Two pages in which you discuss what your service (Navy) should do to better prepare the enlisted force to meet these plans. Y

The Joint Force is at an inflection point during what will be a decisive decade.

Geopolitical relationships are shifting, economies are rising – and falling, rapid

technological advances are fueling militaries’ modernizations at scale, and

external factors like climate change and pandemics are changing the way people

live, work, and go to war. An undeniable and intentional violation of sovereignty

has shocked the international system. Large-scale combat has now been

introduced into the strategic competition between autocracies and democracies,

further stressing the rules-based international order.

For the first time in our Nation’s history, the United States faces two major nuclear powers that may employ

nuclear coercion as a way to meet their national objectives. Both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and

Russia possess the will and the means to pose an existential threat to our way of life. The PRC is our most

consequential strategic competitor, modernizing its military and preparing to fight and win a war with the United

States. Russia poses acute threats, pursuing power and influence through cyber-attacks and disinformation

campaigns, while its attack on Ukraine represents a moment on par with 9/11 in terms of global consequence and

challenge to U.S. and international security.

The current environment requires the Joint Force to strengthen and integrate deterrence across domains,

theaters, and the spectrum of conflict; modernize the nuclear enterprise; assure allies and partners; and prepare to

prevail in great power conflict. The United States must meet this challenge with alacrity, discipline, and fortitude

– the window to seize the strategic initiative is now. This National Military Strategy (NMS) is a wakeup call:

Adapt Now, or Lose Later.

This NMS renews our focus on campaigning now and building and sustaining warfighting advantage in tandem.

Both are critical to prevail in war, and both are necessary to preserve the peace. War is a terrible endeavor, and

Great Power War is especially terrible – but it is not inevitable, so our Nation strives for peace. As the U.S. does

so, its Joint Force will defend, deter, modernize – and prevail if deterrence fails – realizing that the surest way to

prevent escalation and war is always being prepared to defeat our Nation’s foes.

The time is now and the window of strategic opportunity we have is closing. What we do in the next few years is

going to set conditions for victory or defeat in the next war. We must adapt now in order to win the next war, and

by doing so, we will deter the war from happening in the first place.

MARK A. MILLEY

General, U.S. Army

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The 2022 NMS is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s (CJCS) strategic guidance that provides the logic and

framework to achieve the 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) priorities and build the future Joint Force. This

NMS offers guidance for every Active Duty, Reserve, National Guard, and civilian member to take bold and

transformative action now to protect the security of the American people and defend the democratic ideals at the

heart of the American way of life. This strategy is about the Joint Force obtaining lasting positions of relative

advantage in peace and achieving decisive victory in war.

 THREATS. The classified NMS clearly describes the near and real threats faced by the Joint Force in the strategic environment. As our most consequential strategic competitor, the PRC is unequivocal in its pursuit to reshape an authoritarian world order with no democratic values. The PRC is the pacing challenge for the Department. Russia is an acute threat with aggressive intent – as seen by its brutal and unpro- voked invasion of Ukraine – that seeks to consolidate and strengthen its perceived Eurasian sphere of influ- ence to counter Western influence. Other persistent threats include North Korea, Iran, and violent extrem- ist organizations.

 GEOPOLITICAL TRENDS. Amidst institutional and

economic fragility and the ongoing health crisis, adversaries will test the post-World War II international order, attempting to weaken U.S. leadership and rewrite international rules and norms to their own benefit.

 ECONOMIC TRENDS. Growing economic strength

drives global influence and undergirds other elements of national power, which will continue to fuel the PRC’s coercive actions.

 TECHNOLOGICAL TRENDS. Both commercial and military technologies will advance rapidly and proliferate the global technology landscape. These capabilities alone may not ensure military victory, but creative application will shape the outcome of any contest.

 EXTERNAL TRENDS. Pandemics, climate change,

demographic changes, and resource scarcity will destabilize the security environment and impose changes and constraints on domestic political contexts.

 MILITARY TRENDS. For the first time, the United

States will simultaneously contend with two major nuclear powers. Future warfare will include advanced threats to the Homeland, elements in the Gray-Zone, and protracted conflicts in contested environments. Militaries that incorporate new technology with innovative operational concepts and develop leadership to harness the changes will create decisive advantage.

