Transcript: II MEF commanding general remarks at 2025 West Conference

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES

01.30.2025

Story by Capt. Jonathan Coronel 

II Marine Expeditionary Force   

II Marine Expeditionary Force commanding general Lt. Gen. Calvert Worth first statement:

First and foremost good afternoon, and thank you again to AFCEA for the opportunity to say some words here and represent II MEF, the Expeditionary Force on the East Coast. The counterpart to “Homie” and his I MEF team. I would tell you that III MEF is not here, but in II MEF, what you have is a similar construct: a Marine Expeditionary Force that is focused at the Tri-COCOM area. Meaning that “Homie”-- I MEF, and III MEF focus against Indo-Pacific Command as the pacing contingency—the pacing threat. II MEF is the service-retained Marine Expeditionary Force for the commandant. What that means is that we focus on first, EUCOM, then CENTCOM, and AFRICOM, while also providing support to SOUTHCOM when necessary and NORTHCOM when necessary. It’s a large task, but our mission partners— as “Homie” partners and spends a lot of time with Seventh Fleet—I spend a lot of time with Second Fleet and Doug Perry and his team, and Sixth Fleet with Marvin Anderson out in the European theater—we are partnered. Naval integration is real every day for II MEF. What we do as a service-retained MEF, again, is provide combat-ready formations, which we also send into Indo-PACOM to become part of the stand-in formation in III MEF. We also stand and are tasked to be postured to respond to crises—again, being most ready when the nation is least ready. But being a crisis response option to the combatant commanders in that Tri-COCOM area out of II MEF.
And then finally, we also serve and have trained to serve as a JTF-capable headquarters, and that, again, is focused on EUCOM principally but working with both Stuart Munch, Admiral Munch, at EURAF Navy EURAC, and working with Marvin Anderson, we’re also prepared to serve a role and play a role as a Joint Task Force capable headquarters in a NATO role, working with Doug Perry and his team as he responds to crisis. We are doing a lot out of II MEF. Today we have an opportunity to talk to you specifically about how, by warfighting function—whether that be command and control, whether that be fires, whether that be information and intelligence, or intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and the fires complex—we’re prepared to answer questions on how we’re addressing modernization, participating in the refinement of force design from the bottom, from the deck plate up, helping the Commandant understand where he is today in force design implementation, where we might be tomorrow in force design, and therefore what requirements he needs to fight for inside the Beltway and with our industry partners to deliver capabilities that will make a difference. And when I say make a difference, that means maintain our asymmetric advantage with allies and partners.

What I do know and what I can say, and I’ll be willing to talk about today, is that I can tell you, in EUCOM, our NATO allies are watching what it is we say with regard to joint all-domain command and control. There’s an expectation that the United States and our maritime forces lead the way with regard to command and control in the maritime domain and in the littoral complex—certainly in the high North, in the Baltics, in the Bosphorus, and now, we’ve seen over the last year, inside the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb. There are true missions and true requirements and capabilities that need to be delivered—not tomorrow, but today—and they need to be delivered at speed and at a density that is relevant to our warfighting capabilities. I am prepared to entertain your questions today, prepared to provide you with some perspectives on a Marine Expeditionary Force that is not necessarily oriented at Indo-PACOM, but plays a distinct role inside the rest of the globe, and with very, very important allies and partners that are watching what we do and how we conduct our business as a naval force. So subject to your questions, I look forward to the conversation today.

II Marine Expeditionary Force commanding general Lt. Gen. Calvert Worth second statement:
So I will riff off of where Lieutenant General Cederholm left off. I will tell you that principally, the modality of delivering Marine Corps capabilities forward is the generation of Marine Expeditionary Units and compositing those expeditionary units with an Amphibious Ready Group. That forward presentation is the most flexible and responsive option for combatant commanders—forward-positioned sovereign U.S. territory, trained to the high end of the range of military operations, and also available and present for competition.

So scaling from competition through crisis into contingency is simply what we do. Similarly, I MEF and II MEF have the responsibility of generating Marine Expeditionary Units, and with our naval counterparts, making sure that we put together integrated training that trains to the high end and to the true complexity of operations. 17-day COMPTUEX on the West Coast, 15-day COMPTUEX on the East Coast. We deliver our Marine Expeditionary units into the EUCOM theater, and they will shoot through the Suez Canal and present themselves in the CENTCOM AOR.

