Compass Points - Webb Interview
Former Navy Secretary puts focus on readiness
Compass Points - Webb Interview
Former Navy Secretary puts focus on readiness
July 21, 2025
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What is the Marine Corps for?
What is the larger role of the Marine Corps in national defense?
What missions should be assigned to the Marine Corps?
This summer, why did the President and the Secretary of Defense without hesitation order the Marines into the riots in Los Angeles? Perhaps it was a wise decision and perhaps it was not, but the point is the CINC and SEFDEF did not say, "round up some airmen and send them into LA." No, that would never happen. Instead, as so many times throughout the history of the United States, the call went out, "Send in the Marines!"
Questions about Marine Corps' roles and missions never seem to go away. In 1972 a young Marine Corps Captain took on the difficult Marine Corps topic in his article, "Roles & Missions: Time For A Change."
The article was a sensation. It stimulated discussion and debate throughout the Pentagon. Many senior leaders in the Navy and Marine Corps were angered by the article, including the Commandant of the Marine Corps -- not a good situation for the young Captain.
But the young Captain had already shown his leadership and courage in the jungles of Vietnam and, with his roles and missions article, he began to show his leadership and courage in the halls of power. The young Captain, James H. Webb, Jr., became not only a world famous author of novels and screenplays, but the Secretary of the Department of the Navy, the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Defense, a US Senator from Virginia, and a candidate for President.
Compass Points appreciates Jim Webb taking time to sit down and look back at his famous roles and missions article and discuss the key to Marine Corps roles and missions today -- and tomorrow.
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Compass Points Interview with Jim Webb
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Compass Points:
As a young 25 year-old Captain recently returned from Vietnam, what sparked your interest in writing an article that dealt with policy debates regarding the formal roles and missions assigned to the Marine Corps and why did you believe they needed to be changed?
Jim Webb:
Rather than saying that our roles and missions needed to be changed, let’s just say that I came to believe they needed to be properly formalized, for the future protection of the existence of the Marine Corps.
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Compass Points:
You have said that in some ways the Air Force had systematically prepared to argue for its place as a separate service from the Army at the end of World War Two while the Marine Corps had to fight for survival.
Jim Webb:
I was a first lieutenant when I returned from Vietnam. I had commanded a rifle platoon and company in the First Battalion, Fifth Marines and then served in the S-3 section of the regimental staff. At the end of 1970 I was one of a small group of about 15 first lieutenants who were deep-selected a year early for captain.
At Quantico, in addition to my duties at OCS, I burned my way through the Breckenridge Library and came across a small book called, The Air Force Plans for Peace. The book outlined how over a two-year period from 1943 to 1945 the Army Air Corps, given separate status during World War Two, made intricate and effective plans to remain as a separate service when the war was over. None of the other services had made detailed post-war plans, but the Air Force has always been politically ravenous (my father was a career Air Force officer) and they succeeded.
The National Security Act of 1947, which created the modern Department of Defense, formalized the full status of the Air Force while the Marine Corps was, for all practical purposes, avoiding the guillotine. So I’m thinking, as a young Marine all of those years ago, that the Marine Corps survived after the end of World War Two by its inarguable battlefield performance, through the unshakable loyalty of its members, and through the efforts of such leaders as Brute Krulak that we now characterize as The Chowder Society. But there is a dichotomy in how we under-value our unique service.
The National Security Act did define the existence of the Marine Corps as the country’s main amphibious arm, and it guaranteed its force structure, by law. But in reality the Marine Corps was so much more than that. World War Two was the only war in which the Marine Corps fought predominantly through amphibious campaigns, and even then the largest amphibious battles of that war – Sicily and Normandy – were fought without Marines. In addition, when I read through the National Security Act, the Army was given almost the same written roles and missions as the Marine Corps. In other words, under the wrong reasons of a future, unpredictable political process the Marine Corps could be diminished or fully done away with, without apologies.
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Compass Points:
So in all due respect, even in 1971 and 1972 it seemed that key elements that define the Marine Corps were still in many ways overlooked?
Jim Webb:
We were just coming off what for the Marine Corps was a very major war. But what was DOD doing and thinking about those sorts of issues when 25 year-old Webb decided to write an article? We were the creators and masters of amphibious warfare, including many other concepts such as the innovations of tactical close air support and helicopter medevac. Our aviators were qualified as naval aviators and our infantry-oriented helicopters such as the H-46 were designed to fill Deck Space on Navy ships (a minor replica of the larger H-47 used by the Army for many years), but our people trained and operated for largely different things. When North Korea invaded the south, MacArthur asked for the Marines (eating crow probably from his past comments about the Marines) and the Inchon landing became one of the greatest acts of maneuver warfare in our country’s history.
