The Marine Corps Leadership’s War on Thinking.
On July 9th (my seventy-eighth birthday), retired Marine Corps General P.K. Van Riper published a highly important letter of Marine Corps Compass Points, a website. I have known General Van Riper for decades, and he has long been one of the Corps’ top thinkers. In his letter, he lays out his personal experiences with the Marine Corps leadership’s war on thought.
The origin of the war on thinking is a militarily and politically flawed concept called Force Design 2030, which is currently Marine Corps policy. Briefly, it calls on the Marine Corps to focus its efforts on taking small islands from China and mounting Marine-manned anti_ship missiles on them. This concept leaves the Marine Corps dependent for its value on a war that is unlikely to happen because China is a nuclear power. If Chinese and American armed forces do clash, both Washington and Beijing will strive to avoid escalation. Assuming away this flaw in Force Design 2030, the concept also duplicates Japan’s strategy in World War II, which was to capture Pacific islands and base naval bombers on them to sink any American ships within range. In practice, Japan found it could not maintain supply lines to the islands, including bombers to replace those that were lost in action. Finally, in any major clash with China on the sea, both American and Chinese surface ships will be either in port or on the bottom in 48 hours, such is the profusion of anti-ship missiles already in place. The Corps wants to carry coals to Newcastle.
Similar critiques have been offered by retired Marines, including General Van Riper. The Marine Corps leadership has replied by banning the critics.
General Van Riper writes:
In my own case there are several examples. In 2022 two Command and Staff College professors asked me to visit their seminars and discuss the retired general officer community’s concern with Force Design 2030. When the professors forwarded their requests to the President of MCU my visit was denied. Subsequently, I asked the President personally to allow me to visit the university to discuss Force Design 2030 concerns with those students who were interested in the issue. . . The president’s answer was no because I “did not have the expertise” to speak at MCU.
This to a man who was himself a former president of MCU!
Regrettably, the Marine Corps leadership’s war on thinking does not end with banning critics of Force design 2030. Recently, a friend was talking to a Marine captain who is a student at the Expeditionary Warfare School. The student said the other students had requested I be invited to come and speak, and they were told no. The captain added that the school’s faculty had told the students not to read my latest book, the New Maneuver Warfare Handbook. I began the debate over maneuver warfare, I was heavily involved in writing the Marine Corps’ field manuals, including Warfighting, issued when General Gray was Commandant, and for years I co-chaired seminars at EWS. The Marine Corps official doctrine is maneuver warfare, but its chief advocate is banned.
It gets worse. Not long ago, a German naval aviator spent some time at the Basic School, the school for all Marine lieutenants. Because the German officer had a rank above lieutenant, TBS put some lieutenants under him. He ran his small units German style, according to what maneuver warfare recommends. The Marine lieutenants loved it. The German officer was called in by other faculty who said to him, “You are teaching Marines to think. We don’t want them to think. We want them just to follow orders.” This would be bad in training troops, but the students at TBS are officers! The lieutenants are being taught how to lose.
General Van Riper concludes his letter with,
So, after all these years I have concluded, as have many other retired and former Marines, that recent and current Marine Corps senior leaders will not allow an open debate about Force Design 2030 because they inherently know it lacks merit and thus fear it will not withstand rugged scrutiny.
General Van Riper is correct, but the problem does not end there. The Corps’ leadership is waging war on thinking. Strange as it is, the Marine Corps seems determined to give substance to the old jokes about the dumb Marines.