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By Major Harries-Clichy Peterson, Jr., U.S. Marine Corps
It is an anachronism in today’s age of joint operations.
It holds no unique or special warfare expertise, other than, perhaps, amphibious operations. It duplicates warfighting capabilities offered by the Air Force, the Army, and the Special Operations Command, and much of its equipment is obsolescent, if not obsolete. Its bases and facilities could be closed at great savings to the nation, and its current commitments could be given to other services, with a minimal transition period.
The kinds of things Marines do would still get done. Marine fighter/attack aircraft and electronic-warfare birds could be turned over to the Navy’s carrier air wings or to the Air Force’s new Air Combat Command, depending on aircraft type. Helicopter groups could be merged into the Navy or Army (again, depending on type) or simply retired early—as would be required with the ancient CH-46. Marine tanker aircraft would no longer be needed.
The three Marine divisions and most of the force service support (logistics) groups would form the nucleus for an Amphibious Corps within the U. S.
Army, making it the single-service source of all ground-combat operations with air- bome/airmobile capabilities; light forces for rapid, sustainable lower intensity conflict; and heavy forces for high-intensity, mobile armored warfare. Add to this the Amphibious Corps (headquartered at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, or Camp Pendleton, California), and the land forces of the United States emerge a much more logical, streamlined organization.
Much of the supporting establishment (recruiting, boot camp, headquarters, logistics bases) would be done away with or merged into other service structures. Specialized Marine functions, such as guarding embassies or Navy bases and making music for the President, can easily become missions for other organizations.
Abolishing the Marine Corps would make the military more joint, make the defense establishment more streamlined, and facilitate programming and budgeting. The Marines would no longer have to fight with the Navy to get modernized aircraft, since air support would be pro- vided—as it is for the Army—by the Air Force. The nation would retain seaborne assault expertise within the Army’s Amphibious Corps. The Unified Commanders probably would find life a little easier with only three force components at their disposal, without the hybrid capabilities offered by hard-to-understand Marine Air Ground Task Forces (MAGTFs).
Abolishing the Marine Corps seems to make a great deal of sense. One wonders why it hasn’t been argued
More than 30 years separated their reports, but Lieutenant Generals Victor and Charles Krulak reached a
surprisingly similar conclusion: the United States doesn’t need a Marine Corps, but the American people want one.
more vigorously. One of the Marine Corps’ staunchest ad- 11 vocates, retired Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak, refleeted on this question in his book First to Fight (Naval Institute Press, 1984). The question had been posed to him in 1957 by General Randolph Pate, the Commandant ot the Marine Corps, who was anticipating a desperate struggle to keep the Marine Corps afloat against Army and Air j Force reorganization efforts. General Krulak’s answer was | very telling; “. . . in terms of cold mechanical logic, the United States does not need a Marine Corps.” He noted | that Marine functions can be done by others, that they can be done expertly and competently, and that even landing operations—the Marine forte—could be executed sue- cessfully by Army units.
Interestingly, in 1991, another Marine general | named Krulak was asked by his commandant to study
the Marine Corps. Lieutenant General Charles Krulak’s mission was less I overarching and his answers less funda- j mental, but his find- i ings paralleled those of his father a generation before; there is not much of a I bureaucratic impera- j tive that requires a U.S. Marine Corps.
In fact, the only reason there is a Marine Corps is that the American people want one. They want a military elite that will be ready to go at a moment’s notice and that will win. That happens to be the United States Marine Corps. Both Krulaks point out, however, that there is no inherent reserve of goodwill toward the Corps, and that failure will result in
abolition. .
But the Marine Corps hasn’t failed. In fact, its successes are emulated enviously by others. The Army, having seen the great payoff of the maritime prepositioning ships in the Gulf War, now want their own. Army light infantry units constantly seek training in amphibious operations from the Landing Force Training Commands. The Army also is “discovering” noncombatant evacuation operations, which the Navy-Marine team has been doing routinely for decides
The post-Gulf War roles-and-missions debates for the most part seem to involve the Army and Air Force proposing new organizations—or new missions for old organizations—that introduce as new some things Marines have been doing for generations. Rapid deployment, crisis intervention, and expeditionary capabilities are matters the Navy and Marine Corps have been quietly attending to ever since Marines and sailors formed a landing party at New Providence in the Bahamas in 1776.
