Compass Points - CMC at Brookings
Commandant is interviewed
Compass Points - CMC at Brookings
Commandant is interviewed
July 9, 2024
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Occasionally, the Navy deserves some credit. The Navy may have great difficulty building and maintaining its fleet -- particularly its amphibious fleet -- in the numbers needed and on schedule, but the Navy deserves credit for holding their ship captains accountable. When a ship runs aground, the captain will be held responsible. In the most recent example, the Navy announced that because the expeditionary mobile base ship USS Hershel "Woody" Williams briefly ran aground outside the African country of Gabon, the commanding officer is being relieved. Typically, when a ship runs aground, the captain will be relieved. The captain always gets a chance to explain what happened. He may have a good excuse, a bad excuse, or some convoluted explanation, but the captain will still be held accountable.
Some would say the Marine Corps has run aground on Force Design island. What does the captain say now?
On July 2, 2024, Michael E. O’Hanlon Director of Research at the Brookings think tank sat down with the Marine Corps Commandant, General Eric Smith for a discussion about the Marine Corps' controversial reorganization program, Force Design.
Just over fifteen minutes into the interview, General Smith explains his view of Force Design.
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15:41
. . . the Marine Corps can't stand alone. No service can stand alone against the pacing threat and so how do we enable the Joint Force to overcome China's advanced ranges of their weapon systems? How do we serve as the inside force, 'cause if you're outside of a house and you're trying to kick in the door somebody's going to get hurt and it's going to be the person kicking in the door. If you're already inside the house, somebody's going to get hurt but it's going to be the person who's living in the house because now we're mixing it up. Now we're at close combat which is what Marines pride themselves on. The mission of the Marine rifle squad is locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver or repel the enemy's assault by fire and close combat. I mean that's our mission from the ground up and so by being the inside force, by being inside the weapons engagement zone and being able to influence in this case the PRC's behavior the PRC's attempts to to maneuver through the SLOCs, the sea lines of communication, and being able to shut those down and make them untenable for passage, we believe that's how we contribute to the Joint War fighting.
-- Brookings
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If the house in the rambling explanation is China's weapon engagement zone, then there are currently several nations and their entire military forces permanently inside China's WEZ, including South Korean, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and more. Even though it is in direct weekly conflict with forces from China, the Philippines has not granted US Marines permission to set up any permanent Marine missile units on Philippine territory. And even if the small Marine missile units were allowed on Philippine soil, how could Marine missile units locate, close with and destroy China's military by fire and maneuver? The US Marine missile units are small, immobile, and do not have the infantry, equipment, nor transportation to close with and destroy anyone by fire and maneuver.
Throughout the interview, the Marine Commandant confidently implies, suggests, and hints his way through many Force Design topics.
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1. Was Force Design mandated by the National Defense Strategy?
The Commandant’s inference that Marine Corps was mandated by the 2018 National Defense Strategy to restructure and reorganize its forces to focus on China’s aggression in the South China Sea is inaccurate. The Marine Corps was never instructed to create missile units to sit off China's coast. The key sentence in the strategy read: “We face an ever more lethal and disruptive battlefield, combined across domains, and conducted at increasing speed and reach - - from close combat, throughout regional theaters, and reaching to our homeland.” When the 2018 National Defense Strategy was issued, the Marine Corps was the Nation's premier crisis response force and was expected to get stronger in that role, not weaker.
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2. Is the Marine Corps today just as strong a combined arms force, as it was before Force Design?
The Commandant’s assertion that even after significant divestments of combat and combat support capabilities, the Marine Corps still possesses the necessary combined arms to respond effectively to the full range of global threats is inaccurate.
Divestments in combined arms have significantly weakened Marine Corps capabilities to support Marine infantry in the close and rear battles. The active force has no tanks, no bridging, and no in-stride assault breaching. No modern military is divesting tanks, except the US Marine Corps (which had more than 450 main battle tanks in its inventory before divesting them).
The Marines now have only seven batteries cannon artillery in the active force to support three Marine Divisions. Before the Force Design divestments, the Marine Corps had 21 cannon batteries in the active force to support three divisions. Other than the planned acquisition of some lethal drones, the Marine Corps has not added back the needed lethality to replace the firepower of tanks and cannon artillery in the close and rear fight. These losses are compounded by other divestments in the numbers of attack helicopters and fighter/attack aircraft. Note: any suggestion that the Marines have offset losses by the addition of additional rocket batteries is baseless. The Marines had seven batteries of HIMARS in the active force before 2018. They have seven batteries today and nothing currently programmed to increase the number.
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3. Is the Marine Corps still the premier crisis response force?
The Commandant was adamant that the Marine Corps remains the nation’s expeditionary force-in-readiness, capable of responding quickly and effectively across the range of military operations. This assertion quickly falls apart when examining the discussion of amphibious shipping and maritime prepositioning forces. According to General Smith, L-class amphibious ships are only needed to deploy Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs), while maritime prepositioning squadrons are intended to deliver ammunition and supplies to the Indo-Pacific region during the early stage of hostilities.
The Commandant’s statement that the minimum requirement for 31 L-Class amphibious ships is structured to support two forward deployed Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) and one forward based MEU fails to appreciate the larger requirement to project the Assault Echelon of a Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB). While the MEU is extremely capable of handling crises/contingencies at the lower end of the operations spectrum, it is unable to engage in mid- to high-intensity operations unless immediately reinforced or composited with a MEB or a Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF). The MEB is more capable. The MEF is the most capable but requires a combination of amphibious, maritime prepositioning, and fly in echelons to rapidly composite to a corps-size force.
