Force Design 2030's critics are military thinkers interdependently drawing the same conclusions. [1] Moreover, constructive criticism appears across various media outlets, focusing on implementing Force Design 2030. This author provides an overview of those issues and brief commentary in this article.
This author intends to go on the record, highlighting Force Design 2030's follies. His first impression of that force restructure is highly unfavourable. A Marine Littoral Regiment stranded in an unspecified Pacific Ocean island location, blockaded by the People's Liberation Army Navy and Air Force, is the danger of unintended Force Design 2030 outcomes.
The dangers to island garrisons isolated and removed from resupply aren't theoretical. Moreover, the Japanese South West Pacific garrisons' grim fates (1942 – 45) immediately sprung to mind. American Air and Sea Power destroyed, reduced or prevented the Japanese from resupplying those units, so Japanese soldiers faced mass starvation and disease outbreaks. [2]
Moreover, other authors have made a similar but geographically specific argument. The Marines Wake Garrison was trapped by the Japanese onslaught in December 1941. Moreover, that is a Marine-centric instance of a garrison facing the unavailability of resupply. [3]
A staple of commentators uncovered Force Design 2030's remaining flaws. Moreover, the remainder of this article will cover those issues topically. Force Design 2030's designers' mindset is welded to permanent Western Front-style defensive stalemates. Furthermore, those thinkers rely on restoring battlefield manoeuvrers, which remains impossible. [4]
However, breaking the deadly Western Front (1914 – 1918 ) deadlock disproves Force Design 2030's underlying assumption. The Germans refused to accept that stalemate and developed infiltration tactics for their deadlock-breaking 1918 Spring Offensive. Despite that offensive's operational success, the outcome arrived too late to alter WW1's outcome. [5]
Additionally, the Allies' 1918 One Hundred Days Offensive continued the returning trend of manoeuvrer. Allied forces employed tanks, infantry cooperation, and air power to break the German Army's back. American, British, and British Empire ground forces smashed the Hindenburg Line, and the subsequent advance continued until the Armistice.
Moreover, the French failed to heed the lesson concerning static warfare's temporary nature. So, the French constructing and relying on the Maginot Line displayed military folly in the interwar years. The Maginot Line's doctrinal backbone was a methodical battle, a concrete defence and positional firepower, a school of thought. [7]
Incidentally, that Western Front deadlock was a geographical oddity. Moreover, General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's native troops made the opposing British Empire troops look foolish in Eastern Africa. Furthermore, the East Africa Campaign's greater geographical scope permitted battlefield mobility/manoeuvrer. [8]
The German Blitzkrieg supersized their Spring Offensive tactics with voice radio, armour and air strikes to defeat the French in 1940. Moreover, the methodical battle doctrine was discredited by that military calamity and dissected in Robert A. Doughty's The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919-39. [9]
The Marines' global first responders role and capabilities embrace a spectrum from disaster relief to combat operations threatened by budget cutbacks. Moreover, existing cutbacks to fund the future theme continuities with reduced available Marine expeditionary units. [10]
Moreover, global events demonstrated a shortage of expeditionary units. After Russia invaded Ukraine, none of those units were deployed to the Mediterranean. One month later, a Marine unit filled that operational void.
Sixteen thousand Americans stranded in Sudan isn't a Hollywood movie tagline. Evacuating diplomats aside, the means to assist American citizens in Sudan were curtailed. Moreover, the Marine Special Purpose Marine Air Ground task forces' rotational deployments covering global hot spots ended before the Sudan balloon exploded. [11]
A United States Navy amphibious ships shortage also undermines the Marine's first responders capabilities. However, efforts to rectify that issue are scuttled by Force Design 2030's cutbacks to fund the future mantra. [12] Yet congressional pushback to prevent the San Antonio-class amphibious production line from ending will maintain a fleet of thirty-one troop transports. Moreover, amphibious ship numbers would have reached twenty-five under the navy's budget proposal. [13]
The U.S.'s ability to call upon allies to supply logistics and amphibious ships is highly doubtful. For instance, both Royal Australian Navy's Auxiliary Oiler Replenishment ships are laid up with mechanical issues. [14] So, deploying and sustaining warships at sea is problematic or impossible without replenishment capabilities.
Moreover, HMS Ocean's departure shrunk the Royal Navy's amphibious capabilities in 2018. [15] So, geographically, the Marines supplementing missing or under-strength capabilities from their allies is a dicey proposition.
