Army Special Forces in Afghanistan size0-army.mil-54118-2009-10-27-091030

FORT BELVOIR: Under the shadow of sequestration and a Navy/Air Force-dominated “Pacific Pivot,” representatives of the Army, Marine Corps, and Special Operations Command met to discuss the future of what they’re calling “strategic landpower.”

Before I sat in on the first session of the conference, I’d thought “strategic landpower” boiled down to the conventional “Big Army” trying to yoke the politically more popular Special Operations Command and Marine Corps into a common argument for the continued relevance of ground forces, even in a post-Afghanistan era many see as dominated by high-tech air, sea, space, and cyber power. I was half-right.

I was right about the Marine Corps: There were remarkably few Marines in the meeting room at the Fort Belvoir Officers’ Club, and they were on the whole remarkably silent. If you’re familiar with mid-grade Marine officers, who tend to be outspoken warrior-humanists, the idea of them not leaping feet-first into a discussion of the military art is unsettling.

But while Marine leaders want to do right by the Army, with whom they’ve fought shoulder-to-shoulder for the last 12 years, at least some Marines are uneasy that embracing “strategic landpower” may hobble their longed-for return to seaborne operations. They are also uneasy that “strategic landpower” is often seen as an counterargument to “Air-Sea Battle,” the favorite concept of their parent service, the Navy. (“This had nothing to do with Air-Sea Battle, just to be clear,” said one Army officer wearily after I raised the subject. “Air-Sea Battle is a good idea.”) So everything I saw today reinforced my sense that the Marine Corps, collectively, is conflicted about Gen. Odierno’s effort.