Neither the 2018 NDAA nor the 2022 NDAA nor Congress directed the Marine in Corps to radically restructure and reorganize to confront the PLAN. Force Design and the destruction of the combined arms, expeditionary force-in-readiness are self inflicted. There is no one to blame but the 38th and 39th Commandants.
I get where you are coming from, but "Like it or not, the 38th CMC had the support of the President, Congress, SecDef, JCS, SecNav, CNO (and Post Master General for all I know) when he made the changes he made. There was significant public debate and those authorities were glad to support the CMC regardless. Whether or not we like it, this is no 'Mad' Anthony Gale situation. Also, a fair share of Active Duty Marines, Officer and Enlisted, were/are on board. Sitting here calling for the 38th and 39th CMC to get formal upper deckers or worse is not going to help the USMC or the USA.". I am on board with about 98.3% of your calls on this topic; this is the 1.7% where I differ for pragmatic reasons.
The last two CMC’s have led themselves and other of their acolytes to believe that they are making progress on a total reshaping of the Marine Corps. In a sense that might (emphasis on MIGHT) be laudable, never stand still, question and think through what the next fight might look like. But, in the past when large scale change came to the Corps it was additive and accretive to mission accomplishment. Want shore guns, why not then ask for a bigger T/O and T/E. But be in postion to carry on with the mandated missions assigned.
But both General Berger and Smith chose to flagrantly and disobediently defy the statutory Mandate of Title X. In a dictionary perfect discription of insubordination and a healthy dose of arrogance especially in front of the limited congressional oversight they were exposed to, they just carried on with their suicide of the Marine Corps. Their hubris likely left them to believe that history would look kindly on them. When the call came they could not answer and in the main the FD2030 and “divest to invest” era (if the Corps is allowed to survive) will not be looked at kindly.
When this writer served on active duty our Generals and Colonels rarely pulled a punch and if anyone doubts this, just go look at archives footage of their congressional testimony. Raw, and straight scoop as our sister services sat there in the same hearing balancing teacups on their knees as a manner of speaking.
We need tough no nonsense leadership again. Iron sharpens iron. Let’s hope we can get back to business in the coming weeks and months.
I know we can point to Title X, but we've had that conversation before here in Compass Points when we had more participation from fans of FD(2030). I've had proponents make your exact argument in reverse (i.e. "what are they supposed to do, ignore the NDAA of 2018 and the Congress that wants to see change?") It frankly doesn't move the needle. The proponents always point to the NDAA of 2018 and the amount of Congressional and Executive support they have had in making the myriad of changes. And they are right; there has been a great amount of political support in Congress and the White House going back to 2018, which worries me. As for 'tough, no-nonsense leadership', the proponents of FD(2030) argue that is exactly what General Berger exhibited in implementing Force Design (2030). I stress this as it is important to recognize that there is no 'natural virtue'. This is factional conflict. Each faction thinks they are correct and the other has it's head up the proverbial '3d point of contact'. In this ball game, pragmatic solutions, reasonably proposed and sold with modern flair will do more good than recriminatory legal and character attacks. The fact is, both teams can formulate a sound legal attack that cancels out the opposition's attack and leaves the situation for the worse.
I think it's one thing to add to the organization, than to decimate the whole organization. I don't think anyone here would have objected to the addition of antiship missiles in the inventory. Build up a new type of MAGTF to carryout the antiship missile mission. But to divest on tube artillery and tank support to do this is insane. Then also use the false premise that the war in Ukraine has proven that tanks and tube arty are no longer needed as his justification. CMC Berger either read the wrong lessons from the war, or he is deceiving us.
Exactly! Berger and now Smith could've simply stood up this "littoral rgt" and any "special MAGTF" specifically to deal with the Pacific CHICOM threat while keeping the Corps' MAGTF capabilities current and available to deal with the other 95% of the real world threats! The Ukraine War has refuted the divesting of tanks and tubed/cannon artillery by the 38th and 39th CMCs and their supporters of FD2030 and proven the desperate need by BOTH Russia and Ukraine for armor and arty! Pure insanity that they neutered our Corps' core assets for a proven and effective combined arms MAGTF and force and relegated us to a one-trick pony of being coastal artillery with a supposed deterrence to CHICOM naval threats in the Taiwan Strait and vicinity! And the sad part is that their pipe dream missile batteries on these remote islands ain't even remotely close to being in place or stood up!
