Priority Focus Areas:

Force Design

Warfighting

Education and Training

Core Values

Command and Leadership

“I believe in my soul that Marines are different. Our 

identity is firmly rooted in our warrior ethos. This is the 

force that will always adapt and overcome no matter 

what the circumstances are. We fight and win in any 

clime and place.”

— General David H. Berger
Commandant’s Planning Guidance 1

ORIENTATION AND INTENT

The Commandant’s Planning Guidance (CPG) provides 

the 38th Commandant’s strategic direction for the 

Marine Corps and mirrors the function of the Secretary 

of Defense’s Defense Planning Guidance (DPG). It serves 

as the authoritative document for Service-level planning 

and provides a common direction to the Marine Corps 

Total Force. It also serves as a road map describing 

where the Marine Corps is going and why; what the 

Marine Corps force development priorities are and are 

not; and, in some instances, how and when prescribed 

actions will be implemented. This CPG serves as my 

Commandant’s Intent for the next four years.

As Commandant Neller observed, “The Marine Corps is 

not organized, trained, equipped, or postured to meet 

the demands of the rapidly evolving future operating 

environment.” I concur with his diagnosis. Significant 

change is required to ensure we are aligned with the 

2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) and DPG, and 

further, prepared to meet the demands of the Naval 

Fleet in executing current and emerging operational 

naval concepts. Effecting that change will be my top 

priority as your 38th Commandant.

This CPG outlines my five priority focus areas: force 

design, warfighting, education and training, core 

values, and command and leadership. I will use 

these focal areas as logical lines of effort to frame my 

thinking, planning, and decision-making at Headquarters 

Marine Corps (HQMC), as well as to communicate to 

our civilian leadership. This document explains how 

we will translate those focus areas into action with 

measurable outcomes. The institutional changes that 

follow this CPG will be based on a long-term view and 

singular focus on where we want the Marine Corps to 

be in the next 5-15 years, well beyond the tenure of 

any one Commandant, Presidential administration, or 

Congress. We cannot afford to retain outdated policies, 

doctrine, organizations, or force development strategies.

Unless specified within this document, all reference 

documents from previous Commandants are no longer 

authoritative; thus, Service and advocate-related 

publications using the Marine Operating Concept 

or Force 2025 as “REF A” must be revised. Current 

advocate plans must be reviewed within the context 

of this guidance, and appropriate changes made. We 

must communicate with precision and consistency, 

based on a common focus and a unified message.

The coming decade will be characterized by conflict, 

crisis, and rapid change – just as every decade preceding 

it. And despite our best efforts, history demonstrates that 

we will fail to accurately predict every conflict; will be 

surprised by an unforeseen crisis; and may be late to fully 

grasp the implications of rapid change around us. The 

Arab Spring, West African Ebola Outbreak, Scarborough 

Shoal standoff, Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine, 

and weaponization of social media are but a few recent 

examples illustrating the point. While we must accept 

an environment characterized by uncertainty, we cannot 

ignore strong signals of change nor be complacent 

when it comes to designing and preparing the force 

for the future.

What is abundantly clear is that the future operating 

environment will place heavy demands on our Nation’s 

Naval Services. Context and direction is clearly articulated 

in the NDS and DPG as well as testimony from our 

uniformed and civilian leadership. No further guidance 

is required; we are moving forward. The Marine Corps 

will be trained and equipped as a naval expeditionary 

force-in-readiness and prepared to operate inside 

actively contested maritime spaces in support of fleet 

operations. In crisis prevention and crisis response, 

the Fleet Marine Force – acting as an extension of 

the Fleet – will be first on the scene, first to help, 

first to contain a brewing crisis, and first to fight if 

required to do so. The Marine Corps will be the “force 

of choice” for the President, Secretary, and Combatant 

Commander – “a certain force for an uncertain world” 

as noted by Commandant Krulak. No matter what the 

crisis, our civilian leaders should always have one shared 

thought – Send in the Marines.

“We must communicate with 

precision and consistency, 

based on a common focus 

and a unified message.”
2 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps

advantage and defending key maritime terrain that 

enables persistent sea control and denial operations 

forward. Together, the Navy-Marine Corps Team will 

enable the joint force to partner, persist and operate 

forward despite adversary employment of long-range 

precision fires.

In addition to the recent focus on operational integration, 

I intend to seek greater integration between the Navy and 

Marine Corps in our Program Objective Memorandum 

(POM) development process. We share a common 

understanding of the NDS, the pacing threat, the future 

operating environment, and of those capabilities that 

provide the greatest overmatch for our Navy. We must 

strive to create capabilities that support fleet operations 

and naval campaigns. We will integrate our POM 

wargaming efforts with the Navy’s, thereby, ensuring 

a common understanding and common baseline from 

which each Service can communicate their needs to 

the Secretary of the Navy, and ultimately, the Secretary 

of Defense.

Fleet Marine Force and Navy-Marine Corps 

Component Command Relationship

In 1933, the establishment of the FMF under the 

operational control of the Fleet Commander generated 

great unity of effort, operational flexibility, and the 

integrated application of Navy and Marine capabilities 

throughout the maritime domain. The 1986 GoldwaterNichols Act, however, removed the preponderance of 

the FMF from fleet operational control and disrupted 

the long-standing Navy-Marine Corps relationship by 

creating separate Navy and Marine Corps components 

within joint forces. Furthermore, Navy and Marine Corps 

officers developed a tendency to view their operational 

responsibilities as separate and distinct, rather than 

intertwined. With the rise of both land and sea-based 

threats to the global commons, there is a need to reestablish a more integrated approach to operations 

in the maritime domain. Reinvigorating the FMF can 

be accomplished by assigning more Marine Corps 

forces to the Fleet, putting Marine Corps experts in the 

fleet Maritime Operations Centers, and also by shifting 

emphasis in our training, education, and supporting 

establishment activities. Refining the component 

relationship, within the framework of Goldwater-Nichols, 

is a more complicated issue that must be explored 

in partnership with the Navy. With one exception, 

FORCE DESIGN

We should take pride in our force and recent operational 

successes, but the current force is not organized, trained, 

or equipped to support the naval force – operating in 

contested maritime spaces, facilitating sea control, or 

executing distributed maritime operations. We must 

change. We must divest of legacy capabilities that 

do not meet our future requirements, regardless of 

their past operational efficacy. There is no piece of 

equipment or major defense acquisition program that 

defines us – not the AAV, ACV, LAV, M1A1, M777, AH-1, 

F/A-18, F-35, or any other program. Likewise, we are 

not defined by any particular organizing construct – the 

Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) cannot be our 

only solution for all crises. Instead, we are defined by 

our collective character as Marines and by fulfilling our 

Service roles and functions prescribed by Congress.

Force design is my number one priority. I have already 

initiated, and am personally leading, a future force design 

effort. Going forward, CD&I will be the only organization 

authorized to publish force development guidance on 

my behalf. We will divest of legacy defense programs 

and force structure that support legacy capabilities. 

If provided the opportunity to secure additional 

modernization dollars in exchange for force structure, 

I am prepared to do so. Plans or programs developed in 

support of this planning guidance that require additional 

resources must include an accompanying resource offset 

verified by a recognized analytic body (PA&E, OAD, 

etc.) to be considered for implementation.

NAVAL INTEGRATION

Adversary advances in long-range precision fires make 

closer naval integration an imperative. The focal point of 

the future integrated naval force will shift from traditional 

power projection to meet the new challenges associated 

with maintaining persistent naval forward presence to 

enable sea control and denial operations. The Fleet 

Marine Force (FMF) will support the Joint Force Maritime 

Component Command (JFMCC) and fleet commander 

concept of operations, especially in close and confined 

seas, where enemy long-range precision fires threaten 

maneuver by traditional large-signature naval platforms. 

Future naval force development and employment will 

include new capabilities that will ensure that the NavyMarine Corps team cannot be excluded from any region 

in advancing or protecting our national interests or those 

of our allies. Marines will focus on exploiting positional 
Commandant’s Planning Guidance 3

Marine Expeditionary Units and Forward 

Deployed Forces

As Commandant Krulak noted nearly 25 years ago, the 

Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) “is the jewel in our 

crown, and must be kept ready, relevant, and capable.” 

Regrettably, it no longer has the same relevance as it 

once had to the Fleet; however, this will change. We 

will consider employment models of the Amphibious 

Ready Group (ARG) / MEU other than the traditional 

three-ship model. We will accept and prepare for Fleet 

Commander employment of LHA/Ds as part of threeship ESGs as desired. I see potential in the “Lightning 

Carrier” concept, based on an LHA / LHD; however, 

do not support a new-build CVL. Partnering a big-deck 

amphib with surface combatants is the right warfighting 

capability for many of the challenges confronting the 

joint force, and provides substantial naval and Joint 

operational flexibility, lethality, and survivability.

The majority of defense professionals continue to 

support our conclusions regarding the efficacy of forward 

deployed forces even if they question the affordability of 

such forces. I will continue to advocate for the continued 

forward deployment of our forces globally to compete 

against the malign activities of China, Russia, Iran, and 

their proxies – with a prioritized focus on China’s One 

Belt One Road initiative and Chinese malign activities 

in the East and South China Seas. This is not intended 

to be a defense of the status quo as our forces currently 

forward deployed lack the requisite capabilities to 

deter our adversaries and persist in a contested space 

to facilitate sea denial. While I will continue to support 

and advocate for the Unit Deployment Program, we 

must revise the program to ensure those forces and 

capabilities deployed to the Western Pacific create 

a competitive advantage and facilitate deterrence in 

the INDOPACOM Theater. One possible future would 

be the forward deployment of multiple High-Mobility 

Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) batteries armed with 

long-range anti-ship missiles.

In addition to deterring aggression and supporting naval 

operations, our forward deployed forces will remain 

ready to respond to crises globally as the force-inreadiness. While we will retain the capability to deploy 

as organic combined-arms teams or as part of a Joint 

Task Force (JTF), Marines aboard L-Class ships as part 

of an ARG or ESG will remain the benchmark for our 

forward operating crisis response forces. We must 

increase the lethality of the ARG, and must accept new 

employment models that will increase the relevance of 

our MARFORs are not operational headquarters, nor 

will they be resourced as such. Our MARFORs are 

intended as administrative headquarters that advise 

their respective commands on the Marine Corps. In a 

functional component construct, we will complement 

and augment the JFMCC.

Marine Expeditionary Forces

The Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) will remain 

our principal warfighting organization; however, our 

MEFs need not be identical. III MEF will become 

our main focus-of-effort, designed to provide U.S. 

