{"id":28283,"date":"2012-01-11T19:46:59","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T23:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=28283"},"modified":"2012-01-11T19:53:57","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T23:53:57","slug":"shrinking-the-corps-for-its-own-sake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=28283","title":{"rendered":"Shrinking the Corps for its own sake?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marine Corps Maj Peter J. Munson<\/a>, a C-130 driver, Naval Postgraduate School alum and self-proclaimed Middle East expert, put forward a “right sizing” argument in the Marine Corps Gazette<\/a> today calling for the Corps to shrink down even farther in order to stay relevant. The core of his understanding of the proper role of the Marine Corps is this:<\/p>\n

…the Corps must define the niche that it intends to fill in a competitive market. That niche is primarily defined by its amphibious nature, but it is also defined by highly mobile, lightweight infantry forces, task-organized (MAGTF) and scalable to conduct independent operations (to a defined upper limit), utilizing combined arms and robust command and control capabilities to “punch above its weight”, and capable of expeditionary operations in both littoral and inland areas (through use of strategic maneuver). The Marine Corps is prepared to operate independently to the extent that it is forward deployed and prepared to conduct crisis response (i.e. a MEU and nothing larger). This statement requires some work, but this should be what the Marine Corps does, period. Strip away everything that does not contribute to this niche and either trash it or hand it off to other services. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With the budget driven cancelling of the EFV<\/a> the Corps has been left without an amphibious platform<\/a> viable in a 21st century combat enviroment. Now correct me if I’m wrong but, once you cut out the service specific lingo and the amphibious capability, isn’t he essentially describing SOCOM? What mission falls into that field that can’t be accomplished by a Ranger Batt with specifically tasked aviation assets? <\/p>\n

There’s over 2,500 SEALs running around who are going to be largely unemployed once the war in Afghanistan is over. You think the Navy is going to cough up their amphib raid<\/a> and VBSS missions? I don’t. Marines are off ship as an operational component of the crew and they’re not coming back. The Navy has barely been able to get the Marines to maintain the Security Forces Regiment<\/a> which guards, and acts as a QRF for, all the critical installations and assets, i.e. nukes.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He goes on to outline his vision for aviation which includes using only those manned fixed wing CAS which are land based, leaving the ship borne capability to UAVs and helos. At this point I’m left to wonder what the point of even maintaining a Marine Corps manned CAS capability would be. You might as well just get on the phone with the Air Force, a fact in which he makes a roundabout acknowledgement of.<\/p>\n

My simple, enlisted, POG understanding of the Corps has always been this: we don’t need<\/em> it. There is no unique national security role the Marine Corps fulfills. The Marine Corps exists because it is convenient and it is loved. That is to say it produces a culture of people with the skill sets needed to say “yeah, we can do that” to almost anything in both a frugal and impressive manner. With possible exception of the Ranger Batts the Marine Corps fields the best light infantry in the US military. Those infantry are at the core of an entire service whose culture demands that the entire service exist almost exclusively to support them at the battalion level, even company, level. The Marine Corps exists because it’s full of Marines.<\/p>\n

Or maybe I’m saying just what Munson but reaching a different conclusion?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marine Corps Maj Peter J. Munson, a C-130 driver, Naval Postgraduate School alum and self-proclaimed Middle … Shrinking the Corps for its own sake?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":619,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[189,184],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-cuts","category-marine-corps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/619"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}