LtGen Van Riper: "The whole process was corrupt and anathema to Marines who live by a different set of standards."
This is a profound "quotable quote" that defines the current age of information ops-driven combat development. It should be unpacked in detail. What is this different set of standards?
There are two aspects that manifest this "different set of standards." One is a natural and perennial manifestation of "where you sit is where you stand," but the second defines a bone-deep sickness that is plaguing our Corps and its leadership in the modern age.
The first is a natural organizational divide. Col Bill Dabney, son-in-law of Chesty Puller and CO of India Co, 3/26 at Khe Sanh was asked why he ended up at Khe Sanh, in the fight, when he could have remained at HQ. He said: "I knew, even at that young age, that the combat effectiveness of any adequately commanded unit is multiplied by the square of its distance from the next higher headquarters."
This cultural reality has been amplified into the modern difference in standards between the NCR and the FMF. This is an inevitable organizational phenomenon, and any operational commander can attest to the immediate detachment from operational reality when one is removed from contact with forward units. Any commander can also attest to the deleterious effects this detachment has on his decision-making over time. For example, frequently in my career I have had conversations from positions in the FMF with fellow Marines that occupied billets, for long periods of time, in the NCR. I often discovered that we seemed to speak a completely different language…with a different set of standards. This sense has grown with the last 20-years expansion of Quantico’s NCR influences. I have discovered that Marines who sometimes spend early careers in operational billets, but then transition to lifelong billets at Quantico and the Pentagon begin to become invested in the cultural framework of the NCR and its value system. They begin to believe that to be successful, the institution must operate within that framework, and they become immersed in its language, culture, and norms. Add to that the personally attractive intangible incentive system of professional popularity, post-retirement security and relevance, and being "in-group," and they gradually but inevitably become detached from the reality of actual warfighting requirements. They speak a different language, and operate from a different set of standards.
A caveat to this is that the most effective and successful officers assigned for short periods to that NCR framework have usually spent long careers in the FMF…in operational and combat environments. The most effective are able to resist the allure of the DC think tank phenomenon, skillfully translating operational requirements into the language of MCCDC, the NCR, and even Congress. The best and most effective understand combat’s reality, GCC and OPLAN demands, and the service’s warfighting philosophy, and communicate those requirements in a way that enhances the service’s combat effectiveness while preserving its ethos. They are able to achieve success while maintaining their different set of standards.
*BREAK BREAK*
The second phenomenon is more insidious, has infected our leadership in the modern age, and is deadly to our ethos and our Corps.
In the early years of OIF, I served in a unit in which several Marines were accused in the media of horrific war crimes. Within weeks of the accusations, without any complete investigations, the institution was eager and ready to condemn these Marines in the public square. Premature and premeditated press releases announced command reliefs, command influence was exerted over military justice outcomes…these were early and obvious indicators that individual Marines were secondary to the institution’s image.
Fast-forward to three years later…I attended a briefing by the CMC Strategic Communications advisor, who proudly claimed credit for rescuing the Marine Corps image amidst the controversy. Sally Donnelly, a civilian Time Magazine reporter, was the CMC’s Information Operations Engine for press releases, for military justice system influence, and for a Marine Corps PME overhaul that forever institutionalized the pre-determined outcomes and condemned young innocent Marines. Despite, in the words of one Marine Corps judge, “to believe the government’s version of events is to disregard all evidence to the contrary.” Neither she nor the CMC ever actually tracked the outcomes for those Marines. LtGen Mattis wrote a public letter, but on the whole, those Marines remained at the mercy of an IO juggernaut that no Marine Corps leader had the courage to question. They were operating on a different set of standards.
Forgive the tangential history, but this story is an apt checkpoint along the route into today's IO driven decisions by our leaders. During that time, Marine Corps Leaders--General Officers--made specific decisions that were wholly informed by institutional and political pressure, unencumbered by the actual evidence or the personal moral effects of their decisions...or indecision. While I pragmatically understand the requirement to guard the institution by the “Legal, Ethical, and Moral” rubric, I also recognize the easy internal rationalization that must take place when assaulted by the influences of NCR "stake-holders." Comfort-based decisions, as we used to say in TBS.
This is the essence of the bone-deep sickness that plagues the modern age of our Corps. The different set of standards.
Leaders can justify a decision or a capitulation of the moment by the LEM rubric, while remaining willfully ignorant or disclaiming personal moral responsibility for the obvious 2nd and 3rd order effects of that decision. Whether those effects are the destruction of a Marine's life...or the destruction of a Corps capability, the abdication of JUDGMENT in favor of institutional pressure are not marks of a leader, they are marks of a PFC. This is not what we learned at TBS. This is not what we expect of our lieutenants...or generals.