Indo-Pacific Command (U.S. INDOPACOM) and the 

Commander, 7th Fleet with a fight-tonight, standin force capability to persist inside an adversary’s 

weapon systems threat range, create a mutually 

contested space, and facilitate the larger naval 

campaign. When modernized in a manner consistent 

with the vision above, III MEF will be a credible 

deterrent to adversary aggression in the Pacific. I MEF 

will also be focused on supporting the Commander, 

USINDOPACOM and the Commander, 3rd Fleet. I MEF 

will continue to provide forces to USINDOPACOM to 

build partner capacity and reinforce deterrence efforts, 

and must be prepared to impose costs on a potential 

adversary, globally. We will increasingly accept risk with 

I MEF’s habitual relationship with CENTCOM; however, 

7th Marines is at present purpose-built to support 

CENTCOM requirements; thus, I MEF will continue to 

support CENTCOM requirements within the capacity of 

7th Marines. II MEF will undergo substantial changes to 

better align with the needs of Commanders of 2d and 

6th Fleets. During a major contingency operation or 

sustained campaign ashore, necessary combat power 

will be provided to the committed MEF through global 

sourcing by the Total Force.

We will continue to recommend Marine operating forces 

be employed as combined-arms teams; however, we 

must be flexible enough to satisfy Fleet and Combatant 

Commander needs whether they require a MEF, a 

single LHA with Marine complement in support of 

an Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG), or an aviation 

detachment in support of U.S. Special Operations 

Command (USSOCOM). First and foremost, we must 

be prepared to be employed as Fleet Marine Forces. The 

Service will provide ready forces, and our component 

headquarters will advise their respective commanders 

on the best employment of those forces; however, the 

ultimate decision on tactical employment resides with 

the Combatant Commanders.
4 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps

other ocean-going connectors, and smaller more lethal 

and more risk-worthy platforms. We must continue to 

seek the affordable and plentiful at the expense of 

the exquisite and few when conceiving of the future 

amphibious portion of the fleet.

We must also explore new options, such as inter-theater 

connectors and commercially available ships and craft 

that are smaller and less expensive, thereby increasing 

the affordability and allowing acquisition at a greater 

quantity. We recognize that we must distribute our 

forces ashore given the growth of adversary precision 

strike capabilities, so it would be illogical to continue 

to concentrate our forces on a few large ships. The 

adversary will quickly recognize that striking while 

concentrated (aboard ship) is the preferred option. 

We need to change this calculus with a new fleet 

design of smaller, more lethal, and more risk-worthy 

platforms. We must be fully integrated with the Navy 

to develop a vision and a new fleet architecture that 

can be successful against our peer adversaries while 

also maintaining affordability. To achieve this difficult 

task, the Navy and Marine Corps must ensure larger 

surface combatants possess mission agility across sea 

control, littoral, and amphibious operations, while we 

concurrently expand the quantity of more specialized 

manned and unmanned platforms.

As the preeminent littoral warfare and expeditionary 

warfare service, we must engage in a more robust 

discussion regarding naval expeditionary forces and 

capabilities not currently resident within the Marine 

Corps such as coastal / riverine forces, naval construction 

forces, and mine countermeasure forces. We must ask 

ourselves whether it is prudent to absorb some of those 

functions, forces, and capabilities to create a single naval 

expeditionary force whereby the Commandant could 

better ensure their readiness and resourcing.

Power Projection and Force Development

We will no longer use a “2.0 MEB requirement” as the 

foundation for our arguments regarding amphibious 

ship building, to determine the requisite capacity of 

vehicles or other capabilities, or as pertains to the 

Maritime Prepositioning Force. We will no longer 

reference the 38-ship requirement memo from 2009, 

or the 2016 Force Structure Assessment, as the basis 

for our arguments and force structure justifications.

The ongoing 2019 Force Structure Assessment will 

inform the amphibious requirements based upon this 

guidance. The global options for amphibs include many 

more options than simply LHAs, LPDs, and LSDs. I 

ARG to the Fleet Commanders. There is no one-size 

fits-all solution to the operational challenges confronting 

the Fleets; thus, we should be willing to accept more 

than one tailored solution to ARG organization and 

employment. We must preserve those elements of our 

current organization that remain relevant and jettison 

those that do not. What served us well yesterday may 

not today, and may not in the future. We must continually 

seek improvements with an eye toward the future – 

specifically changes in technology – and consider what 

adaptations we need to make.

Naval Force Development

During World War II, we as a Service, clearly understood 

that Marines operated in support of the Navy’s sea control 

mission. In subsequent years, the luxury of presumptive 

maritime superiority deluded us into thinking the Navy 

existed to support “Marine” operations ashore. That era 

was an historic anomaly, and we need to re-focus on 

how we will fulfill our mandate to support the Fleet. 

That starts by educating ourselves on the operational 

challenges to sea control, especially in terms of capability 

and capacity issues, and then discussing with our Navy 

partners the best path to achieve the desired outcomes.

While the answer to the question “What does the Navy 

provide the Marine Corps?” is readily identifiable – 

operational and strategic mobility and assured access 

– the same cannot be said for the follow-on question, 

“What does the Marine Corps provide the Navy and 

the Joint Force?” Traditionally, the answer has been 

power projection forces from the sea and/or forces for 

sustained operations ashore in support of a traditional 

naval campaign. We should ask ourselves – what do 

the Fleet Commanders want from the Marine Corps, 

and what does the Navy need from the Marine Corps?

Future Amphibious Capability and Force 

Development

Our Nation’s ability to project power and influence 

beyond its shores is increasingly challenged by longrange precision fires; expanding air, surface, and subsurface threats; and the continued degradation of our 

amphibious and auxiliary ship readiness. The ability 

to project and maneuver from strategic distances 

will likely be detected and contested from the point 

of embarkation during a major contingency. Our 

naval expeditionary forces must possess a variety of 

deployment options, including L-class and E-class ships, 

but also increasingly look to other available options 

such as unmanned platforms, stern landing vessels, 
Commandant’s Planning Guidance 5

established goals is monitored. These documents will 

be crafted as “mission-type orders” that define the 

tasks, and their respective purposes, performed by the 

Deputy Commandants, rather than detailed instructions 

that bog down in process minutiae. Each Deputy 

Commandant will similarly produce orders that define 

their subordinate units’ tasks. To be clear, the Deputy 

Commandant for Combat Development and Integration 

has primary responsibility for all Marine Corps force 

development, with all other Deputy Commandants 

in support as “advocates” who can provide subject 

matter expertise in their respective fields, rather than 

as “advocates” who direct force development action.

Maritime Prepositioning Force

For several decades, the Maritime Prepositioning Force 

(MPF) represented a competitive advantage for the 

Marine Corps. That is less the case today. During a 

major contingency, our MPF ships would be highly 

vulnerable and difficult to protect. We must be prepared 

to fundamentally alter this capability, as well as all the 

inventory currently programmed for inclusion with the 

MPF, as we rethink the future of this capability.

Joint Task Force (JTF) Headquarters and Joint 

Operations

Our force must be an integral element of the Joint Force, 

able to combine people, processes, and programs to 

execute globally integrated operations. Historically, 

we focused joint integration efforts at headquarters 

and command elements, as opposed to integrating 

capabilities at the individual unit-level. Moving forward, 

the Marine Corps must maximize our inherent relationship 

with the Navy, along with our expertise coordinating 

elements of the MAGTF, to effectively coordinate across 

all warfighting domains to support the Joint Force. Our 

Service concepts and doctrine must provide relevant 

joint capabilities; we must be able to communicate 

and collaborate across interoperable systems and 

equipment; and our professional military education 

(PME) and training programs must enable Marines to 

gain and maintain an understanding of joint operations, 

thereby preparing our leaders to fully maximize joint 

and coalition warfare. Joint operations are a warfighting 

advantage and the Marine Corps must fully embrace 

our role as a critical enabler to the Joint Force.

Reserve Component Forces

While organized and equipped congruently, we cannot 

expect our Selected Marine Corps Reserve (SMCR) 

will work closely with the Secretary of the Navy and 

Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) to ensure there are 

adequate numbers of the right types of ships, with the 

right capabilities, to meet national requirements.

I do not believe joint forcible entry operations (JFEO) 

are irrelevant or an operational anachronism; however, 

we must acknowledge that different approaches are 

required given the proliferation of anti-access/area 

denial (A2AD) threat capabilities in mutually contested 

spaces. Visions of a massed naval armada nine nautical 

miles off-shore in the South China Sea preparing to launch 

the landing force in swarms of ACVs, LCUs, and LCACs 

are impractical and unreasonable. We must accept 

the realities created by the proliferation of precision 

long-range fires, mines, and other smart-weapons, 

and seek innovative ways to overcome those threat 

capabilities. I encourage experimentation with lethal 

long-range unmanned systems capable of traveling 200 

nautical miles, penetrating into the adversary enemy 

threat ring, and crossing the shoreline – causing the 

adversary to allocate resources to eliminate the threat, 

create dilemmas, and further create opportunities for 

fleet maneuver. We cannot wait to identify solutions 

to our mine countermeasure needs, and must make 

this a priority for our future force development efforts.

Although our future force will be applied to problems 

and conflicts globally, we cannot afford to build multiple 

forces optimized for a specific competency such as 

arctic warfare, urban operations, or desert warfare. We 

will build one force – optimized for naval expeditionary 

warfare in contested spaces, purpose-built to facilitate 

sea denial and assured access in support of the fleets. 

That single purpose-built future force will be applied 

against other challenges across the globe; however, 

we will not seek to hedge or balance our investments 

to account for those contingencies.

Force Development Tasks and Responsibilities

In recent years, Service Chiefs have publicly called 

for streamlined force development and acquisition 

processes, and Congress has taken steps toward 

improvement. Over the past several decades, the 

laws, policies, and practices associated with this topic 

have changed significantly, but Marine Corps orders 

and directives have not kept pace. We will generate 

a comprehensive, yet succinct and understandable, 

hierarchy of orders and directives that define roles and 

responsibilities within the enterprise, with a particular 

emphasis on what, when, and how transitions between 

activities are conducted and how progress toward 
6 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps

processes should be inclusive, but we cannot allow a 

desire for consensus to stifle initiative or result in staff 

paralysis. We will review the efficacy of the MROC 

Review Board (MRB) and MROC to make appropriate 

changes.

Every activity within HQMC must support the POM build 

and inform the planning, programming, budgeting, 

and execution (PPBE) process. Our current structures 

and processes fail to meet this standard. Advocates 

help prioritize and recommend force development 

based on the positions and capabilities identified by 

the Operating Forces (OPFOR) but they do not decide. 

Advocacy supports force development, and thus should 

occur within and emanate from CD&I. As part of our 

revised force development and POM processes, we 

require two outcomes: integration with the Navy and 

an independently verifiable analytic foundation to our 

program. We currently lack both. The current advocacy 

order will be replaced.

