Marine Corps Stand-In Forces: A House of Cards

 via Real Clear Defense

How did the United States Marine Corps transform itself from the world’s premier expeditionary force-in-readiness to a poor parody of the French Maginot Line in just four years? In his Force Design 2030 plan, the 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps radically redesigned and restructured the Marine Corps to operate as a defensively oriented, narrowly specialized regional force under Navy command to attack and sink Chinese warships in the South China Sea. This new mission came at the expense of providing much needed crisis response and global force projection capabilities to all Geographic Combatant and Functional Commands in an increasingly unstable world. The crown jewel of this new warfighting organization are called Stand-in Forces (SIFs), which are small isolated detachments of Marines, armed with anti-ship missiles, persistently spread across islands in the so-called “contested” areas of hostilities: specifically the first island chain.

here 

Ya wanna know the terrible thing?  US Army Airborne now has more organic firepower than the Marine Corps.  The 18th Airborne Brigade has more firepower than a comparable US Marine Corps formation!

They go by air and they heavier!  Have more firepower!

All these Force Design fuckers bet it all on their "concept" (I have to wonder what all these bastards were smoking when they thought this shit up....LSD ain't too popular on the streets anymore) have truly rendered the Marine Corps irrelevant.

The US Army is the force in readiness and won't hand it back.

The new CMC lacks the balls to course correct so the beancounters WILL COME and when they do the colors will be cased.