Apparently, the debate over the Marine Corps' design and mission is settled. And everyone needs to salute and march into the glorious future of Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO).
Is the Marine EABO concept destroying the Marine Corps?
“Marine resources and organizational cohesion have been severely damaged. General Berger’s injudicious change of direction will adversely affect Marine war-fighting capabilities, internal morale, and recruiting for years to come.”
All of this has been done for a stunningly stupid investment in a land based anti-ship mission against China that will not work. It is competitive rather than complementary with the Navy and Air Force, and it is a scandalous misallocation of Marine resources. Inserting by sea three or four small Marine units, with no support, on atolls in the South China Sea invites capture and defeat.
There are certainly outside respectable voices--such as Robert Work--strongly in favor of the Marine Corps' change in direction:
The Marine Corps’ Force Design 2030, written under the direction of the 38th commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. David Berger, has been the target of much criticism since its release in 2020. In this article, former Undersecretary of the Navy and Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work addresses these criticisms and defends the document’s vision for the future of the Corps. Ultimately, he argues that it’s time for the self-proclaimed Chowderites, who have fought without success to oppose the commandant’s vision, to cede the field.But opposition to Force Design 2030 has also been ridiculed as "zombie" behavior:
Force Design 2030 marks the U.S. Marines’ turn back to the sea after two decades of ground combat against insurgents and terrorists. The change has not set well with some 20 retirees, a who’s-who of Marine luminaries who cast themselves as intellectual descendants of past Marine Corps defenders. ...
Chowderites have released the zombie horde again in hopes of reshaping the personnel battlespace at a critical time, or so I surmise.
I guess I'm between the sides that say this is a disaster and those who say the disaster voices (the Chowderites) are misguided, possibly puffed up with unearned importance, and quite likely dangerous.
The need to assist the Navy in defeating the Chinese navy in the western Pacific seems evident to me:
I am on board attempts to get the Marines to adapt to A2/AD by spreading out in smaller units more useful for raids or small missions, as I wrote about in this article in the Naval Institute Proceedings (USNI membership required to access it online)--at least until naval and air dominance is achieved.
The idea of coastal defense is also an idea I'm in favor of the Navy or Marines adopting.I thought that in place of MEUs as the building block that Marine Expeditionary Companies (MECs) could be that basic unit for disaggregated operations under A2/AD threat. And some could be used for other purposes in support of expeditionary advanced base operations[.]
So I like the direction of changes. And I certainly don't think that the answer to the China problem is to jam more traditional forces into the Western Pacific within easy reach of Chinese strikes. I've long been worried about that. So in principle I like mobile Marine anti-ship detachments in the Western Pacific.
But if you want to defend spreading out all of the Marines for distributed anti-ship operations, now do super carriers.
Sure, I worry about losing the most significant ground force that has fought at the Army's side in expeditionary campaigns since 9/11--and really, since World War II. But I appreciate the Marines rejecting being a second Army and losing its identity as a sea service. So I don't think my concerns about the Marine direction are a "zombie" argument, defending an undead past with unthinking determination to destroy the living and evolving Marine Corps.
My concerns about the Marines revolve on how the Marines are evolving to support the too-small Navy in a sea control fight.
Note that initial article. The concept is completely changing the Marines to put "three or four small Marine units, with no support, on atolls in the South China Sea[.]"
If helping the Navy is so important, how is it possible for the end result of massive transformation be 3 or 4 anti-ship outposts? I mean, even if that is per Marine Littoral Regiment, that seems small. As I warned, when you start to sink ships, sink ships.
And what about the logistics? As that first article warns, the new Marine operating concept invites the capture and defeat of the Marine expeditionary advance bases.
Also, the approach isn't as appropriate for the rest of the world where no fleets threaten Western control of the seas. Is a Marine Corps focused on anti-ship outposts appropriate for Europe? For Africa? For the Middle East? For the Western Hemisphere? What large fleets challenge sea control in those areas?
