out the lead vehicle in a short firefight, the team called in an air strike on the column of SUVs and trucks, resulting in its complete destruction.

In December 2002, eighty Marines secured the U.S. embassy in Kabul, which had been unoccupied for twelve years. Four days later, three hundred Marines from Camp Rhino secured Kandahar International Airport. The area around the heavily damaged airport was studded with minefields and debris. The Marines set up defensive positions, and over the next several months engaged in firefights with hostile forces attempting to shoot down U.S. aircraft as they took off or landed.

In April 2002, the Pentagon ordered virtually all naval and Marine forces to withdraw from the Afghan theater. Army troops replaced the Marines at Rhino and at Kandahar Airport.

Although the Marines played a secondary role in Afghanistan, their deployment there was not unimportant in terms of the Marine Corps of the future. According to Brigadier General Michael Innis, the director of intelligence at Headquarters Marine Corps, in establishing Camp Rhino 658 miles inland, using forces and aircraft organic to two amphibious ready groups, Task Force 58 in effect "redefined the concept of an amphibious beachhead." The speed and efficiency with which the Marines undertook operations so far from the sea proved that Marine forces could be effectively employed well beyond the range that official doctrine specified, that is, two hundred miles from the sea.

Cutting-edge intelligence and communications technology played a key role in the Marines' operations in Afghanistan. Mattis's troops were geographically isolated, and often widely separated. Nonetheless, they had at their disposal a remarkable range of intelligence assets. Even squad leaders had personal GPS devices for calling in fire support. Video teleconferencing between intelligence units in Afghanistan, Washington, D.C., Quantico, Virginia, and Tampa, Florida, where Central Command is headquartered, proved immensely valuable. General Innis explains:

The intelligence Marines of TF 58 coordinated with Marine intelligence liaison officers at Navy [and Marine] Forces, Central Command [in Tampa, Florida] in order to voice their requirements. . . . Every evening representatives from each of these organizations would meet in a [video telephone conference] to discuss TF 58's current and future intelligence requirements-some of which were due in less than 24 hours. This allowed the requesters and producers of intelligence to meet in a collaborative environment and coordinate face to face. Priorities and deadlines would be established, and organizations would be assigned tasks. Marine Corps Intelligence Activity [in Quantico, Virginia], because of its dedicated team of topographic and imagery analysts working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, received the lion's share of [requests for] studies to support future operations. Studies ordered by TF 58 ... were routinely turned around in less than 18 hours.

The Marines' role in Afghanistan appears to be part of a larger trend: a deemphasis on amphibious operations per se and a movement toward using Marines both in special operations and in support of other special operations forces. The Marines signed an agreernent with Special Operations Command in November 2001 - the first month of the war - that calls for Marines to train under that command for the first time in history. It also stipulates that army Special Forces units will serve with all Marine expeditionary units afloat. That agreement was approved by then commandant James L. Jones, who later told the Washington Post that "for the foreseeable future, there's a requirement for more special operations-like forces. My argument is, if you already have a fair amount of those [in the Marines], don't reinvent the wheel. Use what you already have."'

The Marines' ability to move so far inland so quickly without any special packaging of forces specifically designed for the Afghanistan campaign was truly impressive. The Marines' capability to project power from the sea to the shore to "kick down the door" had been dramatically extended. A thoughtful analyst in the Naval Institute Proceedings was surely right:

Operational and geographic realities in the Afghan theater of war have shown the value of naval platforms in the new geopolitical environment. The USS Kitty Hawk [an aircraft carrier] and two amphibious ready groups with embarked Marines provided platforms for various missions ashore while denying the enemy an opportunity to strike back. In a world where missiles are proliferating and asymmetric tactics are most likely, such platforms will become increasingly valuable.

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