Compass Points - Sample Letter
Moving the Marine Corps forward.
Compass Points - Sample Letter
Moving the Marine Corps forward.
November 30, 2023
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While the Marine Corps is the most traditional of the US military services, it is also the most innovative. The Marine Corps is always improving, upgrading, and enhancing its capabilities. The Marine Corps has the opportunity now to embark on a particularly fruitful period of renewal. For the Marine Corps to renew itself today will require input and action from across the broad Marine community, from the Department of the Navy, from the Department of Defense, and from Congress.
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Compass Points readers who want to reach out to Congress directly, sometimes wonder what to say. The 31st Commandant of the Marine Corps General Charles Krulak has granted permission for Compass Points to post in full his recent letter to Senator Cotton. Obviously, every letter will be different, but note how General Krulak's letter is professional, positive, and encouraging. It will take tremendous leadership from both Marines on active duty and from Marines no longer on active duty to help keep the Marine Corps strong today and stronger tomorrow.
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Compass Points thanks General Krulak for his decades of service to Corps and Country and thanks all those Marines helping to keep the Marine Corps moving forward.
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Dear Senator Cotton,
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I read your recent discussion with Andy Kessler as reported in the Wall Street Journal (November 19, 2023) with great interest, as did many former, retired, and active-duty Marines. I received numerous favorable comments on your accurate description of warfare, as it exists as opposed to the well-defined, well ordered, and predictable way some in the defense community believe it to be.
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As you correctly noted, this wholly inaccurate view leads to flawed concepts, defective doctrine, and poor procurement decisions. We have seen these failings in the Marine Corps during the past four years, as leaders abandoned a maneuver warfare philosophy and divested nearly all the combined arms capabilities—armor, cannon artillery, breaching and bridging equipment, and attack helicopters—needed to fight a close battle. These divestments were made in the flawed assumption that savings could be used to fund expensive (and in many cases experimental) future long-range missiles and associated equipment.
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Your comment, “It always gets down to men under arms in the mud on the ground killing their enemies until their enemies submit to their will” warmed the hearts of those in a Corps where every Marine is a rifleman. Information and cyber are important new capabilities, but as one observer said recently, “No military ever cybered a river crossing.” Neither will any military in the near term be able to fire a time-on-target mission or final protective fires with loitering munitions. Without the full range and depth of supporting arms, we leave our infantry vulnerable, at great risk of losing their lives and limbs and failing to accomplish the mission. This is a moral sin, for which the families of service members will hold all those in national leadership positions responsible.
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I urge you to continue to educate those members of Congress who have never experienced ground combat on the realities of war. Our political leaders and elected representatives must be equipped to make the right decisions for maintaining a lethal, resilient, and well supported Marine Corps and Army. The nation needs Marines and Soldiers ready “to locate, close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or repel the enemy assault by fire and close combat.” We can never do too much to support these men and women. We can do too little.
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Again, I thank you for your words of wisdom. They are sorely needed.
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Respectfully,
General Charles C. Krulak
31st Commandant of the Marine Corps
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This letter is a brilliant summation of the problem statement, which must be hammered with everyone who will listen. The Nature of War is violence, friction, and uncertainty. These are immutable. Panacea solutions that seek to minimize violence (precision weapons), or eliminate uncertainty and friction (net-centric warfare and persistent ISR), are the hallmarks of today's procurement efforts. A Corps, and its Marines, must be trained and equipped to operate flexibly within the Nature of War. A Marine Corps enamored with concepts that seek to defeat the Nature of War is on a fool's errand.
Been in too many firefights to have any use for those dilettantes who think they know what war is all about—real war not their fantasies. Far too many of them—in uniform and civilian clothes—in the Pentagon. I would give a fortunate to have a few of these “geniuses” on a modern battlefield for 30 minutes to see how well their bright ideas work out. Should knock some common sense into their ivory tower heads! Let the grunts have all the technology they want but don’t tell them it's going to work magic and make their lives easy. Nope, they will still spend a lot of time down in the dirt dodging incoming and trying like hell to gain fire superiority. Thanks to General Krulak for recognizing Senator Cotton.