The Marine Corps Americans Want Can’t Be Derailed by a Fake Crisis
Ryan Evans
August 7, 2025
The Marine Corps relies on a sense of crisis to promote and prevent change more than any other institution I’ve come across. As one well-known Marine leader wrote over 40 years ago “the continuous struggle for a viable existence fixed clearly one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Corps — a sensitive paranoia, sometimes justified, sometimes not.” Indeed, many times throughout the history of our country, leaders have called into question whether the Marine Corps should exist. But this has not happened in any serious way for many decades. The paranoia has long since veered into the “not justified” category. Yet it persists.
For those of you who haven’t been following the biggest family feud the Marine Corps has had in generations, let me quickly catch you up. In response to congressional scrutiny, presidential policy, and secretary of defense guidance, Gen. (ret.) David Berger, as commandant, launched ambitious reforms known as Force Design 2030, beginning in 2019. A key objective was to position the Marine Corps to win as a part of a joint campaign to defeat China and defend key treaty allies as well as Taiwan. Since then, a small but vocal group of retired Marine officers have howled about Berger miring the Marine Corps in a crisis. They call themselves “Chowder II” after the Chowder Society, an informal group of Marine officers formed in 1946 to defend the institutional independence and future of the U.S. Marine Corps after World War II. Their methods have been unprecedented. They have employed doomsday rhetoric and distortions with such shameless fervor you’d think Force Design 2030 was a Chinese plot and not a strategy to stop one. Neither Congress nor three presidential administrations (Trump I, Biden, and Trump II) have found any merit in the arguments of the Chowderites.
But the critics will not let that get in the way of their narrative.
It is important to engage in reasoned debate on issues of defense policy. However, unless critics of the Marine Corps can produce evidence of some sort of actual crisis — something yet to occur in six years of sustained critique — Marine leaders should remain focused on preparing for the future fight as instructed by presidents and Congress. Force Design 2030 is now simply called Force Design and is owned by Commandant Eric Smith, a leader who I know and admire.
https://warontherocks.com/2025/08/the-marine-corps-americans-want-cant-be-derailed-by-a-fake-crisis/
