Title X, USC guarantees a Marine Corps of 3 divisions, 3 wings, and supporting establishment. However, the anti-ship missile capabilities fathered by General Berger and nurtured by General Smith are fair game for the DOGE. The budgetary rub for organizing, training, and equipping a military service is balancing effectiveness and efficiency. An effective military service should take priority over a purely efficient service. Today’s Marine Corps finds itself neither effective nor efficient, leaving it exposed to DOGE.
SIFs armed with the Naval Strike Missile are ineffective. The missile is short range and subsonic. The SIF is not survivable - - it lacks the combat power to defend itself and cannot be reinforced or logistically supported. The ugly truth is that the Marines have essentially transformed to irrelevance.
SIFs armed with the Naval Strike Missile are inefficient. They are duplicative of Army, Air Force, and Navy capabilities. For example, just one of the Navy’s four SSGN submarines carries 154 Tomahawk missiles. The SIFs anti-ship missile capabilities are greatly inferior to Army, Air Force, and Navy capabilities. All of these services are investing is long-range, hypersonic missiles. The ugly truth here is that every dollar spent on the SIF is wasteful.
I somewhat disagree. SIF as a 21st century Coast-Watcher Force is REALLY important. The problem is that is not what we built. The forces we have sent to be SIF are outstanding Marines, and are figuring most of this stuff out for themselves. The challenge is that message has to be processed and digested back in Quantico / DC.
2 guys, SATCOM, binos, supplies, and an RB...there's your coastwatchers. Didn't take a total reorganization and castration of the USMC. Of course, cheap drones could do the same job, better.
If they are in visual range, then I'm dead. Drones will seek me out and kill me full stop. I need passive detection, tracking and targeting capabilities, and lots of capacity (which is the real issue here). A couple of assholes with binoculars and a radio get smoked in 5 minutes.
Is survivability or capacity the issue? Or the same issue? The capacity to be effective entails an even bigger footprint and even more visibility. So whether it's 2 guys skulking about in the shrubberies or 200, they're just as dead whenever the Chinese get around to it.
Enough capacity to be (marginally) survivable would also require layered air/missile defenses, active sensors, and deep magazines. At that point, we've went from 2 guys with binos to a full up FOB. Only thing missing would be a Burgher King and being a stop on the USO tour.
If we're throwing away lives on pointless gestures, better 2x than 200x. Or 2000x.
capacity means that you have enough sensors to cover down on areas that you care about, it doesn't mean that you have massed forces on a few FOBs that make very convenient targets. Your forces and their equipment must be portable, and that is hard in triple canopy jungle. Motor T needs some serious attention.
Geof, let me put it to you this way: I agree that the purpose of the Marine Corps is seizing and defending key maritime terrain. I agree that the MEB and MEFs are the principle agents of that design. I disagree that the MEU has any relevancy in combat at all, whatsoever. It is just too small. It is a great tool for competition, period. I also know that the Amphibious fleet has an absolutely horrible operational availability. Numbers have been kicked around in open source; I will not repeat them. It's dire. We need to be able to field a MEB and PERMA it with the Expeditionary Strike Group in order to seize and defend maritime terrain. That means we need to survive the transit or movement to objective. That's hard. And the Navy isn't getting any larger any time soon, so there are competing priorities for the Carriers, the Cruisers (whatever few remain), the destroyers and the submarines that will defend our amphibs and the Marines / Fighting Sailors who ride them. The faster that the Fleet can move Chinese pieces off of the board, the faster the Marines can get in there. That means that MLR forces are going to be tasked as the eyes and ears of the Fleet. Forget Naval Strike Missile. This isn't about that.
Wasteful, is defenestrating the nations premier QRF combined arms force, anywhere, anytime, capable of providing measured mayhem on demand and turning it into whatever this mess is. Coastal artillery? Light infantry? Boy scouts? Enough of this and that to be expensive, but not enough to be useful?