Joel, as you said, "exactly." A SP MAGTF tailored for just this purpose would have been perfect. Now the Marine Corps is even behind the power curve with the missile units. The Army's Multi-Domain Task Force is more robust than the MLR. The Marine Corps gave up most everything, and gained nothing.
Like it or not, the 38th CMC had the support of the President, Congress, SecDef, JCS, SecNav, CNO (and Post Master General for all I know) when he made the changes he made. There was significant public debate and those authorities were glad to support the CMC regardless. Whether or not we like it, this is no 'Mad' Anthony Gale situation. Also, a fair share of Active Duty Marines, Officer and Enlisted, were/are on board. Sitting here calling for the 38th and 39th CMC to get formal upper deckers or worse is not going to help the USMC or the USA. We have got to remember that going forward, lest we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. K2SO has made some good points regarding how to shape the debate in front of Congress. Mike's Wrangler Workspace has spoken to the fact that we may be in an existential fight; he thinks it's already a done deal in favor of a Unified Service. I think that, in part, the other services', and DoD's, willingness to cheer on the 'Corps was that it provided cash benefits to them. It's the old poker game deal - we looked at your cards Marine Corps and are more than happy for you to bet and bluff in this game. That's on you, if you can't figure it out. The USMC used to be the best at the DoD poker game....now it's the patsy. The smoker in the corner chair is Socom, and the kid with the Viper Sunglasses is Spacecom. They are smoking the USMC like a cheap cigar. Wasting time trying to paint 38/39 CMCs with a combo of the Gale/Arnold brush is a waste of time...and frankly unwarranted. I think FD 2030 is a terrible idea...but fixing it doesn't include 'truth and retribution' commissions. That is a rabbit hole that will torpedo the whole enterprise.
Some how CMC Smith and those in the National Command Authority need to realize the United States no longer maintains a robust naval expeditionary force.
Cfrog I don’t doubt General Berger and General Smith are intelligent, though General Smith didn’t help himself in my eyes during his “time” the summer of 2024 when he spoke for about an hour on the record at the Brookings Institute. If FD2030 really had legs one would think that more progress would have been made that would codify the Maginot Line concept. (BA Friedman?) From jump it seems to me that the focus was headed toward this great peer foe confrontation most likely with China. China is a threat, but they seem more asymmetric at the moment than head to head. A bigger threat is the reconstitution of the various terror organizations, and the possibility exists that a confrontation outside the spec ops world would be very well suited to a ARG/MEU and it being fully capable of a sustained operation until everyone figured how big a fight it was going to turn out to be. So here we find ourselves neither fish nor fowl, straddling a concept and a known entity, aka FD2030 v. MAGTF operations. The conflict in Ukraine sort of highlights the problem with straddling the third rail, tanks were passe’ until they weren’t, drones would change the metrics completely, well yes and no. You are also correct this bun fight of the last couple of years has not helped, but perhaps by having the fight it brings more clarity to what the Corps needs to look like, or sadly if we have out lived our usefulness. If I were a confirmed John Phelan, the Corps would have to do a lot of “splaining” to do, in order not make a major slash at the budgets or be done with us out right. As always your sanity checks are helpful.
Frank and open discourse requires a lot of work and a lot of thought. It is so much easier to crush those asking tough questions and marginalize them as “ resistant to change” and implement in the dead of night. This crosses every realm of an organization from weapons to tactics, training, manpower policies, ethos and the soul of the institution. The best leaders manage this process through leadership, intellect and charismatic personalities. The worst resort to draconian measures, secrecy and loyalty checks. It is no surprise that “careers” are impacted and moral cowardice in protecting or destroying careers is a major handicap to institutional excellence. The Berger/Smith era would not have been possible with the erosions of the 30 years before it.
The pros and cons of FD 2030 aside, the very process or lack thereof exposed an institutional ethos that had been radically transformed by careerism, political correctness, cultural compromises and a vast profusion of specialized MOS’s and decades of insurgencies which served to pull the focus from traditional and more timeless Marine missions. Today the Corps has painted itself into a small corner that will make it irrelevant. It did not happen overnight.
