Compass Points - Junk on the Bunk
Get ready for an inspection.
Compass Points - Junk on the Bunk
Get ready for an inspection.
November 16, 2024
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The Marine Corps is about to undergo a stringent junk on the bunk inspection.
Is the Marine Corps ready?
The US national security team of the next administration appears to be getting ready to make comprehensive changes in policy and programs. These comprehensive changes include fundamentally reshaping the priorities of all the armed services. The incoming national security team will strive to upgrade the ability of the US military to deter and defeat any foe. That upgrade will most likely begin with a clean-sheet review of the military services' foundational assumptions. Can the current military assumptions withstand scrutiny?
For example, when the new National security team begin their inspection and examination of the Marine Corps, they will be surprised to learn that beginning with the Commandant's Planning Guidance in the summer of 2019, the leadership of the Marine Corps embraced three faulty assumptions.
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1. Precision munitions require the Marine Corps to become a defensive force.
2. The threat from China requires the Marine Corps to become a narrow, regional force.
3. The Marine Corps no longer needs to be a fully equipped and capable combined arms force.
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Not one of the faulty assumptions is accurate. Together, these false assumptions have led the Marine Corps in the wrong direction. It is time for new thinking.
What shouuld be the role of the Marine Corps in National security? Powerful words from the 82nd Congress still resonate today
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The nation’s shock troops [Marine Corps] must be the most ready when the nation is generally least ready ... to provide a balanced force in readiness ... to suppress or contain certain international disturbances short of large-war.
-- 82nd Congress
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US Code Title 10 Section 8063 provides more guidance:
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(a) The Marine Corps, within the Department of the Navy, shall be so organized as to include not less than three combat divisions and three air wings, and such other land combat, aviation, and other services as may be organic therein. The Marine Corps shall be organized, trained, and equipped to provide fleet marine forces of combined arms, together with supporting air components, for service with the fleet in the seizure or defense of advanced naval bases and for the conduct of such land operations as may be essential to the prosecution of a naval campaign . . . .
(b) The Marine Corps shall develop, in coordination with the Army and the Air Force, those phases of amphibious operations that pertain to the tactics, technique, and equipment used by landing forces.
(c) The Marine Corps is responsible, in accordance with integrated joint mobilization plans, for the expansion of peacetime components of the Marine Corps to meet the needs of war.
-- 10 U.S. Code § 8063 - United States Marine Corps
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More recently, in their article in Real Clear Defense, authors Charles Krulak, Anthony Zinni, Paul Van Riper, and Jerry McAbee argue it is time for new thinking. The Marine Corps needs to get rid of the faulty assumptions of the past and move in a new direction. The authors say, "To remain meaningful, the Marine Corps must be organized and equipped to meet the uncertainties of an increasingly dangerous world."
Just as a house cannot be built without blueprints, a new direction for the Marine Corps cannot be built without an over-arching operational concept. Vision 2035 is the start of what should be wide discussion about a new operational concept.
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This requires a Marine Corps that is built on four pillars. As articulated in Vision 2035, it is a Marine Corps that:
I. “is immediately ready to respond to crises and contingencies anywhere in the world.”
II. “is relevant, manned and equipped to support the Secretary of Defense’s requirements with scalable, flexible, adaptive, and lethal forces.”
III. “is capable of fighting and winning in any conflict.”
IV. “has the capacity to rapidly converge and build to a Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF).”
Each of these pillars requires operating forces that are rapidly deployable and sustainable, which is only possible by full throated U.S. Navy support, especially a robust fleet of operationally ready amphibious shipping and a strategically positioned, immediately deployable maritime prepositioning force.
-- Real Clear Defense
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The incoming National security team will put the Marine Corps through a stringent junk on the bunk inspection.
Is the Marine Corps ready?
Old assumptions and old excuses will not be good enough.
Compass Points thanks the authors, Charles Krulak, Anthony Zinni, Paul Van Riper, and Jerry McAbee for their article in Real Clear Defense that calls for the Marine Corps to let go of the faulty assumptions of the past, embrace new thinking, and work with Congress to move in a new direction.
