Command and Control in Transition: Observations from the Wing Operations Combat Center During Steel Knight

During a recent visit to the Wing Operations Combat Center (WOCC) at 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing during the Steel Knight 2025 exercise, the fundamental questions facing Marine Corps aviation command and control came into sharp focus. The conversations with watch officers and operational staff revealed an organization wrestling with perhaps the most critical challenge of modern warfare: how to balance centralized command capabilities with the imperative for distributed operations in an increasingly contested environment?

The WOCC served as the primary command center for the exercise, but the real story was not about the center itself. Rather, it was about the evolving relationship between this centralized node and the distributed command posts being deployed with the actual engagement forces. This dynamic represents the Marines working through a fundamental shift in how command and control must function when facing peer or near-peer competitors.

The Distributed Command Challenge

Since approximately 2018, the Marine Corps and the Department of Defense now rebranded as the Department of War have been fundamentally rethinking what operations in a peer competitor environment actually mean. The traditional model of command and control, built on assumptions of information dominance and relatively permissive operating environments, no longer holds. What has become increasingly clear is that “peer competitor” does not simply mean China or Russia operating at strategic scales. It means that even regional forces and non-state actors now possess capabilities that would have been unthinkable for third-world nations just a generation ago.

Consider the contrast with Marine operations in Lebanon under the Reagan administration. Despite the tragic losses, including the barracks bombing, there was a fundamental asymmetry in technological and operational capabilities. The Marines could generally assume technological superiority in most engagements. That assumption is dead.

Today’s Marines cannot enter any operational environment, whether confronting drug cartels or regional military forces, with confidence that they hold the technological edge. The adversary may well possess advanced sensors, precision weapons, cyber capabilities, and integrated air defenses that make traditional command and control structures vulnerable or obsolete.

This reality drives the central question being explored in exercises like Steel Knight: What is the proper relationship between central and distributed command operating centers? What capabilities need to reside with the distributed engagement forces operating forward, and what functions should remain at more centralized, presumably more secure, command posts?

This is not merely an organizational chart exercise. It is about determining what information, what decision-making authority, what communication capabilities, and what situational awareness tools must be pushed to the units that will make contact with the enemy?

The Human Dimension of Command

Technology plays an obvious role in this transformation, but the discussions at the WOCC highlighted something often overlooked by civilian technologists and even some military planners: the metal furniture matters more than the hardware. The individual Marines working these command-and-control problems are not simply operators of systems; they are the critical variable determining what works and what fails.

One of the watch officers emphasized this point about individual Marine capabilities in the command-and-control environment. Steel Knight is not fundamentally about testing technology, though technology testing certainly occurs. It is about discovering what Marines are actually capable of doing with available tools, identifying where failures occur, and understanding what those failures reveal about the gap between technological promise and operational reality.

This distinction is crucial. The history of military transformation is littered with technologies that looked revolutionary in concept but proved dysfunctional in practice because they could not be effectively integrated into how actual units operate. Technology that is not embedded in Marines’ CONOPS (concepts of operations), that Marines do not know how to execute effectively, can reduce capability rather than enhance it. It can create confusion, slow decision cycles, and introduce failure modes that did not exist with previous systems.

This is not a criticism of Marines or any military service. It is simply recognition that technological capability exists only when it is wielded by trained humans who understand both the capabilities and limitations of their tools. Civilian technologists often project what a technology could mean without grasping what it actually takes for real people, under stress, in degraded conditions, to make that technology deliver value rather than confusion.

Learning From the Osprey Experience

The V-22 Osprey provides an instructive parallel to the current command and control evolution. The Osprey’s transformation from a controversial acquisition program to an essential Marine Corps capability did not happen overnight or simply because the aircraft’s technical problems were solved. It required years of Marines learning how to employ the aircraft effectively, discovering what it could and could not do, and developing new operational concepts that exploited its unique capabilities.

I have published two books on the Osprey transformation which significantly documents this process of what real world transformation looks like.

Every three or four years, Marines developed new ways to use the Osprey that expanded what the platform made possible. This was not because each generation of Marines was smarter than the last. It was because they had more experience with the aircraft, they had learned from previous operations and exercises, and they had time to discover both the good and the bad in the platform. The Marines in 2025 understand things about Osprey employment that the Marines in 2007 could not have known because they did not yet have eighteen years of operational experience.

Every technology brings good, bad, and ugly. There are things it does superbly, things it cannot do despite hopes or expectations, and things it absolutely should not be used for. The first Marines to push the Osprey beyond the artificial 200-mile operational box for an ARG-MEU to exploit its true 1,000-mile range were not following doctrine; they were learning what was actually possible and developing new concepts based on experience rather than theory.

The same learning process is now occurring with command-and-control systems and concepts. What can distributed nodes actually accomplish? What information can they generate and transmit? What decisions can they make with available data? What happens when communications degrade or fail?

These questions can only be answered through repeated exercises, honest assessment of failures, and gradual refinement of both technology and tactics.

