Stolen from another website: What is the consensus on this question? IMO using USMC people in SF roles, is a complete waste of time and money! :2c:
The MARSOC - Should the Leopard Change His Spots?
The United States Marines are shock troops, originally used in support of naval actions. Boarding enemy ships at the height of a vicious eighteenth-century sea battle with the air full of flying lead and wooden splinters developed a magnificent breed of warrior, one capable of intensely focused action while in extreme peril. In the twentieth century, the Marines paid a very high price to become the force most associated with amphibious assault landings, delivering troops by sea to sweep an enemy from the beach in order to conduct a brutal land action. Marines are trained to strike the enemy a crushing blow – direct action in the highest and most explosive sense of the word. An aggressive, high-visibility force, our Marines are ready, willing and able to take the will of the United States around the world.
Marines get in as quickly as possible and get out as soon as they can bring the enemy to his knees or obliterate him. Marines then reorganize, reequip, and stand ready for the next crisis. Marines are not used to occupy or repatriate, and the winning of hearts and minds has not been part of their on-duty agenda. According to the current Commandant of the Marine Corps, "The Marines are an expeditionary force, not a sustainment force."
At the other end of the spectrum of warfare, the unconventional soldier of U. S. Army Special Forces is also possessed of extraordinary courage, superb combat skills, and the ability to unleash our country’s military might. In the main, however, the true unconventional soldiers – the Green Berets – operate by conducting long term, low-key operations designed to gain the support of the local population in an area of strategic interest to the United States. Unconventional soldiers have a holistic approach to their complex mission. Green Berets must acquire a cultural understanding of the local populace as well as have the ability to conduct psychological operations and to coordinate civil affairs, all underwritten by a superior capability in conventional small-unit combat tactics, techniques, and procedures. By recruiting, teaching, organizing and advising people in critical areas of the world how to protect themselves, Special Forces soldiers deny our enemies influence in an area that is in our vital national interests to secure. Some of these missions consume years and require the patient attention of unconventional warriors whose training and experience provide an excellent return in terms of economy of force and economy of resources.
In order to conduct successful missions of this nature, a certain mindset is required. Among other things, the entire chain of command must understand the tactics, techniques, and procedures used by Special Forces in the conduct of Indirect Action missions, which are very different than conventional tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). This capability is first developed while attending twelve months of schooling followed by serving three to five years in the SFODA, the basic operating unit of Special Forces, where the boots are on the ground. The Green Beret begins with the excellent Special Forces concepts and doctrine, developed over the course of fifty years, honed during the ten-year war in Viet Nam and in countless Joint and Combined Exercises and Training Missions (JCETs) around the world. Language training and area studies are important tools as the development of the matured and seasoned unconventional soldier evolves with time and experience. In addition, repeated service in the numbered Special Forces Groups is essential to train the chain of command to work with and to support the deployed unit in a way that allows maximum control to the men on the ground (within the parameters of the mission) in order that they can make decisions about what they need in the way of support and when they will need it. Repeated tours in the same area of operations develop valuable relationships between the Group and local leaders. Officers and NCOs need to practice this mindset, which can not be learned in the conduct of direct action missions, nor by merely reading about it. Although they talk the talk, officers and NCOs in conventional elite U.S. Army units such as the Rangers are not trained to conduct the indirect action missions which enable them to understand SF organizations or become adept in SF operational concepts.
Therefore, the notion that the USMC should organize a Marine Special Operations Command is difficult to understand. Yet it has happened, and the MARSOC now has its own website.
Apparently, the MARSOC will be under the operational control of USSOCOM. Will USSOCOM use these Marines to conduct direct action missions in support of Special Forces Unconventional Warfare operations? If so, they would be extremely capable in that mission.
Or are the Marines trying to stand up an organization capable of planning and conducting indirect action missions? If so, they are starting from scratch. Very little, if anything, in their two-hundred-year history will apply. Their website says they are conducting indirect action missions (Foreign Internal Defense) at the present time, but does their experience in these matters allow them to understand their vulnerabilities and shortfalls? The MARSOC may attempt indirect action missions, but the odds of success without the assistance of Special Forces are slim to none. They themselves admit to "a significant shortfall in the ability of an MSOC to be user-friendly" and have embarked on a "reorganization," according to the Questions and Answers page of the MARSOC website.