How can anyone claim the MLR's are an effective combat unit of any kind? I've been retired for 35 years (after serving for 35 years) and I don't recognize the Marine Corps that I served with for so long, nor do I believe or trust the current leadership. I'm afraid I'm witnessing the end of my beloved Corps of Marines. I can only hope I'm gone to guard heaven's streets before my Marines no longer exist.
“The Platters!” Great Creaser’s Ghost! (LOL) For the few readers that even remember this 1950’s singing group, here is the official description of their style; “Their distinctive sound bridges the pre-rock Tin Pan Alley tradition and the new burgeoning genre.” The Platters list of record hits to pick from, in order to continue the analogy between their songs and FD2030, is extensive. Here we go: “My Prayer”, “Remember When”, “I’m Sorry”, “On My Word of Honor”, ‘If I Didn’t Care”, “It Isn’t Right”, “I’ll Never Smile Again”, “My Dream”...etc., etc., etc. All these hits are available on YouTube. Let’s start a revival and start playing the Platters hit songs.
Berger and now Smith's FD2030 has been a colossal FAILURE and has decimated our MAGTF capabilities... their dereliction of duties in forcing this insanity is borderline CRIMINAL and the incoming SecDef and SecNav must immediately implement VISION2035 to reverse the damage and restore our Corps' lethality and abilities to react to any challenge or threat "in every clime and place"!
Numquam quieti! Never quit! Change is here 45 never quit he is now 47. FD will soon be tossed out and 10 US Code 8063 will be OBEYED! CMC Smith’s tour will soon be over!
-Comments like this about additive manufacturing and 3D printing concern me. It is not a panacea that makes something from nothing. These systems need space, energy, and feedstock to produce viable, durable parts. They may streamline parts of the logistics supply chain, but they don't eliminate the tail. And, most importantly, that is within the scope of what they can do. They cannot do everything. Often the parts need finishing after they are created. 3d printing/additive manufacturing are certainly a part of the future of various echelons of maintenance.
**But there is a glimmer of hope. General Smith mentions 'prepositioning stocks'. Maybe this is a a play to sell prepositioning as a 'future tech war' concept to a Congress and Nation that want to only hear those ideas. Maybe it is the trojan horse to reinvigorate prepositioning as a strategic necessity. We need machines and feedstock prepositioned. What cannot be accomplished by those machines, will also need to be prepositioned. If selling 3d printing as a "Col. Fires' Magic Elixir of Logistics' is what it takes to regain robust, reasonable prepositioning....then I may be in support, as detestable as it may seem. Just as long as we don't start drinking our own snake oil.
CMC Smith just sunk his own ship. If he is referencing the unarmed Atlantic Conveyor, sunk during the Falkland War, what does that say about his LSMs? I forgot, they are supposed to hide during conflict!
Biden's default move throughout his career has been surrender, which created the back drop for the divestment of the Marine Corps, which includes a lot of the equipment and ammunition that was sent to panzer alley in the Ukraine, after the President and his people realized that the Ukrainians were able to blunt the archaic Soviet type tactics in their drive on Kiev and survive as national government. They must have been happy to ship off the Corps equipment which would make it easier to disband the Marines at a point in the foreseeable future. They all subscribe to the ultristic notion of internationalism or one world government, the extinction event of the human race, the Marine Corps would be an impediment to that.
I am cautiously optimistic the new administration with a former Marine as Vice President will keep the ship from foundering, but given that the strategy requires a grasp of the million moving parts needed to rebuild to present realities, and the majority of career types barely rise above the level of their own career arithmetic, I also have to be realistic that the odds are against it. Time to resettle outside of the primary blast zones and await new vital growth in its aftermath?
Can someone explain to this non military person how the eventual deployment perhaps 6000 marines has wrecked the service. Are there not 170,000 more available to do other missions?
Neither the 2018 NDAA nor the 2022 NDAA nor Congress directed the Marine in Corps to radically restructure and reorganize to confront the PLAN. Force Design and the destruction of the combined arms, expeditionary force-in-readiness are self inflicted. There is no one to blame but the 38th and 39th Commandants.
