As we move into our second decade of conflict with Islamist terrorism, what have we learned, relearned, or having to unlearn about Counter Insurgency (COIN)? As those who control the budget look towards a post-Iraq and post-Afghanistan military - what moves will be made towards USMC force structure and equipment?Please join my co-host EagleOne of "Eaglespeak" on Midrats this Sunday 18 JUL 2010 at 5pm EST for a full hour.
Our guest to discuss this will be Dr. Andrea J. Dew, Co-Director, Center on Irregular Warfare & Armed Groups (CIWAG), Strategy and Policy Department U.S. Naval War College Newport, RI. For the second half of the show, we will look at the moves being made already to gut the USMC force levels at first chance - how do we get the narrative right to fight this coming battle? Returning guest, fellow blogger with EagleOne and me over at USNIBlog, Mark E. Stanovich, LtCol USMCR will be with us to discuss this along with the latest developments with the Marine Corps.
Dr. Andrea Dew is a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, Newport RI. She co-founded and co-directs the college's Center on Irregular Warfare & Armed Groups. Dr Dew is also the author of "Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat
" which argues that understanding armed groups is the first step to understanding how to counter them.LtCol Mark Stanovich, USMCR, has more than 24 years of service in the USMC and USMCR. An artillery officer, he has served in all four Marine Divisions. LtCol Stanovich commanded a Recruit Training Company at Parris Island, SC, and was an artillery battery commander in 5th Bn, 10th Marines at Camp Lejeune NC and Okinawa, Japan. He served as 5/10’s battalion S-3, and was Executive Officer of 3rd Bn 14th Marines. LtCol Stanovich was deployed with 3rd CAG to Al Anbar Province, Iraq, and was a finance and economics advisor to the Al Anbar Provincial Government in Ramadi during OIF II. He was awarded the Combat Action Ribbon, Meritorious Service Medal, and Purple Heart. He is a distinguished graduate of the Field Artillery Officer Advanced Course, and has completed USMC Amphibious Warfare Course, USMC Staff Planning Course, USMC Command and Staff Course, and the NDU National Security Course.
LtCol Stanovich’s civilian position is Emergency Planning Coordinator for the Vermont Department of Health. He is a qualified exercise developer, conducting cyber security, health response, homeland security, and emergency management exercises for businesses, hospitals, private entities, as well as federal, state and local government agencies.
Join us live if you can and pile in with the usual suspects in the chat room during the show where you can offer your own questions and observations to our guests. If you miss the show or want to catch up on the shows you missed - you can always reach the archives at blogtalkradio - or set yourself to get the podcast on iTunes.
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22 comments:
CDR Sal,
Here are two men to consider for a future Fullbore Friday. A couple of MoH recipients passed away this week.
http://keaneobservation.blogspot.com/2010/07/two-american-heroes-pass-on.html
Argghhh!!!! You are killing me! I was going to skip this week and go do something fun in Boston. But if I do that, I will get in trouble with My Marine.
Thanks a lot, you troublemaker!
Listening to my blather IS something fun!
By the way, log in from time to time..... Maggie. :-P
I'm terrified that with our passive defense of amphibious warfare, we are going to fail in giving the SECDEF and CINC a reason to hold on to the JFEO mission set, and by proxy the majority of our amphibious fleet. JFEO = Joint Forcible Entry Operations, or "Amphibious Assault." SECDEF has been warning about this in speeches, he has been a doubter of the value in holding that capability. He has been BEGGING for someone to prove him wrong. And the Navy has failed to step up. The Amphibious Fleet has been leading the way in every mission set in the first part of the 21st century except for BMD....but hey, give me a few THAADs to park on an LHD flight deck, and a big enough radar dish and we'll knock 'em out of the sky (just kidding). While we can do all the Global Force for Good missions, if you don't have an ability to make an amphibious landing / assault, Korea, Iran, China, and the other pariah states will immediately act up.
