Compass Points - Zinni Interview
Where does the Marine Corps go from here?
Compass Points - Zinni Interview
Where does the Marine Corps go from here?
July 26, 2026
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Over the last week, Compass Points readers have generated online and off a cornucopia of comments, insights, and analysis. Compass Points appreciates all readers who in their own ways are continuing to build the discussion about a stronger Marine Corps, and also thanks all our readers who served as seminar leaders this week by providing topics, articles, and comments. Many thanks!
Sunday is a good day for reflection.
This Sunday, is a good day to reflect on the wisdom of experienced Marines.
The challenges for the Marine Corps are growing greater. As part of the constant process of upgrading and improving Marine Corps capabilities, Marine senior leaders would be wise to consult the wisdom of experienced Marines.
Dr. Mie Augier and Major Sean F.X. Barrett some time ago sat down to interview one of the Marine Corps’ most experienced Marines, General Anthony Zinni (USMC, retired). Their interview was published by CIMSEC and portions of the interview are included below. General Zinni talks about how he grew as a young officer and many other topics.
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CIMSEC Interview with General Anthony Zinni, (USMC, ret)
CIMSEC:
Were you influenced by any particular interests, books, or mentors?
ZINNI:
First, on people, General Al Gray was probably the biggest influence on me. I’ve known him since I was a captain. He had a set of people. He mentored us and sought us out all the time. He was unusual to us junior officers. He was willing to talk about things we were interested in—tactics, leadership, and those kinds of things. It was hard to find senior officers who really had that kind of connection. Plus, his personality was such that he drew people to him. He seemed to understand what we were going through, what we were thinking. You must remember we had come back from a couple of tours in Vietnam, so our first decade in the Marine Corps was formed by Vietnam. Of course, he was there, too—more senior, but he really understood what we saw and our reaction it.
Lieutenant General Mick Trainor was my battalion commander. He had a reputation in the Marine Corps for being a highly intelligent officer, and he was someone who really understood warfare, especially in Vietnam. He was another mentor—I have had several, most of them later made general officer—so I was a pretty good chooser of mentors [laughs].
In terms of books, I read a lot, but I don’t have a particular way of listing them. I talk with Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper about this a lot. He really focuses on specific books, and I don’t. I read a lot of books. I always get taken aback when junior officers ask me, “Can you give me a reading list or a list of recommended books?” I say, “You should read all the books you can get ahold of, and then sort out what you think are the important books.” Usually, they get onto doing that. But it’s also a lazy way of saying, ‘I don’t always remember what I’ve read in all these books’—I gather it in and hopefully integrate it.
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CIMSEC:
One of the big themes in your well-known “Combat Concepts” talk is the need to extend maneuver thinking beyond warfighting concepts to application. For you, General Gray, and others, it seems this wasn’t a contrast. Maneuver warfare was a way of thinking and a practice at the same time.
ZINNI:
Yes, I would say it’s a way of thinking. It is more a way of how you form concepts about operational art. However, what I felt was lacking in some discussions was going to the next step—to application, to practice. People who didn’t want to take that step bothered me. Execution is just as hard as conceptualizing. John Boyd talked about that. He took the concepts and talked about applications. He was the maneuverist who tried to bring in some form of application. Of course, General Gray was that way, too. He was always interested in application. He asked us all the time, “How would you translate that into action, or into application?” He always wanted to take it to the next step, but it was rare to find people who thought conceptually like that—and then extra rare to find people who tried to translate it into application.
---- CIMSEC interview with Gen Anthony Zinni (USMC, ret)
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The first of three parts of the CIMSEC interviw with Gen Zinni concludes with the General’s thoughts on the importance of finding thinkers in the Marine Corps who can “lead, execute, and apply.”
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CIMSEC:
How do we make sure we develop people who are asking the right questions and not falling victim to biases and projecting what we want to believe, or what we want to believe is happening in other countries?
ZINNI:
It’s a great question, and I go back to people like George Marshall, who had the same question. What Marshall did—and General Gray was like this, too—Marshall wanted to know who his senior leaders, mid-range leaders, and maybe even some of his junior leaders were. Marshall spent a lot of time talking with his leadership, trying to understand who they were. There were always rumors about Marshall having a little black book about the leaders he thought were the best or had something. People later realized he never really had a black book, but he had a black book in his mind.
When World War II started, he immediately knew who he had to move out and who he wanted to move in. The people he identified early on as promising were put in at the division, corps, and field Army levels, and they were remarkably good. He then started to form these groups where he encouraged them to come together afterhours to discuss the art of war, operational art, and the profession of arms. He wanted this dialogue to continue amongst these groups that he established. General Gray and Lieutenant General Trainor did the same thing. Within these groups, they could begin to see who the thinkers were.
You must not only go after the thinkers, however, but also those who can lead, execute, and apply. You must marry the two together. There is a place for people who can only do the conceptual, but you are really looking for the future leaders who can tie the conceptual to the application. Our senior leadership needs to do what Marshall did and try to personally discover these people and identify them, and not just believe the system can do it on its own.