Absolutely Spot On! They own it and it will not stand!
I get where you are coming from, but "Like it or not, the 38th CMC had the support of the President, Congress, SecDef, JCS, SecNav, CNO (and Post Master General for all I know) when he made the changes he made. There was significant public debate and those authorities were glad to support the CMC regardless. Whether or not we like it, this is no 'Mad' Anthony Gale situation. Also, a fair share of Active Duty Marines, Officer and Enlisted, were/are on board. Sitting here calling for the 38th and 39th CMC to get formal upper deckers or worse is not going to help the USMC or the USA.". I am on board with about 98.3% of your calls on this topic; this is the 1.7% where I differ for pragmatic reasons.
The last two CMC’s have led themselves and other of their acolytes to believe that they are making progress on a total reshaping of the Marine Corps. In a sense that might (emphasis on MIGHT) be laudable, never stand still, question and think through what the next fight might look like. But, in the past when large scale change came to the Corps it was additive and accretive to mission accomplishment. Want shore guns, why not then ask for a bigger T/O and T/E. But be in postion to carry on with the mandated missions assigned.
But both General Berger and Smith chose to flagrantly and disobediently defy the statutory Mandate of Title X. In a dictionary perfect discription of insubordination and a healthy dose of arrogance especially in front of the limited congressional oversight they were exposed to, they just carried on with their suicide of the Marine Corps. Their hubris likely left them to believe that history would look kindly on them. When the call came they could not answer and in the main the FD2030 and “divest to invest” era (if the Corps is allowed to survive) will not be looked at kindly.
When this writer served on active duty our Generals and Colonels rarely pulled a punch and if anyone doubts this, just go look at archives footage of their congressional testimony. Raw, and straight scoop as our sister services sat there in the same hearing balancing teacups on their knees as a manner of speaking.
We need tough no nonsense leadership again. Iron sharpens iron. Let’s hope we can get back to business in the coming weeks and months.
I know we can point to Title X, but we've had that conversation before here in Compass Points when we had more participation from fans of FD(2030). I've had proponents make your exact argument in reverse (i.e. "what are they supposed to do, ignore the NDAA of 2018 and the Congress that wants to see change?") It frankly doesn't move the needle. The proponents always point to the NDAA of 2018 and the amount of Congressional and Executive support they have had in making the myriad of changes. And they are right; there has been a great amount of political support in Congress and the White House going back to 2018, which worries me. As for 'tough, no-nonsense leadership', the proponents of FD(2030) argue that is exactly what General Berger exhibited in implementing Force Design (2030). I stress this as it is important to recognize that there is no 'natural virtue'. This is factional conflict. Each faction thinks they are correct and the other has it's head up the proverbial '3d point of contact'. In this ball game, pragmatic solutions, reasonably proposed and sold with modern flair will do more good than recriminatory legal and character attacks. The fact is, both teams can formulate a sound legal attack that cancels out the opposition's attack and leaves the situation for the worse.
I think it's one thing to add to the organization, than to decimate the whole organization. I don't think anyone here would have objected to the addition of antiship missiles in the inventory. Build up a new type of MAGTF to carryout the antiship missile mission. But to divest on tube artillery and tank support to do this is insane. Then also use the false premise that the war in Ukraine has proven that tanks and tube arty are no longer needed as his justification. CMC Berger either read the wrong lessons from the war, or he is deceiving us.
Exactly! Berger and now Smith could've simply stood up this "littoral rgt" and any "special MAGTF" specifically to deal with the Pacific CHICOM threat while keeping the Corps' MAGTF capabilities current and available to deal with the other 95% of the real world threats! The Ukraine War has refuted the divesting of tanks and tubed/cannon artillery by the 38th and 39th CMCs and their supporters of FD2030 and proven the desperate need by BOTH Russia and Ukraine for armor and arty! Pure insanity that they neutered our Corps' core assets for a proven and effective combined arms MAGTF and force and relegated us to a one-trick pony of being coastal artillery with a supposed deterrence to CHICOM naval threats in the Taiwan Strait and vicinity! And the sad part is that their pipe dream missile batteries on these remote islands ain't even remotely close to being in place or stood up!
