The Marine Corps' top general expressed serious regrets over the fact that Marines were not available to help in two major crises in recent months because of a lack of available Navy ships to position units in nearby waters."Places like Turkey or, the last couple of weeks, in Sudan -- I feel like I let down the combatant commander," Commandant Gen. David Berger told members of the House Armed Services Committee on Friday."[Gen. Michael Langley] didn't have a sea-based option -- that's how we reinforce embassies, that's how we evacuate them," Berger added, referring to the head of U.S. Africa Command.
I appreciate the Commandant being willing to step up and at least take verbal responsibility for this, since that kind of thing was sorely absent in the Afghanistan 'withdrawal' (I use scare quotes because it definitely did not live up to the military standard for the conduct of such an operation). However, there is blame to go around here as elsewhere: the Navy is holding a big part of this bag as well. Partly, too, it's that the two services aren't communicating well.
Read the Commandant’s statements and it’s the US Navy to blame as it hasn’t provided (or built) enough amphibious ships to transport the Marines.
Make no mistake, the “amphib navy” is not the US Navy’s fair-haired child. Spending money on amphibious ships is only done grudgingly.
But in this case, the Navy might argue a degree of confusion about what the Marine Corps wanted. A year or two ago it seemed the Commandant and the Marines just wanted 30 new light amphibious warships.
It's hard to imagine this having happened even a few years ago. And, as the second article points out, the Chinese were able to do better -- they evacuated 1,300 of their own citizens and the citizens of other nations also.
5 comments:
I am certainly disappointed that the Marines were not available for this evacuation operation. However, some significant corrections need to be made regarding Mr. Newsham's article.
First, the claim that the Commandant and the Marine Corps has "given up" on amphibious operations or forcible entry is completely false. As someone who worked on Force Design 2030, it was always clear that this was a part of USMC doctrine that was never going away and would remain a core competency. Equally clear was that the MEU was not going away either.
Unfortunately, what gets lost in the inaccurate and uninformed statements of so many retired generals is that Force Design was a return to to the Corps' Title 10 mission and responsibilities, something we had deviated significantly from during the "War on Terror."
It was also the result of budgetary necessity. For instance, it is often overlooked that the operational budget of the Marine Corps was repeatedly insufficient to maintain its fleet of tanks. Almost half of our tanks were down at any one time, largely because we didn't have the funds to run them as often as their high performance engines required to keep their seals and components sufficiently lubricated. There was a lot of howling when we got rid of our tanks but little recognition of the simple fact we couldn't afford them, and hadn't been able to for some time.
I'm not familiar with why none of the East Coast MEUs were not deployed at the time. I do know that after the USMC had committed to Force Design after the CNO had enthusiastically pledged his support, the Navy subsequently backed off its earlier commitments. I still remember, over a year ago when I was still on active duty, feeling as though the Navy had stabbed us in the back. I'm sure the Commandant still feels that way and I don't blame him.
I also thought the CSP article was a little overblown in its rhetoric vs. the Marines, even though this is a surprising failure that should definitely send alarm bells. We should all want to see this improved upon, and similar failures just off the table: this is one of the core missions, as you say.
I don't know the author, either, but his bio says he's a retired USMC Colonel. He was clearly a West Coast Marine, though, and how much he understands about the East Coast side isn't clear from his background. Still, he's presumably not motivated by anti-Marine Corps prejudice.
I don't think his comments were motivated by anti-Marine Corps prejudice. I just think a lot of retirees don't understand Force Design and have an instinctual dislike of it because it represents a significant change for the Marine Corps.
You could be right. On the other hand, consider how this looks to China. Forced Entry was supposed to overcome their A2AD strategy; here we can’t make it happen in Sudan.
Great public relations piece, it’ll help with recruiting along with Transgenderism……
Join the Armed Forces, abandon, your fellow, countrymen, and be gay!!!!
Greg
Post a Comment