Compass Points - Revolutionary?
The Character of War
Compass Points - Revolutionary?
The Character of War
July 20, 2024
.
Old and out of touch?
Just last month, Real Clear Defense published a powerful article by General Walter Boomer and General James Conway that sounded the alarm about the Marine Corps' controversial Force Design:
.
==================
.
Force Design is an operational and strategic dead end. It invites defeat in detail. But even worse, renders the Marine Corps irrelevant because it offers virtually nothing to combatant commanders in a full spectrum war against a determined enemy.
The national defense desperately needs Marine Corps leadership and members of Congress to speak up and help rebuild Marine Corps capabilities to fight any foe, anywhere, and win. The American people deserve no less.
-- General Boomer and General Conway, Real Clear Defense, July 15, 2024
.
==================
.
Colonel Mark Desens in his recent Real Clear Defense article, “Operational Misconceptions: A Response to Operational Incompetence 2030,” sharply disputes the conclusion of General Boomer and General Conway that “Force Design is an operational and strategic dead end." Col. Desens trots out the same tired argument put forth by many Force Design advocates: retired generals are old and out of touch, and warfare has undergone revolutionary change.
General Boomer and General Conway were the last Marine Corps generals to command a corps-size unit in combat; their experience and insights, tower over their critics and need no defense. What about the second claim, often used by Force Design apologists, that warfare has undergone revolutionary change?
In their article published today in Real Clear Defense, "Force Design: Where is the Evidence of Revolutionary Change?" authors and Marines John F. Schmitt & Jeffrey S. Dinsmore examine the evidence for "revolutionary change."
Authors Schmitt and Dinsmore discuss how changes in warfighting are composed of three layers,
.
1. Face of War - upgrades to current weapons and equipment
2. Character of War - revolutionary capabilities or combinations of capabilities
3. Nature of War - the fundamental essence of war
.
The authors argue that while the face of war constantly changes and while the fundamental nature of war can never change, the question always is about change in the character of war. Changes in the character of war are rare and revolutionary.
Force Design advocates begin with the assumption that precision weapons are a change not just in the face of war, but a revolutionary change in the very character of war. This assumption that precision weapons have changed the character of war is an article of faith among Force Design proponents. But does this foundational assumption have merit? Has there been a revolutionary change in war? Authors Schmitt and Dinsmore provide an authoritative response to the claim of "revolutionary change."
.
==================
.
As one of us has written previously, we believe the Marine Corps, like the allies in 1914, is focusing on the wrong problem. Rather than a Marine Corps that contributes marginally to the positional-firepower fight, which we believe others can do better, the nation would be better served by a Marine Corps that can restore and maintain the ability to project power in an age of long-range precision weapons. This capability would be indispensable not only in a high-intensity conflict in the Pacific but in any mission around the globe.
. . . Col. Desens asserts that these [Stand-in] forces would have the “ability to rapidly emplace, operate and displace to new locations.” Again, we are skeptical: the Corps has yet to secure the surface means to emplace and displace these units, and wargames and exercises to date have only highlighted the significant and yet-unsolved survivability and logistics problems facing the concept. Moreover, the Corps’ antiship missiles, when they arrive in sufficient numbers after 2030, already will be outdated by longer-range and more modern hypersonic missiles of the other services.
In summary, we believe that Col. Desens has failed to make a compelling argument that recent technological developments have changed the character of war—as other have failed to do before him. The evidence suggests, to us at least, that the long-promised revolution in warfare has not arrived just yet. Advanced weapons are making their presence felt, to be sure, but at the surface level rather than the systemic level. Moreover, the so-called legacy systems that some have described as obsolete will have their say also. And we believe all of this will fit together within the existing combined-arms paradigm. While the face of war continues to evolve, the character of war as we have known it for decades continues to prove itself, at least for now, stubbornly resistant to change.
-- John F. Schmitt & Jeffrey S. Dinsmore
.
==================
.
