The Marines are looking at the Guadalcanal campaign as a template for a future Pacific war:
Victory on Guadalcanal and the rest of the Pacific came “at the cost of capital ships and thousands of lives,” Olson noted. Another speaker at the conference, Major Gen. Paul Rock, director of Marine Corps Strategies and Plans, said high casualties could be likely again. “Attrition is going to be a factor in a future fight,” Rock said.
While that may prove true, the Marines are not resigned to taking the same heavy casualties they suffered in the Pacific island-hopping campaign of World War II, Gen. David Berger, the commandant of the Marine Corps, insisted a day later.
I too looked to Guadalcanal as a model--in this short ILW Land Warfare Paper--for how each service winning in its own domain can create synergy to win the battles in and under the seas, in the air, and on the ground.
And of course, we won't need to endure the casualties of an island-hopping campaign. Because we and our allies pretty much control the islands all the way up to the coast of China--except for the artificial ones the Chinese built in the South China Sea.
But yeah, attrition will be a factor in any such fight. Let's try to avoid that war even as we prepare to win it if necessary.