But the most important piece of all that was not simply amphibious. The Navy put us ashore and our Marines fought wherever the war sent them, especially proven by the historic gallantry of the First Marine Division’s land campaign in the north of Korea fighting Chinese soldiers in the “Frozen Chosin Reservoir.” When war unexpectedly came, the Marines were ready, even though it took a large-scale reserve call-up filled with World War Two Marines in a matter of weeks who needed little further training in order to deploy. And from World War One forward, we were and have been the country’s “ready to go” military service, on call in any role and in any mission that can and will fight short of nuclear war.
During my time in the Marine Corps, every key speech by our top leaders to us, and to others given to national media, reinforced the iron-clad guarantee that told us -- and also the nation -- that our mission was readiness. Readiness, not only amphibious. Our very history was readiness, small-scale and large-scale. We were a complete tactical package. We could go anywhere in the world on short notice and fight at any level short of nuclear war and stay as long as it was necessary to stay.
No one else could do it, and we had done it in our own way in Vietnam, fighting constantly for several years in many of the war’s worst places, even despite the political turmoil at home. The brutality of that war, which according to Allan Millett’s defining, History of the United States Marine Corps, incurred more than 100,000 killed or wounded – more total casualties than any other war – did not disturb our loyalties or our combat effectiveness. Our good units adapted and proved that we belonged in the tradition of our history, despite the political disarray at home and how difficult it was for those who had not gone to war to eventually understand us.
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Compass Points:
How did you pursue this topic to the point that you reached your own observations and conclusions?
Jim Webb:
In 1971 I was assigned to the Secretary of the Navy’s immediate staff, and I decided to dig deeper. And this is what I learned, as of 1972:
By 1948, it had become apparent to the first Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, that the guidelines set down in the National Security Act of 1947 were too general and, as a result, were causing much bickering among the different branches concerning specific roles and missions. To rectify this, he assembled his Joint Chiefs of Staff at Key West, Florida in March of that year to participate in a series of secret talks. His purpose, as he related in a later statement, was “to produce an effective, economical, harmonious, and businesslike organization.” It was his desire to prevent unnecessary duplication among the Services and to fully utilize and exploit the full capabilities of each service. What resulted was a workable plan that kept the services in a somewhat uneasy peace.
Insofar as Marine Corps objectives were concerned, Forrestal’s “Key West Agreements” had serious flaws. Even that early, I could sense that the national security apparatus was not making its best use of top-level Marine Corps leaders. Considerable operational experience that could be led through high-level positions were being given to flag officers from selected services, and which did not include the Marine Corps, the exemplar of bold and innovative war-fighting.
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Compass Points:
This must have placed the Marine Corps in a terrible disadvantage.
Jim Webb:
Let’s just say that in some situations it worked to the country’s disadvantage.
By 1948, it was evident that those who met with Secretary Forrestal would be able to benefit over the long-term over those who did not. And as it turns out, the Marine Corps was not even directly represented at Key West at all.
The Marine Corps’ interests at Key West were represented, in the same manner as naval aviation’s, by the three admirals present: Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, the Chief of Staff to the President, Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, Chief of Naval Operations, and Vice Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Vice CNO. The Commandant of the Marine Corps was not invited, nor even later allowed to sit on the Joint Chiefs until 1952, even on matters concerning the Marine Corps. One could but wonder what the Corps’ position would have been if its top leaders could have directly bargained for the Corps.
As a result of these considerations, in 1948 the Marine Corps came out poorly compared to the other Services represented at Key West. In a military establishment concerned with the projection of strategic airpower during a potential conflict, the Marine Corps was not assigned a responsibility. At a time when the newly formed Department of Defense sat its members down to hash out differences and assign specific tasks, the Marine Corps was not even allowed to represent its own interests to Secretary Forrestal. And as the United States was still refighting WWII, on paper the Corps was forced to accept a strictly amphibious mission which, although important, did not embrace proven Marine Corps capabilities.
Even by 1972 the real-life implications of the Key West Agreements were limited to paper edicts. The Commandant of the Marine Corps was still not a full member of the Joint Chiefs, sitting only on matters concerning the Marine Corps. He was required to “declare interest” in order to voice his opinions. Although he sat on a great majority of issues by 1972 through this process, a proper statement of Marine Corps missions would obviously expand matters which concern the overall defense of the United States, and hence give the Commandant a rightful full membership to discuss overall national strategies and responsibilities.
This situation extended to the entire worldwide operations of the United States military, as Marine Corps influence on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the various unified commands lagged behind the other services. A Marine general officer had never headed a “J” staff on the Joint Chiefs. Furthermore, of the 41 flag rank officers serving on that Staff at that time, only one was a Marine, compliments of a Navy billet. The Air Force supplied 15 generals, the Army 12, and the Navy 13 admirals. This lack of representation was paralleled on all unified commands. Only three other Marine generals were serving in any capacity on all other unified commands; one on Pacific Command, one on European Command, and one on MAC-V.