PEOPLE

Everything starts and ends with the individual 

Marine. The principal challenge facing the Marine 

Corps today lies in continuing to fulfill its charter 

as the naval expeditionary force-in-readiness, while 

simultaneously modernizing the force in accordance 

with the NDS, doing both with a leaner force structure, 

potentially fewer Marines, and a possible reduction 

in total resources. Marines are the centerpiece of the 

Corps – our principal emphasis must focus on recruiting; 

educating and training; instilling our core values and 

sense of accountability; equipping; and treating them 

with dignity, care, and concern.

Taking Care of Marines

“Taking care of Marines” includes holding Marines to 

high professional standards of performance, conduct, 

and discipline. Leaders are expected to do everything 

within their power to ensure the individual Marine 

succeeds, but there are limits to our abilities to sustain 

the transformation of the individuals who simply choose 

to opt out. Marines failing to adhere to our standards or 

failing to remain competitive within their occupational 

fields or grade will be separated. Demanding superior 

performance and enforcing high standards should not be 

viewed as draconian, but rather, should be expected by 

professionals. We will not accept mediocrity within the 

force and, above all, must seek to remove those from 

within our ranks who are adversely impacting the overall 

units to maintain the same levels of readiness as our 

Active Component units. What we desire and expect 

in our SMCR units and Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) 

are Marines and units “ready for mobilization.” Once 

mobilized, our Reserve Component forces will undergo 

additional pre-deployment training to achieve the 

necessary readiness for deployment and employment.

We will examine the merits of formalizing command 

relationships between Active and Reserve Component 

units. Just as our Active Component will change, so will 

our Reserve Component. As part of our force design 

effort, we will explore the efficacy of fully integrating 

our reserve units within the Active Component, as well 

as other organizational options.

Installations & Infrastructure

While experts across the force developed an 

Infrastructure and Reset Plan, we have collectively failed 

to aggressively execute it; thus, creating a cascading 

effect of negative second and third order effects. 

Our installation infrastructure is untenable. We are 

encumbered by 19,000 buildings, some of which are 

beyond the scope of repair and should instead be 

considered for demolition. These excess structures 

spread limited facilities, sustainment, restoration, 

and modernization (FSRM) resources thinly across the 

enterprise, impeding our ability to focus efforts and 

achieve desired outcomes. We have under-funded 

maintenance at our installations for far too long and 

failed to appreciate the growing risks associated with 

those decisions. Moreover, our training facilities and 

ranges are antiquated, and the force lacks the necessary 

modern simulators to sustain training readiness. To 

make matters worse, we created separate chains of 

command for our installations and the operating forces 

they support, further inducing friction and inefficiency. 

Modernizing our force structure requires a deliberate 

review of our installations and a deliberate plan to 

invest, divest, and reset.

Executive Decision Making

I intend be an active participant in decision-making within 

HQMC, but I do not expect to make all decisions, nor do 

I believe that all decisions require Marine Requirements 

Oversight Council (MROC) review. I expect Deputy 

Commandants to make service-level decisions in 

accordance with this guidance. Further, while current 

decision-making bodies like the MROC can be effective 

forums, they must adapt to the accelerating pace of 

change or risk being marginalized or eliminated. Our 
Commandant’s Planning Guidance 7

While performance is factored into promotion selection, 

it is narrowed to a slim cohort, roughly based on year 

groups – an antiquated model. Additionally, the Service 

does not have the tools needed to recruit the skills it 

wants, retain specific talents, advance Marines more 

quickly based on need, and separate Marines who 

cannot perform or are not compatible with military 

service. These deficiencies are related to budget, policy, 

and law.

The current manpower model does not accommodate 

a Marine whose interests change over time, tends to 

average performance over time instead of weighting 

current performance more heavily, forces Marines to 

move out of skills they excel at in the name of developing 

them, and cuts careers off near the 20-year mark when 

workers have decades of productivity left in them. These 

polices drive increased PCS costs, throw away talent 

at the point it is most productive and highly trained, 

and discourage performers who would like to continue 

serving, but may be less interested in promotion or 

constant disruptive moves of questionable personal 

and professional value.

In the current manpower model, primary occupational 

fields are set early in a career and Marines are essentially 

stuck either accepting it for an entire career or choosing 

separation. Even talented, high-performing officers have 

changing interests over time. Additionally, the lack of 

incentives for self-improvement through education and 

personnel development discourages those inclined to 

learn, think, and innovate – as these tend to disrupt the 

current model, and may in fact make the individual less 

competitive for promotion.

An incentives-based model would offer the ability to 

target incentives to specific individuals the Service 

wants to retain. We should use money like a focused 

weapon, and aim it at the exact individual we need. 

Currently, we target people via a mass fires approach, 

instead of more selective targeting. While we hope 

this results in the retention of the most talented, our 

antiquated models may also retain poor performers. The 

options for a new model are numerous. One could easily 

envision a model with a higher percentage of below 

zone promotions on every board; thus, facilitating the 

advancement of more talented and less costly Marines. 

Early retirements may induce lower performers out at 

the lowest long-term encumbrance, while incentivizing 

high performers to stay. Inducing low performers out 

accelerates the opportunities of all those who remain 

in the system; thus, further ensuring the most talented 

force possible.

readiness of our force. We must seek the administrative 

separation of those unable to be promoted who are 

creating an artificial barrier for advancement of more 

motivated individuals; we must seek the separation 

of those unable to deploy or assist in the training and 

education of Marines preparing for deployment; and 

must energetically seek the removal of all individuals 

engaged in destructive behaviors such as hazing. I will 

communicate additional guidance to all commanders 

in the near future establishing guidelines and my 

expectations.

Parental Leave / Maternity Leave

We should never ask our Marines to choose between 

being the best parent possible and the best Marine 

possible. These outcomes should never be in competition 

to the extent that success with one will come at the 

expense of the other. Our parental / maternity leave 

policies are inadequate and have failed to keep pace 

with societal norms and modern talent management 

practices. We fully support the growth of our Marine 

families, and will do everything possible to provide 

parents with opportunities to remain with their newborns 

for extended periods of time. In the future, we will 

consider up to one year leaves-of-absence for mothers 

to remain with their children before returning to full 

duty to complete their service obligations.

Manpower

Our manpower system was designed in the industrial era 

to produce mass, not quality. We assumed that quantity 

of personnel was the most important element of the 

system, and that workers (Marines) are all essentially 

interchangeable. As the complexity of the world has 

increased, the spread between physical jobs and thinking 

jobs has increased dramatically. War still has a physical 

component, and all Marines need to be screened and 

ready to fight. However, we have not adapted to the 

needs of the current battlefield. The only way to attract 

and retain Marines capable of winning on the new 

battlefield is to compete with the tools and incentives 

available to them in the marketplace.

Talent Management

The essence of all manpower systems is to encourage 

those you need and want to stay, and separate who 

are not performing to standards. Our current system 

lacks the authorities and tools to accomplish that simple 

outcome in anything but a blunt way. Our manpower 

model is based primarily on time and experience, not 

talent or performance or potential future performance. 
8 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps

• Weight academic reports in a manner that 

rewards the individual Marine for resident 

PME and their performance in that setting.

• Identify the cumulative performance of the RS 

and RO; thus, ensuring that Marines with poor 

relative values themselves aren’t adversely 

impacting the careers of more talented 

individuals they complete reports on.

While we will continue to maintain a total force approach 

to force development to include training and education, 

we must accept the realities related to periods of annual 

training completed by our Reserve Component (RC) 

Marines. For many, these periods of service require an 

Active Component Marine to complete a fitness report 

covering two weeks. Because these reports are weighted 

the same as every other report within a RS’s profile, they 

are habitually a low relative value to avoid artificially 

skewing the RS’s profile. While this is understandable, 

it should not endure. We must provide the RS with an 

opportunity to evaluate the individual’s performance in 

relation to every other RC Marine the RS has evaluated 

completing similar training, and not attempt to judge 

the two week performance against periods usually 

covering six months – if not longer.

In order to improve our current manpower model, we 

must take steps to increase standards at every rank, 

recruit more talented individuals, use every authority 

currently available, trim end-strength in favor of 

quality, and request Congress for more modern tools 

to compete in today’s economy. Modest improvement 

can be achieved with the tools already in hand, while 

dramatic improvement will likely take changes in 

budgets, law (DOPMA), policy, traditions, and mindset. 

I will communicate more on this idea in the near future.

Fitness Reports

Despite a major reform effort in 1996, there are major 

shortcomings in our current Performance Evaluation 

System that must be addressed. As was true then, there 

is a growing lack of faith within our ranks in the system’s 

ability to accurately identify their skills, performance, 

and future potential. Upward growth and mobility 

must favor the most talented within our ranks while 

facilitating the identification of those with a special 

aptitude as instructors, educators, commanders, staff 

officers, mentors, or with special technical skills. We 

must and will remedy these shortfalls.

As we investigate potential modifications to the current 

system and reports, we should evaluate the merits of 

the following changes at a minimum:

• Provide the Marine Reported On (MRO) with 

an opportunity at self-assessment

• Modify the report in a manner that allows the 

reporting senior (RS) and reporting officer 

(RO) to identify future potential

• Modify the report in a manner that allows 

the RS and RO to identify individuals with 

special aptitudes for training, educating, 

mentoring, technical skills, planning, etc.

• Weight the reports so that a three-month 

report is not valued in a congruent manner 

to a 12 month report.

• Weight command over non-command reports, 

and combat over non-combat reports.

• Eliminate academic fitness reports as nonobserved reports. The goal of the academic 

report should be to accurately identify the 

individual’s success while in school and then 

determine future potential in the next rank/

grade or as an instructor.
Commandant’s Planning Guidance 9

are resilient and match our warfighting approach in 

order to protect our ability to make decisions that 

generate tempo.

WARFIGHTING CONCEPTS AND FORCE 

DEVELOPMENT

Naval Operating Concepts

As a naval service, the Marine Corps contributes 

substantively in the development of the naval operational 

concepts that will guide how the joint force conducts 

expeditionary operations in the future. The character of 

war is increasingly dynamic, and the rapid advance of 

new technologies by both friend and foe has accelerated 

the rate of change, ensuring that the character of war in 

the future will be much different than that of the recent 

past. Our most challenging adversaries have initiated a 

new paradigm of warfare, based on the development 

and fielding of long-range precision weapons, as well as 

information-related capabilities. The greatly extended 

range, quantity, and accuracy of these observed fires 

impose new vulnerabilities on the joint force, to include 

the Navy and Marine Corps, and necessitate significant 

changes to the concepts and capabilities by which 

Marines will conduct expeditionary operations in the 

immediate future.

