Marines seek to recapture their lost sea-warfare skills.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Marine Corps

* The president has said the United States will not put any boots on the ground in Libya.

But if, hypothetically a decision were made to send forces ashore, most likely they would be U.S. marines.

They would not be storming the beach a la Guadalcanal. But they would be conducting the modem version of an amphibious assault: Marinpagees aboard ships dozens of miles off the coast would load up their equipment on landing craft, helicopters and MV-22 Ospreys, reach the shore and push their way inland, while trying to avoid enemy landmines, booby traps and snipers.

Marine leaders believe this form of warfare is in the Corps' future. It might not happen in Libya, but it could take place elsewhere. They worry, however, that after 10 years of land wars, marines have become accustomed to flying into combat zones and always being on the ground. They fret that the Corps' legendary ship-to-shore maneuver expertise has gradually faded.

But the Corps' leaders are determined to get it back, not because they want to relive World War II Pacific glory, but because they are convinced that future response to global crises will require the ability to deploy on short notice. In hostile areas where it would be unthinkable to mass a military force. Marine Corps officials contend, the only option would be to deploy troops from the sea.

Although there are still 21,000 marines fighting in Afghanistan, the Corps is betting that its next conflict will not be a landlocked counterinsurgency. In the coming years, senior commanders want marines to start training for amphibious assaults, and for life at sea.

During one such exercise last month off the California coast. Corps leaders were alarmed by just how rusty marines have become.

"We haven't done this in about a decade. Our experience level is extremely low," said Maj. Gen. Melvin Spiese, commander of the P' Marine Expeditionary Brigade.

Spiese was overseeing "Dawn Blitz 2011," a simulation of what it could be like to deploy a Marine Expeditionary Brigade force of up to 17,000, entirely from ships.

"I've got to tell you, I had forgotten how complex and how challenging large-scale amphibious operations are," Spiese told National Defense in a telephone interview from the USS Bonhomme Richard, one of the ships involved in Dawn Blitz.

Spiese said the exercise revealed just how easy it is to lose competencies that are not practiced.

"We haven't had a chance to work this [amphibious assault mission] in a heck of a long time,"...