It is past time for senior Marine leaders to stop spouting the nonsense that the “new combined arms” consists of cyber, information operations, and loitering munitions. No other military in the world takes this unsupportable position and neither do well-schooled and experienced US professionals. As others have said, though of great value, none of these new approaches do what armor, cannon artillery, and combat engineers do so well.
The Commandant needs to use the time-tested combat development process to “rebalance” the force. The Wolf has no doubt but what that process would soon produce operational requirement documents for modern mobile, protected, direct-fire weapons to support infantry, vehicle mounted cannon artillery, armored breaching systems, and modern assault bridging.
Returning the Corps to its traditional role as a maritime combined arms air-ground-logistics task force able to scale from a MEU to a MEB to a MEF will take time, probably more than a decade but it is time to get started!
Two fundamental elements of national strategy when a Nation chooses to be on the strategic defense:
1) Credible Global Presence
2) Credible Counteroffensive. Bluntly, the Nation must be perceived as having credible capabilities to "take back" what "snatch and grab" aggressors seize.
Having such credible capabilities actually serves to deter conflict and war.
Lacking them means continued deterioration of the global order. Whatever "narratives" ( suicidal koolaid) our military and civilian leaders choose to mix and serve to the American media and public is not being consumed by our adversaries. They can see diminished capabilities and national will.
Tragically, we are indeed "risking the war(s) we don't want." One day lives and treasure will be spent "buying" the capabilities squandered by "divest to invest."
The MEU has been largely neutered. The missions it could be assigned are fewer than in the recent past. If it is committed to some mission, follow on forces must be ready to embark and sail. Currently there is a large gap between what can be accomplished and the follow on which is equally weakened. In its prime the MEU could count on its limited capabilities serving as the advanced force. Today it is many magnitudes weaker and the follow on can’t get there with much, quickly, to reinforce. Unless a MEU is supported by a carrier task force it will make no enemy think twice. It clearly could not conduct a non combatant evacuation from a sea side urban area if there were even token resistance from a poorly armed force. As enemy threats grew and became more sophisticated the MEU got smaller and far less potent. No matter how much battlefield situational awareness you might have, the ability to put steel on target matters most.
A boxer with great vision but weak legs and weak arms is unlikely to make it past the first round.
The bad news never stops coming. The systemic problems are exacerbated by the leadership problems. The Navy is in deep, deep trouble it simply cannot fake its way out of. Heads need to roll. Start with the CNO.
The USMC dreams up a new buzz word every other day. Silliness like the eyes and ears in the South China Sea. How do Marines with short range radars and short range missiles fulfill a reconnaissance task that innumerable other platforms of the Navy, Air Force and Space Force can do better. How do, what amount to little Ferry Boats, puttering from island to island make a damn bit of difference?
The concepts are outlandishly sophomoric and provide an offensive punch of zero. To watch alleged professionals support concepts devoid of common sense becomes very frustrating. If I am China I watch in stunned disbelief and am salivating at sinking these boats
USS Boxer (LHD-4) coming into San Diego on April 11, 2024. San Diego Webcam Photo
USS Boxer (LHD-4) is back in San Diego, Calif., after suffering an engineering casualty, forcing the big deck amphibious warship to return for repairs, USNI News has learned.
Boxer and elements of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit left on April 1 for a Pacific deployment that had been on hold due in part to maintenance issues on the big deck. Following the departure, Boxer operated off the coast of California recertifying Marines with MV-22B Ospreys after a grounding that was lifted last month.
“USS Boxer is returning to San Diego to undergo additional maintenance in support of its deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. Boxer departed San Diego on April 1 for an Indo-Pacific deployment and was conducting integration exercises with the MV-22 Osprey in the 3rd Fleet Area of Operations,” reads a statement from U.S. 3rd Fleet to USNI News.
“USS Boxer will resume its deployment in the near future.”
Navy officials did not detail the casualty when asked but USNI News understands the casualty is related to the ship’s rudder. A defense official told USNI News the repairs could take two to three weeks based on the early damage estimates.
