Compass Points - World Wide Webb
Author, Statesman, and Marine.
Compass Points - World Wide Webb
Author, Statesman, and Marine.
March 4, 2024
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Reuters reports that, "The U.S. military confirmed on Saturday that the UK-owned vessel Rubymar had sunk after being struck by an anti-ship ballistic missile fired by Yemeni Houthi militants on Feb. 18." Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis vowed on Sunday to continue attacking ships in the Red Sea.
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One year ago there was no thought among defense experts that the Houthis could be a significant danger to commercial ships transiting the Red Sea. Even if the threat had been clear, should the US Navy and Marine Corps have changed its force structure to face the threat? Obviously not. The Houthis are a small threat in a small nation. But even for far greater threats, a narrow approach is rarely a good idea. Just as Jim Webb issued an early warning against the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, he issued an early warning about Force Design.
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There is no greater danger in military strategy than shaping a nation’s force structure to respond to one specific set of contingencies . . .
-- Jim Webb, "The Future of the U.S. Marine Corps"
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In the past, the deployed Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) embarked on Navy ships and patrolling the oceans was the tip of the Marine Corps spear and its chief focus. The deployed MEU was tangible evidence of the Marine Corps commitment to flexible, capable, expeditionary readiness. The Marine Corps became known for having a MEU on patrol somewhere near any global crisis, ready to arrive and deter, assist, or fight. Not anymore. Now, the Marine Corps is focused less on the flexible, capable MEU and far more on the narrow MLR - Marine Littoral Regiment. MLRs are small defensive units designed to sit and wait on islands off the coast of China. The MLRs are narrow units that spring from Force Design.
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Force Design is a narrow plan, focused on a narrow region of the world, and a narrow slice of Marine Corps capabilities. Force Design was created in narrowness by a small group hiding and writing behind locked doors in a conference room where the windows were papered over with non-disclosure agreements.
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It did not have to be that way. From the beginning, the Force Design designers could have kicked open the doors and sought input, feedback, opinions, and perspectives from a variety of sources. Instead of squashing genuine, robust discussion and discourse, they could have encouraged it.
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Instead, much of the Force Design discussion and discourse was pushed outside of active duty circles. For example, the latest version of the INDEX OF PROMINENT ARTICLES ADDRESSING FORCE DESIGN 2030 of March 1, 2024 is organized into two sections. The primary index (topic areas A-J) consists of 115 articles, authored or coauthored by 78 different writers, and published in 37 different media outlets. The index of supporting articles (topic area K) consists of an additional 43 articles, authored or coauthored by 42 different writers, and published in 26 different media outlets. The topic areas are:
A. Concerns and a Better Way Forward
B. Global Response
C. Combined Arms
D. Divest to Invest
E. Light Amphibious Warship/Landing Ship Medium
F. Combatant Commanders
G. Discussion and Debate
H. Wargaming
I. Naval Support
J. Talent Management
K. Supporting Articles
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Just one of the authors from the INDEX is Senator, Secretary of the Navy, Presidential candidate, and Marine, Jim Webb. In an prescient and wide-ranging article for The National Interest, Webb gave an early warning about the dangers of Force Design.
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. . . What is surprising is that the new Commandant should be using a predictable re-emphasis on East Asia to propose changing the fundamental force structure and operational doctrines of the Marine Corps.
. . . If authorized, appropriated and put into place, this plan would eliminate many of the Marine Corps’ key capabilities. It could permanently reduce the long-standing mission of global readiness that for more than a century has been the essential reason for its existence as a separate service. Its long-term impact would undo the value of the Marine Corps as the one-stop guarantor of a homogeneous tactical readiness that can “go anywhere, fight anybody, and win.” And after the centuries it took to establish the Marine Corps as a fully separate military service, it could reduce its present role by making it again subordinate to the funding and operational requirements of the Navy.
. . . Based on a 2018 Department of Defense framework that is always subject to change, General Berger has thus decided to dramatically alter the entire force structure of the Marine Corps to a posture whose overriding emphasis would be short-term, high-tech raids against Chinese military outposts on small, fortified islands in the South China Sea. While it is certainly useful to develop contingency plans should Marines be called upon to conduct such limited tactical interventions, building a force around this concept is not a bold leap into the future. Rather, it reflects a misunderstanding of the past, as well as ignoring the unpredictability of war itself. Such scenarios are hardly a full reflection of “what the Nation requires of the Marine Corps.”
-- Jim Webb, "The Future of the U.S. Marine Corps"
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The Houthis are going to keep firing at ships in the Red Sea. They are an ongoing danger. But for the US it is hardly the only danger. The US cannot focus narrowly. The world, as always, is filled with threats, dangers, and adversaries. For the US, there is always an old crisis slowly growing more dangerous or a new crisis suddenly erupting in importance. The US does not have a narrow set of responsibilities and cannot afford a narrow Marine Corps. The US needs several flexible, capable, Marine Expeditionary Units on constant, global patrol. The Marine Corps must be forward deployed near any global crisis and able to arrive immediately with a small force ready to deter, assist, or fight. Then, that small Marine force must be able to be rapidly reinforced, augmented, and expanded. That is not a narrow force. That is a force for any crisis and any "clime and place."
