Short on amphibs for Turkey, Sudan, the Marines grapple with crisis response ethos
"When things like Turkey or [Sudan] come up, and other aspects of the US Joint Force are responding, it’s uncomfortable because [the Marines] look at it as something that historically they have done," said one analyst.
By JUSTIN KATZ
on May 01, 2023 at 2:57 PM
WASHINGTON — In the aftermath of a powerful February earthquake in Turkey, Marine Corps’ leadership was publicly lamenting its response to aid an ally. The service’s “best option,” a Marine Expeditionary Unit hauling shelter, medical supplies and other humanitarian assistance aboard a big deck amphibious ship, was not available.
“When the earthquake happened in Turkey, a NATO ally, the MEU was not on station and it should have been,” Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, one of the commandant’s deputies, told lawmakers in March.
The commandant himself, Gen. David Berger, in a separate interview with Defense One said as a service chief, he owes the president and the defense secretary “options…all the time. Here, I felt like the best option, we couldn’t offer them because we have the Marines and the equipment and they’re trained, [but] we didn’t have the ships.”
https://breakingdefense.com/2023/05/short-on-amphibs-for-turkey-sudan-the-marines-grapple-with-crisis-response-ethos/