The 2016 Marine Corps Operating Concept (MOC) 

predates the current set of national strategy and 

guidance documents, but it was prescient in many 

ways. It directed partnering with the Navy to develop 

two concepts, Littoral Operations in a Contested 

Environment (LOCE) and Expeditionary Advanced Base 

Operations (EABO) that nest exceptionally well with the 

current strategic guidance. It is time to move beyond 

the MOC itself, however, and partner with the Navy to 

complement LOCE and EABO with classified, threatspecific operating concepts that describe how naval 

forces will conduct the range of missions articulated 

in our strategic guidance. The MOC will therefore be 

replaced by either a Marine Corps or unified capstone 

naval concept as determined in consultation with the 

Chief of Naval Operations. With respect to subordinate 

concepts, at a minimum I see the need for a concept that 

describes how naval forces compete and, if necessary, 

confront adversaries below the threshold of conflict, as 

well as a concept for how we will conduct sea-based 

forward presence and crisis response.

WARFIGHTING

As good as we are today, we will need to be even 

better tomorrow to maintain our warfighting 

overmatch. We will achieve this through the strength 

of our innovation, ingenuity, and willingness to 

continually adapt to and initiate changes in the operating 

environment to affect the behavior of real-world pacing 

threats. This will require a break from the past practice 

of capability-based force development. We will succeed 

by continually challenging the status quo and asking 

ourselves – is there a way to cause a better outcome? 

Will III MEF be able to create a mutually contested space 

in the South or East China Seas if directed to do so by 

U.S. INDOPACOM? If not, what changes are required 

to enable the desired outcomes? Will we create the 

modern, lethal naval expeditionary force we seek by 

continuing to maintain separate and distinct capability 

development and POM development processes from 

the Navy? If not, is there a better way to cause the 

desired outcomes?

The Marine Corps has been and remains the Nation’s 

premier naval expeditionary force-in-readiness.

While we stand by to perform “such other duties as the 

President may direct,” foreign humanitarian assistance, 

disaster relief, and noncombatant evacuations do not 

define us – they are not our identity. Rather, they are 

the day-to-day consequence of being the force-inreadiness. As the force-in-readiness, we are not an 

across-the-ROMO force; but rather, a force that ensures 

the prevention of major conflict and deters the escalation 

of conflict within the ROMO.

Command and Control

We must reach and execute effective military decisions 

faster than our adversaries in any conflict setting, on 

any scale. Our command and control processes and 

systems must reflect our maneuver warfare philosophy. 

Decision making that focuses on speed and creating 

tempo, mission command that focuses on low level 

initiative, simple planning processes and orders writing 

techniques that are measured by the quality of the 

intent, all require a command and control system that 

is flexible, adaptable, and resilient. We will always focus 

on people over systems in the command and control 

process per FMFM1. Decisions are what the commander 

does; systems exist only to support the commander’s 

needs. We must also recognize that modern operations, 

particularly distributed operations, require connectivity 

and access for success. We must create systems that 
10 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps

integrate in to composite warfare, modifying them 

where appropriate to increase naval force lethality. Last, 

we will provide personnel to navy staffs ranging from 

numbered Fleets through type squadrons in order to 

create standing naval staffs capable of fighting both 

Navy and Marine forces immediately.

Stand-In Forces

Over the coming months, we will release a new concept 

in support of the Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations

(DMO) Concept and the NDS called – Stand-in Forces. 

The Stand-in Forces concept is designed to restore the 

strategic initiative to naval forces and empower our 

allies and partners to successfully confront regional 

hegemons that infringe on their territorial boundaries 

and interests. Stand-in Forces are designed to 

generate technically disruptive, tactical standin engagements that confront aggressor naval 

forces with an array of low signature, affordable, 

and risk-worthy platforms and payloads. Stand-in 

forces take advantage of the relative strength of the 

contemporary defense and rapidly-emerging new 

technologies to create an integrated maritime defense 

that is optimized to operate in close and confined 

seas in defiance of adversary long-range precision 

“stand-off capabilities.”

Creating new capabilities that intentionally initiate 

stand-in engagements is a disruptive “button hook” 

in force development that runs counter to the action 

that our adversaries anticipate. Rather than heavily 

investing in expensive and exquisite capabilities that 

regional aggressors have optimized their forces to 

target, naval forces will persist forward with many 

smaller, low signature, affordable platforms that can 

economically host a dense array of lethal and nonlethal payloads.

By exploiting the technical revolution in autonomy, 

advanced manufacturing, and artificial intelligence, 

the naval forces can create many new risk-worthy 

unmanned and minimally-manned platforms that 

can be employed in stand-in engagements to create 

tactical dilemmas that adversaries will confront when 

attacking our allies and forces forward. Stand-in Forces 

will be supported from expeditionary advanced bases 

(EABs) and will complement the low signature of the 

EABs with an equally low signature force structure 

comprised largely of unmanned platforms that operate 

ashore, afloat, submerged, and aloft in close concert 

to overwhelm enemy platforms.

Composite Warfare

As an organization statutorily designated for service with 

the Fleet during the prosecution of a naval campaign, 

the Marine Corps must be able to quickly and effectively 

integrate into the naval force. The Navy’s method for 

decentralized command and control at the tacticallevel is composite warfare (CW); therefore, the Marine 

Corps must prepare to operate within this doctrinal 

construct. CW provides flexible command and control 

arrangements that can respond to multiple threats across 

various domains and mission areas without overwhelming 

the decision capacity of a single commander or battle 

staff. Through this approach to all-domain warfare, 

CW empowers subordinates to execute decentralized 

tactical operations – independently or integrated into a 

larger Naval or Joint Force – through mission command 

and flexible supporting relationships responsive to 

ever-changing tactical situations.

Marine Corps integration into the Fleet via composite 

warfare will be a prerequisite to the successful 

execution of amphibious operations: Marines cannot 

be passive passengers en route to the amphibious 

objective area. As long-range precision stand-off 

weapons improve and diffuse along the world’s littorals, 

Marines must contribute to the fight alongside our Navy 

shipmates from the moment we embark. Once ashore, 

Marine Forces operating within CW will increase the 

Fleet’s lethality and resiliency and will contribute to all 

domain access, deterrence, sea control, and power 

projection.

The Marine Corps will add composite warfare to our 

practical application of naval tactical combat power to 

complement our understanding of maneuver warfare 

outlined in FMFM-1 Warfighting. The Marine Corps 

will undergo an aggressive naval education program 

– ranging from the conceptual understanding naval 

theory and history down to tactical-level schools and 

courses – to enable our commanders and staffs across 

the Fleet Marine Force to quickly integrate in to naval 

forces and provide critical capabilities both afloat and 

ashore. Conversely, the Marine Corps must advance 

the education of navy officers in our capabilities and 

organizations; without this reciprocity, our efforts will 

not be as effective as the future security environment 

requires. We will conduct a comprehensive review of 

all doctrinal, reference, and warfighting publications 

to ensure that our doctrine, concepts, tactics, and 

procedures nest within and support composite warfare; 

modification will be necessary with those that do not. 

We will assess our current staffs for their ability to 
Commandant’s Planning Guidance 11

EABO enable the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to 

partner and persist forward despite adversary longrange precision fires, a necessary reaction to adversary 

force development initiatives. However, our ambitions 

are more aggressive than preserving status quo 

options, and we seek to restore the strategic initiative 

by establishing a disruptive and highly competitive 

space where American ingenuity can capitalize on the 

new capabilities that naval forces will exploit to deter 

conflict and dominate confined seas. The U.S. Navy 

and Marine Corps do not seek to merely “discern the 

future operating environment,” but are determined 

to define the future character of maritime conflict, so 

that naval forces will deter or fight from a position of 

enduring advantage. Inevitably, EABO will evolve in 

implementation into a wide array of missions, with 

an equally wide assortment of force and capability 

combinations required to support them.

Success will be defined in terms of finding the smallest, 

lowest signature options that yield the maximum 

operational utility. We must always be mindful of the 

ratio of operational contribution to employment cost. 

We will test various forms of EABO against specific 

threats and ask ourselves whether EABO contributions 

to the joint force are worth its logistics and security 

burden. This ratio should always be more favorable 

than other joint force options contributing a similar 

capability.

To date, our wargaming has focused on a limited 

set of scenarios; thus, we will need to expand our 

analysis across more scenarios to better inform our 

force design efforts. As in earlier design initiatives, 

such as seabasing, we are going to build a force that 

can do EABO opposed to building an EABO force. 

This distinction is important because our fundamental 

design principles are independent of EABO. A force 

composed of highly capable tactical units that can 

perform combined arms operations at all echelons, 

enabled by organic air and logistics is a force that can 

perform EABO – if provided tailored capabilities and 

training. Determining the exact nature of this specialized 

training and equipping will be the focus of our EAB 

implementation actions.

Distributed Operations

New threats, new missions, and new technologies require 

us to adjust our organizational design and modernize 

our capabilities. While others may wait for a clearer 

picture of the future operating environment, we will 

focus our efforts on driving change and influencing 

Stand-in Forces take advantage of the strategic offensive 

and tactical defense to create disproportionate result 

at affordable cost. Because they are inherently resilient, 

risk worthy, inexpensive and lethal they restore combat 

credibility to forward deployed naval forces and serve 

to deter aggression. Stand-in force capabilities are 

much better optimized to confront physical aggression 

and malign behaviors with physical presence and nonlethal payloads, empowering allies with the ability to 

defend their own national territory and interests

Expeditionary Advanced Based Operations 

(EABO)

EABO complement the Navy’s Distributed Maritime 

Operations Concept and will inform how we 

approach missions against peer adversaries. As we 

move beyond concept to implementation, we must 

recognize that EABO is not a “thing” – it is a category of 

operations. Saying we will do EABO is akin to saying we 

will do amphibious operations, and as with amphibious 

operations, EABO can take many forms.

