Adm. Christopher W. Grady, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, and Lt. Gen. Robert F. Hedelund, commanding general of Fleet Marine Corps Forces Atlantic, signed the Naval Integration Campaign Plan Sept. 20 at 3 p.m. 
The plan aims to inform service-level naval integration efforts by bringing cohesion to both commands’ combined efforts and aligning respective subordinate commands in this progressive step to operationalize the Commandant’s Planning Guidance, A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority, and Advantage at Sea. 

“Today marks the culmination of 14 months of a lot of hard work done to codify a standardized and aligned approach to naval integration,” said Hedelund. “This plan is more than a document and our shared effort is a true testament to the relationships we’ve forged among our services and sets the bar across the naval force.” 

Grady and Hedelund directed the development of the plan in 2020 to unify their commands’ planning focus in support of both services’ Force Design, Force Development, Force Generation, and Force Employment lines of effort. Purposefully aligning and continually refining systems and processes ensures that the naval force is postured to establish and maintain sea control, sea denial, power projection, and littoral maneuver for combatant commanders’ conflicts in the maritime domain. 

“In this return to strategic competition, we need to be able to take full advantage of our strengths and competitive advantages,” said Grady. “One of those strengths is our allies and partners, and there’s no greater partnership than the one between the Navy and Marine Corps. Together we’ve created a plan that’s less talk and more do—a plan that will drive change and spur action.” 
Decision points in the plan allow the commanders to provide refined guidance and additional opportunities in regularly scheduled progress reviews informed by ongoing timeline, objective, and sequential goal assessments conducted by senior leaders and planners in both commands. 

Outlined near-term lines of operation focus on enhancing integrated command and control, communications, computers, combat systems and intelligence (C5I), logistics, and fires and effects planning in milestone force generation events, such as Large Scale Exercise, which tests concepts of Distributed Maritime Operations, Expeditionary Advance Base Operations, and Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment. The next iteration of Large Scale Exercise is scheduled for late 2023.