Their stated goal is to "establish the world-wide standard" in unconventional warfare and to "create a new warrior archetype." Perhaps they should stay in a Holiday Inn Express while working on that. LINK
The Marines did not decide to go in this direction themselves. They were directed to do this by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2005 with the cooperation of then-USSOCOM CG General Doug Brown. And – this is the amazing part – according to testimony before Congress by the USMC Commandant, they were given 1.6 billion dollars to produce between 1,200 and 2,400 Marines capable of conducting Unconventional Warfare.
That is 1,600 million dollars, folks. DOD and USSOCOM are giving the U. S. Marines 1.6B to set up a new command from scratch to learn and to teach operational TTPs dramatically different from the proven capability of the Marines. This new command will require years to establish, and will produce fewer than 2,500 additional unconventional warriors. This force will be less than one-sixth the planned size of the Green Berets, who already have the only demonstrated capability in our Armed Forces to perform unconventional warfare missions. This much smaller force is going to have a start-up cost of 1.6B, but the billions of dollars in the military budget that have been thrown at "Special Operations" over the last six years hint at the strong probability that the cost will escalate before the kinks are ironed out of MARSOC. In comparison, the Green Berets have never seen a billion-dollar budget, although they are the only force in our military inventory that can truthfully be described as warriors, teachers, trainers, advisors, and force multipliers. The 2007 SF budget was less than 120M to recruit and train about 950 new Green Berets. Why is the budget for a UW Marine more than five times the budget for a UW Green Beret?
Could the Marines have acquired the MARSOC mission as a cash-cow?
Would they slide some of the 1.6B over to other targets?
Does a Marine say “Oohrah?”
Could some of the MARSOC funds make up the 1.1B cut in the MV22 Osprey program in FY2007? Have the Marines and US Navy found a way to save the 19 MV22s that were on the Death List? There is an "Inside the Navy" column on Inside Defense.com entitled “Pentagon Cuts 1.1 Billion from Marine Corps’ Osprey Budget” which also dates from 2005. The article states, " . . . naval officials had planned to buy 14 MV-22s in FY-07, 19 in FY-08, 30 in FY-09, 35 in FY-10 and 38 in FY-11. Any reductions to MV-22 production numbers would be distributed over those five years." LINK
If the motivation of the USMC was to embrace the mission in order to get the money, the motivation of DOD and USSOCOM is more problematic. Why would they set up a competing force for the U. S. Army Special Forces, which has been conducting successful unconventional missions for fifty years? Why would they fund it at many, many times the funding received by U. S. Special Forces? There must be more here than meets the eye. Did no one suggest that money for Unconventional Warfare units might be better spent by beefing up U. S. Army Special Forces by restoring previously deactivated Special Forces Groups (6th SFGA, 8th SFGA, 11th SFGA and 12th SFGA)? Actually, under General Brown, USSOCOM did order a slight strengthening of Special Forces, then cut the budget. Do more with less, the Green Berets were told. These actions are strong signals that the contribution of U. S. Army Special Forces is not valued by DOD and that DOD is planning for the continued diminishment of the Green Berets. This devaluation of the smallest of the Army’s combat branches totally disregards the needs of our country and shows disrespect for the contributions of Green Berets throughout the years. It is reprehensible on the face of it. U. S. Army Special Forces is a unique part of our national defense capability, developed throughout fifty years of successful missions, paid for by Green Beret blood.
How does this project benefit USSOCOM? U. S. Army Special Forces are the largest unit in USSOCOM. Why would USSOCOM agree to divert part of their mission to the U. S. Marines? There must have been some really important returns for the money. Has USSOCOM given the Marines part of the SF mission rather than have them play a key role in JSOC, and compete directly with the Rangers and the 160th Special Ops Aviation Regiment for missions, assets, and promotion?
