On the Future of the Marine Corps: Assessing Force Design 2030
Transcript — May 18, 2022
Mark F. Cancian: Good afternoon. I’m Mark Cancian. I’m a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I’d like to welcome you all to our event this afternoon, the Marine Corps Force Design 2030, an assessment. The event today is part of CSIS’ effort to facilitate discussion on key national security issues.
As many in the audience know, the current commandant of the Marine Corps, General Berger, has instituted a series of major changes in the Marine Corps, focusing it on China, which the department describes as the pacing threat, and employing new operational concepts that focus on distributed operations and long-range precision strike. Many outside the Marine Corps, particularly in the general officer community, are concerned that the Marine Corps will lose its capability for global employment. They also worry about whether the reorganization duplicates capabilities that are already in other services, and whether the Marine Corps might be undermining its traditional strength in combined arms operations.
With that, I’d like to introduce our panel. We’re very fortunate in having a distinguished panel with a broad set of backgrounds and experiences. On my left is the Honorable Robert Work, former deputy secretary of defense and currently owner of TeamWork, a company which specializes in national security affairs and the future of warfare. He’s also a retired Marine Corps colonel. To his left is General Anthony Zinni, who’s a former commander of Central Command and currently chairman – former chairman of the board of the Middle East Institute. To his left is the Honorable Dov Zakheim, former undersecretary of defense, comptroller, and currently vice president of the FPRI board of trustees, and a senior advisor here at CSIS. And finally, on the right is Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper, former commander of the Marine Corps’ Combat Development Center, and a frequent commentator on national security issues.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/future-marine-corps-assessing-force-design-2030
