Commandant of the Marine Corps pushes back against hypersonics...has an inside the Pentagon strategy debate broken into the wild?

 via Stars and Stripes

The general said there are two arguments for countering China. The first calls for a “standoff” with China, where the two countries – armed with precision-strike and long-range missiles – keep each other at bay for fear of conflict. The other argues the U.S. should place its forces within a contested area to challenge Chinese operations.

Berger said the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

“I'm convinced that you need both -- you need a whole defense in depth,” he said. “The standoff alone plays right into [China’s] threat strategy.”

To advance his strategy, Berger released a document Dec. 1 outlining his plan for using “stand-in forces” as the Marine Corps continues to adjust its focus from counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations to addressing near-peer adversaries such as China and Russia.

Berger said the strategy was born out of discussions regarding how the “conventional force -- not strategic, not nuclear … [is] going to deter a peer adversary or a near-peer adversary.”

&

 The idea is to disrupt an adversary’s plans by sending “small but lethal, low signature, mobile and relatively simple-to-maintain” forces from the Marine Corps, Navy and Coast Guard into contentious regions such as the South China Sea, Berger wrote in a Dec. 1 report on the strategy.

The small forces can then conduct better reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance “below the threshold of violence” in contested areas, according to the report.

“This allows [the stand-in force] to assist in identifying and countering malign behavior, and if armed conflict does erupt, the joint force can attack effectively first and prevent the enemy from doing so,” the report said.

Here 

A couple of things.

*  The Commandant has never explained how they STOP "malign behavior without sparking armed conflict.  Additionally he hasn't explained how penny packets of Marines can do more than serve as targeting practice if fighting were to erupt.

*  I have been monitoring discussions in the US Navy about an overtaxed force finally saying enough is enough.  Simply put, forward presence is wearing out what should be a fabulous naval force.

I wonder if we're about to repeat history with the Soviet Union with regard to China?  By that I mean we're going to load up on nuclear weapons, develop new strategic weapons which will lead to proxy fights all over the globe (in other words a continuation of the last 50 years).

Meanwhile the Navy/Marine Corps debate the future (I also suspect that the Lightweight Amphibious Warship procurement is straining the Commandant's vision/arguments for his concept...think about it like this...the USMC has demanded the MLP, the SecDef demanded the LCS and in some ways the USMC demanded the DDG1000 for firesupport and all of them are essentially lemons) of this new strategy.

The Marine Corps as an institution MUST rid itself of this paranoia about its relevancy and its future. 

It is a self destructive problem and one that is damaging to the force.

For such a storied force, the Marine Corps suffers from a confidence problem.