Compass Points - Keep Strumming

Commandant sings for super

Compass Points - Keep Strumming

Commandant sings for super

June 12, 2025

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Which song is the Commandant singing today?

Different day, different audience, but like a lonely, guitar playing lounge singer, it is never clear which song the Commandant will sing next.

One popular song is the old tune, “Force Design is our priority.”

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Force Design remains our strategic priority and we cannot slow down.

-- Commandant’s Planning Guidance, August 2024

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In an X post today the Commandant offered another Force Design chorus:

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Yesterday and today, I testified alongside the @SECNAV and @USNavy Adm. Kilby before the SASC and HASC, advocating on behalf of our Marines for Amphibious Warships, the acceleration of Force Design, and improvements to the quality of life for our Marines and their families.

-- Commandant of the @USMC @CMC_MarineCorps

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Still singing about the “acceleration of Force Design"? But that is not how the Commandant began his Congressional posture statement. Instead of singing about Marines becoming more and more of a Pacific island node in a joint kill chain, the Commandant instead began singing about something very different: Marine Corps ground combat,

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Everything we do is designed to support the infantryman whose job is to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy.

-- Congressional Posture Statement of General Eric M. Smith Commandant of the Marine Corps

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One Compass Points reader says, wait just a minute, we have heard these tunes too many times before.

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The 39th Commandant recently released his Marine Corps Posture Statement for testimony before the Congressional Defense Committees. The Posture Statement is riddled with assertions that, in my opinion, are misleading at best. Space precludes me from highlighting all those assertions with which I take issue. In the interest of brevity, I’ll simply “bookend” two that jump out at me in the opening and concluding paragraphs.

-- 1. Second sentence in the opening paragraph:

“Everything we do is designed to support the infantryman whose job is to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy.”

I disagree. No armor, no bridging, no in-stride breaching, no school trained snipers in the infantry battalions; insufficient cannon artillery; and lack of resiliency in infantry, aviation, and combat service support. The loss of cannon artillery is particularly damaging. Only cannon artillery has the capability to provide Marine infantry with the close, continuous, accurate, and all-weather fire support needed to fight, win, and survive the close and rear battle. Neither rockets nor missiles are direct support weapons. Today, the Marines have only 7 batteries of cannon artillery in the active force to support three divisions. Simple math tells you that most infantry will go to war without direct support artillery. Force Design has left Marine infantry vulnerable on most battlefields.

For those who think I’m off base, please read MajGen Jim Livingston’s and Colonel Jay Vargas’ 2022 article “The Battle of Dai Do and Marine Corps Force Design 2030,” which was published in the Marine Corps Gazette. One of the sentences in the concluding paragraph reads: “FD 2030 and the FD 2030 Annual Update are leaving Marine infantry vulnerable and dangerously isolated, stripped of the support needed to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy.” Both officers were awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions during the Battle of Dai Do. You can read the full article at:

https://www.mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/Livingston-Vargas-Aug22-WEB-REVISED-for-posting.pdf

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-- 2. First sentence in the Conclusion:

“The Marine Corps will be ready to respond to any crisis or contingency in the future, just as we have in the past.”

I disagree. The Marines are struggling to keep even a single ARG/MEU forward deployed. There are times when no ARG/MEU is forward deployed, anywhere. Today, neither the East Coast nor the West Coast MEUs are deployed for immediate response. Only the 31st MEU is currently forward deployed. The emasculation of combined arms, insufficient amphibious ships, significantly degraded MPS, questionable ability to quickly composite to a Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) size force with balanced combined arms and sustainment, no capability to field a conventional MEF size force as during Desert Storm or Iraqi Freedom, and the inability to deploy and sustain a credible Stand-in Force have essentially rendered the Marine Corps irrelevant. Force Design has crippled Marine Corps capabilities to deploy anywhere, at any time, fight any foe, and win.

I encourage Compass Points readers to go to the link below, read the Posture Statement, and draw their own conclusions.

-- Jerry McAbee

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Which song is the Commandant singing today?

Is it the out of tune ditty about Force Design and Marine sensor and missile units on islands off the coast of China?

Or has the Commandant switched to singing about restoring and enhancing the Marine Corps' global combined arms, 9-1-1, crisis response force?

Which is the Marine Corps' actual, current priority? The Marine Corps is too small a service to have two priorities.

It is time for Marine Corps leadership to stop just repeating lyrics and instead set a clear priority and get the entire Marine Corps back on the same page, singing the same song. What priority does the Nation need from the Marine Corps? Not more island joint sensor nodes, but a constantly forward deployed, global, combined arms, MAGTF that arrive rapidly anywhere in the world to deter, assist, and fight.

Compass Points salutes BGen Jerry McAbee for his insights on the Commandant's posture statement, and all those working to restore and enhance the Marine Corps’ global crisis response MAGTF.

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Marines.mil

Statement of General Eric M. Smith Commandant of the Marine Corps on the posture of the United States Marine Corps before Congressional Defense Committees

https://www.cmc.marines.mil/Speeches-and-Transcripts/Transcripts/Article/4186803/statement-of-general-eric-m-smith-commandant-of-the-marine-corps-on-the-posture/