re: Shrink the military? Can right and left agree on this?

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Each service will come in and defend it's turf trying to justify it's existence.

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This is true, but that's honestly not what I was trying to do with my post. Most countries don't even have dedicated Marine Corps, but almost every country that has a navy has marines. We should have strong Navy and Marine Corps. I think our Marine Corps could be downsized quite a bit. A lot of it's aviation and logistical units could folded into the Navy.

(no message)

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the military industrial complex and so here we are with a Navy whose motto is "A Global Force For Good"....truly sad

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Interesting thread. If you sit down and look at the military budget you would see that armed force and research/development is only a small part of the total bill reported to the public. The real way to cut the 'defense budget' is to pass laws not allowing politicians to direct the development of the armed forces.

Thats the bloated contracts everyone is talking about. We can still have research done and weapons improvement if left to the service members themselves to direct the budget they have.

At this time a ton of money is allocated to defense contractors from various politicians with no input at all from military brass. This is leading to huge wastes of money on projects the military leadership does not even want.

I would argue you do not need to cut any actual military spending, its about as efficient as you can get in this country. Plus it is advantageous to the populace outside of warfare.

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Well here is the thing about Fallujah.

The Marine Corps first took over the city in Operation Vigilant Resolve. 1st MEF had gotten the mission from a turnover from Army distinction in that province, and within 2 days of getting the order of attack upon Fallujah... We had the city surrounded. After a good amount of warfare, we had gained control of the city. Turned the governing of it over to the Army, which is as what is intended by our roles.

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This is complete BS. There is literally not a single component of your little story that reflects reality. The Marines got the city of fallujah from the 82nd who was essentially operating at a Battalion plus configuration and was getting ready to go home from their rotations in Iraq, the 82nd got the city from 3ID and 3rd ACR, who had responsibility for the entire province as well as fallujah. A task they were far to short handed to successfully complete. 3rd ACR and 3rd ID got the city from the 82nd who had to leave when they fired on a protest outside a school.

The Marines moved an entire expeditionary force into fallujah and the areas around the city after taking it from the 82nd Airborne. shortly after this, the blackwater dudes got killed and the Marines publicly boasted that they would pacify the city. after a few days they had captured less than 1/4 of the city of fallujah when they declared a unilateral cease fire and gave control to the fallujah brigade, which was a good idea but executed terribly. The insurgent forces grew, probably because the Fallujah BDE just gave up their men and weapons to the insurgents. Derp.

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We act as a shock force, go in, drive the enemy out of an area, and then the Army comes in and fortifies it.

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The Army doesn't need Marines to act as a shock force. The army possesses the 82nd Airborne, the 101st, 10th mountain, the 25th ID, and the 173rd as conventional light infantry capabilities as well as the 75th Ranger Regiment who serve as the world's premier light infantry unit and who I might add have been proven the single most effective light infantry unit in the world. Several of these forces can deploy anywhere within 18 hours.

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After turning the city over to the Army and moving on to the next mission, less than 6 months later the Taliban had taken it over once again. That's when the Marine Corps, and once again 1st MEF, launched Operation Phantom Fury. Which was to correct a mistake the Army had made. Again, successful, and without going too crazy into details, we recently lost control of Fallujah again (thanks Army

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The "Taliban" was never in Anbar Province, Fallujah, or any other part of Iraq. At least to my knowledge.

Additionally, Once the 1st MEF took over fallujah and Anbar, it was a Marine command from that point forward. The 82nd literally gave the keys to the Marines and went home. Several relatively small army units (if i recall is was and armor division Battalion and a 7th CAV unit...dont quote me) assisted and were assigned to the 1st MEF during the second battle of Fallujah, but the numbers were something like 8000 marines to 1500 army soldiers. Reality is that the Marines failed to take Anbar on the first push, then they had a 2 week battle to take the city on the second push. The Army was never in command after the 82nd gave the 1st MEF the keys.

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The Army fricked Fallujah up, even after we had taken the city over for them again.

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The army never did anything with fallujah. In fact, Army units were able to conduct regular foot patrols through the city with relative ease during their time there. It was considered a minor city of no great importance until the school protest shooting. It wasn't until the MArines took over and the Blackwater people were murdered that anyone even cared about fallujah. No fault of the MArines, but so goes the way of insurgencies.