The different standard to which LtGen Van Riper refers is a dying one among our leaders.
What are examples of the different set of standards? Compared against speech after predictable speech from leaders parroting the latest shifting IO narrative, there is a different standard apparent in the tone and tenor of LtGen George Smith’s final speeches. The commander of the Corps' Imperial MAGTF, who methodically outlined the FMF’s operational realities, with the blessing of his intelligence, the credibility of his experience, and his long-earned judgment. He exemplified standards decidedly different from the NCR or CommStrat standards of the moment.
He's now retired.
We’ve heard the different standard periodically in the last few years, from some of our most decorated and experienced combat generals…now retired.
The standards of judgment-driven decisions; decisions not just made rationalized against an LEM rubric, informed by the pressures of the NCR present, but with an understanding of history, our warfighting philosophy, and the law of unintended consequences…those standards are dying or dead. Sacrificed at the altar of IO and LEM.
“A process corrupt and anathema to Marines who live by a different set of standards.” Indeed.
The problem of some officers leaving the Fleet and spending years as OSO’s, going to school, teaching at the USNA, NROTC, etc, and coming back to the FMF for a short mandatory period existed back in the 70’s and 80’s. They were not terribly inspiring, and as it always the Marines picked these sorts out very quickly and knew exactly how much rope to give them. Never disrespectful, but always only just enough to get a job or mission accomplished successfully. Never having heard of the NCR, I had to look it up. What a shame. The poogie bait eaters, those types that rat “fk’d” the C-Rat boxes before the Marines could get to them in the field (yeah I saw it) have now morphed into something almost unrecognizable in a Marine Officer. That said, one has to believe we can change it, make a difference and set the example and force this current group to come to terms and make change happen. Now, it’s Sunday, and I have to find my loyal trusty steed and jousting lance, I see some bad dudes in the distance, they resemble windmills, but the Hell with that, there is work to do.
What is it in General Berger’s background and personal experience that would lead him to these disastrous decisions? I have never known a Marine Officer who thought and acted in such a prescriptive manner. Whatever it is, it’s time for an exorcism and close look at our leadership.
True, but whatever infected General Berger, has spread to an unacceptable number of his juniors. Joint commands and the over reliance on special operations has not served the Corps well.
Special Operations activity has decreased heavily since before COVID. What are you referring to specifically?
What about joint commands is disrupting the Marine Corps? How do you propose to restructure joint commands writ large and how do you consolidate each service in a joint force, which is literally how the US military has fought every single conflict in its existence?
What is it that the Marine Corps is not doing because of special operations or joint commands? Even as I am typing this, a FAST team is going to Haiti to reinforce the embassy under SOUTHCOM control. Marines were first on the ground in Kabul under CENTCOM, first to respond to multiple hurricanes, tsunami, and earthquakes under NORTHCOM, SOUTHCOM, PACOM, and CENTCOM, active against Russia under EUCOM, active again in CENTCOM against Iran and its para-military, and (unlike the Army with its mighty armor-based ground force), stand-in force in the Pacific. All of this since FD 2030 and Mattis’ NDS.
The investments under Force Design are not to special operations, but rather to conventional units like line companies and command and control, while supplementing with new capabilities in fires and cyber, all of which are consistent with NDS, NMS, and the OPLANs in which USMC is directly tasked.
There is a reason that the other services are looking at the Marine Corps right now; they are behind and scrambling to catch up. The substack crowd here simply cannot accept it.
There are those in various high places who are not friends of the Marine Corps. This is nothing new. If the 2 MEB number of amphibious ships (38 minimum) are not available for global emergencies, the USMC leadership must have backup plans to get Marines to crisis areas. To do this backup planning effectively, some institutional biases will have to be set aside. The survival of the Marine Corps as the nation's 911 force is hanging in the balance.
To answer the question, "Why was this allowed to happen?", the answer is in the first sentence to this comment.
