Defining The Event Horizon: The Marine Corps And The Dialectic Of Maneuver Warfare And Airland Battle CSC 1992 SUBJECT AREA Warfighting EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Title: Defining the Event Horizon: The Marine Corps and the Dialectic of Maneuver Warfare and AirLand Battle Author: Major Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr., United States Marine Corps Thesis: In the Marine Corps, two differing yet complementary expressions of the same vision of combat have slowly merged through a dialectic to create a synthesis, based on maneuver warfare, but employing the analytical precision of AirLand Battle concepts. Background: The Marine Corps rejected firepower-attrition as its doctrinal model in the early eighties. Under the broad rubric of maneuver warfare, Marines wrestled with the concepts of fire, maneuver, the Boyd Cycle, and mission tactics. Despite its clear advantages, maneuver warfare stayed a broad, amorphous concept, open to local interpretation, and not accepted by all. In the late eighties, even as the principles of maneuver warfare were formally codified by General A. M. Gray as Marine Corps doctrine, there was a growing awareness that a formal structure was needed to lend precision to Marine Corps warfighting. The answer was AirLand Battle, the highly structured and analytically precise body of ideas that implemented maneuver warfare thinking in the U.S. Army in the decade of the eighties. By 1992, the Marine Corps had adopted most of the architectural and conceptual principles of AirLand Battle doctrine. It was a remarkable Hegelian synthesis that produced a more sophisticated maneuver warfare model, blending the broadness and versatility of maneuver thinking with the precision and meticulousness of AirLand Battle. Defining the Event Horizon: The Marine Corps and the Dialectic of Maneuver Warfare and AirLand Battle Outline Thesis: In the Marine Corps, two differing yet complementary expressions of the same vision of combat have slowly merged through a dialectic to create a synthesis, based on maneuver warfare, but employing the analytical precision of AirLand Battle concepts. I. The importance of doctrine A. The definition of doctrine B. What doctrine does C. The concept of the event horizon II. The changing face of Marine Corps combat doctrine A. The rejection of firepower-attrition B. The dawn of maneuver warfare III. The firepower-attrition model A. Background B. Arguments about the superiority of fire C. Influences on the Marine Corps IV. Criticisms of firepower-attrition, and the search for alternatives A. The three areas of criticism 1. Intelligence 2. Communications 3. Ability to concentrate B. Major philosophical criticism: did not provide a formula for victory V. The Army and AirLand Battle A. The nature of AirLand Battle B. Selling AirLand Battle to the Army VI. The Marine Corps and maneuver warfare A. Perceived need for broadness of doctrine B. Rejection of the precision of AirLand Battle C. Importance of W.S. Lind and MajGen A. M. Gray 1. 1980 Lind article 2. "Gray Years" in the 2nd Marine Division D. Criticisms of maneuver warfare E. General Gray and maneuver warfare triumphant F. Recognition that more structure was needed VII. The forge of the future: the dialectic of maneuver warfare and AirLand Battle A. The Hegelian dialectic B. The requirement for a detailed architecture of maneuver warfare C. The importance of FMFM-2, MEF Doctrine 1. Battlefield geometry 2. Battlefield operating systems D. Re-assertion of the importance of the MAGTF headquarters E. The challenge of the future The Importance of Doctrine And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment . . . lose the name of action. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, III, i., 56 Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow. T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men, V Military doctrine is the systematic attempt to translate resolution into directed, coherent action. Since the chaotic environment of battle is both volatile and unforgiving, in practical terms it is the design and use of structure to minimize friction and gain advantage. This search for advantage produces military doctrine. Stated more prosaically in Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Publication 1-02, doctrine becomes "Fundamental principles by which military forces. . .guide their actions. It is authoritative but requires judgement in application."1 A military organization's doctrine "is what is taught as right behavior. . . In its stringent sense, doctrine is mandatory behavior; it must be obeyed."2 Doctrine is the intellectual benchmark by which military cultures are evaluated, the formal