General Berger Visits Fort Pickett

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger addresses the Marines and sailors of 23rd Marine Regiment at Fort Pickett, Virginia, on Jan. 27, 2022. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. David Intriago)

WASHINGTON — Like most things in the Pentagon, the Marine Corps’ Force Design 2030 has taken several budget cycles before visible changes emerged. But in this reporter’s opinion, 2022 has been the year where Commandant Gen. David Berger’s overarching redesign of how the service will fight started to come into its own.

At the top of the year, the service formally re-designated the 3rd Marine Regiment to the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, a new unit formation envisioned as an especially nimble part of Force Design. The 4th and 12th Marine Regiments are also scheduled for re-designation in future years, but the 3rd MLR, based in Hawaii, is the first of its kind. Gen. Eric Smith, the assistant commandant, told reporters in February the MLR required a year of “reorganizing” but is now structured into “smaller units that actually are capable of deploying tonight.”

[This article is one of many in a series in which Breaking Defense reporters look back on the most significant (and entertaining) news stories of 2022 and look forward to what 2023 may hold.]

The MLR will be equipped with capabilities such as the Navy/Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, a ground-based, anti-ship missile system dubbed a key modernization priority for Force Design 2030 that spent 2022 being put through its paces out at Camp Pendleton in California.

The service is also starting to operate in the way Force Design 2030 envisions. At the tail end of 2021, Berger published “A Concept for Stand-in Forces,” a doctrine that calls for Marines to operate in the smaller, agile forces epitomized by the 3rd MLR. Berger himself offered one example of this by highlighting 1,000 Marines who were in Norway when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began.

Within a few weeks, multiple Marine units, from F/A-18 squadrons to military intelligence, transitioned from experimentation to operations for US European Command collecting whatever information they could about the situation in Ukraine. But equally as important, their activities served as a visible force in NATO countries and, in Berger’s eyes, a “stand-in force.”

“From a very forward posture…inside the collection and weapons engagement zone, operating persistently all the time, not trying to hide. Show [them] that we’re there,” Berger said, referring to the information warfare elements of the concept. “In other words, knowing when they can see me and how do I operate? How do I use that from an information perspective effectively? How do I either confuse them? Or how do I convince them that what they’re seeing is what they want to see, but it’s not really accurate.”

Lastly, 2022 has been a year where Force Design 2030 was tested in the court of public opinion. That fight happened in April when POLITICO reported that two dozen retired general officers, many of them Marines, were lobbying against the changes Berger proposed. Despite the effort reportedly having some seriously high-power names behind it — former commandants, a Navy secretary and at least one chairman of the Joint chiefs — lawmakers this year went out of their way to get behind Berger.

That support shouldn’t be discounted. For any real change at the Pentagon to have staying power, it either needs to be non-controversial or the majority of Congress needs to get behind it. Otherwise it’s doomed to have a target on its back.

But Berger’s time as commandant is coming to a close. Unless President Joe Biden taps him as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he will most likely retire next summer when his four-year term leading the Marine Corps comes to an end.

While speaking at a Defense Writers Group event earlier this month, he was asked what he’ll do to ensure Force Design 2030 stays with the Marine Corps after his exit. The commandant said the way to do that is to keep the service’s relatively small group of 3- and 4-star generals all engaged in the process, as well as provide mechanisms for the next chief to make adjustments as they see fit.

“All 15 [senior Marine Corps generals] are part of the debate,” he said. “How do you ensure it [stays] when you leave? Make sure first of all that it’s right. But I would say … actually more important than right is you build in the mechanisms, the confidence that there’s a way to constantly test, evaluate, reassess, and make changes along the way.”