Compass Points - First, Electronic Smoke?
Blind ‘em, blast ‘em, and burn ‘em
Compass Points - First, Electronic Smoke?
Blind ‘em, blast ‘em, and burn ‘em
July 23, 2026
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In World War II, in battle after battle in the Pacific, Marines faced well dug in defenders. Marines created a method for quickly destroying defenders hiding in bunkers. The Marines would, “blind ‘em, blast ‘em, and burn ‘em.” It all began with, “blind ‘em.”
Today, enemy forces depend on using electronic systems to see the battlefield clearly. But every eye that sees can be blinded, and every electronic sensor can be tricked, confused and overwhelmed.
As the 31st MEU returns from months in the Middle East. Their successful deployment teaches a lesson abut warfare today and tomorrow.
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The Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit arrived in Japan on Wednesday after supporting military operations in the Middle East for several months during the Iran war.
The 31st MEU, made up of approximately 2,200 service members, arrived at White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, Japan, after a six-month deployment to the U.S. 5th Fleet and 7th Fleet areas of operations. There, the ARG-MEU helped to enforce a U.S. Navy blockade along the Strait of Hormuz.
“The team adapted, never lost sight of the mission, and performed flawlessly under the most dynamic circumstances,” U.S. Marine Corps Col. Chris Niedziocha, commanding officer of the 31st MEU, said in a statement.
-- Navy Times, “Thousands of Marines, sailors back in Japan after deploying for Iran war”
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The Marines of the 31st MEU returned from being in the middle of a missile war. For months the Marines have been in constricted international waterways in constant danger from Iranian precision munitions. Despite the dangers, US Navy ships with Marines onboard continued their patrols and continued to provide the US with a variety of options to deter, assist, rescue, strike, and fight.
The successful deployment of the 31st MEU is one more rejection of the foundation of the Marine Corps aging and misguided Force Design plan. Force Design began seven years ago with the wrong question. Force Design, in effect, asked, what can the Marine Corps do now that precision munitions have made maneuver impossible? Force Design is constructed on the false belief that modern missiles would make it impossible for the US Navy to sail the seas. And therefore Marines would not be able to sail on Navy ships. Since ships could not sail, said the Force Design plan, Marines must give up offensive maneuver and simply hide out on small islands off the coast of China.
But Force Design was mistaken from the very start.
Author and Marine John Schmitt in his article for The National Interest, “Force Design 2030 Is Trying to Solve the Wrong Problem” writes that the fundamental issue with Force Design is that it got the problem wrong.
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We began by making the point that to devise an effective solution to a problem, you need to get the problem right because the way you frame the problem informs how you solve it. We have argued that Force Design 2030 frames the future operational problem in a way that will lead to a less versatile, less effective Marine Corps. We have proposed an alternative problem framing—preserving or restoring the ability to maneuver in an age of precision weapons—which we believe is both consistent with traditional Marine Corps roles and missions and responsive to the emerging security environment. Solving that problem will lead to a very different force design.
. . . The most valuable contribution the Marine Corps could make in preparing for future conflict is to focus its force design efforts on preserving or restoring the ability to maneuver in the age of precision weapons rather than on developing capabilities that are already core competencies of other services.
-- John Schmitt, The National Interest, ”Force Design 2030 Is Trying to Solve the Wrong Problem”
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In a recent related article, author and Marine, William “Mac” McHenry, argues that while defenders today have the advantage with electronic systems and precision munitions, their advantage is vulnerable.
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Military history is a perpetual pendulum swinging between the offense and the defense.
In the early 20th century, the machine gun, barbed wire, and rapid-fire artillery created an apparently insurmountable defensive advantage, resulting in the slaughter of trench warfare. Yet, the offense eventually found its answer through the synchronized combination of the tank, close-air support, and two-way radio communication.
We are currently living through a similar swing of the pendulum. The digital revolution, AI, and cheap robotics have temporarily handed the crown to the defender. The battlefield has become a transparent, hyper-lethal cage for anyone attempting to push forward.
But this defensive supremacy is not permanent. The modern defense relies on a fragile foundation of digital connectivity, data integrity, and limited high-tech inventories. It has vulnerabilities. It can be blinded, it can be overwhelmed, and it can be outpaced.
By aggressively leaning into autonomous swarming, electromagnetic dominance, hyper-velocity strikes, and decentralized robotic integration, we can shatter the transparent battlefield.