I am haunted by a vision of 2042 US hastily re-inventing Marines to recapture Taiwan - or even Hawaii.
Fathead
Salty! You were listening!
That is an Ad Homonym attack!
(It sounds the same as what a lot of people call me!)
Having seen the picture...I'd say, "buckethead" :)
Oh, nice....
Big people have feelings, too! What was that commercial? "Just another sensitive big guy"?
I wish! I was cooking up Salty's Garden Chili and couldn't get my laptop to work in the kitchen. I'm going to listen to the replay tonight. I just wanted to weigh-in before the broadcast so I posted at 1430 yesterday. This is an issue I deal with <at> every day...</at>
Speaking of which, Sal, we haven't had a garden update yet this summer. Might make an interesting thread! I'm sure we have a lot of folks who garden like you!
The Corps needs to get smaller, and focus of the core of the the Corps; the projection of seapower ashore.
Do what you love, the rest will come.
Smaller? Sorry, putting combat power ashore requires actual combat power. Three full USMC Divisions should be the MINIMUM. With three complete Air Wings and three Marine Logistics Groups. Total strength of the Corps between 198,000 and 205,000.
Anything else is just silly.
So, where do we get the lift? This SecDef & SecNav are more concerned about other things. Amphibs are not sexy enough, not flashy enough. No lift, no reason to support forceable entry, no new toys (new AAVs, etc.).
30% smaller USMC is in the cards. Better hope most of that structure goes into the reserves or we are really screwed.
Hope everyone likes the hopey, changey thing!
This will make the Carter years seem like the Reagan budget days....
in WW2 3-5 divisions at once were considered major amphib ops - now we would be lucky to throw entire division in one place...
Actually, our amphib lift capacity is about 1.7 MEBs, depending on the vehicle density list. Woefully inadequate.
But that doesn't mean you cut your door-kicking force accordingly. You still need to prosecute operations ashore with follow-on embarked forces.
We used to be 3.0 MEB, then we went down to 2.0 MEB with a handshake that we have less. The problem is that the 2024 MEB has significantly increased the requirement for cubic volume, footprint, weight, etc. Couple that with the logistical train that comes with the JSF. Even if we built all LPD-17s (assume they worked) to replace LSD 41/49s, which I can tell you WILL NOT HAPPEN BECAUSE OF COST, we'd never meet the 2024 MEB. FURTHER, the vehicle square and cubed already exceeds the 2024 projections.
We need more amphibs. Amphibs do it all. BMD shooters only do 9 knots to nowhere in their little baskets waiting for the world to end like the guys in the missile silos in South Dakota. They are not on call to do anything else. Gators do JFEO, HADR, VBSS, Presence, etc.
I'm glad that you brought up the issue of AAVs, because it is a pet peeve of mine. Since we got rid of the EFV, we are once again hazarding both the landing force and the amphibious force since the ships will have to get closer to the shore again. Forget about boat lanes OTH, unless we're going to embark AAVs on LCACs and then zip them out to the boat lanes that way, which I don't see happening. When you bring the ships in closer, they need to be able to defend themselves, and the combat systems budget for amphibious combat systems is nil.
Old: dude.....what are you talking about?
You do realize how many men it took to seize Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Okinawa, Pelilieu, etc, right? This isn't like an amphibious raid on some Somali pirate village. It's one thing to say "hey, we need to put the Marines back out to sea." It's a whole different thing to say "we need to gut the Corps." The Corps has fought with honor and distinction in Al Anbar, just like they are in Afghanistan, just like they did in Hue and other not-so-maritime environments. They improvise, adapt, overcome. They have a more diverse mission set than the Army. That's why we need them. We just need to make sure that we don't give up the JFEO mission set to satisfy CT/COIN operations du jour. But we won't do ANYTHING with a smaller Marine Corps.
Good God, man.....way to start my morning off.......
restart the LST - low tech, slow and unglamorous
I'd loveto see LCS "classic" restarted too... make it naval AC-130
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