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."

Story here 

Open Comment Post. 5 Aug 22

 

Must read article! Force Design 2030 will not work in the S. Pacific

Read the article then read the comments on Twitter. 

Simply amazing. 

This bubba explains in detail while this stealth force, firing missiles will be detected and microfragmented poste haste if hostilities would actually occur between the US and China. MANY MANY MANY FD2030 zealots are trying to knock the guy but he lays it out plainly. FD2030 will NOT work against a technologically advanced foe that is a naval power. 

The curious thing is that parts of it combined with the legacy MAGTF would probably be EXTREMELY lethal against most foes (would be overwhelming capable against 99.5% of the forces on the planet), but the sad reality is that in the Pacific it will be a naval and air war. FULL STOP! A sea battle must be won on the sea. 

The Marine Corps can't save the Navy. The Navy must step up and sort itself out!  This perhaps explains why the Navy isn't fully onboard with FD2030.  Did they perhaps run their own wargames and determined that the concept wasn't worthy?

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

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!

>ATF agent goes to a citizen’s house to harass him about a shotgun he’s apparently ‘not permitted’ to have
>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

— C00KIE (@FrenEugenics) August 4, 2022

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.

Battalion Landing Team 2/5, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit conduct combat rubber raiding craft training

Does every Infantry Squad need a counter UAS gun?

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

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?

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. 

Here 

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

U.S Marines with Expeditionary Operations Training Group instruct Philippine Marines on Helicopter Rope Suspension Techniques during Marine Aviation Support Activities 22-2, July 21, 2022, Subic Bay, Philippines. Marine Aviation Support Activities 22-2 is a bilateral exercise between the Armed Forces of Philippines and the U.S. Marine Corps, aimed at increasing interoperability and improving aviation-related capabilities in support of U.S.-Philippine mutual defense. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Gerardo W. Cano)

B-roll: 3rd Bn., 5th Marines, conducts REDEX 22.2

U.S. Marines with India Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, participate in Readiness Exercise 22.2 at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, July 26, 2022. The purpose of REDEX 22.2 is to validate worldwide crisis-response capabilities and demonstrate deployment readiness. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Lance Cpl. Jaye Townsend)