When has innovation been endogenous to the Marine Corps? The Marine Corps has rarely, if ever, truly innovated. The Marine Corps has adapted to avoid dissolution driven by exogenous factors—civilian leaders and adjacent services—rarely, if ever, originating from an internal stimulus. History and its authors have been overly generous to the Marine Corps when a clear-eyed analysis, devoid of any bias or favoritism, would show the Corps in a much different light.
The obsolete mission (amphibious entry) maintained by the Marine Corps further illustrates a service anchored to a past without any meaningful innovative efforts or perception of current events and reality. A return to a historically obsolete mission, which is currently being recommended by the Marine Corps, further reveals a service that cannot imagine a future where it does anything different.
NSA 1947 tasked the Marine Corps to develop, "those phases of amphibious operations which pertain to the tactics, technique, and equipment employed by landing forces." Amphibious entry, to your point, is a somewhat nebulous category, however, official documents indicate amphibious operations--reflected in MCDP-1 and MCS 21, which lists "forcible entry from the sea" as a core competency. [https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA405161.pdf]
Yes, NSA 1947 covered conceptual development as of 1947. The actual mission of the Marine Corps is codified in Title 10. Paragraph A lists a number of missions, none of which are amphibious operations. Amphibious operations (not assaults or "entry") are only listed in Paragraph B and the word operations is deliberate because it includes but is not limited to assaults. The actual mission set for which the Marine Corps is far larger than amphibious assaults.
I'm happy to discuss whether the mission of the Marine Corps is obsolete or not, but only if we discuss its actual missions. Not what people think the mission is.
I think we are in agreement. If this is not a mission, why does the Marine Corps continue to pursue large amphibious ships, discuss it in strategy, or echo it in senior leader rhetoric?
Why shouldn’t it? They’re necessary to do a number of its legally mandated missions beyond amphibious operations and only Marine Corps units are manned, trained, and equipped to do so. They’re irreplaceable by any other capability and critical to the pacing scenario.
To posit that the Marine Corps possesses an exclusive capability regarding the manning, training, and equipping for this mission profile reflects an ahistorical perspective. A review of the operational record demonstrates that the U.S. Army has frequently successfully undertaken analogous missions, with contemporary examples including the evacuation of diplomatic posts, which historically the Marine Corps has claimed a monopoly.
Um, no. The Corps has often innovated, sometimes ahead of the curve, sometimes within the curve, but the idea that it’s never been internally driven is simply ahistorical fiction, as is the idea that amphibious entry has ever been the only mission or even the current one. Please read my book on the subject, especially chapter 1 which talks about all the different missions that the Corps assumed in its 250 years of existence: https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/ANewConceptionOfWar.pdf?ver=7GGgGkcjmO0iqS9n5P5C-w%3d%3d
Thank you very much for sharing your work. I think we are largely in agreement, only diverging when identifying the stimulus for change. The post-Vietnam era was one of uncertainty for the entire defense establishment, and more so for the Marine Corps. Defense Reviews that included the Bottom-Up Review, Quadrennial Defense Review, and Defense Management Review frequently categorized the Marine Corps as replicative. The statement made earlier still holds: it was exogenous stimulus that drove change to avoid dissolution. This is echoed by those closest to the problem, in scholarly works produced by Hoffman. This perception of innovation is further discussed by Mahnken & Fitzsimmonds [https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-abstract/28/2/112/11778/Revolutionary-Ambivalence-Understanding-Officer?redirectedFrom=fulltext] and Terriff. For example, Terriff states that Krulak later recognized that "the Marine Corps' self-conception as being ‘innovators’ was based more on a particular understanding of the organization’s history than it was on actual behavioral qualities. That is, while he believed initially that he was only trying to strengthen an existing quality of the Marine Corps, he in reality was attempting to instil a quality that at best was only partially present, and hence what he was seeking to achieve was much more far-reaching and much more difficult than he had envisioned."
