Wartime Training Analysis

The application of maneuver warfare has been the key to success in many battles throughout history, however the resurrection of irregular warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan has reshaped military tactics and engagement criteria. Although the U.S. Marine Corps is a highly trained and adaptable fighting force, the current doctrine for maneuver warfare is insufficient to combat irregular warfare on the battlefronts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

Wartime training programs for the Marine Corps largely stayed the same for decades before GWOT, which included combined arms exercises (CAX) and live fire exercises, but many revisions to policy and doctrine would transpire for counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. CAX would be revised in 2004 to include patrolling and live fire exercises in an urban area environment. (Schlosser, 2015, p. 81-82) Training took place at a Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) facility, or MOUT town. The facilities were interchangeable and adaptable to real-time battle conditions including symmetrical buildings and role players. The culmination of rapidly changing policy, doctrine and training would become the largest pre-deployment training, the Integrated Training Exercise (ITX), in 29 Palms, California, focusing not only on war fighting tactics, but all aspects of

Efforts to close with and destroy the enemy by employment of maneuver warfare diminished due to the proximity of civilians, the use of no-fire zones to base attacks, and the use of highly sophisticated technology and IEDs. Numerous revisions to policy, doctrine and training throughout the decade long war proved the current doctrine for maneuver warfare was insufficient to combat irregular warfare on the battlefronts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the Global War on