Here is the relevant portion of ‘W’s comment:
It
feels like the commander [ed.) the Commandant] is setting the Corps up for
disbandment or incorporation into the Army, "naval infantry" and
would become 1 div of specialized infantry like airborne or mountain. Its a sad
way to go, I think it started with the MAGTF. (1)
According to Wikipedia,
The
MAGTF was formalized by the publishing of Marine Corps Order 3120.3 in December
1963 "The Marine Corps in the National Defense, MCDP 1-0". (2)
The MAGTF took the Marines from a specialized force
(amphibious operations) and attempted to turn them into an all-purpose, do
everything, force. It’s not hard to
imagine that the genesis of the concept was budget driven with the idea being
that the more versatile the Corps, the more it would be called on and,
therefore, the more it would be funded.
Unfortunately, the lack of focus led to the Marines being
employed in all manner of situations for which they were not specialized. They became just another army unit.
There was also an enormous opportunity cost associated with
generalization. The generalization and
loss of focus on the core amphibious mission cost the Marines their
institutional knowledge about amphibious assaults as they embarked on a decades
long turn towards purely land warfare.
In recent years, Marine generals have proudly announced that the Marines
are taking the first steps towards relearning amphibious assault.
Relearning?!!!? It
was your core mission. How could you
have lost it? This is a sad commentary
on Marine Corps leadership over the last couple of decades.
The loss of focus also meant that the technology, doctrine,
and tactics of amphibious assault languished or was lost. We wound up with doctrine calling for 25-50+
mile stand off assaults coupled with AAV/ACV landing craft that only had an
effective range of a few miles – a mismatch of colossal proportions, to say the
least. By not maintaining focus on the
core mission, the mission atrophied and was lost.
MAGTF also began the myopic focus on the aviation side of
the Corps to the great detriment of the ground side. Huge, questionable investments were made in
the MV-22 and the F-35 with little or no supporting doctrinal or operational underpinning. Again, it was a budget grab, pure and simple
– an attempt to be all things in all situations instead being proudly
specialized.
The Marines were once something special and respected. Now, they’re just a poor, small copy of the
Air Force and Army. MAGTF destroyed the
Marine Corps.
(1)Navy Matters blog, “Littoral Regiment Combat Team”,
22-Jun-2020, reader comment by Anonymous (‘W’), June 22, 2020
at 11:09 AM
https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2020/06/littoral-regiment-combat-team.html?showComment=1592849365049#c1165100654351769748
(2)Wikipedia, “Marine Air-Ground Task Force”, retrieved 23-Jun-2020,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Air-Ground_Task_Force
