# Top Marine suggests Marines be the prime force in Afghanistan



## kilekaldar (11 Oct 2007)

Top Marine suggests Marines be the prime force in Afghanistan

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.main/index.html

Plan would put Marines' focus on Afghanistan, not Iraq
Army would be the lead force in Iraq under such a plan

   
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Marine Corps would like to reduce its forces in Iraq and move them to Afghanistan, a senior U.S. military official said.


Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway, speaking in July, reportedly hasn't put forth a formal plan.

 Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, has proposed that the Marines become the prime U.S. combat force in Afghanistan while the Army takes the lead in Iraq, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Troops from each service would remain in each country, the official said.

The development was first reported in Thursday's New York Times.

If implemented, the plan would bring a dramatic change to U.S. troop alignments.

As of Thursday, about 26,000 Marines are among the 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. About 400 Marines are among the 25,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, according to U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the two countries.

Two senior Marine officers who spoke to CNN said the nature of the war in Afghanistan -- spread out with small-unit fighting -- makes it more the type of conflict in which the Marines typically engage.

Citing recent security improvements in Iraq's Anbar province, the Marines maybe able to drawdown there, the officers said, making it more feasible for them to deploy to Afghanistan.

"Iraq has become a prolonged ground conflict that is more an Army mission," one of the officers said. 

Conway made the suggestion last week at a meeting of senior combat commanders and the heads of the military services, but the Marine commandant has not put forth a formal proposal, the official said.

Such a shift in policy would require approval of Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Asked about the report Thursday, Gates called it "extremely preliminary thinking on the part of perhaps some staff people in the Marine Corps."

If the idea gained approval, it could simplify troop rotations and deployments.

Marines generally serve seven months on the ground, while Army troops are on a 15-month rotation.


----------



## MarkOttawa (11 Oct 2007)

More in _NY Times_:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/washington/11military.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Mark
Ottawa


----------



## tomahawk6 (11 Oct 2007)

Turf wars 8)


----------



## GAP (11 Oct 2007)

The Marines are not stupid....if the Democrats get in, as it looks like they are going to, they are going to look to have someone to blame, just prior to cutting support, for the issues in Iraq. 

If the Marines are totally in Afghanistan, and not in Iraq, they can stand back and say "it wasn't us....uhuh.....it was them army guys over there!!"


----------



## tomahawk6 (11 Oct 2007)

If Hillary is the democrat nominee she and they will lose. This move if its accurate is purely about turf. The Marines are tired of playing second fiddle to the Army. To be honest though Afghanistan is a light infantry environment and Iraq is more of a heavy fight. I can see why the jarheads might want to jump theaters, but the bottom line is control.


----------



## aesop081 (11 Oct 2007)

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> If Hillary is the democrat nominee she and they will lose. This move if its accurate is purely about turf. The Marines are tired of playing second fiddle to the Army. To be honest though Afghanistan is a light infantry environment and Iraq is more of a heavy fight. I can see why the jarheads might want to jump theaters, but the bottom line is control.



I agree. This is inter-service rivalry at its best. Nothing more.


----------



## Spencer100 (11 Oct 2007)

Will this make much of a difference to the CF in threater?  Do we have a better relationship with one service or the other?  

Also does the different skill sets and assets they bring to the fight make a difference to the CF?


----------



## AIC_2K5 (11 Oct 2007)

> Also does the different skill sets and assets they bring to the fight make a difference to the CF?



The Marines have been labeled as having better tactics and porcedures in fighting counterinsurgency warfare than the Army. During the first couple years of the Iraqi occupation, the regions under jurisdiction of Marine units were known to be the most stable.


----------



## a_majoor (11 Oct 2007)

Although there are "political" overtones to the proposal, there are also some sound tactical, operational and logistical advantages to adopting this plan.

As well, the Marines have excelled in "Small Wars" for many years, being able to "kick in the door" and then administer nations during the "Banana Wars" and other operations prior to WW II. Even in the post war environment, Marines have remained more flexible and open minded (for the most part), even to the point of being the early adopters of John Boyd's OODA Loop theory.


while this might not be a magic bullet against the Taliban and their fellow traveller's, it will certainly shake up the local environment.