codification of ". . . the collection of ideas, beliefs, prejudices, and perceptions which constitute and determine the relationship between. . .constituent parts."3 A military culture is much more than doctrine, however. It is the aggregate collection of both formal and informal ways of doing things, passed down from generation to generation. It is manifested in promotion policies, social mores, and, in effect, the "world view" of the institution. Doctrine serves as the voice of military culture, its highest expression. It attempts to smooth the path from idea to action. Doctrine defines the event horizon, conceptually that location in time and space where a force interacts with the enemy's will.4 It is the task of doctrine to extend the event horizon as far away as possible from the commander. An extended event horizon gives the commander more time to plan and execute; it protects his decision- making cycle, while chipping away at the enemy's. The distance to the event horizon is not measured in conventional units of distance, but instead is expressed as a result of tempo. The changing face of Marine Corps combat doctrine The United States Marine Corps fundamentally changed its combat doctrine over the past 12 years, by adopting maneuver warfare as its principle style of combat. The change has been little less than revolutionary in breadth and scope. The adoption of maneuver warfare reflected an epochal shift in military culture, from the attrition-based firepower model the Corps used in the early seventies, to the maneuver model developed concurrently by the U.S. Army and known as AirLand Battle (ALB). Unlike the Army, the Marine Corps did not take maneuver thinking to the next stage: distillation into a detailed, integrated blueprint of the battlefield. In the Marine Corps, maneuver warfare thinking remained amorphous, open to local interpretation, defying precision. In the Marine Corps two differing yet complementary expressions of the same vision of combat have slowly merged through a dialectic to create a synthesis, based on maneuver warfare, but employing the analytical precision of AirLand Battle concepts. This dialectic progression has not been without tension, and to understand the result, which will be the shape of Marine Corps doctrine into the next century, it is necessary to comprehend the nature of this dynamic friction. By examining the bankruptcy of firepower-attrition, and the maneuver-based responses to it, it is possible to understand how current doctrine evolved. Such a historical reference clearly points out the dialectic tension between the philosophies of maneuver warfare and the mechanical interpretations of ALB, and how they have slowly yet ineluctably converged in the Marine Corps. Today, the two have merged under the aegis of Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) doctrine, which is a Hegelian synthesis of the best points of both. The firepower-attrition model Fire has become the decisive argument. Ferdinand Foch, Principles of War Army and Marine Corps thinking reflected an attrition based outlook on war in the early seventies, exhibiting the effects of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, which had showcased a lethal, high intensity battlefield. Dramatic improvements in weapons technology seemed to offer vast increases in firepower. There were three dominant characteristics of this doctrine, all articulated in the 1976 edition of FM 100-5, Operations. The first characteristic was an obsession with creating a favorable "rate of exchange" in battle, by developing and applying overwhelming combat power at the decisive place and time. The efficacious application of firepower was the supreme goal of combat. To attain this, a significant material and technological edge was critical. The focus of operations was the combat potential of enemy fighting units; success was measured in terms of enemy units attrited or destroyed. Such an approach was implicitly quantitative in outlook, and could not accommodate less tangible questions of cohesion, command and control, or other qualitative factors.5 The second characteristic of this view of war was the presumption of the primacy of defense. It was not necessarily the preferred, or decisive form of war, but defense was thought to bring such significant advantages to the battlefield that it dominated all planning. An attacker was required to assemble a huge superiority of men and material to reduce the advantage of the defense. The defender could afford to fight against large odds because of the inherent strength of the defense. The attacker sought to balance the scales by using force multipliers, in the form of combat support systems.6 Last, there