Surprised this hasn't triggered a massive schism in the Council yet over the future of "the Navy's Police force" as Harry Truman once un-flatteringly referred to the Marine Corps. Soldiers v. Marines. (Or as one family ex-State Department employee told me, "Both the Army and the Marines have a major Achilles heel: one relies on the Air Force for support; the other relies on the Navy!"
I think the duplicity of roles and convergence of mission between the Army and Marine Corps has been an inevitable product of bureaucratic stubbornness and the "piece of the pie" attitude the military has taken towards warfighting since at least WWII. Fiscally, it would be most effective, probably, to do just as Metz suggested (although I particularly like the idea of a Marine Corps as a specialized small wars/COIN and amphibious expeditionary force) and try to delineate some specifics about the roles the respective services should play.
But in my eyes it's impossible. Can any of you imagine a major conflict breaking out, and the national command authorities specifying that the Marine Corps will wage the conflict because it's a counterinsurgency or because it's in Nicaragua and the Army as an institution accepting it? Absolutely not. There would be an immediate and self-righteous fury within the Army and probably a stampeding rush by senior brass to send as many assets as possible to the theater.
Likewise, a sudden conventional conflict against North Korea would not be limited to a few Army heavy divisions. The Marine Corps would storm ashore anywhere on the Korean peninsula in order to get into the fight.
The attitude of "it's the only war we got - we gotta get in it" guarantees mission and capabilities convergence. And bureacratic inertia plus the typical attitudes of senior military brass guarantee that attitude will continue.
This train of thought also pervades budgetary thinking. Any non-military observer, when presented with the data from our most recent conflicts and the likelihood that such interventions and small wars will be the most common combat activities for the US military in the foreseeable (sp?) future, would immediately (and sanely) conclude that within the defense budget, funds allocated for, say F-22s and CG(X)s should be cut to increase funding for the Army and Marine Corps. Yet one would never expect the Air Force Chief of Staff to acquiesce. He will fight tooth and nail for the F-22, offer to rename it the F/A-22 to show what a great and useful tool for CAS in COIN situations it is, and probably get his money. He wants his budget, he wants his kingdom, and he (he being the institution, really) willl invent as many new raison d' etres (or, more accurately, tie any scenario, no matter how far-fetched, to his current raison d' etre) as necessary to keep them and prove the utility and necessity of his budget and service.
Once again, I've moved from the question at hand and small wars to "why government bureaucracy sucks." For that I apologize, but I think that atmosphere makes Dr. Metz's interesting suggestions more or less moot.
Matt
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