Compass Points - Help is on the Way?
Change is coming for Marines
Compass Points - Help is on the Way?
Change is coming for Marines
November 18, 2024
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In his new article, author and Marine Stephen Baird, asks the important question, “Who Can Save the Marine Corps?" Stephen Baird reminds readers that, throughout its history, the Marine Corps has faced numerous moments when the Corps needed to upgrade itself. One of those moments occurred after the long years of fighting in Vietnam.
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In August 2019, 2ndLt Rykar Lewis, USMC, wrote “SAVIORS OF THE CORPS: Generals Louis H. Wilson Jr. and Robert H. Barrow.” “In the span of eight years, Generals Wilson and Barrow completed their goal of saving the Marine Corps from the post-Vietnam War slump. They inherited an organization in desperate trouble, polished it, and returned it to its former glory. Virtually every level of the Corps transformed, from recruiting efforts all the way to the role of the Commandant. The roles and capabilities of the Marine Corps were re-examined and bolstered to meet the demands of the Cold War.”
-- Stephen Baird, "Who Can Save the Marine Corps?"
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Generals Wilson and Barrow were the leaders the Marine Corps needed after Vietnam, but they were only vital parts of a much larger team that helped to rebuild the Corps.
To rebuild, restore, and upgrade itself, the Marine Corps always needs help from the Department of Defense and from Congress. The same is true today.
The recent election means that very soon the Marine Corps will have a new Secretary of Defense, a new Secretary of the Navy, and new leadership from Congress. This new leadership will give the Marine Corps a tremendous opportunity to end its focus on small, regional, missile units and return the focus to worldwide crisis response.
The Marine Corps today may also receive help from another source. Nearly a year ago, Congress mandated a full study of the Marine Corps' warfighting priorities. In the National Defense Authorization Act, Congress mandated a study of the Marine Corps be conducted by an FFRDC - a federally funded research and development center.
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The bill calls for the Pentagon to contract with a federally funded research and development center that will “conduct an independent review, assessment, and analysis of the modernization initiatives of the Marine Corps” within three months of the bill becoming law.
. . . Some major changes — which include getting rid of tanks, cutting some cannon artillery and reorganizing traditional units — haven’t gone over well with everyone in the Corps or retired Marine community.
The retired generals who oppose Force Design hope the assessment would be “a very thorough analysis with many different perspectives brought together,” according to [Mark] Cancian.
-- Irene Loewenson, Marine Times
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The clock is ticking on the FFRDC study of the Marine Corps. Has the FFRDC conducted a broad study that is "a very thorough analysis with many different perspectives"? There is new leadership coming throughout the Department of Defense and the new leadership will want to be certain that instead of cheerleading for Force Design, the FFRDC is digging deep into the details of the Corps' controversial plan. The FFRDC would do well to contact and interview some of the experienced and informed retired Marines who have spent years warning of the dangers of Force Design.
"Who Can Save the Marine Corps?" Compass Points congratulates Stephen Baird for his timely article.
The Marine Corps needs help to upgrade and enhance its combined arms, crisis response capabilities. It will take help from a new Secretary of Defense, new Secretary of the Navy, new leadership from Congress, and insightful analysis from the entire community of Marines and friends of the Corps including the Congressional Research Service and the FFRDC conducting an in-depth review of the Marine Corps. Help is on the way for the Marine Corps. With enough help, the Marine Corps will soon be stronger than it has ever been. An upgraded 9-1-1 Marine Corps means the US and global allies will be safer soon.
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Real Clear Defense - 11/18/2024
Who Can Save the Marine Corps?
By Stephen Baird
Stephen Baird is a retired Marine Colonel. He served as the Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Division followed by his last assignment as the Chief of Staff for U.S Marine Corps Forces Command during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/11/18/who_can_save_the_marine_corps_1072743.html
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Marine Times - 12/08/2023
Defense bill calls for outside scrutiny of Marines’ modernization plan
By Irene Loewenson
Irene Loewenson, a former reporter for the Marine Times, is now a student at Harvard Law School.
The Army is not like a limited liability company to be reconstructed, remodeled, liquidated and refloated week to week as the money market fluctuates. It is not an inanimate thing like a house to be pulled down, enlarged or structurally altered at the caprice of the tenant or owner; it is a living thing. If it is bullied it sulks; if it is unhappy it pines; if it is harried it becomes feverish; if it is sufficiently disturbed it will dwindle, wither and almost die; and when it comes to this last serious condition it is only revived by lots of time and lots of money. - Sir Winston Churchill
For almost six years the Corps has been pulled through the knot hole as it divested combat power and more importantly Marines. Rest assured the fever spread to the remaining Marines. The Corps was never been the sum of its weapons and equipment. It was always a sum greater than the parts based on Esprit de Corps, a phrase I have not heard in years, fighting spirit, loyalty and selfless leadership. The Corps was tossed by ill advised social change dictated from on high and doubled down on by feckless leaders, it was forced into gender politics devoid of all logic and DEI so perverse it was clearly unconstitutional yet forced on those who took a sacred oath to the Constitution and did not stand on principle.
Added to this was the corrosive impact of a strategy of employment that was so outlandish that few with a modicum of experience could support it as it was further tarnished by the fact that the three other services could accomplish this self assigned mission better.
The last six years would have throughly broken any other organization or institution. Today, as the Corps continues its forced march towards irrelevance and possibly extinction the rank and file still adhere to the warrior intangibles. That will not last forever. It is being slowly bred out like wolves who will eventually become something other than alpha predators.
If help is on the way, and I trust civilian studies and think tanks about as much as thin ice on a lake in the spring, it better come soon. The dark clouds of budgets in a new administration might blow in quicker and with a brutal finality. In the end Generals Berger and Smith may have bred the wolf pack half way to lap dogs that had no place in the forest of world conflict. Time is running out and it is not on our side.
I see two big questions to be answered.
First, how do we best position the existent USMC for the next 6 to 24 months? Regardless of feelings about Force Design, the USMC exists 'as it is'. How do we best use that for global response in an age of uncertainty? Do we keep the status quo, limping along with a MEU every now and then? Pursue some mods that capture available assets to increase the MEU/ARG deployment? Hope the perfect conditions for a Force Design fight tonight emerge that use the barebones Force Design capabilities that currently exist?
Second, how do we capture the real and potential benefits wrought by implementation of Force Design? At the risk of being labeled a Force Design fanatic again, I do think there are positive aspects. Either in new/emergent capabilities, or in simply the reset created by the elimination of legacy systems and concepts. Whether or not I agree with the actions that created the current paradigm doesn't mean I don't realize the practical benefit looking forward of the paradigm. For example, I think the M1 was a great platform with a lot of potential and a unique combined arms culture in the Marines that operated and maintained our tank battalions. But those things are gone. Now, we have the opportunity to take a somewhat clean sheet approach to the idea of Marine Heavy Armor / Armor systems. Though, I still think the M1 Tank is a fantastic system and a modern tank supported by modern, mature logistics approach would be an excellent solution.