was an emphasis on the dangers of movement, rather than on the opportunities that movement relative to the enemy - i.e., manoeuvre - can bring. The relationship between the attritional culture and movement was distinctive: movement was a means by which a more favorable fire position was reached and resources deployed. Centralized control was more important than the possible positive effects of decentralized execution and decision-making. Fear of maneuver was expressed in restrictive control measures, rigid reporting requirements, and an obsession with linear deployment and "dressing right" to obtain continuous fronts. The 1976 edition of FM 100-5 was written to the resounding shocks of the October War, and in summary "apparently concluded that firepower improvements fundamentally affected maneuver on the battlefield."8 Maneuver was important only in how it supported the delivery of decisive firepower against the enemy. The concept of a large reserve was rejected in favor of maximizing all firepower well forward. Concurrently, counterattacks in the defense were de- emphasized, unless "decisively greater enemy losses" were attainable, and the results of the counterattack were "crucial to the outcome of the larger battle."9 Throughout, the advantages of the defense were extolled. The recurring credo was concentration. Mobility was a means to serve the end of concentration, which combined with combat multipliers to produce the superiority of firepower needed to overcome a numerically superior foe. It was a doctrine with its roots in the defense of Western Europe, facing the juggernaut of the Warsaw Pact. It embraced the apparent overwhelming lethality of the new generations of both direct and indirect fire weapons systems appearing on the battlefield. For the Army, it offered a way to apply new technologies efficiently against a powerful and numerous opponent, and it seemed to account for the many new factors complicating the conduct of war. This doctrine became the foundation of FMFM 6-1, The Marine Division, both in its 1974 and 1978 editions, and of FMFM 6-2, The Marine Infantry Regiment. If anything, the doctrine fit the Marine Corps better than the Army. The Marine Division faced significant problems in attempting to maneuver on the battlefield, because its table of organization did not provide adequate organic lift for sustained land combat. One-third of the division could be mechanized, one-third was heliborne capable, and the remaining third could be partially motorized. A doctrine of maneuver was simply beyond the ken of such a force. What the division could do - or so it seemed - was use the inherent advantages of the defense to ameliorate egregious mobility disadvantages. The Marine Corps had always prized the dogged tenacity and esprit of its infantry, and the attrition model seemed to offer a doctrine that showed how an infantry based force could fight and win against tanks and methods cut from the Soviet mold. Firepower, both organic to the division and particularly that supplied by Marine aviation, would be used to defeat mobility. If overcontrol and a certain stifling of tactical creativity were necessary to achieve the requisite concentration and control, it seemed a small price to pay. Irwin Rommel, writing of the British in the Western Desert, described an army that fought from a similar perspective: I wanted to prevent the war from becoming static with a fixed front line. The British troops, both officers and men, have been trained for such a war. The stubbornness of the Tommy bears fruit in such a position where his rigidity works for him.10 Criticisms of firepower-attrition, and the search for alternatives Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born. Matthew Arnold, Stanzas From the Grand Chartreuse By the late seventies, criticism of the firepower-attrition paradigm centered on three areas: intelligence, communications, and the ability to concentrate.11 Marine and Army critics argued that success required flawless intelligence, since fires were to be maximized on identified enemy thrust lines forward in the Main Battle Area (MBA). The concomitant de-emphasis on the reserve, and on maneuver in general, tended to rob the commander of operational flexibility if he guessed wrong. Communications could be a weak link, because it was vital to ensure the lateral coordination necessary to concentrate, fight, disperse, and reconcentrate successively. Communications and the ability to achieve successive concentrations promised to be difficult in the face of a determined foe. Criticisms of the attrition model reached a crescendo, coalescing around what seemed an inescapable fact: the doctrine did not contain within itself a