Compass Points - Led Astray by Falsehoods?
Working Toward a Stronger Marine Corps
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Compass Points has received an email from an active duty Marine officer working in the G-3. The work of the G-3 is important and endless and Compass Points appreciates the author taking time to enter the discussion that surrounds Force Design 2030.
Compass Points will not identify the officer, though he identified himself, but will refer to him simply as G-3 Officer.
G-3 Officer had three objections and a conclusion to the article featured in the Compass Points post of 27 March: Compass Points - Trust But Verify.
1. "It is a falsehood that FD2030 is not utilizing the combat development process."
2. "It is a falsehood that there are not concepts driving combat development..."
3. "It is a falsehood that the Marine Corps is not postured for Crisis Response and supporting global Combatant Command requirements."
G-3 Officer's conclusion: "It is not permissible or professional to propagate falsehoods."
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There have been more than 100 published articles addressing these issues and nearly 200 Compass Points posts. There is a mandated Congressional report expected from the Commandant on April 1, 2023, due to the seriousness of the concerns about Force Design 2030.
In addition, Compass Points suggests the G-3 Officer review virtually any Compass Points post to get a broader perspective on Force Design 2030. Particularly useful might be two point – counterpoint posts, “Devil Dog Dialog” of Jan 14 and “New Concepts Fail the Test” of Jan 21 (pasted below in full).
A brief reply to G-3 Officer’s so-called “falsehoods:”
1. The question is not whether Combat Development & Integration is working on Force Design 2030 today – we hope they are. The question is did Force Design originally go through the full combat development process before it was put in place and before divestments began? The answer is it did not go through the full combat development process.
2. True, there are concepts behind Force Design 2030 including Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations and Training & Education 2030 – both serve to multiply the worst parts of Force Design 2030.
3. While the Marine Corps can still assert it is a crisis response force or that it is still “postured” for crisis response, Force Design 2030 by itself has created a crisis in Marine Corps capabilities, beginning with a crisis in infantry battalions, assault breaching and bridging, aviation, snipers, artillery, armor, and more and added to associated crises in Amphibious Lift and the Maritime Preposition Force.
Once again Compass Points thanks G-3 Officer for his Marine Corps service, including his email responding to the "Trust but Verify" article. As to his "falsehoods" conclusion -- as gently as possible -- Compass Points asks the G-3 Officer to consider it is not those with concerns about FD 2030 who have been led astray by falsehoods, it is FD 2030 proponents.
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The National Interest (nationalinterest.org) 03/26/2023
Marine Generals: ‘Trust But Verify’ Force Design 2030
Congress cannot assume every prospective military innovation and transformation is necessarily good for the national defense simply because it offers seductive budgetary solutions and illusions of future “silver bullet” technologies.
by Jerry McAbee and Mike Hayes
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Brigadier General Jerry McAbee (USMC, Ret) is a career artillery officer who served thirty-six years on active duty.
Brigadier General Mike Hayes (USMC, Ret.) is a career artillery officer who served thirty-three years on active duty.
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Compass Points – New Concepts Fail the Test
Reply to the Warfighting Laboratory
Jan 21, 2023
During the month of January 2023, the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory issued an open letter entitled, “When New Concepts and Capabilities Meet the Test of Major War.” The letter attempts to bolster support for FD 2030 and related concepts. BGen McAbee replies one by one to each of the article’s ten assertions. Compass Points congratulates BGen McAbee for his strong reply. In the end, neither the MCWL letter nor the concepts it advocates meet the test of major war -- or even the test of BGen McAbee.
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MCWL says: “The circumstances of 1942-43 remind us that the FMF must be responsive to the changing strategic context.” [For the text of the letter in full, see link below]
JCM says: Yes, but… Comparing the current geopolitical situation in the western Pacific with that from 1940s is a poor analogy by MCWL and has led the Marine Corps down the wrong path of transformation. Modern China seeks to beat us at our own game in the diplomatic and economic spheres and will likely avoid direct military conflict (with the possible exception of Taiwan unification). Unlike Japan 80 years ago, China is foremost an economic superpower with growing capabilities to project power regionally, but not globally. Its grand strategy is based upon the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 to invest in nearly 150 countries and international organizations.
In World War II, Japan was run by a military junta that aimed to destroy U.S. military power in the Pacific, starting with the attack on Pearl Harbor. China is ruled by the CCP that is attempting to supplant U.S. influence not through direct war, but by enticing global “have nots” into its orbit. Ironically, the FD 2030 Marine Corps is organized for a conflict unlikely to occur and has thereby weakened the ability of the United States to counter China globally through expeditionary forces.
Marine Corps operations in 1942-43 were purely offensive in nature. Marines kept the Japanese off balance by striking when and where least expected. The Marine Corps being designed today is purely defensive in nature. A fitting analogy for today’s Stand-in Forces is not Guadalcanal, Bougainville, or Cape Gloucester; it’s Wake Island. The Marine Defense Battalion on Wake Island, was isolated, surrounded, and captured.
