Compass Points - Edifying Comments

Readers expand the discussion

Compass Points - Edifying Comments

Readers expand the discussion

July 26, 2024

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China warns the US.

China warns the US away from the South China Sea. NIKKEI ASIA is reporting that "Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday that Beijing does not take kindly to other countries meddling in tensions with the Philippines in the South China Sea, hitting at Manila's allies, including the U.S. and Japan. . . "

Meanwhile, the Houthis are attempting to push the US and allies out of the Red Sea.

Worldwide dangers abound.  What should the Marine Corps be doing to help?

Compass Points readers, online and off, have their own ideas.

Over the last weeks, 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. This week, several longer, thoughtful comments have been included below.  Compass Points appreciates the full, insightful, and professional comments of all readers. Many thanks!

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Douglas C Rapé

Modern war against near peer or peer competitors will consume what we term “logistics” at a mind numbing scale. For the Marine Corps that means ships. Amphibious assault shipping, MPS shipping and hospital ships. For the actual fight you must bring maneuver and massive firepower augmented by select high precision weaponry at the right place, at the right time. The maneuver portion at the operational level requires that you be a threat over long distances at sea striking at the time and place of your choice.

If amphibious ships, MPS Shipping and Hospital ships are obsolete the entire surface force of the US Navy is obsolete. If tanks are obsolete infantry anti tank weaponry is obsolete. If tube artillery is obsolete anti ship missile batteries are too. FD-20XX seeks solutions to missions not assigned with unsuited weaponry to be supported by boats neither funded or built that are not survivable, to destroy ships that will not blindly sail into the little and very sparse kill zones. It is like a 1km by 1km minefield with 7-10 mines. Too little spread too wide and immovable.

Sadly, the reality is obvious and the supporters of FD-20XX have dug in and cannot back off. The supporters never even claimed to be decisive or victorious. Their mission sought to be disruptive. A military service cannot justify its size and budget by merely being disruptive.

Two things come to mind. The Marine Raider Battalions in WWII, despite their skill, courage and huge talent could never be more than disruptive. Lord Mountbatten’s commandos who raided Nazi occupied Europe were disruptive not decisive. Both were far more versatile and effective than the visions for FD-20XX. It remains an unfunded and foggy vision five years after it was so poorly conceived.

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Raymond Lee Maloy

All this wishful thinking regarding logistics and resupply reminds me of the 1st MarDiv in 1965 as it received word to stand by for Vietnam.

I had just returned from the 3rd MarDiv after we had mounted out for Danang. We were damned lucky that we were fairly close to Okinawa and could use it as a resupply base for all the things that we should have taken with us it the first place.

I was just a buck Sergeant assigned as the Embarkation NCO for my Battalion (3rd AmTracs). At a division embarkation meeting at division, it became apparent that there was little experience with embarkation, and all that it entails, in the division. One colonel actually suggested living off the land… (sound familiar?) I started pointing out some of our problems and making suggestions and the discussions got more serious. I went back to the battalion, thinking that some people were in for a big awakening.

Due to a policy of not sending Marines back overseas with less than a year, I had received orders for recruiting duty. I didn’t know it, but The CG, MajGen Fields, had listened in on that embarkation meeting and had other plans for me. Upon reporting to him, I was informed that the orders were canceled and that I would be going Back to Vietnam with his division.

Before mounting out, we stripped Camp Pendleton of anything not nailed down and took it with us. I was responsible for the loading phase at Long Beach and departed with the command group aboard Talladega (APA-208).

Landing at Chu Lai, we found nothing but sand dunes and Viet Cong. As we cleared out the enemy , we set up our generators, dug wells for water supply and began erecting strong backed tents and constructing an expeditionary air field. We had combat loaded everything necessary for amphibious and inland operations. I would like to think that could be accomplished today, but I fear that a lot our young Marines will pay that price for leaders who use meaningless words to replace intelligent planning. Semper Fi

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Rob Barrow

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.

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Charles Wemyss, Jr.

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.

. . . 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 think 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 will 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. Maybe, just maybe, progress is being made. But, the fight still needs to be waged, until FD - whatever we call it, is done and memorialized as things not to do.

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Polarbear

"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?"

We are already witnessing the counter to precision weapons, especially missiles and drones. The Israeli Iron Dome has a 90% (plus) success rate. The Arleigh-Burke Destroyer is knocking down both missiles and drones in the Red Sea successfully despite the political restraints. The 2030 Design is a bad response to a bad strategy. Both General Berger and Smith have acknowledged that a war with the CCP cannot be fought successfully without a US Military Service "JOINT" effort.

At the beginning of this strategic misstep, General Berger should have stood on the SECDEF’s desk and yelled that the US Military Joint Service is going to need a ground based anti-missile defense. Let’s get the US Army hot on that idea. The best anti-ship attack method is with aircraft and missiles launched by aircraft and US Navy ships. OH! BTW we need to solve the US Navy's ship building and maintenance issue.

Control of the SLOCs is what is going to win a global war. The CCP recognizes the strength of the US Joint Military’s ability to strategically deploy forces globally. The US Marine Corps, as a “911” force (ie with amphibious ships and MPFs), is an essential element to that strategy because it fills the gap between strategic airlift and the arrival of sealifted follow-on forces and sustainment. What is going to deter and win a peer-on-peer war with the CCP sure ain’t “rocket science”.

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Douglas C Rapé

The Navy has about 300 ships. It has global responsibilities. About 30% are in maintenance and rehabilitation. Another 30% are in work up, sea trials etc. that leaves about 40-45% that are deployable. Let’s say 150 which means about 75 on each coast. Currently the plan is to increase to 345 by 2045, a mere 21 years from now. The Navy cannot build enough ships, maintain them or recruit and train the crews to man them. It is not getting better. It is getting worse.

Let’s stop fooling ourselves.

A sub set of Maritime readiness and power in the USMC that deploys MEUs that are no longer MAGTFs on six month deployments. Ideally one each in the Med, the IO and WestPac. A Corps of 160,000 cannot do it. We simply can’t seem to be able to deploy about 7000 Marines 365 days per year. Spare me the reasons. In the 1980’s I suggested nine month MEU deployments vice six months. The idea was dismissed as outrageous.

All discussion is wasted breath until the RDA efforts can produce and maintain ships, recruiting can find fully qualified individuals to train in a training establishment that shrinks by the day when training has demanded greater sophistication and skills. Every measurable trend is on a glide-path to impact.

The USMC plan to refocus to harass the Chinese Navy is five plus years old and has yet to stand up a fully functional unit. We won WWII in the Pacific in 45 months. The Corps was able to divest in six months and unable to stand up in 60 months and counting. It currently could not sink a garbage barge.

Imagine a new college football coach who takes a powerhouse program and promises to make it better and five years later still cannot field a team, present a playbook and has not purchased the necessary equipment.

I am done with debate, discussion or queries. It is long past due to remove the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Navy and the senior uniformed leadership of the Navy and Marine Corps. I can think of no endeavor -- business, academia, sports, diplomacy, faith-based institutions, charities, research, literature, or entertainment -- where they would not be summarily dismissed.

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Alfred Karam

With all due respect. Our fleet hasn’t dissuaded a rag tag military like the Houthis from stopping their attacks on international shipping, firing on Israel proper, or on US Naval ships. How are they going to dissuade China from doing what they want to do in the pacific?

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Compass Points salutes all Marines and friends of the Corps who in their own ways are continuing to fight for a stronger Marine Corps.