It is sometimes asked, if FD 2030 raises so many concerns today, where were these concerns in the earliest days of FD 2030? The answer is from the beginning, while some pundits and staffers praised FD 2030, there were serious questions raised.
Marine Corps veterans, Mark Cancian and Jim Webb were among the earliest to raise the alarm about FD 2030. Mark Cancian wrote an article “Don’t Go Crazy Marine Corps” for War on the Rocks, and another article for CSIS, “The Marine Corps’ Radical Shift Toward China.”
Shortly thereafter, former Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb, wrote a powerful challenge to FD 2030 in The National Interest, “The Future of the U.S. Marine Corps.”
But even earlier, Dan Goure, writing in The National Interest (link below) warned of the dangers of FD 2030 in his article, “Does This Mean the End of the Mighty U.S. Marine Corps?” With the passage of time, the concerns about FD 2030 identified by all these men, and so many others, are even more concerning today.
The National Interest (nationalinterest.org)
December 13, 2019 Topic: Security Blog Brand: The Buzz Tags: U.S. Marine Corps, Military, Navy, War
Does This Mean the End of the Mighty U.S. Marine Corps?
According to the new Commandant, “the Marine Corps is not organized, trained, equipped, or postured to meet the demands of the rapidly evolving future operating environment.”
by Dan Goure
. . . But the most fundamental problem with General Berger's vision is this: If the Marine Corps rids itself of the capabilities and capacity for significant forcible entry and sustained land operations, how does it remain relevant to the needs of the nation? The Army can deploy long-range anti-ship strikes from small, mobile launchers, as its recent test of a prototype Precision Strike Missile demonstrated. The Army has been a stand-in force on the Korean peninsula for nearly seventy years and in Europe for even longer. The Army has the organic engineering and logistics capabilities to create and maintain small, austere expeditionary bases. The Army even has its own fleet of small, cheap vessels. The Marine Corps described by General Berger, looks more like a smaller, less capable version of the Army than a fundamentally new fighting force.
Dan Gouré, Ph.D., is a vice president at the public-policy research think tank Lexington Institute.
This article first appeared at Real Clear Defense.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/does-mean-end-mighty-us-marine-corps-105017
I don’t understand the statement “if FD 2030 raises so many concerns today…” the only concerns are from a handful of retired Marines. Congress and civilian leaders are supportive—they don’t even think about it anymore. I’ve talked to many retired people are supportive of modernization and respectful of the acting CMC doing his job ISO the NDS, NSS…
No, it’s not conceivable or he wouldn’t have so many Marines, active, retired and former, all with combat experience, wondering what the hell is he doing, and why? His Why doesn’t pass the smell test. If he knows more than his critics, then surely he must have published a lengthy discourse to answer valid concerns raised by people who have earned that right. Unless you assume an acceptable answer is “Because I said so.” That doesn’t work for Commandants any more than it works for Second Lieutenants. Or consultants.