Quote Originally Posted by Ender View Post
Our nation's very survival depends on the existence of the Corps (if you don't know what I am talking about ask a Marine, they will tell you) so I guess they are in too...
OK, I'll bite. How do you justify this statement? Because I see absolutely no factual basis for it.

You know, I just finished LTC Nagl's book, and although one of the main thrusts is that the British military's historical legacy made them better able to adapt to COIN in Malaya, there was something near the end of the book that could be easily overlooked. LTC Nagl also pointed out that the British were decidedly not as successful as the United States at the large scale conventional warfare of the two world wars. I'm not just talking from a matter of pure logistics, but tactically they did not perform as well as the US Army in conventional ground combat, for some of the same reasons that they later performed well in Malaya.

I believe that some of his conclusions could be applied, after a fashion, to the differences between the Marine Corps and the Air Force. The Marine Corps has a history of being intellectually agile, and well suited to small wars and expeditionary operations. However, if the Red Army had ever stormed the Fulda Gap, our utility would have been decidedly limited. The Air Force would have been essential to winning that one. There are still plenty of scenarios that call for a strong Air Force, enough that throwing them away because of their lack of relevance to a COIN fight would be extremely short-sighted.