Revolt of the Marine Generals

[viper37]

Link (WP)

[...]
Three years ago, Berger launched a radical revamp called Force Design 2030 to prepare the Corps for high-tech warfare against China and other potential adversaries. He has gotten rid of all the Marines' tanks and more than half of their artillery batteries, while reducing the number of infantry and helicopter units. He is investing in rocket artillery, drones, loitering munitions, electronic warfare, tactical missiles, a new amphibious assault ship and other cutting-edge capabilities. The centerpiece of his reforms is the creation of littoral combat regiments — the first one has just been stood up — that, in the event of war, are supposed to move around Pacific islands, performing reconnaissance missions and firing missiles at Chinese ships and aircraft.

More than two dozen retired Marine generals — including revered figures such as former commandant Charles Krulak and former Central Command chief Anthony Zinni — have launched a public lobbying campaign to stop this transformation, which they argue is too focused on China at the expense of other threats such as insurgents. A trio of retired four-stars, including Krulak and Zinni, argued in a Post op-ed: "It will make the Marines less capable of countering threats from unsettled and dangerous corners of the world."

If Berger is perturbed by this unprecedented opposition from the retired generals, he did not show it during a recent Zoom interview from his spacious Pentagon office. "There should be that kind of family discussion about what direction we're taking," the mild-mannered commandant told me. "I look at that as a positive thing."

He insisted that "divesting platforms," despite all the opposition, was "not a very difficult decision for us." He said that his decisions have been driven in part by war games that show the Chinese military having considerable success with asymmetric capabilities such as carrier-killer missiles, cyberweapons and diesel submarines. The Marine makeover is designed to "change the adversary's calculus" and throw the Chinese "off their game." He envisions littoral combat units that will be "constantly moving," making them "difficult to detect and target," and that will "have a lethal capability and their own [intelligence] collection capability."

"You have to make trade-offs," he insisted. Although he said that heavy armor is still necessary for the "joint force" — the Army will still deploy lots of tanks — it is "less of a needed capability" for the Corps. "Looking into the future," he said, "we need a better mix of loitering munitions, rocket artillery, missiles and other systems, manned and unmanned."

Berger sees confirmation from the war in Ukraine for what he is trying to accomplish. "Sometimes large, bulky, hard-to-maneuver forces are in disadvantage against small, distributed forces," he pointed out. "Ukrainian forces are doing a remarkable job of using different pieces of collection and closing kill chains quickly with long-range precision fires, and that's an approach we would take as well."

More recently, of course, Russia has been using a brute-force approach by simply raining down artillery to slowly advance in eastern Ukraine. Some might see this as a cautionary sign that the age of industrial warfare isn't quite finished. But Berger sees it differently: "My read on it is that Russia is attacking the people in the cities. They're not attacking the Ukrainian military. ... You can't reach any conclusion on future warfare when they're not attacking the enemy. They're rubbling cities."

Berger's arguments have not convinced his critics, but he has won over the constituencies that count. Both Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his predecessor, Mark T. Esper, have been "fully supportive," he said, "and, in fact, urge us to go faster." Congress is also supportive. Indeed, eight House and Senate members of both parties, all Marine veterans, strongly endorsed the redesign, writing in the Wall Street Journal: "We don't have time for incremental change. China is rapidly modernizing."

I tend to agree. Given the rapid changes sweeping warfare — as sensors, drones and precision-guided munitions become ubiquitous — the U.S. armed forces don't have the luxury of standing still. But Berger is running a risk that, by focusing so heavily on China, the Marine Corps could be ill-prepared for a future counterinsurgency conflict such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Berger's redesign appears to have survived the "Revolt of the Generals" and is so far advanced that it will be hard for a successor to reverse. Now, all that remains to be seen is how the new Marine Corps will fare in an actual conflict, given that wars seldom unfold as expected

I've skipped the intro as it is not really relevant to the case.

More details here:
https://breakingdefense.com/2022/06/analyzing-the-biggest-changes-in-the-marine-corps-force-design-2030-update/


I see merits on both points, but I can't help but think these retired generals are a little too attached to their traditions and can't envision a different world, a different warfare.

At the same time, I am wondering if Gen. Berger isn't a little too forward thinking.  Then again, it's not as if the US is abandoning all tanks, only the Marines are reducing their use of tanks.  That would still leave a sizable tank force in the hand of the Army, I believe?

I read another piece - can't find it anymore - about the shoreline boats focus, designed to operate with small forward operating base, something ideal for the Indo-Pacific area.

Again, here, I figure the Navy would provide the big guns at sea while the Marines need to defend& move themselves quickly closer to where there is actual fighting.  It does make sense.  But I'm still skeptical about their abilities to quickly deploy base of operations and move them as they need, to every small island they need to be on.

I don't really know...

Anyone willing to comment?

[Jacob]

I don't know enough to comment, but it's an interesting issue.

[Berkut]

The way I see it, either Berger is basically right, or he is basically wrong.

If he is basically wrong, then I am not at all surprised that you can find some retired Marine generals who will tell you that he is wrong.

But if he is basically right, then I am not at all surprised that you can find some retired Marine generals who will tell you that is wrong.

So that data point doesn't provide any actual information.

[Josquius]

The marines don't need to be an entire military in their own right. The changes sound sensible and make the marines actual marines.

[Threviel]

The US navy won't be able to match the PLAN ship for ship in the foreseeable future. Force multipliers like marines with AShM and AA on strategic locations will be necessary to contain an aggressive Communist China.

I think the corps is on the right track and has the correct focus with regards to China. Let the army handle blitzkrieg style armoured warfare.

[grumbler]

It's really hard to be nimble while shackled to a 70-ton tank.  Getting rid of them eliminates all kinds of amphibious operations constraints.  Whether the Marines should be vastly reducing their forcible entry capabilities in favor of littoral warfare capabilities is more difficult to say.  While they are picking up a ball the Navy badly fumbled (the LCS program was a disaster, and the Zumwalt program a catastrophe), they'll find it hard to justify much in the way of Marine Aviation in this new force.

[Berkut]

I've never really understood why the Marines have their own significant aviation to begin with - it seemed to me like just an effort to make the Marines equivalent in capability to the Army in conventional warfare on its own, in some fashion.

But why?

[grumbler]

I've never really understood why the Marines have their own significant aviation to begin with - it seemed to me like just an effort to make the Marines equivalent in capability to the Army in conventional warfare on its own, in some fashion.

But why?

The Marines have been interested from the beginning of aviation in having aviation support for their troops.  With the advent of tactical air support they saw a way to make up for the difficulties in getting heavy artillery ashore by developing "flying artillery."  They invented dive bombing for that exact purpose.

The Marines can't always count on the Navy for tacair, because that's pretty low on the tasking priorities for carrier air.  They can't rely on the Army, because the army doesn't have close air support, either, nor the Chair Force because tacair isn't nearly sexy enough to interest it (despite close air support being one of the core missions of the USAF).  Marine aviation exists because, without it, more Marines die.

[Darth Wagtaros]

We couldn't afford another counter insurgency operation like Afghanistan or Iraq.  We still have the Army if we do. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

Probably defer to the guy whose job it is to run the Marine Corps, not the guys who are collecting pension checks.

[The Brain]

The centerpiece of his reforms is the creation of littoral combat regiments — the first one has just been stood up —

Plenty of fish in the sea.

[Jacob]

It was littorally just stood up.

[jimmy olsen]

It seems logical that the military should be designed specifically to fight your strongest plausible opponent.

[mongers]

It seems logical that the military should be designed specifically to fight your strongest plausible opponent.

How do they go about putting down an insurgency in the Red states?