Canard - - “a false report or piece of information that is intended to deceive people.”
Telling folks that Marines who are forward deployed aboard amphibious ships and aircraft carriers for routine operations, engaged in typical joint/combined training and exercises, and other normal theater security cooperation event activities are something new and different is a good example of a canard.
Marines have been training and operating with joint forces and coalition partners for years. It’s business as usual. And it’s also extremely important work and should be applauded for it builds relationships, facilitates interoperability, ensures access, and promotes U.S. interests. It’s a good thing and Marines typically do it better than anyone else.
But it’s a stretch to tout every TSC event, training exercise, deployment, and routine peacetime operation as validation of EABO, FD, and SIF. Folks who have served in the military know the difference. Others may not and can be fooled (canard).
We have been almost 6 years into FD. If it’s a good concept, deploy a fully equipped and manned SIF to an expeditionary location. Engage and sink derelict ships with anti-ship missiles at distances that matter. Position, reposition, and logistically support the force with LSMs in a simulated contested environment.
Until then, let’s go back to describing routine training, exercises, deployments, and TSC events as what they are and what they are intended to accomplish.
With respect, your argument rests on a fundamental misunderstanding—or dismissal—of how today’s Theater Security Cooperation (TSC) events, deployments, and exercises have evolved over the last 10 years.
Yes, Marines have always trained with allies and partners. That’s not in dispute. What is different now is the purpose, focus, and structure of that training. Exercises like Balikatan, Talisman Sabre, Super Garuda Shield, and Resolute Dragon are no longer just generic “engagements.” They are deliberate rehearsals for how we intend to fight alongside partners in contested environments—often on the very ground where we expect to fight.
These are not public affairs theater. They include:
• Practicing long-range fires and kill chain integration with allies.
• Establishing and sustaining expeditionary advanced bases.
• Testing sensing and targeting networks in live environments.
• Closing the last 200 meters on a simulated enemy.
• Executing dispersed C2 across real geography in the Pacific.
Your comment that we should “go back to describing routine events as what they are” only reveals how disconnected you are from the intentional shift the Marine Corps has made over the past six years. This isn’t business as usual—it’s the deliberate execution of a globally integrated deterrence posture.
Force Design is being validated not just in labs or white papers, but on the ground—in the Philippines, in Japan, in Australia, in Palau, and aboard every amphibious force forward-deployed today.
The Joint force is adapting. If your frame of reference hasn’t, that’s not a canard—it’s a blind spot.
You sound like the Fuller Brush man trying to “sell” his products, except he had real items to sell. FD on the other hand, meh, not so much. It’s hard to sell pipe dreams.
Brother, hate to break it to you, but I don’t need to sell Force Design.
Congress, the Joint Staff, and Combatant Commanders already bought it—lock, block, and barrel.
Need proof? During the recent House Armed Services Committee hearing on the FY26 Navy budget, Rep. Seth Moulton said he was “more impressed than I imagined” after seeing the Corps’ progress firsthand in the Philippines. [Timestamp: 01:33:30]
He said that. On the record. Not me. Not a PAO.
Meanwhile, the critics are still stuck in 2004, arguing with a future that’s already here.
I am pretty sure I am stuck in 2025, at least my sun dial and the news off the fax machine says so. In any case, saying Rep. Seth Moulton was "more impressed than I imagined" is like saying a member of the KFC Board of Directors really enjoyed the free Fried Chicken. It's not really definitive. He's been impressed by FD since 2020 without a break....he always wants 'more cowbell'. Not to mention, he didn't speak at all about what progress exactly he was impressed by (To be fair, I did enjoy him digging into issues about training standards at TBS). Is the future here, or is it in the future?
Well, most Congressional members are enamored with PowerPoint presentations. The funny thing about PowerPoint presentations is you can write anything in them.
Now in the real world facts matter. After 6 years where is the deployable SIF or MLR? Where’s the NMESIS/NAM? Most importantly, the question I keep hammering home, where are the MEUs?
Part of the deceit involved in FD-2030 has been executed by the public affairs and media representations of “demonstrating a capability” “conducting an exercise” without specificity as was once the norm. Simulations and command post exercises or communications exercises used to be clearly advertised as such and distinguished from true field exercises just as simulations and live fire differ.
