By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
The US Navy is continuing to fast-track efforts to further establish “sea-basing” for forward operating forces, something which makes great sense given the service’s increasing Pacific presence and ongoing deterrence mission in the region.
This “sea-basing” priority has been rapidly gaining momentum for the Corps in the last decade or two, and it likely explains the service’s addition of new Ship-to-Shore connector landing craft, a Light Amphibious Warship, Expeditionary Fast Transport vessels and Expeditionary Sea Bases. The Navy, for example, has just commissioned another new Expeditionary Sea Base vessel called the USS John Canley, or ESB 6, a Navy essay states.
For more than a decade, the Corps has been both returning to its Maritime roots following years of ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while also modernizing intensely to adapt to a new threat environment. Corps leadership certainly seems to recognize the changing great-power rivalry landscape and implemented a series of adaptations in recent years, to include the formation of “littoral” units for the Pacific, increased multi-domain synergies, acquisition and deployment of lighter, faster and more expeditionary lethal weapons systems and an explosive increase in air,ground and undersea unmanned systems.
Much of the Marine Corps pivot pertains to specific threats in the Pacific, as the service has made a number of key adjustments in recent years to prepare for more of a “multi-domain,” “Island-hopping” kind of conflict scenario in the South China Sea and areas near Taiwan and the Philippines. These efforts have been quite massive, as the Corps is now building a Light Amphibious Warship for this kind of threat scenario, a ship intended to address a capability gap when it comes to littoral, fast-moving multi-domain maritime warfare operations. The Corps has also established particular “littoral” units armed with fast-transport, yet highly lethal weapons, unmanned systems and platforms supporting an ability for rapid land-sea maneuver warfare. This includes a number of weapons adjustments to include the exploration of a “land-launched” Naval Strike Missile, a Raytheon-Kongsberg ship-fired over-the-horizon weapon intended to bring new dimensions of firepower to the Corps. The maritime warfare concept is to improve, refine and modernize amphibious warfare operations to include more speed, transport craft, drones, lightweight anti-armor weapons capable of both seizing island and coastal areas and establishing a forward combat presence on critical land areas.
Many of these developments pertain to what the Corps outlined in its Marine Corps Force Design 2030 text a few years ago, a document which delineates an envisioned path forward for the Corps as it prepares for a potential great power engagement in the Pacific with China. As part of this, the text of the document calls for the establishment of a highly lethal, multi-domain “stand-in” force capable of high-speed air-ground-sea warfare, as described in the Marine Corps 2030 text.
All of these circumstances are likely a large reason why the Corps has, in recent years, been massively increasing its “sea-basing” expeditionary approach to maritime and amphibious warfare. Not surprisingly, this is particularly critical in the Pacific given that potential land-bases throughout the region are separated by what many call the “tyranny of distance.” Certainly Guam, areas of Japan, Korea and Philippines to a growing extent, offer some critical opportunities for basing and staging combat formations, particularly if fortified by refueling capability. However, while Southern Japan and the Philippines are, in some instances, merely a few hundred miles from Taiwan, there is little substitute for the range, reach and lethality afforded by ESB “sea basing” platforms. Range and response possibilities are of course critical to any fast-emerging warfare engagement, and having reconnaissance helicopters, attack weapons, surveillance and command and control and smaller “rigid” hull inflatable boats for Special Operations all within rapid reach of high-risk conflict areas near Taiwan or the South China Sea, provides an invaluable forward response presence.
The USS John Canley, or ESB 6, can introduce new mission possibilities to include forward-operating command and control, strike possibilities and force maneuvers all within close proximity and striking range to high-value and high-threat areas where Marines will need to operate and fight.
“ESB 6 will allow our servicemen and women to carry out a wide variety of missions, including mine counter measures, counter piracy operations, maritime security operations, humanitarian aid, disaster relief missions, special operations, and Marine Corps crisis response,” Mr. David Carver, President of General Dynamics NASSCO, said in a statement. “The ship is designed to support nearly every rotary wing aircraft in the DoD inventory……as well as allied aircraft, all while serving off the fleet’s third largest flight deck.”