Just recently, over the last 2 years, our 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit was stretched and disaggregated, operating both in the Red Sea against the Houthis with Fifth Fleet, while a single ship deployer, the Mesa Verde, was positioned in the Eastern Med and prepared to respond to crisis and conduct non-combatant evacuation operations in support of Sixth Fleet; EUCOM, in support of CENTCOM. That flexibility is something that we have a lot of sets and reps on over many, many years.

Additionally, what’s changing, what the demand signal now causes us to do, is also work with our fleet counterparts and integrated battle problems, large-scale exercises, and ensure that as a naval force, Marines and sailors are prepared to work together in the High North. And we use exercises like Steadfast Series or Atlantic Alliance to train together, to make sure that we are truly integrated as a naval force. Whether that means delivering Marines from amphibious platforms ashore or operating ashore as Marines go forward and seize and hold key maritime terrain, and then hold at risk adversary formations in the maritime domain, operating in the littorals, conducting littoral operations in contested environments, and conducting expeditionary advance base operations. We can’t do these things if we do not have a habitual relationship with our counterparts. These relationships are as healthy as I’ve seen them in my 33 years. We are working routinely with Second Fleet, and we work with Doug Perry routinely to make sure that, under both of his hats—as a fleet commander and as a Joint Force Commander inside his NATO responsibilities—he is prepared to respond to crises, scale to contingency, and fight and win in the maritime domain. Similarly, inside of Sixth Fleet, we work with Marvin Anderson and his team to ensure that the combatant commander has options in EUCOM, and that training, therefore, needs to be real.

The live, virtual, and constructive opportunities that must continue to be refined and delivered to the fleet so that we can train using our battle simulation centers, using our live-virtual-constructive construct to train from Halifax all the way to Avon Park along the Eastern Seaboard. Those are requirements for training outside of large-scale exercises and outside of those gift-mapped exercises. We must train as we fight, and we are evolving very, very rapidly to ensure that industry and that our headquarters inside the Pentagon understand what the requirements are. Live, virtual, constructive, making sure Navy sailors aboard amphibious shipping, Marines aboard amphibious shipping, and Marines and sailors ashore can operate seamlessly when called to respond. And so I would tell you that we’ve made great gains and we can talk more specifically about what some of those gains are in some of your questions or additional comments.

II Marine Expeditionary Force commanding general Lt. Gen. Calvert Worth third statement:
On the East Coast, I would tell you that over the last year, we have spent time working with the Marine Corps warfighting laboratory and the naval information Warfare Center Atlantic, NIWCLANT, to improve the use of our programs of record systems -- AFATDS, JADOCS, CAC2S, all of our command and control architectures, those systems. We are training and working with our Naval counterparts, to ensure that as we sense and make sense of the environment as we gain and maintain target quality tracks, we can pass that information seamlessly into the MOC. Into the MOC for prosecution of said targets, or in a broader sense, be able to hand off those targets that have been tracked and have that level of quality. Those targets handed off to a Joint Force or Allied partner for prosecution of targets. We're training time now on the Eastern Seaboard to make sure within our battle sim centers, working with EWTGLANT and specifically as we generate MEUs, and ARG-MEUs, we're making sure that within the COMPTUEXes we're challenging them training with the systems so that they are proficient and confident that any sensor can in fact hand off track quality, target quality tracks to any shooter for prosecution. That is what we advertise in the maritime domain. We're training to that now. And we are leveraging live virtual and constructive constructs inside of again exercises like Atlantic Alliance. We are working routinely inside the ARG-MEU certification process and outside of the ARG-MEU certification process with both second Fleet and sixth Fleet, but there's work to be done. There's user interface and there's feedback at the tactical edge for the individual user. That needs to be improved. We need further integration of logistics challenges inside the live, virtual, and constructive.

We tend to fairy dust and forward present, formations without actually working through logistics, in a contested environment, and causing our logisticians to really work through what it means to conduct distributed operations in a maritime domain. In a contested environment where the adversary is going to confuse and frustrate your efforts to keep those distributed formation sustained.

So we need to make sure that we're exercising in a way, and we build live, virtual, and constructive constructs to challenge ourselves a little bit more distinctly. And then, of course, there's just sharing of information. Moving across the firewalls. What does it mean to be truly integrated in terms of our system of systems, this is a challenge, there's more work to be done live, virtual, and constructive will allow us to work the challenges train as we will fight along the Eastern Seaboard again from Halifax to Avon Park, because that is exactly what we are going to be asked to do against the pacing threat, or against their persistent, and more evident and real threat, when you look at the Russian problem set.

