Compass Points - Foundations
What is the Marine Corps?
Compass Points - Foundations
What is the Marine Corps?
July 22, 2024
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The RCD Morning Recon is a selection of defense related news articles and commentary distributed widely each Monday throughout the defense community including Congress. Today's Morning Recon features the article by authors and Marines, John F. Schmitt and Jeffrey S. Dinsmore, "Force Design: Where is the Evidence of Revolutionary Change?"
The authors are replying to those who say because technology has caused revolutionary changes in war, the US Marine Corps must make revolutionary changes to the Marine Corps.
Before reviewing the authors' conclusions about a paradigm shift in war, it might be useful to review the foundations of the Marine Corps. What is the Marine Corps? What is it for? A simple casual answer is provided by Military.com in their article summarizing the military services. This is the commonly accepted view of the Marine Corps.
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The Marine Corps is known as the country's rapid-reaction force. They are trained to fight by sea and land, and usually are the first "boots on the ground." Marines are known as the world's fiercest warriors.
-- Military.com "What Are the Branches of the US Military?"
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Congress has defined the Marine Corps in US Code Title 10 and emphasized "three combat divisions and three air wings" and “combined arms" and "tactics, technique, and equipment used by landing forces."
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§8063. United States Marine Corps: composition; functions
(a) The Marine Corps, within the Department of the Navy, shall be so organized as to include not less than three combat divisions and three air wings, and such other land combat, aviation, and other services as may be organic therein. The Marine Corps shall be organized, trained, and equipped to provide fleet marine forces of combined arms, together with supporting air components, . . .
(b) The Marine Corps shall develop, in coordination with the Army and the Air Force, those phases of amphibious operations that pertain to the tactics, technique, and equipment used by landing forces.
-- Title 10 US Code
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Another way to define the Marine Corps is to understand the expectations of ordinary Americans.
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We exist today -- we flourish today -- not because of what we know we are, or what we know we can do, but because of what the grassroots of our country believes we are and believes we can do ... The American people believe that Marines are downright good for the country; that the Marines are masters of a form of unfailing alchemy which converts unoriented youths into proud, self-reliant stable citizens - citizens into whose hands the nation's affairs may safely be entrusted ... And, likewise, should the people ever lose that conviction - as a result of our failure to meet their high - almost spiritual - standards, the Marine Corps will quickly disappear.
-- LtGen Victor H. Krulak, quoted by Gen. Charles C. Krulak, Leatherneck Magazine, June 1999
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Until recently, no one has ever suggested the Marine Corps should turn its focus from being "first to fight" and turn toward a new role as defensive, island missile units, scattered across the Pacific. Now, some argue that changes in technology as well as paradigm shifts in war require these fundamental changes to the Marine Corps.
Authors and Marines, John F. Schmitt and Jeffrey S. Dinsmore, in their powerful article, "Force Design: Where is the Evidence of Revolutionary Change?" reject the claim that changes in technology as well as paradigm shifts in war require fundamental changes to the Marine Corps.
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If the character of warfare has changed it would indeed constitute a change of paradigm in the Kuhnian sense. Ukraine’s war with Russia of course is the test case that all the world’s militaries are watching. The proposed harbingers of transformation—notably missiles and drones—so far seem to have fit comfortably within the incumbent operational paradigm rather than producing anything that could be called transformative. They reflect “normal operations,” to adapt a Kuhnian construct. While drones have caused a stir, countermeasures have lessened their impact.
Meanwhile, legacy systems deemed obsolescent—tanks and cannon artillery being the primary examples—remain operationally significant and at the top of the Ukrainian wish list.
-- John F. Schmitt and Jeffrey S. Dinsmore
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Compass Points congratulates John F. Schmitt and Jeffrey S. Dinsmore for their foundational article, “Force Design: Where is the Evidence of Revolutionary Change?"
Like war itself, the surface of the Marine Corps is always changing: older uniforms and boots are replaced by better uniforms and boots, and older T/O weapons are replaced by updated T/O weapons. These types of changes are never ending.