Are precision weapons merely an evolutionary change in the face of war or are they a rare and revolutionary change in the character of war? Strangely, even the leading proponent of Force Design, the current Marine Corps Commandant, seems to agree with authors Schmitt and Dinsmore. In his Frag Order of April 2024, General Eric Smith writes:
.
==================
.
Modernization’s effect on how we fight is evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Frag Order 01-2024
April 2024
.
==================
.
That is a strange admission for someone who has participated in destroying or degrading so many Marine combined arms capabilities.
The discussion about Force Design and the future of the Marine Corps is a crucial discussion about what the Marine is and what it should be. While the Commandant's Frag Order is filled with contradictory statements, the focus seems to be on a new type of Marine Corps.
.
==================
.
We are the eyes and ears for the joint force, ideally positioned within the WEZ to conduct both reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance, to act as a Joint Fires integrator for the combined force, and to strike the enemy from land and air to sea with organic sensors and precision fires, when necessary.
Frag Order 01-2024
April 2024
.
==================
.
Those words from the Frag Order are very different from the words: "locate, close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or repel the enemy assault by fire and close combat." Which Marine Corps is best for the Nation? In the immediate future, will senior US policy makers need more of a "sensing and making sense" Marine Corps or a "locate, close with and destroy" Marine Corps?
Is the idea of a Marine Corps that is focused not on sensing but on fighting "old and out of touch"? Authors and Marines John F. Schmitt and Jeffrey S. Dinsmore do not think so.
Sadly, there might be some truth to the charge of "old and out of touch." It is Force Design, however, that is old and out of touch. The once confident defenders of Force Design have been reduced to ever more desperate stratagems to defend the aging, feeble Force Design. The most futuristic fighting is ongoing now in Gaza and in Ukraine. While the conflicts include some amazing new technology, nevertheless, the fighting is still very much force on force, violent, bloody, ground combat.
Has technology genuinely advanced to the point where the United States Marine Corps, the Nation's paramount crisis response force can safely discard or degrade its own infantry, armor, artillery, air, combat engineering, and more? The idea that Marines should isolate themselves on Pacific islands and focus on sensing, making sense, and passing on data is an idea that is beyond old and tired, it is poisonous and wrong. Technology always advances, but technology never can erase the violent fighting between two irreconcilable wills. Before the next brutal battle erupts and Marines are sent in, with or without, the units, training, and equipment they need, it is time to upgrade, enhance, and rebalance the Marine Corps' global, expeditionary, combined arms, MAGTF.
Compass Points thanks authors and Marines John F. Schmitt and Jeffrey S. Dinsmore for their powerful article, and thanks all those helping to advance the discussion about the future of the Marine Corps.
.
- - - - -
.
Real Clear Defense - 07/20/2024
Force Design: Where is the Evidence of Revolutionary Change?
By John F. Schmitt & Jeffrey S. Dinsmore
John F. Schmitt is a former Marine infantry officer. Under the guidance of two commandants of the Marine Corps, General Al Gray and General Charles Krulak, he authored the Marine Corps keystone doctrinal manual, Warfighting. In the years since, he has continued to author documents for senior leaders in the Department of Defense.
Colonel Jeffrey S. Dinsmore is an active-duty Marine of 38 years. He enlisted in 1986, has served on nine operational deployments, including four deployments on Contingency and Special Purpose MAGTFs and Marine Expeditionary Units from 1987 to 2001, and five times on combat deployments during Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. He currently serves as a director of planning and training for task forces deploying to the Indo-Pacific.
.
- - - - -
.
Compass Points - Alert Issued
June 15, 2024
Real Clear Defense
Force Design 2030: Operational Incompetence
Dangerously Crippled America’s Expeditionary Force-in-Readiness
By Walter Boomer and James Conway
https://marinecorpscompasspoints.substack.com/p/compass-points-alert-issued
.
- - - - -
.