Joel, as you said, "exactly." A SP MAGTF tailored for just this purpose would have been perfect. Now the Marine Corps is even behind the power curve with the missile units. The Army's Multi-Domain Task Force is more robust than the MLR. The Marine Corps gave up most everything, and gained nothing.
Like it or not, the 38th CMC had the support of the President, Congress, SecDef, JCS, SecNav, CNO (and Post Master General for all I know) when he made the changes he made. There was significant public debate and those authorities were glad to support the CMC regardless. Whether or not we like it, this is no 'Mad' Anthony Gale situation. Also, a fair share of Active Duty Marines, Officer and Enlisted, were/are on board. Sitting here calling for the 38th and 39th CMC to get formal upper deckers or worse is not going to help the USMC or the USA. We have got to remember that going forward, lest we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. K2SO has made some good points regarding how to shape the debate in front of Congress. Mike's Wrangler Workspace has spoken to the fact that we may be in an existential fight; he thinks it's already a done deal in favor of a Unified Service. I think that, in part, the other services', and DoD's, willingness to cheer on the 'Corps was that it provided cash benefits to them. It's the old poker game deal - we looked at your cards Marine Corps and are more than happy for you to bet and bluff in this game. That's on you, if you can't figure it out. The USMC used to be the best at the DoD poker game....now it's the patsy. The smoker in the corner chair is Socom, and the kid with the Viper Sunglasses is Spacecom. They are smoking the USMC like a cheap cigar. Wasting time trying to paint 38/39 CMCs with a combo of the Gale/Arnold brush is a waste of time...and frankly unwarranted. I think FD 2030 is a terrible idea...but fixing it doesn't include 'truth and retribution' commissions. That is a rabbit hole that will torpedo the whole enterprise.
Some how CMC Smith and those in the National Command Authority need to realize the United States no longer maintains a robust naval expeditionary force.
Cfrog I don’t doubt General Berger and General Smith are intelligent, though General Smith didn’t help himself in my eyes during his “time” the summer of 2024 when he spoke for about an hour on the record at the Brookings Institute. If FD2030 really had legs one would think that more progress would have been made that would codify the Maginot Line concept. (BA Friedman?) From jump it seems to me that the focus was headed toward this great peer foe confrontation most likely with China. China is a threat, but they seem more asymmetric at the moment than head to head. A bigger threat is the reconstitution of the various terror organizations, and the possibility exists that a confrontation outside the spec ops world would be very well suited to a ARG/MEU and it being fully capable of a sustained operation until everyone figured how big a fight it was going to turn out to be. So here we find ourselves neither fish nor fowl, straddling a concept and a known entity, aka FD2030 v. MAGTF operations. The conflict in Ukraine sort of highlights the problem with straddling the third rail, tanks were passe’ until they weren’t, drones would change the metrics completely, well yes and no. You are also correct this bun fight of the last couple of years has not helped, but perhaps by having the fight it brings more clarity to what the Corps needs to look like, or sadly if we have out lived our usefulness. If I were a confirmed John Phelan, the Corps would have to do a lot of “splaining” to do, in order not make a major slash at the budgets or be done with us out right. As always your sanity checks are helpful.
Well stated and brutally true. I just hope it is not too late to undue what has been done!
Frank and open discourse requires a lot of work and a lot of thought. It is so much easier to crush those asking tough questions and marginalize them as “ resistant to change” and implement in the dead of night. This crosses every realm of an organization from weapons to tactics, training, manpower policies, ethos and the soul of the institution. The best leaders manage this process through leadership, intellect and charismatic personalities. The worst resort to draconian measures, secrecy and loyalty checks. It is no surprise that “careers” are impacted and moral cowardice in protecting or destroying careers is a major handicap to institutional excellence. The Berger/Smith era would not have been possible with the erosions of the 30 years before it.
The pros and cons of FD 2030 aside, the very process or lack thereof exposed an institutional ethos that had been radically transformed by careerism, political correctness, cultural compromises and a vast profusion of specialized MOS’s and decades of insurgencies which served to pull the focus from traditional and more timeless Marine missions. Today the Corps has painted itself into a small corner that will make it irrelevant. It did not happen overnight.
