Irregular Warfare and The Marine Corps
Many thanks to Col John A. Keenan, Marine Corps Gazette Editor, (A fellow Marine and great Small Wars Journal and personal friend) and the Gazette for once again permitting SWJ to repost an important article that addresses critical issues.
Irregular Warfare and the Marine Corps: A changed security environment creates new opportunities by Col Robert K. Dobson, Jr., USMC (Ret).
After more than a decade of continuous combat operations against an elusive foe that is at times an insurgent, extremist, criminal, nonstate actor, and/ or terrorist, and often frustrated by the politics of the conflict, Marines have begun to look forward to returning to their “amphibious roots.” This has become the bumper sticker slogan that is being interpreted by many as returning to training for combat operations. This is nothing new. After the Vietnam War, the message “no more Vietnams” emanated from the defense establishment…
This is a very interesting excerpt from the article. By my math that would 2,500 US Marine Corps A Teams. Even accounting for supporting and enabling capabilities, using half from that 30,000 number would still provide 1250 Marine “ODAs” . There are currently approximately 360 active duty US Army Special Forces Operational Detachments – Alpha. I agree that the ODA “model” has been very successful in Special Forces. However, to try to replicate it on this scale would probably use all the senior NCOs in the Marine Corps. Probablly the number one characteristic of the SF ODA that makes it so successful (beside having one of the most effective small unit combined arms capability) is the experience of its senior NCOs. I would caution that just putting together 12 Marines or Soldiers will not equal an SF A Team and we should be careful if the Army or Marine Corps tries to replicate the model that these teams will not be a replacement for SF ODAs.
Excerpt:
In order to be persistently present in 10
to 20 countries for the next 10 to 20
years, the Marine Corps will need to
develop an irregular warfare capacity
of approximately 30,000 personnel
It is recommended that the highly successful operational detachment “alpha”
team model of 12 multiskilled personnel be used as the start point for the
basic operating unit in the necessary
organizational realignment. The current
ground organization of fire team, squad,
platoon, company, battalion, regiment,
and division is not an appropriate organizational construct for the persistent
build partner capacity missions.
Great article. Several people, including some on SWJ, have hinted at or advocated for such a capability within DoD/ USG…..Thomas Barnett’s SysAdmin Force comes to mind. Bringing back Army Constabulary units (from post-WW2 era) is a similiar idea.
Were a 30,000 man force created in the USMC, it seems that, intially, it may require another round of retiree recalls since, as COL Maxwell points out, such teams are effective because of senior NCOs. This would impact retired officers as well. These guys would have to be maintained at least until the active USMC has had enough time to age a portion of their force to mitigate the need for the recalled bubbas.
Having served in both the Army and Marine Corps I would say the Marines could provide on “ODA like” construct for IW without the need for alot of NCOs. Notice I said “ODA like” and not necessarily an exact duplicate an ODA. This to me is more of a mitigating strategy for IW and that is something to keep in mind. Marine culture molds its personnel to take on more responsibility in its enlisted ranks then the Army does. For example, an platoon SGT in the Army is an E-7 while in the Marines its an E-6. I’ve also known Lance Corporals (E-3s) who could put some Army E-5’s to shame. We should also remember the Medal of Honor winner and Green Beret SSG Robert J. Miller (KIA) was an 18X, one of the first Special Forces soldiers recruited and trained straight from the street and he had no previous operational NCO experience to draw upon…if my memory is correct. My point is that intense training and discipline can offset experience to some arguable degree. Another example is that MEUs often go through a SOF certication process before some deployments with no major changes to their MTOE structure, which is built around infantry, air and logistics components.
Is ours the only country which has two independent branches of their military, i.e. the US Army and the USMC, competing to fulfill ground force missions normally assigned to what is traditionally called an army? Perhaps it is time to end this competitive nonsense and reduce excess headquarters budgetary costs by blending them into one branch of the service — the Army where most of the Marine Corps belongs.
The original purpose of the Marines was to guard Navy installations, provide snipers in the rigging of sailing ships, then later to provide the core of small landing forces deployed by the Navy to conduct temporary missions ashore in support of US interests.
The USMC was only expanded during WWII because Admirals Nimitz and King wanted complete control over the Navy’s campaign up the Central Pacific during WWII. The Admirals did not want to be dependent on the Army for the ground forces needed to seize the islands the Navy for the obvious reason that ground forces and Navy forces will not necessarily agree on which target land mass was most appropriate for any number of factors. Expanding and employing the Navy controlled Marine Corps solved that problem.
We will never see another Central Pacific style campaign. It is time to down size the Marines and turn most of their force and budget over to the Army where they belong. Then this nation’s ground force can decide which mission which of their ground forces will conduct. The small number of surviving Marines can be returned to the Navy from whence they came.
I have a question for anyone. Having read the USMC Small Wars manual cover to cover at least 3 times(some sections 4 or 5) now and noticing some considerable differences between that manual and the new COIN manual(s). I would like people’s opinion as to weather the Marines and Navy by themselves applying the techniques in the Small Wars Manual without interference of any kind to include the establishment of a military government could achieve different outcomes in both of our recent wars in the Mid-East?
CB Calif said….”Given the budgetary problems this country is having, one day we will have a President and DOD Secretary that will reorganize the military. Better for the Marine Corps to do it themselves in cooperation with the Army today then allow themselves to be put to the budget knife later.”
With that in mind, does it make sense for the Marines to reconfigure themselves for naval support AND IW….perhaps by eliminating the MARDIVs and using those personnel to: (1) place all or the majority of their younger/ junior personnel in the MEUs and (2) place the majority of the more senior personnel in the IW formations the author is advocating. Is that too extreme?