Commentary
I was completely unaware of the crisis building in the United States Marine Corps until I received an article from Bing West “Marine Corps No More?”
West is a distinguished military historian who served in the Marines and wrote an extraordinary book, “The Village,” about a year spent reclaiming a Vietnamese village from the communists.
West has written a dozen books about modern war and is an astute and often critical observer of the modern military. He also served as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.
Bing wrote:
“[T]he current Commandant, General David H. Berger, has radically transformed the image and the mission of the Marine Corps.” He went on to assert “The primary focus now is upon developing missile units intended to sink Chinese warships. To fund those units, General Berger did away with 21 percent of the personnel in infantry battalions, 100 percent of the tanks, 67 percent of the cannon artillery batteries, 33 percent of the assault amphibious companies, nearly 30 percent of Marine aviation, and almost all assault breaching equipment. The desired number of large amphibious ships was reduced from 38 to 31. Due to these cuts, Marines are less capable to fight as a combined arms force. The Marine Corps cannot seize a city from an entrenched enemy, as it did Fallujah in 2004.”…