When has innovation been endogenous to the Marine Corps? The Marine Corps has rarely, if ever, truly innovated. The Marine Corps has adapted to avoid dissolution driven by exogenous factors—civilian leaders and adjacent services—rarely, if ever, originating from an internal stimulus. History and its authors have been overly generous to the Marine Corps when a clear-eyed analysis, devoid of any bias or favoritism, would show the Corps in a much different light.
The obsolete mission (amphibious entry) maintained by the Marine Corps further illustrates a service anchored to a past without any meaningful innovative efforts or perception of current events and reality. A return to a historically obsolete mission, which is currently being recommended by the Marine Corps, further reveals a service that cannot imagine a future where it does anything different.
Show me in an official document where “amphibious entry” is the mission.
NSA 1947 tasked the Marine Corps to develop, "those phases of amphibious operations which pertain to the tactics, technique, and equipment employed by landing forces." Amphibious entry, to your point, is a somewhat nebulous category, however, official documents indicate amphibious operations--reflected in MCDP-1 and MCS 21, which lists "forcible entry from the sea" as a core competency. [https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA405161.pdf]
Yes, NSA 1947 covered conceptual development as of 1947. The actual mission of the Marine Corps is codified in Title 10. Paragraph A lists a number of missions, none of which are amphibious operations. Amphibious operations (not assaults or "entry") are only listed in Paragraph B and the word operations is deliberate because it includes but is not limited to assaults. The actual mission set for which the Marine Corps is far larger than amphibious assaults.
I'm happy to discuss whether the mission of the Marine Corps is obsolete or not, but only if we discuss its actual missions. Not what people think the mission is.
I think we are in agreement. If this is not a mission, why does the Marine Corps continue to pursue large amphibious ships, discuss it in strategy, or echo it in senior leader rhetoric?
Why shouldn’t it? They’re necessary to do a number of its legally mandated missions beyond amphibious operations and only Marine Corps units are manned, trained, and equipped to do so. They’re irreplaceable by any other capability and critical to the pacing scenario.
To posit that the Marine Corps possesses an exclusive capability regarding the manning, training, and equipping for this mission profile reflects an ahistorical perspective. A review of the operational record demonstrates that the U.S. Army has frequently successfully undertaken analogous missions, with contemporary examples including the evacuation of diplomatic posts, which historically the Marine Corps has claimed a monopoly.
Um, no. The Corps has often innovated, sometimes ahead of the curve, sometimes within the curve, but the idea that it’s never been internally driven is simply ahistorical fiction, as is the idea that amphibious entry has ever been the only mission or even the current one. Please read my book on the subject, especially chapter 1 which talks about all the different missions that the Corps assumed in its 250 years of existence: https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/ANewConceptionOfWar.pdf?ver=7GGgGkcjmO0iqS9n5P5C-w%3d%3d
Thank you very much for sharing your work. I think we are largely in agreement, only diverging when identifying the stimulus for change. The post-Vietnam era was one of uncertainty for the entire defense establishment, and more so for the Marine Corps. Defense Reviews that included the Bottom-Up Review, Quadrennial Defense Review, and Defense Management Review frequently categorized the Marine Corps as replicative. The statement made earlier still holds: it was exogenous stimulus that drove change to avoid dissolution. This is echoed by those closest to the problem, in scholarly works produced by Hoffman. This perception of innovation is further discussed by Mahnken & Fitzsimmonds [https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-abstract/28/2/112/11778/Revolutionary-Ambivalence-Understanding-Officer?redirectedFrom=fulltext] and Terriff. For example, Terriff states that Krulak later recognized that "the Marine Corps' self-conception as being ‘innovators’ was based more on a particular understanding of the organization’s history than it was on actual behavioral qualities. That is, while he believed initially that he was only trying to strengthen an existing quality of the Marine Corps, he in reality was attempting to instil a quality that at best was only partially present, and hence what he was seeking to achieve was much more far-reaching and much more difficult than he had envisioned."