-- CIMSEC interview with Gen Anthony Zinni (USMC, ret)
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Compass Points salutes Gen Zinni for his decades of service to the Nation in war and peace.
General Anthony Zinni served 39 years as a U.S. Marine and retired as Commander–in–Chief, U.S. Central Command, a position he held from August 1997 to September 2000. After retiring, General Zinni served as U.S. special envoy to Israel and the Palestinian Authority (2001-2003) and U.S. special envoy to Qatar (2017-2019).
General Zinni has held numerous academic positions, including the Stanley Chair in Ethics at the Virginia Military Institute, the Nimitz Chair at the University of California, Berkeley, the Hofheimer Chair at the Joint Forces Staff College, the Sanford Distinguished Lecturer in Residence at Duke University, and the Harriman Professorship of Government at the Reves Center for International Studies at the College of William and Mary.
General Zinni is the author of several books, including Before the First Shots Are Fired, Leading the Charge, The Battle for Peace, and Battle Ready. He has also had a distinguished business career, serving as Chairman of the Board at BAE Systems Inc., a member of the board and later executive vice president at DynCorp International, and President of International Operations for M.I.C. Industries, Inc.
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Compass Points also thanks Dr. Mie Augier and Major Sean F. X. Barrett for their CIMSEC interview with Gen Anthony Zinni (USMC, ret).
As the US is, once again, facing threats around the globe, the US Marine Corps is, once again, enhancing its combined arms capabilities so it can better serve the Nation. When the Nation is least ready for some new threat in some old corner of the world, the Marine Corps must be most ready. To be ready tomorrow, the Marine Corps must prepare today. Part of that preparation needs to include consulting with experienced Marines like General Zinni.
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CIMSEC - 09/07/2021
A Conversation with General Anthony Zinni (Ret.) on Leaders and Strategic Thinking
By Mie Augier and Major Sean F. X. Barrett
https://cimsec.org/a-conversation-with-general-anthony-zinni-ret-on-leaders-and-strategic-thinking/
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It always strikes this writer, that the image of the Corps held by many is one of very violent knuckle dragging miscreants that are best left at sea on ships or locked away on military bases away from the gentler souls and multitudes of the general public. In reality we have always been the thinking service, either by design or forces of the nature of national circumstance, the Corps has always had to “think” its way out of the many problems that it confronts at all times. As General Zinni points out, we also have been fortunate to have a lot of great thinkers that could also “conceptualize” and “execute” their great and facile thinking. Perhaps because we have to constantly justify our very need to exist we bring a special urgency to our thinking and execution. This writer recalls General Zinni at some point in the past saying that when he and many of his cohorts got back from the fight in Vietnam that if they ever got in a position of authority that “never again” would be one of the watch words for Marine Corps plans and operations. That very simple phrase has stuck with this very dumb 0302 from the first he heard it. In the movie BraveHeart William Wallace’s Uncle Argyle comes to fetch him after his father and older brother are killed. During a moment of review Uncle Argyle notices young Wallace’s interest in his broad sword. He instructs as he taps Wallace’s forehead with his index finger “first learn to this.” “Then I’ll teach you to how to use this.” Referencing his broad sword.
We are best when left to our own devices, and even when a former CMC strays into Alice and Wonderland territory (aka Force Design 2030) we manage to find ourselves back to the notion that we “seize, occupy and defend advanced naval bases.” The rest simply follows, as or unless otherwise directed.
We are the thinking service and as such extremely capable of extreme violence of action. General Zinni confirms this theme.
Not one word about 21st Century amphibious warfare, nothing about applying MWT to what MCCDC, MCWL, MCSC do. In Gen Zinnis dissertation on innovation there is nothing about maneuver warfare and innovation despite the work of Boyd disciple Jeff Sutherland using MWT saving a failed FBI technology project, despite Acolyte Chet Richards applying MWT to business. In His dissertation he talks of the thatch weave but not the greatest innovation of WWII, the Higgins Boat, and why after 20 years 1920-1040 USMC still couldnt get from ship to shore efficiently until a brilliant Lt named Victor came along at the last moment and showed them.
We say we want to listen to those with experience, but when it comes to those with capacity for military technological innovation we sell them down the river--Col Drew Cukor being the most recent, but Boyd was court marshaled four times, Burton had Pentagon Wars, we saw what happened to Col Mike Wyly, in 20 years of war several of us responsible for the greatest innovations of COIN were attacked, sidelined, pushed out the back door. The ACV is a land vehicle with very short range at sea. ACV/LCAC need to be urgently replaced using MWT not present in Quantico. This can be fixed. If USAF can do stealth, USMC can do high speed amphibs.
Name the greatest amphibious generals of the past 40 years and I will show a list of generals who gave us a Marine Corps that cannot do its main mission, amphibious warfare, against current threats.