So, I wrote the article, laying out those facts, also comparing Army and Marine Corps readiness data, criticizing McNamara’s unrealistic creation of Strike Command, a paper concept coupling Army soldiers with Air Force tactical aircraft, none of which trained together and in reality probably could never have successfully accomplished what the Marine Corps was already designed to do, every day in actual combat. I then finished the article with a list of policy suggestions.
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Compass Points:
So after all of that, your article was at first rejected?
Jim Webb:
This was my first-ever full-length magazine piece. And to my disappointment it was quickly rejected by the Marine Corps Gazette.
I thought I’d written a pretty good article, and I wanted to do better. The next day I called the editor of the Marine Corps Gazette, a reservist colonel who was a journalist in his civilian career, and asked him how I could improve it. He told me that the editorial board of the Gazette had spent more than half of its monthly meeting debating my article. Half of them thought the piece was terrific. The other half thought I was an upstart renegade. They had sent the piece with a “tie vote” to the Commanding Officer of the Education Center – who happened to be future Commandant Lou Wilson – and he had decided not to publish it.
The colonel liked the piece, and encouraged me to send it to the Naval Institute Proceedings, where he believed it would be a sure “go.” But I told him I wanted Marines to read it. I was on a medical hold after a number of surgeries, and saw my surgeon at the Naval Hospital in Quantico every two weeks. The Colonel agreed to meet with me in his office during my next trip to the hospital. He had marked up my article, and he walked me through the most inflammatory sections, particularly my comments on the Army’s dreadful readiness numbers and my criticisms about McNamara’s “paper tiger” Strike Command. I took the notes home, rewrote those sections, and resubmitted the article.
New ideas are rarely as incendiary when you see them for the second time. The article was approved for the March, 1972 issue of the Gazette. Quizzically, this remains the only issue of the Marine Corps Gazette I have ever seen from that era that lacked an introductory Editor’s Page. Something was happening and it was not particularly good. I mentally put on my flak jacket. And after the article was published, probably to the colonel’s expectations, the senior leadership of the Marine Corps went bonkers.
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Compass Points:
When you say ‘senior leadership’ how high up and what was the unhappiness?
Jim Webb:
Marine Corps Commandant Robert Cushman was not a happy man. That’s about as high as you can get. He ordered General Wilson and a team from the Ed Center to come to his office at Headquarters, Marine Corps, and brief him on publishing protocols for the Marine Corps Gazette. Still unsatisfied, General Cushman further ordered three Marine Corps senior officers from Command and Staff School to write a rebuttal article for the Gazette. They did so with a piece titled “Why Trade an Edsel For a Cadillac?” For many Marines, this rancor was diminished by a piece I had written about “Flexibility and the Fire Team” which had been accepted months before, and was published in the April issue. I still believe small-unit leadership should be vigorously debated for the Marine Corps infantry squad and platoon force structures. At my peer levels I was approached for discussion far more about the article on the makeup of fire team and squad composition than on the formal roles and missions of the Marine Corps.
Either way, by the time the piece was published in the Gazette, I had been sent to a medical board after further surgery and would soon be recommended for retirement from the Marine Corps due to my wounds in Vietnam. But ironically, in 1980 when the Carter DOD created the short-lived concept of the “Rapid Deployment Force,” in opposition to the proposal, many among the Marine Corps leadership dusted off my 1972 article and then circulated the piece widely in DOD and on Capitol Hill, where I was working at the time as Minority Counsel to the House Committee on Veterans Affairs.
Their position was that the country did not need a formal Rapid Deployment Force. I agreed, as did the new Commandant, and the arguments in the piece.
The Marine Corps is the country’s Rapid Deployment Force.
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What is the Marine Corps for?
What is the larger role of the Marine Corps in national defense?
What missions should be assigned to the Marine Corps?
The topic of Marine Corps roles and missions is still very much alive today as it was when Jim Webb wrote his roles and missions article in 1972.
Can the entire discussion of Marine Corps roles and missions be summed up in one word? From what Jim Webb has written both in 1972 and today, perhaps the word that sums it up best is: readiness. Marine Corps readiness in the past, readiness today, and readiness tomorrow.
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During my time in the Marine Corps, every key speech by our top leaders to us, and most of their others given to national media, reinforced the iron-clad guarantee that told us -- and also the nation -- that our mission was readiness. Readiness, not amphibious. Our very history was readiness, small-scale and large-scale.
-- Jim Webb
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Compass Points appreciates Jim Webb taking time to sit down and look back at his famous roles and missions article. From that article in 1972, the young Captain, James H. Webb, Jr., became not only a world famous author of novels and screenplays, but the Secretary of the Department of the Navy, the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Defense, a US Senator from Virginia, and a candidate for President. Perhaps no living Marine today has a broader perspective on the Marine Corps and how it can and should best service the Nation. As Jim Webb makes clear, Marine Corps service to the Nation is built on constant readiness.
