Quote:The Marine Corps, the smallest U.S. military force, has plans for a big overhaul designed to address its lack of diversity and problem with retaining troops.

The goal that's driving what amounts to a cultural shift within the service, is for the Marines "to reflect America, to reflect the society we come from," Gen. David Berger, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in an interview with NPR's Morning Edition.

It's not a matter of being politically correct or "woke," he said.

The core of America's strength lies in its diversity, Berger said, adding that the same is true for the military.

"Our advantage militarily is on top of our shoulders," he said. "It's not actually our equipment. We are better than anybody else, primarily because we don't all think exactly alike. We didn't come from the same backgrounds."

His new plan, titled Talent Management 2030, outlines measures the Corps will implement to boost recruitment and improve career flexibility. About 75% of troops leave the Marine Corps at the end of their four-year term, the highest turnover rate among the military services.


Marines Gear Up For Women In Combat, But Will They Sign Up?
To compete in an age of cyber warfare and space-based weaponry, the Marines wants to shake its "manpower" model that historically prized youth, physical fitness and discipline over education, training and technical skills. According to the new plan, the aim is to grow a corps that is "more intelligent, physically fit, cognitively mature, and experienced."

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/12/105479098...rm=nprnews

Quote:Wokeness in the military has been pervasive for years now, going back to the early years of Donald Trump’s time in office. That first seemed to manifest itself in the battle over transgender troops and using taxpayer money to pay for them to “transition.” Since then, things have broadened out to prioritizing “diversity,” including recruitment ads featuring LGBT pride parades and the inclusion of critical race theory.

But while the Army, Navy, and Air Force seemed to readily embrace such ideology, the Marine Corps had been largely resistant…until now. According to Gen. David Berger, a big overhaul is coming to focus on diversity so the corps can “reflect the society we come from.” You know, because what’s truly important when the bullets start flying is that racial and gender quotas were filled.

The Marine Corps, the smallest U.S. military force, has plans for a big overhaul designed to address its lack of diversity and problem with retaining troops.

The goal that’s driving what amounts to a cultural shift within the service, is for the Marines “to reflect America, to reflect the society we come from,” Gen. David Berger, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition.

It’s not a matter of being politically correct or “woke,” he said.

Except, that’s exactly what it’s a matter of. There is no logical reason to make diversity a priority when recruiting for the military. I’ll get into that further in a moment, but first, Berger also had this to say.

The core of America’s strength lies in its diversity, Berger said, adding that the same is true for the military.

I can only picture President Xi Jinping and his boys laughing out loud at their good fortune. Their chief geopolitical and military enemy in the United States has decided to commit ritual suicide as the predominant power in the world, and the Chinese didn’t have to lift a finger. I see no evidence over the last several years that any of this pursuit of wokeness in the military has produced a better fighting force.

I also know that like many jobs out there, certain demographics tend to prefer them. When it comes to the Marines, that typically means young, white males. Sure, that’s not absolute and lots of minorities serve honorably, but there’s no doubt the military, in general, tends to disproportionately attract white men from military families, often from more conservative areas.

To offer a point of comparison, black women are disproportionately represented in the field of social work, and Asians are overrepresented in the STEM fields. None of that is bad or racist. Different cultures tend to gravitate to different occupations, and having that choice is part of being an American.

What the Marine Corps is attempting to do here is dangerous precisely because race and gender should not play a factor in building the world’s most deadly fighting force. Rather, ability and effectiveness should. No branch of the military needs to necessarily “reflect” the country it serves. The only thing that matters is winning, something our general class has long forgotten as they’ve presided over foreign policy failure after failure.

As to this idea that “diversity” is our strength militarily, there’s no actual evidence to back that claim up. It’s simply mindless jargon from a military leadership that has taken to reading leftwing talking points verbatim. That’s not to say diversity is bad if it happens organically, but to start recruiting in a way that excludes those who actually want to serve — while trying to fill pointless race and gender quotas — is how you end up with a fighting force that isn’t as good as it could be.

Meanwhile, China just secured the world’s largest navy and is expanding its nuclear arsenal, while the US military leadership is asleep at the wheel. That’s not going to end well for anyone.

Link

The Marine Corps commandant. . . talking to NPR.

No greater sign of the End Times.

I remember when the other branches of Service began the process of turning soft under Clinton, the Marines held firm. But now another generation has gone by, and they just can’t hold out any longer. That’s a shame.

A Gay Marine Corps….
Somewhere the Chinese, Iranians and Russians are laughing at our screwed up state of a country.

British Royal Marine commandos force US Marines into humiliating surrender

The big underlying problem with the Marines is that they've lost their way. Prior to WWII, the USMC focused strictly on being a naval infantry, and was never larger than 30,000. The Corps perfected amphibious warfare, and with the island hopping campaigns across the Pacific it grew to 500,000. After WWII it reverted to 30-60,000 until Korea, when it grew to about 200,000 and has pretty much stayed there ever since. Along the way, it kind of picked up a role as baby army with a baby air force.