Still at a deeper level, the Marine Corps never changes. Despite advances in drones and missiles, the Marines Corps at its heart must always remain the "country's rapid-reaction force" that provides the Nation with "fleet marine forces of combined arms" and fundamentally a Marine Corps that preserves what, "our country believes we are and believes we can do."
Putting aside all talk of paradigm shifts and technology, the Nation still expects and needs a Marine Corps on patrol around the world, ready to arrive quickly at the scene of any crisis prepared to deter, assist, or fight. It is time for the Marine Corps to put the focus back on worldwide crisis response.
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Title 10 US Code
§8063. United States Marine Corps: composition; functions
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Military.com
What Are the Branches of the US Military?
https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/us-military-branches-overview.html
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Real Clear Defense - 07/20/2024
Force Design: Where is the Evidence of Revolutionary Change?
By John F. Schmitt & Jeffrey S. Dinsmore
John F. Schmitt is a former Marine infantry officer. Under the guidance of two commandants of the Marine Corps, General Al Gray and General Charles Krulak, he authored the Marine Corps keystone doctrinal manual, Warfighting. In the years since, he has continued to author documents for senior leaders in the Department of Defense.
Colonel Jeffrey S. Dinsmore is an active-duty Marine of 38 years. He enlisted in 1986, has served on nine operational deployments, including four deployments on Contingency and Special Purpose MAGTFs and Marine Expeditionary Units from 1987 to 2001, and five times on combat deployments during Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. He currently serves as a director of planning and training for task forces deploying to the Indo-Pacific.
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Compass Points - Revolutionary?
The Character of War
July 20, 2024
https://marinecorpscompasspoints.substack.com/p/compass-points-revolutionary
“…should the people ever lose that conviction - as a result of our failure to meet their high - almost spiritual - standards, the Marine Corps will quickly disappear.”
I posit that because our citizens expect so much of the Marine Corps, that if we fail to live up to their expectations, we will disappear so quickly that the Corps will never be able to recover.
Our prior and our current Commandant are ensuring failure. In the Littoral Regiments concept, and in the SIF concept, and in our Title 10 mission as the nation’s force in readiness. When we fail, Congress will attempt to defund the Corps and roll it and it’s mission into the Army and the Air Force, and we will only have ourselves (collectively as the Corps)to blame.
We are all aware that prior to FD, the Marine Corps was: a medium-weight, general purpose, task organized, combined arms, naval expeditionary force, held in readiness. We are the Nation's 911 Force. The Marine Corps could conduct infantry operations, mechanized operations, air-assault operations, and amphibious assault operations to name just a few of the many operations the Marine Corps can carry out. Each of the Marine divisions could carry out these varied missions. FD has eliminated these varied operations as well as the ability to carry out combined arms expeditionary duties.
However, I came across an article in War on the Rocks (not sure if it has been covered). titled "Expeditionary Advanced Maritime Operations: how the Marine Corps can Avoid Becoming a Second Land Army in the Pacific", by Marine Major Jake Yeager (12/26/19). I would say the article was written prior to the full ramifications of FD were known. Major Yeager envisioned a Marine mission as a littoral strike force operating in the island chains of the Pacific attacking Chinese naval bases and ports. Instead of competing with the Army and their Multi-Domain Task Force, the Marine littoral strike force would operate under the umbrella of the Army's Taske Force. Marines in the Pacific would operate from assault craft to launch raids (from mother ships-L-Class ships) on these Chinese locations. Yeager does not cover how the 1st or 2nd Mar Divs would be organized. However, this concept of a raiding force puts the Marine Corps on the offensive in the Pacific, rather than sitting on some island waiting for a Chinese warship to sail by. This is like the small boat companies of the 90s. Yeager summarizes by stating: "The expeditionary advanced maritime operations concept would be an important step for the Marine Corps-both back to its roots and towards readiness to take the fight to the littoral opponent." I think in theory, one of the regiments or battalions, in the 3rd Div. could be a maritime raiding force, while the rest of the division maintains its traditional role and organization. Instead of island hopping, we would be hopping to attack Chinese bases. As China seeks world wide bases, they would be at the mercy of our maritime strike force. Plus the Marine Corps would be what it has always been: an offensive force. Just a thought.