Marines Need To Regain ‘Maritime Soul,’ Gates Says

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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

For more than 200 years, the Marine Corps has prided itself on dramatic amphibious landings. That ability is enshrined in the first lines of the Marine Corps hymn, “ From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, ” celebrating nineteenth century landings in Mexico and Libya. Marines went on to storm the beaches in places like Tarawa in World War II, Inchon in Korea and Da Nang in Vietnam. They were much called “ Soldiers of the Sea. ” But for the past ten, Marines have fought in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. Gen. James Conway, commanding officer of the Corps, says there is a genesis of Marine officers who have never stepped aboard a ship. As a result, the Marine Corps has earned a different nickname. “ The Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan have functioned for years as a alleged second base land Army, ” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said recently, speaking to the Marines ‘ Memorial Association in San Francisco. “ basically, the Marines do not want to be — nor does America need — another land army. ”

Preserving A ‘Maritime Soul’ No one in the Pentagon is proposing to do away with the Marine Corps, as the Truman administration did precisely after World War II, suggesting that it was a excess force. America needs the Marine Corps, Gates said, but the Marines must preserve what he calls their “ maritime person. ” They must be able to get ashore cursorily and tackle the humble guerrilla wars that will be common in the coming decades, Gates said. And he says the Marines are among the best in handling that complex blend of fighting and rebuilding known as pacification .

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“ The pacification skills the Marines developed during this past decade, combined with the agility and esprit honed over two centuries, well positioned the Corps, in my opinion, to be at the tap of the spear in the future when the U.S. military is likely to confront a compass of irregular and hybrid conflicts, ” Gates said. immediately, top Marine officials are figuring out precisely how they ‘ll be at the tip of the spear. Among them is Lt. Gen. George Flynn. He says the Marines ‘ amphibious operations of the future will not be like the massive operations of the by. Fighting insurgents or guerillas is not like taking on a large standing army .

“ We need to be able to project forces from the sea under uncertain conditions, ” Flynn said. “ Are they going to be on the scale of Inchon or Iwo Jima ? I do n’t think so. ” How Big Should The Marine Corps Be? At the center of the debate is how big the Marine Corps should be. The Marine Corps now stands at 202,000. That number reflects the increase of some 25,000 Marines in recent years to handle duplicate deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Some analysts say the Marine Corps may be trimmed by tens of thousands as both wars wind down in the coming years. Flynn says there ‘s no sense so far how big the Marine Corps should be, until you answer this question : What jobs do you want the Marines to handle ? “ What do you need to do to be able to execute, if you will, the national security scheme that we ‘ve been directed to execute ? ” Flynn said. “ It gets you to the number of Marines you need to do it, it gets you to a different character of equipment. So rather than a count target, we want to focus on capabilities. ” That ‘s not just a capability to fight, says Flynn, but to assist in human-centered catastrophes. “ natural disasters that may occur in, let ‘s say Haiti, or the tsunami relief, or more recently in Pakistan, ” Flynn said. Amphibious Assaults The other cardinal wonder is how the Marines will get ashore in the future. The Marines want to replace their aging amphibious troop carrier designed some 40 years ago with a newly one called the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. But a recent politics report questions whether the tank-like fomite should be built, because of its performance failures and increase costs. Each vehicle costs about $ 24 million, about doubly its original price tag. “ That ‘s one that I think is primed to be cut, ” said Todd Harrison, a defense mechanism analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “ The Marine Corps needs it. They say they need it if they want to maintain the capability of an amphibious rape, ” Harrison said. “ But the fact of the matter is we have n’t done that in a contest environment since Korea. ” We need to be able to project forces from the sea under uncertain conditions. Are they going to be on the scale of Inchon or Iwo Jima ? I do n’t think so .
Gates asks whether amphibious assaults are even possible anymore, given the growing handiness of accurate, long-range missiles that are able to strike ships 60 miles at ocean. Flynn says that the Marines besides come ashore by aircraft. But planes do n’t have the space for supplies and equipment that ships do. So the Marines need some type of armored fomite that can drive to a beach. “ We need the capability, ” Flynn said. “ We need to have an amphibious tractor to be able to do the things that we ‘re being asked to do. ” Conway, the Marines ‘ top officer, says the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle will soon be going through a serial of functional tests. “ You know, the program is under continuous examination, ” Conway recently told reporters. “ It has been a tease plan, I think it ‘s credibly fairly to say. But at this distributor point, I think everybody ‘s anxious to see how it performs. ”

The Marines say all these questions about the size of their pull and the equipment they will use will all have to be worked out. And they do n’t seem disquieted. Their incoming peak military officer, Gen. Jim Amos, recently told an hearing that the Marine Corps has long been adept at cursorily solving what he called “ complex ” and “ nasty ” security problems. “ Marines see plenty of work in the future, ” Amos said .