Optimizing the Marine Corps for small wars - A radical approach?
Originally Posted by Granite_State
Ah… the debate regarding the role of the Marine Corps; a debate since 1775! Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak (USMC ret.) wrote an excellent book titled First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps, which has become a must read for every Marine and highly recommended for all others! For reasons outlined in this book and others, the Marine Corps will never allow itself to be relegated to focusing on a specific type of war or battlefield. History has shown us that no war is alike. The Marine Corps must focus on the full spectrum of warfare in order “To be ready when the nation is least ready.” It is just as important for the Marine Corps to focus on amphibious operations, as mandated by law, as those “such other duties as the President may direct”, i.e. small wars. Just because we are currently engaged in a COIN environment, we can not lose sight of the fact that the next war may be on the opposite end of the spectrum. Can the Marine Corps do better at small wars? Is it likely that in the foreseeable future we will find ourselves engaged in COIN/small war operations globally? Absolutely to both questions. I do believe the Marine Corps “sensitive paranoia”, as General Krulak wrote in his book as a distinguishing characteristic; will drive a new generation of “thinkers” to better prepare the Corps for future small wars.
Personally, I believe the Corps knows how to forge our nation’s sons and daughters into warriors on the battlefield and into respectable citizens in OUR society. Herein lies the challenge. How do we better prepare the Marine for small wars, where too much force may equate to lost ground, where cultural beliefs and practices may not mirror ours? Where the enemy hides amongst the populace? How do we prepare the iPod and internet generations to operate in an environment where there the people know no such technological luxuries? How do we develop Marines to understand, operate, and positively influence what Robert Tomes writes in Relearning Counterinsurgency Warfare; as the “central tenant of counterinsurgency warfare: winning the allegiance of the indigenous population”?
Our current training methods of developing Mission Essential Tasks and instruction through Enabling and Terminal Learning Objectives are great for instructing a Marine how to operate a piece of equipment, handle ordnance, assault a fortified position, etc. This type of instruction can be taught in a classroom and then applied in a field setting. We have excellent Professional Military Education (PME) that teach general military and/or service specific doctrine to our Staff Non-Commissioned Officers and Officers. Our junior Non-Commissioned Officers learn topics such as drill, military customs and courtesies, and may get some basic field skills training such as land navigation or patrolling. This education and training is all very relevant to winning in a small war, but what is lacking in our development revolves around what Tomes cites Lieutenant Colonel Roger Trinquier as concluding in Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency; “that the guerrilla’s greatest advantages are his perfect knowledge of an area…and the support given him by the inhabitants…this total dependence upon terrain and population is also the guerilla’s weak point.” It is the ‘terrain and populations’ Marines must master in order to succeed in future small wars.
I will argue that we learn best through exposure. Can we ‘expose’ our Marines to environments where they will gain understanding of both terrain and people? Our military has units that can deploy and ‘train’ both developed and underdeveloped nations. How about we establish a special PME program, a study-abroad, where we send small ‘learning’ cadres to various regions around the globe to learn and at least come close to mastering both people and terrain of a specific region or area. These cadres would consist of Marines from all rank and file. They would eat what the locals eat, shop where the locals shop, and basically live as the locals live. Cadre members would consist of Marines from various occupational specialties. The cadre would learn terrain, not just from a geographical perspective, but from an infrastructure point of view. How does this society move around? How do they get electricity? Water? Who enforces laws and how? Who are the influential members of the society? How do they communicate? This is a very small snap shot of what a cadre would seek to learn. Then what? Cadres would be the nucleus to any larger organization should the need ever arise whether it be a conventional, small war, or humanitarian mission. Cadre members could come from specific standing units or handpicked from across the Marine Corps. These Marines would need to spend at least 6 months in this capacity and potentially return periodically as a refresher. Our goal would be to have most Marines, not just a select few, knowledgeable in one or several regions. Their experiences would be collected, their acquired skills and knowledge retrievable in a crisis. The objective being; the establishment and accumulation of knowledge and understanding of people and terrain on a global scale that will allow us to exploit the social and environmental conditions to our advantage across the spectrum of conflict.
Will geo-political and sovereignty issues become obstacles in addition to a mountain of other challenges? Sure. Expensive? Possibly. Easier said than done? Maybe. But I’m sure that the same was said to Earl “Pete” Ellis in 1920 when he first envisioned amphibious means in the Pacific against Japan that would come to fruition some twenty-one years later. But then again, I am no Pete Ellis.
Thoughts?
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