The Ukraine War’s Lessons

The ongoing war in Ukraine has provided stark lessons about the pace of tactical and operational adaptation. One of the critical takeaways is the concept of hybrid operations, in which forces constantly recombine capabilities in new patterns to defeat enemy countermeasures and exploit emerging opportunities. The Ukrainians might employ HIMARS and drones in a particular pattern one month, then shift to an entirely different combination and employment concept the next month to maintain effectiveness and surprise.

This pattern of rapid adaptation cannot be assumed to be a Western or Ukrainian advantage. Adversaries globally are demonstrating similar capabilities for fast cycle learning and adaptation. This has profound implications for command and control. The engagement force on the ground is encountering enemy systems, tactics, and capabilities in real-time. They may be facing weapon combinations or employment patterns that were not present in intelligence preparations. They may discover that an enemy capability assessed as limited is actually being employed with unexpected sophistication.

This information from the engagement force about what they are actually encountering is crucial and cannot be fully captured by space-based sensors or other remote intelligence collection. Human contact, human observation, and human judgment about what is actually happening in the tactical environment provide irreplaceable value. The engagement force must be able to communicate what they are experiencing back to higher commands rapidly enough for that information to influence operations.

But this creates tension with distribution and survivability. The more communications occur, the more electronic signatures are created that sophisticated adversaries can exploit. The more centralized the command node, the more lucrative a target it becomes. The more distributed the command structure, the harder it becomes to maintain common operational pictures and synchronized operations. These tensions cannot be resolved through technology alone. They require careful thinking about what information actually needs to flow where, what decisions can be made at what levels, and what risks are acceptable in exchange for what capabilities.

Working the Hybrid Balance

The discussions at the WOCC kept returning to questions about the correct hybrid balance. What should go forward with the distributed command posts? What must remain at the rear command post?

This is not a simple division of strategic versus tactical decision-making. It involves questions about which technical capabilities can be sustained forward, what bandwidth is realistically available, how much redundancy is needed, and what happens when the distributed nodes lose connectivity with rear commands.

The attack squadron Captain working in the WOCC spoke to exactly these challenges. The current approach represents a hybrid model with some capabilities forward and others remaining at the main post. But the challenge is determining what this hybrid structure actually enables and where it creates new problems or vulnerabilities. Does having certain capabilities forward provide genuine operational advantage, or does it simply create additional nodes that require protection and sustainment? What does the rear command post provide that the forward posts cannot duplicate, and is that division of capability optimal or merely traditional?

These questions do not have simple answers, and different operational scenarios may demand different solutions. A Marine Expeditionary Unit operating from amphibious ships faces different constraints than a Marine littoral regiment operating from expeditionary advanced bases. A crisis response mission in a permissive environment differs from contested operations against a sophisticated adversary. The hybrid balance must be contextual rather than doctrinal.

Technology Integration Versus Operational Reality

One of the persistent themes in the WOCC conversations was the gap between what technology promises and what it actually delivers in operational contexts. Technologists and acquisition professionals often focus on what systems can do under ideal conditions: bandwidth, processing speed, range, resolution. But operational effectiveness depends on what systems can do when employed by Marines who are tired, under stress, operating in degraded conditions, with limited training time, and facing unexpected challenges.

This is why exercises like Steel Knight are essential. They create opportunities to discover where technology fails to deliver, where Marine training is insufficient, where concepts prove unworkable, and where unanticipated interactions between systems create problems. These discoveries are not failures of the exercise; they are the exercise’s purpose. Better to find these problems in training than in combat.

The WOCC staff emphasized that they are testing not just whether technology works, but whether Marines can use it effectively to accomplish actual missions. Can they maintain situational awareness with available systems? Can they coordinate fires and maneuver across distributed nodes? Can they adapt when communications fail or when the enemy does something unexpected? These are questions about human-machine integration, not just technical specifications.

The Path Forward

The transformation of Marine Corps command and control for distributed operations in contested environments represents a journey rather than a destination. There is no final answer to the question of how centralized versus distributed command structures should be configured. Instead, there is a continuous process of adaptation as technology evolves, as adversaries develop new capabilities, as Marines gain experience, and as new operational concepts emerge.

What the visit to the WOCC during Steel Knight revealed is an organization taking this challenge seriously, asking hard questions, testing assumptions, and trying to learn from both successes and failures. The conversations with watch officers and operational staff showed Marines thinking deeply about not just how to employ new technology, but about the fundamental nature of command and control in modern warfare.

The relationship between centralized command posts like the WOCC and distributed forward nodes is still being worked out. The correct hybrid balance remains elusive and may vary by mission and environment. The integration of technology with Marine capabilities continues to evolve. But the willingness to exercise these problems, to discover where current approaches fail, and to adapt based on experience represents exactly the kind of institutional learning that will determine whether the Marine Corps can successfully operate in the contested environments it will inevitably face.

The challenge is not to find perfect solutions but to develop adaptive organizations that can learn faster than their adversaries, that can integrate new capabilities effectively, and that can distribute decision-making without losing coherence. The work happening at the WOCC and in exercises like Steel Knight represents essential steps in that ongoing transformation. The Marines are working the problems, discovering what works and what does not, and gradually building the capabilities and concepts that will define command and control in future operations.