All have their purpose when portrayed honestly. The Marine Corps has purposely muddied the waters in that regard to make it seem that some capabilities exist when they do not. Firing blanks does not put holes in targets.
I have read many of the articles on FD2030 in past few years. 6 years into it, it’s crystal clear in my opinion that CMC is not living in the same world as our potential enemies. His FD2030 vision is a pipe dream that has yet to demonstrate how small missile units are going to logistically survive on island chains, keep radar active to search for targets without being targeted by enemies and relocate quickly after firing without being detected. None of that has been publicly demonstrated to any degree of success. Who is he kidding? No one. General, we see this for what it is - a plan that won’t work at the cost of a huge loss of a lot of combat power. Sea power and force protection matters much more. Focus your efforts on getting MAGTF and MEU the weapons, ships, and resources to move to where the fights will be. Without doing so, you are leading the Marine Corps to be a hollow force without being able to move to multiple fights and deliver knockout blows to more than one enemy. This will be your legacy if you don’t reconsider. Do better!
I participated in numerous CPXs and computer driven exercises from a TWAES van as a controller, but they don’t compare to an actual mount out; boarding ship; landing; and taking inland objectives.
Actual mount outs were routine at one time. Our entire AAV Company was ordered to test an alternative deployment site from Camp Lejeune. We boarded flatcars at Lejeune with every piece of equipment and all mount out supplies. Everything was always prepackaged and stored in the Company Supply: inventoried; maintained; and, if necessary, rotated.
Nothing was left in our garrison locations and had been turned in to Base or Battalion.
We took the flat cars to Sunny Point Army Terminal on the coast, where we boarded ship and sailed back to Onslow Beach where we landed in tactical formations and proceeded to the ordered grid coordinates and deployed the Company: Company Headquarters and Platoon positions; tents; generators; field kitchen; water supply and fuel points, supply, maintenance, communications and administration, all functioning.
That’s just the beginning and there is no way those things can be adequately tested without actually doing it. What I see today is a lot of nonsensical talk about how sophisticated we are and even more, wishful thinking. What am I not seeing? Semper Fi
Those who claim today's Marine Corps is able to conduct combined arms operations are ill-informed, professionally deficient, or deliberately contributing to a falsehood. Militaries around the word have and continue to define combined arms as the coordinated employment of infantry, cannon artillery, rockets, armor, engineers, and close air support. If a force does not have armor, sufficient cannon artillery, and engineering equipment that enables the breaching of obstacles, clearing and proofing of mines, and the crossing of gaps and streams it is not able to conduct combined arms operations. Stating otherwise places a person in one of the three categories mentioned.
When I was a captain in ANGLICO, we were involved with the Army doing a CPX and an exercise that didn't involve actual maneuver elements. An Army officer explained it as a "Practical Exercise Not Involving Troops." We Marines substituted the word "soldiers" for the word "troops" and we had an acronym we could remember! Enough said....
FD 2030 and Force Design is not sold to the Congress, the DOD and so forth. They haven’t bought a thing. Not too mention if anyone is counting on the Congress to understand the nature of it, good luck. Bring a coloring book and the three primary colors in crayon to explain it to most up the Hill. The staff up there will tell you anything you want to hear. It has been sold as a marketing tool by consultants to those that wish to buy the “idea” and or the “brand” and the over reaching notion that the United States will find it, in its national interests to go to a full scale peer to peer foe war with one foe in one place. Over a large island approximately 6500 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. We therefore can infer, we don’t need to ask the neighbors of China, like Pakistan, India, Japan, etc., what they think of the idea. FD2030 is the military equivalent of the Ford Motor Company Edsel. When it was all said and done Ford spent a fortune on a car nobody liked and fewer purchased. But at least they made the car and tried to sell it and didn’t get rid of the Lincoln Mercury division to do it. Henry Ford II, when he took over as boss, made short work of those that had gone along with the Edsel. McNamara was saved as he had bailed to be JFK’s SecDef. Boy what a bang up job he did there with his whiz kids. When the SecNav goes to the MTU at Quantico and shoots pistols and rifles with the shooting team and sees a couple of Drones in “action” it doesn’t mean he endorses FD whatever. It means he went to Quantico and hung out with the shooting team. Watching the SecNav being shown a dog and pony show was just typical of dog and pony shows, whether in the civilian world or military. This nonsense will continue until it doesn’t. In the meantime the rest of the world continues to be a miserable place with all manner of nasty possibilities available for a MEU with full MAGTF capabilities to handle.