When a large corporation teeters on bankruptcy or is in one form of bankruptcy proceeding or the other, outside accounting or audit firms are usually called in to find the money, figure out if there is any way to salvage the entity or sell off the parts and get as much per part in dollar value to be distributed to the creditors. If the company is lucky, the outsiders say “replace management, get reorganized, get refinanced and run as hard as you can to regain shareholder trust.” If the company is unlucky, the cash and assets get distributed to the creditors. So which are we? A viable business but teetering on bankruptcy, or in chapter 7, case closed liquidation of assets, creditors paid pennies on the dollar? Since no one in foggy bottom can manage to audit themselves, the DOGE fad or gimmick or not seems a means to shake the system up and call for accountability. It could go badly, Musk and Ramaswamy may conclude that thanks to FD230, the easy route is fold the Corps up, who needs it. Talk about divest to invest, when amateurs like General Berger do it, it just causes financial troubles, when nasty money guys do it, it’s gone. They generally are not sentimental types. When queried as to how Twitter/X could fire 80% of the work force and continue to operate, Musk said “turns we didn’t need all those people after all.” Say Elon what about this small force that has no ships, no gear, can’t meet statutory obligations and is floundering around? “well looks like we don’t need that Corps after all…..”
Can't just wave a wand to regain all the capability lost either. Take a decade, and all the hardware the USMC "divested", the Ukrainians aren't giving back. We don't need short-ranged coastal artillery, we don't need more light infantry, and the Army has it's own organic water transport. So do we need the USMC and a bunch of hugely expensive amphibs?
Marines need to be able to seize and HOLD key maritime terrain. Period. They need to be able to do it around the world. Period. The next war isn't going to be limited to the INDOPACOM, or EUROPE, or CENTCOM. We have grouped our enemies into a single consortium, and they are laying in wait.
One more alibi: regardless of reviews, I think the most pressing concern is how the USMC is positioned for global response over the next 2 years. This includes the questions of relevant force composition, deployability, and the MEU/ARG tempo.
Stay away from DOGE, stick to common sense. Fads are how we got into this mess......
Meanwhile, somewhere in a Virginia bar, the FD proponents (Brown et al) are sniggering at the 'has been's' talking about DOGE and wondering when they will start asking about the 'Shiba Inu' mandate. Now where did I put that TQM pamphlet?
Common sense is that the federal bureaucracy is a bloated, cumbersome mess...federal regs alone costs the economy $2 Trillion a year.
DOGE might be a fad, but it's a fad with a hugely influential mega-billionaire pushing it, whose time has come. It's going to be aimed directly at the DoD, it's unauditable $900 billion budget, waste, broken procurement system, and redundant or ineffective capabilities.
Which unfortunately, includes a combat ineffective USMC, that needs umpteen billions worth of hardware yet to be ordered/paid for, needs 30+ hugely expensive big deck amphibs, all ripe for the chopping block. It's not going to be "what have you did in the past", or even "what have you did for me lately", it's going to be "what CAN you do for me in the future and near future when the war with China starts". Answer is. not much.
A couple high tech types aren't going to be impressed with spending $10s of billions so a bunch of Marines can squat on tiny islands, with short ranged missiles, touching themselves while waiting for random Chinese ships to blunder by...it's a mission a cheap drone could do for $1.98.
FD proponents might be sniggering now, but I seriously doubt they're going to still be sniggering later. Best possible case, the USMC is almost undoubtedly heading for a existential fight. That those very same FD proponents brought upon it.
DOGE: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss". I'll believe 'this time it's different' when I see it. By the way, that influential mega-billionaire is not the paragon of business / efficiency virtue you think he is. Unless you think chasing government subsidies is good business. That's an apolitical take.He is very good at marketing the appearance of being a high rolling techno-jesus, I'll grant that. In any case, I'd prefer to see our institutions use existing structure to repair the damage, instead of adding another buzz acronym to the stack.
