The recent deployment to Southeast Asia of a contingent of Marines, who worked closely with U.S. and allied forces, helped advance some key concepts for operating in the Indo-Pacific during a potential conflict, the top commander said.
The 200 Marines and sailors assigned to Marine Rotational Forces Southeast joined allies in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia in exercises and experimentation to help validate some Marine Corps Force Design 2030 concepts, including expeditionary advanced base operations, simulated long-range fires in the littoral environment, and infantry operations. It also provided the capability to support a Marine Air-Ground Task Force in a crisis or contingency operation if needed.
While small in size compared to other regularly-deploying Marine Corps units, MRF-Southeast Asia packed a punch, so to speak.
The rotational force “conducts theater security cooperation, sensing experimentation and integration with the joint force, and we have the capability to respond to crisis, to serve as a MAGTF headquarters to build around” or augment another headquarters, Col. Thomas Siverts, who commands the Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, said during a Jan. 5 media call. “The value in the economy-of-force mission lies in our ability to move around Southeast Asia quickly, regardless of method of transport. We are integrated and living with our allies and partners and have meaningful interactions at my level and even above.”
MRF-Southeast Asia deployed in late September for the scheduled rotation that stretched nearly three months. Along with his 11th MEU command element were enablers or specialists – Reconnaissance Marines, joint terminal attack controllers, air and naval gunfire liaisons, explosive ordnance disposal Marines and unmanned aerial systems operators – from various I Marine Expeditionary Force units.
The rotational force is one of I MEF’s two annual, recurring deployments to the region that include the 2,500-member MRF-Darwin, which will begin its 13th iteration this spring in Australia. Each scalable force is a forward-deployed unit that trains, engages with and operates with U.S. forces and allies across the Indo-Pacific, according to I MEF. The size and composition of MRF-Southeast Asia rotations vary, with deployments lasting three to six months, depending on what specific missions or theater security cooperation events are planned and the goals of each partner nation that hosts the Marines and sailors.
In 2023, I MEF’s rotational forces helped advance the Marine Corps’ expeditionary advanced base concepts and distributed operations in a contested environment. During its 2022 and 2023 deployments, MRF-Southeast Asia exercised creative skills with “a combination of 21st-century foraging and traditional military logistics to support the battle force,” Siverts said. “We were able to move around the battlefield in commercial and military transport” and worked with two Navy Littoral Combat Ships – USS Charleston (LCS-18) and USS Manchester (LCS-14) – and expeditionary fast transport ships USNS Millinocket (T-EPF-3) and USNS Brunswick (T-EPF-6).
The 2023 deployment included the bilateral exercise Sama Sama in the Philippines, where Marines operated RQ-20B Puma drones and a commercial, off-the-shelf radar for maritime domain awareness training. The Marines’ work built on sensing and unmanned systems concepts that MRF-SEA first employed during the initial 2022 deployment, Siverts said.
“As we look at a small force getting in, to sense and make sense, communicate, coordinate with partners, we’re not doing it by ourselves,” he said. “Every country we visited, we trained with, were very interested in expeditionary advanced base operations. They’ve all got islands. They’re all interested in executing expeditionary advanced base operations. Quite frankly, they look at us as the lead, and they’ve certainly said that to us in no uncertain terms.”
MRF-Southeast Asia Marines got creative with some communication concepts and “were able to use small form factor communications quite effectively,” Siverts said, and they built out expeditionary communications using cell phones, host-nation SIM cards and a commercial off-the-shelf radar. The Marines used Wi-Fi, “blending right into environment,” he said, supporting “the vast majority of command-post operations through host-nation Wi-Fi that’s encrypted, where we just blend into the environment. We’re not able to be detected … We don’t have a U.S. phone number popping up on a cell tower.”
“We were also tying in with the host nation and feeding them what our commercial, off-the-shelf radar is picking up and letting them take the lead in this,” he added.
Down Under
The combination of MRF-Southeast Asia, which returned to Camp Pendleton in December, and MRF-Darwin gives I MEF an extended presence west of the international dateline, officials say. The next MRF-Darwin rotation leaves for Australia in March.
The MRF-Darwin contingent made some notable progress in FD 2030 concepts during its 2023 deployment. In just the past two years, MRF-Darwin is “viewed and tasked and resourced as a full-blown MAGTF that’s capable of responding across the spectrum of operations, from basic crisis response … all the way up to combat operations with a peer threat,” Col. Brendan Sullivan, MRF-Darwin commander, said during the media call. “That’s a change that’s occurred in the last two years.”
The rotation of Marines and sailors, who joined in 11 major exercises in 2023, has further strengthened U.S.-Australia relations and the U.S. military’s “posture advancement” in the region, Sullivan said. “There’s real posture gains that we made there that will be useful for us in conflict.” he added “We’re actually taking Force Design concepts and proving them and establishing them and executing them in the real world during these exercises.”
MRF-Darwin trained in Australia’s Northern Territories and off the continent, which included joining in the Australia-Philippines bilateral exercise known as IndoPacific Endeavor. A significant portion of the MAGTF embarked on the Royal Australian Navy’s amphibious assault ship HMAS Canberra (L02) from Darwin with four MV-22B Osprey aircraft, their crews and maintainers and a detachment of its ground combat forces. They joined with Filipino military forces for training drills in the Philippines archipelago and conducted two amphibious assaults with the combined force.
The embark onto a foreign nation vessel “is difficult business,” Sullivan said, adding it “was a significant deterrent establisher, showing real capability and real interchangeability between allies.”
