Damn it Berger! Everytime I start inching toward believing that I should give your "Force Design" (read that to mean modern day Maginot Line) a chance you say weird stuff...

 It's amazing.

Everytime I start inching toward believing that I should give Berger's Force Design, in reality a modern day Maginot Line, a chance he goes and says weird stuff.

Have you noticed the captions to some pics I've been posting lately?  They've made the subtle but obvious pivot toward not only being a "STAND IN FORCE" but they're also claiming to once again be a "Force In Readiness".

He's still buying the ACV.  We're still seeing Textron demoing their version of the ARV.  The JLTV is getting a bit more firepower.  We'll still be light as hell but ground combat capability could be salvaged to a certain degree.

But then this article from USNI News hits and I'm wondering what the fuck! A few tidbits...

What he settled on is a littoral force that can do anti-surface and even anti-submarine operations to help the Navy achieve sea control and sea denial and to project power.

Let me ask the question that an accountant somewhere will ask one day.  Why have a Marine Corps if they're doing sea control/sea denial as their primary mission?

The cost of a few additional Burke's would add substantially more firepower than a Marine Littoral Division(MLD).  Hell you could probably get more anti-ship firepower from ONE dedicated anti-ship magazine filled Burke than you could from a MLD. 

I won't even touch on the idea of doing anti-sub work but that's just plain looney. I guess that means the Corps is looking at manning P-8's or buying Seahawks huh?

It gets better though.

Commandant Gen. David Berger spoke at the conference just after Gilday and said the focus of his Force Design 2030 effort was to help deter a fight with China and to help compete with them on a day-to-day basis in the gray zone, where China is “eating our lunch” today.

“Part of that is because they play by a different set of rules. They’re blurring the lines between police forces and coast guard and military and politics – they are blurring that intentionally. We have very clear lanes that we stay in, and we haven’t moved off of that, we have not adjusted. We have to,” Berger said.

How does a force "compete"?  What gray zone are they talking about?  I really need some solid definitions instead of this ambiguous stuff that leaves the definition to each person's imagination.

Regardless, story here.