Force Design is Berger, Smith their lieutenants and a few corporals is a 6 year old **Potemkin village** ! Grok”Potemkin village”refers to a deceptive façade or construct designed to mislead others into believing a situation is better than it actually is. The term originates from a historical myth about Grigory Potemkin, who allegedly built fake villages along the Dnieper River in 1787 to impress Empress Catherine II during her tour of Crimea, masking the region’s poverty. Though likely exaggerated by Potemkin’s rivals, the term has endured, symbolizing any effort to create a false impression of prosperity, stability, or progress. Examples include North Korea’s Kijŏng-dong, a propaganda village with empty buildings, or Enron’s staged trading floor to deceive investors. It applies to physical structures, political propaganda, or even curated social media personas that hide underlying flaws. The concept reflects deliberate misrepresentation to manipulate perception, often tied to power or profit.”! FIX BAYONETS!
If you prefer a Chinese cuisine, which is more accurate for Force Design, it is a Paper Tiger. Grok”The term "paper tiger" refers to something or someone that appears powerful or threatening but is actually weak or ineffective. It originates from a Chinese phrase, popularized in English by Mao Zedong in the 1940s, to describe entities that seem formidable but lack real strength when challenged. For example, Mao called the United States a paper tiger, implying its apparent might was hollow against determined resistance.
In modern usage, it can apply to various contexts, like a nation, organization, or individual that projects strength but crumbles under pressure. For instance, a company with a strong brand but poor finances might be called a paper tiger. The term emphasizes the gap between perception and reality.”
Canard - - “a false report or piece of information that is intended to deceive people.”
Telling folks that Marines who are forward deployed aboard amphibious ships and aircraft carriers for routine operations, engaged in typical joint/combined training and exercises, and other normal theater security cooperation event activities are something new and different is a good example of a canard.
Marines have been training and operating with joint forces and coalition partners for years. It’s business as usual. And it’s also extremely important work and should be applauded for it builds relationships, facilitates interoperability, ensures access, and promotes U.S. interests. It’s a good thing and Marines typically do it better than anyone else.
But it’s a stretch to tout every TSC event, training exercise, deployment, and routine peacetime operation as validation of EABO, FD, and SIF. Folks who have served in the military know the difference. Others may not and can be fooled (canard).
We have been almost 6 years into FD. If it’s a good concept, deploy a fully equipped and manned SIF to an expeditionary location. Engage and sink derelict ships with anti-ship missiles at distances that matter. Position, reposition, and logistically support the force with LSMs in a simulated contested environment.
Until then, let’s go back to describing routine training, exercises, deployments, and TSC events as what they are and what they are intended to accomplish.
With respect, your argument rests on a fundamental misunderstanding—or dismissal—of how today’s Theater Security Cooperation (TSC) events, deployments, and exercises have evolved over the last 10 years.
Yes, Marines have always trained with allies and partners. That’s not in dispute. What is different now is the purpose, focus, and structure of that training. Exercises like Balikatan, Talisman Sabre, Super Garuda Shield, and Resolute Dragon are no longer just generic “engagements.” They are deliberate rehearsals for how we intend to fight alongside partners in contested environments—often on the very ground where we expect to fight.
These are not public affairs theater. They include:
• Combined arms rehearsals integrating aviation, indirect fires, cyber, and ground maneuver.
• Practicing long-range fires and kill chain integration with allies.
• Establishing and sustaining expeditionary advanced bases.
• Testing sensing and targeting networks in live environments.
• Closing the last 200 meters on a simulated enemy.
• Executing dispersed C2 across real geography in the Pacific.