But failure is not the only reason the $10-billion-a-year Corps might be abolished. In fiscally austere times, money
savings can be a compelling reason. And with the end of the Cold War, it is time to examine critically the armed forces we have and why we have them. Indeed, that is what President George Bush was doing when he unveiled the Base Force on 2 August 1990 in his “New World Order” speech at Aspen, Colorado. And that is what Congressman Les Aspin (D-WI) was doing when he issued his “Defense for a New Era’ study of the Gulf War. And there are many who would argue that the interventionist nature of the Marine Corps is not needed in the new single-superpower age.
There are, however, some alternative considerations that argue not only against abolishing the Marine Corps, but for exempting it from the politically motivated fair-share approach to current military cuts.
Geopolitical Realities ________________
First, there are the enduring geopolitical realities this nation must live with, regardless of the transient current events that grab headlines and cause otherwise intelligent men to argue that democracy has won and the East-West struggle has ended. Colin Gray, arguably the father of modern geopolitics, has pointed out that the United States *s an insular nation, both protected by the oceans and required to use them. We must interact with a multitude of °ther nations—some friendly, some hostile all of which have coastlines, ports, and navies. It is from those nations that our Toyotas and titanium, our coffee and our crude are shipped. And those same nations can disrupt our way of life by cutting off our trade, by embroiling us in wars
through our alliances, or by directly attacking our vital national interests. Ultimately, it is also our maritime character that, apart from strategic missiles, defines our most basic defense requirements. An enemy with a powerful army but a weak navy cannot defeat us, but a nation with a powerful navy and even a moderately strong army
m The geopolitical realities that define the United States require not just a navy that can master the seas, but also some sea-land interface that can influence other nations whether by actual or threatened armed force, or by actual or promised assistance. This leads us to the Marine Corps and the question of whether a replacement U.S. Army Amphibious Corps could do the job.
The Army very likely could master the techniques ot landing forces from the sea, even against opposition. It is unlikely however, that the institutional excellence of a seaborne expeditionary force could be maintained over the long run. As the airborne, armor, airmobile, cavalry, and infantry communities in the Army know full well, maintaining their health within that Army is an enduring battle. They are held hostage many times to personalities rather than strategy. Adding an amphibious community to that arena does not bode well for the nation retaining the ability to do the things Marines do so frequently and so well.
Furthermore, retaining a separate, multicommunity Marine Corps softens the impact on the nation’s security if any particular area of expertise in the Army is diminished or lost. It is not hard to envision an article in a future Army Times, “Phib Corps Reduced to One Brigade in Latest Budget Battles; New Light Infantry Division to Activate
On Time,” running alongside another article, “Navy Retires More Gators; Tells Army Phibs to Fly.”
While Marine Corps’ gunfights with the Navy over amphibious lift will never end, the institutional realities are that, despite intensely parochial communities, there is a strong core of Navy leadership that understands the urgent need for amphibious capabilities and their utility to the nation. By contrast, it would be fatal to try to preserve maritime expeditionary forces in a singularly ground-oriented, land-warfare focused Army environment.
Unique Capabilities
It is true that various Marine Corps functions could be given over to other services, but it is unlikely that those functions could ever be packaged as well or as effectively. Marine Air-Ground Task Forces present knowledgeable war-fighting commanders-in-chief (CinCs) with a powerful, extremely flexible, and always-ready expeditionary force.