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A lot of you are saying that the Marine Corps lost our mission in terms of what we're intended to be. We haven't. Our amphibious operations training still goes on as it always has, despite fighting in a terrain that doesn't allow for it (Which is ultimately the reason why our roles seem to the public to have changed).

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Your role has changed. The Corps is seeking out "sexier" missions that fall far and wide outside the scope of practice for the Marines. Marines are attempting to duplicate the capabilities of other SOCOM forces in order to benefit from an increased budget.

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Yes, the Army can do it, but without a Marine Corps mindset, they're clearly not effective as a shock-force. And they won't ever be.

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This is simply not true. I am not quite sure how you believe that Marine infantry tactics are somehow more shocking than Army infantry tactics. They two essentially follow identical doctrine. Both forces has been successful at performing the exact same tasks throughout the last 60-70 years. In the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, Marines have been performing counter-insurgency exactly like their Army counterparts and vice-versa, both forces are getting mixed results.

Look, I can understand an argument for keeping the Marine Corps, but you completely twisted some pretty well documented history. I strongly suggest you do some reading, or talk to some folks who were involved with Iraq/Anbar during that period of time.

I was with task force Wolfpack in Phantom Fury. We had some army dudes with us. They fought bravely. We couldn't have done what we did without their tanks. I watched army bulldozer fall into the Euphrates and then watched another army guy dive in to try try save his buddy. Unfortunately neither made it. I know that the 1st MARDIV commander specifically demanded the 2/7 cav for the operation because he had so much respect for them.

The main thing the Corps has going for it is it's ability to fight as a MAGTF. They've perfected this better than the army and air force were ever able to do. Also, the Corps tends to give more responsibility to it's junior enlisted.

Semper Fi and :whateverthearmymottois:

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Interesting thread. If you sit down and look at the military budget you would see that armed force and research/development is only a small part of the total bill reported to the public. The real way to cut the 'defense budget' is to pass laws not allowing politicians to direct the development of the armed forces.

Thats the bloated contracts everyone is talking about. We can still have research done and weapons improvement if left to the service members themselves to direct the budget they have.

At this time a ton of money is allocated to defense contractors from various politicians with no input at all from military brass. This is leading to huge wastes of money on projects the military leadership does not even want.

I would argue you do not need to cut any actual military spending, its about as efficient as you can get in this country. Plus it is advantageous to the populace outside of warfare.

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You have a valid point about inefficiency....but I don't know about allowing military leaders to make spending decisions...I have some experience with military officers and budgets and I have never met a more entitled bunch of individuals in my life....if there are any bells and whistles to be had they are going to have them....no matter what!!!

While the military budget is not that big a slice of the pie every penny we spend frees up a euro and a yen that our competition can spend on infrastructure, social programs and manufacturing technology...so if you double the money we spend it is an impressive amount of money....

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No. The reason we are in the shape we are today is entitlement programs.

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If we weren't footing the bill for our competitors market security we would have no need for the amount of entitlement spending we do....every penny we spend providing Toyota with safe passage to their markets and securing those markets is a penny that Toyota is free to spend on technology and innovation.....

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Why do we have to foot the bill to "keep trading lanes open"?

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Why do you think the price of gasoline is lower in the United States than it is anywhere else in the world? Because we keep the trading lanes safe, we control them, and therefore get thrown a bone.

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You have a valid point about inefficiency....but I don't know about allowing military leaders to make spending decisions...I have some experience with military officers and budgets and I have never met a more entitled bunch of individuals in my life....if there are any bells and whistles to be had they are going to have them....no matter what!!!

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Having been a part of several September "spend downs" where you have to spend money or lose budget for next year, I'll say that was the precise time I saw how ridiculously inept the federal government was in spending money. Here's a wad of money we haven't spent. Go blow it on something, otherwise we might really need something next year and not have any funds to pay for it.

Also, you're offbase about the "entitled bunch" remark.

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There is tremendous waste and abuse that goes with that.

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Fighter Jet repairs. I talked with the owner of this company that does runway repairs selling him ERP software. He didn't want it because of TINA forcing him to cut his prices if he actually tracked costs in detail.