This is typical of people who lack historical Knowledge and the fundamentals of what the modern Marine Corps ought to be.
“…In reply, the island missile proponents have begun to criticize the MAGTF.” So, when the intellect is devoid of concrete reasons why their “idea for FD” is better than the MAGTF, they resort to the tried and true concept of isolating what you hate, attack it and eliminate it…“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.”
This is exactly what the proponents of FD are intent on doing. Attacking “graybeards” and the MAGTF is the same tenant and ideology we guarded and fought against in the past and here it is on full display by the current crop of cadres who are too afraid to engage highly experienced, accomplished and tactful warriors…the question is, why are they fearful to have a robust debate and allow others in uniform to learn for themselves the value of the MAGTF vs SIF.
My advice to our active duty comrades, rebuilt the Marine Corps as it used to be pre 2019. AND, add other lethality to meet the pacing threat in the Pacific. If rebuilding is about money, hell, let’s join forces and pressure Congress to fund the Corps properly and have them force the navy in bolstering its Amphibs to meet the Corps needs.
There is one topic the MAGTF Snapshot missed, that of the successful role of deterrence the deployed MAGTF played from the mid 80s thru the 90s. Although hard to measure it's easy enough to look at today's world and how we are always reacting instead of shaping events as we had in the past. Our Nation's leadership continues to react to world events as if a strong military deterrence force still exists. As an example look at US policy & actions post Oct 7th ME in an attempt to keep Iran & its proxies in line and in the Pacific restraining China's expansionist objectives. It's obvious with the failures to stop the Houtis from threatening maritime shipping and China from threatening and taking Filipino shoals that our ability to deter our adversaries has greatly diminished.
In the comments to yesterday’s CP post, we saw a new tactic to attack those who are not aboard the FD hype train - - denigrate the Marine Corps for 70 years of mostly fabricated past failures and blame those who served during this period for the shortcomings. Today’s post should disabuse anyone of the notion that the Marine Corps was hidebound and irrelevant before Force Design.
For those who want more proof: Earlier this month after Russian and Chinese military jets patrolled too close to the western Aleutian Islands, the Department of Defense tapped the Army to send a show of force to the region. Included in the Army force that deployed to Shemya Island was a MLRS rocket system from one of the Army MDTFs. Where were the Marines? For more details, please refer to the article at the link: https://mustreadalaska.com/military-makes-show-of-force-on-shemya-island/
No, most of those ops in the early 1990s were only possible due to Cold War postures (600-ship fleet) and Persian Gulf War troop surges. See my full comment in this thread and ask if we want those wars back again.
Saw that and asked my self the same question. As we rally our support against island defense missions, their taking the Shemya deployment might be better for us in the long run.
As an aside: we subjected Marines to that horrible weather long enough-don’t have to practice being miserable!
As I read this list of accomplishments, I can’t help but to have the sting of salt air of compressed living compartments sting my nostrils (no small feat considering Nevada is far from the sea). Can’t help but think “how many our senators and representatives have made a 3 or 4 day foray out with an ARG?” Perhaps if more of those enlightened folks saw, heard and felt the rigors of seaborne life they might look upon requests from the services from a more serious, informed standpoint. Now they view the sea services as grey boats lurching in the sea, but a trip on one might show them how important those ARG’s are to national defense and our foreign relations.
This piece about Marine deployments in the early 1990s shouts: Gimme back my Cold War, gimme back my unlimited deficit spending, gimme back my surged flotillas for the 1990-91 Gulf War and aftermath, and gimme back my 500,000 troops in Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait, and in transit.
You see, that was the backdrop that made most of these collateral responses possible. Cold War spending was running on inertia. (The Cold War officially ended Sept 1991, but half-built ships get finished and Congress had a spending habit.) Cold War amphibs - part of the 600-ship fleet - had not yet aged out. The Mideast/Persian Gulf became America’s 51st State. Marine units (including reservists) were surging into the AOR for six months of buildup after Iraq invaded Kuwait, then rotating in and out of the AOR following Iraq’s surrender. Naval transits brought them conveniently close to other contingencies (Somalia, Oman, Luzon EQ, Mt. Pinatubo, Sicily). None of those contingencies featured high-tech threats like today’s Houthi-launched ballistic missiles. But make no mistake, most of those operations would NOT have occurred without the combined Gulf War and Cold War regimes in existence.
This piece almost fooled us into thinking that 51st State never existed on the other side of the globe. I was almost fooled into thinking we didn’t have half a million troops already in the CENTCOM area, thousands more en route daily. For a moment there I forgot all about our naval ships maxing out their serviceability as they rushed across the three major oceans to support it all. I forgot about all those TacAir planes flying their wings off, then a date with the Boneyard. Almost fooled.
So the solution is to get nostalgic about doubling down on the national debt, resuming Cold War spending, resuming Forever War spending and resuming the fantasy of becoming the World’s police force? No, that is so over.
Periodic MEU deployments will continue at reduced frequency. LMRs out of Okinawa and Guam will work the SE Asian theater, forming new alliances, embedding ashore with allies where China must then ponder starting a war against TWO nations, and without massive amphib ships thirsting for drydocks every eight months and liberty ports every two weeks. Cold War is over, Forever Wars are over, and unlimited budgets are over.
This is typical of people who lack historical Knowledge and the fundamentals of what the modern Marine Corps ought to be.