You sure assumed alot from "hugely influential". Musk would be a pauper if it wasn't for subsidies and mandates that kept him afloat. That doesn't change his influence at this point in time while he's rammed up Trump's backside (or vice versa, not sure which)...or the chops from being Techo-Jesus incarnate.
The existing structure is ossified into immobility, precisely because it IS the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy's primary function and role is to expand and promulgate itself. It IS the problem, not part of the solution. It's a case where it's going to take an outside influence to make repairs/progress. IMO.
Federal regs, most imposed by unelected bureaucrats, alone costs the economy $2T a year. If he can make some headway reforming DoD procurement, maybe he really is Techno-Jesus...
I didn't assume anything; I was going off your comment. Anyway, if you think it's great, you do you. I think it's just a retread of things like 'Campaign to Cut Waste' (Obama Admin) with a hack in his 'conservative shift phase' as the sponsor. I'll be happy to be wrong and watch them drastically reduce cost and improve efficiency with this approach. I just think it's really akin to me saying I will make my Mustang faster by drawing cool pictures of 'future Mustang' and making sure a CVS coupon never gets wasted.
I think someone at least making the correct noises IS great. Anything is an improvement over the status quo. Your Mustang isn't going to ever get any faster if all you do is sit and moan about how slow it is...and I've never rebuilt a car or bike yet where I didn't sit and draw cool pics first.
We'll see if talk translates to action, and Musk for all his faults, doesn't shy from decisive action. I think it will. Both have invested a great deal of political capital into this, and both will want a ROI.
The one thing is the DOGE has no power to cut, it can only recommend. Congress, in particular the House of Representatives, has the say in the countries "purse strings". So what it really comes down to is...do we, as the USMC, have any powerful friends in Congress? Particularly in the majority side of Congress?
Douglas Rape is absolutely CORRECT on his assessment of the damage done to our Corp's relevance and ability to respond in "every clime and place" to any crisis, as well as the others in this article... I would have to say "disband before further dishonor or divestment" to compliment his observations on our beloved Corps' "death march" towrds irrelevance... FD2030 has ruined our MAGTF capabilities and our response and relevance in Berger's and now Smith's obsession with being a "one-trick pony" to fight the CHICOMs on remote Pacific islands, while neglecting the other 95% of the real-world threats... VISION2035 must be immediately implemented to save our Corps and restore it combat lethality and MAGTF capabilities!
Thompson has always been a reliable cheerleader for the Corps; however, there is some recent baggage that will need to be sorted out: 1) FD 2030 is in trouble, and the "Outside Review" that was actually conducted by the DoN / CNA will have to evaluated. Hopefully it is thorough and blunt. 2) The amphibious force has a suffering operational availability, so getting the "Crown Jewel" MEUs to the fight is going to be hard. 3) The capabilities of the MLRs--while complementary to the MDTF--are significantly less in mass, range than their army counterparts. Messaging on missions, signatures and branches / sequels is going to be essential. The Marines need a coherent story about the force they have today, the dials they want to turn to ramp the force's capabilities up. Revolutionary isn't going to sell. They need stuff that can be made--in mass--today. The fight is on.
Well the DOGE in all aspects can't come soon enough. The DOD failed its fiscal year financial audit for the 7th straight year in a row. If this were a publicly traded equity, the shareholders would have hit the sell button and headed for the exits 6 years ago. When Ramaswamy was running for President the writer attended a small gathering with the candidate here in seacoast NH. The writer asked the candidate about what he would do to stop the FD203 effort, whilst not in complete knowledge of the situation, and in a stock answer, he indicated he had heard about the issue, and if elected would do a deep dive into all DOD matters. Take that with a grain of salt, but one could guess at some point FD2030 and the failure to meet Title X mandates will hit someone's radar. Further, one can assume some interface between the DOGE and DOD, and that, if the President elect's nominee for SecDef gets through the Senate and is confirmed, that he has had some direct discussions with the DOGE leaders. (Just working off publicly made comments by the SecDef nominee) Musk and Ramaswamy have said their target is to find and eliminate 2 Trillion in waste, fraud and abuse. Time will tell.
