The Marine Corps’ latest idea for countering China has major problems
While China clearly is the pacing threat, that does not mean that conflict will take the form of a high-intensity war in the Pacific.
BY JOHN F. SCHMITT | PUBLISHED JUL 7, 2022 11:50 AM
The recent controversy over the future of the Marine Corps has focused on Force Design 2030 (FD2030), a force planning document that dramatically re-imagines the Corps. Much of the criticism revolves around specific numbers of tanks, artillery batteries and aircraft divested and the number and size of infantry battalions. But that misses the broader issue. FD2030 is designed to support how the Marine Corps intends to fight in the future and against whom, and that is the more important issue. That operational vision is contained in future operating concepts, most recently A Concept for Stand-In Forces (SIF, December 2021).
The concept exists within the context of a high-intensity maritime conflict with the People’s Republic of China in the Pacific. One must grant that there is a certain maneuverist impulse in attempting to undermine the logic of the Chinese counter-intervention strategy by starting the conflict already inside the Chinese weapons engagement zone rather than having to penetrate it from the outside. As Sunzi said: “The highest realization of warfare is to attack the enemy’s plans.” But an impulse does not a viable concept make, and that commendable impulse creates a number of significant challenges, ranging from diplomatic to tactical, that render the concept questionable in total.
https://taskandpurpose.com/opinion/marine-corps-standin-forces/
