New National Defense Strategy prompts rethink of US Navy/US Marine Corps amphibious Ops....this explains everything...

via IHS Janes.

The new US National Defence Strategy has prompted US Navy (USN) and Marine Corps (USMC) officials to review, rethink, and revamp the way they perform amphibious operations.

The strategy’s shift away from anti-terrorist operations towards missions geared to combat China, Russia, and other peer competitors will mean a greater likelihood for amphibious operations in areas that are more contested and dangerous than marines have previously faced, USN and USMC officials explained.

“We’ve been focused on Iraq and Afghanistan,” Lieutenant General Robert Walsh, commander of the General Marine Corps Combat Development Command, told members of the House Armed Services Committee Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee on 6 March during a testimony on the fiscal year 2019 budget request.

This explains everything and I'm gonna grab that document and read it in its entirety.

Think about it.

The USMC has seemed to be gyrating from point to point ever since Amos.

I've been confused by it.

That's not the Marine Corps I know.  I might not agree with them on every subject but they've always been steady.  Consistent.  Reliable.

All the Amos fans will hate me but it started with him and the F-35.  He wanted to justify that airplane so he pushed hard and made outlandish statements about its capabilities.

If he had plainly said that its a tremendous leap forward from the Harrier and would give us the same capabilities as current carrier borne aircraft, then no one could have argued the point.

But he went further and threw bullshit at the audience.

It didn't help that he made a number of questionable, politically influenced decisions that went against the tribe.

Next we saw a continuation of policy even though a fucking blogger (talking about me here) could see that the battlefield had changed and that the projected 100 years war against terrorism was unsustainable, especially with the fight against China looming.

So they took what they had worked on with terrorism and tried to tailor it to a hybrid type war.

That was lazy.  It was silly.  But they persisted.  Now?

They'll keep trying to stay the course but an aviation centric Marine Corps will never work.  It isn't built that way and they'll have to tear it down to its roots and rebuild the entire thing to make it work and then you run into the problem of whether or not it would make more sense just to increase the size of Navy Air and just make Marines a pure ground force.

Some will see this as just another defense review.

I see a shatter point.

This is a critical time for the Corps.  Decisions made in the next few years could very well decide its fate.  Either they will win the future and be bold enough to admit that they got alot wrong and course correct, or they will lose it all and the bean counters will come calling.

Confidence is not high.

They're too wedded to the F-35 despite its obvious cost, reliability and failure to deliver on its REAL promise.  They're buying 200 helicopters that cost more than 100 mil each and the magical MV-22 is a hodgepodge of buy it now fix it later.

Amos is the worst commandant in the history of the Marine Corps and his legacy continues to this day.