Your comment that we should “go back to describing routine events as what they are” only reveals how disconnected you are from the intentional shift the Marine Corps has made over the past six years. This isn’t business as usual—it’s the deliberate execution of a globally integrated deterrence posture.
Force Design is being validated not just in labs or white papers, but on the ground—in the Philippines, in Japan, in Australia, in Palau, and aboard every amphibious force forward-deployed today.
The Joint force is adapting. If your frame of reference hasn’t, that’s not a canard—it’s a blind spot.
You sound like the Fuller Brush man trying to “sell” his products, except he had real items to sell. FD on the other hand, meh, not so much. It’s hard to sell pipe dreams.
Brother, hate to break it to you, but I don’t need to sell Force Design.
Congress, the Joint Staff, and Combatant Commanders already bought it—lock, block, and barrel.
Need proof? During the recent House Armed Services Committee hearing on the FY26 Navy budget, Rep. Seth Moulton said he was “more impressed than I imagined” after seeing the Corps’ progress firsthand in the Philippines. [Timestamp: 01:33:30]
He said that. On the record. Not me. Not a PAO.
Meanwhile, the critics are still stuck in 2004, arguing with a future that’s already here.
I am pretty sure I am stuck in 2025, at least my sun dial and the news off the fax machine says so. In any case, saying Rep. Seth Moulton was "more impressed than I imagined" is like saying a member of the KFC Board of Directors really enjoyed the free Fried Chicken. It's not really definitive. He's been impressed by FD since 2020 without a break....he always wants 'more cowbell'. Not to mention, he didn't speak at all about what progress exactly he was impressed by (To be fair, I did enjoy him digging into issues about training standards at TBS). Is the future here, or is it in the future?
Well, most Congressional members are enamored with PowerPoint presentations. The funny thing about PowerPoint presentations is you can write anything in them.
Now in the real world facts matter. After 6 years where is the deployable SIF or MLR? Where’s the NMESIS/NAM? Most importantly, the question I keep hammering home, where are the MEUs?
Part of the deceit involved in FD-2030 has been executed by the public affairs and media representations of “demonstrating a capability” “conducting an exercise” without specificity as was once the norm. Simulations and command post exercises or communications exercises used to be clearly advertised as such and distinguished from true field exercises just as simulations and live fire differ.
All have their purpose when portrayed honestly. The Marine Corps has purposely muddied the waters in that regard to make it seem that some capabilities exist when they do not. Firing blanks does not put holes in targets.
I have read many of the articles on FD2030 in past few years. 6 years into it, it’s crystal clear in my opinion that CMC is not living in the same world as our potential enemies. His FD2030 vision is a pipe dream that has yet to demonstrate how small missile units are going to logistically survive on island chains, keep radar active to search for targets without being targeted by enemies and relocate quickly after firing without being detected. None of that has been publicly demonstrated to any degree of success. Who is he kidding? No one. General, we see this for what it is - a plan that won’t work at the cost of a huge loss of a lot of combat power. Sea power and force protection matters much more. Focus your efforts on getting MAGTF and MEU the weapons, ships, and resources to move to where the fights will be. Without doing so, you are leading the Marine Corps to be a hollow force without being able to move to multiple fights and deliver knockout blows to more than one enemy. This will be your legacy if you don’t reconsider. Do better!
I participated in numerous CPXs and computer driven exercises from a TWAES van as a controller, but they don’t compare to an actual mount out; boarding ship; landing; and taking inland objectives.
Actual mount outs were routine at one time. Our entire AAV Company was ordered to test an alternative deployment site from Camp Lejeune. We boarded flatcars at Lejeune with every piece of equipment and all mount out supplies. Everything was always prepackaged and stored in the Company Supply: inventoried; maintained; and, if necessary, rotated.
Nothing was left in our garrison locations and had been turned in to Base or Battalion.
We took the flat cars to Sunny Point Army Terminal on the coast, where we boarded ship and sailed back to Onslow Beach where we landed in tactical formations and proceeded to the ordered grid coordinates and deployed the Company: Company Headquarters and Platoon positions; tents; generators; field kitchen; water supply and fuel points, supply, maintenance, communications and administration, all functioning.
