Gen. David H. Berger on the Marine Corps of the Future
Gen. David H. Berger and Ryan Evans
January 4, 2022
Podcasts - War On The Rocks
Gen. David H. Berger, commandant of the Marine Corps, had Ryan Evans over for a discussion on the service he leads. As rising great powers and transformative technologies reshape warfare, presenting marines with new challenges, how should the Marine Corps adapt? From talent management to force transformation, listen to their wide-ranging conversation about what the service needs to become in order to remain a top-tier fighting force.
Reading and listening for this episode:
Talent Management 2030
Force Design 2030
“Your Ideas Matter: The Making of Marine Strategic Planning and the Future of the Marine Corps,” War on the Rocks (podcast), August 2019
Transcript
RYAN EVANS (01:26): I’d like to start by hearing your vision for all these changes that are enacted in your talent management strategy, Future Force. How is the Marine Corps you’re trying to realize by 2030 different from the Marine Corps today?
GEN. DAVID BERGER (01:39): Part of it is process as we describe in there, but you’re talking about, what’s the aim point, sort of — what is the product that we’re after. I think it’s not a radical departure from today, but it is a force that has the maturity, the judgment, the experience matches what we think they’re going to have to do. And by that, I mean if you assume that we’re going to need to operate more distributed, more spread out, and that presumes then that more junior leaders are making decisions that were a level or two up previously. Then they have to have not just the authority, but they got to have the experience, the judgment to make good calls on their own in lieu of any kind of detailed guidance from your boss, your superior. That is a little different force than we are shaped to do right now, or not shaped to do, but that we’re built of right now. I think we have to retain the aggressive, physical, driving teamwork approach that Marines are known for, but now bring in the ability to have each one of us have multiple skill sets and the experience in education to make decisions that may be one or two levels above had made in the past. That’s what we need.
https://warontherocks.com/2022/01/general-berger-on-the-marine-corps-of-the-future/
