But the Marines have not stormed a hostile beach since Inchon during the Korean War. And influential military thinkers — including, most notably, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates — have begun to question whether the Marines will ever do it again.It is a conversation worth having. No question - when money gets tight, a whole new generation needs to be educated to think beyond the next POM.
In a speech last month, Gates said rogue nations and nonstate movements such as Hezbollah now possessed sophisticated guided missiles that could destroy naval ships, forcing them to stay well away from shore and making any sort of beach landing by Marines extremely dangerous.
Countries including China and Iran have guided missiles and other defenses to deter a beach landing, said Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, who has written skeptically of traditional amphibious landings. Minor powers, meanwhile, could hardly resist the kind of landing the Marines practiced in Dawn Blitz, he said.
"Where are we going to use this? Can the effect justify the rather high cost we are paying for this?" Krepinevich said.
That being said, here is this side boiled down. A maritime power (which we are) has to be able to project power ashore in a non-permissive environment. If you do not have that power, you limit your options and put your forces at tremendous Operational Risk, and effectively eliminate the CINC's options which puts your nation in Strategic Risk.
We have seen this before - the Brits almost "smart powered" themselves out of an ability to do anything in the Falklands.
Even in non-combat areas, you can find yourself in a non-permissive environment; again think Haiti and Indonesia. Amphibious power holds the key to do this through the full spectrum of non-permissive environments. Full stop.
The area for discussion and examination should be in what platforms we spend the taxpayer's money in. We are in tremendous Operational Risk right now with the trend towards more Marines and equipment in fewer ships and transport vehicles. Penny wise and body count foolish.
Do we need to have Marines with the capability to come ashore? Yes, just like we need an air superiority fighter. To throw that away is to effectively throw away our ability to be a global power. If you don't want to be a global power, than by all means remove that capability.
23 comments:
I though beach landings have always been extremely dangerous, and extremely necessary.
Our enemies should never be able to look out to the sea and feel comfortable.
in 1930s , last time marines waded ashore was 1898...
I'm still not clear what the anti-amphib argument is. Are they saying we'll never have to do a forced entry again? Or that we have other better ways? ie -- with minor powers we just fly around their forces and land where they aren't, and with major powers we'd pulverize their defense with stand-off weapons first and then land unopposed. I'm just trying to understand their argument.
We wull never again except as a feint, and the feint has to be against a completely incapable enemy.
This all goes back the the MBA mentality that developed back in the Viet Nam era with MaNamara and his brigthest and best crowd, (Which Rumsfeld was one of if I remember corectly.) They think like industrialist and accountants and tring to maximize they payback by concentrating on what they conciders were the military strengths. (Hence the infamous Viet Nam Nucs idea, and lightweight fighters.)
The concepts of expecting the unexpected, tactical surprize, and just plain change, is impossible for the MBA people to grasp. For them, everything must to predictable, so that they can formulate responcess ahead of time.
To make matter worse, for the MBA at the pointy end, they often will ignore possiblities that they feels are unlikely, so that they can save money, or as said above, concentrated on thing they expect are more likely.
In my opinion, we need to escape from the profressional management type and get someboty with a history or law backgound. They tend to know how unpredictiable things happen in the past, or are use to planning for contengencies in the future.
we might not be able to afford everything, but this should be one we find the money for.
and stop dissing MBAs, some of us have our stuff together.
IMHO, the MBAs who don't have a clue are the ones who got their MBA right after undergrad.
all classroom, no real world experience.
I went to OCS after undergrad, served 3+ tours on active duty, got another job + reserves, then went back and got the MBA. My classmates who were there right after undergrad (no real world experience) were clueless.
Trust me, the Law stuff isn't terribly good for solving problems - but we are excellent at spotting issues.
C'mon, know your history, LAT. Even recent history. Having the Marines off the coast during Gulf War I required Saddam to pull (I think) two divisions off the line at the Kuwaiti border. The Marines never went ashore, but the further-weakened Iraqi land defenses made the Army's calvary charge that much easier.
Just the threat of a Marine landing got the job done. Take away that capability, and we just lost another tool.
<span>Huh? TARAWA. IWO JIMA. Both events had the enemy using HUMAN GUIDED Kamikazi to hit our ships and and our Marines.
Using the excuse that Hezzoballah have missiles (and that is a disease and a symptom at the same time) is a crap reason to deny the force of threat of a door kick that will lead to an ass kick.
