WASHINGTON, DC – The Army has always been jealous of the Marine Corps. We win wars, we get all the glory, but most of all, Marines get all the attention…and the girls. Many in the army accept that as a way of life and go on about their day and accomplish their own mission, but for newly appointed Pentagon Aide and former U.S. Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor, that red-headed stepchild syndrome he had manifested itself into hate and anger against the men and women wearing those snappy dress blues.
The Marine Corps must go!
That’s what Macgregor said in a 2012 Time Magazine rant…or as they call it, editorial.
“The Marines as currently organized and equipped are about as relevant as the Army’s horse cavalry in the 1930s and the Marines are not alone. They have company in the Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps,” jealous Macgregor said, probably because some young Marine swept his gal off her feet while he was laying in a fart sack in the field somewhere in Fort Bragg.
Here’s some of his finer points from that editorial:
The only amphibious craft they really need are the next-gen LCACs and LCUs. The only wet-well ships they need are LSD 41s — and those need to be kept in production to gradually replace older LSDs and the troublesome LPDs.
No one will set out to establish a defended beachhead because U.S. aircraft from the Air Force and the Navy will easily target and destroy the defenses.
Today, enemy forces will mine approaches from the sea, and rely on stand-off attack to drive surface fleets away from coastlines. They’ll employ their ground forces, particularly mobile armored forces, inland, away from the coast. These mobile reserves will attack within the range of the defending forces’ own artillery and airpower to destroy elements that attempt to come ashore whether over the beach or through ports.
Most of today’s Marine force consists of airmobile light infantry. This Marine force is designed for use in the developing world against incapable opponents from Haiti to Fiji, but not much else.
Expeditionary Force sustained 318,000 casualties, including 110,000 killed in action. That’s the kind of lethality waiting for U.S. forces in a future war with real armies, air forces, air defenses and naval power.
Ignoring this reality is the road to future defeats and American decline. It’s time to look beyond the stirring images of infantrymen storming machine-gun nests created by Hollywood and to see war for what it is and will be in the future: the ruthless extermination of the enemy with accurate, devastating firepower from the sea, from the air, from space and from mobile, armored firepower on land.