How will the MARSOC benefit the United States? It will be some time before the Marines have totally disciplined their aggressive tendencies, their quick trigger-fingers – those Lance Corporals, you know – but what they lack in subtlety, they make up for in stubbornness. When told to learn Unconventional Warfare, they will not quit. After having molded themselves into one sort of fighting force for more than two and a quarter centuries, why should they now try to modify their tried-and-true model into something so different? It is a stretch to imagine them involved in some of the remarkable but unsung actions in SF: quelling an outbreak of cholera in a village hundreds of miles from the nearest American base, for example. Did they think, when they were groaning their way through Parris Island, that they might be required to spend a week with liquid excrement running off their elbows while rehydrating dying babies and old people? No. When a Marine hears "cookout," does it evoke a memory of roast goat, even for a second? Probably not.
The real point is: why we would want to ask some of the Marines to reinvent themselves when we already have the ideal Unconventional Warfare force? The Marines are showing that by their imitation of the Green Berets. The new MSOT is modeled on the SFODA, with two more members (only no medics, certainly a lamentable omission, robbing them of one of the best entrees into their operational area). Is it a good idea to set up an artificial rivalry within our own military? Is this a time for duplication in the services, with every dollar in the military budget questioned, even threatened, by opponents of the effort in the Middle East? The old adage about not changing horses in midstream is particularly apt here.
How will the MARSOC benefit DOD? Now that General Petraeus has used the surge and some on-the-job training in Unconventional Warfare and Counterinsurgency to turn operations in Iraq around, does anyone remember that General Schoomaker, then Chief of Staff of the U. S. Army, said that our efforts there had "strained the Army to the breaking point?" Our years of muddling around in the Middle East after the successful beginnings in Iraq and in Afghanistan is likely, in part, to be the result of DOD’s refusal to allow input from senior officers with long years of Special Forces experience. Instead, they relied on the shock-and-awe leadership of conventional elite senior officers with perhaps one Special Forces tour at the company-grade level followed by decades of conventional elite service. This, in a confrontation that calls for leadership trained by long years of practice in indirect action missions in villages and neighborhoods.
DOD has established a record of failure to utilize Special Forces assets properly in the present conflict. Far from capitalizing on the initial 5th SFGA success in Afghanistan, DOD took BG Mulholland prematurely out of U. S. Army Special Forces Command instead of letting him continue with the mission. Subsequent American involvement in Afghanistan was turned over to conventional elite leaders, with a predictably degraded result and, as an incredible by-product, eliminating the DRB (Division Ready Brigade) of the 82nd Airborne Division. Equally egregious, the contribution of COL Charles Cleveland and elements of 10th SFGA to the initial actions in Iraq have received little acknowledgment. They tied up 12 Divisions of Iraqi Republican Guard in northern Iraq, while General Franks was making his drive to Baghdad. The Pentagon’s sad record of withholding recognition and reward for the contributions made by the Green Berets should give the Marines pause. Will the MARSOC receive the same treatment?
How will this project benefit the Marine Corps? That is hard to say. They have invested a lot of effort already. After another reorganization or so, the MARSOC’s UW mission could become sand in the gears of the USMC. They will have many adjustments to make. How will this project benefit the Marines who are a part of it? The MARSOC plan seems to be for Marines to serve three years in the MARSOC and then return to their regular Marine Corps units. After three years, an unconventional soldier is still an apprentice. Have the Marines selected their finest for the MARSOC? If so, are they now requiring them to have what will amount to a three-year career interruption?
Marines who have volunteered for U. S. Army Special Forces in the past made good Green Berets. As the MARSOC moves into the future, will Marines who like the new mission and excel at it be appreciated by the Corps, or will they find themselves, like the Green Berets in the Army, doing the impossible for the ungrateful?
Has the USMC asked for the alternate option of taking on the mission of the direct action Special Mission Units? Tailor-made for their talents, this would be a much more cost-effective pairing of men and mission as the Marines are already trained and equipped for missions of this kind. They have a robust command and control capability and arrangements around the world, and they have a delivery system enhanced by the M22-Ospreys and Navy amphibious ships called Landing Platform Helicopters (LPHs).
Provided nobody leaks it to the media, they can come from over the horizon and achieve total surprise. Now that is an unmatched capability for direct action. ** Shock! ** Oohrah! ** Semper Fi!
If we really intend to win the struggle against terrorist factions worldwide and, at the same time, be prepared to defend against other challenges that may emerge as the century progresses, indirect action missions should be left to the Quiet Professionals, the U. S. Army Special Forces.
