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Marines have fought many of the Nation’s most difficult battles
over nearly two-and-a-half centuries and reflected on those experiences
afterward. Marines have also been astute students of classical military
theorists such as Carl von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and Julian Corbett, as well as
of modern masters like Col. John Boyd. They have synthesized this experience
and study into their own unique doctrine. Marines have also led the way with
innovative concepts in amphibious warfare, vertical lift, and counterinsurgency
operations, often employing cutting edge technologies such as amphibious
fighting vehicles, helicopters, radar-controlled bombing, vertical takeoff and
landing aircraft, and remotely piloted vehicles.
It is fitting at a time when the Marine Corps is considering major
institutional changes to pause and—drawing upon all that we have
experienced and understand—codify our beliefs about war and warfare. This
declaration is one attempt to assert what we as Marines believe to be true
about war and warfare. We argue that these fundamental beliefs should guide all
aspects of operations and force development, especially doctrine development.
Our goal is to energize a conversation about the core beliefs that animate the
Marine Corps. We encourage feedback.
War is a violent clash of interests between or among political groups
characterized by the use of military or paramilitary force. Its essence is a
contest between hostile, independent wills, each trying to impose itself on the
other and/or upon a common, contested population through violence and other
means. This essential nature of war is immutable, but the forms and character
it may take are varied and continuously evolving.
Universal attributes of war are danger, friction, uncertainty,
unpredictability, and disorder. No amount of planning or preparation can
eliminate or control these attributes. The requirement is to be able to operate
effectively despite—or even to exploit—these conditions. Human
factors are paramount in war. War is arguably the greatest physical,
psychological, and intellectual trial known to humankind. The enemy will do
everything in its power to be inscrutable, unpredictable, and disruptive of
your plans.
War being a clash between or among independent wills, it is important never to
forget that the enemy always gets a say in how things turn out. Flexibility and
adaptability are vitally important. As Sun Tzu said: “Know the enemy and
know yourself, and you will never be in peril.” The greatest teacher in
war is the enemy.
Learn from the enemy. Focus on the enemy rather than on procedures and
processes. War is an instrument of policy, initiated, guided, and constrained
by policy. All war is political, politics being the process of distributing and
exercising power in pursuit of interests. The original motive for war will
always be political, but war is also a process of human and social interaction,
driven by cultural, economic, ethnic, emotional, and psychological factors.
Warfare is the conduct of military action in war. Warfare involves the
application of art, science, and will. War requires the conduct of several
distinct activities: policy, strategy, operations, tactics, techniques, and
procedures. These generally nest hierarchically, although they cannot properly
be assigned to any particular echelons of command. Practitioners should engage
in discourse up and down this hierarchy to ensure mutual reinforcement among
the activities.
There are two basic strategies for applying military force in war: strategy of
incapacitation, which aims to render the enemy unable to resist by negating his
military capability, and strategy of erosion, which aims to erode the
enemy’s will to resist. (Traditionally called
strategy of annihilation and strategy of attrition.)
Warfare’s many forms fall into two broad categories: regular warfare
between generally similar forces endeavoring to obtain and exploit positions of
advantage in relation to each other and irregular warfare fought through the
people and for the support of the people. Most actual warfare will combine both
forms. All military operations, but especially offensive ones, will deplete
resources, which if not replenished will cause units eventually to reach a
culminating point where they must pause for rest or replenishment.
It is critical in war to seize, maintain, and exploit the initiative. All
warfare involves the interplay between initiative and response. Taking the
initiative allows you to dictate the terms of conflict, pursue a positive aim,
and impose your will upon the enemy. If the enemy seizes the initiative, you
must respond. The response has the aim of negating the enemy’s positive
aims and ultimately of seizing the initiative yourself. It is likewise critical
to create advantage. Any such advantage should then be ruthlessly exploited to
create even greater advantage for further exploitation—ideally creating a
cascading chain of deteriorating conditions for the enemy.
Where possible, it is better to defeat an enemy through systemic disruption
than cumulative attrition—historically the two basic defeat
mechanisms—because disruption can achieve disproportionately greater
results for the resources expended. Disruption works by degrading an
enemy’s ability to function as a coherent whole, even if individual
elements of the enemy remain undefeated.
Attrition works through the cumulative wearing down of enemy combat power or
will. The two can be nested; for example, attrition of one key enemy element
can trigger disruption in the broader whole. The effectiveness of disruption
depends significantly on the vulnerability of the enemy to being disrupted.
Deciding where, when and how to attack an enemy requires the combined
consideration of vulnerability and criticality. Some elements of the enemy
system are more vulnerable than others, and attack against those elements would
tend to make more and immediate progress. Some elements of the enemy system are
more critical to the enemy than others, and successful attack against those
would tend to yield greater ultimate results, although they tend to be better
protected.
The idea is to reconcile this tension by focusing efforts where and when they
will be successful but also where they will have the greatest and longest
lasting ultimate effects, employing strict economy elsewhere. In practice, this
generally means avoiding surfaces and exploiting gaps, applying strength
against weakness, and reinforcing success, not failure.
Combat power traditionally has been applied against the enemy through a
combination of fire and maneuver. Today, the employment of messaging to
influence perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of external audiences
is increasingly important, sometimes equally or even more important than fire
and maneuver. (Messaging refers not to situational information or intelligence
used to build situational awareness or to internal communications to direct and
coordinate friendly action, but rather to information transmitted externally to
influence an enemy or other foreign audience through information products or
actions.)
Every action sends a message, whether intended or not. What matters is the
message received by others and not the message you might have intended to send.