The Marines will incur unnecessary and avoidable causalities from distorting artillery's role in combined arms. Close-in fires/ artillery support will remain integral to combined arms employed tactically and operationally. The requirements for artillery and infantry cooperation span from WW2 to regime change in Iraq. [16]
Equipping Marine Expeditionary Units with High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems depends on global sourcing. However, the Marines fighting multiple wars in separate locations impales that notion. Enemies might join those conflicts to draw U.S. forces away from one area. [17]
The 12th Marines's transformation to a Littoral Regiment represents a loss of artillery without an enemy firing a shot. [18] So, the Marines face an artillery shortage before entering the next conflict. [19] Moreover, Marine Expeditionary Units require five traditional artillery battalions and three to four High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems to support integrated combined arms and manoeuvrer. [20] Yet artillery unit's combat losses aren't factored into those estimates. So, the acute firepower shortage is exacerbated by wartime attrition and the lack of availability.
However, military thinkers uncritically embrace the missile craze. Clouded minds lack the intellectual curiosity to question the existing wisdom around the Marine's artillery inventory. Precision weapons (missiles and rockets) complement the artillery sledgehammer on future battlefields.
Entirely locating and destroying enemy targets with missiles is fanciful. War remains a human endeavour, so imperfect people commit errors. The military personnel committing those unintentional future errors will leave enemy units untouched. Moreover, those enemy elements are left to the closer-range artillery and other combined elements to eliminate. [21]
In a strange historical twist, the Marines embrace a rebooted Liberty Ship and present-day multi-role vessels concept. [22] The light amphibious ship fills that bizarre space. The Marines' deployment and resupply capabilities in the next Pacific War depend upon those vessels. [23]
Light amphibious ships enjoy the worst aspects of those ships mentioned above. Like Liberty Ships, Light amphibious ships are intended for wartime employment. However, unlike warships, those vessels aren't designed to sustain battlefield damage and with damage control measures. [24] Moreover, the flaws in the design of the light amphibious ships ensure their destruction at the hands of the People's Liberation Army Navy. [25]
Proponents of Light amphibious ships argue that they survive by hiding among isolated islands. [26] However, the people behind that assertion suffer from geographical ignorance. During transit to operational assignments, the Marines' troop and resupply vessels are exposed to enemy action.
Moreover, the vast Pacific distances increase the risk of detection and attack. For instance, a voyage from Hawaii to Wake entails 3200km before in-port camouflage is an option. [27] So, Chinese naval forces sinking Light amphibious ships at sea is an entirely predictable outcome. Aside from predictability, those battlefield losses in personnel and ships represent an unnecessary tragedy.
Another dimension to the discussion of Light amphibious ships is their planned number of vessels compared to Liberty Ships. Unlike their grandchildren, Light amphibious ships won't enjoy the vast numbers of vessels associated with American wartime industrial output. This leaves the Marine's future transport fleet equipped with the worst of both worlds.
Moreover, the Marines are left without the ability to manoeuvre at sea. The fallout from that manoeuvrer loss falls beyond the scope of this article. But there is another hole in the sinking Force Design 2030 ship. *
The people behind Force Design 2030 broke the Marines' relationship regarding innovation, transformation, and testing operational concepts. Sound military ideas emerge from a robust vetting process, revealing the requirements for that project to work. [28] However, Force Design 2030 never underwent that research and development phase, so its flaws aren't exposed before going into practice. [29]
Keeping stakeholders in the dark is another way Force Design 2030 escapes scrutiny. A few people who are developing new products deny an institutional examination of the proposals. Moreover, without critical analysis, product weaknesses can sail into the open seas. [30]
This author desires to go on the record concerning Force Design 2030 kneecapping the Marines. Nor will this author occupy any defence policy-making roles in New Zealand or internationally. So, no policymaker will face a situation where informative commentators ignore red flags. * Since those warnings are going unheeded, leaving history to unfold.