I guess we could have said that we didnt need an amphibious capability after:
1. Tripoli - the US will never lose a ship to Arabs again.
2. Revolutionary War - A US General will never go by hisself to cross an ice filled river to destroy a superior enemy.
3. Overlord - the Germans make good stuff (Vince from Shamwow)
4. Haiti - We could have asked the French oh right
5. Domenican Republic - oh hell we could have just played basaball
well you get the idea...
Now what we SHOULD do is put this mission BACK IN PRIMACY. Marines NEED this to be the bread and butter. It is what they are best at.</span>
I would point everyone to MIDRATS Episode 13, USMC and Forcible Entry, when Salamander had the brilliant LtCol Dakota Wood, and the not-so-brilliant but ruggedly handsome LtCol Mark Stanovich as guests.
Lots of good questions from Sal and Eagle1, and lively discussion. It is a "must listen" before the FCC gets ahold of the internet and Sal winds up in jail.
After all, ewok, Gallipoli absolutely proved that amphibious operations were unwise and impractical, and should never be attempted!
Why do I have feeling US can yet need to do forcible entry to recapture Taiwan, or even Phillipines (I will not say Hawaii because ATM this will look like I am mad, but if Chinese really will be making up to 6 CV(N)s then this will become eerily familiar plaground... Midway 2042?)
No amphibious assault capability? With 2/3 of the Earth's surface being water, there's a beach everywhere you look.
Anyone who wonders what it would be like to NOT use an amphibious assault ought to look at the disaster that was Sicily when we used Airborne troops, or Market Garden also using Airborne, or the near-disaster of the Airborne drops in Normandy.
There is a need for airborne, but the heavy stuff HAS to come by sea, and curring off an arm to save some bucks is, to my mind, a criminally stupid idea, and one where those who support it ought to ject be taken out somewhere and shot before they cause any firther damage.
Stand off weapons and high tech...
Same kind of thinking that had us take guns off jets before Vietnam...
I think the point about non-permissive operations going beyond combat is extremely important. The Marines may not have stormed too many beaches lately, but they certainly have landed a truckload of disaster relief supplies.
Are you backing me for SECDEF? Engineering degree, a minor in history, and a Naval War College graduate...sounds like a fit :)
Yep, sure. Right. Since we haven't done it for a while it will of course never have to happen again, so let us do away with that capability altogether. And since the Air Force hasn't shot down any other countries' fighters in about a decade, let us take their fast movers away from them while we are at it.
The only problem is that in each and every NEO/peacekeeping operation we have done since before Vietnam an amphious/vertical envelopment assault to get on the beach and to the people we are trying to save. So Gates is both stupid and shortsighted, as well as being piss poor on his current events of the last few decades. And the Army was not involved in any of them but Grenada. Flawless thinking from a freaking idiot far leftard. Jeebus.
More than that. We had four divisions of artillery and the equivalent of two divisions of infantry opposing us in Kuwait City, waiting for us to land there. And I know because I was a Staff Sergeant in the 4th MEB G2 section at the time.
Is the 1833 your MOS or the year ya got out? :-$
I wonder if Salamander's last sentence may have hit an important point ... :(
Did we not land Marines in Somalia via landing craft?
Horsecrap. Rummy was never a part of the "best & brightest" clan McNamara foisted on the DoD. Do a few minutes of Googling or web review, please. While McNamara was still mucking around with Ford, Rummy was a naval aviator & flight instructor.True, "Mac" was in the Army Air Force, but he was a 200-proof desk jockey doing statistical analysis.
Rumsfeld, in fact, covered many various fields of expertise, including fighter pilot, executive advisor, businessman, congresscritter, and executive Federal official.
As for our amphibious capability, that's one good reason to keep funding levels healthy for the Corps. One of the biggest problems we encountered before & during WW2 was that the War & Navy Departments didn't have the funding to execute realistic studies on questions relating to division organization (square division vs. triangular), armor (how do we employ it?), and naval warfare (long-range gunnery vs. torpedoes vs. night action). We wasted a lot of time, money, and lives doing "OJT" during the war.
That's not even mentioning the very different roles the Army & Navy play, both militarily & politically. What's the old saying? If the Marines go in, it's an incident. If the Army goes in, it's a war.
Tim, I have to say that the Normandy drops were both arguably useful and advantageous.
That said, there were a lot more amphibious than airborne assaults during that war, and later. One may argue that airmobile is a different creature. :)
Agree about transport. "Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics." Heavy sea transport is the cheapest & most effective method, bar none. Alas, Congress is reluctant to fund more fast Ro-Ro transports, as they aren't as sexy as LCS, or Ospreys.
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