If anyone doubts the absolute fantasy land dilusional thinking of one of the proponents of FD2030 than have a look at the Friday post of B. A. Friedman’s Substack “Fire for Effect.”You see Ukraine is winning their war with Russia, Russia’s navy is in disrepute hemmed in by a Ukrainian “maritime reconnaissance strike force” which is a non navy….well, navy which has gained so much control of the Black Sea that grain exports from Ukraine are “almost” back to pre-conflict levels. Now is the time to open the flood gates of unlimited support to Ukrainian juggernaut just poised for success if we all just pitch in and support this new “navy.” FD2024! It’s on baby! The Marine Corps leadership that hatched FD2030 it is reported in the Marine Corps Times is now just simply referring to doctrine changes as Force Design. How convenient. One can hear the frat boys at the Animal House party now, okay so we are flunking out, let’s just change the name of our frat and “pencil blank expletive” our grades so we can stay in school for another semester of rowdy keggers. What the hell my rich Uncle Sam is paying my tuition.
At my advanced age, I still am a believer in The General Al Gray school of Maneuver Warfare and LtGen Paul Van Ripper' thoughts on Force Design 2030. I hold close to the leadership traits and principles that unfortunately slipped through the cracks in the West Coast Barracks fiasco. Of course this was all going on during the Force Design 2030 force structure issue.
I think that while the Force Designed 2030 program has grown hand in hand with the war gaming wizards at Quantico, something is amiss! Personally, I have a hard time accepting that the results of a war gaming problem become the absolute answer as a result of the game. I think that war gaming has a place to filter ideas and concepts but not absolutes. Sometimes there are too many artificialities. thrown into the game. Just a thought from an old Marine!
I am glad someone brought up Black Hawk Down. Thank you Bill Campbell. The US Army had to rely on foreign armored vehicles!
No one ever mentions that there may be a time when the Army may need a capability that the Marine Corps has divested. Without combined arms capability the Marine mission in Desert Storm could not have been accomplished, nor the Thunder Run to Baghdad. I believe those who fully subscribe to FD2030 live in fantasy land and the land of wishful thinking.
In support of Jeffrey Dinsmore's thoughtful, comprehensive analysis:
From time to time Officers may need to be assigned to NCR to learn how it functions, but never so often and so much that in their selfish quest for promotion, awards, applause, and money that they become the worst of the NCR culture.
In Robert Bolt's play "A Man for All Seasons" Sir Thomas More about to be condemned for the perjury of his former employee Richard admonishes: "Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world ... but for Wales!" If one substitutes "FD-2030" for "Wales" we have a most apt and relevant admonishment for some senior Marines!
LtGen Van Riper: "The whole process was corrupt and anathema to Marines who live by a different set of standards."
This is a profound "quotable quote" that defines the current age of information ops-driven combat development. It should be unpacked in detail. What is this different set of standards?
There are two aspects that manifest this "different set of standards." One is a natural and perennial manifestation of "where you sit is where you stand," but the second defines a bone-deep sickness that is plaguing our Corps and its leadership in the modern age.
The first is a natural organizational divide. Col Bill Dabney, son-in-law of Chesty Puller and CO of India Co, 3/26 at Khe Sanh was asked why he ended up at Khe Sanh, in the fight, when he could have remained at HQ. He said: "I knew, even at that young age, that the combat effectiveness of any adequately commanded unit is multiplied by the square of its distance from the next higher headquarters."
This cultural reality has been amplified into the modern difference in standards between the NCR and the FMF. This is an inevitable organizational phenomenon, and any operational commander can attest to the immediate detachment from operational reality when one is removed from contact with forward units. Any commander can also attest to the deleterious effects this detachment has on his decision-making over time. For example, frequently in my career I have had conversations from positions in the FMF with fellow Marines that occupied billets, for long periods of time, in the NCR. I often discovered that we seemed to speak a completely different language…with a different set of standards. This sense has grown with the last 20-years expansion of Quantico’s NCR influences. I have discovered that Marines who sometimes spend early careers in operational billets, but then transition to lifelong billets at Quantico and the Pentagon begin to become invested in the cultural framework of the NCR and its value system. They begin to believe that to be successful, the institution must operate within that framework, and they become immersed in its language, culture, and norms. Add to that the personally attractive intangible incentive system of professional popularity, post-retirement security and relevance, and being "in-group," and they gradually but inevitably become detached from the reality of actual warfighting requirements. They speak a different language, and operate from a different set of standards.
A caveat to this is that the most effective and successful officers assigned for short periods to that NCR framework have usually spent long careers in the FMF…in operational and combat environments. The most effective are able to resist the allure of the DC think tank phenomenon, skillfully translating operational requirements into the language of MCCDC, the NCR, and even Congress. The best and most effective understand combat’s reality, GCC and OPLAN demands, and the service’s warfighting philosophy, and communicate those requirements in a way that enhances the service’s combat effectiveness while preserving its ethos. They are able to achieve success while maintaining their different set of standards.