----------



## Matt_Fisher (11 Oct 2007)

damn...I've been to Iraq with the Marines, now I might just have to re-enlist to get over to Afghanistan.


----------



## HItorMiss (11 Oct 2007)

Field test all your own Kit Matt


----------



## medaid (12 Oct 2007)

Oh my! I can just picture it now.


Matt Fisher on the cover of Soldier of Fortune completely loaded out with everything CP has to offer 

MAJOR advertising shabam!


----------



## CougarKing (12 Oct 2007)

Shouldn't this thread be merged with this earlier thread? It is pretty much the same topic, after all.

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/67131.new.html#new


----------



## GK .Dundas (12 Oct 2007)

Some of this sounds like good old fashioned empire building , I forsee  more then few Kipling poems showing up soon in the Marine Corps Gazette.


----------



## Kiwi99 (12 Oct 2007)

Good idea me thinks.  Political or not, and it probably is'nt if you take the time to think about it, the Marines have historically been better suited to small unit combat against bigger and more established forces in a small area.   ISAF is turning into a bunch of pussies, so maybe the Marines can get it back to the good old days, like in 06 when we  were in it to win it!  Sometimes change can be good, and this is one of those times.


----------



## tomahawk6 (12 Oct 2007)

Update

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/10/army_afghan_react_071011w/
Generals slam Marine wish for Afghanistan mission

By Sean D. Naylor - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Oct 12, 2007 5:38:16 EDT

Generals in the Army and on the Joint Staff reacted with surprise at a Marine Corps move to assume the Army’s combat role in Afghanistan and expressed doubt that the Corps could handle the mission without substantial support from the larger ground service.

The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times reported Oct. 11 that the Marine Corps has floated the idea of removing its estimated 25,000 troops in Iraq and taking over the mission in Afghanistan, where there are no significant Marine forces at present.

“This is not going to go down well with the Army,” said a general on the Joint Staff, adding that the issue “is going to be more contentious and sensitive than many people outside of the inside team realize.”

The Joint Staff officer was one of several generals who spoke only on the condition of anonymity and said the Marine initiative to supplant the Army in Afghanistan runs counter to the U.S. military’s increasingly joint approach to warfare.

“We’re seeking joint solutions to most of the challenges we face today, to include Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said. “A single service approach? Holy smokes. Why would we ever go back to that way of war fighting, particularly when it doesn’t give you any advantage over your enemy and in fact complicates life tremendously in terms of sorting out how you’re going to support all of this?”

A retired Army general with Afghanistan experience agreed. “The fact that a service would propose somehow that their service would take over a war seems to me to fly in the face of everything that’s been done since Goldwater-Nichols was passed in 1986,” he said, referring to legislation mandating integration of the capabilities of the military services.

However, he said, “there’s going to be a tremendous number of Army soldiers out there, even if, quote unquote, the Marines take over the mission,” because the Marines would have to rely on the Army for support in Afghanistan.

“There are some extraordinarily obvious flaws in this,” the retired Army general said. “The Marines don’t bring any of the infrastructure, logistics, aviation, all of the other enablers that are necessary to fight in this environment successfully.”

The Joint Staff general noted that although the Marine combat formations are organized on deployments into Marine air-ground task forces, or MAGTFs (pronounced mag-taffs), which combine ground maneuver forces with fixed-wing air support. “The MAGTF is not designed to do sustained operations inland without any extensive Army support as well as Navy support,” he said

Marine units are designed to be self-sustaining for up to 30 days in the case of a Marine expeditionary unit and 60 days in the case of a Marine expeditionary brigade, he said. For longer deployments, the Army is obliged “by law” to provide logistical support to the Marines, he added.

An active-duty Army general with recent Afghanistan experience said the Marines lacked much of the equipment that allowed the Army to fight effectively in Afghanistan. For instance, he noted that Marine helicopters are not as capable as those of the Army.

The Marines’ twin-rotor CH-46 is not considered as strong as its Army equivalent, the CH-47 Chinook, a critical factor when operating in the rugged mountainous terrain of eastern Afghanistan.