Marines and aircraft from the 15th MEU were offloaded from Boxer prior to its return, two defense officials told USNI News on Thursday.
The big deck is the flagship of the three-ship Boxer Amphibious Ready Group, which includes USS Somerset (LPD-25) and USS Harpers Ferry (LSD-49). The deployment is the first for the Amphibious Combat Vehicle, the successor to the retired Assault Amphibious Vehicle.
Somerset departed on its own in January and participated in a series of exercises in the Western Pacific ahead of Boxer and Harpers Ferry. Harper’s Ferry departed San Diego on March 19.
Sailors on Boxer were the subject of two command investigations that found major deficiencies in maintenance and crew discipline. A defense official told USNI News on Thursday, “quality assurance and contractor performance contributed significantly to the delays in Boxer’s deployment.”
The delay in deployment has upended a series of planned engagements and exercises in the Pacific causing frustration for operators in the region, defense officials have told USNI News over the last several weeks.
“How much longer are we going to accept such catastrophic maintenance management from the U.S. Navy before someone at the Pentagon gets fired?” one defense official told USNI News.
As to “How We Fight” and having listened to a majority of the “Voices of HKIA” presented by the podcast “Controversy and Clarity” in which both enlisted and officers alike are interviewed from 1/8 and ergo 24th MEU, to include the 1/8 S/3 and company commanders from Alpha 1/8, Charlie 1/8 and the Battery Commander of Echo/Easy Battery 2/10 which was fashioned into an infantry company, the dereliction of duty by “Higher” is staggering. Further as the 24th MEU was saving the DOS and Centcom’s bacon whilst in the damnedest of predicaments of modern political and military history, the 38th CMC was busy divesting to invest and neutering the Corps to the point today where it is unlikely it could conduct a NEO of a large scale or even a moderately sized one. The Charlie/Copperhead Company Commander made full use of the adjacent engineers platoon to build out the EEC that was used to great effect. Could Charlie Company improvised, adapted and overcome? Maybe, but holding the airfield was a task enough, having combat engineers fashioning an impromptu EEC certainly made mission success slightly less arduous. As one listened to essentially the many voices describing the situation, they were a MAGTF light meaning Marine Air was not really involved, as might have been otherwise. But the components of the MAGTF were so ingrained in how the MEU “fought” the battle space that it led to accomplishment of the mission.
So fast forward, the FRAGO in How We Fight mentions that we are a sea to land force, but now with the SIF somehow a land to sea force. What blather. Not 50 ships, not 38, but 31 and even at this number the Navy cannot support the missions of the MEF and the Title X requirements, which until the US Congress change the law, the Corps is mandated to be able to execute. It is gross failure across the board.
Everyone talks about the failure of Operation Eagle Claw leading to Goldwater Nichols, anyone who was around then (April 1980); knew that one of the larger problems was a failed principal of war, “Unity of Command.” Every branch wanted a piece of the action, (except the Marine Corps) and it was a brilliant plan hobbled by “everyone”:having a say. The same apparently was the case at HKIA. The Centcom Commander either couldn’t enforce the discipline of Unity of Command or chose to ignore it, either way the mess on the ground in the command structure made the operation that much more difficult.
While it may seem that all hope is lost, a podcast interview on the Connecting File by Major Zach Schwartz (USMC) of Colonel (now Brig. General?) Matthew Tracy was heartening. Beside the fact, that at times the conversation was full of humor and candor, literally knee slapping funny, Colonel Tracy couldn’t say enough positives about the MAGTF and it’s importance to deterrence of bad elements around the globe. If, he is the new type of officer making it through selection to get to general officer rank, change maybe on the horizon. The current “leadership” are NOT leaders, politicians? Yes. Joint Task Force Toadies? Yes. Time and space wasters? Yes. Mangers… YES, they even call themselves managers. When the real leaders get back into the game things may change. Sadly it is likely going to take something really bad to trigger a response. Men and ships go to rot in port. Obviously people go to rot in foggy bottom. Is the MAGTF a result of the Corps not being included over time in the rot of the Joint system, or is the Joint system so bad the Corps figured it had to leave or have its own capability aka the MAGTF. Either way, we need ships that float and can go to sea, and armor and artillery, and combat engineers, and full wing complements to conduct the mandates of Title X. FD2030 attempts to be doctrine, isn’t that interesting when the foundational elements of Maneuver Warfare always refer to it as a philosophy. The arrogance of doctrine v. A philosophy of war. Hmmmm.