formula for decisive victory. Initiative was largely ceded to the enemy, and combat under this model was an end unto itself. The event horizon was quite close to the commander. There was little flexibility, and tempo was a tool of the attacker, not the defender. Since attrition was the goal, it was difficult to accommodate a combinatorial approach: one that shaped battles to a larger purpose, the decisive defeat of the enemy. Last, and perhaps most significantly, the Soviet model for employment of massed forces in echelon and with great speed seemed able eventually to crumble the defense. The Army and the Marine Corps realized the essential sterility of the attrition-model approach, which had been an over-reaction to the effects of fire relative to maneuver. Both services developed maneuver-based responses, moving away from firepower-attrition. The Army, focused on NATO, oriented their new doctrine squarely on the echeloned Soviet model. The Marine Corps, true to its global outlook and maritime heritage, chose not to focus on a regional threat. The Army and AirLand Battle The instruments of war are valuable only if one knows how to use them. Ardant du Picq, Etudes sur Combat AirLand Battle was born in the late seventies, when the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill conducted an exhaustive series of computer-based Corps level wargames, under the aegis of Fire Support Mission Area Analyses. The results indicated that the attrition model, called the "active defense" in the Army, would not be able to defeat a Soviet-model force. Some alternatives to firepower-attrition were suggested by the gaming process. Analysis of the results showed that if Soviet forces were attacked in depth continually, by fires and aggressive maneuver, it was possible to achieve victory. The key was to prevent the Soviets from using their echeloned reserves to "pile on" the defender at the Forward Edge of the Battle Area (FEBA), while creating "windows" of opportunity for friendly forces to maneuver, fighting and winning the close, or immediate battle.12 These ideas were developed and refined by the Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), under the guidance of TRADOC's brilliant Commanding General, Don A. Starry, who took a personal interest in what he saw as an opportunity to define how the Army would operate throughout the eighties and beyond. TRADOC published Pamphlet 525-5, The AirLand Battle and Corps 86, in March 1981. It set out, in detail, a vision of an offensively oriented extended battlefield, one on which the focus of effort would be the cohesion of the enemy, instead of his combat units. Integrated maneuver and fires would be employed in great depth. TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5 returned operational maneuver to the NATO battlefield. General Starry took to the hustings with a series of articles outlining ALB, the most important of which appeared in the March 1981 issue of Military Review, titled "Extending the Battlefield." Starry reiterated the central focus of ALB - a maneuver-based doctrine shaped on the coping-stone of the eternal NATO problem. The Army proved enthusiastically receptive, perceiving that "AirLand Battle was an offensively oriented doctrine . . . intellectually and analytically convincing."13 The 1982 edition of FM 100-5 Operations embodied the tenets of ALB, and stressed that "maneuver is the dynamic element of combat."14 By May of 1986, when the next edition of FM 100-5 was published, ALB was firmly ensconced at all levels of Army hierarchical doctrinal publications, and formed the basis of Army tactics. The adoption of ALB in the Army was a classic example of a top-down dissemination of doctrine, where the "doctrine writers" (TRADOC) solved the problem and furnished a solution to the operating forces. The Marine Corps and Maneuver Warfare Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth. John Milton, Areopagitica A single fundamental principle colored Marine Corps thinking on maneuver warfare. The global outlook and spectrum of potential adversaries an expeditionary force might be required to face seemed to dictate a certain broadness in the cast of its doctrine. While recognizing the inadequacies of firepower-attrition, and admiring the precision of Starry's cool, elegant logic, Marines fretted because it seemed inextricably linked to the great central battle in Europe. Consequently, they shied away from its meticulousness, equating it with an overly continental mindset. To retain flexibility, a certain diffusiveness and imprecision found its way into Marine doctrine. The Corps was particularly resistant to the architectural structure that accompanied AirLand Battle. The figures