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Real Clear Defense - 06/22/2024
Marine Corps Global Response in the Age of Precision Munitions
By Charles Krulak, Anthony Zinni, Paul Van Riper, Jerry McAbee
General Charles (Chuck) Krulak, (USMC, ret.) was a career infantry officer. His assignments include Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command. His last assignment was the 31st Commandant of the Marine Corps
General Anthony (Tony) Zinni, (USMC, ret.) was a career infantry officer. His assignments include Deputy Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command. His last assignment was Commander, United States Central Command.
General Paul K. Van Riper, (USMC, ret.) was a career infantry officer. His assignments include President of the Marine Corps University. His last assignment was Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command.
Brigadier General Jerry McAbee, (USMC, ret.) was a career artillery officer. His assignments include Chief of Staff, Marine Corps Combat Development Command. His last assignment was Deputy Commander, United States Marine Corps Force, Central Command.
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USMC Vision 2035
A Better Way Forward for the U. S. Marine Corps
https://mega.nz/file/crxlUJoC#G-Wh2nlQllKnIXUuCvCdolmQEWg_fk4_Jv6KQuRe3us
Regarding the elimination of Tanks in the USMC, a recent You Tube titled “WARPIGS:Block to Block in Fallujah” highlights the inadequacy of LAVs in MOUT, current IDF Battles highlight the efficacy and necessity for Tanks w Combined Arms in Urban Warfare in an environment rich w drones, etc etc.. One possibility to be explored could be the utility of the US ARMY M10 Booker Combat Vehicle.
It has been said repeatedly here that the Marine Corps is not in mandated compliance of congressional statute. Either you are or you are not. Either you follow the process and lawful orders or you don’t. We don’t get to pick and choose that lawful order which we agree with and the ones that we find disagreeable. General Eric Smith has chosen to ignore statute. The incoming SecDef and his appointed SecNav no doubt will review the CMC’s performance and the Marine Corps future, and if necessary, one could hypothesize, that some corrective actions will be taken. It’s currently moot, as change of legal authority is weeks away.
As to the armor necessary for the next and ongoing fights, we know one thing a big gun that can shoot straight and bust up fortified structures is incredibly important. Hue’ and Fallujah stand out, but there are thousands of actions in the past 100 years where tanks helped the infantry carry the day. The discussion of 105mm v 120mm is insightful, and one that ought be happening every day either in the puzzle palace or at Quantico. It was astounding to hear the current CMC, say at a talk at the Brookings Institute last summer, that the Abrams main gun only had range to 4000 meters and therefore was obsolete in todays “stand off” battle spaces. His assumptions apparently are the Marine Corps would never fight in a close quarters environment again. (Hmmm brushfire number XXX, like Somalia where tanks could have been pivotal?) Part of General Smith’s arrogance is the belief that he can tell DOD and therefore the duly elected congress which fights the Marine Corps will show up for and fight. With that mentality he makes the entire Marine Corps obsolete, America may not need a Marine Corps but wants one, with General Smiths approach America may well say, we the people don’t want one. That would be tragic, as we hold the American public’s imagination wild with who we are and what we do and have done for going on 250 years.
We have seen politics seep into the active duty military over the last many years, like some sort of insidious biochemical gas, it has infected the war fighting mentality of all the services and even into the Marine Corps. Nobody asked the writer, but news flash, it is none of our business, policy and politics are for the civilian politicians, regardless of whom becomes the POTUS, one dutifully renders appropriate acknowledgment says “Aye Aye, sir or ‘mam” takes one step to the rear and executes a snappy about face and carries out the orders of day. Review of our 11 General Orders is instructive in the matter, particularly orders 5 and 6. Take them as they are or extrapolate to further the point.
Everyone here at CP from the most senior on down the chain of command (loosely implemented!) want a revitalized Marine Corps MAGTF, it does no good for political discussion to cloud the mission. What’s the mission? Fix it! By any means necessary fix it! Use every ounce of strength and charm and all manner of brain power and wiles, connections, friendships, authority and power to “fix it.” In the 80’s we wanted our MTV, here and now we want our MAGTF back.