Listen Up Marines, We Belong at Sea

[Bob's World]

Size has always been a poor characteristic to define wars by, as it offers few clues as to what type of conflict it is, and thereby what types of approaches or forces are most likely to achieve the desired effects.

We need a force designed for the world we live in today, and one designed also to deter the types of threats we see in the future. This is why we sustained a war fighting army through the peace of the Cold War. With the adoption of a containment strategy we also adopted the geo-strategic reality of our allies - which means we surrendered the geo-strategic advantages of our own. We need to understand that. We need to think about what type of decisions that drove, why it drove them, and what, if any, of that thinking is still valid to our situation today.

Nuclear forces and capabilities exist not to be used. Their function is purely that of deterrence of other nuclear states, and so need to be kept to the minimum amount necessary to perform that function. I suspect we could find additional savings there.

Land forces are to seize and hold ground. They do not offer much of a deterrent effect, IMO. Nations like those of the Eurasian landmass have a geo-strategic challenge that the US does not. Good fences make good neighbors, and in many cases no such "fences" exist. Said another way, the US possesses a geo-strategic advantage that others do not. Geo-strategy has become a neglected art. Some, like George Friedman, are notable exceptions, but by in large the US today looks at the world as if we were still defined by the geostrategic realities of our Cold War mission, allies and opponents.

I don't think we need a USMC sized, trained organized and equipped to re-fight the battle of Iwo Jima. Nor do I think we need a US Army sized, trained organized and equipped to re-fight Desert Storm or Iraqi Freedom (both conflicts of choice, not necessity).

We need to stop building forces and arguments on invalid arguments and assumptions. We need to do our strategic homework free of the inertia and bias that dominates our "strategic" thinking today.

But DC is a land of inertia. DC is a land of bias. Good Cold Warriors dominate the scene, though they now vie for space with those who see "terrorism" in every national movement or non-state organization that dares to challenge our interpretation of what "right" looks like. QDR is certainly not an unbiased assessment. It is a competition of service advocacy framed by a crossfire of formal and informal policy advocacy advancing some line of inertia and bias or another.

That dynamic is unlikely to change much. But we can lay a better strategic foundation to build upon. That is within our power to do, yet no one is doing it. Not at Defense. Not at State. Not at any of the many think tanks (so far as I have seen). Everything needs to be on the table as we look at who we are, who we want to be, and the world we will do that within. Sacred cows will be slaughtered and new ones will emerge.

Personally, I think we can do very well with a much smaller Army. I think that much of our peacetime expeditionary work can be done by SOF and USMC forces tailored for that role. I don't think there is a large demand signal for "building partner capacity" or "counterterrorism" either one. Some demand to be sure, but it is one that is best seen as narrowly defined and limited to avoid the dangers associated with excesses on either line of operation. We don't need a navy designed to patrol the brown water of the world, nor to go head to head with China of their coast. Similarly our tactical air power needs to be designed for the tactical air missions we live with, not the ones Air Force general fantasize about. But first we need to wipe the strategic slate clean, roll up our strategic sleeves, and do our strategic homework.

[gute]

Personally, I think we can do very well with a much smaller Army. I think that much of our peacetime expeditionary work can be done by SOF and USMC forces tailored for that role. I don't think there is a large demand signal for "building partner capacity" or "counterterrorism" either one. Some demand to be sure, but it is one that is best seen as narrowly defined and limited to avoid the dangers associated with excesses on either line of operation. We don't need a navy designed to patrol the brown water of the world, nor to go head to head with China of their coast. Similarly our tactical air power needs to be designed for the tactical air missions we live with, not the ones Air Force general fantasize about. But first we need to wipe the strategic slate clean, roll up our strategic sleeves, and do our strategic homework.

Completely agree and this could be forced on the Army and Marine Corps, depending on the next election, with sequestration or the economy.

What is your strategic assessment?

[Morgan]

I don't think there is a large demand signal for "building partner capacity" or "counterterrorism" either one.

Perhaps we can substitute "building partner capacity" (BPC) for a large standing Army......reduce the Army to 400,000 (the worst-case scenario according to the CNAS report, as I recall) and the USMC to 100,000 (maybe less) and we will still have an active land combat force of 500,000 (do we want to go smaller?).

The active duty force would become a bit more specialized (I know many strongly disagree with this), particularly within the Army and even Marines, while the generalists would be maintained in our reserve forces. Through BPC, the Army (and USG in general) would develop allied forces who bear the brunt in any flare-up of any land-based hybrid threats we expect as part of the norm during this century and the Marines & SOF handle CT, A2AD, UW, DA, anything that might fall under the moniker "small war" (as in wars/ conflicts of very limited duration with narrow, well-defined objectives).

[Bob's World]

If partners feel they need additional capacity, they are fully capable of developing the amount and type they need.

This idea that we will train others to go out and do our fighting for us smacks a bit too much of several failed empires who have gone before us. The reality is that if we stop trying to exert so much control over situations that have so little impact upon our our truly vital interests, we will find that we have excess capacity in spades.

As to your proposed numbers for the Army and Marines, it is well to remember that these are two very different organizations with very different missions. Just because we often use them in the same manner does not make them the same. They have unique constitutional foundations, and the Marines have a much more active peacetime engagement role than the Army does. Marines exist to conduct short duration expeditions as needed; while Armies exist to fight long duration wars. Why would we keep 4 times the warfighting force in times of peace?? Better to sustain more Marines and accept the risk of cutting more Army. We need to be smart, not fair.

Start point to getting to smart solutions is to take on the strategic questions first. We need a new foundation of thought for how we view the world and our role in it. Then we need to design institutions, policies and forces to implement the same. This is what we did to implement containment, and now it is long past time to go through that same degree of overhaul yet again.

[Bill Moore]

Bob,

I agree we have collectively over stated the demand signal for "build partner capacity", and I believe we are fooling ourselves if we honestly think we can outsource our fighting. To some extent we can, but we can use IMET, and small footprint training elements on the ground to help partners develop specific capabilities and capacities. We don't need capacity building BDE's in my opinion unless we foresee more OEF-As and OIFs.

If partners feel they need additional capacity, they are fully capable of developing the amount and type they need.

You know that this statement is not true in many cases.

This idea that we will train others to go out and do our fighting for us smacks a bit too much of several failed empires who have gone before us. The reality is that if we stop trying to exert so much control over situations that have so little impact upon our our truly vital interests, we will find that we have excess capacity in spades.

This is valid and deserves further discussion. More thoughts later, household six is issuing orders, I have run :-).

[gute]

This is valid and deserves further discussion. More thoughts later, household six is issuing orders, I have run :-).

Now, that's funny. I refer to my better half as Gunny - she sounds like one at times. Course, she is married to a full grown kid.

IMO this is gonna be settled by economic disaster in this country.

[gute]

You guys may have read this before:

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/jou...eoptolemus.pdf

[Bob's World]

Bill,

Note, I said "need," not want. Granted some of them need to add a good dose of not aggravating the insurgent tendencies of their own populaces quite so much in order to bring the problem down within the capacity they are able to produce.

But as we both well know, the primary purpose of our historic capacity building engagement was far more about building relationships than skills, and about developing and sustaining our own understanding of critical places. Building professionalism has also been important in reducing that afore mentioned aggravation...