We must stop trying to fight tomorrow’s wars with yesterday’s massed doctrines. The modern defense is formidable, but it is not invincible. To paraphrase Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer: It bleeds. And because it bleeds, we can kill it.
-- William McHenry, Real Clear Defense, “If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It.”
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As Mac McHenry makes clear, across the history of war, technology shifts the power balance between offense and defense. In World War I defense ruled. In World War II offense predominated.
In World War II in battle after battle in the Pacific, Marines faced well dug in defenders. Marines created a method for quickly destroying defenders hiding in bunkers. The Marines would, “blind ‘em, blast ‘em, and burn ‘em.” The Marines would begin their assault by using smoke grenades to blind the enemy defenders.
To fight against entrenched defenders today and restore maneuver, Marines need to ‘blind ‘em” with electronic smoke. Start by degrading and deceiving the enemy’s electronic systems and then proceed to, “blast ‘em and burn ‘em”
As Mac McHenry says, the modern enemy defense is vulnerable, “It can be blinded, it can be overwhelmed, and it can be outpaced.”
Compass Points salutes the 31st MEU on their return from a successful deployment. By taking up position in constricted waterways in the middle of a missile war, 31st MEU demonstrated that Marine forces onboard Navy amphibious ships can continue to sail into dangerous waters. In the next conflict somewhere around the globe, if Marines will start by using electronic smoke to “blind ‘em” Marines will then be able to “blast, burn, and defeat ‘em” in any clime and place.
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Navy Times - 07/22/2026
Thousands of Marines, sailors back in Japan after deploying for Iran war
By Riley Ceder
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The National Interest - 12/13/2022
Force Design 2030 Is Trying to Solve the Wrong Problem
By John F. Schmitt
John F. Schmitt is an author and former Marine infantry officer.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/force-design-2030-trying-solve-wrong-problem-205991?page=0%2C1
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Real Clear Defense - 07/23/2026
If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It
By William McHenry
William “Mac” McHenry is a retired CIA Operations Officer and a retired Marine Corps Reserve Colonel. A former Naval Aviator and Recon Marine, he recently concluded a seven year tenure in various senior leadership positions at the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU).
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The fact that ships face a myriad of dangers did not mean the Corps needed to solve any of them. Not enemy ships, not torpedoes, not submarines, not enemy aircraft, not coastal artillery, not mines and not missiles. The fact that a few officers, outside of their area of expertise, drew radical conclusions and dismantled the Corps to assign a new mission with the resources or weaponry will go down in history as folly without precedent. A duplicitous and complicit Navy leadership could not believe their own good fortune in the potential to garner a bigger piece of the budget in a classic case of institutional betrayal as they played along in the fratricide. The then CNO and CMC exposed themselves for the charlatans they were.
The Corps leadership was not even clever enough to develop the new strategy in an additive fashion by a small scale proof of principle. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is too kind of an analogy.
The recently returned MEU commander might break his arm patting himself on the back. A deeper analysis of what the MEU was capable of might be in order. But, one lesson stands out. Ships can sail in harm’s way. The very genesis of FD-2030 has been refuted. What remains to be determined is revolves around what an embarked MEU of today can do better than a MEU of 8 years ago. It is less potent. It is certainly less potent than what it should be today had it been modernized and rearmed instead of dissected and severed of weaponry and personnel.
What is still left of the FD-2030 vision. The dream became a mirage at best and a nightmare at worst.
When you are about to walk off of a cliff do not slow your pace. Stop and turn around.
Institutions commit errors in judgment. Those who make those survive if they recognize the failure and remedy them. FD-2030 was not just equipment mistakes or mistakes in tactical, operational or strategic terms. The the mistakes were also betrayal as it took on a far darker impact on the entire ethos of the institution in that is was hatched in deceit, lack of integrity, callous betrayal of loyal Marines ( go join the army or get out), corruption and a body guard of lies in what spawned an internal civil war.
That is the classic blue print for extinction. Who really cares if a sports franchise becomes a cellar dweller? Who really cares is a business of world class reputation implodes and goes bankrupt? How about when a University becomes a propaganda whore? This is different. This is Marine’s lives, the nation’s security and the sacred responsibilities carried by the Corps for 250 years. We will soon be closing in on the 8th year of this tragedy. It must be rectified soon. The current leadership shows no inclination to do so.
With 240+ years of history behind him, we get a Commandant who, apparently, couldn’t absorb it. He, somehow, decided that aggressive, overwhelming maneuver and force at the relative point contact was no longer valid…That micro defense won wars. Strange! Semper Fi