*BREAK BREAK*
The second phenomenon is more insidious, has infected our leadership in the modern age, and is deadly to our ethos and our Corps.
In the early years of OIF, I served in a unit in which several Marines were accused in the media of horrific war crimes. Within weeks of the accusations, without any complete investigations, the institution was eager and ready to condemn these Marines in the public square. Premature and premeditated press releases announced command reliefs, command influence was exerted over military justice outcomes…these were early and obvious indicators that individual Marines were secondary to the institution’s image.
Fast-forward to three years later…I attended a briefing by the CMC Strategic Communications advisor, who proudly claimed credit for rescuing the Marine Corps image amidst the controversy. Sally Donnelly, a civilian Time Magazine reporter, was the CMC’s Information Operations Engine for press releases, for military justice system influence, and for a Marine Corps PME overhaul that forever institutionalized the pre-determined outcomes and condemned young innocent Marines. Despite, in the words of one Marine Corps judge, “to believe the government’s version of events is to disregard all evidence to the contrary.” Neither she nor the CMC ever actually tracked the outcomes for those Marines. LtGen Mattis wrote a public letter, but on the whole, those Marines remained at the mercy of an IO juggernaut that no Marine Corps leader had the courage to question. They were operating on a different set of standards.
Forgive the tangential history, but this story is an apt checkpoint along the route into today's IO driven decisions by our leaders. During that time, Marine Corps Leaders--General Officers--made specific decisions that were wholly informed by institutional and political pressure, unencumbered by the actual evidence or the personal moral effects of their decisions...or indecision. While I pragmatically understand the requirement to guard the institution by the “Legal, Ethical, and Moral” rubric, I also recognize the easy internal rationalization that must take place when assaulted by the influences of NCR "stake-holders." Comfort-based decisions, as we used to say in TBS.
This is the essence of the bone-deep sickness that plagues the modern age of our Corps. The different set of standards.
Leaders can justify a decision or a capitulation of the moment by the LEM rubric, while remaining willfully ignorant or disclaiming personal moral responsibility for the obvious 2nd and 3rd order effects of that decision. Whether those effects are the destruction of a Marine's life...or the destruction of a Corps capability, the abdication of JUDGMENT in favor of institutional pressure are not marks of a leader, they are marks of a PFC. This is not what we learned at TBS. This is not what we expect of our lieutenants...or generals.
The different standard to which LtGen Van Riper refers is a dying one among our leaders.
What are examples of the different set of standards? Compared against speech after predictable speech from leaders parroting the latest shifting IO narrative, there is a different standard apparent in the tone and tenor of LtGen George Smith’s final speeches. The commander of the Corps' Imperial MAGTF, who methodically outlined the FMF’s operational realities, with the blessing of his intelligence, the credibility of his experience, and his long-earned judgment. He exemplified standards decidedly different from the NCR or CommStrat standards of the moment.
He's now retired.
We’ve heard the different standard periodically in the last few years, from some of our most decorated and experienced combat generals…now retired.
The standards of judgment-driven decisions; decisions not just made rationalized against an LEM rubric, informed by the pressures of the NCR present, but with an understanding of history, our warfighting philosophy, and the law of unintended consequences…those standards are dying or dead. Sacrificed at the altar of IO and LEM.
“A process corrupt and anathema to Marines who live by a different set of standards.” Indeed.
The problem of some officers leaving the Fleet and spending years as OSO’s, going to school, teaching at the USNA, NROTC, etc, and coming back to the FMF for a short mandatory period existed back in the 70’s and 80’s. They were not terribly inspiring, and as it always the Marines picked these sorts out very quickly and knew exactly how much rope to give them. Never disrespectful, but always only just enough to get a job or mission accomplished successfully. Never having heard of the NCR, I had to look it up. What a shame. The poogie bait eaters, those types that rat “fk’d” the C-Rat boxes before the Marines could get to them in the field (yeah I saw it) have now morphed into something almost unrecognizable in a Marine Officer. That said, one has to believe we can change it, make a difference and set the example and force this current group to come to terms and make change happen. Now, it’s Sunday, and I have to find my loyal trusty steed and jousting lance, I see some bad dudes in the distance, they resemble windmills, but the Hell with that, there is work to do.
What is it in General Berger’s background and personal experience that would lead him to these disastrous decisions? I have never known a Marine Officer who thought and acted in such a prescriptive manner. Whatever it is, it’s time for an exorcism and close look at our leadership.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Berger
He is retired so you can’t really exorcise him.
