Black Sea Rotational Force

The Black Sea Rotational Force is a yearly program where United States Marine Corps units based in the continental United States perform rotational deployments to U.S. military bases on the Black Sea region. Black Sea Rotational Force participates in security cooperation to build military capacity, provide regional stability, and develop lasting partnerships with nations in the region. It is an outgrowth of the previous Joint Task Force East, which was planned to be a rotational brigade-sized Army force.

In 2010, the first year of the program, more than 100 Marines from across the United States deployed to form a Security Cooperation Marine Air-Ground Task Force, primarily based at Romania's Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport.

Black Sea Rotational Force 13 is currently deployed for six months from February to August as a Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force (SP-MAGTF) and consists of almost 300 United States Marines and United States Navy sailors primarily from 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. The unit will train with 21 partner nations in the region, including Romania, Georgia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania, Greece, Azerbaijan, Montenegro and Croatia.

Training evolutions will consist of counterinsurgency and peacekeeping operations, communications, logistics, non-lethal weapons employment, intelligence, military decision-making processes, and non-commissioned officer development. The unit will also be involved in larger exercises such as Agile Spirit 13 in the Republic of Georgia.

BSRF-13 will also conduct community relations and civic action projects in and around Constanța, i.e. improving schools and hospitals, as well as in Bulgaria, Georgia and Ukraine.