In just a few days, Compass Points and The Chowder II Society will introduce Vision 2035.
Thursday, November 17
The Choice – Commit to a war in the Pacific or retain the ability to respond globally?
The Choice to Vision 2035, will be released in 14 days. The Choice will discuss the central issue facing the Marine Corps in the age of precision munitions.
The Choice will raise questions including:
Should the Marine Corps focus on a high-intensity conflict in the Pacific with the PRC or should it remain American’s global response force?
Has the Marine Corps framed the future operational challenge correctly as a long-range fires problem?
How should the Marine Corps respond to the rise of precision munitions?
Stand by. More information is on the way.
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The Chowder II Society's
Vision 2035
The new direction for a stronger Marine Corps.
Global response in the age of precision munitions.
The Preface - Who is Chowder II?
The Concerns - Fatal Flaws in FD 2030.
The Choice - Retreat to defense, or retake the offense?
The Vision - Global response today and tomorrow.
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FD 2030 - Are the Marines Inventing the Edsel
In a devastating article in War on the Rocks, Marine and author Owen West details the tremendous damage done to the Marine Corps by both how FD 2030 was created and promulgated and by the particulars of the plan.
War on the Rocks (warontherocks.com) 05/27/22
Are the Marines Inventing the Edsel or the Mustang?
By Owen West
. . . The Marine Corps is in a far more precarious position. It could have used incremental dollars to test its promising fusion of targeting technologies and distributed maritime operations with a minimum viable product. Instead, the commandant, Gen. David Berger, divested current crisis response and land battle capabilities in order to fund a large-scale, hyper-optimized capability that will take eight years to build. Before the new force was designed or prototyped, Berger wrote, “We will not seek to hedge or balance our investments to account for [other] contingencies.” . . .
Owen West is a former marine infantry officer and retired Goldman, Sachs partner who took two leaves of absence to serve in Iraq. He was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict from 2017-2019.
Are the Marines Inventing the Edsel or the Mustang? - War on the Rocks
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Compass Points - Sparks of Thought
Military Maxims, Long Range Epigrams, & Close Combat Quotes
Compass Points is in favor of seeking insight from a wide variety of sources. Contributor, Muddy Boots, is also as he sends along a quotation, and suggests the proponents of FD 2030 are overly confident of the accuracy of their envisioned future.
Just because you make a good plan,
doesn’t mean that’s what’s gonna happen.
― Taylor Swift, singer and songwriter
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There’s More!
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— More articles and information,
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Owen West's article was a good one and his analysis of the recent Force Design implementation as compared to other ventures was interesting. A bit more developed, but in line with my take that, when it comes to Force Design, the USMC has bought a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), a hollow shell for issuing securities with no operational structure, profit, assets, etc. In order to buy that SPAC, we have divested ourselves of a significant portion of our operational structure, profits and assets. This is not the way and Owen does a great job discussing how Ford was able to survive the Edsel by developing the Edsel without selling the (profitable) business of making the cars that sold before they knew how the Edsel project would turn out. I think a similar case might be the story of Apple Inc. and the Apple II, Apple III, and the Macintosh.
One more thought: in the article, Owen writes "The lack of engagement is especially puzzling because a business unit (the Marine Corps) hoping to change roles inside a larger corporation (the Defense Department) needs influencers on the management committee to join the guiding coalition. In the two years since its debut in March of 2020, Force Design 2030 has been approved by two administrations and three secretaries of the Navy. Approval, however, is not advocacy. The Navy supports the idea of Marines disrupting enemy shipping from islands, but refuses to prioritize a mixed fleet to get them there."...In poker, that's called a bluff and a table with a patsy who doesn't know he's the patsy. LtCol Cuomo's post as referenced in Brian Strom's question below references that era of 'DOD wants the USMC to change or die'; this poker analogy is why I think DOD was hot for the Marine Corps to jump, but has actually provided little support to the suppositions in FD 2030 (the LAW is a key indicator of this support for the USMC's vision of Naval Expeditionary Forces, in my assessment).
I'd like to see one of the anti-Force Design critics respond to LtCol Cuomo's article in War on the Rocks:
https://warontherocks.com/2022/07/on-the-ground-truth-and-force-design-2030-reconciliation-a-way-forward/
If the goal is debate, this article requires honest engagement.