De Oppresso Liber
MG (Ret) James A. Guest
U. S. Army Special Forces
The MARSOC - Should the Leopard Change His Spots?
The United States Marines are shock troops, originally used in support of naval actions. Boarding enemy ships at the height of a vicious eighteenth-century sea battle with the air full of flying lead and wooden splinters developed a magnificent breed of warrior, one capable of intensely focused action while in extreme peril. In the twentieth century, the Marines paid a very high price to become the force most associated with amphibious assault landings, delivering troops by sea to sweep an enemy from the beach in order to conduct a brutal land action. Marines are trained to strike the enemy a crushing blow – direct action in the highest and most explosive sense of the word. An aggressive, high-visibility force, our Marines are ready, willing and able to take the will of the United States around the world.
Marines get in as quickly as possible and get out as soon as they can bring the enemy to his knees or obliterate him. Marines then reorganize, reequip, and stand ready for the next crisis. Marines are not used to occupy or repatriate, and the winning of hearts and minds has not been part of their on-duty agenda. According to the current Commandant of the Marine Corps, "The Marines are an expeditionary force, not a sustainment force."
At the other end of the spectrum of warfare, the unconventional soldier of U. S. Army Special Forces is also possessed of extraordinary courage, superb combat skills, and the ability to unleash our country’s military might. In the main, however, the true unconventional soldiers – the Green Berets – operate by conducting long term, low-key operations designed to gain the support of the local population in an area of strategic interest to the United States. Unconventional soldiers have a holistic approach to their complex mission. Green Berets must acquire a cultural understanding of the local populace as well as have the ability to conduct psychological operations and to coordinate civil affairs, all underwritten by a superior capability in conventional small-unit combat tactics, techniques, and procedures. By recruiting, teaching, organizing and advising people in critical areas of the world how to protect themselves, Special Forces soldiers deny our enemies influence in an area that is in our vital national interests to secure. Some of these missions consume years and require the patient attention of unconventional warriors whose training and experience provide an excellent return in terms of economy of force and economy of resources.
In order to conduct successful missions of this nature, a certain mindset is required. Among other things, the entire chain of command must understand the tactics, techniques, and procedures used by Special Forces in the conduct of Indirect Action missions, which are very different than conventional tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). This capability is first developed while attending twelve months of schooling followed by serving three to five years in the SFODA, the basic operating unit of Special Forces, where the boots are on the ground. The Green Beret begins with the excellent Special Forces concepts and doctrine, developed over the course of fifty years, honed during the ten-year war in Viet Nam and in countless Joint and Combined Exercises and Training Missions (JCETs) around the world. Language training and area studies are important tools as the development of the matured and seasoned unconventional soldier evolves with time and experience. In addition, repeated service in the numbered Special Forces Groups is essential to train the chain of command to work with and to support the deployed unit in a way that allows maximum control to the men on the ground (within the parameters of the mission) in order that they can make decisions about what they need in the way of support and when they will need it. Repeated tours in the same area of operations develop valuable relationships between the Group and local leaders. Officers and NCOs need to practice this mindset, which can not be learned in the conduct of direct action missions, nor by merely reading about it. Although they talk the talk, officers and NCOs in conventional elite U.S. Army units such as the Rangers are not trained to conduct the indirect action missions which enable them to understand SF organizations or become adept in SF operational concepts.
Therefore, the notion that the USMC should organize a Marine Special Operations Command is difficult to understand. Yet it has happened, and the MARSOC now has its own website.
Apparently, the MARSOC will be under the operational control of USSOCOM. Will USSOCOM use these Marines to conduct direct action missions in support of Special Forces Unconventional Warfare operations? If so, they would be extremely capable in that mission.
Or are the Marines trying to stand up an organization capable of planning and conducting indirect action missions? If so, they are starting from scratch. Very little, if anything, in their two-hundred-year history will apply. Their website says they are conducting indirect action missions (Foreign Internal Defense) at the present time, but does their experience in these matters allow them to understand their vulnerabilities and shortfalls? The MARSOC may attempt indirect action missions, but the odds of success without the assistance of Special Forces are slim to none. They themselves admit to "a significant shortfall in the ability of an MSOC to be user-friendly" and have embarked on a "reorganization," according to the Questions and Answers page of the MARSOC website.