Also, the reference to “FMF” is a look backward. The FMF is a subordinate U.S. Navy type command under the Fleet Commander. Simply stated, Marines in the FMF work for the Navy. The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 gave the Marine Corps service equivalency as a separate component under Joint Force Commander (JFC) control. Subordinating Marine Corps Forces to FMF status gives up the Marine Component’s seat at the table and violates the spirit and intent of Goldwater-Nichols by limiting Marine Corps contributions to the joint force.
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MCWL says: “Evolving geopolitical conditions and technological advances dictate that our Force Design choices account for a broad range of threats and challenges.”
JCM says: What? Force Design 2030 (FD 2030), Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO), and Stand-in Forces (SIF) focus the Marine Corps on a narrow mission (attacking Chinese warships) in a specific geographic location (Western Pacific). Marine Corps capabilities to respond to more likely global threats have been gutted under the unwise and dangerous “divest to invest” approach.
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MCL says: “We must balance our ability to address the most concerning near term ones [threats and challenges] with the imperative to be ready to respond in any clime and place.”
JCM says: Sounds good but… The fundamental tenet of FD 2030 is that maneuver is no longer possible in the age of precision weapons. The Marine Corps has divested force structure and capabilities needed to fight and win today across the spectrum of conflict in the empty hope of someday acquiring long-range precision weapons to strike Chinese warships. As already noted, the most likely use of military force by China is to gain control of Taiwan. EABO and SIF are unlikely to deter China from military action against Taiwan as noted from a recent series of wargames. As the U.S. obsession with China’s actions in the western Pacific dominates our thinking and actions, China continues to aggressively engage diplomatically, informationally, and economically in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America. The Marine responsibility for ‘every clime and place’ is being replaced by ‘only islands in the southwest Pacific.’
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MCWL says: “The MCWL remains committed to conceiving of and contributing to the development and realization the most lethal, persistent, and resilient FMF possible.”
JCM says: No matter what MCWL may be committed to, the Marine Corps is significantly less lethal, persistent, and resilient today than 3 years ago. Tanks, assault breaching, and bridging have been eliminated. Cannon artillery, assault amphibious vehicles, helicopter and strike/fighter aircraft, and combat service support have been emasculated by unwise divestments. Nothing has been added back to replace these needed capabilities. Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM-Block IV and V) will not make up for losses needed to conduct combined arms, close and rear battle, and sustained expeditionary operations.
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MCWL says: “Driven by national and defense guidance and informed by statutory functions and composition, our [MCWL] activities are designed to ensure the FMF wields modern and relevant capabilities across a broad range of military operations.”
JCM says: Whoa Nellie! FD2030 comes dangerously close to violating U.S. Law and congressional intent. The Marine Corps is no longer a force of combined arms as mandated in Title X, USC. The Marine Corps is no longer “most ready when the Nation is least ready” nor the Nation’s” force-in-readiness” as envisioned in congressional intent. The fielding of NSM and TLAM 7-10 years from now will not compensate for capabilities lost. The argument that the Marine Corps is responding to the designation of China as the “pacing threat” ignores that other threats are also identified in national security documents.
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MCWL says: “Our present focus centers on the likely missions and necessary composition of Stand-in Forces, and the operational concepts and required capabilities to execute Reconnaissance/Counter-reconnaissance missions, and Expeditionary Advance Base Operations. While these are clearly applicable in the Pacific, they are designed to be employable in contested area across the globe.”
JCM says: To the contrary, EABO and SIF are narrowly tailored to support a naval campaign in the Western Pacific. They are ill-suited to support other crises and contingences across the spectrum of conflict, inside or outside the Indo-Pacific Regions. At best, the capabilities envisioned are duplicative of existing, and arguably more effective, capabilities already fielded in sufficient quantities by other services. What other geographical combatant commanders have requested the EABO and SIF capabilities?
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MCWL says: “We must develop capabilities and capacities which will increase the likelihood of success in joint and naval operations during major war. Such a conflict will be a combined arms one…”
JCM says: Sounds good, but where’s the beef? FD2030, EABO, and SIF are principally focused on subordinating Marines to U.S. Navy command, not on standing up robust MAGTFs for employment under Commandant Commanders or Joint Force Commanders/Functional Commanders. Marine Corps forces are being tailored for integrated operations with the Navy Fleet Commander, not for combined arms operations with the joint commander.
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MCWL says: “Finally, the fundamentals of maneuver warfare remain at the center of our force Design effort… the means to translate success in the defense into effective offensive operations will be sustained and improved.
JCM says: Simply not true. FD2030 undermines any offensive maneuver warfare approach by mandating the specifics of employment and deployment in the event of a war with China. Its myopic focus on precision long-range fires at the expense of maneuver forces (infantry, armor, cannon artillery, ground mobility, assault support aviation, light attack aviation strike/fighter aircraft, and combat support capabilities) has robbed the Marine Corps of its offensive orientation and capabilities for operational maneuver. FD2030 is defensive in nature, it is the antithesis of warfare as envisioned in MCDP 1, Warfighting, by focusing on a battlefield calculus that defines success in terms of ship sunk in a 21st Century version of the Vietnam body count.