One area of the DOGE that bears review is the number of flag officers writ large, their war fighting ethos, their desire to make change and how 46 Four Star flag officers is justified on a line item expense basis. The next stop is Goldwater Nichols and the joint command structure. It was all fun and games, milk and cookies until someone (the American public) lost an eye. From this writer's s very narrow perspective if you are not out in the FMF, you better well damn have a meaningful post out of the FMF. Training commands, recruiting and mission essential duties that support the MAGTF. In a world eons ago, the writer had a senior officer, he arrived at Camp Swampy after being away from the Fleet fo 14 years. OSO, NRTOC, USNA, HQMC etc. Yep, you all can imagine that his transition was difficult and some may argue a disaster of rather epic proportions. The ability to related to the Marine Corps of that day was incomplete to nonexistent. Every Marine officer a platoon commander, every Marine a rifleman. If the DOGE ferrets out the deadwood, and forces the issue of either hit the Title X marks, or be gone. It might tighten up some groups out there, to 10 in the bull at 500 yards, 10 minutes slow fire. For the sake of the Marines trapped in the current swirl of misdirection led by the CMC and his acolytes, the DOGE and realignment can't come quickly enough.
And once again we’ll find ourselves embroiled in budget battles for resources. Friends in high places will be key in that arena. I hope the incoming administration doesn’t know how to spell “BRAC” since brining troops home after conflict ends often goes that direction!
Haha; agree! BRAC stands for "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". We had too many bases with too much expenditure....but still....location, location, location!
I contend that the Corps has relatively few influential friends in the House, Senate or the next Administration. It has burned bridges with the American people and those Marines no longer on active duty. Apathy kills.
The Corps was traditionally highly effective and efficient. We are now neither. 160,000 Marines to man the Maginot Line in the South China Sea and some impotent infantry Bn’s is hardly effective or efficient. It is delusional. What capabilities we have in aviation would nicely fill in Navy and Army shortfalls in both platforms and personnel. Don’t think that DOGE can’t see that.
Four of the last five Commandants have been as Charismatic as mud and persuasive as a rock. A whole host of retired Generals went public in their opposition to the incoming POTUS while his views of Generals Mattis, Kelley and McKenzie, rightly or wrongly, did nothing to enhance the image of apolitical competence and loyalty. The leadership of the Corps over the last 18 years painted itself into a corner and held those most likely to be die hard supporters at arm’s length. The winds of change started to blow two years ago and the Corps did not notice. Today we are isolated on an island we are unwilling to depart from.
If the Corps is serious about survival the current CMC should retire in January and give the incoming Administration with a new SecDef and SecNav the opportunity to reverse course and rebuild and modernize three MEFs as MAGTFs as fast as possible. This cannot be a long project. It must be an 18 month project with the purchase of weaponry and ammunition from any viable source and the immediate divestment of DEI and previous political correctness that is not codified in law. It must be combined with an immediate training Renaissance that cuts the wasted training time. There is only so much training time available and not a minute can be wasted on anything but the reconstitution of the MAGTF.
If the Corps, like a hamster staring at a Cobra, does not identify that its very survival is at stake it will be extinct in the next 2-4 years.
In all sincerity, no. There was no write off. It's like parking your well used Caddy in the scrap yard and thinking you got a credit for the original purchase price. Never happened, though some in senior USMC management at the time thought it would work out like that. (talking about FD 2030 after the long knives made the cuts).
