Small Wars Journal

Second Land Armies and Excess Combatant Commands

Thu, 12/02/2010 - 3:13pm
Second Land Armies and Excess Combatant Commands

by Robert Jordan Prescott

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On August 12, 2010 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced he had ordered a thorough force structure review of the Marine Corps to determine what an expeditionary force in readiness should look like in the 21st century, echoing the intermittent characterization of the Marine Corps as a "second land army." Three days prior, Gates announced U.S. Joint Forces Command, established to foster joint doctrine and conduct joint training and experimentation, would close, asserting the "U.S. military has largely embraced jointness as a matter of culture and practice" and the need for an entirely separate four star command no longer existed. Together, the two steps constitute major components of the secretary's now well-publicized initiative to enhance efficiency across the Department of Defense. The secretary's efforts are laudable, but exploring opportunities within legacy service and combatant command structures will achieve the minimum. Instead of prompting the world's premier strike force to justify itself or closing a command tasked with cultivating a joint force, the secretary should be exploring how the American military can emulate the Marine Corps and become a truly global joint force.

Download the Full Article: Second Land Armies and Excess Combatant Commands

Read more by Robert Jordan Prescott at House of Marathon. He is private consultant to defense industry, formerly in the securities industry who switched to national security after September 11, 2001. He is grateful to have the opportunity to meet and work with individuals who fight and sacrifice on behalf of our country. House of Marathon is a blog featuring essays on American Politics, International Security, and Popular Culture.

About the Author(s)

Comments

prescottrjp

Tue, 12/07/2010 - 9:24am

I'm pleasantly surprised to see all these comments and there are excellent points across the board.

Some comments stood out that will add to why I submitted this essay.

_The unit that RIPped us said they "would not be combat operational" until there was a PX in place.

Marines live like Spartans while the other services live like Athenians... just looking for some moderation. Moving more Spartan is advisable. The impulse to chew up and spit out may be short-sighted but "once a Marine, always a Marine" means "once a rifleman, always a rifleman" and by extension, everyone is a warrior. I'd prefer more warriors, less administrators etc.

_I don't agree that on the necessity of JFCOM.
it's functionality existed prior to it's creation, and will continue to exist after it's deactivation

Agreed; the point is more to maintain the institutional focus on experimentation (in the spirit of the 1997 NDP recommendation), but more importantly, to get past the centrality of regional GCCs and think globally about power projection. GCCs know plans and missions, but their boundaries are artificial/arbitrary and inhibiting. EUCOM knows plenty about the MED, but TRANSCOM's intel on en route infrastructure across EUCOM and into CENTCOM is far more substantial.

Doesn't have to be JFCOM, could be "Projection Command", it just had the experimentation and GLOBAL force management roles already necessary for coping with a future marked by uncertainty.

_Take it from me - I expect my job as a contractor to go the way of the dodo and do not feel bad about it at all.

Obviously you are dedicated and prepared to continue working with integrity in a position you know is slated for extinction - the nation needs more of you. And actually, I believe contractors are here to stay. Until labor management is rationalized, contractors will provide the flexibility needed amidst uncertainty. IMHO, the frustration with contractors is borne of the lag in oversight, which was impossible to resurrect in time for the enormous surge in dollars committed right after Sept 11. This need not be a long war and when peace returns, oversight can be reconstituted, catch up, and prepare for the next conflict, which brings me to the last item.

That next conflict better not be another 8 year occupation of a Central Asian moonscape.

_However, without the Army paying these bills (in terms of $$ and force structure), the USMC wouldn't have been in Iraq or be in Iraq or Afghanistan because it couldn't sustain itself.

Fine, sustaining ourself in Afghanistan or Iraq for this long has been a mistake. We should have exited Afghanistan and just continued pounding the adversary everytime it massed forces (e.g. training camps etc.) Having been to Afghanistan, the place is rubble and the Afghans can keep it. Nation-building may represent the altruistic side of American foreign policy, but, in Afghanistan, it would take a century.

On the other hand, Iraq is more strategic and a policy of regime change was merited, but as Frederick Kagan notes in Finding the Target, if that's the policy, then plan backwards and comprehensively --> i.e. plan for an occupation that will achieve the desired end state.

