The Marine Corps' new crisis-response forces in Africa and the Middle East may soon begin working with elite special operations teams tasked with teaching them how to best collaborate with special forces in theater.
The idea is in its early stages, Maj. Gen. Joseph Osterman, the commanding general of Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, told Marine Corps Times recently. It comes as officials evaluate a similar trial concept — attaching six-man special operations liaison teams to Marine expeditionary units — for continuation as a longstanding program.
In a service-wide planning document published earlier this winter, the service's commandant, Gen. Joseph Dunford, emphasized the relationship between conventional Marine units and special operations forces.
"Marines and SOF are highly complementary and have many similar characteristics," Dunford wrote in Commandant's Planning Guidance. "It is only natural that our efforts should work to improve interoperability between the Marine Corps" and U.S. Special Operations Command."
Already, key leaders are talking about how to build on the concept.
Osterman said he's had "some real good discussions" with Dunford and SOCOM's commander, Army Gen. Joseph Votel, about "how we make sure in the post-Afghan environment that we have the SOF forces that are literally out there, globally well-positioned to interact and interoperate with the crisis-response forces that the Marine Corps brings to bear."
This won't be limited to MARSOC elements, Osterman said. Plans could involve Green Berets from the Army's elite Operational Detachments Alpha and Navy SEAL teams, he added.
Osterman said he intends to meet with senior leadership on the Marine Corps staff in coming weeks to discuss the concept of crisis-response units hosting liaisons similar to those embedding with MEUs.
"I'm sensing kind of through the late summer and as we got into the fall, a genuine interest and a willingness to embrace a relationship with SOF in order to be able to make things work," he said.
Details about the composition of these prospective crisis response SOF elements remain scarce. Osterman said a final decision could place a single officer as a liaison and planner with the task forces, or officials could opt for a liaison team of between five and seven MARSOC and SOF troops, just like the MEU liaison teams.
Meanwhile, Osterman said, the pilot program involving MEUs is also getting a close look. The concept launched with the deployment of the 11th MEU out of Camp Pendleton, California, which embarked last July with one of the teams aboard. The 24th MEU, which deployed out of Camp Lejeune in December, also had one of the teams.
The concept proved so popular that at least one MEU that was not part of the pilot improvised its own capability.
Col. William Dunn, commander of the 22nd MEU, told a think tank audience in December that his unit had devised its own special forces liaison team, partnering two operations officers from the MEU with two Army and Navy SOF personnel.
"It worked out great," Dunn said of the arrangement.
Osterman acknowledged there are still details that hadn't been worked out under the pilot program, including how to develop a liaison team for the 31st MEU, which is based in Japan and continuously forward-deployed in the Pacific.
The concept is "constantly being re-evaluated at this point, and being refined as we go along," Osterman said.