I’m a details kind of guy so I like to look at our MAGTF that is so commonly needed/used, the MEU. At it’s most basic structure it consists of a command element, a ground element, aviation element, and a logistics element. We all know this.
The ground element consists of a maneuver element the BLT, and USED to have supporting arm elements, armor platoon, AAV platoon, engineer platoon, and an 8-gun tubed artillery battery. Under FD2030 and now called just FD (why the name change I don’t know. Maybe bad optics which we know the CMC is sensitive to) there’s no engineers, no armor, scant or missing AAVs, and a fake 8-gun tubed artillery battery.
Now we all know that a BLT’s GCE has engineers, some AAVs, and an 8-gun tubed artillery battery. I’m a Marine cannon cocker by profession so I think in terms of supporting arms first, because adequate supporting arms, mission tailored, allows the GCE commander freedom of action. In the ENTIRE Corps we have,I believe, only SEVEN BATTERIES of tubed artillery. That’s probably 3 East Coast, 3 West Coast and probably 1 Hawaii. WestPac, since they have no MAGTF doesn’t have any (to my knowledge). And ZERO in the Reserves. So basically one battalion of tubed artillery to support AN ENTIRE MEF! So if we look at the normal MEU support mission cycle, we probably have one battery afloat, one embarked and conducting GCE mission specific work up training, and one undergoing maintenance and recovery of both equipment and men.
So when do the batteries get to conduct basic artillery training and operations? I don’t see any time for this vital part of training. There’s basic artillery training such as RSOP training, gun drills, convoy training, communications training, fire direction, both computer and manual (especially manual as it a little used but vital skill), ammunition handling training, medical training, the list is almost endless, AND THEY’RE ALL PERISHABLE SKILLS. Also when do we provide time for replacements to report in, get acclimated to the unit, get ready to deploy? When do we allow time for leave?
And this is just one element of the GCE. I’m sure the engineers and AAV units are in the same situation.
I’ll get off my soapbox now, but in closing there’s one scene from the movie The Dirty Dozen I’ll leave you with. It’s when Donald Sutherland is inspecting a platoon of Army Airborne troops. He turns to Robert Ryan and asks…”very pretty Colonel, but can they fight?”
One theory on FD2030 is that it was a whole cloth miscalculation, but in an effort to be innovative, the CMC and his toadies, threw the Marine Corps and its “Third Leg” capability aka MEU/MEB/MEF out the porthole of a fast moving ship headed into harms way. He and “the consultants” way of thinking became “warped”, they had to be right, we all had to wrong. SIF and Littoral combat of a stationary nature was right, “maneuver warfare” was wrong if not outdated and somewhat trite. Mean while the world moved on, and our Navy allowed itself to sink to new levels of low. Senator Tom Cotton’s (R Arkansas) report on “the fighting culture of the Navy’s surface fleet” was released in July of 2021. Nothing has gotten better, the issues only exacerbated by ship building and maintenance logistics bound up in red tape, and budgetary mismanagement. Combine the poison of FD2030 and Divest to Invest, and a failed Navy, and DOD focused on everything but war fighting and it becomes clear quickly that writ large the nation is not ready for any sort of sustained combat activity. Read that as example that NATO is a paper tiger so quit talking about invading Russia. The industrial attrition is so substantial we can’t keep up with the pace of world events, let alone sustained offensive operations on a large scale.
