Listen Up Marines, We Belong at Sea

[Ken White]

First the Army made a conscious decision to place half its combat units in the guard so that we may never participate in another unpopular war like Vietnam.

That's close but not totally accurate. The "half" part is incorrect but fairly close however the "never participate in another unpopular war,,," isn't. That structure was decided by a whole lot of political infighting between the Army, the Guard, the Army Reserve, the Governors and Congressional delegations. It was a very complex compromise that satisfied no one. It has also since been modified by the same pressures exerted by new actors.

We learned during Desert Storm that even with 90 days of training our best Guard units were not prepared for high OPTEMPO operations...

That's not correct. The Active Army absolutely did not want the Guard combat units in Theater for several reasons. Carl Vuono and Binny Peay, then CofSA and DCSOPS, fought quite hard to prevent deployment of the Guard Brigades that Congress insisted be called up. They were driven partly by future budget concerns, partly by pure parochialism -- Peay's famous "...not in My army..." comment comes to mind -- and hit upon the brilliant scheme of running all three Bdes through the NTC (where then Cdr Wesley Clark was a willing accomplice and thus 'justifying' the NTC which was under Congressional pressure for closure due to excessive costs) to obtain the required certification by the Active Army that the Bdes were 'combat ready' -- a statutory requirement the active Army wanted to avoid for several reasons. In the event, Commander Second US Army certified the 48th Bde of the GA ArNG as combat ready at the completion of their NTC rotation but was overruled by DA due to the fact that the Armistice had been signed and the issue was thus moot.

...an unmentioned fact is the large majority of conventional guard units were given security type missions as opposed to the varied mission set typically assigned active formations.

That's as much parochialism and continued budget battle as anything. It's also a protective device to avoid a number of casualties from one small town -- as occurred in previous wars when Guard units deployed (to include Viet Nam when one KY Guard Arty By was overrun with heavy casualties -- that caused the requirement for the Active Army to certify 'combat readiness' of Gd units.

I would disagree that Desert Storm was a war of choice. There was really not much choice but to eject Saddam from Kuwait to secure Saudi oil. A permanent heavy mechanized presence was not going to be possible either economically or politically.

That's arguable but irrelevant, DS/DS happened. The 'fact' that Saudi oil is needed by the rest of the world does not give the US reason to insure its provision except for US domestic political reasons.

Our situation is much different. It seems that lesson has been forgotten in a decade of low intensity conflict.

Agreed. It's not that much different but it is different enough to require a larger standing force -- for training purposes among other things.

...The capability to float a max of 30k Marines makes it tough to understand why it maintains a force in excess of 250k except that it is the only service that has its size stated in law (no less than three divisions and three air wings).

Not hard to understand -- the Marines try to keep Congress happy; the Army goes out of its way to pick fights with them over inconsequential issues -- or to just foolishly resist their pressure on sometimes needed reforms (foolishly in the sense that while that Army is sometimes correct, the 'battle' is poorly fought by the Army, generally due to excessively rapid rotation of key players).

[Dayuhan]

Bit of digression, but...

The 'fact' that Saudi oil is needed by the rest of the world does not give the US reason to insure its provision except for US domestic political reasons.

This is not exactly so. It's often presumed that if the US ceased to import oil from Saudi Arabia or the Gulf, continuity of supply from those sources would no longer be an American problem. That is of course not true. If oil from Saudi Arabia or any other major supplier was removed from the global supply mix, prices would skyrocket for everyone, including the US, and we'd be paying that price no matter where we buy the oil. If oil at $250/bbl isn't a problem, then we don't have to worry about Saudi production. If oil at $250/bbl would be a problem - and I suspect that it would be - we have to worry about the Saudis whether or not we buy from them.