PROCEEDINGS: In light of the rapid political change taking place in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, and consequent cuts in the Department of Defense budget, where do you see the Marine Corps heading? What will be the impact on the Corps in terms of size, force structure, and roles and missions?
GRAY: You have to keep this in the broad context of what is really going on and what has to be done in terms of developing future military capabilities. Clearly, events have unfolded in Europe at a very rapid pace. If you go back to the Communist Party Congress meeting in 1986 and look at what was discussed then, the blueprint for change was there. The Soviet Union knew what it had to do. It was clear that change was needed. It recognized that it faced major economic problems. It Was a superpower in the military sense only. Today, its economy is in chaotic shape, and nobody really likes the political system.
We developed a conceptual framework several years ago, when we saw things starting to unfold and it became clear that there would be change in Europe. I don’t think anybody thought it would come quite as fast. We did foresee change, and as a result, reordered our own priorities and commitments.
If you look back at our overall grand strategy over time and at its supporting military strategy, you realize that, with few exceptions, we have adopted a predominantly continental-type strategy. While that may have made sense for a number of reasons, we basically are a maritime nation. It is very, very important for a maritime nation to have a credible, sustained sea-power capability. We are focusing—or refocusing— our efforts along those lines.
We think that there will be stability—as opposed to the threat of war—in Europe for some time to come. I believe that the states of Eastern Europe will face some economic watersheds over the next year or two, as well as many other challenges.
We’ve read and heard about a lot of them. We’re going to have to be very careful and very patient during this readjustment process.
Even after the Soviets reduce their forces and do the other things they say they’re going to do as a result of arms-control negotiations, they will still be a formidable military power. Over the past 45 years, they have been a continental power. They also have, in many ways, undertaken a maritime strategy and developed a credible blue- water navy. In light of their capabilities, they will remain a military threat.
Interestingly enough, as we see the reduction talks mature and begin to plan on lower force levels in Europe, we recognize a situation in which our naval power and maritime capability take on even more importance. This applies to the two Marine Expeditionary Forces that have long been earmarked as strategic reserves, to serve as regional reserve reinforcement on the watery flanks of NATO. These naval forces will become the principal conventional U.S. military instrument at the disposal of the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. That is a real turn of events.
Military planners have said consistently that the most probable or most likely conflicts will occur in the lesser developed regions. These conflicts arc going on right now, and in my opinion, will continue. We have very high stakes in these so-called Third World regions.
Many of the most precious resources and minerals are located there, and almost all of these resources move back and forth across the highways we call oceans. Our free access to trade depends upon maintaining the sea lines of communications and stability in these regions. Accordingly, U.S. sea power takes on paramount importance as we get ready to steam into the next century. The inherent flexibility, mobility, and aggregate utility of maritime forces will again come to the forefront.
While rapid change occurs in Europe, we also are seeing a rebirth of interest in the Pacific region. At present, more U.S. trade takes place in the Pacific than in Europe. The need emerges for forces that are capable of operating at the regional level and throughout the world with sufficient power, capability, and flexibility to bring any geopolitical or military contingency to a proper conclusion.
PROCEEDINGS: So whatever the Soviets do or fail to do is largely irrelevant?
GRAY: That’s another way of saying it. What goes on in the Soviet Union is irrelevant to the sea services, because we still will be called upon to do the same kinds of things that we’re doing today. It’s very important for the administration and for Congress to look at our grand strategy and military strategy assessments and weigh naval forces and capabilities carefully in this environment of very severe fiscal constraint.
In working out military strategy, we have to use a sequential thought process. It isn’t necessary for everybody to be in the objective area at once. It is more essential to have forces in the right place at the right time, with the right kind of capability for the right reasons. If more military forces are needed, for whatever reasons, they are added accordingly. I know of no major military effort in history where a focus or point of main effort in one region was not accompanied by an economy of-force measure elsewhere. Our “Germany first” strategy in World War II is a classic example, but there are many, many others. That’s the kind of thinking I would like to see in this whole process.