of General A.M. Gray and civilian William S. Lind stand squarely astride any study of the birth of maneuver warfare in the Marine Corps. In a March 1980 article in the Marine Corps Gazette, "Defining Maneuver Warfare for the Marine Corps," Lind outlined the basis of maneuver warfare. In castigating the attrition model, he argued for . . . warfare on the model of Genghis Khan, the German Blitzkrieg and almost all Israeli campaigns. The goal is destruction of the enemy's vital cohesion - disruption - not by physical set-piece destruction. The objective is the enemy's mind, not his body. The principal tool is moving forces into unexpected places at surprisingly high speeds. Firepower is a servant of maneuver. . . Maneuver warfare is more psychological than physical.15 Presciently, Lind's 1980 article used as an example a future war in which Marines were employed to assist Saudi Arabian forces in thwarting an Iraqi invasion. Lind's maneuver warfare thinking was based on the "Boyd Theory," the work of Colonel John Boyd, USAF (Ret). The Boyd theory proposed the reiterative cycle of "Observe, Orient, Decide, Act," or the "OODA Loop," as a practical model of military decisionmaking in battle. It followed that the side that could execute its "OODA loop" faster eventually could paralyze enemy decisionmaking (thus the vernacular: "to get inside his OODA loop"). As Lind wrote, The real defeat is the nervous/mental/systemic breakdown caused when he becomes aware that the situation is beyond his control, which is in turn a product of our ability consistently to cut inside the time of his observation-decision-action cycle.16 The publication of this seminal article provoked a virtual explosion of writing and thinking on the subject. Undoubtedly, the concurrent and parallel dissemination of ALB theory in the Army piqued Marine interest in maneuver warfare to even greater heights. In the pages of the Gazette generals and captains argued the utility and merits of maneuver warfare, sometimes with skill, always with energy. 0ne man, however, had the opportunity and the will to test some of its concepts. That man was Major General Al Gray, who assumed command of the 2nd Marine Division in 1981. William S. Lind was a Gray confidant and advisor, so it was inevitable that the 2nd Division would serve as a testbed for Gray and Lind's maneuver warfare concepts. Together they soon transformed the 2nd Division into a virtual autarky of bubbling, evolving doctrine. Major General Gray published a "Battle Book" for subordinate commanders that codified maneuver warfare principles by functional area. He identified four ideas as key: the OODA loop, mission tactics, command, and the point of main effort.17 Within the division, the creation of an atmosphere that nurtured mission tactics, or decentralized execution under the rubric of commander's intent, was his highest priority. To spread these principles, the 2nd Marine Division Maneuver Warfare Board was established, to act as a clearinghouse for ideas on maneuver warfare.18 The board was further tasked to publish a newsletter on maneuver warfare, containing relevant articles and ideas for discussion. Major General Gray wrote as a preface to the first Maneuver Warfare newsletter: Realizing that many of our potential enemies could bring superior numbers of men and good equipment...against us... it would be foolhardy to think about engaging them in firepower-attrition duels. Historically, maneuver warfare has been the means by which smaller but more intelligently led forces have achieved victory. It is, therefore, my intent ion to have us improve upon our understanding of the concepts behind maneuver warfare theory and to train our units in their practical application.19 Subordinate commanders were required to establish and maintain a Maneuver Warfare Reading Folder, and hold in it the maneuver warfare reading packets of the Maneuver Warfare Board, and other supplementary readings that were generated by the Division Chief of Staff.20 Many of these ideas percolated to other Marine formations. The 1st Division established the Junior Officer's Tactical Symposium, roughly comparable to the 2nd Division's Maneuver Warfare Board.21 Throughout the eighties, ideas about maneuver warfare were unevenly applied within the divisions of the Marine Corps, and its concepts were bruited about within the Marine Corps formal schools system. The doctrinal debate became personalized and emotional, and suffered from overidentification with Gray, Lind, and the 2nd Division. The overexuberant, inchoate, and occasionally sloppy arguments advanced by young proponents of maneuver warfare tended to polarize the issue. The spread of maneuver warfare thinking