Title X, USC guarantees a Marine Corps of 3 divisions, 3 wings, and supporting establishment. However, the anti-ship missile capabilities fathered by General Berger and nurtured by General Smith are fair game for the DOGE. The budgetary rub for organizing, training, and equipping a military service is balancing effectiveness and efficiency. An effective military service should take priority over a purely efficient service. Today’s Marine Corps finds itself neither effective nor efficient, leaving it exposed to DOGE.
SIFs armed with the Naval Strike Missile are ineffective. The missile is short range and subsonic. The SIF is not survivable - - it lacks the combat power to defend itself and cannot be reinforced or logistically supported. The ugly truth is that the Marines have essentially transformed to irrelevance.
SIFs armed with the Naval Strike Missile are inefficient. They are duplicative of Army, Air Force, and Navy capabilities. For example, just one of the Navy’s four SSGN submarines carries 154 Tomahawk missiles. The SIFs anti-ship missile capabilities are greatly inferior to Army, Air Force, and Navy capabilities. All of these services are investing is long-range, hypersonic missiles. The ugly truth here is that every dollar spent on the SIF is wasteful.
I somewhat disagree. SIF as a 21st century Coast-Watcher Force is REALLY important. The problem is that is not what we built. The forces we have sent to be SIF are outstanding Marines, and are figuring most of this stuff out for themselves. The challenge is that message has to be processed and digested back in Quantico / DC.
2 guys, SATCOM, binos, supplies, and an RB...there's your coastwatchers. Didn't take a total reorganization and castration of the USMC. Of course, cheap drones could do the same job, better.
If they are in visual range, then I'm dead. Drones will seek me out and kill me full stop. I need passive detection, tracking and targeting capabilities, and lots of capacity (which is the real issue here). A couple of assholes with binoculars and a radio get smoked in 5 minutes.
Is survivability or capacity the issue? Or the same issue? The capacity to be effective entails an even bigger footprint and even more visibility. So whether it's 2 guys skulking about in the shrubberies or 200, they're just as dead whenever the Chinese get around to it.
Enough capacity to be (marginally) survivable would also require layered air/missile defenses, active sensors, and deep magazines. At that point, we've went from 2 guys with binos to a full up FOB. Only thing missing would be a Burgher King and being a stop on the USO tour.
If we're throwing away lives on pointless gestures, better 2x than 200x. Or 2000x.
capacity means that you have enough sensors to cover down on areas that you care about, it doesn't mean that you have massed forces on a few FOBs that make very convenient targets. Your forces and their equipment must be portable, and that is hard in triple canopy jungle. Motor T needs some serious attention.
Geof, let me put it to you this way: I agree that the purpose of the Marine Corps is seizing and defending key maritime terrain. I agree that the MEB and MEFs are the principle agents of that design. I disagree that the MEU has any relevancy in combat at all, whatsoever. It is just too small. It is a great tool for competition, period. I also know that the Amphibious fleet has an absolutely horrible operational availability. Numbers have been kicked around in open source; I will not repeat them. It's dire. We need to be able to field a MEB and PERMA it with the Expeditionary Strike Group in order to seize and defend maritime terrain. That means we need to survive the transit or movement to objective. That's hard. And the Navy isn't getting any larger any time soon, so there are competing priorities for the Carriers, the Cruisers (whatever few remain), the destroyers and the submarines that will defend our amphibs and the Marines / Fighting Sailors who ride them. The faster that the Fleet can move Chinese pieces off of the board, the faster the Marines can get in there. That means that MLR forces are going to be tasked as the eyes and ears of the Fleet. Forget Naval Strike Missile. This isn't about that.
SIng it brother, sing it.
Wasteful, is defenestrating the nations premier QRF combined arms force, anywhere, anytime, capable of providing measured mayhem on demand and turning it into whatever this mess is. Coastal artillery? Light infantry? Boy scouts? Enough of this and that to be expensive, but not enough to be useful?