Two examples of MAGTFs in action—the 22d Marine Expeditionary Unit continuing on to Beirut after an en-route diversion to help liberate Grenada, and the 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade pausing for a month to help storm- ravaged Bangladesh in Operation Sea Angel, while on its way home from Desert Storm—illustrate capabilities no CinC would want to leave home without. It is extremely unlikely such task forces could have been configured on short notice from present or even hypothetical Army and Air Force units. The MAGTF offers a profoundly useful tool tor any CinC or any president—to get necessary things done, without delay, under any strategy.
Probably more important than its operational contributions is the intangible benefit that instantly would disappear with the abolition of the Marine Corps: its image, presence, and reputation. The Marine Corps is one of those magic wands the President can wave at a crisis— sometimes making it go away—without irrevocably committing the full force and might of the nation, which is what happens when the Army deploys overseas. The Marines also have a unique reputation for flexibility, recently enhanced by their ability to divert volcanoes (Mt. Etna, 1992); save embassies and evacuate Americans (Liberia and Somalia, 1990-91); move food and provide water (Bangladesh and Somalia, 1991-92); and fight major campaigns (Desert Storm, 1991)—all with the same forces. This multipurpose capability is unique in the U.S. armed services and would be extremely difficult to recreate or transfer.
Also, as General Krulak (the elder) writes, there is the matter of “lean professional simplicity and unfailing preparedness” that has made the Marines one of America’s treasures. As Marines moved into Los Angeles in May 1992, to help restore civil order following terrible rioting, they were greeted by residents who—though glad to see the Army and National Guard—knew the situation finally was well in hand once the Marines had landed. This wealth of goodwill is what makes America want a Marine Corps—and it may be the best and only good reason to have one.
If we do not abolish the Marine Corps, where should , the Corps go from here?
One of the small disappointments in General Krulak’s (the younger) force-structure study of 1991 is it is almost exclusively focused on justifying two sizes for the Marine Corps—one of about 159,000 and one of about 177,000 Marines. The formulations present bold thinking that, in either case, will take the nation’s maritime expeditionary force in readiness into the next century with confidence and ability. What the study did not do, however, was to describe a third alternative: a maritime expeditionary force-in-readiness of a size that the nation really needs, regardless of the Base Force and New World Order rhetoric.
In the post-Soviet threat world, the utility of existing forces—such as extremely expensive airplanes, carriers, and submarines—has changed somewhat. While the President probably will continue to ask, whenever there is a crisis, “Where are my carriers?” he will increasingly be asking “Where are my Marines?” And while the B-2 bomber certainly provides an exciting way of carrying ordnance to the enemy, the multibillion dollar cost of each aircraft might better be invested in ships that carry Marines and strike aircraft. These ships can lurk near crisis areas for months, giving the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President the luxury of time to make, or change, decisions rapidly.
The one-superpower New World Order no doubt will suffer outbreaks of regional conflict, as the comparative discipline of the Cold War fades away and long-suppressed tyrants and dictators emerge. What does the United States need to stay on top of this confusing and unpredictable world situation? How about a capable, useful Marine Corps in-being, with its long history of getting the job done?
If the arguments against abolishing the Marine Corps are valid—particularly the enduring geopolitical realities that demand a Navy with a robust Marine Corps to influence world events—then the nation may indeed need a larger Marine Corps, or at least one more protected from transitory politics. Congress took a step in this direction by placing a legislative fence around the Corps, subsequently solidifying the three-division/three-wing structure in Title 10, U.S. Code. But Marines know that structure granted by the stroke of a pen can be removed the same way.
Perhaps it is the plight of the Marine Corps to forever be required to justify its existence and utility to the American people. And maybe this is a good thing, for knives are never well honed without a good sharpening stone. Marines should never take the value of their Corps for granted. Its powerful capabilities and contributions—and most important, its esprit—are vital to the United States. But this lesson must be retaught again and again by each new generation of outstanding Marines—performing superbly and explaining themselves and their Corps through their shining deeds.
Major Peterson, a Marine intelligence officer since 1978, served with 1st Marine Division’s G-2 through Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Previous assignments have included the Defense Intelligence Agency and I numerous tours in the Fleet Marine Force.