in the Marine Corps followed the rise of its most vocal proponent, General Gray. When he became Commandant in 1987, few doubted that the maneuver revolution was complete. He wasted little time in spreading the gospel, this time from the topdown. The publication of Operational Handbook (OH) 6-1 in January 1988, Ground Combat Operations, explicitly stated that the principles of ALB were consistent with Marine Corps doctrine, and reflected Army thinking on maneuver warfare both in the offense and the defense.22 General Gray's "little white book," FMFM-1, Warfighting, was intended to be the Marine Corps' capstone doctrinal publication, setting forth a broad philosophy of warfighting in the manner of FM 100-5. In it, maneuver warfare was formally adopted as the Corps' method, or style, of fighting, and was given this definition: Maneuver warfare is a warfighting philosophy that seeks to shatter the enemy's cohesion through a series of rapid, violent, and unexpected actions which create a turbulent and rapidly deteriorating situation with which he cannot cope. The subsequent publication of FMFM 1-1 Campaigning, and FMFM 1-3 Tactics, in 1990 and 1991 respectively, completed the doctrinal trilogy of maneuver warfare manuals, and provided the Marine Corps with broad and comprehensive guidance on how to fight. Despite the importance of maneuver warfare theory, it still remained more a philosophy than a doctrine. It was applied unevenly throughout the Marine Corps, since it still remained largely an insurgent interloper in the minds of many senior commanders. The recent stellar performance of I Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) in Southwest Asia notwithstanding, there was ample evidence of overcontrol, overreporting, and overcentralization of command in some organizations: in short, many of the characteristics of firepower-attrition thinking.24 The forge of the future: The dialectic of Maneuver Warfare and AirLand Battle Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, VIII, 22 The Hegelian dialectic recognizes two converging arguments: the thesis and the antithesis. Starting as opposites, they eventually merge to produce a synthesis, something totally new, yet retaining elements of both earlier arguments. Although the arguments of ALB and maneuver warfare did not start as opposites, but rather as different perspectives of a common problem, the Hegelian dialectic is an effective way to chart the present and future relationships between maneuver warfare and ALB. In the early eighties, the Army and the Marine Corps adopted doctrines of maneuver to fight on battlefields where the supremacy of pure fire seemed inadequate. The Army's response was translated into detailed top-down guidance that shaped procurement of combat systems, tactics, and organization. For various reasons, some political, some operational, the Marine Corps did not sculpt maneuver warfare into a detailed vision of the battlefield. Despite differences, both doctrines were ultimately compatible. They shared a vision of a chaotic, information-poor battlefield, one on which a premium was placed on initiative, decentralized action, and speed of execution. Both doctrines sought to allow the commander to fight on an extended event horizon, and achieved that extension not with terrain or firepower, but with tempo. Over time, the need for a detailed architecture of the battlefield became apparent in the Marine Corps. While maneuver warfare might be fine as a philosophy, or as a vision, there was precious little in print about how to translate resolution - so ably provided in Warfighting and its sisters - into directed, coherent, consistent action. Talk of centers of gravity, critical vulnerabilities, and schwerpunkt might be fine for theorists, but such flowery prose provided little guidance on how to organize a Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) to fight a maneuver-based engagement. The answer was to be found in the Army's ALB, which had taken a different approach to arrive at the same maneuverist end. The Army had always recognized that ALB doctrine at the battalion/task force level was maneuver warfare.25 Now, the Marine Corps began to realize that maneuver warfare that integrated the aviation combat element (ACE) of the MAGTF in a controlled deep interdiction capacity was, by any name, AirLand Battle. The preparation of FMFM-2, MEF Doctrine (Draft) in 1992 introduced the Marine Corps to the functional subsystems of combat operations that lend precision of thought to combat plans. In many ways, FMFM-2 was a close cousin to FM 100-15, Corps Operations, which described a similar environment. Basically, FMFM-2 introduced two concepts that had always been