Yet, and still, the limited MEU capability is still in action, it is a bright spot and while difficult, complicated and now very costly, can be put back to right faster than any of the other services in terms of readiness for whatever is next. There are still enough Marines around on active duty and otherwise, who KNOW maneuver warfare is a philosophy and a philosophy that can prevail in just about any conflict. Not doctrine, not a theory on rocket propulsion, but a philosophy, a warrior mindset.
As an update, my email to Senator Shaheen (D New Hampshire) regarding these topics went unanswered for over 96 hours, and when the response came it was a form answer thanking me for my service, noting that she had voted for a pay increase for the military, and had offered legislation to rename a street in Washington, DC for Russian activist Alexei Navalny…really, you can’t make this hobucky up. Follow up on the matters at hand with her DC office is forth coming. Keep you all posted!
The US military capability that the CCP is most concerned with is the strategic global mobility that the US possesses. This mobility is generally based on three legs. The first leg is air lift. Our airlift capability can move almost unlimited troops but very limited sustainment and equipment. The second leg is sealift requiring control of the SLOCs and it is absolutely essential to deliver equipment and sustainment for the fly-in troops. The third leg is our amphibious forces with their quick reaction capability. Airfields can be seized, ports secured, and MPFs (that are strategically positioned) can be quickly off loaded long before the sealift equipment and sustainment arrives.
From John Sheehan and Keith Holcomb: “We urge Congress to direct an immediate cessation of “divest to invest,” a careful reorientation on immediate/near-term threats, and the building of a credible counteroffensive capability.” Apologies gentlemen, but don't forget the CNO. With the recent news about the USS Boxer, it is becoming obvious that the CNO is failing on the new builds and maintenance of his amphibious and combatant ship inventory. This failure is directly effecting two of the three strategic global mobility legs.
Regarding all the above comments; Hey, Congress…Hear, Hear Them! Semper Fi
It is past time for senior Marine leaders to stop spouting the nonsense that the “new combined arms” consists of cyber, information operations, and loitering munitions. No other military in the world takes this unsupportable position and neither do well-schooled and experienced US professionals. As others have said, though of great value, none of these new approaches do what armor, cannon artillery, and combat engineers do so well.
The Commandant needs to use the time-tested combat development process to “rebalance” the force. The Wolf has no doubt but what that process would soon produce operational requirement documents for modern mobile, protected, direct-fire weapons to support infantry, vehicle mounted cannon artillery, armored breaching systems, and modern assault bridging.
Returning the Corps to its traditional role as a maritime combined arms air-ground-logistics task force able to scale from a MEU to a MEB to a MEF will take time, probably more than a decade but it is time to get started!
Words/Phrases MIA: "Amphibious Assault" "Counter-Offensive"
Two fundamental elements of national strategy when a Nation chooses to be on the strategic defense:
1) Credible Global Presence
2) Credible Counteroffensive. Bluntly, the Nation must be perceived as having credible capabilities to "take back" what "snatch and grab" aggressors seize.
Having such credible capabilities actually serves to deter conflict and war.
Lacking them means continued deterioration of the global order. Whatever "narratives" ( suicidal koolaid) our military and civilian leaders choose to mix and serve to the American media and public is not being consumed by our adversaries. They can see diminished capabilities and national will.
Tragically, we are indeed "risking the war(s) we don't want." One day lives and treasure will be spent "buying" the capabilities squandered by "divest to invest."
See: https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3699662-risking-the-war-we-dont-want/.
The MEU has been largely neutered. The missions it could be assigned are fewer than in the recent past. If it is committed to some mission, follow on forces must be ready to embark and sail. Currently there is a large gap between what can be accomplished and the follow on which is equally weakened. In its prime the MEU could count on its limited capabilities serving as the advanced force. Today it is many magnitudes weaker and the follow on can’t get there with much, quickly, to reinforce. Unless a MEU is supported by a carrier task force it will make no enemy think twice. It clearly could not conduct a non combatant evacuation from a sea side urban area if there were even token resistance from a poorly armed force. As enemy threats grew and became more sophisticated the MEU got smaller and far less potent. No matter how much battlefield situational awareness you might have, the ability to put steel on target matters most.
