thedrifter
08-30-05, 01:20 PM
September 05, 2005
Analysts debate Corps’ future gear needs, role
By Gordon Lubold and Christian Lowe
Times staff writers
The Marine Corps should reconsider buying the MV-22 Osprey and reduce the number of new Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles it will get, military experts said during a a panel discussion of the Corps’ future.
Instead, the service could buy more effective armored vehicles and cheaper helicopters, using the savings to purchase Interceptor body armor for Marines and other needed equipment, said Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
“At $100 million a copy, which is a [Government Accountability Office] estimate, it’s a pretty steep price to pay, especially when most of its missions could be performed almost as well by MH-60S Night Hawks,” Boot told an audience of about 100 people attending a conference Aug. 18 at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington.
The Night Hawk, he said, can carry more cargo and armaments and can descend faster, “presenting a smaller target” to enemies.
With the money the Corps saves buying a cheaper airframe, it could buy more body armor and more armor for its vehicles, Boot said.
The event drew some top military thinkers as well as several Corps leaders, among them Commandant Gen. Mike Hagee; Lt. Gen. John Sattler, commander of I Marine Expeditionary Force; and Lt. Gen. James Mattis, commander of Marine Corps Combat Development Command.
Boot also wondered whether the Corps needed to buy 1,000 Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles, the much-heralded replacement for the Amphibious Assault Vehicle. Instead, the Corps could buy the heavily armored Rhino Runner — a big bus used now to transport personnel between the Green Zone in Baghdad and the city’s international airport — or other armored vehicles.
The near-heretical notions were raised as the Corps begins to re-think its mission for the future and as the Quadrennial Defense Review, a Defense Department-wide review of resources and capabilities, hangs over each service.
“One of our core capabilities is paranoia,” said Hagee, jokingly referring to concerns about how the review could affect the Corps’ spending. “I think all the services are getting that capability.”
So the Corps must think about its mission for the future. Small wars only? Or big wars? Or a little bit of both? Most agree it will be both.
But Boot and others believe the focus should be on small wars.
Frank Hoffman, a senior fellow at the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities, a Marine Corps think tank based at Quantico, Va., is also bullish on small wars. He thinks the future will rely heavily on individual Marines.
“We need ground forces; they need to be in sufficient numbers, they need to be rigorously trained, and they need to be superbly led by ‘strategic’ [noncommissioned officers],” Hoffman said. “We need people who are a little older with a little more seasoned judgment and greater agility to work in a small-wars era.”
But Marines will have to re-think their role, Boot said.
At least for the next couple of years, Marines will perform the same job as soldiers, who have traditionally been seen as the heavy force that occupies a country long after leathernecks leave a theater.
Given this state of affairs, the Corps may want to consider extending Marine deployments to a year instead of the current seven-month tours, Boot said.
However, the Corps could ensure that Marines returning to Iraq are assigned the same area of operations so they don’t have to relearn an environment on a second or third rotation to Iraq, he noted.
The Corps should go “back to the future” and prepare once again to fight small wars and de-emphasize its traditional focus on amphibious operations, Boot and others said.
But not so fast, said Mack Owens, a professor at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. The Corps can’t afford to focus only on “Fourth Generation” warfare, in which the nation is fighting insurgents, terrorists and other nonstate actors.
Robert Work, a retired Marine colonel who is an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the Corps should retain its naval focus while also looking forward.
“The basis for transformation in my mind is a sea-based, tied with the Navy, cross-spectrum, combined arms maneuver force,” Work said during a later panel discussion.
Ellie
Analysts debate Corps’ future gear needs, role
By Gordon Lubold and Christian Lowe
Times staff writers
The Marine Corps should reconsider buying the MV-22 Osprey and reduce the number of new Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles it will get, military experts said during a a panel discussion of the Corps’ future.
Instead, the service could buy more effective armored vehicles and cheaper helicopters, using the savings to purchase Interceptor body armor for Marines and other needed equipment, said Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
“At $100 million a copy, which is a [Government Accountability Office] estimate, it’s a pretty steep price to pay, especially when most of its missions could be performed almost as well by MH-60S Night Hawks,” Boot told an audience of about 100 people attending a conference Aug. 18 at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington.
The Night Hawk, he said, can carry more cargo and armaments and can descend faster, “presenting a smaller target” to enemies.
With the money the Corps saves buying a cheaper airframe, it could buy more body armor and more armor for its vehicles, Boot said.
The event drew some top military thinkers as well as several Corps leaders, among them Commandant Gen. Mike Hagee; Lt. Gen. John Sattler, commander of I Marine Expeditionary Force; and Lt. Gen. James Mattis, commander of Marine Corps Combat Development Command.
Boot also wondered whether the Corps needed to buy 1,000 Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles, the much-heralded replacement for the Amphibious Assault Vehicle. Instead, the Corps could buy the heavily armored Rhino Runner — a big bus used now to transport personnel between the Green Zone in Baghdad and the city’s international airport — or other armored vehicles.
The near-heretical notions were raised as the Corps begins to re-think its mission for the future and as the Quadrennial Defense Review, a Defense Department-wide review of resources and capabilities, hangs over each service.
“One of our core capabilities is paranoia,” said Hagee, jokingly referring to concerns about how the review could affect the Corps’ spending. “I think all the services are getting that capability.”
So the Corps must think about its mission for the future. Small wars only? Or big wars? Or a little bit of both? Most agree it will be both.
But Boot and others believe the focus should be on small wars.
Frank Hoffman, a senior fellow at the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities, a Marine Corps think tank based at Quantico, Va., is also bullish on small wars. He thinks the future will rely heavily on individual Marines.
“We need ground forces; they need to be in sufficient numbers, they need to be rigorously trained, and they need to be superbly led by ‘strategic’ [noncommissioned officers],” Hoffman said. “We need people who are a little older with a little more seasoned judgment and greater agility to work in a small-wars era.”
But Marines will have to re-think their role, Boot said.
At least for the next couple of years, Marines will perform the same job as soldiers, who have traditionally been seen as the heavy force that occupies a country long after leathernecks leave a theater.
Given this state of affairs, the Corps may want to consider extending Marine deployments to a year instead of the current seven-month tours, Boot said.
However, the Corps could ensure that Marines returning to Iraq are assigned the same area of operations so they don’t have to relearn an environment on a second or third rotation to Iraq, he noted.
The Corps should go “back to the future” and prepare once again to fight small wars and de-emphasize its traditional focus on amphibious operations, Boot and others said.
But not so fast, said Mack Owens, a professor at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. The Corps can’t afford to focus only on “Fourth Generation” warfare, in which the nation is fighting insurgents, terrorists and other nonstate actors.
Robert Work, a retired Marine colonel who is an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the Corps should retain its naval focus while also looking forward.
“The basis for transformation in my mind is a sea-based, tied with the Navy, cross-spectrum, combined arms maneuver force,” Work said during a later panel discussion.
Ellie