fundamental to ALB, but were new to the Marine Corps, at least as formal doctrine. The first was a battlefield geometry that divided the battlefield into three areas: deep, close, and rear. This geographic division had the effect of making commanders - at all levels - extend their event horizon to encompass areas of interest as well as areas of influence.26 It greatly extended the arena of combat for all commanders. Organization of the ground could subtly shape the organization of the commander's thinking. Organization in this manner also emphasized the importance of the deep battle, fought beyond the Fire Support Coordination Line (FSCL), largely by Marine aviation. In FMFM-2, the Aviation Combat Element (ACE) found a consistent doctrine for its application and synchronization for the first time. The Marine Corps had always talked of its unique air-ground interactive team, but now there was a doctrine that provided detailed guidance on how to get maximum effect. Second was the introduction of the Battlefield Operating Systems, or BOS concept of organizing combat functions. By grouping functionally, planners were forced to think rationally, always seeing and considering the requirement to coordinate between functional areas. FMFM-2 recognized eight primary operating systems: command and control, maneuver, engineer operations, air, Click here to view image Figure 1 fires, air defense, intelligence, and CSS.27 The hidden goal of both these ideas was the ideal of synchronization, which was naturally reinforced by the BOS and the battlefield geometry. Synchronization permitted combat and combat support systems to obtain seamless coordination in time and space (See Figure 1). The force of these arguments was to resurrect the Marine Air Ground Task Force headquarters as the "warfighter." Through neglect, it had fallen into the slipstream of the Ground Combat Element (GCE) in the seventies. Now, with a doctrine that called for the capability to fight deep as well as close, it began to enjoy a renaissance. Indeed, the Marine Corps' long neglected MAGTF doctrine seemed better designed for the principles of ALB than the uneasy alliance of Army and Air Force. Under Marine doctrine, a single headquarters could coordinate all elements of the fight, without the need for inter-service coordination. Click here to view image At the end of the millennium, maneuver warfare doctrine in the Marine Corps moved beyond the partially formed visions of William S. Lind and the enthusiasms of the "maneuverists," and firmly into the organizing penumbra of AirLand Battle. From the complementary but separate concepts of maneuver warfare and ALB, the Marine Corps gradually - and largely unconsciously - fashioned a Hegelian synthesis (see Figure 2). This synthesis was the maneuver warfare thinking of the early eighties, now codified and weighted with precision by the structural organization of AirLand Battle doctrine. Concurrently, TRADOC began to refine the concepts of ALB, publishing another 525-5 series pamphlet, AirLand Operations, in 1991. This permutation of ALB seemed to reflect Marine Corps principles of a non-specific threat, and attempted to apply AirLand Battle doctrine in a variety of expeditionary scenarios, moving away from the Soviet model. Just as ALB had profoundly influenced the Marine Corps, it seemed that the expeditionary philosophies of the Corps had finally found a similarly receptive audience in the Army. Warfare will grow increasingly complex into the next century. - Our doctrine must reduce the inevitable friction, and conjure opportunity. It must be whole and firm but not dogmatic. It must leave room for men of freewheeling genius, for such will be the aces of the next war. But it must never surrender control, because control is the prerequisite of concerted action.28 Maneuver warfare, practiced within the organizing envelope of AirLand Battle, will provide the doctrinal advantage the Marine Corps needs to fight effectively in our traditional expeditionary role into the next century. Marines of today are the intellectual heirs of Pete Ellis and John Archer Lejeune, men who with great courage and foresight redefined the future of the Marine Corps in the first half of this century. We now live in equally turbulent and exciting times. The same opportunities and responsibilities lie before this generation of Marines. Maneuver warfare into the new millennium is demanding and well suited to an organization that created itself and its mission on the wings of man's thoughts. It is warfare on the event horizon. Endnotes 1. Department of Defense, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Pub 1-02 (Washington: Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1989), p. 118. 