The nature of the problem the 2022 NMS aims to solve is meeting the Joint Force Strategic Objectives in the context

of the strategic environment. The solution to the problem is informed by the NDS’ strategic approach. The result is a

theory of success that allows the Joint Force to operate from an advantageous position with respect to threats,

maintain awareness of strategic trends, remain in line with civilian guidance, and advance toward our objectives.

So how does the Joint Force rapidly develop future warfighting advantage while deterring effectively today, with the PRC as the pacing challenge?

This is the central military problem this NMS seeks to solve.

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The NDS strategic approach employs three strategic ways (integrated deterrence, campaigning, and building endur-

ing advantage) to foster Integrated Deterrence. Aligned with the NDS, the NMS implements Integrated Deterrence

through ruthless prioritization to calibrate decision-making and activities of the Joint Force now in order to succeed.

Integrated Deterrence, the NDS’ principal strategic approach, generates warfighting advantages by synchronizing

operations across warfighting domains, theaters, the spectrum of conflict, instruments of national power, the

interagency, private sector, and allies and partners.

Integrated Deterrence influences adversary decision calculus by affecting perception of costs, benefits, and

consequences of restraint.

The Joint Force’s contribution to Integrated Deterrence is combat-credible forces, backstopped by a safe, secure, and

effective nuclear deterrent.

Through the NMS’ theory of success, the Joint Force contributes to Integrated Deterrence to reduce an adversary’s

perceived benefit and increase the adversary's perceived cost of aggression, incentivizing restraint as a result.

“You want to deter your potential opponent from even thinking or contemplating that they could have a war with the United States.”

General Milley, CJCS (Brookings Institution, 2 December 2020)

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The NMS seeks to solve the central military problem within the framework of the NDS through an informed theory

of success that enables disciplined decision-making by framing risk and assessing progress toward strategic objectives.

The NMS Theory of Success is to exercise Strategic Discipline to continuously calibrate Joint Force weight of effort

between campaigning and rapidly building warfighting advantage to deter now and reduce future risk.

Strategic Discipline is the ruthless prioritization and calibration of Joint Force operations, activities, and investments,

consistent with policy guidance and strategic aims, between the Joint Force strategic ways of campaigning and

building warfighting advantage.

Strategic Discipline is enabled by a robust understanding of the strategic environment, including a deep awareness of

our adversaries and ourselves, ally and partner equities, and the future character of warfare. This understanding is

enhanced by strategic assessments that enable risk decisions to bias toward decreasing future risk. This approach

provides the Joint Force with the agility to focus on enduring priorities and generate military options for emergent

changes.

Risk

To implement the NMS effectively, the Joint Force

must take a globally integrated approach to risk while

thinking across multiple time horizons. Decision-

makers must consider transferring risk away from

priority threats/theaters and be more risk tolerant in

the present to reduce risk in the future.

Assessments

Joint assessments guide the Chairman’s military

advice and the balance of resource decisions between

future modernization and current requirements. These

assessments guide iterative adjustments to implement

NDS Defense Priorities and Joint Force Strategic

Objectives.

Campaigning

Campaigning is how the DoD sequences

day-to-day defense initiatives and develops

advantageous conditions to deter conflict,

accomplish strategic objectives, and prevail

against adversaries across the spectrum of

conflict, to include the Gray-Zone.

Building Warfighting Advantage requires

deliberate investment to develop leaders,

concepts, and capabilities through materiel

and non-materiel solutions in order to

achieve strategic objectives in the future.

Building Warfighting Advantage

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“We are now in the seventy-sixth year of the great-power peace following World War II and the structure is under

stress. We can see it fraying at the edge. And with history as our guide, we would be wise to lift our gaze from the

never-ending urgency of the present and set the conditions for a future that prevents great-power war.”

