Neller just said something I can cheer?!?!?!

via USNI News.

“What’s the next fight going to be?” Neller asked.
“Inevitably we’ll guess wrong, but I think there’s some things we can say about what that next fight’s going to be. I think it’s going to be based on a maritime campaign: we’re going to fight with the Navy, we’re going to come from the sea, we’re going to seize some sort of naval base or maybe forward operating base. We may have to defend it against an enemy maritime threat. There may be eventually on that lodgment … sustained combat ashore. But I think our enemy is going to be different, I think it’s going to be a near-peer enemy. The enemy’s going to be networked, they’re going to jam our comms.”
Neller said that while operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, anything less than perfect communications, intelligence and airspace access was an anomaly that drew surprise and irritation. In the future, jamming and area denial will be a given, as will the presence of enemy UAVs to counter.
And, he said, the conditions will be ripe for “much higher” casualties.
“So I think it’s going to be a very different fight. And that should affect how we’re going to not just equip and organize the force, but how we’re going to train. We need to start making moves towards that now,” Neller said. He noted the major aviation readiness restoration effort, as well as modernization efforts on the ground combat vehicle and weapons side of the service – but the next war may break out before the Marines’ are equipped with their full buy of next-generation gear, so training for the future fight should begin now with today’s equipment.
“We can buy all the gear we want,” he said, but “when we go to war, whenever that is – and it’s not a matter of if but when – we’re going to go with the gear we’ve got. And no matter what we have, we have to be trained.”

FUCKI!!! Two things.  First.  Neller must read my blog!  I've been talking about this stuff for a couple of years now.  Second.  He's saying something that I can cheer.  This is sober thinking.  There is no Rah-Rah here.  But it isn't all sunshine and roses.  What am I talking about?  This part is chilling...

“So I think it’s going to be a very different fight. And that should affect how we’re going to not just equip and organize the force, but how we’re going to train. We need to start making moves towards that now,” Neller said. He noted the major aviation readiness restoration effort, as well as modernization efforts on the ground combat vehicle and weapons side of the service – but the next war may break out before the Marines’ are equipped with their full buy of next-generation gear, so training for the future fight should begin now with today’s equipment.

The Commandant of the Marine Corps is telling us that the procurement mess is so bad that your United States Marine Corps might be fighting a technologically superior enemy (that's how I'm taking this message) depending on how quickly they can fix the procurement log jam.

I think we're starting to get a glimpse behind the curtain and if this message applies to the Army then we're looking at trouble across the board for the Ground Combat Component of the United States.

Last thing.  Did you catch the other obvious thing Neller said?  We're going to be fighting a near peer.  We're going to be fighting with the US Navy.  They enemy is gonna be networked.  They're gonna jam our comms.  We're gonna seize a naval base (GOD I HAVE TALKED ABOUT PORT SEIZURE AND HOW WE"RE NOT PRACTICING THIS MOST DIFFICULT OF OPERATIONS FOR YEARS ON THIS BLOG!!!!).

What country do you think our Marine Corps leadership is finally looking at as potential enemy number one?