U.S. Rethinks a Marine Corps Specialty

U.S. Rethinks a Marine Corps Specialty: Storming Beaches – Tony Perry and Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times.

On a stretch of clean, white Southern California beach, thousands of young Marines this month charged forward from the sea, leaping from helicopters and landing craft, echoing the exercises conducted decades before when Marines trained for Iwo Jima and Inchon. It was the largest and most complex amphibious exercise since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It also could be one of the last…

But the Marines have not stormed a hostile beach since Inchon during the Korean War. And influential military thinkers – including, most notably, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates – have begun to question whether the Marines will ever do it again.

In a speech last month, Gates said rogue nations and nonstate movements such as Hezbollah now possessed sophisticated guided missiles that could destroy naval ships, forcing them to stay well away from shore and making any sort of beach landing by Marines extremely dangerous. Countries including China and Iran have guided missiles and other defenses to deter a beach landing, said Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, who has written skeptically of traditional amphibious landings…

More at The Los Angeles Times.