General Milley, CJCS

(US Air Force Academy Graduation, 26 May 2021)

1. STRENGTHEN HOMELAND DEFENSE

Modernize and integrate to protect our way of life. 2. ENHANCE DETERRENCE

Develop capabilities that deter adversaries from advancing their goals, employing their military strengths, or attacking U.S. interests. 3. PREPARE TO WIN

Ensure a properly trained and resourced combat force capable of defeating our adversaries abroad. 4. INTEGRATE JOINT FORCE AND COMBINED EFFORTS

Synchronize actions with allies, partners, and the interagency to address trans-regional, all-domain, and multi-functional challenges and continuously advance national security objectives. 5. LEVERAGE OPPORTUNITIES IN CAMPAIGNING

Proactively identify and leverage opportunities to frustrate adversaries’ strengths, exploit vulnerabilities, and expand U.S. partnerships, access, and basing. 6. REINFORCE DIPLOMACY

Support diplomatic efforts to preserve the rules-based international order and provide credible military options that enable leaders to interact from a position of strength. 7. STRENGTHEN RELATIONSHIPS WITH ALLIES AND PARTNERS

Seek opportunities to collaborate and improve interoperability with allies and partners to confront enduring and emerging challenges. Foster strong relationships now — because we cannot surge trust in crisis. 8. PRIORITIZE CONCEPTS AND RESOURCES

Refocus our current warfighting ideas, systems, and practices to improve combat effectiveness. 9. BUILD A RESILIENT JOINT FORCE

Harness robust and effective combat capabilities that can resist degradation and quickly reconstitute in future combat. 10. INTEGRATE CAPABILITIES RAPIDLY

Timely integrate advanced capabilities to amplify existing warfighting advantages.

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 Defend the U.S. Homeland against all-domain threats, prioritizing the PRC.

 Deter strategic attacks and other aggression against the United States, allies, and partners.

 Ensure the Joint Force possesses the combat-credible capabilities necessary to prevail in conflict against the PRC in the Indo-Pacific, then Russia in Europe.

 Focus technical and non-technical modernization into a resilient Joint Force and maintain the ability to respond to crises.

To meet the challenges described, now and in the coming decisive decade, this strategy outlines the Joint

Force’s vision to deter, and if necessary, to defeat potential adversaries now and into the future. We’re at

an inflection point, requiring the Joint Force to exercise Strategic Discipline to sustain and strengthen

Integrated Deterrence – we must Adapt Now, or Lose Later.

The success of this strategy depends on the innovation and discipline of the Joint Force and its leaders at

every rank. Future Joint Force success – like the past – will continue to be anchored by the American

people and our values, the U.S. government, and our allies and partners. The Joint Force will defend, deter,

modernize – and prevail if deterrence fails.

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3 9 t h C o m m a n d a n t ’s P l a n n i n g G u i d a n c e A u g u s t 2 0 2 4

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INTENT Marines, after a year serving as your Commandant and visiting with Marines in every corner of our Corps, I remain confident that we are on the right track as a Service. Force Design remains a righteous journey, and we are in perhaps the most difficult phase – implementation. Our aggressive approach made truly significant strides in a few short years. Force Design, to include Talent Management, Training and Education, Installations and Logistics, Project Eagle, and Barracks 2030, involves many key efforts which are still in motion. I won’t sugarcoat it – there are many challenges we still face to stay ahead of the changing character of war. Force Design remains our strategic priority and we cannot slow down.

My intent with this Commandant’s Planning Guidance (CPG) is to provide all Marines with the strategic direction for the Marine Corps. This document is necessarily broad, and I will issue directive guidance to the Deputy Commandants and Commanding Generals when necessary. Force Design remains our aim point, and this guidance focuses on specific challenges requiring near-term action. Some items will take time to realize, but we must lay the groundwork now.

My priorities remain: (1) Balancing Crisis Response and Modernization, (2) Naval Integration and Organic Mobility, (3) Quality of Life, (4) Recruit, Make, and Retain Marines; and (5) Maximize the Potential of our Reserves. These priorities drive my decisions as Commandant and are woven throughout the document. My Planning Guidance provides the context for us to achieve those priorities so we can fight and win today and set conditions to win in the future.

Discipline and Core Values are up front on purpose – they are our ethical foundation and define who we are as Marines. We must protect our Marine Corps culture and Naval heritage at all costs. I expect all Marines to read this Planning Guidance and leaders to discuss its key concepts with their Marines. Most of all, I want you to know that Sergeant Major Ruiz and I are proud of you, we are thankful for what you do, and recognize that none of our progress is possible without you.

