For weeks, Maj. James Carley strategized how he and a group of Marines could create chaos and break down security at Camp Pendleton and other Southern California and Arizona bases that belong to the Marine Corps Installations West command.

This week their efforts put their fellow Marines to the test for an annual base security exercise, a sort of wargame between good and bad teams to ensure the protection of the bases, critical infrastructure and the residents living on the other side of the military gates and that even if under attack, Marines could be deployed overseas if needed.

Exercise Semper Durus focuses on regional protection and includes cooperation and information-sharing with local agencies in surrounding communities.

Obstacles and problems are introduced to challenge systems and operating procedures at bases and air stations, with a focus on responding to attacks while still being able to deploy units from Camp Pendleton’s 1st Marine Expeditionary Force overseas,  said Col. Philip Laing, lead coordinator for MCI-West. The weeklong exercise has been running 24/7 and ends Friday, April 26.

This year is the first time the plans weren’t choreographed, so the Marines didn’t know where and when specific attacks could occur.

Carley and his team, part of the 23rd Marines, 4th Marine Division, a reserve unit from Northern California, added a new complexity, Laing said. “We don’t know what they will do.”

As “the bad guys,” Carley said their efforts act as “a fresh set of eyes and I come up with new scenarios,” he said. “In the old manner, it was scripted. Now, we have a script, and they don’t know what it is.”

And the script is fluid, he said. If the MCI-West isn’t getting what it needs, Carley switches it up. If it’s too much and they need to reset, he said they can get a do-over.

“We did a lot of brainstorming. We’ve all lived on these bases, and each base has its problem,” Carley said, knowing the roles geography and proximity to the ocean, local communities and major regional arterials play. “We opened up with, ‘There are no bad ideas.’”

In previous exercises, the focus was on truck bombs at the gates, terrorist threats and what Laing calls “asymmetrical threats,” such as suicide bombings and attacks against civilians. With increasing national and global uncertainties, Laing said Marines must analyze what they train for differently.

“We are still posturing to defeat asymmetrical threats, terrorist threats, but also if the nation and the Marine Corps is mobilized in combat against state adversaries, we’ve started looking hard at this,” Laing said.

He pointed out drone use. How do Marines respond to someone accidentally entering airspace, or is it a nefarious act?

“How can we confirm that,” he said.

Understanding how to protect the region – along with Camp Pendleton, MCI-West includes Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma and Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow – is critical for military security here, Laing said, especially as the West Coast installations are the “gateway to the Pacific.”

Marine Corps Recruit Station San Diego, Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, and the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center in the Easter Sierra have also been participating.

Targeted training now includes threats to Camp Pendleton’s base infrastructure, airfields and training ranges, water and power supplies and the Navy hospital as well as amphibious operations and cyber and information technology. A newer issue to face: Deep fake photos, are they real? Is a response needed?

“We are looking at what our defense really means,” Laing said.

“The paradigm has shifted,” he said. “There are more complex threats, more sophisticated threats, and more day-to-day operations from a criminal perspective. What are the resources we need to defend against a state actor? The homeland is no longer a sanctuary.”

Communication with local communities and outside agencies, such as police and fire departments, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is a critical component of defending the bases and ensuring that Southern California’s large population is not under threat, Laing said.

“We’ve got to understand what’s happening outside our gates,” he said. “Our relationship with San Diego, Orange County and Arizona is essential in protection of our stations and bases. We need to understand what’s required and where our gaps and seams exist and who’s responsible for what.”

To conduct the exercise, each base has its Emergency Operations Center up and running, staffed with various personnel, including Marines, active-duty Navy personnel and civilians, all with different experiences, knowledge and service time that helped decipher and respond to the attacks Carley and his team undertook.

“This is the first time we have an adversary force who gets a vote on how we’re going to react,” said Jeff Williams, a retired air traffic control Marine who is director of operations and plans division for MCI-West. “It’s a very interesting time, a lot of learning.”

Carley started simple, with people getting onto the base during a real-time riot. Next, a hazmat crash near a water source forced the MCI-West team to think about how they would react as it happened and what the next steps were to ensure water safety for the base population – 80,000 people are on Camp Pendleton each day.

“I see how they respond, and we keep playing chess,” Carley said.

Other scenarios included evacuations, power restoration, ensuring the Marines, sailors and their families were safe and that utilities and power were functioning.

“Just like anybody else that lives outside a public installation, they depend on the public utilities from cities,” Williams said. “Folks that live and eat on Camp Pendleton have that same expectation.”

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Transportation was also addressed.

“Pendleton is very complex, I-5 being the north and south corridor,” Williams said. “If we weren’t able to move people up and down that corridor, that has an impact regionally.”

“That goes back to the relationships we have with cities,” he added. “I think we’re in a very good place and have very good relationships with our neighbors.”

During the exercise, a control team played the role of a referee in deciding which team was more successful.

“I’m interested in what we do well. “Laing said. “But, I’m fascinated at where we fail.”

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