When Headquarters Marine Corps starts putting out Cliff Notes like these to demonstrate how valuable and what a bargain the Corps is to the nation, then you can bet that the conversations in the "Generals Club" have been pretty intense.
Seems like another fight for survival is about to erupt. Lord have mercy on the Honorable Mr. Gates, cause he's just unleashed the hounds of budget war!
In the Black - Moc
In the Black (Amphib Force)
In the Black (Amphib Ships)
The Marines just have to survive till November. The Obama-Pelosi America sucks crowd will be severely weakened. Politically I think it's dumb to take a high profile swing at the Marines right before an election, but a) Obama-Pelosi want to motivate their leftist, anti-military base and b) Obama-Pelosi are hard-core leftists who don't think America should be kicking down doors anyway, so why do we need a kick-down-the-door force?
ReplyDeletei track with you except for the part about just having to make it till Nov.
ReplyDeletei did some thinking and we're going to be in a bad spot.
Conservatives will face Obama sending budgets to Congress with huge defense cuts....and sending back budgets that have huge social spending cuts.
it a common sense approach to balance them out but its going to be nasty politics.
Well, Obama's strategy so far has not been one of drastic cuts (of the overall $ amount) -- even though he has unbeatable majorities in both houses of Congress. His strategy seems to be to keep the top line fairly static and pay for rising personnel costs by cutting modernization funds.
ReplyDeleteSo far he's pushing all the hard decisions off till next year and his big deficit commission. I think he hopes to get Repubs to agree to tax hikes and military cuts in exchange for some entitlement reform (higher retirement age, means-testing, etc). Maybe he'll throw in finally building the border fence to sweeten the pot, although I think he's saving that to trade for amnesty.
Obama is a hard-core leftist, but he's a smart hard-core leftist. He's gonna shove America as much to the left as he thinks he can get away with. But he knows Americans don't want to see the military take it on the chin.
His negotiating position seems to be: if you don't agree to cuts then I'm gonna hollow out the force by starving it of modernization funds. We can have a smaller balanced force or a large hollow force. I don't think Obama minds having a military of highly paid people and decrepit equipment.
I lived through the post cold war draw down. This will prove to be every bit as nasty I think.
ReplyDeleteThe Marine Corps is headed down the right path going to its roots as an amphibious force, but highlighting the "operations other than war" or whatever they call it now, vice forced entry. From the end of the cold war on, the Marine Corps has been in constant use. Evacuating people, helping after natural disasters. You name it. A MEU has enough people so the local bad guys leave you alone, yet you don't seem like your there to invade. It's an excellent tool.
The Marine Corps certainly needs to not be seen as another land army or it will be cut to the bone. Going back to units that fit in the ARG is the way to go. Jettisoning most of the MRAPs would be a good start down the road to getting "lighter". They're just too compromised to be a good general purpose vehicle. I'd rather have a tank or two with 120mm of STFU and listen. MRAP's are defensive "don't hurt me please" vehicles. Not exactly Marine ethos. Plus, the Army has a crapload, and we don't want to have our force structure too much like them. See "bone" and "cut" above.
That "delivery of LHA 6 and 7, neither of which has a well deck", is about as subtle as a knee to the balls of whoever made that mistake. Interesting that they would throw that out there like that.