In looking at the kinds of naval forces we will need, I believe that the way we’re structured now is basically the way to go. We have barely more than a robust regional capability in sea- power today. As a long-standing part of our nation’s naval expeditionary- force capability we have developed a good feel for the size of the force needed to meet these responsibilities. The strength of the Marine Corps today—197,000—doesn’t vary a great deal from the strength of the Marine Corps we had earlier in this century when we faced the same kinds of situations. For example, this was the size of the Marine Corps in the 1963-1964 time frame, when the Kennedy administration was making a major effort to improve our ability to operate at the lower end of the conflict spectrum. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy said that we seemed to have a handle on the strategic power requirement, and that our conventional forces were fair to adequate. But it did not appear that we could handle the insurgencies in brush- fire situations as well as we should. Consequently, in a relatively brief period the Marine Corps grew from 170,000 to about 190,000.
This is about what it takes: three Marine Expeditionary Forces in the active structure and one in the Selective Marine Corps Reserve with adequate logistical backup. Almost 40 years ago, Congress codified this structure into law to ensure that a force-in-readiness would always be at hand. We’ve kept our focus on this kind of eventuality for many years. If you go back 15-20 years, when we came out of Vietnam, we were required by the Defense Guidance and the strategic situation to focus once again on NATO requirements— specifically on the flanks. We’ve always been NATO’s strategic reserve, ever since the alliance began. Responding to post-Vietnam Defense Guidance, we developed better mechanized capabilities, and took part in developing the Rapid Deployment Force, then perceived to be needed for Southwest Asia. We moved to develop additional flexibility through the Maritime Prepositioning Force. We’ve always had to keep an eye on that threat of the most likely conflicts in the mid- to low- intensity range.
In today’s situation we have to be prepared for the entire range of conflict, and make sure that we’re still credible within NATO or in any situation in the Pacific. That has to involve a total-force effort, including the Marine Corps Reserve. We need to take our active forces and lean forward in the mid- and low-intensity parts of the spectrum. Expeditionary as we are, we must be light enough to go where we have to, and heavy enough to win once we get there, taking advantage of the aggregate capabilities of the Marine air/ground/logistics task force, under a single commander.
This naval expeditionary capability can provide the framework for any joint task force command-and-control setup that might be required in an expeditionary environment. As a singleservice organization it can operate under any joint or combined force. It combines command-and-control communications and all-source integrated intelligence, the capability to task organize by packaging forces to take only those needed, and the ability to sustain those forces for a considerable period of time. We have that preparedness today. It’s in the bam—right now. We can support two Marine Expeditionary Forces for well over 60 days in sustained combat, without mobilizing a single person.
We have a high level of preparedness today on the high end of the spectrum. If you view that as a reservoir of combined arms power, capability, and utility, you’ve got a good, credible base from which to carry out whatever operations the National Command Authority may have in mind. Add to that the quality of people we have today, the potential that these young men and women have. Give them the kind of leadership, training, education and discipline—self-discipline that they must have—and you have a truly potent force.
I think this terrible fiscal and budget environment we are in—and the Marine Corps has been in it for four or five years—offers a unique window of opportunity for the Marines. I believe that we’re on the right course. Our general-purpose forces have been extended and expanded to where they’re fully capable of a wide range of special operations. We have a history of understanding this kind of warfare that goes back to the turn of the century. We broke out The Small Wars Manual, written in the early 1930s, following our experiences in the Caribbean and the like. We can still draw on these experiences to prepare for Third World conflicts.
PROCEEDINGS: You make a great case for the naval part of the national security equation, but there’s a history of the one-third, one-third, one-third approach to Defense budgets . . .
GRAY: I believe that the Secretary of Defense and the administration are very sensitive to that. They intend to have a military capability that squares up well with the military national strategy. I believe that’s also the sense of the Congress—it’s not the classic one- third, one-third, one-third approach. The Department of Defense has done pretty well in its strategic assessment. All the services have had a part in developing that. I think everyone is on the right course. We’ll see, as events unfold.