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4. Do the new Marine Stand-in-Forces bring great value to the Joint Force?
According to the Commandant, Marine Littoral Regiments (MLR) can deploy forces (Stand-in-Forces or SIFs), deter an enemy breakout, engage in long-range anti-ship operations, close sea lines of communications by interdicting choke points, or conduct close combat ashore in the event of hostilities. While these words sound good and have been swallowed whole by many civilians and some military, but in the end the words lauding the SIF are just words.
The Stand-in Forces (SIFs) are envisioned to be small, isolated detachments of Marines, armed with anti-ship missiles, inserted on islands in the so-called “contested” areas of hostilities: specifically, the first island chain. The new Marine focus on SIFs has significantly degraded much needed crisis response and global force projection capabilities to all Geographic Combatant and Functional Commands in an increasingly unstable world. Should total war with China erupt, the SIFs, instead of being a significant asset to the Joint Force, the SIF would be a drain on the Joint force for three overriding reasons: survivability, obsolescence, and logistics.
The SIFs have a survivability issue. They are vulnerable to a variety of enemy attacks by air, land, and sea. The SIFs have a obsolescence issue, their missiles are not advanced, they are relatively old, slow, and easy to counter. Most importantly, the SIFs have a logistics issue. The Marine Corps has no viable plan for inserting, repositioning, resupplying, or supporting the SIFs, which means if SIF were in place when war erupted, the SIF's would be calling for help, not providing it.
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Compass Points thanks Brookings for being part of the new examination of Force Design, which includes the FFRDC investigation underway now. There is no need, however, to spin convoluted explanations or complicated analogies about being outside the house breaking in or being inside the house. Far better to just ask a simple question: Has Force Design made the Marine Corps stronger, more capable, more able to respond swiftly to a wide range of globe crises? To ask the question is to answer it. Force Design has not added to Marine capabilities; it has degraded crucial combat capabilities. The Marine Corps has run aground on Force Design island. It is time to reverse engines, turn around and set course for open seas. Back in 2019 the Marine Corps set course for Force Design. But course corrections are always a part of successful sailing. The time for a Force Design course correction is now.
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Brookings - 07/02/2024
Force Design: A conversation with General Eric Smith, 39th commandant of the US Marine Corps
Reading the CMC comments just made me shake my head, over and over.
Being “inside the house” means our small, distributed, Marines with a handful of missiles will be facing a house full of adversaries…let’s talk numbers. The chines active military personnel number approx 2,000,000 with an additional 500,000 in reserve? Putting small units of Marines inside the WEZ is like placing an ant inside a hornets nest with no way out. The Chinese, as we are seeing the Russians do in Ukraine, will use mass to gain ground against any enemy who is just sitting there.
And I will keep going back to logistics. How is the Marine Corps going to resupply and or “maneuver” around these islands when we don’t have the ships to do it with, and I’m talking ships that are capable of going to toe to toe with the Chinese if necessary.
To say the CMC Brookings interview was disappointing is an understatement for a number of reasons. CMC kept repeating how important Joint Operations are going to be and how the Marine Corps needs to enhance the Joint Operations based on the NDS to “Deter” and “Defeat” a peer enemy. He stated we you can do more damage (Deterrence) if you are inside the house vs kicking down the door to take the house…NOT TRUE. What if the enemy decides that eliminating the enemy inside the house is more important than the house? General Mattes basically made that decision when he flatten Fallujah in 2004. Allied casualties were approximately 100+ KIA and 600+ WIA compared to the enemy 1200 to 2000 killed and 1500 captured and let’s not forget the 800 civilian deaths. Remember the laws of war state you should not kill civilians. The LOAC do not state you cannot kill civilians because the principle of military necessity rules the battlefield. In either case, I don’t think the CCP is going to pay any attention to the LOAC when it comes to fighting and winning a war. Stay behind forces is a Marine Corps only idea. No other service is going to integrate into leaving forces behind. Especially, when the CCP is armed with thousands of A2/AD missiles: https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/china/
CMC also got Marine Recruiting wrong. Systematic Recruiting does not write contracts. Systematic Recruiting is an analysis tool where the leadership can quickly identify where a problem exists. What turned recruiting around with the “all volunteer force” was the teaching of professional needs based sales skills. Specifically, Xerox Professional Sales Skills for recruiters and Xerox Sales Management for officers. With Systematic Recruiting and Sale Skills training the next issue is prospecting. Telling a prospect to “jump up on the pull up bar” is not prospecting and as a former OSO General Smith should know better.
At one point the CMC is asked about the US Coast Guard and if he sees any opportunities or advantages for employment of joint operations with the USCG. It was pretty obvious that question caught the Commandant by surprise. It also raises the question of how the US Joint Force is going to handle the CCP Militia Navy and the massive global fishing fleet. Yes, the USCG is small but does not mean that they can’t help.
If a war breaks out the first issue for the US Joint Force is how to establish air superiority. Yes, there will be waves of missiles going back and forth defensively. This should put a priority on missile air defense vs ground based anti-ship missiles. Airfields will be the key to SLOC control as it was in WW2. Offensive needs will dictate that missiles will be air launched by aircraft from the Marines, Navy and Air Force. How we coordinate and integrate the Joint Strikes Forces is the key. I would much rather have a FARP with vertical takeoff and landing jets armed with anti-ship missiles than a MLR attempting to hide on a Pacific island chain.
The Marine Corps needs to establish a better way to train, select and promote general officers in order to prevent strategic narrow minded thinking like trades combat power for experimenting and lethality.