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MCWL says: “A centerpiece of this effort is our ongoing development of a 21st century amphibious operations concept in close cooperation with the Navy.”
JCM says: Empty words. FD2030, EABO, and SIF all are built on the belief that amphibious operations are no longer possible. The emphasis on the Light Amphibious Warship (essentially a lightly armed commercial fishing vessel) coupled with the reduced required requirement for 31 traditional amphibious ships and the emasculation of the Maritime Prepositioning Force effectively preclude future amphibious operations, other than the routine deployments of less capable Marine Expeditionary Units (MEU). In choosing to downgrade MEU and MPF capabilities, Marine Corps leadership fails to recognize the value these capabilities provide to combatant commanders for their regional campaign plans. Fewer amphibious and MPF ships translate into less forward presence and less influence in the face of aggressive Chinese outreach across the world. This loss of influence creates instability and increases the risk of conflict.
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MCWL says: “We are confident that …the Marine Corps of the mid-21st century will remain relevant, ready, and effective across the range of conflict.”
JCM says: If only that were true. The Marine Corps being designed now is increasingly less relevant to regional combatant commanders, given the loss of amphibious and MPS shipping, combined arms capabilities, and sustainment. These same limitations make it less ready for global crises and contingencies, less effective/capable across the spectrum of conflict, and incapable of responding in the Indo-Pacific AOR outside of the opening phase of a conflict with China along the First Island Chain. The ugly truth is the Marine Corps is no longer the Nation’s premier 9-1-1 force.
The belief that full scale war with China is inevitable has been used as the rationale for the Marine Corps force described in FD2030, EABO and SIF. This is a critical mistake that has serious implications for the Marine Corps and U.S. National Security. The most likely competition will be crises and conflicts of many sorts instigated by China and her allies around the globe. Both nations appear to recognize that direct military conflict is not in the interest of either country. Taiwan, of course, is always a separate case.
America continues to need a reliable 911 force to immediately respond to crises and conflicts around the globe. If not reversed, the Marine Corps' radical transformation from a mobile, middleweight, expeditionary, combined arms, global response force supporting all combatant commanders, into a smaller, specialized missile force sitting and waiting along the island chain, will come to be seen as pure folly.
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Compass Points - Led Astray by Falsehoods?
The perspective of JCM is right on in every case. Of particular note is the reference to diplomacy and economics. Additionally, there is a focused effort in psyop given the CCP influence within the U.S media, large-cap entities, entertainment and universities. The CCP will continue to campaign to discover, dominate and direct surrogates in order to garner decisive power in international trade. Given the current exports in consumer goods and raw material, will the CCP soon be able to specify the currency in which trade is conducted? How will alliances with Russia, Iran, etc. in the BRICS club work to dominate trade and currency?
The CCP will not enter direct military conflict with any adversary as they will employ surrogate dictatorships under their control to block sea lanes, harbor terrorists and orchestrate international trade. Remember when Ruhollah Khomeini expressed the desire to restrict all U.S. shipping in the Red Sea. Then he was reminded of the probability of a Marine Amphibious Brigade visit to Bandar Abbas. Game over. There is the requirement for expeditionary forces and supporting sealift.
The operational word in the acronym “BRI” is initiative. When you have the initiative, you are inside the adversary’s decision cycle. MCWL’s reference to “the fundamentals of maneuver warfare” brings to mind the question: In what manner or form? The sort of maneuver warfare in Vietnam in April 1975? The sort of maneuver warfare in Afghanistan in August 2021? It appears that “the fundamentals of maneuver warfare” MCWL seeks to employ are to set up defensive positions inviting the enemy to attack and then “maneuver” off. Even Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus and Heinz Guderian had a better grasp of “fundamentals” than that.
Thank you to the G3O for his views and to Compass Points for sharing the discussion here. I empathize with his position; he is in a day to day operational and development knife fight at a relatively higher level. For him orders, policies, and procedures are the rule of the day. FD2030 is the official policy of the USMC and has been implemented. By default, I can see why he would take his position because on a daily basis, in the context of his job, he is probably participating in process development, combat development exercises, and looking for solutions to emerging crisis related tasking / supporting Combatant Command requirements. To him, the operation and exercise planning, preparation, and execution looks like the foundational concept of FD 2030 applied in a learning organization. As always, Marines doing the best with what they have. On an individual level, maybe he really believes in FD 2030 top to bottom, maybe it's the current policy of the USMC and therefore seen as valid, maybe it's just simpler to support it and move on with getting stuff done.
For me, I am looking at a bigger picture of current and future capability set and how to manage the tool set that would best position current and future G3O's. As an example, I guarantee the current Amphib issue spoken of many times here and elsewhere is not helping him optimally posture for Crisis Response and support Global Combatant Command requirements. I would love to be factually proven to be wrong (but please, no shallow articles about UAS, using modern sensors to employ fires, or war-game references without any context). A bit long winded, but I am glad for G3O willingness to challenge our take...it's part of the development process.