EABO are driven by the aforementioned adversary 

deployment of long-range precision fires designed 

to support a strategy of “counter-intervention” 

directed against U.S. and coalition forces. EABO, as 

an operational concept, enables the naval force to 

persist forward within the arc of adversary long-range 

precision fires to support our treaty partners with 

combat credible forces on a much more resilient and 

difficult to target forward basing infrastructure. EABO 

are designed to restore force resiliency and enable 

the persistent naval forward presence that has long 

been the hallmark of naval forces. Most significantly, 

EABO reverse the cost imposition that determined 

adversaries seek to impose on the joint force. EABO 

guide an apt and appropriate adjustment in future 

naval force development to obviate the significant 

investment our adversaries have made in long-range 

precision fires. Potential adversaries intend to target 

our forward fixed and vulnerable bases, as well as deep 

water ports, long runways, large signature platforms, 

and ships. By developing a new expeditionary naval 

force structure that is not dependent on concentrated, 

vulnerable, and expensive forward infrastructure and 

platforms, we will frustrate enemy efforts to separate 

U.S. Forces from our allies and interests. EABO enable 

naval forces to partner and persist forward to control 

and deny contested areas where legacy naval forces 

cannot be prudently employed without accepting 

disproportionate risk.
12 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps

Future Force Development

Future force development requires a wider range of force 

options and capabilities. The Marine Corps must be able 

to fight at sea, from the sea, and from the land to the 

sea; operate and persist within range of adversary longrange fires; maneuver across the seaward and landward 

portions of complex littorals; and sense, shoot, and 

sustain while combining the physical and information 

domains to achieve desired outcomes. Achieving this 

endstate requires a force that can create the virtues of 

mass without the vulnerabilities of concentration, thanks 

to mobile and low-signature sensors and weapons. 

Our desired endstate also requires elite warriors with 

physical and mental toughness, tenacity, initiative, and 

aggressiveness to innovate, adapt, and win in a rapidlychanging operating environment.

The amphibious fleet and littoral maneuver craft also 

require significant future force development. The 

amphibious fleet must be diversified in composition and 

increased in capacity by developing smaller, specialized 

ships, as a complement to the existing family of large 

multipurpose ships. Doing so will improve resilience, 

dispersion, and the ability to operate in complex 

archipelagoes and contested littorals without incurring 

unacceptable risk. Initial options for examination include:

• A “hybrid” amphibious ship to transport 

landing craft and enable the ability to fight 

in a contested littoral.

• An inexpensive, self-deploying “connector” 

capable of delivering rolling stock on or 

near-shore in a contested littoral.

• Considering how a wider array of smaller 

“black bottom” ships might supplement the 

maritime preposition and amphibious fleets.

Future force development must also contribute to 

an integrated operational architecture and enable 

information environment operations. Friendly forces 

must be able to disguise actions and intentions, as 

well as deceive the enemy, through the use of decoys, 

signature management, and signature reduction. 

Preserving the ability to command and control 

in a contested information network environment

is paramount.

Last, we must prioritize research, development, and 

fielding of emerging and advanced technologies that are 

applicable within the seaward and landward portions of 

the littorals. Technologies such as artificial intelligence, 

future operating environment outcomes. One way to 

drive the continued evolution of the future operating 

environment is Distributed Operations (DO). DO capable 

forces are a critically important component of Marine 

Corps modernization.

Traditionally, the infantry company has been the 

lowest echelon capable of coordinating the full-range 

of combined arms, but miniaturization of electronics 

and increased processing power enable adversaries to 

empower individuals and small units with combinedarms capability. We must be equal or better than this 

threat by pushing combined arms to the squad.

Given the imperative for a new force design, codifying 

DO is critical to implementation. We have been 

experimenting with DO for two decades, but it is 

still inadequately developed and lacks a doctrinal 

foundation, thus it has not driven unit or organizational 

design, nor has it adequately informed our investment 

decisions. We will refine DO through experimentation 

and force-on-force training and by summer 2020, we 

will begin writing it into doctrine. Our findings will also 

guide our concurrent Force Design activities.

Our lack of progress in implementing DO is in part due 

to an inadequate description of why we would distribute 

forces and why we would conduct distributed operations. 

In my judgment, we distribute for five reasons:

• We disperse to better accomplish the mission 

against a distant or distributed adversary.

• We disperse to improve maneuver options 

in order to gain a positional advantage to 

assault, or engage more effectively with 

direct or indirect fires.

• We disperse to reduce the effects of 

enemy fires.

• We disperse to impose costs and induce 

uncertainty.

• We disperse to reduce our signature 

to avoid detection. In a precision strike 

regime, sensing first and shooting first are 

a tremendous advantage.

We will structure our experimentation and training to 

capture the benefits of DO and begin codifying it into 

doctrine.
Commandant’s Planning Guidance 13

on across the continuum, but it needs to be the norm, 

not the exception. We will prioritize funding in support 

of this transformation.

In addition, we will prioritize funding aimed at further 

reinforcing the transformation. We must continue 

to strengthen the process whereby we reinforce the 

transformation that occurs at Officer Candidate School 

(OCS) and Recruit Training. This means continuously 

optimizing MOS production management to limit 

Marines awaiting training as much as possible, as well 

as ensuring that while they are waiting, there is a plan 

for using their time as constructively as possible – to 

include additional educational opportunities. The last, 

and probably most important, aspect of this is the 

warm hand off to our Marine’s first operating force 

unit. This is a difficult task, but we see too many of our 

youngest Marines either fall through the cracks or get 

taken advantage of at this critical point in their Marine 

Corps experience. This will be the subject of additional 

communication in the future.

Ground-Based Long-Range Precision Fires

Our investments in air-delivered long-range precision 

fires (LRPF) are known, suitable, and sufficient; however, 

we remain woefully behind in the development of 

ground-based long-range precision-fires that can be 

fielded in the near term which have sufficient range 

and precision to deter malign activities or conflict. Our 

capability development focus has fixated on those 

capabilities with sufficient range and lethality to support 

infantry and ground maneuver. This singular focus is 

no longer appropriate or acceptable. Our groundbased fires must be relevant to the fleet and joint force 

commanders and provide overmatch against potential 

adversaries, or they risk irrelevance.

We must develop capabilities to facilitate sea denial 

and sea control; thus, augmenting the fleet and joint 

force’s use of the sea for our own interests while denying 

adversaries the same possibilities. These capabilities 

will facilitate the creation of denied spaces by forward 

postured or deployed naval expeditionary forces with 

sufficient resilience to persist within the weaponsengagement-zone (WEZ) once actively contested. We 

must possess the ability to turn maritime spaces into 

barriers so we can attack an adversary’s sea lines of 

communication (SLOC) while defending our own in 

support of the Fleet or Joint Force. This goal requires 

ground-based LRPF with no less than 350NM ranges 

– with greater ranges desired. Possession of such 

capabilities is not only an operational imperative based 

robotics, additive manufacturing, quantum computing, 

and nanotechnology will continue to change the world 

- we must be positioned to capture the returns on 

investment. Similarly, unmanned and autonomous 

systems will enable greater applications for hydrographic 

survey, reconnaissance, mine warfare, logistics support, 

deception, and warfighting. Nascent applications such 

as swarming and miniature aerial attack systems have 

the potential to radically change the character of war. 

Our future force development must include appropriate 

prioritization in these technologies; however, doing 

so will not be easy. It will require divesting of legacy 

capabilities that cannot be economically adapted to 

meet the demands of the future, while also taking 

calculated risks in some areas.

WARFIGHTING INVESTMENTS AND DIVESTMENTS

Talent retention

Retention of the most talented individuals within the 

institution is critical. In order to realize the F-35 capability, 

cyber capability, AI / Data Science capability, Group 

5 UAS and UGV capability, or DO / EABO capability 

articulated in our concepts, we must reverse the negative 

trends related to talent retention. This is not a Marine 

Corps problem; but rather, a joint force problem. This 

will likely require policy changes as well as adjustments 

to retention bonuses. If we desire the force articulated 

in our concepts, then talent retention must be a 

priority. Just as we will focus on precision fires, our 

talent management and talent retention efforts must 

be executed with precision. The blanket provision of 

bonuses across entire communities will no longer be 

our weapon-of-choice; but rather, we will seek a more 

precise option to ensure the most talented individuals 

– to include those identified as the most competent 

and capable combat leaders and not just those with 

the most expensive technical training.

Training and Education

We must change the Training and Education Continuum 

from an industrial age model, to an information age 

model. To that end, we need to determine the best way 

to effect the desired change, which includes the way 

we select, train and evaluate instructors throughout the 

continuum, but also the way we inspect formal school 

houses. At present, our entire system for formal schools 

management reinforces the industrial age model and 

therefore needs to be changed. But first, we must codify 

what is meant by an information age model of training 

and educating Marines. We have some of this going 
14 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps

C2 in a degraded environment

We have yet to fully develop a robust capability 

necessary to maintain advantages in the information 

environment across all seven warfighting functions. This 

effort will remain a priority for investment and future 

force development.

Air and Missile Defense (Directed Energy, 

Counter-Precision Guided Munitions, and GroundBased Air-Defense)

We must continue to prioritize investments in modern, 

sophisticated air defense capabilities to include those 

capabilities which are required by our forward-deployed 

stand-in forces for persistence inside the adversary 

WEZ. Regardless of capability enhancements to our 

overall lethality, if our forward deployed forces are 

unable to persist inside the WEZ, then they will likely be 

irrelevant – if not potential liabilities. We are witnessing 

the emergence of an era of missile warfare, and must 

ensure our forces possess the capabilities required to 

mitigate those threats for themselves, the fleet, and joint 

force. We must expand our research on this issue, and 

investigate the merits of directed energy capabilities, 

as well as counter-precision guided munitions (C-PGM) 

systems for our forward deployed forces.

Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and Emerging 

Technology

The Marine Corps confronts an increasingly complex 

operational environment abroad and a challenging fiscal 

outlook. The Marine Corps can no longer accept the 

inefficiencies inherent in antiquated legacy systems that 

put an unnecessary burden on the warfighters. We do 

not currently collect the data we need systematically, we 

lack the processes and technology to make sense of the 

data we do collect, and we do not leverage the data we 

have to identify the decision space in manning, training, 

and equipping the force. Where we have individual 

leaders and organizations that are trying to adopt the 

best practices in data science and data analytics, it is 

often accomplished through the heroic efforts of a few 

individuals rather than the organized and sustained 

effort required to transform how we sense, make sense, 

and act.

We will make strategic investments in data science, machine 

learning, and artificial intelligence. Initial investments 

will be focused on challenges we are confronting in 

talent management, predictive maintenance, logistics, 

intelligence, and training. In each of those areas, we 

have significant data ripe for the application of these 

on the threat, but one that will increase options to 

commanders, and should radically alter our forward 

posture once fully realized.

Unmanned Systems

Given well-documented trends in all warfare domains 

toward increasing range, precision, and lethality of 

ordnance, ubiquitous multi-spectrum reconnaissance 

and surveillance, and real-time networked command and 

control, it is unlikely that exquisite manned platforms 

represent a complete answer to our needs in future 

warfare. A likely vision of warfare centers on the recon/

counter-recon contest. This demands an agile, stealthy 

tactical system employing forces that are able to locate, 

target, and fire precisely first. Exponentially greater 

precision and lethality of threat weapons demands we 

reduce exposure of our most expensive platforms and 

reduce exposure of Marines wherever possible. This 

means a significant increase in unmanned systems.