The timing here is crucial. The 1991 Defense budget is now on the Hill. It will be debated and hammered out by the Congress in the next several months. Concurrently, for the next six to nine months, the Program Objectives Memorandum-1992 development process, which includes a five-year plan, is well-advanced at this stage. That 1992 budget package will really be the one to shape U.S. military forces through the year 2000.
There is close interrelationship between the 1991 budget, which reflects a year of transition, and the 1992-and- out-year package, which will begin to spell out the relationships between strategy, force structure, modernization, and sustainment. The next six to nine months probably constitute in some ways the most crucial slice of time for the sea services—certainly for the Marine Corps—since the end of World War II.
PROCEEDINGS: Looking at that lower end of the spectrum and going back through the 15-20 year period you mentioned—there’s been a lot of growth in capabilities over that period: Harriers, LCACs, and other new things coming into the inventory. There are also some new threats emerging that we didn’t see as clearly back then: terrorists, the drug traffickers, and other potential targets for the Marine Corps. What are some of the things that say, a Marine Expeditionary Unit or a Marine Expeditionary Brigade can do today that a Marine Amphibious Unit or a Marine Amphibious Brigade couldn’t do ten years ago.
GRAY: Before I tackle that, let me go back and say that in weighing overall Defense needs, we need strong air- power and space capabilities—no question about that. And we need a credible land army. I support the Department of the Army’s plan for a heavier corps- level capability, a more credible reinforcement capability for Europe and elsewhere, and a contingency-response corps. These types of forces can complement naval expeditionary forces very nicely in a number of situations, just as our capability of conducting a wide variety of operations complements the special-operations capability that resides within the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
Now let’s look at our Marine Expeditionary Brigades of 15,000 or 20,000 in size, and Marine Expeditionary Units of about 2,000. The forerunners of these forces were always mobile and always ready, but I believe that we have improved on our readiness and flexibility. The new capabilities of today’s Marine air-ground task forces have added to our aggregate usefulness to the nation.
For example, we have taken the amphibious lift and the maritime prepositioning force capability that’s been provided and we have melded those into a very flexible instrument for establishing military presence around the globe. We can go to conflict in the amphibious and seaborne mode; we can go by air lift; and we can go in combinations of these. For any kind of regional conflict, we can move all the forces we need. We can be much more responsive to the National Command Authority.
The Navy-Marine Corps team is prepared to respond to crises and pop-up conflicts immediately, because of the new rapid-planning process that our amphibious forces and landing forces use now for the rapid conduct of amphibious raids, among other things. We used to plan amphibious raids in the same meticulous, time-consuming way we planned all amphibious operations—leaving nothing to chance. But stop and think about now being able to execute an amphibious raid at night from almost over the horizon in marginal weather, and commence that raid or limited objective attack within six hours of receiving the mission. That’s an entirely new order of concurrent parallel planning, readiness, and execution. And that’s now routine. When Navy and Marine units deploy, they are fully ready. The ships, the sailors, and the landing force have been through a very thorough six-month pre-deployment training program and have received a rigorous evaluation of their operational skill. We had not been able to train for routine deployments to that extent before.
The ability to carry out the traditional kinds of missions still resides in our forces, now enhanced by new capabilities: special operations, raids, mobile training teams, special intelligence operations, and that type of thing. In addition, we’ve upgraded the landing forces with all sorts of intelligence capabilities, better communications, improved air-naval gunfire liaison capability, new topographic capabilities—it goes on and on and on. We have really boosted the readiness and capability of all three Marine Expeditionary Forces, whether in California, North Carolina, or out in the Far East, and we have made significant enhancements across the board. We are about at the point today where, in reality, we’re limited only by technology.
PROCEEDINGS: Are you limited by lift?