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Marine Corps Gazette – March 1972
Roles & Missions: Time For A Change
By Capt. James H. Webb
http://www.jameswebb.com/articles/military-and-veterans/roles-missions-time-for-a-change
Senator’s Webb’s struggles to get his “Roles and Missions” article published in the Marine Corps Gazette is somewhat like Chowder II’s efforts to get Vision 2035 published in the same outlet during December 2022. Initially, the editor agreed to publish the article but later changed course citing “heavy fire from HQMC over this.” The article was instead published in The National Interest, which undoubtedly deprived many Marines of the opportunity to read an alternative vision to Force Design 2030.
But as Senator Webb also explained, his article - - though essentially buried by HQMC - - was brought back to life by circumstances threatening the Corps’ roles and missions as the Nation’s Rapid Deployment Force in 1980. My guess is we will see parts of Vision 2035 increasingly used by the Marine Corps as it becomes increasingly evident that a purpose built, regional defensive force is not in the Nation’s best interests.
If you need an example, look no further than the April 2025 Amphibious Shipbuilding article that was signed by all eight living former Commandants and published in Real Clear Defense. The article is a strong validation of much of Vision 2035.
The current Commandant has recently articulated a requirement for a 3.0 ARG/MEU presence, which he clarifies as two ARG/MEUs continuously forward deployed and a third ARG/MEU forward based with “episodic” deployments. One can reasonably assume that this is the requirement as envisioned by Force Design.
The article signed by the former Commandants goes much further, calling for “… enough amphibious ships to keep tailored Marine Air Ground Task Forces continually deployed in the Mediterranean Sea, Western Pacific, and the Indian Ocean areas, while retaining additional capabilities to reinforce these areas or respond quickly and effectively to emerging crises in other theaters.” This requirement is consistent with the language of Vison 2035 which states: “Forward-deployed Marine Expeditionary Units and on-call alert battalions must be immediately available to support all combatant commanders, not just some combatant commanders. Additional amphibious shipping must also be available to support larger amphibious formations that are required to respond to emerging requirements in multiple theaters or satisfy multiple combatant and sub-unified commanders’ deliberate planning requirements”.
It’s worth noting that the former Commandants chose to use the term “tailored MAGTFs” vice MEUs. They obviously recognize the need to deploy amphibious forces larger or different than a MEU if required. It’s also worth noting that the former Commandants called for the Navy to “take the actions needed to restore Maritime Prepositioning Force ships and recapitalize the strategic sealift.” These actions are also consistent with Vision 2035 which states: “A properly configured and strategically based Maritime Prepositioning Force, comprised of independently deployable squadrons, is also required to support the immediate deployment and employment of MAGTFs that are tailored to support emerging or known requirements.”
The carefully crafted words of the former Commandants are clearly intended to restore the capability of Marine forces to transition to a larger force. Again, in the words of Vison 2035: “A Marine Corps that has the capacity to rapidly converge and build to a Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF)…. Usually first to arrive, a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) can be quickly scaled to a force significantly larger by landing additional MEUs, Air Alert Forces, the Fly-In Echelon of a Maritime Prepositioning Ship (MPS) Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB), the arrival of all of part of one or multiple MPS squadrons, and the arrival of follow-on forces.”
What is noticeably missing from the former Commandant’s article is the requirement for the Light Amphibious Warship (now termed the Landing Ship Medium for political purposes). The Marines have previously stated a requirement for 35 LAW/LSMs.
Readers can find the former Commandants’ Article at: https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/04/08/former_cmcs_letter_endorsing_amphibious_shipbuilding_1102611.html
Readers can find Vision 2035 at the link: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/vision-2035-global-response-age-precision-munitions-205995
“The most ready when the nation is least ready” was a given from the day I joined the Marine Corps. It was the very reason everything in an Infantry Bn was transportable right down to the last spoon in the field mess. We had embarkation plans for every amphibious ship in the fleet and every aircraft in the Air Force Strategic Lift fleet and the ability to shrink or expand as the mission or resources might dictate. We then saw the beauty of MPS shipping and pre positioning equipment and were always ready to move Marines on commercial air. Even in the Amphibious realm we were well versed on Amphibious Assault, unopposed landings, administrative offloads and fly in elements. We were well aware that being ready to deploy, whatever the permutations, was key. Being ready to fight was a given but humanitarian assistance might be the mission. The key was being ready to fight and win and every other mission was doable. The Warrior who gardens is better than a Gardner who is forced to fight. The American Marine as a Samurai or a Spartan.
It baffles me how this is even an item of discussion. Yet, here we are. The 911 calls go unanswered. We are in our sixth year of building a niche capability that is not ready and highly questionable.