Their stated goal is to "establish the world-wide standard" in unconventional warfare and to "create a new warrior archetype." Perhaps they should stay in a Holiday Inn Express while working on that. LINK
The Marines did not decide to go in this direction themselves. They were directed to do this by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2005 with the cooperation of then-USSOCOM CG General Doug Brown. And – this is the amazing part – according to testimony before Congress by the USMC Commandant, they were given 1.6 billion dollars to produce between 1,200 and 2,400 Marines capable of conducting Unconventional Warfare.
That is 1,600 million dollars, folks. DOD and USSOCOM are giving the U. S. Marines 1.6B to set up a new command from scratch to learn and to teach operational TTPs dramatically different from the proven capability of the Marines. This new command will require years to establish, and will produce fewer than 2,500 additional unconventional warriors. This force will be less than one-sixth the planned size of the Green Berets, who already have the only demonstrated capability in our Armed Forces to perform unconventional warfare missions. This much smaller force is going to have a start-up cost of 1.6B, but the billions of dollars in the military budget that have been thrown at "Special Operations" over the last six years hint at the strong probability that the cost will escalate before the kinks are ironed out of MARSOC. In comparison, the Green Berets have never seen a billion-dollar budget, although they are the only force in our military inventory that can truthfully be described as warriors, teachers, trainers, advisors, and force multipliers. The 2007 SF budget was less than 120M to recruit and train about 950 new Green Berets. Why is the budget for a UW Marine more than five times the budget for a UW Green Beret?
Could the Marines have acquired the MARSOC mission as a cash-cow?
Would they slide some of the 1.6B over to other targets?
Does a Marine say “Oohrah?”
Could some of the MARSOC funds make up the 1.1B cut in the MV22 Osprey program in FY2007? Have the Marines and US Navy found a way to save the 19 MV22s that were on the Death List? There is an "Inside the Navy" column on Inside Defense.com entitled “Pentagon Cuts 1.1 Billion from Marine Corps’ Osprey Budget” which also dates from 2005. The article states, " . . . naval officials had planned to buy 14 MV-22s in FY-07, 19 in FY-08, 30 in FY-09, 35 in FY-10 and 38 in FY-11. Any reductions to MV-22 production numbers would be distributed over those five years." LINK
If the motivation of the USMC was to embrace the mission in order to get the money, the motivation of DOD and USSOCOM is more problematic. Why would they set up a competing force for the U. S. Army Special Forces, which has been conducting successful unconventional missions for fifty years? Why would they fund it at many, many times the funding received by U. S. Special Forces? There must be more here than meets the eye. Did no one suggest that money for Unconventional Warfare units might be better spent by beefing up U. S. Army Special Forces by restoring previously deactivated Special Forces Groups (6th SFGA, 8th SFGA, 11th SFGA and 12th SFGA)? Actually, under General Brown, USSOCOM did order a slight strengthening of Special Forces, then cut the budget. Do more with less, the Green Berets were told. These actions are strong signals that the contribution of U. S. Army Special Forces is not valued by DOD and that DOD is planning for the continued diminishment of the Green Berets. This devaluation of the smallest of the Army’s combat branches totally disregards the needs of our country and shows disrespect for the contributions of Green Berets throughout the years. It is reprehensible on the face of it. U. S. Army Special Forces is a unique part of our national defense capability, developed throughout fifty years of successful missions, paid for by Green Beret blood.
How does this project benefit USSOCOM? U. S. Army Special Forces are the largest unit in USSOCOM. Why would USSOCOM agree to divert part of their mission to the U. S. Marines? There must have been some really important returns for the money. Has USSOCOM given the Marines part of the SF mission rather than have them play a key role in JSOC, and compete directly with the Rangers and the 160th Special Ops Aviation Regiment for missions, assets, and promotion?
How will the MARSOC benefit the United States? It will be some time before the Marines have totally disciplined their aggressive tendencies, their quick trigger-fingers – those Lance Corporals, you know – but what they lack in subtlety, they make up for in stubbornness. When told to learn Unconventional Warfare, they will not quit. After having molded themselves into one sort of fighting force for more than two and a quarter centuries, why should they now try to modify their tried-and-true model into something so different? It is a stretch to imagine them involved in some of the remarkable but unsung actions in SF: quelling an outbreak of cholera in a village hundreds of miles from the nearest American base, for example. Did they think, when they were groaning their way through Parris Island, that they might be required to spend a week with liquid excrement running off their elbows while rehydrating dying babies and old people? No. When a Marine hears "cookout," does it evoke a memory of roast goat, even for a second? Probably not.
