Compass Points - Asymmetric Comments
Readers expand the discussion.
May 25, 2024
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On this Memorial Day weekend, the US is being challenged around the world by ongoing threats and conflicts. What will happen next? No one knows. No matter what happens, however, there is no doubt Compass Points readers will have insightful analysis and comment.
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Over the last week, Compass Points readers have responded online and off with a treasure load of comments, insights, and analysis. Only a few of the comments are re-posted below. Most of the full comments are available for reading on the Compass Points site. As always, comments have been edited for length and content. Several long, thoughtful comments have been reduced to just a sentence or two. Often the real enjoyment comes, not as much from the excerpt included below but, from reading the comment in full. Compass Points appreciates the full, insightful, and professional comments of all readers. Many thanks!
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cfrog
It has been argued that 'x' is obsolete because now we have 'y'. That is cognitive dissonance in action...a failure to see that these emerging concepts and technologies are additive, and will be combined with relevant legacy systems in novel ways to become more effective. They are likely to spur further innovation in legacy systems rather than the disappearance of those systems.
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Jeffrey Dinsmore
I'm afraid we're seeing a decline in the quality of PME in the history of warfare and military organization, and an institutional failure to appreciate that all warfare's history is marked by war's immutable nature of violence, uncertainty, and friction. Further, gamers and futurists plagued with what C.S. Lewis called "generational snobbery," are willfully uninformed by what they dismiss as the old way of warfare.
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Douglas C Rapé
The history of Marine RD&A is one of repeated failure and apathy.
It is rare that Infantry Bn’s were reduced in size based on combat performance. Reductions occurred as the bill payer for new “good ideas” that needed to skirt end strength restrictions. A force that must fight in any place and clime needs larger Rifle Bns. The Fox hole strength on the FLOT ( old FEBA) is not hard to estimate for Norway, Alaska, Korea, Thailand, Iraq or Afghanistan. There can be no counter attack without a 4 rifle company Bn, nor can you exploit your attack. How does a Company fire the FPF without 60mm mortars?
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The Wolf
So, having more than the average Marine’s time in infantry battalions including years of combat and having studied most of the books on General Van Riper’s list, I’ll be bold enough to offer the “school solution”—four rifle companies, a weapons company, and a headquarters and service company—with close to 1,200 Marines. However, The Marine Corps should never adopt this solution unless it has survived the formal combat development process.
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Polarbear
In SLA Marshall’s “Men Against Fire”, I learned to keep your troop’s equipment load as light as possible and your crew served weapons teams are usually the first to fire and employ their weapons.
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cfrog
I am very glad to hear the USMC saying it needs to address the same practical logistics issues brought up here on CP and elsewhere over the last 2 years.
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Charles Wemyss, Jr.
At some point those who have promulgated the FD nonsense of divest to invest need be held accountable. But in the meantime one can be sure the Marines on duty will continue to improvise, adapt and overcome…the return of HMLA 269 surely is a step in the right direction.
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Douglas C Rapé
The key to combat aircraft is availability. The long history of the MV-22 is one of limited availability and 30 years of readiness surprises. How it would hold up under weeks of high intensity combat is worrisome. The F-35 has had a similar tortured past concerning readiness and availability. We’ve got them and there are no other options.
The cut in Cobra squadrons was a bad decision. It remains inexplicable.
Tough times ahead for Marine Aviation as a greater burden will fall on them.
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Travis Hord
The objective use of IRAS is additive to current combined arms methods through a capability centric approach. Specifically for aerial robotics, the procedural use and developing TTPs can be found within MCRP 3-10.3. Marines throughout the NCO/SNCO Corps are doing what they do best and are innovating in ways that make their squads and platoons more capable -at this point it is on the institution to keep up with them as none of this is conceptual and hasn’t been for many years.
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Samuel Whittemore
The more things change the more they stay the same. So the current changes in the tools of war are simply another page or chapter that began with the jaw bone of an ass. A guy named Samson mentioned in Judges 15:16 reportedly killed a thousand men with one.
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Jeffrey Dean
I thoroughly love this post and this topic. I think sUASs, drones, swarms, and automation in general will continue to be more important.
First, a controversial take from the 50,000’ view: I think manned fighter/attack aircraft should be a thing of the past. Much like the internal combustion replaced the cavalry horse (in spite of the romanticized view of the knight on horseback) and much like the aircraft carrier replaced the battleship (in spite of the emphasis placed on more armor, heavier displacement, and bigger deck guns in the early 20th century), I think the fighter pilots can and should be replaced.
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Randy Shetter
I was not aware that tube artillery is a weapon of the past.
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Jerry McAbee
The United States Marine Corps is the only military service divesting itself of cannon artillery. Force Design 2030 called for the divestment of 14 of the 21 batteries in the active force; arguably the greatest mistake in the history of the Marine Corps. Marine infantry cannot fight, win, and survive the close and rear battles without adequate cannon artillery support.
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Jeffrey Dinsmore
The Russians have a top down command system, so they can be flexible and learn???
This fallacy of "top-down C2 that knows best" has consumed our think tanks and our senior leaders lately. As we trained and equipped against the Soviet Union, the doctrine of Maneuver Warfare was developed knowing it would target their weakness, specifically, their top-down C2 and lack of initiative among the NCO and junior officers. Indeed, we quickly saw through the propaganda as the central planning system began to buckle. How did our officers come to admire the PRC model?