This vision, widely discussed since at least the late 1990s, 

has been slower to arrive than some expected, but gains 

greater salience as renewed great power competition 

advances and advanced technology continues to 

proliferate globally. We have begun adapting to this 

likely future with tentative and internally-contested steps 

toward fielding a family of unmanned aerial systems, 

including the proven long-range, high-endurance armed 

Group 5 systems that have been ubiquitous in the 

counter-insurgency warfare of the past decades. We will 

build upon this progress and work rapidly, starting with 

POM-22, to develop a much broader family of unmanned 

systems suitable for reconnaissance, surveillance, and 

the delivery of lethal and non-lethal effects in the air, on 

land, and on and under the sea. Development of this 

family of systems will account for the demands of our role 

in all phases of a fully integrated naval campaign. We will 

prioritize short-term fielding of proven technology, 

and will significantly increase our efforts to mature 

unmanned capabilities in other domains. Mindful 

that any present vision of the specific nature of future 

warfare is likely to be flawed, development of our family 

of unmanned systems will proceed within the framework 

of a deliberate, fully resourced process of concept 

development, wargaming, and experimentation. 

We will meet the inevitable resourcing challenges of 

experimentation and eventual full fielding as necessary 

by judicious acceptance of risk and capacity reductions 

in current capabilities across the force.
Commandant’s Planning Guidance 15

and develop our Marines to the level required by the 

operational environment. We must set conditions so 

that the Marines can focus on warfighting tasks rather 

than data entry and redundant administrative processes. 

This will make the Marine Corps more lethal. It will also 

make it easier to recruit and retain the Marines who will 

be able to excel in the future operating environment.

Divestment Guidance

As we continue to develop our capabilities, we must 

ensure we have the operationally relevant forces the 

Combatant Commanders and Fleet Commanders need. 

It is our responsibility to provide ready forces – forces 

ready to satisfy Combatant Commander requests for 

forces. We cannot continue to accept the preservation 

of legacy capabilities with little to no demand signal, 

or those that are only being retained in support of 

surge requirements associated with the least-likely, 

worst-case scenario. Capabilities and force elements 

meeting this criteria are candidates for divestment. Such 

divestitures are necessary so that we may continue to 

grow our most demanded force elements, to include 

those that are habitually identified as high-demand, 

low supply elements within our current Total Obligation 

Authority (TOA). We cannot allow individuals within 

the decision-making chain to prevent the procurement 

of advanced systems and modern capabilities in high 

demand from our customers due to irrational and 

empty concerns that “they will be taken from us.” As I 

stated earlier, we provide ready forces, and evidence 

of the relevance and readiness of our force is customer 

demand. Furthermore, we will re-scope capabilities and 

associated force structure in a manner consistent with 

what is sustainable. We cannot afford to create force 

structure that our manpower models cannot support.

tool sets. It is not acceptable to waste resources because 

we lack the investments in infrastructure, processes, 

and personnel. These investments will be focused on 

the application of existing systems and tools (COTS 

and GOTS). We will leverage the investments other 

Services have made as a fast follower. These tools will 

empower our existing analytical community to leverage 

the advanced education investments the Marine Corps 

is making in the 88XX community.

The authority to operate (ATO) and information assurance 

(IA) processes must not be allowed to inhibit the adoption 

of these technologies and processes. We will leverage 

the authorities and guidance in the DON business 

operations plan to accelerate our transformation 

from disconnected legacy systems to an integrated 

data architecture that treats data as it should be – a 

critical resource. If we need additional authorities 

we will identify the gaps and pursue the necessary 

changes to instructions or policy.

In select cases, we will explore investments in decision 

support tools that leverage data science and artificial 

intelligence for the tactical commander. These smaller, 

high impact investments will facilitate experimentation to 

determine how it can assist our commanders in the field. 

While the returns on this investment may be exponential, 

the technology risk is equally high. We will deliberately 

partner with our Navy counterparts to maximize the 

investment and share the risks. We are a naval force. 

Our tactical and operational IA investments will reflect 

the inherently naval character and the future character 

of war as specified in the National Defense Strategy.

All of our investments in data science, machine learning, 

and artificial intelligence are designed to unleash the 

incredible talent of the individual Marine. By automating 

the tasks that are repetitive, time-consuming, and routine, 

we will create the space in the schedule to train, educate, 

“All of our investments in data 

science, machine learning, 

and artificial intelligence 

are designed to unleash 

the incredible talent of the 

individual Marine.” 
16 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps

participation. It is your responsibility to seek PME as 

part of “self-improvement” and reap the benefits of 

those educational opportunities provided; I will do 

everything possible to ensure the policies, resources, 

infrastructure, and educators are well-established to 

support you.

I have noticed over the past several years that there is 

an increasing dissonance between what we are doing 

with regard to training and education, and what we 

need to be doing based on the evolving operating 

environment. Specifically, many of our schools and 

training venues are firmly based in the “lecture, 

memorize facts, regurgitate facts on command” 

model of industrial age training and education. For 

our schools, it is more about the process of presenting 

information, and for our students/trainees, it is about 

what to think and what to do instead of how to think, 

decide, and act. What we need is an information age 

approach that is focused on active, student-centered 

learning using a problem-posing methodology where 

our students/trainees are challenged with problems 

that they tackle as groups in order to learn by doing 

and also from each other. We have to enable them to 

think critically, recognize when change is needed and 

inculcate a bias for action without waiting to be told 

what to do. While I think our officer and enlisted PME 

systems have made some progress in this area over the 

past 5-10 years, we need the rest of the Training and 

Education Command (TECOM) enterprise to catch up.

PME is not a luxury and certainly not a reward for 

previous accomplishment or service; but rather, a 

necessary investment by the service to facilitate 

readiness across the force. We must cease viewing 

PME as something less strenuous and less challenging 

than other tours of service, and seek to make it as 

competitive and rewarding as possible. I am committed 

to ensuring each of you is provided the best educational 

opportunity available; however, I am also committed 

to ensuring that the opportunity is as academically 

rigorous as possible, and no longer consequence free. 

This will require changes in how we evaluate academic 

performance, as well as how we annotate success, 

mediocrity, and potentially failure via performance 

evaluations. We must expect a greater return on 

our investments from the $50,000 per student cost, 

for example, at Command and Staff College. That 

experience must result in greater identification of the 

most and least talented individuals.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

EDUCATION

The complexity of the modern battlefield and increasing 

rate of change requires a highly educated force. While 

different, education and training are inextricably linked. 

Education denotes study and intellectual development. 

Training is primarily learning-by-doing. We will not 

train without the presence of education; we must not 

educate without the complementary execution of 

well-conceived training. As the 31st Commandant of 

the Marine Corps noted – “any mission undertaken 

by the Corps will flow directly from our ability both to 

train and educate every Marine.” In order to meet our 

desired endstate in education, substantial reforms are 

required in the organization of our training commands 

and our formal schools. Appropriate focus on the 

selection processes is essential to select the right 

Marines as instructors, trainers, and educators.

As noted by every Commandant since the 29th 

Commandant of the Marine Corps, our Marines 

must be comfortable with chaos, comfortable with 

mission tactics, and comfortable operating in a highly 

distributed manner across any potential battlefield. 

While I support this conclusion, I am convinced that 

attempts to regiment every minute of every day to 

remove as much friction and potential chaos from the 

individual Marine while in home-station is counterproductive. We will never create a natural comfort 

with distributed operations and mission tactics if we 

continue to impose the most inflexible and overlystructured architecture at home-station. This must 

change. The continued use of overly hierarchical 

organizational models must be changed to facilitate 

the development of the individual Marines and force 

we need.

Professional Military Education

Few developments within the Marine Corps during 

my time in service have been more revolutionary 

than that undertaken in PME – the most important 

of which were initiated by the 29th Commandant. 

PME is not something reserved solely for officers; 

rather, something expected and sought-after by our 

Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) and Staff NonCommissioned Officers (SNCOs). This is a positive 

approach; one I will continue to support. PME is the 

responsibility of every Marine, and takes many forms 

from individual professional reading to formal school 
Commandant’s Planning Guidance 17

build on a solid analytic foundation closely integrated 

with the Navy. We must invest more in these learning 

activities.

Finally, we need a doctrinal publication to formulate 

how Marines will learn in the years ahead and why it 

is so important that they “buy in” to the concept. It 

needs to set the groundwork firmly in adult learning 

methodology with an emphasis on teamwork, problem 

solving, and enabling the ability for all of our Marines 

to cycle through the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, 

Act) loop faster than any opponent we may face with 

a bias for intelligent action becoming second nature 

to all Marines.

TRAINING

We should train the way we expect and intend to fight. 

If we expect to operate in a contested information 

environment, then we will train to that standard and 

expectation. If we expect to operate in an environment 

in which losing the hider-finder competition will result 

in attack by mass indirect fires, then we will train that 

way. If we anticipate operating in distributed naval 

and expeditionary formations due to the ascendancy 

of missile warfare, then we will train that way. We must 

adapt our training in a manner consistent with the threat 

and anticipated operational challenges. If we will be 

required to create mutually contested maritime spaces, 

then we must train to do so. If we will be required to 

persist inside an advanced adversary’s WEZ, then we 

must train to do so. If we anticipate a requirement to 

seize and defend, then we must train to do so, regardless 

of obstacles such as non-availability of amphibious ships.

As with our formal schools, we must enforce a more 

disciplined and rigorous assessment model in which not 

every unit passes, and for which there are both rewards 

and punishments for performance. We must be able 

to say with confidence that the $5.5M we expend per 

ITX rotation is causing greater readiness and, therefore, 

providing a return to the service for the investment.

Training must be focused on winning in combat 

in the most challenging conditions and operating 

environments – from the thin air and high altitudes 

of the mountains, to the sweltering heat of triple 

canopy jungles, and including the sprawling selforganized chaos of dense urban terrain. Marines must 

be comfortable operating in all potential environments. 

Wherever possible, training will be progressive and 

practical in nature. We must make the most of every 

learning opportunity in garrison before units go to the 

Naval Education

As a service, we lack the requisite naval education to 

engage our fellow naval officers and peers constructively 

in discussions on naval concepts, naval programs, or 

naval warfare. While we can and should take pride in 

our ability to develop a deep reservoir of knowledge 

on counterinsurgency operations, we must now direct 

our attention and energy to replicating that educational 

effort across the force to create a similar knowledge base 

regarding naval warfare and naval expeditionary warfare. 

All our formal schools must and will change their 

programs of instruction to include a greater naval 

orientation. We must all have a better understanding 

of composite warfare and the JFMCC as a whole. To 

that end, I will direct all of our Brigadier Generals and 

Brigadier General-selects to attend the Navy JFMCC 

Course along with their Navy peers.

