Compass Points - Marine Brain Power
Marine Corps updates reading list
Compass Points - Marine Brain Power
Marine Corps updates reading list
December 30, 2025
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A Marine must not take an unloaded weapon into combat. In a similar way, Marines headed to war must make sure their mental weapon is also full loaded. Continuous professional reading helps Marines prepare for any mission.
The Marine Corps has issued ALMAR 24/25, an update of the Commandant’s Reading List.
Marines have always read and studied their profession, but the first Commandant’s Reading List was created in 1989 by the first President of the Marine Corps University, LtGen P.K. Van Riper.
In May of 2024 Compass Points sat down with General Van Riper to get his views on the prior update to the reading list. His view of the prior update was not entirely positive.
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PKVR:
The short answer is if I had sent the current Marine reading list to General Gray, he would have immediately relieved me of my duties, told me to submit my retirement papers, pack my trash and go home. The current list is a professional embarrassment to the Marine Corps.
That may sound harsh, but here is why. As I noted at the outset of the interview, General Gray directed that first list focus on warfighting. He wanted the books on that list to aid in developing the knowledge and skills needed to lead and fight in the heat of combat. The current list does not accomplish that goal. It is not a serious list.
-- P.K. Van Riper, Compass Points Interview - May 31, 2024
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Now that the Marine Corps has issued a new update to the reading list, Compass Points asked General Van Riper for his views on the most recent update. Is the new reading list for Marines any better than the prior update? Compass Points salutes General Van Riper for taking time to share his views on the importance of professional reading for every Marine.
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Interview with LtGen P.K. Van Riper, USMC (ret)
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CP: General, we interviewed you on 31 May 2024 about the Commandant’s Professional Reading List update and you expressed deep concerns about that list. General Eric Smith issued an updated reading list on 8 December 2025; have you had a chance to study it?
PKVR:
Yes, I have examined it in some detail.
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CP: What are your thoughts about the books on the list?
PKVR:
Let me offer a few positive comments at the outset. The creators of this updated list removed some of the more egregious titles from the previous list. They also included some relatively new and important books such as Corps Competency: III Marine Amphibious Force Headquarters in Vietnam, A New Conception of War: John Boyd, the U.S. Marines, and Maneuver Warfare, The Arms of the Future: Technology and Close Combat in the 21st Century, and The New Makers of Modern Strategy: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age.
Also, the recognition of the importance of podcasts and periodicals is welcomed as is the ability to access them at:
https://grc-usmcu.libguides.com/cmc-reading-list
Fundamentally, however, I am extremely disappointed that all the lessons incorporated into General Gray’s initial reading list have been lost or ignored.
• The current list of 73 publications (my count) offers no guidance to the individual Marine as to what he or she could most profitably read at a particular rank; it simply says read five books each year from that large list. Younger Marines need more guidance than this.
• The list pairs no books with enlisted Marines and officers at similar points in their careers so they read them at the same time. This lessens the likelihood that noncommissioned officers and officers will engage in a profitable discourse about a book or two that centers on the experiences of the rank in which they are serving.
• The five category headings seem to mean little. The contents are a mixture of books with many having no relation to the title of the category. Let me share several examples. Under Strategy is Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. I have a copy of that book in my library, but it is not with my books on strategy for it is a 1987 critique of American culture and higher education. Is it an important book? Yes. Do the problems it details—moral or value relativism— still exist 38 years later? I believe they are still with us, but try as I might, I see no direct or even indirect relevance to military strategy. However, it would be useful if we were discussing leadership, especially a warrior ethos.
• Another example of mistaken categorization: The tactical classic, The Defense of Duffer’s Drift, which tells the story of a newly commissioned British lieutenant ordered to defend a river crossing, is NOT a book on strategy. Why was it put in the strategy category? Do Marine educators no longer know the difference between tactics and strategy? There are numerous other examples of this lack of rationality in the categorization of the books. Such a mis-positioning of so many books causes me to wonder, did those involved in creating this list actually know the contents of each book? Were they familiar with common military terms? Most importantly, why did they limit themselves to just five categories?
• I found the list particularly weak on important books that are being discussed today by those professionals who keep up with professional publications. As examples: Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy by Colin Gray (a book General Mattis required every officer in one of his major commands to read), The Marine’s Fight for Survival: War, Politics, and Institutional Crisis, 1945-1952 by Rod Andrew, JR., The Human Face of War by Jim Storr, Clausewitz and Contemporary War by Antulio Echevarria, and Euclid’s Army: Preparing Land Forces for Warfare Today by William Owens.