Marines.mil
Frag Order 01-2024
April 2024
The character of war? Really? With the technology available in 1941-45 we won the Pacific and European theaters. All the technology of 2024 and we can’t defeat the Houthis in 10 months. It’s not technology. It’s the willingness to commit violence when violence is the only answer.
We won WWII in the Pacific in just under four years. The first ground operation (Guadalcanal) to our atomic response, took three years. Victory! We were a determined Nation committed to winning.
The Houthis started attacking ships in the Red Sea in October 2023. Vessels began transiting the Cape of Good Hope as a work around. 10 months later they still are.
I wonder how long it would have taken Curtis LeMay to end the Houthi problem?
The U.S. gets involved and deploys naval forces the Red Sea as a response. Of course we have to name the operation for the public. The name we assign the operation conveys a less than full measure of commitment. “Operation Prosperity Guardian”.
The message? The U.S. is here to guard. We’re not here to win. And our enemies see that and our flaccid “defense only“ responses. We are shooting down drones and missiles and celebrate doing so. And the headline this week?
Female Marine F/A 18 pilot shoots down Houthi drone”. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that special?
Are the Houthis deterred? Frightened? Destroyed?
The U.S. is seen as managers of problems. Not a force that destroys problems with all the National and military power we have. It’s a game to the politicians, aided and abetted by the media.
Gen Butler was right. “War is a racket”.
And this movie scene came to mind while reading and considering these matters.
“He doesn’t know it’s a damn show. He thinks it’s a damn fight”.
Apollo Creed’s corner man to Apollo in Rocky 1.
Semper Fidelis
Barrow sends.
In addition to the technical, the logistical, the tactical and the strategic problems with FDWXYZ, beneath all of that is an assertion that our Maurine’s now need to be different. That the very make up of the Marine Corps low these last 249 years needs to change. It isn’t that OUR generals are older (abet wiser) it’s that they and we who are allied with them, disagree not only with the concept of FDWXYZ, but the deeper cut into our way of life, our ethos. It is hard to wrap one’s brain around it, why are senior officers in our Corps trying to dismantle it? We heard, if one watched the Commandant’s Brookings Institute “conversation”, that he is doing all manner of innovative things, but until Marines living in squalid conditions got national attention the senior leadership seemed to have a deaf ear. Now that the public has reflected, the DOD and CMC are directing. That is NOT leadership, and it was and is a failure to do their most basic of duties, primarily that, of taking care of our Marines.
Clearly the siren songs of the puzzle palace consultants and joint command milk and cookies happy times have had an impact, but perhaps worse, the swamp gas emitted from foggy bottom has clouded their judgement. None of the activity of the last four years is remotely acceptable, and when called on it we are told to S1 and S2. (Talk about a bunch with glass jaws, try crystal jaws…) it is hard to imagine the egos on men and women in Marine Corps leadership roles being so narrowly focused, and further so rude to the men that shaped the Corps over the last 40-30 years and got shot at before setting out on that monumental task. They came back, and they said “never again” for a reason. They worked to make it so that “never again” would endure. Here we are asking them again (yes, being redundant as this has been said here before) to step back in and unwind the unholy mess of Force Design. If we can get back to a fast moving, rapidly deployable violently lethal MEU, MEB and MEF than the rest takes care of itself. Rebel units firing small missiles and or drones at commercial and military shipping or dealing at a higher tempo with a more sophisticated foe, will start any and all thinking twice before acting. The last thing most bad actors want to see is an ARG/MEU breaking just over the horizon. On the other hand there is a sense generally, among the oppressed who see those ships and they are gladdened, as they know “The Marines are coming…” Marines would not be available and coming over the horizon if they are stranded on small island archipelagos waiting for a mythical bad actor to show up. The more voices in reasoned and systematic tones that get to the general public and ergo federal representatives the better, one gets the feeling maybe, just maybe, the issue is not as seriously in doubt as even 6 months ago. But, the fight still needs to be waged, until FDWhatever we call it, is done and memorialized as things not to do.