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Marines Sail Back To Future With Bataan Deployment

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Libyan rebels, Somali pirates, Osprey tiltrotors, and a long, long time at sea: The future of the Marine Corps post-Afghanistan can be seen in what you might call “Yoda and Bart’s Great Adventure,” an extraordinary ocean journey that began a year ago Friday. Keep reading →

Published March 23, 2012 at 10:00 AM

Marine Libya Lessons: Short Command-Control Links, STOVL Flexibility

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The French operational experience in and off of Libya has neatly dovetailed with that of the U.S. Marines and suggests a way forward for American thinking about littoral operations.

With the decision of the U.S. national command authority to “lead from behind,” the Marines were almost inadvertently given a leading role. What “lead from behind” meant operationally was that the U.S. was not going to commit significant combat air capabilities to the fight, so the F-22 returned from Middle East exercises and the aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean was sent elsewhere, to support US ground troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. was to provide a C2 package to support the operation, as well as ground attack capabilities such as A-10s and C-130 gunships. Most importantly, the U.S. provided airborne tanking and related air support to the allied operations. Keep reading →

Published October 6, 2011 at 4:10 PM

Former Top Marine Calls for Joint Work To Get Weapons Quicker

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I was continually frustrated during my time as the Marine’s Deputy Commandant for Aviation by our inability to rapidly upgrade Marine equipment, especially aircraft cockpits and similar systems. The reason is simple, much of the aerospace and defense industry uses unnecessary and arbitrary proprietary markings as a base requirement. We must change this mind-set.

The time has arrived to develop standardized frameworks and make available common hardware designs and software architectures for future equipment procurements across all four services. We have seen the defense budget more than double since 2001, but now we face a severe contraction as the United States withdraws from Iraq and Afghanistan. However, more of an impact will be the reduction in defense outlays as our national security funds pay a significant portion of the deficit reduction bill. Keep reading →

Published September 22, 2011 at 9:37 AM