GRAY: I don’t believe so. In terms of tactical mobility, we have one really critical requirement that has to be resolved, and that is the medium assault-lift requirement that would have been accounted for had the MV-22 not been cancelled. So that is a major requirement that still has to be met. In addition, the helicopter communities of the Navy and Marine Corps have to be upgraded, and soon, for a true nightfighting capability under a wide range of conditions. Basically, that’s a matter of technology.
In terms of amphibious lift capability: Given the constrained budget situation we’ve had in the Department of Defense since the mid-1980s—certainly since I’ve been in this town—the amphibious shipbuilding program has been protected very well. This, I think, is a signal from the Secretary of Defense that he understands those requirements and is supportive of them.
The old song—“the Marines can’t get there”—doesn’t play anymore. That argument just demonstrates a lack of knowledge about our force capabilities and posture. The Marines today are, strategically and tactically, fully air-transportable and we’ve been that way for some time. We train for that a great deal, not just to maintain the Maritime Prepositioning Force capability, although that’s a major reason. For years, we have maintained air contingency battalions ready for no-notice mount-out, on each coast.
"The next six to nine months probably constitute in some ways the most crucial slice of time for the sea services—certainly for the Marine Corps—since the end of World War II."
For example, during the Panama operation, we had 16,000 Marines in an airlifted brigade configuration on the West Coast and another 15,000 on the East Coast, ready to go if needed. We had Navy-Marine amphibious forces embarked, in case they were needed. We had a large number of civil affairs personnel and more than 60 Spanish linguists on alert. We had a strong complement of forces available to help out down there, to reinforce the 1,000 Marines already in Panama. To keep things in balance, we were able to do this without disrupting the preparation for the next deployment to the Mediterranean, without disrupting the forces that were getting ready to go to the Western Pacific, and without disrupting the forces that were already out there— which had just finished responding to the coup attempt in the Philippines. When you consider the ability of Marine tactical aviation to fly across the oceans and get wherever they have to go, it all adds up to a pretty credible force in terms of mobility and the ability to influence the situation.
PROCEEDINGS: Highly trained Marine air-ground task forces used, to return from the Mediterranean after six- month deployments and multiple overseas landings, and than scatter to the winds as they hit Camp Lejeune.
GRAY: That’s right . . .
PROCEEDINGS: . . . And you couldn’t reconstitute them for later contingences. So in addition to the extra work-up prior to sailing, are we able to keep them together longer after they return?
GRAY: That bothered me for a long, long time. It doesn’t any more, because we’ve changed things. These forces now stay together, and maintain cohesion and preparedness. We’ve eliminated that chink in our armor.
PROCEEDINGS: Getting back to the MV-22—that was going to be one of the keystones of an over-the-horizon (OTH) assault capability, along with the LCAC and the new advanced amphibian. With that seemingly out of the picture, at least for the time being, are we looking at anything else? Or are we putting the OTH concept on hold for the time being?
GRAY: First, let’s take the over-the- horizon concept. The over-the-horizon concept is alive and well. When we evacuated Saigon in 1975, we came from over the horizon. The reason then was the North Vietnamese artillery on the Vung Tau peninsula. The reason you’ve got to do it today is because that same threat to amphibious forces is enhanced by three letters: PGM, precision-guided munitions. The over-the- horizon concept is in being.
Clearly, we can’t come from as far over the horizon as we would like when we have to rely on a conventional helicopter capability and assault amphibian vehicle capability. Since we now have the landing craft air cushion in the fleet, we can work out interim combinations to do this. Of course, we’ve added fast raiding craft to our embarked forces, so we can already come from a good bit away. But the total over-the-horizon concept—where you could be 1,000 miles at sea one night and come over the beaches and into the landing zones and sites of your choice the next morning, anywhere from New England to Florida—that’s the kind of flexibility and the kind of usefulness and initiative that we will need at our disposal in facing the threats of the future. The most likely conflicts will be in the lesser-developed regions of the world, and there’s a formidable military threat in these countries and regions in the form of air- defense or other types of precision- guided munitions.
