Friday, August 05, 2022
Is the Marine Corps Becoming Irrelevant?
Thanks to Carlton for the link!
via Military.com
It should be noted that, during each challenge to the existence of the Marine Corps, it never discarded capabilities. Innovations were always additive. That is why so many retired Marines -- and secretly, many active-duty ones -- are so worried about the commandant's Force Design 2030 initiative, which is well underway.
In implementing Force Design 2030, Gen. David Berger, the current Marine Corps commandant, has consulted with the secretary of defense. Apparently, however, Berger did not coordinate with the combatant commanders who now control military operations in the major theaters worldwide.
Before the Goldwater-Nichols military reform legislation of the 1980s, the president, via the defense secretary, appointed a commander to manage a crisis and then assigned forces to that commander. Today, however, the combatant commanders plan and coordinate for potential crises in their assigned regions. The service chiefs vie to demonstrate capabilities in those theaters. Despite recent developments in Ukraine, the combatant commanders in the Middle East and Europe will want heavy combat equipment, which the Marine Corps no longer has.
Berger has bet the farm that the next big war will be against China. If he is right, and the Corps contributes significantly, he will be a hero. If he is wrong and the next conflict occurs elsewhere, the Marine Corps faces irrelevance. (NOTE THAT THIS HAS BEEN A COMMON COMPLAINT OF MINE....Berger is thinking Pacific, I'm thinking Middle East, again, or Africa)
Berger's ideas on sensor-to-shooter technologies, increased use of robotics and information operations are visionary and should be commended. In the 1990s, I was a senior member of the Marine Corps' experimentation establishment, and Berger was a midgrade staff officer. We hoped to leverage emerging technologies and field lighter, more lethal forces in situations where they were appropriate. However, I also believed that situations such as counterinsurgency and urban combat would still require conventional capabilities.
We could always organize small forces for high-tech combat if needed from larger existing formations, but that is no longer an option under Berger's plan. The Corps cannot afford to ever tell a combatant commander, "Sorry, we don't do windows."
Must read article! Force Design 2030 will not work in the S. Pacific
Here is why the Marine Corps would lose in a fight for Taiwan, this Marine veteran claims. https://t.co/iSfIYqeWni
— Marine Corps Times (@Marinetimes) August 4, 2022
Thursday, August 04, 2022
The doomsday scenario isn't a Chinese invasion...its a mistake happening on either side that leads to war.
Ya know what the most dangerous thing is about these exercises that China is carrying out?
It's not the threat of invasion. I don't think the Chinese want that, we don't want that but China NEEDS to save face ... so they're gonna rattle cages hard.
The most dangerous thing is that you have so many military units operating in a relatively confined area, firing live rounds all over the place that we could actually see a mistake happen that leads to a war no one really wants.
A missile goes off course and hits Taiwan? A pilot gets amped up and does something stupid in the midst of patriotic fervor?
A ship captain that turns weapons loose when his ship gets illuminated? An amphibious assault exercise where the landing forces doesn't turn around at the designated line drawn on a map?
People are involved in this thing and people fuck up. That's the real danger here.
If this is true then the Feds in this area need to stop playing secret squirrel and let the locals know what the fuck they're doing!
Interesting. In my neck of the woods they let us know what's what. Pretty damn good relations....Hell we even have a US Marshals Special Ops Training Group Center in our area and they even let us hit their range.>ATF agent goes to a citizen’s house to harass him about a shotgun he’s apparently ‘not permitted’ to have
— C00KIE (@FrenEugenics) August 4, 2022
>Citizen goes inside and calls police to say someone is at the door trying to take his guns
>Police come and arrest ATF agent
LMAO pic.twitter.com/OLnDIA4Fp8
Does every Infantry Squad need a counter UAS gun?
How low do you push counter UAS kit? If every Infantry Squad is gonna have a UAS capability then shouldn't ever Squad have a counter capability?Russian fighters with ZALA Aero REX-2 C-UAS guns.https://t.co/SSglIOzPPNhttps://t.co/MeTlGHBNg8 pic.twitter.com/f0ETCBiETk
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) August 4, 2022
China could invade Taiwan before the 2024 US presidential election: sources!!!!
via Fox News
China could invade Taiwan within the next 18 months, current and former officials familiar with U.S. and allied intelligence told Fox News, suggesting a particularly "dangerous" window between the meeting of the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party this November and the next U.S. presidential election in 2024.
Two former senior officials told Fox News that the intelligence suggests China sees the potential opportunity for an amphibious assault and military invasion of Taiwan in that time frame.
"We have always had and always been aware that China has an ever-present, ever-evolving plan for an amphibious assault and military invasion of Taiwan. If they are not successful in reunifying politically, then they will do so with force," one former senior intelligence official familiar with U.S. intelligence, and who has discussed intelligence belonging to a U.S. ally in the Indo-Pacific, told Fox News.
I wonder what our war stocks look like! Have you noticed that the cries for more weapons by Ukraine has suddenly vanished?
I swear to God if I didn't know better I'd think all this would be scripted!
If China invades Taiwan they become a pariah nation. They lose their markets in the West. They basically become the new USSR in the East and all bets are off with future cooperation.
I didn't think they'd be stupid enough to raise the stakes of Pelosi's visit so high. They left the US with no other choice. They basically forced her to visit Taiwan with their rhetoric!
That is unlike them.
IF they invade Taiwan then we need to look at other stresses.
Is the financial crisis so bad in China that they're looking for foreign adventure to boost patriotism and clamp down on debate?
MASA 22-2 HRST
B-roll: 3rd Bn., 5th Marines, conducts REDEX 22.2
Spain limits AC to 27 Degrees Celsius...
🇪🇸 A debate has been sparked after Spain's government moved to prevent offices, shops and other venues from setting air conditioning below 27°C in the summer.https://t.co/VVwziUL5kD
— euronews (@euronews) August 3, 2022
Is it just me or does that really look like a Pershing II Missile!
Media in #China releases footage of missiles fired towards #Taiwan today along with the alleged impact points east of the country #ChinaTaiwanCrisis pic.twitter.com/KwOKDzfZiT
— Damien Symon (@detresfa_) August 4, 2022



















































