Reimagining the Marine Corps

I want to draw your attention to a piece by T. Greer (of The Scholar’s Stage) at Foreign Policy on the Marines’ plans to reconstitute the force to address a Chinese threat:

The Marines’ plans reflects a broader change of focus by the Pentagon, which has been ordered by the White House to redirect its focus from counterinsurgency campaigns toward what it dubs “great-power competition” with Russia and China. The threat posed by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is especially dire. While American forces were campaigning in the mountains of Afghanistan, the commanders of the PLA slowly shaped their military into the world’s premier counter-American military force.

The PLA realized that the U.S. military had grown accustomed to operating freely in the airspace and neighboring waters of its enemies. To counter this way of war, a terrific percentage of the Chinese defense budget has been directed to developing weapons that might challenge American control of the sea and air. The result: thousands of what are known as “anti-access” and “area denial” weapons whose range and precision create a death zone extending hundreds of miles from the Chinese coast. These precision weapons, launched from an ever-growing number of PLA Navy vessels, PLA Air Force craft, and PLA Rocket Force units, will make it impossible for traditional expeditionary forces—like the existing U.S. Marine Expeditionary Units—to get within striking range of any East Asian battlefield without risking destruction. When these long-range weapons are combined with the PLA’s air defense systems, sea mines, submarines, and electronic warfare and cyber-capabilities, the result is a gauntlet of fire that American expeditionary forces cannot be expected to securely traverse.

The Marines’ response has been to plan to station troops within the “death zone”, in the mistaken belief that such will deter the Chinese leadership from adventurism. I agree with Dr. Greer that they are planning for the confrontation they want to have rather than the one they are likely to have.

I think that our military leadership needs to adjust itself to the possibility that the Chinese leadership is not deterrable at all. 21st century “great power” confrontation cannot be limited warfare. That is foolishness. The Marines would be practically useless in the warfare of extermination that would ensue.

3 comments… add one
  • bob sykes Link

    Gen. Berger, Cmdt US Marine Corps, proposes to transform the Marines into light infantry, without organic armor, artillery, transport, air support. The Marines would function as guerrillas. Maybe they have some Javelins or Stingers, whatever they can carry. They would be deployed against Chinese or Russian or Indian or Paki or Irani or … mechanized infantry with all that. Looks suicidal to me.

    Of course, the Marines have a problem. There is probably not one foot of Eurasian coast line that an amphibious assault (either by boat or helicopter) could capture. In fact, it is hard to see how the US could actually invade any country that did not let us do it. Certainly, Saddam twice let us spend months building up forces in adjacent countries. Would Iran do that? And where would the forces be placed? Pakistan?

    So, from Berger’s viewpoint, the Marines have no function other than to reinforce the US Army or provide Embassy security. That is probably correct, which is why he pride is forcing him to adopt some nonsensical, non-roll for his troops.

    That said, a Marine MEU does have value. You get a mechanized infantry regiment with armor, artillery, air support and transport, and 30 days combat supplies. They are forward deployed in danger zones. They would make either an excellent police force to eliminate Somali or Indonesian pirates (which the US refuses to do) or rapid reinforcement if we do figure out how to invade someone.

  • Grey Shambler Link

    I’m not a military strategist, but if we intend to contain all the possible military adversaries we may possibly face in any theatre we will break ourselves. I suspect it highly likely that we will never face the CCP in a hot war. They believe they are winning now. And I suspect they are right.
    Let’s bring essential industries home, while we can.

  • steve Link

    Agree with bob that I don’t see much chance of success for an amphibious assault on China. They will still function in that role against countries where we control the air, or countries that let us build our forces for 5-6 months. I don’t see direct confrontation with either China or Russia going well as they both have nukes. Maybe, just maybe if we allied with one of those two against the other we could have an effective land war but if they start losing Think the nukes come out.

    Steve

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