We will have to compensate. If we do not have the MV-22 but a new helicopter instead, then we will have to compensate through tactics and methods of employment to conduct over- the-horizon-type operations. We are prepared to do that.
We believe strongly that we need the MV-22. That was decided some years ago. We examined current helicopter technology. We examined alternatives back in the days when it was called the JVX program. I was the duty “grunt,” on that committee, some years ago. After a careful look, tilt-rotor technology was selected because of the tactical advantages we believed it would bring to us on the battlefield and to other warfare situations and other areas in the commercial sector, as well.
We went that route, and now with the cancellation of the MV-22 program as presented in the budget, clearly we must have an alternative. We’re familiar with the alternatives, and we’re now putting alternative procurement packages together. The kind of alternative capability that’s needed is dictated largely by the avionics and the defensive systems now put in helicopters. That was the key to the MV-22—the avionics package. Of course, the tilt- rotor capability brought increased range and flexibility, as well. I do not want my Marines going ashore and operating deep inland and doing all the things that we have to do in what I call “vanilla” helicopters, second-class helos. That’s wrong.
What I’m saying is that a new helicopter fleet will be expensive and will have to be built right if we’re going to be able to meet our responsibilities. It’s an uphill fight, because the MV-22 could go twice as far and carry twice as much twice as fast. Now, we will have to figure out ways to compensate for that lost capability.
Unfortunately, the MV-22 was perceived as a limited-mission system. That was never the concept, and such a perception was never valid. And the MV-22 shouldn’t be called a “Marine” program; it isn’t. It’s a naval program, and the JVX/MV-22 concept was from the outset a joint program—with all four services involved. Everybody had a requirement for it, and it was seen as the best solution for future infiltration/ exfiltration requirements that our special operations forces need. It has certain usefulness for assaults from the sea or assaults from anywhere else. It has an inter-theater maneuverability and flight capability. It has potential for antisubmarine warfare, for long-range search and rescue at sea. At one time, the JVX/MV-22 had 26 mission- elements and mission-performance characteristics. And that’s only on the military side. It really ought to be viewed as a national capability, because it has commercial application, as well. It could be the answer to the crowded airport situation, providing regional inter-city passenger service without tying up major runways. It certainly has a broad range of usefulness there. It’s also part of the concept we have in upgrading the presidential executive fleet. So it really is not correct to label it “a Marine airplane.”
But as the Secretary of Defense has said, it’s an affordability issue. As I said last year in my testimony, in this fiscal environment, it’s one hell of a time to have a great new program like this come along.
PROCEEDINGS: Since we’re driven— at this point, anyway—to a helicopter solution, there seem to be two or three ways to go: either to upgrade what we have, the CH-46, to extend its usefulness; to look for newer technology already on-line, for instance, the Army’s Blackhawk; or, of course, to start from scratch with a new design. Have you decided how to play that one yet?
GRAY: I think you have to take these things sequentially. Right now, the congressionally directed and DoD- supported cost and operational analysis study is under way, and is supposed to come out this spring. That should give us the framework, in terms of alternatives. When you look at the options that are available, the option of combining CH-53Es and Blackhawk helicopters is, in my judgement, not very attractive at this time. The CH-53E helicopter was designed to be a heavy- lift logistics helicopter. It is not the best kind of platform for assaults from the sea or assaults in any other kind of landing zones and terrain. It can’t handle uneven terrain and ridge lines and slopes and the like. It also has a larger infrared signature than we like.
On the other hand, the MH-60 Blackhawk is a good helicopter, but it carries only half the number of people we need in the assault—half the number of people we can carry in a CH-46E. So already you have twice the challenge, in getting the numbers of Blackhawks to replace the numbers of CH-46s for the assault. Getting the numbers we’d need—not to mention the extra pilots and crews and maintenance personnel in the kind of fiscal environment we’re in today—would be financially prohibitive. That option doesn’t look too promising.