Learning

We must invest robustly in wargaming, experimentation, 

and modeling & simulation (M&S) if we are to be a 

successful learning organization. The National Defense 

Strategy has directed us to focus in new areas, 

and this requires us to think, innovate, and change.

Addressing these new missions starts with ideas, ideas 

are developed into concepts, and concepts that are then 

tested and refined by wargaming, experimentation, 

and M&S.

We are currently imbalanced across these learning 

activities. We have applied substantial energies to 

developing new concepts over the last two decades, 

but our “proofing” of these concepts through rigorous 

wargaming, experimentation, and analysis has been 

inadequate. Such activities are essential if we are 

going to translate our concepts into action. We have 

a poor transition record in this regard, and our lack of 

sufficient analysis and experimentation is a major factor 

contributing to this deficiency.

It is obvious from our concept development work that 

significant change is required in how we organize, 

train, and equip our Corps for the future. Innovation 

will be critical, but it is in the actual implementation of 

our innovative concepts that we will be judged. For 

the Marine Corps, meaningful innovation is not just 

having great thoughts and concepts rather, it is about 

translating great thoughts and concepts into action.

Our PPBE process by which we determine how we 

spend our resources will be driven by a planning phase 

informed by wargaming, modeling and simulation, and 
18 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps

Our Lab will serve as the focal point and integrating 

ground for new concepts, capabilities, and technologies 

that we develop, as well as a key enabler for accelerating 

the Service’s future force development efforts. The Lab 

will continue to prioritize the development of naval 

concepts and capabilities, and Fleet Marine Force 

support to naval campaigns.

To accomplish these objectives, some change is 

required. To ensure investment in critical ‘leap ahead 

technologies’, the MCWL shall be responsible for 

providing recommendations to DC CD&I and the MROC 

for a dedicated slice of the Warfighting Investment 

Program Evaluation Board (WIPEB). Once we have 

addressed these resource shortfalls and updated 

responsibility for WIPEB investment recommendations 

that prioritize modernization, the Lab will be responsible 

for development, field testing, and implementation of 

future operational and functional concepts, along with 

supporting technologies, as well as for working across the 

enterprise to accelerate potential DOTMLPF changes.

While the OPFOR’s role in support of Service-level 

experimentation is essential, we will have only one 

integrated Service-level wargaming and experimentation 

campaign led by the Warfighting Laboratory. Other 

entities across the enterprise and OPFOR will cease any 

non-integrated effort with MCWL’s larger experimentation 

campaign. This is not intended to stifle experimentation 

and innovation; but instead, to create focus with our 

limited resources. MCWL will continue to rely on the 

OPFOR – for their best and most innovative minds – to 

achieve success.

Wargaming in Force Design

The vehicle for change, in terms of wargaming in 

support of force design, will be the MCWL. A major 

focus of my tenure as Commandant will be my direct, 

personal, regular engagement with our Warfighting 

Laboratory to drive an integrated process of wargaming 

and experimentation that will rapidly produce solutions 

for further development in accordance with my guidance 

and vision. That vision centers on three conceptual 

foundations mentioned above – Distributed Operations, 

Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment, and 

Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations. The Marine 

Corps’ role in these concepts is inseparable from the 

broad sweep of naval operations; accordingly, we should 

think in terms of their execution within the framework 

of the Navy’s Composite Warfare doctrine. We will 

ensure that a single wargaming entity within MCWL 

proceeds systematically, and rapidly, through a series 

field. Training must include appropriate background 

reading, tactical decision games, modeling and 

simulations, and augmented reality. Everything should 

be subject to a formal critique, which is a particularly 

important part of performance oriented training.

WARGAMING

Essential to charting our course in an era of strategic 

fluidity and rapid change will be the effective integration 

of professional wargaming in force design, education, 

and training. Often conflated in the minds of some 

Marines with recreational pastimes, or perhaps more 

often with simulations used for individual and small unit 

training, wargaming is in fact a set of tools for structured 

thinking about military problems within a competitive 

framework – in the presence of that “thinking enemy” 

who lies at the heart of our doctrinal understanding of 

war. Successful military innovations of the past, from 

our own naval services’ development of amphibious 

warfare doctrine to Tukhachevsky’s formulation of 

“Deep Battle,” rested on a foundation of properlyintegrated wargaming. As with other aspects of our 

current performance, our problem is not that we are 

not doing wargaming – indeed, we have something of 

a proliferation of entities engaged in the practice – but 

that we have not effectively harnessed this effort in an 

integrated process of learning generating tangible, 

defensible results. This will change.

We will build a Wargaming Center on the Marine 

Corps University (MCU) campus. The most important 

aspect of this project will be hiring the right people 

to operate the facility. While the facility must be able 

to handle all levels of classification and be responsive 

to changing technologies, our biggest investment will 

be maintaining the right technical and non-technical 

personnel. We will need experts in wargaming, M&S, 

facilitation, threats, and opportunities.

Marine Corps Warfighting Lab

The 31st Commandant established the Marine Corps 

Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) “to serve as the cradle 

and test bed for the development of enhanced operational 

concepts, tactics, techniques, procedures, and doctrine 

which will be progressively introduced into the FMF in 

concert with new technologies.” Over the years, the 

Lab’s structure and mission have evolved. Given the pace 

and consequence of on-going technological change, 

the Lab must continue to evolve to meet the demands 

of the future strategic and operational environment.
Commandant’s Planning Guidance 19

former. However, we must make this shift. Available 

technology is likely to offer potential solutions if we 

refine what we are asking of it: we need less of the grand 

“simulations” solution connecting a variety of individual 

cockpit or rifleman-level sims into the flow of larger 

exercises than a modernized command and control 

system that integrates advanced wargaming functions 

for both training and planning. Clearly, potential exists 

for synergy between MCU’s educational wargaming, 

MCWL’s wargaming efforts in support of force design, 

and the requirements for increased use of wargaming 

in tactical training. We will pursue such opportunities 

with determination and energy.

Wargaming Findings

In alignment with strategic guidance, our Servicelevel wargames over the past few years have focused 

on warfighting scenarios involving peer adversaries. 

The insights from these wargames inform future force 

development and indicate a requirement to adapt 

our concepts and capabilities for waging great power 

competition and conflict. We have Service initiatives 

already in motion that position us for change. In February 

of 2019, the Commandant and Chief of Naval Operations 

co-signed the concept for EABO. The ideas contained 

in this document are foundational to our future force 

development efforts and are applicable in multiple 

scenarios. While our Corps’ history provides numerous 

examples of similar type operations, we now need new 

capabilities if we are to implement EABO in its full scope 

in a future conflict against the pacing threat.

Our wargames have shown that in any great power 

conflict, our alliances are an essential factor to achieving 

success. We will fight in defense of our allies and will 

operate in close alignment with them, from their 

territories, alongside their ships and aircraft, and in 

cooperative and even integrated formations on the 

ground. We must work with them in peace to be ready 

to partner with them in war. Our forward deployed 

of games designed to explore the implications of the 

designated concepts in specific, real-world scenarios 

based on the current NDS, National Military Strategy 

(NMS), and other relevant departmental guidance. This 

wargaming effort will be the centerpiece of my effort 

to generate reliable knowledge upon which to base 

force design and combat development.

Resourcing a real “campaign of learning” presents 

challenges. It cannot be done simply by tasking existing 

organizations to do what they are inclined to do already. 

Inherent in our rhetoric of renewed great power 

competition in an era of exponential technological and 

social change is the understanding that accepting risk in 

current capability, before emerging threats fully mature, is 

a reasonable price to pay for a better chance of properly 

anticipating future requirements. Further guidance 

on resourcing will follow, but deliberate service-level 

O-6 and O-5 talent management, permanent manning 

adjustments, fiscal reprogramming, and the temporary 

allocation of highly-qualified manpower from the MCU 

student population, are all elements of a likely solution 

for proper resourcing of this critical effort.

Wargaming in Education and Training

In the context of training, wargaming needs to be 

used more broadly to fill what is arguably our greatest 

deficiency in the training and education of leaders: 

practice in decision-making against a thinking enemy. 

Again, this requirement is inherent in the nature of war. 

In modern military organizations, it is, along with the 

fear of violent death, precisely the element of real war 

that is hardest to replicate under peacetime conditions. 

Wargaming historically was invented to fill this gap, and 

we need to make far more aggressive use of it at all levels 

of training and education to give leaders the necessary 

“reps and sets” in realistic combat decision-making. In 

particular, the spectrum of larger unit training, focused 

on commanders and staffs at battalion/squadron and 

higher levels, remains tightly focused on standardized 

tactics, techniques, and procedures and deals too little 

with the challenge of making the tactical decisions, 

under stress, that these TTP exist to implement. Large 

unit exercises, from MEF-level command post exercises 

to battalion-focused Integrated Training Exercises, 

must focus primarily on commanders’ decision-making 

under conditions of uncertainty and their staffs’ ability 

to support such decisions, and only secondarily on 

the TTP of combined-arms integration and technical 

command and control. This is a tall order, as the latter 

are obviously the essential building blocks of the 

“Our wargames have shown 

that in any great power 

conflict, our alliances 

are an essential factor to 

achieving success.”
20 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps

At the forward tactical edge of the FMF are our F-35s, 

reconnaissance teams, and rifle squads. This combined 

arms triad of warriors imbued with our warfighting ethos, 

integrated with and enhanced by unmanned sensors 

and weapons platforms, and enabled by the combat 

support and combat service support functions of the 

FMF, can be a dominating and decisive force on any 

battlefield against any adversary. We must leverage 

unmanned technologies and artificial intelligence 

to enhance our situational awareness, lethality, and 

expeditionary potential.

Some specific technologies our wargames have 

shown to be of particular importance are long-range 

unmanned surface vessels (LRUSV) as sensors, weapons, 

and sustainment platforms; ground based long-range 

precision fires capabilities that can strike moving targets 

in both land and sea domains; high-endurance loitering 

sensors and munitions employable from the squad to 

MEF levels; advanced air defense capabilities; and 

low probability of intercept (LPI) / low probability of 

detection (LPD) communications and radars. Integrating 

these capabilities, and others, will entail significant force 

structure changes and development of new concepts 

of employment across the MAGTF.

forces will continue to enhance the interoperability 

of our tactics, techniques, and procedures, while our 

capability developers enhance the interoperability of 

our systems.

To succeed in closing the force in any future conflict, 

we must re-imagine our amphibious ship capabilities, 

prepositioning, and expeditionary logistics so they are 

more survivable, at less risk of catastrophic loss, and 

agile in their employment. We must add sensors and 

defensive systems to our current fleet of amphibious 

ships while we explore alternative future platforms, 

amphibious operations concepts, and evolved Marine 

Expeditionary Unit configurations. We must leverage the 

strategic re-capitalization of our Maritime Prepositioning 

Ship Squadrons to develop smaller and more versatile 

ships. We also need to explore ocean going connectors 

that enable our intra-theater movement and sustainment.