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Paul Van Riper
The slow movement away from the maneuver warfare philosophy has been obvious to those who stay in touch with our Corps. As the holder of a teaching chair at MCU for 11 years I watched as the curricula in the schools was undermined by the increasingly mechanistic thinking of the military and civilian faculty. Theory took a back seat to practical skills, which meant students learned how things worked but not why; the schools were preparing them for their next assignments rather than the rest of their careers. A sad state of affairs. Today's Corps needs a giant like General Al Gray to get it back on the right track but no such leader has come forward. Let us hope one does and soon.
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Douglas C Rapé
My experience with Russian Officers 1995-98 mirrors what Gen Van Riper observed. Underlying their entire command structure is fear and a lack of trust. Hence a one way, dictatorial process of micro management, deception and careerism through deceit and fabrication. Sadly, I saw similar trends slowly developing at the highest levels in DoD. Honesty and integrity can irritate some leaders while others welcome it. The trend is in the wrong direction.
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Ken Zebal
We must diligently train without using space-based communications and navigation systems. We must always be able to fight and win independent of both.
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Jerry McAbee
Let no one be deceived by lofty talking points that tout the primacy of the infantry, the efficacy of combined arms, or the gold standard of the MAGTF. Today, only two amphibious ships are forward deployed worldwide with embarked Marines. Forward presence and crisis response have also become empty words.
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Douglas C Rapé
When Gen Berger became the CMC he did not know what type of Marine Corps he wanted. He knew he did not want the one we had. Tear it down, sell it off and in the meantime figure out what we want. The first part unfolded rapidly. Five years later a new one has not been created and is not on track to be created over the next five years. No one can even provide an end state on what this new Corps will be five years from now. No T/O, no T/E, no mission and no plan. It is a muddle around, experiment, review and make grandiose pronouncements.
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Samuel Whittemore
The CMC and his Lieutenants have created a “Crisis of Confusion “!
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Charles Wemyss, Jr.
By the way, the great slush of spring melt in eastern Ukraine is over, the ground is drying out. Tank weather and ergo tank season is upon the conflict. We will all witness the effectiveness of combined arms deployment in the coming weeks and months as Russian Federation forces move further west and south. The hell with sand tables and war games it is real and it is happening. Didn’t say it would be easy, but we will see the brutal use of mass, maneuver and speed this summer. Imagine if the Russians had a MAGTF capability of merit. How long would it take before they opened another front at the southern regions on the Black Sea? Not long and the mere threat of an amphibious operation would complicate the conflict well beyond where it is today.
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Greg
I posit that the Houthi strikes is not evidence of how an adversary can create choke points…in wartime. Sure the Houthi’s have created a bubble in which commercial shipping will not go, but a peer-to-peer adversary will be entering that bubble with combat ships, not commercial ships. A Marine “Stand-in-Force” lightly manned (platoon (Reinf)) and armed with, as Gen. McAbee stated, subsonic short-range missiles, and in small numbers at that, will not be able to be mission successful. Yes, they’ll fight like Marines, but if not casualties outright, will like the Japanese army in WW II, die-on-the vine.
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Polarbear
We now have a Marine Corps that is also spinning in many different directions, primarily based on new technologies.
We have forsaken the MAGTF concept, the military “Swiss army knife” for contingency operations, to trade, tanks, artillery tubes, airlift, combat aircraft for experimentation with a defensive strategy.
The Commandant and the US Martine Corps has many issues that are not going to get fixed unless they start to FOCUS on our amphibious warfare instincts.
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Randy Shetter
It appears the Commandant wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to have a Marine Corps which is focused and reorganized to sink enemy ships, and yet in his FRAGO 01-2024, he also wants to be a "naval expeditionary force that fights from the sea as a task-organized combined arms air-ground task force."
If the Marine Corps is to be focused on destroying enemy ships (Chinese), how can it also be organized to be a robust combined arms naval air-ground task force? If you eliminate the "combined arms" aspect (artillery, heavy engineers, and tanks) of the naval expeditionary force, how can it still be a combined arms force? This thinking is contradictory.
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Raymond Lee Maloy
What is this “light infantry” nonsense? There is nothing “light” about a Marine Air/Ground Task Force. Obviously it may be configured, but to limit the Corps to light infantry is idiotic.
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Charles Wemyss, Jr.
We witness the flag officers in all branches devolve into mealy mouthed semi politicians, semi diplomats, semi military officers, semi semis. They have no core values, lost somewhere along the way in 25-30 plus year career much of it spent in joint commands, or liaison here or abroad, or schools of every kind,
The US military is a shambles, we all know it, the Corps only slightly less so, the technical side can be cured, time and money prevail. But the moral rot, the careerism, well that needs to be extricated root and branch.
The American people are inherently wise, they may not need a Marine Corps, but they want one. They are owed a damn good one.
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Samuel Whittemore
Exceptional responses. I pray the Brigadier, currently in the billet of President MCU, is briefing CMC Smith daily on the Compass Points discussions or, even better, CMC and the ACMC should read Compass Points before their nightly prayers.
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Compass Points salutes all readers who in their own ways are continuing to build the discussion about a stronger Marine Corps.