Different audiences will interpret the same message differently. Be sensitive
to that and act accordingly. Military operations are becoming increasingly
transparent because of pervasive media and individual access to information
and, as a result, will be increasingly scrutinized and criticized.
Consequently, incidents that in the past would have been insignificant will
have outsized impact today. As a result, the requirement for discipline in all
activities and for discrimination in applying combat power is greater than ever
before.
Modern warfare takes place in several domains simultaneously—land, sea,
air, space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum. Actions in any domain
affect conditions not only in that domain but in the other domains as
well—and often more significantly in those other domains. Ultimately, such
cross-domain actions must affect conditions on the land, where peoples and
governments reside and where the final resolution must be sought. The portions
of domains in which operations are expected to occur is the battlespace. Within
the battlespace, it is essential to employ the elements of combat
power—fire, maneuver, and messaging—as combined arms in and across
domains without regard to artificial boundaries.
Speed, boldness and surprise are force multipliers. With respect to speed, the
aim is to generate a higher tempo of operations than the enemy can match.
Boldness unhesitatingly exploits opportunities to achieve major results rather
than marginal ones. Surprise, achieved through stealth, ambiguity or deception,
is a state of disorientation resulting from an unexpected action that degrades
the enemy’s ability to react.
It is important to have a plan but equally important to be ready to improvise
and adapt to unfolding events. The greatest value of planning is the learning
that takes place and the shared understanding it builds. The plan is not an
inviolable script to be followed but a common point of departure for
adaptation.
Mission command, a style of command based on assigning a subordinate a mission
but refraining from directing how to accomplish it, is the defining feature of
maneuver warfare. Mission command, also known as mission tactics, is based on
decentralization. It is a principle to devolve authority to act to the lowest
possible level capable of effectively exercising that authority. Mission
command demands trust between seniors and subordinates. Seniors must trust
their subordinates, but subordinates must earn that trust. Without this trust,
mission command will fail. By decreasing the requirement for explicit
communication up and down the chain of command, mission command helps generate
tempo, increases adaptability, encourages creativity, and distributes the
responsibility for dealing with uncertainty and friction throughout the force
rather than centralizing it in one place. Mission command stems from the
mission statement, normally paragraph two in an operation plan or order. That
mission statement contains one or more tasks with associated purposes or
intents. Of the two, the intent that provides the reason or the why behind each
task takes precedence. The intent for a unit is established by the commander
assigning that unit’s mission—usually the next higher commander. The
purpose of providing intent is to allow subordinates to exercise judgment and
initiative—to depart from the original plan when the unforeseen
occurs—in a way that is consistent with higher aims. It is important to
understand the intent of commanders at least two levels up.
Leaders are responsible for accomplishing the mission while maintaining
established standards of conduct and behavior within their purview. This
requires interpreting orders and, on occasion, may even necessitate disobeying
orders. “Following orders” is no justification for doing the wrong
thing.
Maneuver warfare relies on the exercise of judgment more than the application
of procedure. While techniques and procedures are important, it is more
important to focus outwardly on the enemy than inwardly on your own processes.
Any activity that is not part of the conduct of war is justifiable only as part
of the preparation for war.
Militaries historically have been strikingly unsuccessful in predicting the
charcteristics of the next war. Especially for the Nation’s
force-in-readiness, it is generally better therefore to prepare for a range of
possibilities and to be able to adapt quickly once conflict arrives. The mind
is a leader’s primary weapon; professional military education and
experience provide the “ammunition.” The profession of arms requires
a keen intellect and a life-long commitment to study and learning. Because
decentralization requires that subordinates be willing to act on their own
initiative rather than waiting for orders, commanders must promote, develop,
and demand a sense of initiative among their subordinates.
Commanders should instill a bias for action among their subordinates, judging
mistakes of initiative lightly but mistakes of inaction more harshly. To
capture the dynamic of independent, opposing wills that is the essence of war,
it is important to ensure that exercises and wargames are free-play and
force-on-force. There should be a thinking and adaptive “enemy” in
every instance. Despite advancements in weaponry and other technologies, most
recently in robotics and autonomous systems, war is still waged by humans.
Technology intelligently developed, fielded, and employed can provide a
potentially important advantage, but there can be a tendency to over-rely on
that technology. The most advanced technology is not necessarily the most
useful on the battlefield. In some situations, greater numbers of less-capable
systems may be more advantageous than small numbers of “exquisite”
systems. Frank and open dialogue among all Marines is essential, regardless of
rank.
“Every Marine a rifleman” is more than a mere saying. It is an
assertion of self-identity that every Marine, regardless of MOS or duty
assignment, is a warrior first. Fighting spirit is reflected in an open
willingness—even a desire—to join in combat and a dedicated pursuit
of combat prowess, especially mastery in the use of weapons, as the highest
soldierly virtue.
Marine Corps culture embraces the spartan qualities of toughness, discipline,
austerity, and the willingness to endure—even to embrace—extreme
hardship. Marine Corps culture values the unit over self, to the point that the
fear of letting comrades down in combat is greater than the fear of death. The
core values of honor, courage, and commitment—first learned by all Marines
during recruit training and Officer Candidates School—reflect this
culture. Honor is living life with integrity, responsibility, honesty, and
respect. Courage is the mental, moral, and physical strength to do what is
right and necessary in the face of fear. Commitment is unwavering, selfless
dedication to mission accomplishment and personal and professional
responsibilities.
Marine Corps culture includes a deep and conscious awareness of the history of
the Corps, including its customs and traditions, and the determination to live
up to that heritage at all costs. That awareness is carefully instilled in all
Marines, starting again at recruit training and Officer Candidates School. It
is every Marine’s duty to maintain and reinforce that heritage, including
calling out fellow Marines who fail to live up to its standards.
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