“Our core purpose remains the same: to deter conflict, and when deterrence fails, to defeat our Nation’s enemies in battle.”

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DISCIPLINE AND CORE VALUES Ironclad discipline is the currency of our Corps. Ruthless adherence to standards is what makes us special as a Service. Those standards, developed over hundreds of campaigns and battles, make us better warriors. They force us to pay attention to detail every day so that we do so automatically in combat – when precision matters most. Those with combat experience know this to be true. Our profession of warfighting is unforgiving, with no margin for carelessness. Errors in combat lead to defeat, and Marines do not lose. We must eliminate negative behaviors that pull us apart, erode good order and discipline, jeopardize safety, and deprive us of the cohesion that wins battles. Our professionalism, self-discipline, ethos, warfighting proficiency, and personal conduct define what it is to be a Marine. We all share a common foundation of Honor, Courage, and Commitment, and we must strive to hold each other to those values.

If a Marine fails to meet the standard, we all have a collective obligation to teach, mentor, and train that Marine until the standard is achieved. When holding Marines accountable, I ask that commanders look at our young Marines as the future Corporals, Gunnery Sergeants, or Colonels they could become if afforded the opportunity to learn and grow from their mistakes. There is a difference between moral or ethical shortfalls, and not achieving a performance standard. When screening Marines for promotion or reenlistment, I trust that we will exercise due diligence to consider personal growth after non-judicial punishment, adverse action, or a single subpar report. Make no mistake: we will not lower our standards, but we must also recognize that the most impactful learning happens after an honest mistake is made.

The Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps and I are drafting an updated version of Marine Corps Tactical Publication 6-10, Sustaining the Transformation. This is a valuable tool to help all leaders look out for their Marines, help them be successful both in and out of uniform, and to uphold the discipline and core values for which we are known. Once published, I expect all Marines to read and discuss how it applies to you as a team regardless of rank or occupational specialty. Sustaining the transformation means holding our high standard throughout our time in uniform, earning our place in the Corps every day, and eventually returning to society as better versions of ourselves.

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OUR LEGACY Marines – we are different, plain and simple. We are all links in a chain that stretches back to 1775. Like all Marines who came before us, we are all, first and foremost, riflemen. That fact will never change. We became Marines to fight, and we work hard every day to be the country’s choice to be the first to fight. We will remain offensively oriented and aggressive in all we do. “First to Fight” is more than a slogan – it is our heritage. Our warfighting ethos determines who we attract, who we train, and who we are. We are a Corps of warriors who fight from the sea and campaign in forward locations in pursuit of our Nation’s interests. The American people trust we will always do the right thing, and that we will win every time. Our Nation’s trust took generations of Marines and many battles to build. Collectively, we have an obligation to every other Marine, past or present, to reinforce and build upon that trust. We will.

As Marines we trust each other with our lives. Trust allows us to operate in a highly decentralized manner – knowing that our subordinates will do what it takes to accomplish the mission, and that they know how best to accomplish it. To this day, the special relationship between commissioned officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) brings Marines a decisive advantage on the battlefield. In the fights to come, the officer-NCO relationship will remain as much leader to leader, as it is leader to led. Behind the wars we have fought, the battles we have won, and the campaigns we have endured in our long history, are a series of actions by individual Marines, enabled by their leaders. The future will be no different.

“…we work hard every day to be the country’s choice to be the first to fight.”

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CURRENT ENVIRONMENT The 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) prioritizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the pacing challenge, and the Marine Corps will continue to modernize to meet it. Force Design remains the Marine Corps’ vehicle to create innovative formations, equipment, and concepts and ensures we remain lethal on any battlefield while optimized against the pacing challenge. In practice, our purpose remains the provision of ready forces to meet Combatant Commander and Fleet needs – specifically, through expeditionary Marine Air Ground Task Forces (MAGTFs) capable of combined arms and integration into the Joint Force. Our Service’s measure of effectiveness remains the relevance of our formations against the pacing challenge.

It is important that our Marines share a common understanding of the context in which Force Design is occurring. While Russia is a capable acute threat involved in an illegal war of aggression against another sovereign nation, we must remain focused on our pacing challenge, the PRC, who continues to grow in capability, capacity, and boldness. Every day the PRC practices illegal, coercive, aggressive, and deceptive tactics designed to slowly erode the international rules-based order and advance its own revisionist view of the world. The counter to these tactics requires a whole-of-government approach, in which our expeditionary forces play a critical role through campaigning, deterrence, rapid response to crisis, and contributing to joint and combined combat operations.