When a large corporation teeters on bankruptcy or is in one form of bankruptcy proceeding or the other, outside accounting or audit firms are usually called in to find the money, figure out if there is any way to salvage the entity or sell off the parts and get as much per part in dollar value to be distributed to the creditors. If the company is lucky, the outsiders say “replace management, get reorganized, get refinanced and run as hard as you can to regain shareholder trust.” If the company is unlucky, the cash and assets get distributed to the creditors. So which are we? A viable business but teetering on bankruptcy, or in chapter 7, case closed liquidation of assets, creditors paid pennies on the dollar? Since no one in foggy bottom can manage to audit themselves, the DOGE fad or gimmick or not seems a means to shake the system up and call for accountability. It could go badly, Musk and Ramaswamy may conclude that thanks to FD230, the easy route is fold the Corps up, who needs it. Talk about divest to invest, when amateurs like General Berger do it, it just causes financial troubles, when nasty money guys do it, it’s gone. They generally are not sentimental types. When queried as to how Twitter/X could fire 80% of the work force and continue to operate, Musk said “turns we didn’t need all those people after all.” Say Elon what about this small force that has no ships, no gear, can’t meet statutory obligations and is floundering around? “well looks like we don’t need that Corps after all…..”
Can't just wave a wand to regain all the capability lost either. Take a decade, and all the hardware the USMC "divested", the Ukrainians aren't giving back. We don't need short-ranged coastal artillery, we don't need more light infantry, and the Army has it's own organic water transport. So do we need the USMC and a bunch of hugely expensive amphibs?
That's what FD 2030 has wrought.
Marines need to be able to seize and HOLD key maritime terrain. Period. They need to be able to do it around the world. Period. The next war isn't going to be limited to the INDOPACOM, or EUROPE, or CENTCOM. We have grouped our enemies into a single consortium, and they are laying in wait.
One more alibi: regardless of reviews, I think the most pressing concern is how the USMC is positioned for global response over the next 2 years. This includes the questions of relevant force composition, deployability, and the MEU/ARG tempo.
Stay away from DOGE, stick to common sense. Fads are how we got into this mess......
Meanwhile, somewhere in a Virginia bar, the FD proponents (Brown et al) are sniggering at the 'has been's' talking about DOGE and wondering when they will start asking about the 'Shiba Inu' mandate. Now where did I put that TQM pamphlet?
Common sense is that the federal bureaucracy is a bloated, cumbersome mess...federal regs alone costs the economy $2 Trillion a year.
DOGE might be a fad, but it's a fad with a hugely influential mega-billionaire pushing it, whose time has come. It's going to be aimed directly at the DoD, it's unauditable $900 billion budget, waste, broken procurement system, and redundant or ineffective capabilities.
Which unfortunately, includes a combat ineffective USMC, that needs umpteen billions worth of hardware yet to be ordered/paid for, needs 30+ hugely expensive big deck amphibs, all ripe for the chopping block. It's not going to be "what have you did in the past", or even "what have you did for me lately", it's going to be "what CAN you do for me in the future and near future when the war with China starts". Answer is. not much.
A couple high tech types aren't going to be impressed with spending $10s of billions so a bunch of Marines can squat on tiny islands, with short ranged missiles, touching themselves while waiting for random Chinese ships to blunder by...it's a mission a cheap drone could do for $1.98.
FD proponents might be sniggering now, but I seriously doubt they're going to still be sniggering later. Best possible case, the USMC is almost undoubtedly heading for a existential fight. That those very same FD proponents brought upon it.
DOGE: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss". I'll believe 'this time it's different' when I see it. By the way, that influential mega-billionaire is not the paragon of business / efficiency virtue you think he is. Unless you think chasing government subsidies is good business. That's an apolitical take.He is very good at marketing the appearance of being a high rolling techno-jesus, I'll grant that. In any case, I'd prefer to see our institutions use existing structure to repair the damage, instead of adding another buzz acronym to the stack.