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Compass Points salutes Jim Webb for his decades of continuing service to Country and Corps and salutes all those helping the Marine Corps climb out of the Force Design hole and get back on worldwide patrol.
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INDEX OF PROMINENT ARTICLES ADDRESSING FORCE DESIGN 2030
Version 6.1 of March 1, 2024
https://mega.nz/file/smJy3JDQ#-so1SJD-z4j_BdOvksSUsyPveFbVyEQaFhJ6Z9DCIzU
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Reuters - 03/03/2024
Yemen's Houthis say they will continue sinking British ships
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The National Defense - 05/08/2020
The Future of the U.S. Marine Corps
By Jim Webb
Former Senator and Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb served as a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam, where he was wounded twice and awarded the Navy Cross for “extraordinary heroism.” He currently serves as the inaugural Distinguished Fellow at Notre Dame’s International Security Center.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/future-us-marine-corps-152606?amp
James Webb made these comments almost four years ago. The then reaction to FD-2030 had been negative and has remained negative since it was first implemented. I purposely do not say “ proposed”. It was announced and implementation commenced immediately revealing that the concept had been conceived in secret. The active duty questioners were cashiered one by one and the questions and concerns of the experienced simply ignored with those who sincerely questioned repeatedly insulted as to their intellect and loyalty. In the meantime a medium sized conventional war in Ukraine exposes FD-2030 for the delusional concept it was. Yet, the USMC senior leadership forges ahead like a blind sow determined to eat.
DoD washed their hands of any responsibility right down to roles and missions or their proper control of funding. Two CNO’s have been supportive of the concept hoping to pick at the eventual carcass. Regional Commanders understand that the Corps is irrelevant to their mission. Yet, here we are. Full speed ahead. The silence of the JCS make it clear that they all have designs on the Corps’ little budget to enhance theirs.
From day one the wiser minds looked at the desire for an expanded mission to include missile based coastal defense and understood it should be additive. Add an experimental Bn to each Artillery Regiment to develop and experiment.
Of late the Corps demonstrates its global irrelevance daily and doubles down on flights of fancy, lack of integrity and out right stubbornness. Institutions are disbanded for less. I only hope that when the collapse occurs, and it will occur, those responsible will be returned to active duty and held accountable for their actions.
Having just read the article that Senator Webb penned, as noted more than four years ago, one statement that stood out was General Berger relying on a Harvard Business School professor’s opinion rather than that of the very able active duty and retired Marines around him. Papered over windows and NDA’s. At Enron, Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay had a floor in the original Enron building in Houston, they took existing and potential investors there to demonstrate the facile and rapier quick trading and investing capability of the Big E. The problem was the floor was a Potemkin Village, rows of trading screens that didn’t connect to anything and traders from other floors brought down for a quick 30 minutes to sit at desks and screens that didn’t do anything. Of course everyone was forced to sign confidentiality agreements or NDA’s. Sound familiar? It’s was a complete farce, the same way FD2030 is a farce, led by arrogant officers who as Jim Webb stated have gone to prestigious schools for advanced degrees, taught by professors who don’t know the butt end of a rifle from the muzzle. Was HBS where General Berger spent some time? One wonders if he was made aware of the Harvard Endowment making an investment in a Brazilian Rain Forest, which was marked to market by the very people who got Harvard to invest. Your money is safe with us, my name is Honest John follow me Pinocchio, Harvard ended up losing $1B on the investment, sound familiar? The basics never change. Not trying to stop education for all Marines, it should be like camouflage and harassment ongoing and forever changing to meet the situation. But the backbone of Enron was 36,500 miles of natural gas transmission pipeline and it made the basis for everything the company did, including the risky and illegal trading and investing that brought it to its knees and bankruptcy. If Enron had stuck to its core business, they might have been another boring investor owned utility, but they wouldn’t have swindled billions from the investors either. Well, well here we are the backbone of the Marine Corps highly mobile first to fight with portability and additive unit capability built over 100 years and some propeller heads with tainted war game assertions say “over the side you go MAGTF.” Well, maybe, and maybe not. At least Jeff Skilling did a long stand in stir. It didn’t help the 10,000 employees of Enron, or the investors, but it was a means of punishment for bad deeds. Who will pay the price for the folly of FD2030? Time will tell, let’s hope it is not Marines currently serving with the 26th MEU for example. One can only hope Jim Webb has another scorcher up his sleeve, maybe in his usual low key quiet non confrontational style politely call out the mess the last five years have been, supplement the already suggested course corrections and maybe lay a few guys out, verbally of course. Though he did box at the USNA….