Tori J. Ross :quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/mco/UDGCDH5VTNABFC6RBBWDZBW774.jpg)
The Marine Corps is ending its crisis response deployments developed after the 2012 attack on Benghazi, Libya.
The final deployment as part of the Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force – Crisis Response – Central Command, or SPMAGTF-CR-CC, ended in October 2021, said Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Ryan Bruce. , to the Marine Corps Times on Friday.
It “will not be replaced by another Marine Air Ground rotational task force,” Bruce said.
At its peak, the Marine Corps had three congruent Marine Special Purpose Air-Ground Task Forces on crisis response missions in Southern Command, Africa Command, and Central Command ― but the new focus of the Corps on a potential fight with China may have killed the training crisis response.
RELATED
“America’s 9-1-1 Force”
The formation was created following the September 11, 2012 attack by Islamist extremists on the US diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the deaths of a US ambassador and three other Americans.
SPMAGTF-CR-CC, approximately 2,000 sailors strong, was made up of marine ground and air units spread across the Middle East as a multipurpose rapid response force ready to reinforce embassies or launch sorties against Islamic State targets in the region.
The SPMAGTF was called up in 2021 when Marines from 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines were sent from Central Command’s deployment to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport amid the US withdrawal and Taliban takeover in Afghanistan.
During the deployment, 11 Marines, a Navy Corpsman and a soldier were killed by a suicide bomber. Nine of the Marines who died were part of SPMAGTF-CR-CC.
Marines from the SPMAGTF-CR-CC reinforced the Baghdad embassy in late 2019 after Iraqi protesters supporting an Iran-backed Shiite militia attempted to storm the compound.
Shortly after deploying to Central Command, the Marine Corps sent the new formation to African Command and Southern Command with forces tailored to specific regional needs.
Based at Moron Air Base in Spain, SPMAGTF-CR-Africa Command was quietly closed in fall 2021, Stars and Stripes reported, while budget cuts ended SPMAGTF-CR-Southern Command.
“The realignment of resources and the withdrawal of a Dedicated Rotational Force (SPMAGTF-SC) from USSOUTHCOM was based on competing national and service priorities,” said Marine Corps spokesperson Maj. JA Hernandez. to the Marine Corps Times in June 2021.
The Marine Corps budget request for 2022 said the Corps would be able to save $3 million a year by cutting deployment, money that could be focused on funding Force Design 2030 and the pivot of the Body to focus on China.
The deployment wouldn’t be the first asset the Marine Corps has scrapped as Commander General David Berger focuses on divestment of legacy items to reinvest in new weapons and platforms.
In 2021, the Corps scrapped its tank units and began to reduce its number of infantry battalions.
“We all love the things we get rid of,” Berger said at the Modern Day Marine 2020 virtual expo held in Quantico, Virginia. “We have to make tough decisions about what to keep.”
But not everyone is happy with what the Corps is giving up.
Bing West, a retired Navy colonel who had fought as a grunt in Vietnam and assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, told the Marine Corps Times in a phone call Friday, “I strongly suspect the Central Command basically said, ‘We want a MAGTF here.’
“I can’t imagine them saying, ‘Let’s get this over with,'” West added.
West most recently authored “The Last Platoon: A Novel of the Afghanistan War,” which won the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s 2022 Fiction Award.
RELATED
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/mco/YNNGGMNURFFC3J2PSHEDCDGIF4.jpg)
A request for comment from Central Command had not been answered at press time.
The Marine Corps will still be able to support Central Command despite the end of the deployment, Bruce said.
“Marine Corps forces continue to be assigned to U.S. Central Command and have and will deploy episodically to meet the demands of combatant commanders,” Bruce said.
“The United States Marine Corps will continue to deploy around the world to train and operate alongside our joint and combined partners,” he said.
“The Marines will always provide a rapid response capability and serve as America’s 9-1-1 force.”
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to say that the Marine Corps ended its last Marine Air-Ground Special Task Force – Crisis Response – Central Command Deployment in October 2021, not started.