How can anyone claim the MLR's are an effective combat unit of any kind? I've been retired for 35 years (after serving for 35 years) and I don't recognize the Marine Corps that I served with for so long, nor do I believe or trust the current leadership. I'm afraid I'm witnessing the end of my beloved Corps of Marines. I can only hope I'm gone to guard heaven's streets before my Marines no longer exist.
“The Platters!” Great Creaser’s Ghost! (LOL) For the few readers that even remember this 1950’s singing group, here is the official description of their style; “Their distinctive sound bridges the pre-rock Tin Pan Alley tradition and the new burgeoning genre.” The Platters list of record hits to pick from, in order to continue the analogy between their songs and FD2030, is extensive. Here we go: “My Prayer”, “Remember When”, “I’m Sorry”, “On My Word of Honor”, ‘If I Didn’t Care”, “It Isn’t Right”, “I’ll Never Smile Again”, “My Dream”...etc., etc., etc. All these hits are available on YouTube. Let’s start a revival and start playing the Platters hit songs.
Berger and now Smith's FD2030 has been a colossal FAILURE and has decimated our MAGTF capabilities... their dereliction of duties in forcing this insanity is borderline CRIMINAL and the incoming SecDef and SecNav must immediately implement VISION2035 to reverse the damage and restore our Corps' lethality and abilities to react to any challenge or threat "in every clime and place"!
Numquam quieti! Never quit! Change is here 45 never quit he is now 47. FD will soon be tossed out and 10 US Code 8063 will be OBEYED! CMC Smith’s tour will soon be over!
numquam quieti
I pray that you are correct, sir!
"We have to use prepositioning stocks, additive manufacturing and 3D printing, because if you have a ship like the Atlantic Conveyor that goes to the bottom,"- Gen. E. Smith (https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2025/1/15/force-designs-biggest-challenge-is-funding-said-marine-corps-leader)
-Comments like this about additive manufacturing and 3D printing concern me. It is not a panacea that makes something from nothing. These systems need space, energy, and feedstock to produce viable, durable parts. They may streamline parts of the logistics supply chain, but they don't eliminate the tail. And, most importantly, that is within the scope of what they can do. They cannot do everything. Often the parts need finishing after they are created. 3d printing/additive manufacturing are certainly a part of the future of various echelons of maintenance.
**But there is a glimmer of hope. General Smith mentions 'prepositioning stocks'. Maybe this is a a play to sell prepositioning as a 'future tech war' concept to a Congress and Nation that want to only hear those ideas. Maybe it is the trojan horse to reinvigorate prepositioning as a strategic necessity. We need machines and feedstock prepositioned. What cannot be accomplished by those machines, will also need to be prepositioned. If selling 3d printing as a "Col. Fires' Magic Elixir of Logistics' is what it takes to regain robust, reasonable prepositioning....then I may be in support, as detestable as it may seem. Just as long as we don't start drinking our own snake oil.
CMC Smith just sunk his own ship. If he is referencing the unarmed Atlantic Conveyor, sunk during the Falkland War, what does that say about his LSMs? I forgot, they are supposed to hide during conflict!
Seems to me that the Corps biggest challenge is a delusional commandant.
Biden's default move throughout his career has been surrender, which created the back drop for the divestment of the Marine Corps, which includes a lot of the equipment and ammunition that was sent to panzer alley in the Ukraine, after the President and his people realized that the Ukrainians were able to blunt the archaic Soviet type tactics in their drive on Kiev and survive as national government. They must have been happy to ship off the Corps equipment which would make it easier to disband the Marines at a point in the foreseeable future. They all subscribe to the ultristic notion of internationalism or one world government, the extinction event of the human race, the Marine Corps would be an impediment to that.
I am cautiously optimistic the new administration with a former Marine as Vice President will keep the ship from foundering, but given that the strategy requires a grasp of the million moving parts needed to rebuild to present realities, and the majority of career types barely rise above the level of their own career arithmetic, I also have to be realistic that the odds are against it. Time to resettle outside of the primary blast zones and await new vital growth in its aftermath?
Can someone explain to this non military person how the eventual deployment perhaps 6000 marines has wrecked the service. Are there not 170,000 more available to do other missions?