[1]
https://www.marines.mil/Force-Design/
[2]
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pacific-War/The-Aleutians-Rabaul-and-the-Gilberts
[3]
https://www.mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/A-Force-in-Readiness-or-in-Stasis.pdf
(PDF download)
[4]
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/force-design-2030-trying-solve-wrong-problem-205991
[5]
Ibid
[6]
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/from-amiens-to-armistice-the-hundred-days-offensive
[7]
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/force-design-2030-trying-solve-wrong-problem-205991
[8]
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/force-design-2030-trying-solve-wrong-problem-205991
[9]
Ibid
[10]
[11]
Ibid
[12]
[13
[14]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-18/hmas-stalwart-breaks-down-and-undergoing-repairs/103993214
[15]
https://www.navylookout.com/reflecting-on-the-demise-of-hms-ocean/
[16]
https://www.mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Dangers-of-Overselling-McAbee-et-al.pdf
(PDF download)
[17]
ibid
[18]
ibid
The 12thMarines history until 1972
https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/Brief%20History%20of%20the%2012th%20Marines.pdf
The Current 12thMarines
https://www.12thmlr.marines.mil/
[19]
ibid
[20]
ibid
[21]
[22]
For more on Liberty Ships:
HMNZS Canterbury is an example of a multi-role vessel in service with the Royal New Zealand Navy.
https://www.nzdf.mil.nz/nzdf/our-equipment/ships-and-watercraft/hmnzs-canterbury/
[23]
[24]
ibid
[25]
ibid
[26]
ibid
[27]
https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Wake-Island
https://news.usni.org/2024/04/26/report-to-congress-on-navy-medium-landing-ship-4
*
In this author's strategic estimation, U.S. and coalition forces regroup in Australia after China invades Taiwan, and the war overspills to Japan, Wake and Guam. The war also closes Pacific sea lanes to commerce.
[28]
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/marine-generals-‘trust-verify’-force-design-2030-206347
[29]
ibid
[30]
https://warontherocks.com/2022/05/are-the-marines-inventing-the-edsel-or-the-mustang/
* This author includes the authors of the articles referenced above in the informative commentary category.
The folks who run Compass Points have banned any voices that do not agree with them, so forgive my presumption in responding here rather than on Compass Points.
If you are just digging into the discussion on Force Design, I would offer a number of sources that counter the views of the retired Marines who run Compass Points. These sources are also from either current or retired Marines, or others who have extensive experience in national defense matters. I offer these because I became enmeshed in the debate about Force Design in my last 4 years in uniform as a Marine. It’s not a debate I particularly enjoyed, because the retired critics shifted from questioning aspects of Force Design to repeatedly making personal attack on those who disagreed with and making assertions about Force Design unmoored from the evidence. I came away disappointed and disgusted by their behavior and their repeated refusal to hold to evidentiary standards. So if you’re interested in the discussion I’m offering evidence of a competing point of view—one which, as I mentioned, is held by current and retired Marines for whom the implications of Force Design is not an academic debate, but have real impacts on current mission sets.
Former Secretary of Defense Bob Work has perhaps the most exhaustive list of points raised by the critics, and rebuttals to them: https://tnsr.org/2023/05/marine-force-design-changes-overdue-despite-critics-claims/
Several current and former Marines, myself included, authored a piece looking at current maritime trends and arguing that Force Design is properly caged to deal with 21st century naval challenges: https://warontherocks.com/2024/01/trends-in-maritime-challenges-indicate-force-design-2030-is-the-proper-path/
We also explored the issues in the article more deeply in this podcast from the Center for International Maritime Security: https://cimsec.org/sea-control-550-six-marines-talk-force-design-2030/
Myself and another group of current/retired Marines were invited to a panel discussion on why we supported Force Design: https://youtu.be/pd2iI1tiMm4?si=TWBXPLtyNoU6TdQo
Part of my final years in uniform was running a webinar series for Marine Corps University in which I sought out active duty Marines who were implementing various aspects of Force Design. I talked with almost 30 separate entities, and the one thing I think this series makes clear is that Force Design extends well beyond “defense on islands in the Pacific.” It addresses everything from marksmanship to retaining talented Marines: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5srRwO9nGAFso6W7PjVtpyg_paaAKo_H&si=rCWysuOThyrMeZEi
I know this is a lot of material but I hope you’ll give it fair consideration as supporting evidence that the Force Design critics do not represent the totality of voices on the topic, and that their critiques lack an evidentiary standard one would expect from people of their former senior ranks.
Again, I would have responded to your comment on Compass Points itself, but they have banned all dissenting voices from their website. That, in itself, says something about how well they think their positions can withstand scrutiny.
This was most illuminating. Thanks.