The real point is: why we would want to ask some of the Marines to reinvent themselves when we already have the ideal Unconventional Warfare force? The Marines are showing that by their imitation of the Green Berets. The new MSOT is modeled on the SFODA, with two more members (only no medics, certainly a lamentable omission, robbing them of one of the best entrees into their operational area). Is it a good idea to set up an artificial rivalry within our own military? Is this a time for duplication in the services, with every dollar in the military budget questioned, even threatened, by opponents of the effort in the Middle East? The old adage about not changing horses in midstream is particularly apt here.
How will the MARSOC benefit DOD? Now that General Petraeus has used the surge and some on-the-job training in Unconventional Warfare and Counterinsurgency to turn operations in Iraq around, does anyone remember that General Schoomaker, then Chief of Staff of the U. S. Army, said that our efforts there had "strained the Army to the breaking point?" Our years of muddling around in the Middle East after the successful beginnings in Iraq and in Afghanistan is likely, in part, to be the result of DOD’s refusal to allow input from senior officers with long years of Special Forces experience. Instead, they relied on the shock-and-awe leadership of conventional elite senior officers with perhaps one Special Forces tour at the company-grade level followed by decades of conventional elite service. This, in a confrontation that calls for leadership trained by long years of practice in indirect action missions in villages and neighborhoods.
DOD has established a record of failure to utilize Special Forces assets properly in the present conflict. Far from capitalizing on the initial 5th SFGA success in Afghanistan, DOD took BG Mulholland prematurely out of U. S. Army Special Forces Command instead of letting him continue with the mission. Subsequent American involvement in Afghanistan was turned over to conventional elite leaders, with a predictably degraded result and, as an incredible by-product, eliminating the DRB (Division Ready Brigade) of the 82nd Airborne Division. Equally egregious, the contribution of COL Charles Cleveland and elements of 10th SFGA to the initial actions in Iraq have received little acknowledgment. They tied up 12 Divisions of Iraqi Republican Guard in northern Iraq, while General Franks was making his drive to Baghdad. The Pentagon’s sad record of withholding recognition and reward for the contributions made by the Green Berets should give the Marines pause. Will the MARSOC receive the same treatment?
How will this project benefit the Marine Corps? That is hard to say. They have invested a lot of effort already. After another reorganization or so, the MARSOC’s UW mission could become sand in the gears of the USMC. They will have many adjustments to make. How will this project benefit the Marines who are a part of it? The MARSOC plan seems to be for Marines to serve three years in the MARSOC and then return to their regular Marine Corps units. After three years, an unconventional soldier is still an apprentice. Have the Marines selected their finest for the MARSOC? If so, are they now requiring them to have what will amount to a three-year career interruption?
Marines who have volunteered for U. S. Army Special Forces in the past made good Green Berets. As the MARSOC moves into the future, will Marines who like the new mission and excel at it be appreciated by the Corps, or will they find themselves, like the Green Berets in the Army, doing the impossible for the ungrateful?
Has the USMC asked for the alternate option of taking on the mission of the direct action Special Mission Units? Tailor-made for their talents, this would be a much more cost-effective pairing of men and mission as the Marines are already trained and equipped for missions of this kind. They have a robust command and control capability and arrangements around the world, and they have a delivery system enhanced by the M22-Ospreys and Navy amphibious ships called Landing Platform Helicopters (LPHs).
Provided nobody leaks it to the media, they can come from over the horizon and achieve total surprise. Now that is an unmatched capability for direct action. ** Shock! ** Oohrah! ** Semper Fi!
If we really intend to win the struggle against terrorist factions worldwide and, at the same time, be prepared to defend against other challenges that may emerge as the century progresses, indirect action missions should be left to the Quiet Professionals, the U. S. Army Special Forces.
De Oppresso Liber
MG (Ret) James A. Guest
U. S. Army Special Forces
:2c:
. Regiment?