That’s just the beginning and there is no way those things can be adequately tested without actually doing it. What I see today is a lot of nonsensical talk about how sophisticated we are and even more, wishful thinking. What am I not seeing? Semper Fi
Those who claim today's Marine Corps is able to conduct combined arms operations are ill-informed, professionally deficient, or deliberately contributing to a falsehood. Militaries around the word have and continue to define combined arms as the coordinated employment of infantry, cannon artillery, rockets, armor, engineers, and close air support. If a force does not have armor, sufficient cannon artillery, and engineering equipment that enables the breaching of obstacles, clearing and proofing of mines, and the crossing of gaps and streams it is not able to conduct combined arms operations. Stating otherwise places a person in one of the three categories mentioned.
When I was a captain in ANGLICO, we were involved with the Army doing a CPX and an exercise that didn't involve actual maneuver elements. An Army officer explained it as a "Practical Exercise Not Involving Troops." We Marines substituted the word "soldiers" for the word "troops" and we had an acronym we could remember! Enough said....
FD 2030 and Force Design is not sold to the Congress, the DOD and so forth. They haven’t bought a thing. Not too mention if anyone is counting on the Congress to understand the nature of it, good luck. Bring a coloring book and the three primary colors in crayon to explain it to most up the Hill. The staff up there will tell you anything you want to hear. It has been sold as a marketing tool by consultants to those that wish to buy the “idea” and or the “brand” and the over reaching notion that the United States will find it, in its national interests to go to a full scale peer to peer foe war with one foe in one place. Over a large island approximately 6500 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. We therefore can infer, we don’t need to ask the neighbors of China, like Pakistan, India, Japan, etc., what they think of the idea. FD2030 is the military equivalent of the Ford Motor Company Edsel. When it was all said and done Ford spent a fortune on a car nobody liked and fewer purchased. But at least they made the car and tried to sell it and didn’t get rid of the Lincoln Mercury division to do it. Henry Ford II, when he took over as boss, made short work of those that had gone along with the Edsel. McNamara was saved as he had bailed to be JFK’s SecDef. Boy what a bang up job he did there with his whiz kids. When the SecNav goes to the MTU at Quantico and shoots pistols and rifles with the shooting team and sees a couple of Drones in “action” it doesn’t mean he endorses FD whatever. It means he went to Quantico and hung out with the shooting team. Watching the SecNav being shown a dog and pony show was just typical of dog and pony shows, whether in the civilian world or military. This nonsense will continue until it doesn’t. In the meantime the rest of the world continues to be a miserable place with all manner of nasty possibilities available for a MEU with full MAGTF capabilities to handle.
Force Design is Berger, Smith their lieutenants and a few corporals is a 6 year old **Potemkin village** ! Grok”Potemkin village”refers to a deceptive façade or construct designed to mislead others into believing a situation is better than it actually is. The term originates from a historical myth about Grigory Potemkin, who allegedly built fake villages along the Dnieper River in 1787 to impress Empress Catherine II during her tour of Crimea, masking the region’s poverty. Though likely exaggerated by Potemkin’s rivals, the term has endured, symbolizing any effort to create a false impression of prosperity, stability, or progress. Examples include North Korea’s Kijŏng-dong, a propaganda village with empty buildings, or Enron’s staged trading floor to deceive investors. It applies to physical structures, political propaganda, or even curated social media personas that hide underlying flaws. The concept reflects deliberate misrepresentation to manipulate perception, often tied to power or profit.”! FIX BAYONETS!
If you prefer a Chinese cuisine, which is more accurate for Force Design, it is a Paper Tiger. Grok”The term "paper tiger" refers to something or someone that appears powerful or threatening but is actually weak or ineffective. It originates from a Chinese phrase, popularized in English by Mao Zedong in the 1940s, to describe entities that seem formidable but lack real strength when challenged. For example, Mao called the United States a paper tiger, implying its apparent might was hollow against determined resistance.
In modern usage, it can apply to various contexts, like a nation, organization, or individual that projects strength but crumbles under pressure. For instance, a company with a strong brand but poor finances might be called a paper tiger. The term emphasizes the gap between perception and reality.”