You sure assumed alot from "hugely influential". Musk would be a pauper if it wasn't for subsidies and mandates that kept him afloat. That doesn't change his influence at this point in time while he's rammed up Trump's backside (or vice versa, not sure which)...or the chops from being Techo-Jesus incarnate.
The existing structure is ossified into immobility, precisely because it IS the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy's primary function and role is to expand and promulgate itself. It IS the problem, not part of the solution. It's a case where it's going to take an outside influence to make repairs/progress. IMO.
Federal regs, most imposed by unelected bureaucrats, alone costs the economy $2T a year. If he can make some headway reforming DoD procurement, maybe he really is Techno-Jesus...
I didn't assume anything; I was going off your comment. Anyway, if you think it's great, you do you. I think it's just a retread of things like 'Campaign to Cut Waste' (Obama Admin) with a hack in his 'conservative shift phase' as the sponsor. I'll be happy to be wrong and watch them drastically reduce cost and improve efficiency with this approach. I just think it's really akin to me saying I will make my Mustang faster by drawing cool pictures of 'future Mustang' and making sure a CVS coupon never gets wasted.
I think someone at least making the correct noises IS great. Anything is an improvement over the status quo. Your Mustang isn't going to ever get any faster if all you do is sit and moan about how slow it is...and I've never rebuilt a car or bike yet where I didn't sit and draw cool pics first.
We'll see if talk translates to action, and Musk for all his faults, doesn't shy from decisive action. I think it will. Both have invested a great deal of political capital into this, and both will want a ROI.
The one thing is the DOGE has no power to cut, it can only recommend. Congress, in particular the House of Representatives, has the say in the countries "purse strings". So what it really comes down to is...do we, as the USMC, have any powerful friends in Congress? Particularly in the majority side of Congress?
Douglas Rape is absolutely CORRECT on his assessment of the damage done to our Corp's relevance and ability to respond in "every clime and place" to any crisis, as well as the others in this article... I would have to say "disband before further dishonor or divestment" to compliment his observations on our beloved Corps' "death march" towrds irrelevance... FD2030 has ruined our MAGTF capabilities and our response and relevance in Berger's and now Smith's obsession with being a "one-trick pony" to fight the CHICOMs on remote Pacific islands, while neglecting the other 95% of the real-world threats... VISION2035 must be immediately implemented to save our Corps and restore it combat lethality and MAGTF capabilities!
Thompson has always been a reliable cheerleader for the Corps; however, there is some recent baggage that will need to be sorted out: 1) FD 2030 is in trouble, and the "Outside Review" that was actually conducted by the DoN / CNA will have to evaluated. Hopefully it is thorough and blunt. 2) The amphibious force has a suffering operational availability, so getting the "Crown Jewel" MEUs to the fight is going to be hard. 3) The capabilities of the MLRs--while complementary to the MDTF--are significantly less in mass, range than their army counterparts. Messaging on missions, signatures and branches / sequels is going to be essential. The Marines need a coherent story about the force they have today, the dials they want to turn to ramp the force's capabilities up. Revolutionary isn't going to sell. They need stuff that can be made--in mass--today. The fight is on.
Well the DOGE in all aspects can't come soon enough. The DOD failed its fiscal year financial audit for the 7th straight year in a row. If this were a publicly traded equity, the shareholders would have hit the sell button and headed for the exits 6 years ago. When Ramaswamy was running for President the writer attended a small gathering with the candidate here in seacoast NH. The writer asked the candidate about what he would do to stop the FD203 effort, whilst not in complete knowledge of the situation, and in a stock answer, he indicated he had heard about the issue, and if elected would do a deep dive into all DOD matters. Take that with a grain of salt, but one could guess at some point FD2030 and the failure to meet Title X mandates will hit someone's radar. Further, one can assume some interface between the DOGE and DOD, and that, if the President elect's nominee for SecDef gets through the Senate and is confirmed, that he has had some direct discussions with the DOGE leaders. (Just working off publicly made comments by the SecDef nominee) Musk and Ramaswamy have said their target is to find and eliminate 2 Trillion in waste, fraud and abuse. Time will tell.