Our wargaming, analysis, and real-world operations 

show that advancements in technologies across all 

domains enhance situational awareness and long-range 

precision strike, not only for us but also for our peer 

adversaries. In any future conflict, we will face challenges 

in maneuvering and operating inside threat weapons 

engagement zones. We must be prepared to counter 

threat sensors at operational and tactical levels. And 

we must have capabilities that enable the MAGTF to 

sense and strike across all domains.

Critical to warfighting success in environments 

characterized by distributed operations across wide 

expanses of battlespace is an effective and resilient 

command and control system. Our communications 

nodes will be hunted and targeted. Careless and 

unmanaged signatures will invite destruction. We require 

interoperable, low signature, secure communications. 

We cannot develop this in isolation from the other 

Services. We must be capable of plugging into naval, 

joint, and combined communications networks and 

seamlessly sharing data that enhances situational 

awareness, targeting, and force synchronization.

Autonomous systems and artificial intelligence are rapidly 

changing the character of war. We have already seen 

these changes on today’s battlefields, but we are only at 

the leading edge of revolutionary changes. Our potential 

peer adversaries are investing heavily to gain dominance 

in these fields. We must aggressively research, innovate, 

and adapt to maximize the potential these offer while 

mitigating their inherent vulnerabilities and risks. Our 

wargames and experiments have shown game-changing 

opportunities with manned and unmanned teaming. 
Commandant’s Planning Guidance 21

Non-EAS Attrition

The continued loss of 8,000 Marines per year to 

non-EAS attrition is unacceptable. According to 

Manpower and Reserve Affairs (M&RA), between 

FY09-19, the OPFOR lost 11,765 Marines to non-EAS 

attrition for drug and alcohol offenses, and another 

13,571 for misconduct. The total replacement cost 

for these 25,336 Marines is in excess of $1 billion. 

This must change.

Drug Use

I remain troubled by the extent to which drug abuse 

is a characteristic of new recruits, and the fact the vast 

majority of recruits require drug waivers for enlistment. I 

am equally troubled by the fact that we do not specifically 

monitor personnel for continued substance abuse while 

in-service. Finally, I am deeply troubled by the continued 

retention of Marines failing to adhere to our standards 

related to drug use. Since the beginning of FY18, 2,410 

Marines have tested positive for illegal drug use; yet, 

only 1,175 (48.8%) have been separated.

Hazing

All destructive behavior concerns me, and the eradication 

of that misconduct will be a priority for me; yet, I am 

very troubled by hazing. While I believe hazing is likely 

underreported, during the most recent four-year period 

we have witnessed a significant increase in both reports 

and substantiated reports of hazing. Hazing is both a 

crime and evidence of poor leadership by our SNCOs 

and Officers. We place special trust and confidence in 

our SNCOs and Officers, and any who engage in hazing 

will be held accountable.

CULTURE

The Marine Corps developed its warfighting spirit 

and character in the values of honor, courage, and 

commitment. The sentiment these concepts evoke are 

seen and felt in the shared experiences, hardships, and 

challenges in training and combat and embody what it 

is to be a Marine – they cannot be mandated, yet live 

in the collective soul of our Corps. Our rich history 

demonstrates this ethos and has led generations of 

Marines to success on and off the battlefield.

“The soul of the Marine Corps,” as previously noted 

by Commandant Barrow, is sound. While sound, this 

does not mean we should ever neglect it or assume it 

will persist without consistent and purposeful reflection 

and active cultivation. We are an elite institution of 

warriors, and will remain so on my watch. It is our 

shared responsibility to ensure the continued health of 

our collective soul and identity.

Sexual Assault

Sexual Assault remains the most troubling destructive 

behavior to me. Despite the best efforts of individual 

leaders across the force, the continued rise in reporting 

leads me to conclude that we still do not fully understand 

the scope and scale of the issue, or that we can say with 

any confidence that the measures we have taken to-date 

are preventing sexual assaults. I am committed to the 

position that the unit commander should remain involved 

in the process and disposition of cases, yet recognize 

additional steps are required. We will emphasize the 

need to educate the force in areas such as unconscious 

bias. We will focus on prevention, victim protection and 

legal support, and timely completion of investigations. 

Sexual assault is a crime, and Marines found guilty of 

committing sexual assault will be held accountable.

“The Marine Corps developed its warfighting spirit and 

character in the values of honor, courage, and commitment.”

CORE VALUES - HONOR, COURAGE, COMMITMENT
22 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps

being with an unwavering demand to adhere to our 

high standards. They must be allowed to lead without 

unnecessary interference and micro-management.

For our officer corps, I require that you provide every 

opportunity for your junior officers and enlisted leaders 

to lead, educate, train, supervise, and enforce high 

standards. Do not encroach on their space unnecessarily 

and do not prescribe every action; instead, teach, coach, 

and mentor. Our maneuver warfare doctrine depends 

on commander’s intent and mission-type orders – we 

must train how we fight.

COMMAND AND LEADERSHIP

As Commandant, I am responsible for the selection 

of the best and fully qualified commanders. Those 

selected for command have earned our special trust 

and confidence and are accountable for all decisions 

and actions. When commanders fail to measure up to 

standards, they will be held accountable.

Leaders must ensure Marines are well-led and cared 

for physically, emotionally, and spiritually, both in 

and out of combat. “Taking care of Marines” means 

vigorously enforcing our high standards of performance 

and conduct, it does not mean relaxing the standard. 

When we fail to hold the standard, we establish new 

lower standards. Elite organizations do not accept 

mediocrity and they do not look the other way when 

teammates come up short of expectations. We must 

hold each other accountable.

There is no place in our Marine Corps for those who 

deliberately misuse their authority to physically or 

sexually assault another; no place for those who risk 

the lives of those they seek to serve by operating 

a motor vehicle while impaired; no place for those 

who are intolerant of their fellow Marines’ gender or 

sexual orientation; no place for those who engage in 

domestic violence; and no place for racists – whether 

their intolerance and prejudice be direct or indirect, 

intentional or unintentional.

In some organizations, internal problems are often 

elevated to the most senior levels or down to the most 

junior ranks for corrective action. For the Marine Corps, 

our company grade officers and mid-grade SNCOs have 

the appropriate experience base, maturity, and daily 

interactions with junior Marines. Those leaders have my 

full faith and confidence. I know they are fully capable 

of balancing a sincere concern for their Marines well-

“Taking care of Marines” 

means vigorously enforcing 

our high standards of 

performance and conduct, 

it does not mean relaxing 

the standard.
Commandant’s Planning Guidance 23

In the summer of 2023, when we anticipate a routine 

transition to a new Commandant, we will have accomplished 

the following, at a minimum:

• Designed the Marine Corps of the next 25 

years as prescribed in the NDS, NMS, DPG, 

and as further visualized in our family of naval 

concepts. This design effort includes making 

the necessary divestments from the current 

force and current program to accelerate the 

funding and modernization of the future force.

• Re-established our identity as a naval 

expeditionary force, and enhanced our 

relationship with the Fleets as an extension 

of naval power as the FMF.

• Re-established our primacy within the 

Department as the most innovative and 

revolutionary thinkers, the most welldisciplined and accountable force, and the 

most transparent and responsive force to our 

collective civilian leadership across the Joint 

Force and Department.

It is an exciting time to be a Marine. Strategic guidance casts 

the Marine Corps in a central role in our Nation’s defense, 

and this planning guidance is designed to ensure our Corps 

is prepared for this responsibility. The initiatives outlined 

in this document identify my priorities for improving the 

quality of the leadership we provide the Marines and Sailors, 

enhancing our warfighting capability and naval integration, 

and achieving the proper allocation of resources across 

readiness, modernization, and personnel accounts.

Ensuring a shared understanding of this guidance is a 

shared responsibility, and I expect unit commanders and 

senior leaders to ensure a broad understanding of this 

guidance across the force. As important, I expect Marines 

to be prepared to provide their leaders – me included – 

with critical feedback, ideas, and perspective on this CPG. 

Bringing about the changes outlined in this document 

will be an all-hands effort. We cannot afford to continue 

to admire problems or fail to take the necessary decisive 

actions; our strategic guidance is clear, and so is mine. 

The time for action is now.

Semper Fidelis,

David H. Berger

General, U.S. Marine Corps

Commandant of the Marine Corps

SUMMARY

This CPG establishes my priorities for aligning the Service 

with the NDS and DPG; enhancing our warfighting capability 

through naval integration; achieving the proper balance of 

resources in our readiness, modernization, and infrastructure 

sustainment efforts and accounts; and improving the quality 

of leadership we provide our Marines and Sailors.

While not all encompassing, this CPG is thorough to provide 

clear guidance on the way forward. I expect all Marines, 

and particularly senior officers and Staff Non-Commissioned 

Officers, to read and begin implementing this guidance 

immediately. Within the next 30 days, the Director of the 

Marine Corps Staff, will publish a detailed implementation 

plan to accompany this guidance. That plan will identify 

specified and implied tasks derived from the CPG, the 

command or office of primary responsibility, and timelines. 

Your continued feedback and ideas on this document and 

the full range of issues affecting our Corps are critical.

We are entering a period of force transformation, one 

through which I am honored to lead our Corps. This 

CPG identifies those characteristics and capabilities within 

the force that must change to produce the force we must 

become to meet the challenges of the NDS and uncertainty 

of the future operating environment. We will not employ 

these in isolation, and thus we must better integrate with 

the Navy and work more effectively with other elements 

of the Joint Force. While this transformation will require 

more than simply the next four years, as maneuverists we 

are prepared to make bold decisions more rapidly than 

others to effect those outcomes, to generate tempo, and 

create friction within the decision cycles of our competitors 

and adversaries.

While the next four years will be a period of substantive 

change – let me be clear – we are not experiencing an 

identity crisis nor are we at risk of irrelevance. We are a 

naval expeditionary force capable of deterring malign 

behavior and, when necessary, fighting inside our 

adversary’s weapons-engagement-zone to facilitate 

sea denial in support of fleet operation and joint force 

horizontal escalation. Nothing could be more relevant to 

the NDS and the certainty of an uncertain future than this. 

We are not a second land army, nor do we aspire to be 

anything other than the world’s premier naval expeditionary 

force. While these are intended as statements of fact and 

conclusions vice empty assertions, our actions haven’t 

always supported our statements. This will change. As we 

implement the guidance in this document, we must divest 

of the past to modernize for the future – and we will.