Sgt. Maj. Harkins (USMC, Ret.) Question:
Sergeant Major Harkins, United States Marine Corps, retired. My question is going to bleed off on the Navy and then to the Marines. To start off with, we no longer have LSTs (Landing Ship Tanks) we no longer have APAs (Attack Personnel Amphibious). The mission of the Marine Corps, as I understand it, is to secure advanced naval bases. I want to go back to the 2nd MARDIV, II MEF yes we had Marines in the Eastern Pacif—in the Eastern Mediterranean, to assist in evacuating civilians from Lebanon, if it was necessary, about four, three to four months ago. It wasn’t necessary. The last time we were in Lebanon was with the Ronald Reagan, and it went very poorly.

Now, I want to go to the nuts and bolts of the question here: the Navy when I spoke with the CNO two years ago, did not want to advance any closer to land than 10 nautical miles. I want to know how the Marine Corps is going to fill in that 10 nautical miles in landing Marines in a wartime environment rather than in a not wartime environment. Thank you.

II Marine Expeditionary Force commanding general Lt. Gen. Calvert Worth answer:

Sergeant Major, again, thank you for your question. I would tell you that I'm not sure if there is a prohibition upon how close our Naval counterparts are willing to get to shoreline. I don't know that we're going to allow any adversary to cause us to stay outside of an area that we know is going to be challenging, we know is going to be rife with threats, but I'll just stay in the Marine Corps business.

The Commandant right now is pursuing the solution for connectivity, connectors specifically whether it be landing ship medium or that be going out and purchasing LCUs, LCU 2000s, to make sure that we have the connectors necessary to deliver amphibious capability ashore. Forcible entry simply looks different. It's going to be different than it was when I started 30 years ago.

And that's just changed my problem. My problem as commander is to engineer the unfair fight with our Naval counterparts as we close on the shoreline if in the event, we have to conduct forcible entry, then the solutions and the challengers are there, but the solutions will have to be different. How we close in the objective area, how we use Naval surface fires, how we use aviation fires to eliminate a hardened position ashore so that we can affect and deliver Marine Corps formations, we have options. We have ranges in the Osprey. We have long range, precision munitions, that change the calculus and maybe change what it is either one of us would have thought forceful entry might look like 30 years ago, or 40 years ago. I won't date you start major. But as things change we -- we the three stars, the commanders -- have to deliver that unfair fight. That means I need to close on that objective from 50 kilometers to 25, kilometers to 15, kilometers rather than think, about a very tactical last 300 meters. We engineer the unfair fight, we have an asymmetric advantage. We're not alone. We can still get ashore. We can still force our way, ashore, it will simply look different, okay? And that's what I can tell you. For connectors, we're working those very tactical and operational problems to make sure that we can deliver Marines ashore, when the time comes commandant has that high on his property list and he's working with Admiral Franchetti to solve that connector issue time now. But we have partners in our Naval formation.

Second question:
For the Marines to get ashore and to be supplied, I think we also need to think about the threat of mines, in Wonsan 1950, and 40 years later off the coast of Kuwait mines were effective keeping Marines from landing where they wanted to go. Where are we in our mine hunting capabilities? Which I think atrophied some more after the end of the Cold War, and what capabilities would you like to see by 2027 that you don't have today yet to accomplish your mission?

II Marine Expeditionary Force commanding general Lt. Gen. Calvert Worth answer:
With regard to mines, obviously I will defer to the Navy with regard to in the sea echelon with, how they'll deal with that particular threat. For the Marine Corps and the delivery of Marine formations ashore, there are options again, the sea echelon if denied if frustrated by a mine or sensor effort that is intended to deny space or access, then the Marine Corps simply goes back to its roots -- seizing key maritime terrain in order to facilitate maneuver. That could mean a fires expeditionary advanced base of being a sensing expeditionary advanced base, it could mean simply moving and conducting a deep operational maneuver that moves around, or over a denied space. That is exactly what the Marine Corps is designed to do. That is what our Force design modernization efforts are intended to provide a force with flexibility.

So yes, the adversary is going to attempt to deny terrain and particularly in the sea echelon that might take many different forms, but you have options. Reach and proximity can be overcome with the delivery of platforms, well, through the delivery of Marine formations using some of our platforms with extended reach and then leveraging extended range. Munitions such as navy strike missiles, long-range Precision fires in HIMARS, there are options to the commander, “Homie”?.

• Date Taken: 01.30.2025
• Date Posted: 01.31.2025 08:56
• Story ID: 489841
• Location: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, US