Recently they have been doing “Army” things in Iraq and the like, and not concentrating on their true role. This is understandable, since one generally wants to get in on whatever is going on and getting operational experience and their “share of the pie”, so to speak.

A battalion of Marines in Iraq or Afghanistan is not doing anything an equivalent Army formation couldn’t do, and in many cases, is not quite as well equipped to perform that role as said Army formation. On the other hand, if they DON’T participate, they risk losing money and prestige.

They went through this before in the ’30′s, when the actual existence of the Corps was called into question, and what saved them was WWII and the need to actually do Marine stuff like assaulting beaches etc.

Looks like the current Commandant is going back to basics. Turning the Corps back into something like what they are actually meant to do, and role and mission focused. If they turn into something a bit more like the British Royal Marines, so much the better, IMHO.

The Marines have been on a bit of an “out of lane” tangent since WWII, in that they’ve been playing way out of their league in terms of role and mission. The Marines are not, and should not be a small, bitched-up Army, no matter how badly the Army itself is cocking up its assigned role. The Marines have a bit of a problem, in that they do not envisage themselves as being for anything other than the traditional “90 days, 90 miles from the sea” sort of thing, but at the same time, they’ve refused to give up the delusions of grandeur that go with equipping themselves with toys that encourage going beyond those limits. You don’t need M1 tanks for the sort of missions they want to do, and if they are going to try to play Army, then they need the tools and staff to do so, which means that they’re no longer the strong right arm of the Navy, and more some neither fish nor fowl affair that lends itself to misuse.

You saw the sort of thing I’m talking about with regards to Somalia; the Marines were put in charge of that, and maybe it was a good place for them to be in charge, but… The Army looked at the mission, said “Yeah, you’re gonna need X and Y, along with Z, y’all don’t have that on your MTOE, so we’ll get it spun up for you guys…”. At which point, the Marines said “Nope, don’t need none o’that boooolsheeet… Y’all just stand back and watch how real men do things…”. Two weeks later, with Marines way beyond their logistical tethers and starting to eat the relief supplies themselves, they were like “Uhm, yeah, Army…? You guys need to support us better!! We need X and Y, and some of that Z stuff as well, and we need it NOW!! Get off your asses and get it to us… Oh, and don’t send us none of them girls, either…”.

Stories I could tell. That was a total clusterf**k, from the standpoint of logistics and what the Army terms the “TPFDL” or “Time Phased Force Deployment List”, which specifies where and when you need each specialty unit. That whole concept is apparently so much Greek to a lot of Marines on their staffs, because they apparently couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea that if you’re gonna haul supplies, you need truck companies, and if you’re gonna run a port, you’re gonna need stevedores and supply wienies to run that port… Even the Navy guys were frustrated with the Marines who were pooh-poohing what the Navy said they’d need to do their part of things, and it was just nuts. At that state of things, the Marines were unable to cope with the “big picture” end of things. During Iraq and Afghanistan, they were better, but… There is still this mindset of austerity and “thinking small”, rather than “Yeah, let’s do this right, logistically…”.

So, maybe this is the Marines getting back to what they properly should be–A small, elite force that does the difficult sort of work that the Navy needs done ashore, a raiding force rather than an entry force. I think that might actually be more in keeping with the nature of things, but I also remain dubious that future reality is going to conform to expectations. Anyone’s expectations.

Just like with the Marine choice for a squad support weapon, I’m sitting here on the sidelines going “Well, if that’s what you think you need…”, and keeping my belt-fed solution instead. Y’all wanna play fast and loose, go for it: I’ll opt for pure firepower, and maybe move a bit slower while retaining the capability of blasting the crap out of the enemy, thankyouverymuch…

Such units would be easily overrun by regular infantry.

It has been clear for quite some time that amphibious assaults against a major power like Russia, China, India or even Pakistan, Brazil, and maybe Iran were literally impossible and suicidal. That includes air assaults.

Attacks by surface ships, especially carrier strike groups, is also suicidal and impossible.

So, the real question is whether there is a function for the Marine Corps in the modern world. One can still imagine a sea-control role for the carriers, at least one that keeps them out of range of modern anti-ship weapons.

On the other hand, if a war were to break out and persist for more than a month or two, all the modern stuff and the highly trained troops would be used up without replacement, and everyone would go back to badly trained, ill-equipped conscripts.