The PRC represents the most challenging competitor in both capability and intent – but every threat, pacing or acute, will continue to learn, adapt, and find new ways to counter the strengths of our Joint Force. Advanced conventional weapons and long-range precision munitions, once only possessed by peer and near-peer militaries, will continue to proliferate in every theater, including their use by non-state actors. By focusing on the most complex and dangerous threat, the Marine Corps will remain ahead of any challenge we face, be it the PRC, Russia, Iran, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or Violent Extremist Organizations.

Force Design implementation is well underway and continues to benefit from bottom-up refinement across the force. I am consistently awestruck by the ingenuity and dedication to continual improvement of our concepts and equipment that I see from Marines of all ranks – Marines like Corporal Gage Barbieri, who identified a flaw in the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle’s maintenance program and shared the fix with the entire Corps; or Sergeant Kristopher Hassmer, a Tactical Data Link Maintainer who on his own initiative created a Small Form Factor Air Command and Control system which outpaced industry and was immediately ready for forward employment; or Sergeant Samantha Delgado, who built and tested a “remote kit” for securely operating air search radars thousands of miles away, resulting in an expeditionary command and control (C2) node capable of passing data required for air defense operations. These examples of our Marines’ initiative are what a culture of innovation looks like. We must continue to capitalize on the inherent brilliance of our Marines and implement their innovation at speed.

As we move Force Design forward, we must continually assess where we are, and we must commit our resources in ways that reinforce success. There are no “untouchable” programs – we will assess each program based on its effectiveness and applicability to the future fight. Through our Campaign of Learning we will identify and transition resources away from good ideas that are either ahead of their time or have been proven ineffective after additional experimentation. It is imperative that we continually refine our modernization through experimentation, force-on-force exercises, data, and analysis. Our Campaign of Learning is continuous, and the Service has proven willing to adjust where necessary – including refinements to our quantity of cannon artillery, the size and shape of our infantry battalions, capacity within our Marine Aircraft Wings, composition of our Marine Wing Support Squadrons, and our gap crossing capabilities.

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THE CHANGING CHARACTER OF WAR The Marine Corps has an obligation to adapt to, harness, and even drive the changing character of war. We must continue to capture the lessons being learned in blood on active battlefields from Ukraine to the Middle East. We should pay special attention to the increasing importance of range and precision; sensing, making sense, and striking at range; the ability of shore-based sea denial capabilities to impose cost, coupled with the difficulty of targeting those forces; the proliferation and effectiveness of drones, loitering munitions, and uncrewed systems; the employment of Electronic Warfare (EW) as an essential form of fires; the difficulty of achieving enduring air superiority against a peer adversary; the importance of the recon – counter-recon contest; the ability of tactical maneuver to shape strategic-level information effects; the warfighting advantage of organic mobility; the need to plan for protracted conflict; and the difficulty of logistics and sustainment on a contested battlefield.

As professional warriors, it is essential that we always keep in mind the immutable nature of war. Regardless of what enemy we fight in the future, we will face friction, uncertainty, chance, and hardship – all enduring elements of violent clashes of will. The human element of our business will always matter more than the technologies we employ as Marines. No system we design will reduce the importance of discipline, physical toughness, mental agility, or moral strength. Force-on-force training remains the gold standard to simulate the rigors of combat, and we must sustain exemplary opportunities such as our MAGTF Warfighting Exercises (MWX) that enable us to train like we fight at every echelon in all domains.

In a future peer fight, sanctuary will be difficult to achieve for our formations. Bases and stations are no exception – even in the homeland. Resiliency, dispersal and hardening, rapid repair and recovery, and robust C2 system architectures must be inherent traits of our bases and stations across all warfighting functions. Importantly, the threats to our bases and stations are theater-agnostic. The Marine Corps Installations Plan is our roadmap to adapt our installations to meet the future threat environment, and we will implement it at speed.

It is important that Service planning accounts for the significant risk of protraction in a peer versus peer conflict.

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