A boxer with great vision but weak legs and weak arms is unlikely to make it past the first round.
The bad news never stops coming. The systemic problems are exacerbated by the leadership problems. The Navy is in deep, deep trouble it simply cannot fake its way out of. Heads need to roll. Start with the CNO.
The USMC dreams up a new buzz word every other day. Silliness like the eyes and ears in the South China Sea. How do Marines with short range radars and short range missiles fulfill a reconnaissance task that innumerable other platforms of the Navy, Air Force and Space Force can do better. How do, what amount to little Ferry Boats, puttering from island to island make a damn bit of difference?
The concepts are outlandishly sophomoric and provide an offensive punch of zero. To watch alleged professionals support concepts devoid of common sense becomes very frustrating. If I am China I watch in stunned disbelief and am salivating at sinking these boats
USS Boxer (LHD-4) coming into San Diego on April 11, 2024. San Diego Webcam Photo
USS Boxer (LHD-4) is back in San Diego, Calif., after suffering an engineering casualty, forcing the big deck amphibious warship to return for repairs, USNI News has learned.
Boxer and elements of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit left on April 1 for a Pacific deployment that had been on hold due in part to maintenance issues on the big deck. Following the departure, Boxer operated off the coast of California recertifying Marines with MV-22B Ospreys after a grounding that was lifted last month.
“USS Boxer is returning to San Diego to undergo additional maintenance in support of its deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. Boxer departed San Diego on April 1 for an Indo-Pacific deployment and was conducting integration exercises with the MV-22 Osprey in the 3rd Fleet Area of Operations,” reads a statement from U.S. 3rd Fleet to USNI News.
“USS Boxer will resume its deployment in the near future.”
Navy officials did not detail the casualty when asked but USNI News understands the casualty is related to the ship’s rudder. A defense official told USNI News the repairs could take two to three weeks based on the early damage estimates.
Marines and aircraft from the 15th MEU were offloaded from Boxer prior to its return, two defense officials told USNI News on Thursday.
The big deck is the flagship of the three-ship Boxer Amphibious Ready Group, which includes USS Somerset (LPD-25) and USS Harpers Ferry (LSD-49). The deployment is the first for the Amphibious Combat Vehicle, the successor to the retired Assault Amphibious Vehicle.
Somerset departed on its own in January and participated in a series of exercises in the Western Pacific ahead of Boxer and Harpers Ferry. Harper’s Ferry departed San Diego on March 19.
Sailors on Boxer were the subject of two command investigations that found major deficiencies in maintenance and crew discipline. A defense official told USNI News on Thursday, “quality assurance and contractor performance contributed significantly to the delays in Boxer’s deployment.”
The delay in deployment has upended a series of planned engagements and exercises in the Pacific causing frustration for operators in the region, defense officials have told USNI News over the last several weeks.
“How much longer are we going to accept such catastrophic maintenance management from the U.S. Navy before someone at the Pentagon gets fired?” one defense official told USNI News.
Related
As to “How We Fight” and having listened to a majority of the “Voices of HKIA” presented by the podcast “Controversy and Clarity” in which both enlisted and officers alike are interviewed from 1/8 and ergo 24th MEU, to include the 1/8 S/3 and company commanders from Alpha 1/8, Charlie 1/8 and the Battery Commander of Echo/Easy Battery 2/10 which was fashioned into an infantry company, the dereliction of duty by “Higher” is staggering. Further as the 24th MEU was saving the DOS and Centcom’s bacon whilst in the damnedest of predicaments of modern political and military history, the 38th CMC was busy divesting to invest and neutering the Corps to the point today where it is unlikely it could conduct a NEO of a large scale or even a moderately sized one. The Charlie/Copperhead Company Commander made full use of the adjacent engineers platoon to build out the EEC that was used to great effect. Could Charlie Company improvised, adapted and overcome? Maybe, but holding the airfield was a task enough, having combat engineers fashioning an impromptu EEC certainly made mission success slightly less arduous. As one listened to essentially the many voices describing the situation, they were a MAGTF light meaning Marine Air was not really involved, as might have been otherwise. But the components of the MAGTF were so ingrained in how the MEU “fought” the battle space that it led to accomplishment of the mission.