Another option would be the service life extension of a portion of the CH- 46E fleet, following which we would have to build a new helicopter that probably would look very much like the CH-46. But we’d need to have the updated avionics and defense systems in that aircraft. The helicopter that was being developed through a consortium in Europe incorporates that idea to a great extent, because it took the basic specifications for the helicopter and applied those kinds of operational requirements to the design.
There are a number of combinations that we have to look at, but it’s like any other campaign. You go through it in phases.
PROCEEDINGS: You’ve talked about technology that works in these kinds of small operations, and you’re also talking about a great deal of flexibility. With DoD now entering the drug war, what new roles will the Marine Corps play?
GRAY: We’re very active. We’re fully prepared, and are active in the Department of Defense efforts today. We took a careful look at this well over a year ago, and did an analysis to answer the questions of what kind of role the Marine Corps could play, and what kind of support we could provide in the countemarcotics war. We looked at it carefully from both the supply and the demand sides. I happen to believe that the center of gravity in military requirements lies on the demand side, not the supply side. But we looked at both of these very carefully, and we are very much involved in the countemarcotics effort on both sides.
On the demand side, the Marine Corps works for a drug-free society through recruiting, through our reserve establishment, through our youth organizations, through our Marine junior ROTC in high schools, and through a host of other initiatives. We are very deeply involved in helping to carry out the drug strategy on the home front.
We have provided a number of key Marine officers and staff non-commissioned officers to key installations, as part of this effort. We have provided direct support to all of the intelligence agencies. We have provided direct support to Mr. [William] Bennett’s office. We have provided Marines to the joint task forces that have be involved in drug interdiction. We have participated, along with our friends in the Special Operations Forces, in paramilitary training of drug enforcement agents.
For quite a while now, we have undertaken mobile training team surveys and other kinds of assistance operations in countries overseas that also face these challenges. We have provided, along with the other services, millions of dollars’ worth of equipment to some of these areas, to bolster local capabilities to operate in this dangerous environment.
We have, as you know from the press, conducted selected training operations down along the southwest border, which, incidentally, have been very, very successful in capturing, millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine, marijuana, and other drugs. We have been flying forward-looking infrared radar missions for years along both coasts. The Marine Corps is contributing. We are proactive in this, and we should be. I believe that we’re prepared to do as much as needs to be done to hinder and halt the flow of drugs.
PROCEEDINGS: It wasn’t too long ago that we had more people wanting to be Marine aviators than we had seats to train them. There was also a situation in which reserve Marine officers who wanted to augment into the regular Marine Corps faced extremely stiff competition. Have those situations changed by now, or the Marines have more talent than you know what to do with?
GRAY: You’re quite correct that we had for a long period of time a very severe augmentation problem for all Marine officers who aspired to be regulars, whether they were in air, ground, or logistics fields. All of them have found it extraordinarily competitive to be augmented into the regular force. Almost three years ago, the first time I looked at the problem from this vantage point, we had something like 21% who were augmented or extended on active duty. We expended a great deal of effort trying to remedy that, and I think we’ve made considerable progress. We went as high as 44% the following year. We dropped back a little bit this last time, and I think that we simply must continue the fight. Augmentation always will be very competitive, so we must keep working to provide the opportunity for more reserve officers to enter the regular establishment.
We must continue our efforts to de- specialize our officer corps somewhat. It’s my view that we became a bit too specialized over time—something that happened over a long period. We need to walk that dog back a little bit. We have a plan to do that, and it’s being implemented now.
As I have told Marine officers and the staff non-commissioned officers, it’s going to be extraordinarily difficult to solider in the Marine Corps of the future. Marines will have to meet the highest standards of excellence and performance. Marines are going to have to study and think and understand the rigors of self-improvement and all of that. We have a whole new approach to the training and education system, which is designed to ensure that the officers and the staff non-commissioned officers of Marines are, in fact, prepared to provide the kind of leadership that our young men and women fully deserve.
