Marines probing new ways to fight future insurgencies.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: UPFRONT

Marine Corps planners are drafting a new strategy for tackling insurgencies in future conflicts. Officials stress that the aim is not to write a war plan for the current conflict Iraq, but rather to generate fresh ideas for countering so-called "irregular" threats in the coming decades. Part of the latest thinking among Marine strategists is the notion that Islamic militant organizations such as Al Qaeda are labeled terrorist organizations when in fact they should be viewed as insurgencies.

Spearheading the project is Lt. Gen. James Mattis, head of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va.

"Gen. Mattis has asked us to write a concept for counterinsurgency," said Lt. Col. Lance McDaniel, who overseas the concepts and plans division at the command. Operations in Iraq certainly motivated the Corps to pursue new ways to fight insurgencies. "But we are not going to write a concept for Iraq," said McDaniel. "We are writing a concept for the future, and taking advantage of the energy and lessons we learned from it."

Mattis is expected to review a draft counterinsurgency strategy before the end of the year, and he wants to make it a "living document" that can be revised over time, said McDaniel.

The counterinsurgency strategy will shape scenarios in future war games. Marine planners will feed it into next year's Title 10 war games, said McDaniel. The first one will be Expeditionary Warrior 2006, in January. Title 10 war games are annual service events that highlight combat capabilities and influence weapons budgets, doctrine and training requirements.

In the current draft, the terms "counterinsurgency" and "irregular threats" are used interchangeably. The Defense Department generally characterizes non-state enemies and terrorist cells as "irregular." The Marine Corps will focus on counterinsurgency as one piece of a broader plan to build the new strategy.

Mattis' decision to launch this effort is an indication that the Marine Corps remains largely a conventional force, even though it is far ahead of the other services in developing tactics for urban warfare and unconventional so-called "small wars."

"But we acknowledge that the training we give our people and the equipment we buy is aimed at a more conventional peer threat," McDaniel said. "We are acknowledging that threats are changing."

Among those threats are organizations such as Al Qaeda, which employ terrorist tactics but also embody many of the characteristics of an...