So fast forward, the FRAGO in How We Fight mentions that we are a sea to land force, but now with the SIF somehow a land to sea force. What blather. Not 50 ships, not 38, but 31 and even at this number the Navy cannot support the missions of the MEF and the Title X requirements, which until the US Congress change the law, the Corps is mandated to be able to execute. It is gross failure across the board.
Everyone talks about the failure of Operation Eagle Claw leading to Goldwater Nichols, anyone who was around then (April 1980); knew that one of the larger problems was a failed principal of war, “Unity of Command.” Every branch wanted a piece of the action, (except the Marine Corps) and it was a brilliant plan hobbled by “everyone”:having a say. The same apparently was the case at HKIA. The Centcom Commander either couldn’t enforce the discipline of Unity of Command or chose to ignore it, either way the mess on the ground in the command structure made the operation that much more difficult.
While it may seem that all hope is lost, a podcast interview on the Connecting File by Major Zach Schwartz (USMC) of Colonel (now Brig. General?) Matthew Tracy was heartening. Beside the fact, that at times the conversation was full of humor and candor, literally knee slapping funny, Colonel Tracy couldn’t say enough positives about the MAGTF and it’s importance to deterrence of bad elements around the globe. If, he is the new type of officer making it through selection to get to general officer rank, change maybe on the horizon. The current “leadership” are NOT leaders, politicians? Yes. Joint Task Force Toadies? Yes. Time and space wasters? Yes. Mangers… YES, they even call themselves managers. When the real leaders get back into the game things may change. Sadly it is likely going to take something really bad to trigger a response. Men and ships go to rot in port. Obviously people go to rot in foggy bottom. Is the MAGTF a result of the Corps not being included over time in the rot of the Joint system, or is the Joint system so bad the Corps figured it had to leave or have its own capability aka the MAGTF. Either way, we need ships that float and can go to sea, and armor and artillery, and combat engineers, and full wing complements to conduct the mandates of Title X. FD2030 attempts to be doctrine, isn’t that interesting when the foundational elements of Maneuver Warfare always refer to it as a philosophy. The arrogance of doctrine v. A philosophy of war. Hmmmm.
Concur strongly with Doug Rape's thoughts.
Add to the list of words that sound impressive but capabilities not so much: The phrase "reconnaissance/counter-reconnaissance."
Specifically, what capabilities does a SIF have for "countering" over-head, space-based, low-earth-orbiting satellite reconnaissance?
Specifically, is there a PRC reconnaissance capability (low altitude balloons?!) that the SIF capability mix is capable of countering?
I’m a details kind of guy so I like to look at our MAGTF that is so commonly needed/used, the MEU. At it’s most basic structure it consists of a command element, a ground element, aviation element, and a logistics element. We all know this.
The ground element consists of a maneuver element the BLT, and USED to have supporting arm elements, armor platoon, AAV platoon, engineer platoon, and an 8-gun tubed artillery battery. Under FD2030 and now called just FD (why the name change I don’t know. Maybe bad optics which we know the CMC is sensitive to) there’s no engineers, no armor, scant or missing AAVs, and a fake 8-gun tubed artillery battery.
Now we all know that a BLT’s GCE has engineers, some AAVs, and an 8-gun tubed artillery battery. I’m a Marine cannon cocker by profession so I think in terms of supporting arms first, because adequate supporting arms, mission tailored, allows the GCE commander freedom of action. In the ENTIRE Corps we have,I believe, only SEVEN BATTERIES of tubed artillery. That’s probably 3 East Coast, 3 West Coast and probably 1 Hawaii. WestPac, since they have no MAGTF doesn’t have any (to my knowledge). And ZERO in the Reserves. So basically one battalion of tubed artillery to support AN ENTIRE MEF! So if we look at the normal MEU support mission cycle, we probably have one battery afloat, one embarked and conducting GCE mission specific work up training, and one undergoing maintenance and recovery of both equipment and men.
