Compass Points - J.D. Vance

Congratulations to VP Elect

Compass Points - J.D. Vance

Congratulations to VP Elect

November 12, 2024

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On November 10th this year J.D. Vance sent out his own greeting to Marines everywhere, “Happy Birthday to my fellow Marines! 249 years and counting!”

Right back at you J.D. Happy Marine Corps birthday and happy Veterans Day to the new Vice-President elect. Vance will be the first Marine ever to hold the office of Vice-President.

Kristina Wong reported on Vance's Marine Corps service:

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Vance, 40, served as an enlisted combat correspondent in the Marine Corps from 2003 to 2007. He left the Corps as an E-5.

He deployed to Iraq for six months, and was awarded the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, Global War on Terrorism, and the National Defense Service Medal.

-- Kristina Wong

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In his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, Vance explained how his time on active duty changed his thinking: “The Marine Corps demanded that I think strategically about these decisions, and then it taught me how to do so.”

In his new position as Vice President elect and in the coming years as Vice President, Vance will have the opportunity to do some vital strategic decision-making about many pressing issues, including the US military.

The US military needs help. Vance is surrounded by a team of talented advisors including James Braid,  Jai Chabria, Bryan Gray, Will Martin, Jacob Reses, Luke Schroeder, Arthur Schwartz, Andy Surabian, Luke Thompson, Taylor Van Kirk, and several others. No doubt Vance's team will warn him that of the four major military services, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, not one of them is performing at the level it should be. It will take upgraded leadership, upgraded equipment, and upgraded training and education, to make the US military one again the overwhelming force for peace.

Where should the upgrading of the military begin? There is no better place to begin than with Vance's own service, the Marine Corps.

Vance has kept himself very busy over the last several years and like so many Americans, including some in Congress, he may not be aware of how the Marine Corps has changed. Four years ago, the Marine Corps abruptly changed its focus from global crisis response, to small, scattered, island missile units in the Pacific. The Marine Corps shed much of the combined arms capabilities that made it such a flexible and powerful tool for policy makers.  The power and might of the Marine Corps that J.D. Vance served in has been degraded and diminished.

The US cannot afford a weak, narrow, degraded Marine Corps. The Marine Corps has traditionally filled a critical role as the Nation's global, 9-1-1, crisis response force. Why is it important for the Nation to have not only a crisis response force, but to have a global, crisis response, force that is sea-based?

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. . . In the future, the United States is likely to face a number of very different threats to its security, interests, and way of life. Many of these will be associated with the littorals, those areas characterized by great cities, well-populated coasts, and the intersection of trade routes where land and sea meet. While representing a relatively small portion of the world's surface, littorals provide homes to over three-quarters of the world's population, locations for over 80 percent of the world's capital cities, and nearly all of the market places for international trade. Because of this, littorals are also the place where most of the world's important conflicts are likely to occur. Close association with the littorals is one of the few things that conflicts of the near future are likely to have in common.

In all other respects—goals, organizations, armament, and tactics—the warfare of the next 20 years will be distinguished by its great variety. For that reason, it is imperative that the Marine Corps resist the temptation to prepare for only one type of conflict. To focus on one threat greatly increases the danger that we will be surprised, and perhaps defeated, by another.

To influence events overseas, America requires a credible, forward deployable, power projection capability. In the absence of an adjacent land base, a sustainable forcible entry capability that is independent of forward staging bases, friendly borders, overflight rights, and other politically dependent support can come only from the sea. The chaos of the future requires that we maintain the capability to project power ashore against all forces of resistance, ranging from overcoming devastated infrastructure, to assisting a friendly people in need of disaster relief, to countering the entire spectrum of armed threats.

. . . Just as a littoral is formed by the meeting of land and sea, Operational Maneuver from the Sea is a marriage between maneuver warfare and naval warfare. From maneuver warfare comes an understanding of the dynamic nature of conflict, the imperative of decisive objectives, and the requirement for skillful operations executed at a high tempo. From naval warfare are derived a deep appreciation for the strategic level of war, the advantages inherent in sea-borne movement, and the flexibility provided by sea-based logistics.

. . . When properly united, these elements of Operational Maneuver from the Sea provide the United States with a naval expeditionary force that, while deployed unobtrusively in international waters, is instantly ready to help any friend, defeat any foe, and convince potential enemies of the wisdom of keeping the peace.

-- US Marine Corps - Operational Maneuver from the Sea

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Compass Points sends best wishes for a happy birthday and happy Veterans Day to Vice President elect J.D. Vance — and also sends congratulations. The US is facing a world of threats and challenges. Only by upgrading and enhancing the US military - starting with the crisis response Marine Corps - can the US deter hostile acts and preserve the peace.