Does FD 2030 Create a Force-in-Readiness or in Stasis?
The December edition of the Maine Corps Gazette is dedicated to FD 2030. The Gazette includes several articles written in support of FD 2030, as well as several articles that raise concerns. Compass Post will feature several of the articles that raise significant concerns about FD 2030.
One of the articles is by the Marine and celebrated author, Bing West. When he was only a junior officer, Mr. West wrote his first book, The Village, about a Marine Combined Action Platoon in Vietnam. Since then, he has written on every major, subsequent conflict. He has studied warfare and lived it. His insights should be read thoughtfully by every friend of the Corps.
Marine Corps Gazette (mca-marines.org) August 2021; reprinted December 2022.
A Force-in-Readiness,or in Stasis? - Five questions about FD 2030
By Bing West
. . . Force Design 2030, however, did give up tanks and many howitzers. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and retired Gen Robert Neller invested heavily to modernize the essence of the Marine Corps—the squad. Their shared assumption was that close-in combat remained the lodestone of the Marine Corps. Under Force 2030, the squad will fight without tanks or continuous close-in fire support. Marines employed tanks in Vietnam, in DESERT STORM, and in the march to Baghdad. If the next conflict requires tanks or sustained fire support, Marines will have to task organize with Army units, lining up in a queue alongside the National Guard. Command relation-ships will be complex and time consuming, enervating the Marine core concept of maneuver warfare. Force Design 2030 runs the risk that the next conflict will require what has been discarded, meaning Marines will not be the first to fight . . .
. . . To put it bluntly, our policy toward China is too erratic to sustain Force Design 2030 for the next twenty and more years. Because our national policy dares not risk even an amphibious exercise in the South China Sea during peacetime, it is highly unlikely our ships would operate there during war. My novel, The Last Platoon, described the heroic futility of Marines pursuing a wrong-headed policy in Afghanistan. Let us not repeat that mistake. There is no policy that firmly supports island-hopping in the South China Sea.
>Mr. West is a former Assistant Secretary of Defense and combat Marine. He has written ten books about Marines in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. His latest is The Last Platoon: A Novel of the Afghanistan War.
I think Bing West touches on a reality often overlooked. The chances of a conventional war with China are remote. The probability is higher with Russia, N. Korea and Iran. The chances for smaller conflicts are numerous, global and unpredictable. The task organized Marine Air Ground Task Force is well suited for everyone of the above possibilities. The Corps’ self castration into a singular capability in a single theater, in a single scenario, against a single adversary is an ill advised strategy. Some are making the Chinese competitor into a Chinese enemy prematurely. HQMC is certainly aware of this. The institution rid itself of war fight capability and, to date, has replaced it with nothing. They gave away many cows without buying a single goat.
"Force Design 2030 is trading off an agile force in readiness for a defensive-oriented island-based force focusing on a single threat, in a single region." (https://fabiusmaximus.com/2022/09/18/usmc-force-design-2030/)