Marines: we want our own war

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

Today’s New York Times reports on a fascinating proposal by the Marine Corps to split its duties with the Army in a very novel fashion: the Marines would take Afghanistan, and the Army would take Iraq. According to folks in the know, the proposal would give the Marines a chance to field their integrated “Marine Air Ground Task Force” or “MAGTF” concept, while also enabling each service to optimize its force packages and force-provider systems to fit the particular country it’s fighting in.

I love Phil Carter’s analysis:

Interesting proposal — but probably DOA. I can only imagine the stream of expletives from senior Army officials when they read this plan. The basic points of contention are two: 1) does this mean an end to joint operations? 2) Oh sure, the Marines just want to fight the popular war while the Army gets to deal with the clusterf–k that Iraq has become.

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Marines: we want our own war

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