Sacred Cows For What? Considering Force Structure Cuts to Marine Infantry
November 13, 2019 Guest Author
Integrated Force Structure Week
By Walker D. Mills
The Marine Corps must change in order to survive. Thankfully, senior leaders in the Marine Corps and the Navy through the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Chief of Naval Operation recognize this imperative and are charting a new course with the Commandant’s Planning Guidance (CPG), the new Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) concept, and the Integrated Force Structure Assessment.
To their credit, these leaders have recognized that optimizing the Marine Corps for great power competition and operationalizing EABO will necessitate changes to not just doctrine and acquisitions but to the underlying force structure of the Marine Corps. The Commandant has declared that force design is “my number one priority.â€1 To date we have seen calls for augmenting cyber and electronic warfare capabilities, continuing to expand the unmanned systems portfolio, adding small boats and riverine units or even absorbing capabilities currently residing in Naval Expeditionary Combat Command. In the CPG, Commandant Berger wrote:
http://cimsec.org/sacred-cows-for-what-considering-force-structure-cuts-to-marine-infantry/42346