One area of the DOGE that bears review is the number of flag officers writ large, their war fighting ethos, their desire to make change and how 46 Four Star flag officers is justified on a line item expense basis. The next stop is Goldwater Nichols and the joint command structure. It was all fun and games, milk and cookies until someone (the American public) lost an eye. From this writer's s very narrow perspective if you are not out in the FMF, you better well damn have a meaningful post out of the FMF. Training commands, recruiting and mission essential duties that support the MAGTF. In a world eons ago, the writer had a senior officer, he arrived at Camp Swampy after being away from the Fleet fo 14 years. OSO, NRTOC, USNA, HQMC etc. Yep, you all can imagine that his transition was difficult and some may argue a disaster of rather epic proportions. The ability to related to the Marine Corps of that day was incomplete to nonexistent. Every Marine officer a platoon commander, every Marine a rifleman. If the DOGE ferrets out the deadwood, and forces the issue of either hit the Title X marks, or be gone. It might tighten up some groups out there, to 10 in the bull at 500 yards, 10 minutes slow fire. For the sake of the Marines trapped in the current swirl of misdirection led by the CMC and his acolytes, the DOGE and realignment can't come quickly enough.
And once again we’ll find ourselves embroiled in budget battles for resources. Friends in high places will be key in that arena. I hope the incoming administration doesn’t know how to spell “BRAC” since brining troops home after conflict ends often goes that direction!
Haha; agree! BRAC stands for "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". We had too many bases with too much expenditure....but still....location, location, location!
I contend that the Corps has relatively few influential friends in the House, Senate or the next Administration. It has burned bridges with the American people and those Marines no longer on active duty. Apathy kills.
The Corps was traditionally highly effective and efficient. We are now neither. 160,000 Marines to man the Maginot Line in the South China Sea and some impotent infantry Bn’s is hardly effective or efficient. It is delusional. What capabilities we have in aviation would nicely fill in Navy and Army shortfalls in both platforms and personnel. Don’t think that DOGE can’t see that.
Four of the last five Commandants have been as Charismatic as mud and persuasive as a rock. A whole host of retired Generals went public in their opposition to the incoming POTUS while his views of Generals Mattis, Kelley and McKenzie, rightly or wrongly, did nothing to enhance the image of apolitical competence and loyalty. The leadership of the Corps over the last 18 years painted itself into a corner and held those most likely to be die hard supporters at arm’s length. The winds of change started to blow two years ago and the Corps did not notice. Today we are isolated on an island we are unwilling to depart from.
If the Corps is serious about survival the current CMC should retire in January and give the incoming Administration with a new SecDef and SecNav the opportunity to reverse course and rebuild and modernize three MEFs as MAGTFs as fast as possible. This cannot be a long project. It must be an 18 month project with the purchase of weaponry and ammunition from any viable source and the immediate divestment of DEI and previous political correctness that is not codified in law. It must be combined with an immediate training Renaissance that cuts the wasted training time. There is only so much training time available and not a minute can be wasted on anything but the reconstitution of the MAGTF.
If the Corps, like a hamster staring at a Cobra, does not identify that its very survival is at stake it will be extinct in the next 2-4 years.
Amen! Semper Fi sir!
Can we get a little of both? Party. Bonus.
The USMC was the only service to ever pass the audit. Was it because of the financial write off of all the assets necessary to make it relevant?
In all sincerity, no. There was no write off. It's like parking your well used Caddy in the scrap yard and thinking you got a credit for the original purchase price. Never happened, though some in senior USMC management at the time thought it would work out like that. (talking about FD 2030 after the long knives made the cuts).
Good question. I sure that it probably had an influence. Also I would think that having passed its audit MIGHT and I say MIGHT be looked at favorably.