Accordingly, I submitted long-term occupation is to be avoided, precisely because of the point above -- without the Army paying these bills (in terms of $$ and force structure), the USMC wouldn't have been in Iraq or be in Iraq or Afghanistan because it couldn't sustain itself -- well apparently neither could the Army or the US. Before the FCS cancellation, the coinciding reconstitution bill was in the range of $50B.

As asserted in the essay, the [adversaries'] goal is cost-imposition and the experience in Iraq and Afghanistan underscore the cost in both American treasure and blood [AND] it is the tremendous expense in the former that has partly brought the nation to this juncture.

---
My unstated motto for House of Marathon:
"to provoke"

I appreciate all the time given to comments and response; thank you for reading the essay and sharing your thoughts.

Cheers,
RJP

pjmunson

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 2:51pm

RITW: Thanks for the attempt at a vocabulary lesson, but I am arguing about efficiency, not efficacy. I do believe that the efficacy of the MAGTF is an important point, but I am particularly disputing your characterization that the Corps would cost more proportionately due to inefficiency. I would argue that the self-contained Air Force, for example, in the MAGTF is proportionately significantly less expensive than a similar Air Force capacity due to the much less robust and, I'd say, less inefficient construct of a Marine squadron.

Again, I buy that the lack of its own sustainment commands, etc, does skew the statistics, but I would say that, at best, you'd be looking at proportional parity, not worse. The Corps is lean to a fault and the big Army and Air Force are big to a fault, from overdoing the sustainment, to turning that overdone sustainment into strained buttons on uniforms all over the AOR, except for the few that are out shivering and starving chasing ghosts around. Your economies of scale are more than erased by volumes of waste. Now, when it comes to trying to procure niche weapons systems, specifically the MV-22 and the F-35 STOVL variant, the argument begins to have some validity. I think that is more due to unrealistic dreaminess on the part of a few people who fancy themselves visionaries than the construct of the Corps.

Realist in the… (not verified)

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 2:36pm

Nightmare,

Your argument mixes efficacy and efficiency. We, the taxpaying public, pay a relatively huge amount for the Marines to have their own, self-contained Air Force and Army to support Marine operations first (vice joint--albeit supporting joint goals), with only excess capability released to the JFC. There's a valid argument for continuing that investment to a point, because we need the capability during certain scenarios. That said, to argue that it wouldn't be more efficient to use the economies of scale inherent in the larger Army and Air Force is misguided to say the least.

Shek (not verified)

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 2:27pm

When referring to infrastructure, think theater enabling infrastructure (e.g. sustainment units) vice base infrastructure. The result here is that the USMC looks leaner with its tooth:tail ratio and cheaper in terms of budget. However, without the Army paying these bills (in terms of $$ and force structure), the USMC wouldn't have been in Iraq or be in Iraq or Afghanistan because it couldn't sustain itself. The article asks the right questions, but errors like this distract from the argument.

pjmunson

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 2:11pm

RITW: What in the world are you talking about? From what data or premises are you deriving the assertion that the Marine employment structure would be dramatically more expensive than what is currently in place in other services? That is absurd. Would the Corps be more expensive if it did not have Army logistics and Air Force transport, tanking, etc to rely on? Absolutely. But to say that the Corps is "sinfully" inefficient and would be proportionately more expensive than the other services is ludicrous. The Marine Corps is "efficient" to a fault. The Corps' answer to being understaffed and underfunded is to make do with what other services would and do refuse. The bloat in big Army and big Air Force is partially because they are the big services, but it is also incredibly, I'd argue criminally, wasteful in all the wrong places (i.e. fraudulent waste an incapacity in the tail, combined with funding and manpower issues in the tooth). Your comment has zero credibility.

Necessity? (not verified)

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 12:57pm

I don't agree that on the necessity of JFCOM. Much of it's functionality existed prior to it's creation, and will continue to exist after it's deactivation under the JCS and the services. It has only grown (GS and contractor-wise) since it's inception and it is very much in need of downsizing. Take it from me - I expect my job as a contractor to go the way of the dodo and do not feel bad about it at all. The SecDef's decision was the right one, and long overdue.

Realist in the… (not verified)

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 12:35pm

Xenophon,

I respectfully yet totally disagree. Proportionally, the Marine employment structure would be dramatically more expensive than what's currently in place (in the other services) if it were required to support itself. As stated before, the MAGTF is very effective in its limited role, but it is also very inefficient. Inefficiency is a sin that can be overlooked in the short-term, but our nation couldn't afford this approach if wide-spread.