So when do the batteries get to conduct basic artillery training and operations? I don’t see any time for this vital part of training. There’s basic artillery training such as RSOP training, gun drills, convoy training, communications training, fire direction, both computer and manual (especially manual as it a little used but vital skill), ammunition handling training, medical training, the list is almost endless, AND THEY’RE ALL PERISHABLE SKILLS. Also when do we provide time for replacements to report in, get acclimated to the unit, get ready to deploy? When do we allow time for leave?
And this is just one element of the GCE. I’m sure the engineers and AAV units are in the same situation.
I’ll get off my soapbox now, but in closing there’s one scene from the movie The Dirty Dozen I’ll leave you with. It’s when Donald Sutherland is inspecting a platoon of Army Airborne troops. He turns to Robert Ryan and asks…”very pretty Colonel, but can they fight?”
One theory on FD2030 is that it was a whole cloth miscalculation, but in an effort to be innovative, the CMC and his toadies, threw the Marine Corps and its “Third Leg” capability aka MEU/MEB/MEF out the porthole of a fast moving ship headed into harms way. He and “the consultants” way of thinking became “warped”, they had to be right, we all had to wrong. SIF and Littoral combat of a stationary nature was right, “maneuver warfare” was wrong if not outdated and somewhat trite. Mean while the world moved on, and our Navy allowed itself to sink to new levels of low. Senator Tom Cotton’s (R Arkansas) report on “the fighting culture of the Navy’s surface fleet” was released in July of 2021. Nothing has gotten better, the issues only exacerbated by ship building and maintenance logistics bound up in red tape, and budgetary mismanagement. Combine the poison of FD2030 and Divest to Invest, and a failed Navy, and DOD focused on everything but war fighting and it becomes clear quickly that writ large the nation is not ready for any sort of sustained combat activity. Read that as example that NATO is a paper tiger so quit talking about invading Russia. The industrial attrition is so substantial we can’t keep up with the pace of world events, let alone sustained offensive operations on a large scale.
Yet, and still, the limited MEU capability is still in action, it is a bright spot and while difficult, complicated and now very costly, can be put back to right faster than any of the other services in terms of readiness for whatever is next. There are still enough Marines around on active duty and otherwise, who KNOW maneuver warfare is a philosophy and a philosophy that can prevail in just about any conflict. Not doctrine, not a theory on rocket propulsion, but a philosophy, a warrior mindset.
As an update, my email to Senator Shaheen (D New Hampshire) regarding these topics went unanswered for over 96 hours, and when the response came it was a form answer thanking me for my service, noting that she had voted for a pay increase for the military, and had offered legislation to rename a street in Washington, DC for Russian activist Alexei Navalny…really, you can’t make this hobucky up. Follow up on the matters at hand with her DC office is forth coming. Keep you all posted!
Key word here is – GLOBAL.
The US military capability that the CCP is most concerned with is the strategic global mobility that the US possesses. This mobility is generally based on three legs. The first leg is air lift. Our airlift capability can move almost unlimited troops but very limited sustainment and equipment. The second leg is sealift requiring control of the SLOCs and it is absolutely essential to deliver equipment and sustainment for the fly-in troops. The third leg is our amphibious forces with their quick reaction capability. Airfields can be seized, ports secured, and MPFs (that are strategically positioned) can be quickly off loaded long before the sealift equipment and sustainment arrives.
From John Sheehan and Keith Holcomb: “We urge Congress to direct an immediate cessation of “divest to invest,” a careful reorientation on immediate/near-term threats, and the building of a credible counteroffensive capability.” Apologies gentlemen, but don't forget the CNO. With the recent news about the USS Boxer, it is becoming obvious that the CNO is failing on the new builds and maintenance of his amphibious and combatant ship inventory. This failure is directly effecting two of the three strategic global mobility legs.
Regarding all the above comments; Hey, Congress…Hear, Hear Them! Semper Fi
MCCP must “Keep Up the Fire”!