The transition probably began with Marines functioning as infantry in Belleau Wood during WWI. I think the major move came when Westmoreland sent the Marines north to play army in I Corps rather than south to form a riverine force in conjunction with the brown-water navy in the Mekong Delta. Marines are fierce fighters, and the army likes to use them as such, and Marines have been all too willing to take on any role the army gives them in order to justify headcount and budget. But that's not who they are. Marines get in, get done, and move on; they don't occupy territory.

The Navy hasn't helped much. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Navy (and Marine, to be fair) leadership fell in love with the idea of "vertical envelopment" by helicopter operating off large-deck amphibious ships. Those of us in the Gator Navy at the time did not like it, because the larger the ships got, the more we were putting all our eggs in one basket. When the Navy realized the risks involved, largely from land-launched missiles after the Falklands, they came up with a concept of operations (CONOPS) that called for these large ships to stand 25-50 miles offshore. The problem is that from that far out, there are no viable ship-shore connectors for getting tanks and heavy artillery ashore--boats are two slow, helos and V-22s can't lift the load, and air-cushion vehicles are deemed too unreliable for combat. So now the Marines are trying to figure out what kinds of missions they can perform as ultralight infantry--basically, boy scouts with BB guns.

I think a complete reboot is needed. I would have the Marines take a page from what their older brothers, the Royal Marines, did when faced with budgetary extinction in the 1960s and 1970s. They became specialists in amphibious, expeditionary, and commando operations. The result in the case of the USMC would be a smaller, focused, and hard-hitting organization that would revive, "the few, the proud," tradition. I would combine the Marines and the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and additionally keep 60-90,000 Marines in the Marine Expeditionary Units. A force of 60-90,000 Fleet Marines, plus 30,000 Marine commandos, plus 20-30,000 for training and admin, would result in a USMC of 110-150,000, a much smaller but more focused organization.

Across the Department of Defense, we would be far better off if our military leaders worried more about winning wars than about winning budget battles.

Everyone in the Pentagon needs to have these moments:

(11-13-2021 05:39 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The big underlying problem with the Marines is that they've lost their way. Prior to WWII, the USMC focused strictly on being a naval infantry, and was never larger than 30,000. The Corps perfected amphibious warfare, and with the island hopping campaigns across the Pacific it grew to 500,000. After WWII it reverted to 30-60,000 until Korea, when it grew to about 200,000 and has pretty much stayed there ever since. Along the way, it kind of picked up a role as baby army with a baby air force.

The transition probably began with Marines functioning as infantry in Belleau Wood during WWI. I think the major move came when Westmoreland sent the Marines north to play army in I Corps rather than south to form a riverine force in conjunction with the brown-water navy in the Mekong Delta. Marines are fierce fighters, and the army likes to use them as such, and Marines have been all too willing to take on any role the army gives them in order to justify headcount and budget. But that's not who they are. Marines get in, get done, and move on; they don't occupy territory.

The Navy hasn't helped much. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Navy (and Marine, to be fair) leadership fell in love with the idea of "vertical envelopment" by helicopter operating off large-deck amphibious ships. Those of us in the Gator Navy at the time did not like it, because the larger the ships got, the more we were putting all our eggs in one basket. When the Navy realized the risks involved, largely from land-launched missiles after the Falklands, they came up with a concept of operations (CONOPS) that called for these large ships to stand 25-50 miles offshore. The problem is that from that far out, there are no viable ship-shore connectors for getting tanks and heavy artillery ashore--boats are two slow, helos and V-22s can't lift the load, and air-cushion vehicles are deemed too unreliable for combat. So now the Marines are trying to figure out what kinds of missions they can perform as ultralight infantry--basically, boy scouts with BB guns.

I think a complete reboot is needed. I would have the Marines take a page from what their older brothers, the Royal Marines, did when faced with budgetary extinction in the 1960s and 1970s. They became specialists in amphibious, expeditionary, and commando operations. The result in the case of the USMC would be a smaller, focused, and hard-hitting organization that would revive, "the few, the proud," tradition. I would combine the Marines and the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and additionally keep 60-90,000 Marines in the Marine Expeditionary Units. A force of 60-90,000 Fleet Marines, plus 30,000 Marine commandos, plus 20-30,000 for training and admin, would result in a USMC of 110-150,000, a much smaller but more focused organization.

Across the Department of Defense, we would be far better off if our military leaders worried more about winning wars than about winning budget battles.

Owl, all of that ^^ is true, so far as it goes. It doesn’t really address the problem of injecting Progressive/Identity-based political bullsh¡t into the Corps, as it already has been into other areas of the military. As long as the political class feels empowered to do stuff like that, and as long as the Corps is powerless to resist it, all the other agenda items you discussed really won’t matter.

I imagine a scenario where 2 US soldiers are battened down and trying a kill a sniper. One says, there he is, behind the rock. Instead of shooting him, they descend into an argument about he/him, they/them etc.