Xenophon

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 12:23pm

I agree that if the USMC provided its own infrastructure it would be far more expensive to maintain it than it is now, and that in reality it is far more expensive than it seems because so much is "borrowed" from other services. I'm just saying that "more expensive than it seems" probably does not equal "more expensive than other services".

So, the point that the author made, that the USMC is cheaper than the other services, is valid.

pjmunson

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 11:43am

I'll agree on the point that the USMC relies significantly on other services for the "heavy lifting." In many cases, this is literally the heavy lifting of strategic and theater transport, as well as the provision of services required in theater beyond a limited timeframe. That being said, the other services' "retention model," if that is what you want to call it after Realist in the Wilderness, is an excuse for the most egregious fraud, waste, and abuse. And nowhere is this worse than forward deployed locations. I spent several months at a FOB that a Marine unit built out of scratch living off of ROWPU water from a drilled well, MREs, and bathing/laundry out of a plastic tub. The unit that RIPped us said they "would not be combat operational" until there was a PX in place. There is a happy medium in there somewhere. Furthermore, the main bases, like Kandahar, are the most disgusting examples of the "big services" gone wrong. More garrison than garrison, with the emphasis wholly backwards. Comfort and services come before accomplishing the mission. The amount of tail to tooth is disturbing, much of the tail feeding the tail that has time to go to 3-4 meals a day, sneak in a few hours shopping and snacking at the boardwalk, and do organized unit PT every morning. No matter what the retention model is, I can't help but thinking that we'd be doing a lot better off as a nation if the big services could pare down some of the b.s. and focus on the task at hand with a little more mission oriented mindset. The answer is in the middle. The Marines can't exist or operate for anything but a very limited time without the heavy lifting of the other services, but the other services are egregiously wasteful even considering a different retention model.

Realist in the… (not verified)

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 10:40am

Jordan,

Your facilities points are valid, but even those support my point. Marines, because of size and special mission, have never maintained a retention model that requires taking care of troops and their families. For good or bad, the Marines have lived by a "chew them up and spit them out" model accompanied by a cultural indoctrination that preaches "once a Marine, always a Marine." It has worked well over the years, but I maintain it isn't transportable to a much larger scale. The enlistment standards of the services and the percentage of waivers being granted per service will also support my argument.

Xenophon,

I don't have the numbers immediately at hand, but 25+ years of service have provided enough evidence for me to be confident the answer to your infrastructure question is, "Yes, if the USMC (or any Joint Force) were required to provide its own logistics infrastructure to be self-sufficient in the same MAGTF-sized structure Jordan is advocating, the percentage of tail to tooth would be significantly higher than it is today. All the large services have learned multiple times over the years that expeditionary-structured units are great for employment and training, but impossible to sustain for the long haul.

Regards

Xenophon

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 10:19am

The point is that the Marine Corps is less expensive to maintain than the other services, and yet provides great capabilities. Do you have any data that this is not the case? Does the infrastructure paid for by other services total up to a level exceeding any other services? I doubt it.

prescottrjp

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 10:16am

Acknowledged, but, in jest, the USMC is not the service building its bases around the golf course.

The difference between a USMC base and a USAF base is substantial -- ex. Camp Smith vs. Hickam AF Base, Honolulu, Hawaii.

Thanks for taking time to read and comment.
Cheers, RJP

Realist in the… (not verified)

Fri, 12/03/2010 - 10:13am

I find it hard to imagine the author actually believes this propaganda. While the Marines and their organizational mindset quite often provide a very effective answer to a limited-scale tactical problem, they are afforded that luxury because each of the other services is burdened with their heavy lifting. I'm all for having that capability when it's needed, but it is unsustainable on large scales. Someone has to provide the lift and infrastructure that the Marines have eschewed in order to sustain extented missions. We're facing hard decisions on DOD budget issues and this type of dogmatic blindness won't be helpful in ensuring our nation's security needs are met for the long haul.

Brett Patron

Thu, 12/02/2010 - 4:27pm

Finally, the Corps executes its mission frugally; the Corps constitutes 17 percent of the military's active ground combat maneuver units, 12 percent of the fixed wing tactical aircraft, and 19 percent of the attack helicopter,<b> but consumes only 6.5 percent of the baseline defense budget.</b>

I'm sorry. That is a bit misleading, especially considering that a lot of infrastructure is paid for by the other Services.