Compass Points - Soldiers of the Sea
Land the landing force!
Compass Points - Soldiers of the Sea
Land the landing force!
March 27, 2024
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Down through their history, Marines have been called many things -- some not suitable to be repeated -- among them, 'Soldiers of the Sea.' What are soldiers of the sea? After all, soldiers of the Army are called soldiers. Soldiers of the Navy are called sailors. So what makes Soldiers of the Sea different? Marines are different because although they often arrive to a crisis, onboard Navy ships, they are not sailors. Marines are a combined arms, landing force, an expeditionary force, a ground combat force always ready to land on hostile territory and take the fight directly into the enemy heartland and headquarters.
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When Marines arrive on land, the enemy can run, can hide, or it can fight, but none of it will matter. An airplane bombing, a drone attack, artillery shelling, or naval gunfire, no matter how accurate or intense, only lasts for a short period, often only a moment. Enemy forces can dig in, hunker down and outlast any kind of air attack, but once the Marines land, enemy forces have to do more than just wait. The Marines have landed, and destruction is at hand.
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In his article in The Defense Post, "Why We Can’t Beat the Houthis" author and Marine Gary Anderson writes,
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The US Navy has effectively lost control of the Red Sea because the current American way of war involving missiles and drones launched from remote locations has its limitations.
. . . For a smart opponent, hiding missile and drone launchers in civilian areas is an effective strategy when we limit ourselves to attacks by air. It gets much harder when units are on the ground and capable of hunting down the sites without killing civilians.
In the early 1970s, the US Navy was capable of landing two full Marine Corps divisions armed with tanks and the bridging capability to cross any river in Vietnam while destroying its entire capability to project power into the South.
Today, the Navy would be hard-pressed to land a single Marine Expeditionary Brigade. The Marine Corps no longer has tanks or the assault bridging and breaching capability to project and sustain military operations much beyond a narrow beachhead.
-- Gary Anderson, The Defense Post
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Hamas launched missiles from Northern Gaza into Israel for years. Nothing Israel did ever made them stop. After the attacks of Oct 7, 2023, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) sent a combined arms, ground combat force into Northern Gaza. The Hamas missile attacks from Northern Gaza ceased.
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Before launching their ground campaign against Hamas in Gaza, worldwide politicians and military experts warned against a ground attack into Gaza. The Secretary of the UN warned that Israel's pending ground attack into Gaza pushed the Middle East to the "verge of the abyss." CNN warned that Hamas was too strong for Israel ground offensive to succeed.
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Hamas has shown a level of military capability far beyond what was previously thought, and a recent CNN investigation found it is probably well-prepared for the next phase of the war.
-- CNN
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An article in Military Times, "The fight in Gaza will be hell, military experts in urban combat say" warned that any ground invasion of Gaza would be extremely slow and bloody and most likely a failure.
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As the Israeli military continues striking targets inside Gaza following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas that killed an estimated 1,400 in Israel and resulted in another 200 being taken hostage, the specter of a large-scale ground offensive into the densely populated area of northern Gaza looms.
. . . If the tolls of dead, wounded and widespread destruction from other urban battles is any kind of indicator, a prolonged ground operation in Gaza likely is to produce as much or more carnage, experts said.
“Israel has not fought something on this scale in quite some time,” said Raphael Cohen, a senior political scientist at Rand and an Iraq War veteran. “This is already one of the more bloody conflicts in its history and it’s only going to get bloodier.”
-- Military Times
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The IDF, however, has proved the experts wrong. While there have been significant civilian casualties as there usually are in urban warfare, Israel's skilled, professional, and patient ground offensive into Northern Gaza quickly routed Hamas, stopped the rocket attacks, and reclaimed the densely populated area. Now politicians and experts, once again, are warning Israel of continuing the attack into Southern Gaza.
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Military history shows that as powerful as air attacks are, by themselves they prolong conflicts instead of ending them. It is forces on the ground, supported by a range of ordinance from the air, that force the enemy to surrender.
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In World War II the Navy and Marines conducted an island-hopping campaign of one successful ground assault after another, always with the focus on getting to Japan and forcing surrender. The Marines attacked and defeated forces on the outer Japanese islands of Okinawa and Iwo Jima and were preparing for a massive assault on the Japanese home islands when Japan surrendered. Even the two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan would not have been as persuasive without the powerful allied combined arms ground forces sitting just off shore.
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Earlier in World War II, the US Army and allied forces landed on the coast of France July 6, 1944, and conducted a methodical ground campaign focused solely on getting to Germany and forcing surrender. When allied ground forces reach Germany, the German government surrendered.
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Combined arms, ground forces, relentlessly focused on the heartland and headquarters of the enemy, sweep forward, defeating opposition units, until the enemy is forced to surrender, victory is won, and the conflict is over. No drone nor swarm of drones can do that.
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While air ordinance of all kinds is a powerful tool, the current fighting in Ukraine and Gaza shows the power of combined arms, ground forces. It took the IDF combined arms, ground forces to defeat Hamas in Northern Gaza. Air alone could not do it.
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In Ukraine, it is stubborn combined arms ground forces that have kept Ukraine alive against the Russian invasion. It is fortunate for Ukraine that Russia did not initially use a rapid, focused, combined arms attack to drive to the Ukraine capital and force Ukraine to surrender.
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As Gary Anderson makes clear in his article, "Why We Can’t Beat the Houthis" air ordinance of all types is a powerful tool. But it takes combined arms, ground forces to force surrender and win victory.
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Compass Points salutes all those across the Marine community -- and in Congress -- working today to build back the updated and enhanced, combined arms, expeditionary force of Marines, so that when they are called, the Soldiers of the Sea, will be ready.
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The Defense Post - 03/25/2024
Why We Can’t Beat the Houthis
The US Navy and Marine Corps lack the capability for effective ground operations, resulting in a decline in military power projection and reliance on adversaries to resolve conflicts.
By Gary Anderson
Gary Anderson served as the Chief of Plans (G-5) of the Marine Corps Expeditionary Force responsible for the Indo-Pacific area. He lectures on Alternative Analysis at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.
https://www.thedefensepost.com/2024/03/25/beat-yemen-houthis/
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CNN - 10/15/2023
Middle East on ‘verge of the abyss,’ UN warns as Gaza suffers and Israel prepares for offensive
By Helen Regan, Hadas Gold, Nadeen Ebrahim, Abeer Salman, Hamdi Alkhshali, Jessie Gretener and Sara Smart, CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/15/middleeast/israel-hamas-gaza-war-sunday-intl-hnk/index.html
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Military Times - 10/20/2023
The fight in Gaza will be hell, military experts in urban combat say
By Todd South
Technology, stand off weapons etc will never defeat a patient enemy. Full on combined air and ground invasion is the only way, of course nuclear weapons not withstanding!
We certainly have showed a lot of weakness in the Middle East and especially with the Houthis which has emboldened them to continue their attacks on our and others ships. The only way to squash these piss ants is to use overwhelming ground and air forces (MAGTF anyone) to put a stop to their mischief lest they too become as powerful as Hezbollah!
Tyrants have considerable tenacity and ability to endure. Once they hear the echos of footsteps and the crack of small arms they realize their reign is coming to an end. Not before that.