True, but whatever infected General Berger, has spread to an unacceptable number of his juniors. Joint commands and the over reliance on special operations has not served the Corps well.
Special Operations activity has decreased heavily since before COVID. What are you referring to specifically?
What about joint commands is disrupting the Marine Corps? How do you propose to restructure joint commands writ large and how do you consolidate each service in a joint force, which is literally how the US military has fought every single conflict in its existence?
What is it that the Marine Corps is not doing because of special operations or joint commands? Even as I am typing this, a FAST team is going to Haiti to reinforce the embassy under SOUTHCOM control. Marines were first on the ground in Kabul under CENTCOM, first to respond to multiple hurricanes, tsunami, and earthquakes under NORTHCOM, SOUTHCOM, PACOM, and CENTCOM, active against Russia under EUCOM, active again in CENTCOM against Iran and its para-military, and (unlike the Army with its mighty armor-based ground force), stand-in force in the Pacific. All of this since FD 2030 and Mattis’ NDS.
The investments under Force Design are not to special operations, but rather to conventional units like line companies and command and control, while supplementing with new capabilities in fires and cyber, all of which are consistent with NDS, NMS, and the OPLANs in which USMC is directly tasked.
There is a reason that the other services are looking at the Marine Corps right now; they are behind and scrambling to catch up. The substack crowd here simply cannot accept it.
There are those in various high places who are not friends of the Marine Corps. This is nothing new. If the 2 MEB number of amphibious ships (38 minimum) are not available for global emergencies, the USMC leadership must have backup plans to get Marines to crisis areas. To do this backup planning effectively, some institutional biases will have to be set aside. The survival of the Marine Corps as the nation's 911 force is hanging in the balance.
To answer the question, "Why was this allowed to happen?", the answer is in the first sentence to this comment.
If anyone doubts the absolute fantasy land dilusional thinking of one of the proponents of FD2030 than have a look at the Friday post of B. A. Friedman’s Substack “Fire for Effect.”You see Ukraine is winning their war with Russia, Russia’s navy is in disrepute hemmed in by a Ukrainian “maritime reconnaissance strike force” which is a non navy….well, navy which has gained so much control of the Black Sea that grain exports from Ukraine are “almost” back to pre-conflict levels. Now is the time to open the flood gates of unlimited support to Ukrainian juggernaut just poised for success if we all just pitch in and support this new “navy.” FD2024! It’s on baby! The Marine Corps leadership that hatched FD2030 it is reported in the Marine Corps Times is now just simply referring to doctrine changes as Force Design. How convenient. One can hear the frat boys at the Animal House party now, okay so we are flunking out, let’s just change the name of our frat and “pencil blank expletive” our grades so we can stay in school for another semester of rowdy keggers. What the hell my rich Uncle Sam is paying my tuition.
They won’t stop until they are stopped.
At my advanced age, I still am a believer in The General Al Gray school of Maneuver Warfare and LtGen Paul Van Ripper' thoughts on Force Design 2030. I hold close to the leadership traits and principles that unfortunately slipped through the cracks in the West Coast Barracks fiasco. Of course this was all going on during the Force Design 2030 force structure issue.
I think that while the Force Designed 2030 program has grown hand in hand with the war gaming wizards at Quantico, something is amiss! Personally, I have a hard time accepting that the results of a war gaming problem become the absolute answer as a result of the game. I think that war gaming has a place to filter ideas and concepts but not absolutes. Sometimes there are too many artificialities. thrown into the game. Just a thought from an old Marine!
I am glad someone brought up Black Hawk Down. Thank you Bill Campbell. The US Army had to rely on foreign armored vehicles!
No one ever mentions that there may be a time when the Army may need a capability that the Marine Corps has divested. Without combined arms capability the Marine mission in Desert Storm could not have been accomplished, nor the Thunder Run to Baghdad. I believe those who fully subscribe to FD2030 live in fantasy land and the land of wishful thinking.
In support of Jeffrey Dinsmore's thoughtful, comprehensive analysis:
From time to time Officers may need to be assigned to NCR to learn how it functions, but never so often and so much that in their selfish quest for promotion, awards, applause, and money that they become the worst of the NCR culture.
In Robert Bolt's play "A Man for All Seasons" Sir Thomas More about to be condemned for the perjury of his former employee Richard admonishes: "Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world ... but for Wales!" If one substitutes "FD-2030" for "Wales" we have a most apt and relevant admonishment for some senior Marines!