Sure--and this is reassuring--the Marine Littoral Regiments are limited:
only two of seven Marine infantry regiments will be reconfigured as Marine littoral regiments. The other five will retain their “traditional” infantry-heavy structure, which is optimized for sustained operation ashore.
And truth be told, much of Work's argument has merit. His discussion of the non MLR Marines as able to fight ashore in up to divisional strength reassures me--somewhat.
But all of the tanks and much of the equipment for sustaining operations ashore against capable enemies is gone. Sure, the Marines say they can do without that mere legacy stuff:
The bolstered infantry unit is “lighter, mobile, distributed, more lethal” and “expanding the definition of combined arms from … kinetics to multi-domain,” said Brig. Gen. Kyle Ellison, commanding general of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab.
Even if on paper what is left is enough, will it be? Tube artillery doesn't seem obsolete in Ukraine these days. And what about replacing losses? That traditional infantry-heavy structure is traditional for what era? The 1920s?
It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for the Corps.
By all means, read Work's arguments. You may be persuaded. But I still have issues with the change.
Not all Marine Corps focus must be on fighting the PLA Navy simply because China is the "pacing" threat against which we must measure our military capabilities. It is simplistic to rest an argument on that basis. "Pacing" does not mean "only." And given that Work defends the changes by noting that only two of the Marine infantry regiments are converting to MLRs, he must agree at some level. So the way the non-MLR regiments are equipped must matter.
Why change all of the Marines by divesting so much heavy equipment when the changes needed--if done right--are a response to current weaknesses in the Navy and Air Force that haven't had to think about sinking ships in a long time? In a specific--if highly important--part of the world?
I've asked before and I'll ask again, why wasn't the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command--the Navy's in-house ground force component--given the mission of creating anti-ship units to support the fleet? Marine regiments could have supported those NECC units rather than changing the entire Corps for that narrow mission.
Indeed, what will the anti-ship Marines do when they succeed in helping the Navy gain sea control in the western Pacific? Spend a decade rebuilding the heavier conventional forces needed for projecting power ashore--and inland--again?
Seriously, the Navy will get bigger and build new capabilities--like loitering suicide drones--to address the threat, right? After that, pushing Marines into the shadow of Chinese missile and aircraft envelopes won't be critical, right?
The newly nominated Marine Corps commandant should not dismiss criticism. Will he?
[Gen. Eric Smith] has been a strong advocate for transforming the Marine Corps through a variety of initiatives including Force Design 2030, Talent Management 2030, and the “stand-in forces” concept.
Yet Smith admits that the impetus for change is in the Pacific:
There are roughly 80,000 Marines aligned to missions in the Pacific, with nearly 24,000 of them forward deployed or stationed in theater … They will fight tomorrow if a war begins, but without change, they will do so with decades-old tools and organizations that are not up to the standard of a peer conflict. This is not acceptable.
What about the rest of the Marines not aligned for missions in the Pacific? What about six months or a year after the fight starts in the Pacific?
I am not a zombie for asking friggin' questions about such a radical and broad change in Marine Corps missions, equipment, and organization.
But those who march forward into the glorious EABO future without being able to articulate why my questions and concerns are unworthy of their time to address just might be. Will the next commandant address such questions?
And if not, who is the zombie plowing ahead unthinkingly?
UPDATE: To support the Navy in the Pacific, the Marines want a Long-Range Unmanned Surface Vessel:
The LRUSV is a 12.5 meter (40-foot) autonomous (unmanned) boat designed to operate at ranges of nearly 2,000 kilometers and launch loitering munitions to engage enemy targets afloat and ashore.
It will carry a number of the Hero 120 loitering munition that "weighs 12.5 kg (27.5 pounds) including a 4.6 kg warhead. Max endurance is 60 minutes and max range of the control signal is 40 kilometers."
Huh.
Question: Why is this a Marine vessel and not a Navy vessel? The Marines are changing to avoid being a second Army. Are they trying to be a second Navy?
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
