Expeditionary Forces Are America's Military Crown Jewel by Rear Admiral Terry McKnight - Proceedings
U.S. Navy and Marine Corps forces are in higher demand than ever in the joint warfare fighting environment. Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development & Acquisition James F. Geurts has clearly stated: “Expeditionary Warfare will be key to success in future battles, but in order to ensure overmatch, the U.S. military must increase its ability to quickly adapt to new threats .” No other naval force in the world has the capability U.S. Navy and Marine Corps expeditionary forces employ today. They are key components of the National Defense Strategy.
The current expeditionary force is the nation’s leading contact and blunt-force provider, built with speed, agility and lethality in mind. Recently, the amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD-2) was quick to respond to an urgent combatant commander requirement with an embarked 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) F-35B detachment. The Marine Corps, flying off this forward-deployed expeditionary platform, set a major milestone as the first F-35s to conduct a combat strike mission in Afghanistan.
The San Antonio- class LPD has proven in the last decade it can meet a wide range of geographic combatant commander mission requirements. From serving as a flagship for an expeditionary strike group commander to acting as a forward staging base for special operations forces, this platform has proven critical in every phase of the fleet commander’s mission planning. With the LPD flight II replacing the existing Whidbey Island- class and Harpers Ferry- class ships, an amphibious ready group with an embarked Marine air ground task force (MAGTF) will be even more maneuverable, flexible, survivable, and lethal in a future battlespace.
Naval expeditionary forces are the major power in littoral operations. No matter the mission or crisis operation—from humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to full combat power projection—expeditionary forces provide the complete force package in any scalable operation…