Navy Kicks Off Most Advanced Wargames Since 1930s

via Breaking Defense.

 Looking for new ways to accelerate its nascent modernization push,  the Navy has set up a new Warfighting Development office that will blend force planning, strategic thinking, and officer education under one roof.

The push comes at a heady time for the Navy, as the service settles in under its fourth civilian secretary in seven months while continuing work on its 30-year shipbuilding plan — which was due to be sent to Congress almost four months ago — along with a major rethink to a new force structure plan rejected by Defense Secretary Mark Esper earlier this year.

The force structure plan is aimed at plotting the way to grow the fleet through a mix of smaller, often unmanned, vessels, while retaining the ability to defend US interests against Chinese and Russian naval modernization. It’s a tall order at a time of flat or declining budgets and rapidly emerging offensive and defensive weaponry that have eroded the traditional US superiority at sea, but all the more reason, Navy leaders say, for the new focus on strategy and education in its ranks.

Vice Adm. Stuart Munsch, head of the Warfighting Development (N7) office, said he sees the present moment as akin to the post-Vietnam years. “We were a Navy then that was focused on power projection ashore against a nation that didn’t have much in the way of naval capability, namely Vietnam,” he told reporters earlier this week. “We saw the future coming, and knew we would have to change the Navy to be more focused on sea control against a Navy that had considerable capability, and that was the Soviet Union.”

Today, after 20 years wholly focused on ground wars in the Middle East, Munsch said there’s again the “need to shift to sea control against an adversary with considerable capability, namely China.” 

Here. 

So let me get this straight.  The USMC is changing its entire force structure to support a US Navy that MIGHT NOT EVEN EXIST in its present form in 10 years?

We went first and the Navy has yet to even get started on planning to confront the pacing threat that is China?

What are they thinking?  This is craziness!

Where is the coordination?  We could in essence see a US Navy that finally gets itself together (surface and aviation sides) and is capable of properly engaging the Chinese Fleet on the high seas....while the US Marines are providing redundant support from sea bases.

Additionally at the end of the day this island hopping missile and raid force (that will be useless once the balloon goes up) will be more of a hindrance than a help!

The only thing broken with the Marine Corps are the many futurists that think they have a handle on this thing and believe that they can make the hard thing easy.