“…In reply, the island missile proponents have begun to criticize the MAGTF.” So, when the intellect is devoid of concrete reasons why their “idea for FD” is better than the MAGTF, they resort to the tried and true concept of isolating what you hate, attack it and eliminate it…“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.”
This is exactly what the proponents of FD are intent on doing. Attacking “graybeards” and the MAGTF is the same tenant and ideology we guarded and fought against in the past and here it is on full display by the current crop of cadres who are too afraid to engage highly experienced, accomplished and tactful warriors…the question is, why are they fearful to have a robust debate and allow others in uniform to learn for themselves the value of the MAGTF vs SIF.
My advice to our active duty comrades, rebuilt the Marine Corps as it used to be pre 2019. AND, add other lethality to meet the pacing threat in the Pacific. If rebuilding is about money, hell, let’s join forces and pressure Congress to fund the Corps properly and have them force the navy in bolstering its Amphibs to meet the Corps needs.
There is one topic the MAGTF Snapshot missed, that of the successful role of deterrence the deployed MAGTF played from the mid 80s thru the 90s. Although hard to measure it's easy enough to look at today's world and how we are always reacting instead of shaping events as we had in the past. Our Nation's leadership continues to react to world events as if a strong military deterrence force still exists. As an example look at US policy & actions post Oct 7th ME in an attempt to keep Iran & its proxies in line and in the Pacific restraining China's expansionist objectives. It's obvious with the failures to stop the Houtis from threatening maritime shipping and China from threatening and taking Filipino shoals that our ability to deter our adversaries has greatly diminished.
In the comments to yesterday’s CP post, we saw a new tactic to attack those who are not aboard the FD hype train - - denigrate the Marine Corps for 70 years of mostly fabricated past failures and blame those who served during this period for the shortcomings. Today’s post should disabuse anyone of the notion that the Marine Corps was hidebound and irrelevant before Force Design.
While certainly not perfect, the Corps has always been relevant, which is sadly more than can be said for the Corps today. A case in point: When INDOPACOM recently needed a missile force to remain in the Philippines as a warning to China, the command turned to the Army’s MDTF vice the Marine Corp’s SIF. For details please refer to the article at the link: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3279516/us-typhon-missile-system-philippines-has-china-facing-more-tense-security-situation?module=top_story&pgtype=section
For those who want more proof: Earlier this month after Russian and Chinese military jets patrolled too close to the western Aleutian Islands, the Department of Defense tapped the Army to send a show of force to the region. Included in the Army force that deployed to Shemya Island was a MLRS rocket system from one of the Army MDTFs. Where were the Marines? For more details, please refer to the article at the link: https://mustreadalaska.com/military-makes-show-of-force-on-shemya-island/
No, most of those ops in the early 1990s were only possible due to Cold War postures (600-ship fleet) and Persian Gulf War troop surges. See my full comment in this thread and ask if we want those wars back again.
Saw that and asked my self the same question. As we rally our support against island defense missions, their taking the Shemya deployment might be better for us in the long run.
As an aside: we subjected Marines to that horrible weather long enough-don’t have to practice being miserable!
As I read this list of accomplishments, I can’t help but to have the sting of salt air of compressed living compartments sting my nostrils (no small feat considering Nevada is far from the sea). Can’t help but think “how many our senators and representatives have made a 3 or 4 day foray out with an ARG?” Perhaps if more of those enlightened folks saw, heard and felt the rigors of seaborne life they might look upon requests from the services from a more serious, informed standpoint. Now they view the sea services as grey boats lurching in the sea, but a trip on one might show them how important those ARG’s are to national defense and our foreign relations.
This piece about Marine deployments in the early 1990s shouts: Gimme back my Cold War, gimme back my unlimited deficit spending, gimme back my surged flotillas for the 1990-91 Gulf War and aftermath, and gimme back my 500,000 troops in Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait, and in transit.
You see, that was the backdrop that made most of these collateral responses possible. Cold War spending was running on inertia. (The Cold War officially ended Sept 1991, but half-built ships get finished and Congress had a spending habit.) Cold War amphibs - part of the 600-ship fleet - had not yet aged out. The Mideast/Persian Gulf became America’s 51st State. Marine units (including reservists) were surging into the AOR for six months of buildup after Iraq invaded Kuwait, then rotating in and out of the AOR following Iraq’s surrender. Naval transits brought them conveniently close to other contingencies (Somalia, Oman, Luzon EQ, Mt. Pinatubo, Sicily). None of those contingencies featured high-tech threats like today’s Houthi-launched ballistic missiles. But make no mistake, most of those operations would NOT have occurred without the combined Gulf War and Cold War regimes in existence.
This piece almost fooled us into thinking that 51st State never existed on the other side of the globe. I was almost fooled into thinking we didn’t have half a million troops already in the CENTCOM area, thousands more en route daily. For a moment there I forgot all about our naval ships maxing out their serviceability as they rushed across the three major oceans to support it all. I forgot about all those TacAir planes flying their wings off, then a date with the Boneyard. Almost fooled.
So the solution is to get nostalgic about doubling down on the national debt, resuming Cold War spending, resuming Forever War spending and resuming the fantasy of becoming the World’s police force? No, that is so over.
Periodic MEU deployments will continue at reduced frequency. LMRs out of Okinawa and Guam will work the SE Asian theater, forming new alliances, embedding ashore with allies where China must then ponder starting a war against TWO nations, and without massive amphib ships thirsting for drydocks every eight months and liberty ports every two weeks. Cold War is over, Forever Wars are over, and unlimited budgets are over.