New Trump Defense Dept. advisor advocated doing away with Marine Corps

[Tanuki]

https://taskandpurpose.com/.amp/news/marine-corps-douglas-macgregor-proposal?__twitter_impression=true

"Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, newly-appointed as a senior adviser at the Pentagon, has a track record of making controversial statements. But his most provocative of all might be a proposal to do away with the U.S. Marine Corps.

In a 2012 opinion piece for Time Magazine, Macgregor, a decorated veteran of the Gulf War, argued that the Corps was living on its past glories and was unsuited for combat on today's battlefield, with the possible exception for pushover enemies.

He went further, too, suggesting the acronym "USMC" should really stand for "Under-utilized Superfluous Military Capability."

"Most of today's Marine force consists of airmobile light infantry," Macgregor wrote. "This Marine force is designed for use in the developing world against incapable opponents from Haiti to Fiji, but not much else."...(more)

[Me.]

1. THat Will Go Over Real Big

[judeling]

2. even though it is relatively true

of course that has been true throughout its history once ship to ship combat lost hand to hand.
The Marines are light infantry quick reaction strike forces. Designed to take but not hold.

[Me.]

3. Has Anyone Told The Marines

[Blue_true]

4. When in USA history has the point forces ever held territory?

They drive out hostile forces, then turn it over to units which are better suited to hold it, as the point force moves on. Only relatively recently has the USA tried having a fighting like the Marines hold territory, that happened largely due to inadequate staffing (the warning given to Bush before he invaded Iraq).

[judeling]

10. well there is Belleau wood

which of course changed doctrine for their use until Bush.

But you use point forces to clear and hold along the line of advance all the time.

LOL of course I'm from an Army family and we have never really seen why the Navy needs their own army.

[Blue_true]

13. The Marines at Belleau Wood were trapped, surrounded on something like three

sides by German forces. They literally had no choice but to hold their ground and fight, a fight that extracted a terrible toll before they prevailed.

Point forces clear areas, but they don’t hold them for long unless they have no choice (understaffed forces that will take over as in Iraq, or they get trapped somehow and have to hold the ground). One of my late brothers was part of a forward Marine gunnery crew, they blasted away and cleared areas, but they never stayed long, rear soldiers would come in after the Marines had done their jobs.

I am also from an incidental military family. I had two older brothers serve during the Vietnam era, one a Paratrooper and the other a Marine, who did four tours in Vietnam. I have younger relatives mostly in the Army, two are officers. I also have one who is a Senior JAG Navy Chief, he is nearing the forced retirement age.

[Thunderbeast]

5. Let's kill the SPACE FORCE

...while it is still in the crib.

[Blue_true]

14. I agree. Send the troop back to their base units and have them cooperate like they had

been doing before Trump’s grandiose move.

[MustLoveBeagles]

6. Oh boy

This isn't going to go over too well is it?

[jmowreader]

7. I've been advocating that for a really long time

In the last four wars the Marines were in - Vietnam, Operation Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Liberation and Operation Enduring Freedom - the Marine ground forces did pretty much exactly the same thing as the Army.

If you talk to a Marine and ask him, "what exactly justifies keeping the Marines around?" they will always answer, "the amphibious mission." Well, that's nice but I have two counters: the Marines haven't done an amphibious operation since 1965, and the biggest amphibious operation in the history of the United States, the Normandy invasion, didn't have one Marine in it. (There was one amphibious operation during Desert Storm; Navy SEALs conducted it with no Marine support.) So...whether the Marines are trained to wade should not be the sole factor in deciding whether to keep them.

My recommendation is to blend the three Marine divisions into the Army as heavy infantry divisions (pick the three deactivated WWII divisions with the best records and uncase their colors for the formerly-Marine divisions) and send the Corps' fixed-wing aviation assets to the Air Force. The advantage to the divisions is the Army has less-worn-out equipment; the advantage to the troops is it's a lot easier to get promoted in the Army. (You've basically got to wait until the Marine who has the stripe you want dies of old age before you can get promoted in the Corps. The Army isn't nearly as bad.) I figure it would take about five years to figure out what each Marine MOS translates to in the Army (and in some cases they're going to have to severely retrain the Marines; the infantry is a big example because one Army infantry MOS (11B) translates to about nine different Marine MOS, and all the Marine grunts would have to be trained in the skills they don't have). Equipment is no big problem; we have a shitload of tanks, Bradleys and the like sitting in depots that could be reissued to the new divisions, and the Marines and Army use the same trucks, trailers, mobile kitchens and other non-shooting-at-people items.

This falls into the "stopped clock" category, because I am positive this guy is at least as fucked in the head as all Trump appointees are required to be.

[judeling]

12. Its just that most people don't know this is a long ongoing discussion.

Having any Army field grade officers saying that is actually nothing knew because almost all of them believe it and at least half of those in the Air Force also.

Just like how little resistance Space Force met outside of the Air Force. The military didn't want a new branch, but the Army and Navy did want Space Command pulled out and under a joint command structure like Special Operations.

[Blue_true]

15. The problem is the rich history of the Marines.

Maybe the force has not had a distinct role since WWI, but even since that war, when a nasty job had to be done, the Marines were called on to do it. I remember early in the Iraq war when Army supply lines were being attacked and often prevented from going to or reaching their destinations. Army units faced having supplies cut off while facing at that time unknown Iraq forces who Saddam had bragged into monster armies. Marine expeditionary units were brought in to stop the attacks on the supply convoys, which they did.

The storied history of the Marines is going to make elimination that Branch really difficult, even if it’s modern role is hazy. That would be like eliminating legendary Divisions of the Army, like the Third Division.

[struggle4progress]

8. Competition between divided military forces is one firewall again a military coup

[sarisataka]

9. It has been suggested and tried before

In the midst of WW2 the army wanted to do away with the Corps. Gen Marshall vowed he would see to it the Marines never won another war. Truman had antipathy to the Marines as well and Eisenhower would have preferred to abolish the Corps after WW2 however would have settled for reducing them to merely a small security force.

The Marines have often fought foreign enemies but have much experience with domestic battles as well.

[soryang]

11. This is interesting because our allies in East Asia

seem preoccupied with developing their amphibious capabilities and they envy ours. The focus is on their island possessions, exclusive economic zones, and the so called first island chain.