{"id":29134,"date":"2012-03-15T00:38:46","date_gmt":"2012-03-15T04:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=29134"},"modified":"2012-03-15T13:04:49","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T17:04:49","slug":"corps-initial-cuts-foreshadow-diminished-core-capabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=29134","title":{"rendered":"Corps’ initial cuts foreshadow diminished core capabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Marine Corps announced today<\/a> that it will be forced to cut four infantry battalions and a staggering twelve flying squadrons, along with three associated Headquarters units. This is in order to slim down by 20,000 service members as necessitated by the first half trillion dollar cut in defense spending. In 2007 the Marines began to reform the storied battalions of the 9th Marine Regiment. The Marines reconstituted the Regiment’s three battalions and put them into the command structure of other Regiments, avoiding the need to stand up a new HQ unit. My guess is that they’ll again decommission these battalions.<\/p>\n

At the same time this news was hitting the wires came the announcement that the Army will be dipping into traditional Marine Corps territory by joining in on Pacific theater oriented “forced entry” training as the Marines resume focus on that, long neglected and traditional, modus operandi. From the Army Times<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The two services are planning a series of exercises likely to take place in North Carolina, where tens of thousands of soldiers and Marines are based at Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune, which are located just 90 miles apart. With the future security environment uncertain, and an end in sight to combat operations in Afghanistan, the services are discussing ways to leverage complimentary capabilities, said Lt. Gen. Richard Mills, the Corps\u2019 deputy commandant for combat development and integration who serves also as commander of Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we look at new strategies, as we look at potential areas of operations in the Pacific, I think it\u2019s very natural that the Marines and the Army discuss it \u2026 should we have to go somewhere where people don\u2019t want us to go,\u201d Mills said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article goes on to talk about how the Marines and Army have conducted many joint operations and training exercises in the past (duh) but the reality is that this is an alignment in the strategic relationship between the two services, not seen since the Second World War. <\/p>\n

With baseline, not war, funding cuts already causing the cancellation of the Marine Corps’ only viable amphibious vehicle, the EFV, and a toxic combination of contractor bloat, politics and defense cuts imperiling the F-35B the Marines may be soon left in a situation where their MEUs have no ship to shore combat vehicle and no organic fixed wing support, nor enough bodies to go around even if they did.<\/p>\n

It’s also worth bearing in mind that this is only the first round of cuts for this coming decade. Should the efforts<\/a> of hard charging, military friendly, Congressmen like Buck McKeon fail and looming sequestration<\/a> come to pass you can expect twice these cuts. Because of the anti-military Progressive Democrats and anti-spending libertarian Republicans even if sequestration is averted you can expect more cuts on the margins, and soon.<\/p>\n

If that does happen we might find that Obama has fulfilled his promise not to create a “hollowed out force”. True to his word we’ll have a “no show force”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Marine Corps announced today that it will be forced to cut four infantry battalions and … Corps’ initial cuts foreshadow diminished core capabilities<\/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":[189,184,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-cuts","category-marine-corps","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29134","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=29134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}