2017 Forecast: Trump Loves Marines (Too Much?)
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on January 06, 2017 at 6:00 AM
Marine Corps photo
Marines work on armed MUTT robot in MIX-16 experiment.
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump’s election is mostly good news for the Marine Corps — but there are a couple of important caveats. Both his campaign promise to increase Marine combat battalions by 50 percent and his public lambasting of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter could cause problems for Marine Corps leaders as they struggle to explain their strategy to the enthusiastic but inexperienced Trump.
[We rolled out our crystal balls for our 2017 forecast. Click to read the whole series.]
Most politicians love Marines, and Trump is no exception, nominating two retired Marine generals to his cabinet. But the Marines are not only the most politically popular service, they’re also the smallest, and an overly enthusiastic embrace can cause almost as many problems as outright criticism.
Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
General Robert Neller
Consider Trump’s pledge to grow the Marine Corps from 24 active-duty rifle battalions to 36, and from two tank battalions to three. The figures come straight from Heritage Foundation analyst Dakota Wood — a retired Marine officer himself — who proposed similar steep increases in all the services, based on the forces required to wage past wars. Specifically, Wood & co. looked at average force levels across Korea, Vietnam, the 1991 Gulf War, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq; doubled that average to allow for two “major theater wars” at once; and then added another 20 percent to account for units in training, refit, or otherwise unavailable.
http://breakingdefense.com/2017/01/2017-forecast-trump-loves-marines-too-much/