• In addition, I found the list weak on tactics and operational art and several titles hardly worthy of inclusion in a professional reading list whose purpose—at least it used to be—is to school Marines in the essentials of warfighting. Examples are: Soft-wired: How the New Science of Brain Plasticity Can Change Your Life, Five Generations at Work: How We win Together, and Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Books like these take space from a multitude of truly great professional books that are missing.
• The Marines I served with for 41 years saw no need to improve their wafighting ability with self-help books! When they needed help with some problem, they went to see the Gunny or the Captain. None I knew were trying to soft-wire their brains or were in pursuit of less. To claim these are important books on warfighting is nonsense!
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CP: Yours is certainly a critical review of the reading list. How would you summarize your evaluation?
PKVR:
Two words sum up my thoughts on the 39th Commandant’s Professional Reading List; travesty and mockery. The updated list is a travesty and a mockery of a serious list. It is an embarrassment to our Corps. There is little evidence that those responsible for developing the list are familiar with important professional literature or that they understand what type books should constitute a professional military reading list. Adding to the insult, they display an ignorance of defense related terms. Furthermore, as I noted earlier, they violated all the cautions pertinent to reading lists, which I described in my previous interview last year.
Professional reading is vital. Marines deserve more from those at the Marine Corps University who participated in developing this list. Furthermore, that this list passed muster at both Training and Education Command, and at Headquarters Marine Corps is incredible. In my view, only new leadership at Marine Corps University, Training and Education Command, and at in the Commandant’s office will rectify this professional shortcoming and the many other professional misadventures we have seen over the past six years with Force Design 2030 and Talent Management 2030.
The active-duty Marines I talk with are as professional as any who have served in the past. They are motivated to excel and they desire to improve their professional knowledge. Because their senior leaders have been unable to provide a serious professional reading list, members of Chowder Society II will take on that task. It will require several months of effort, but readers of Compass Points will have that list before summer.
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CP: Marines on active duty and those formerly on active duty will look forward to the Chowder II reading list. How would you sum up the importance of professional reading for Marines?
PKVR:
Allow me to say again what I have said previously. There is no technology that can substitute for deep, continuous, self-study. The profession of arms is unlike anything else. All Marines and particularly Marines who aspire to be leaders of Marines, must grow themselves in every way. They must grow their physical strength, their spiritual strength, and their mental strength. Engaging with the classic books on war and warfighting is like engaging in a live fire exercise with a well-armed adversary. Take hold of one of the great books on warfighting. Go page by page. Wrestle with the author, underline key ideas, stop and think, argue, question, and learn. Reading deeply is like good PT, exhausting, worthwhile, and fun.
The current Marine reading program is not where it should be. It needs a drastic overhaul and a new focus on war and warfighting. But no matter how much needs to be done to restore the Marine reading program today, Marines should remember that ultimately professional education is the responsibility of every Marine and every leader of Marines. Take time to read and study. Do not approach it as a chore. Approach it as a way to grow your mental muscles. The right kind of reading can draw out the best in a Marine, so that every Marine can give more to Country and Corps.
I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1956. Decades and wars have rolled by. I have studied war, experienced war, and taught war. I am still studying, still learning, and still growing today. Why bother after all these years? Because working to get better day by day is what Marines do. Grab a book and get busy.
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Marines.mil
UPDATE TO THE COMMANDANT’S PROFESSIONAL READING LIST FOR FISCAL YEAR 26
Date Signed: 12/8/2025 | ALMARS Number: 024/25
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Marine Corps University
Commandant of the Marine Corps
Professional Reading Program - 2026
https://grc-usmcu.libguides.com/cmc-reading-list/home
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Compass Points – Restore Reading
An interview about professional reading
May 31, 2024
marinecorpscompasspoints.substack.com/p/compass-points-restore-reading
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Two thing bother me about the list. If self help books are on the USMC reading list, then the USMC leadership isn't getting the message about warfighting being the focus of the Department of War. The second more egregious concern (which probably would have ameliorated the first) is that the current Marine Corps is too arrogant to enlist wiser and more experienced folks like Gen VanRiper in the process of developing that list. It seems to me that in addition to divesting itself of combined arms capabilities, the current leadership has divested itself of the "supporting arms" of professors "emeritus" such as Generals VanRiper and Mattis.
I remember when MGen Mattis told us (and I paraphrase) that the most important terrain we'd ever deal with was the eight inches between our ears. Enough said....