Deployed to the Philippines, his MAGTF command element set up multi-domain communications networks to support and conduct maritime fires with Marine Corps and Army units, Navy surface groups and Australian forces. “That really gets at … the changing flavor of MRF-D, and it’s a really tangible example of how we got after posturing and interoperability improvements,” he said.
During Talisman Sabre, MRF-Darwin operated in the hub-spoke-node network, with the hub at Darwin and forces deployed from there to sustain the MAGTF across a network that stretched about 1,400 miles. A bare base at Royal Australian Air Force Base Scherger was key to projecting the force and sustaining the MAGTF across the network. A Fires Expeditionary Advanced Base was also crucial, with the surrogate Navy-Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) providing long-range fires, and a Sensing EAB deploying with an AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) provided for air defense and domain awareness.
“Darwin is becoming more and more of a hub for us – and not just for operations inside of Australia, but operations throughout the region and up into the first island chain,” Sullivan said. That includes building logistics support and interoperability with partners to support operations, such as drawing ammunition from Australian Defence Force stocks, including 155mm high-explosive rounds, fuel for vehicles, M777 howitzer repair parts and medical supplies.
Operating from Scherger, MRF-Darwin forces at one point moved a “substantial” command-and-control node with Australian C-17 and C-130 transport aircraft and MV-22B Osprey tiltrotors to an advanced base for MV-22 maintenance, Sullivan said. Then projecting units along Australia’s east coast, MRF-Darwin managed a kill web that included sensors from across the joint and combined force, including Army, Navy and multilateral partners “to generate the effects that we needed inside the [area of operations].”
“If you’re going to achieve maritime fires,” he said, “you have to be able to sense – in a multi-domain manner – and pull in effectors from multiple agencies, not just your own but from across the joint force and across the combined force … if you’re going to serve as the stand-in force that’s capable of conducting sea denial and maritime fires.”
“We also understand that as a stand-in force, you have to do signature management,” he added, “or else you’re not going to be on the board very long.”
Tackling UAS Threats
While the rotational forces deploy with unmanned aircraft systems, neither force had or used organic counter-drone systems. But ongoing dangers from weaponized drones in places like eastern Europe and the Middle East have raised questions about force protection from the growing threat.
“UAS is a wicked problem that everyone is working hard to come to grips with,” said Sullivan, adding that it’s a priority for the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine Division, where he is the 1st Marine Regiment commander. MRF-Darwin units “didn’t have any interactions with unknown UAS,” he said, and didn’t have counter-UAS systems “to destroy or mitigate UAS. But we’re constantly working to achieve better signature management that allows [us] not only to reduce exposure to UAS but to all manner of overhead collect.”
Likewise, MRF-Southeast Asia had no organic counter-UAS capabilities, but the host nations were responsible for anti-terrorism and force protection, Siverts said. While in the Philippines, the Marines trained with their counterparts in small UAS operations during exercise KAMANDAG 7 in Palawan.
“We did not have any exposure to any outside UAS,” he said. “We did have robust AT/FP program, integrated with our host nation, whether it was Philippines, Indonesia …. No organic ability for countering UAS at this time, but we are certainly working on it.” The unit hopes to experiment with it in the future. These might include the Light Marine Air Defense Integrated System, or L-MADIS, which the Marine Corps recently successfully tested to counter the threat.
While the host nations have the responsibility to provide AT/FP, Siverts said, “it doesn’t mean we don’t do it. We work with them and provide a holistic approach to the anti-terrorism, force protection of the force.”
Tending the Partnerships
Both commanders said the presence of Marines and sailors operating so closely with allies in the Indo-Pacific goes a long way to prepare and position U.S. forces when conflict or crisis breaks out in the region.
“It’s a standing-force MAGTF, which means we need to be able to deploy rapidly and be able to operate effectively within the adversary’s weapons engagement zone and generate the effects that the combatant commander needs us to generate,” Sullivan said of MRF-Darwin. Moreover, “it’s a partnered MAGTF, which means that everything we do – everything we do – is by, with and through our [Australian Defence Force] counterparts. We leverage that relationship in order to optimize each other’s capabilities and maximize each other’s strengths.”
“The relationship between the ADF and MRF-D is incredibly strong,” he said. When we deploy forward, we’re not going to a U.S. military installation in Japan, we’re not going to a U.S. military installation in Germany. We’re going to an Australian military installation, and we are guests.”
The Marines work in close proximity to the ADF partners and live in their barracks. “That develops a whole other level of understanding … and generates a cohesion based on trust that flows up and down on the organization, from the rifleman all the way up to the major supporting elements’ commanders,” he added.
Siverts, who led the first MRF-Southeast Asia rotation in late 2022, said the force is strengthening U.S. partnerships in the region. “It’s certainly a nascent organization, [with] two deployments,” he said. “The Marines and sailors are tremendously proud of what they accomplished and the relationships that they’ve developed and even cultivated over the last two years,” he added. “It’s an exciting deployment for us, and it’s exciting for us to be able to build this and kind of see where it goes.”
His Marines and sailors worked and lived side-by-side with their Filipino and their Indonesian counterparts, “playing sports with them, cards at night,” he said. “To build that interoperability, to understand that when they’re going left, this is how they’re going to go left and this is how we’re going to support them,” he added. “This is how we’re going to talk encrypted communications through their radios, because we’ve done it before. Relationships matter – they absolutely do – and you’re able not only to understand better but perform better because of the interoperability and the foundation that you built.”
“It’s definitely valuable to be there,” said Siverts, noting the importance of daily briefings and discussions, “to sit and learn – because that’s where you have true interoperability, to learn what your partner nation is doing.”