2. Wayne P. Hughes, Fleet Tactics: Theory and Practice (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press,1986), p. 28. 3. R.A.D. Applegate and J.R. Moore, "Warfare - An Option of Difficulties: An Examination of Forms of War and the Impact of Military Culture" The RUSI Journal (Autumn 1990), 16. 4. Theodore P. Snow, The Dynamic Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy (Los Angeles: West Publishing Co., 1988), p. 472. The phrase "event horizon" is an astronomical and physics term which denotes the surface of a black hole. It is a point beyond which an observer cannot see. Mathematically, it is not possible to ever see "inside" the event horizon, for inside the event horizon all matter converges to a singularity, or single point. For my purposes, the phrase is broadened to mean an area where the doctrines and wills of two forces clash. We still cannot see beyond it, but we can expand our own event horizon, our area of control, by intelligent development and application of doctrine. I need to further credit Frederick Pohl, who introduced this concept to the world in a sense beyond its purely arcane, technical meaning in his excellent novel, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon. 5. Applegate and Moore, op. cit., 16-20. There is an excellent expanded discussion of these ideas in this article. Much of the credit for this model of analysis goes to them. 6. Ibid., 17. 7. Ibid. 8. R.A. Doughty, The Evolution of U.S. Army Tactical Doctrine, 1946-1976 (Fort Leavenworth KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1979), p. 45. 9. Department of the Army, Operations, FM 100-5 (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1976), pp. 3-4. 10. Irwin Rommel, as quoted in Paul Carell, The Foxes of the Desert (New York, NY: Dutton, 1960), p. 248. 11. Doughty, op. cit., p. 46. 12. U.S. Army Field Artillery School,"Implementing the Airland Battle," Field Artiller Journal,(Sept-Oct 1981), 11-20. 13. John J. Romjue, From Active Defense to AirLand Battle: The Development of Army Doctrine 1973-1982( Fort Monroe, VA: Historical Office, TRADOC, 1984), p. 66. 14. Department of the Army. Operations, FM 100-5,(Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 20 August 82), p. 2-4. 15. William S. Lind, "Defining Maneuver Warfare for the Marine Corps," Marine Corps Gazette (March 1980), 56. 16. Ibid. 17. Alfred M. Gray, "Untitled notes for subordinate commanders within the 2nd Marine Division," (Undated), 4-6. 18. This board was established by DivO 12910.1, sometime in 1981. Membership on the board was not rank restricted, the theory being that tactical insight was not directly related to the rank of the Marine. This was a commendable sentiment, but such an egalitarian approach had the unfortunate effect of damaging the board's credibility among the division's senior commanders, and ultimately probably hurt the cause of maneuver warfare more than it helped. 19. Alfred M. Gray, "Prefatory Notes," Maneuver Warfare Newsletter #1, (undated), 1. 20. 2nd Marine Division Chief of Staff to Distribution List, Memo 57-81, Subj: Maneuver Warfare Reading Packets, dtd 6 Oct 81. 21. William S. Lind, Maneuver Warfare Handbook (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985), p.1. 22. Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Ground Combat Operations, OH 6-1 (Quantico, VA: MCCDC, 1988), pp. C-1, C-6. 23. United States Marine Corps, Warfighting, FMFM-1, (Washington, DC: HQMC, 1989), p. 59. 24. John F. Kelly, et al., Armor/Anti-Armor Operations in Southwest Asia, (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps Research Center, 1991), p. 29. 25. Department of the Army, The Tank and Mechanized Infantry Battalion Task Force FM 71-2, (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1988), p. 1-3. 26. An area of influence was the area that a commander could address with his organic weapons. An area of interest was the area that a commander needed to be informed about on a continual basis, because developments there would eventually impact on his force.. An area of interest obviously encompassed a far greater space than an area of influence. Often, areas of influence were expressed in terms of closure times for major enemy formations. The net effect was to expand event horizons. 27. Marine Corps Combat Development Command, MEF Doctrine, FMFM-2 Draft (Quantico: MCCDC, 1992), p. 7. 28. Hughes, op. cit., p. 31. BIBLIOGRAPHY Applegate, R.A.D., and Moore, J.R. "Warfare - An Option of Difficulties: An Examination of Forms of War and the Impact of Military Culture." The RUSI Journal, Autumn 1990. Carell, Paul. The Foxes of the Desert. 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