“If you’re along the [Pakistan] border ... you’d better have the capability to get up around 10,000 feet,” the Army general said. “It’s a tough fight in Afghanistan. ... It’s not a cakewalk by any measure, and if you’re not geared appropriately, it’s even harder.”

The generals also expressed concern that the Marines’ seven-month rotations were ill-suited to the demands of a counterinsurgency campaign in which nurturing relationships with local figures over long periods can be the key to victory. Army units deploy to Afghanistan for at least 15 months.

“Marines rotate for seven months,” said the retired Army general. “That’s extraordinarily disruptive in a counterinsurgency campaign. The [Army] brigade that just came out of Afghanistan was there for 16 months.”

“The Afghans, they have the utmost respect for the United States military and they don’t want you to leave,” said the active-duty Army general with recent Afghanistan experience. “If you’re constantly churning at six months or seven months, as the Marines are doing now ... people aren’t going to connect with you, and you’ll lose some of those gains.”

Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway briefly joked about the proposal at a dinner hours after the news reports hit the streets and were generating controversy, but otherwise refused to discuss it.

“Would any of you retirees like to go with us to Afghanistan?” he quipped at the Marine Corps Association’s Ground Awards Dinner in Arlington, Va., where he was the guest speaker.

After the dinner, he declined to discuss the issue with a Military Times reporter.

“It’s premature at this time for me to talk about it,” Conway said. “If there is an appropriate point in time, if certain things happen, we’ll let you know so we can get it out to the Marines.”

Army Gen. Dan McNeill commands NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, and is the overall commander of U.S. forces in the country, which number about 26,000. But if the Marines provided the bulk of the U.S. combat forces, the Corps might push for one of its own to be given that four-star command slot, according to the retired Army general with Afghanistan experience.

“That’s certainly something that would be out there on the table now, wouldn’t it?” he said. The Joint Staff general agreed. “I’m sure that has entered the equation,” he said.

The generals also took umbrage at the implication in the newspaper stories announcing the Marine initiative that it was the Marines stationed in Iraq’s Anbar province who played the leading role in fostering the “Anbar awakening” that saw local Sunni tribes switch sides and take up arms against al-Qaida in Iraq. They said that much of the credit belonged to Army Col. Sean McFarland and his 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division.

“There is concern [among Army officers] that we’re overplaying the Marines’ assertion that they’re the masters of counterinsurgency and they might be trying to export that into Afghanistan,” the retired Army general said.

The active-duty Army general with recent Afghanistan experience said there appeared to be a lack of analysis underpinning the reported Marine initiative.

“The question that has to be asked is: Do they have the command and control, logistics and equipment architecture to conduct this fight?” he said. “You have to do a troop-to-task analysis on the ground in Afghanistan and work it backwards, and then say, what is the right force for this mission? As opposed to making a strategic announcement that this is where we want to go, and then trying to make it fit. ”

Staff writer Michael Hoffman contributed to this report.


----------



## GAP (12 Oct 2007)

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> Turf wars 8)



Yep...


----------



## CougarKing (6 Dec 2007)

A little update. It seems that US Marines may not become the prime force in Afghanistan after all, according to this article:

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,157673,00.html?wh=wh



> No Shift of Marines to Afghan War
> Associated Press  |  December 06, 2007
> WASHINGTON - The top Marine general said Dec. 5 that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has rejected his proposal to shift Marine forces from Iraq to Afghanistan, reflecting in part the Bush administration's concern that recent security gains in Iraq are fragile and reversible.
> 
> ...


----------



## razorguns (26 Dec 2007)

Iraq is where the majority of bloodshed, fighting and terrorists are.  

His comments on why they should be in afghan not iraq makes no sense.

r


----------



## CougarKing (27 Dec 2007)

razorguns said:
			
		

> Iraq is where the majority of bloodshed, fighting and terrorists are.
> 
> His comments on why they should be in afghan not iraq makes no sense.
> 
> r



Umm...so you don't think the joint US Army and USMC's surge of troops from months ago worked? Violence is down in Iraq and is said to be the lowest it has been in months, according to the media, if you haven't noticed.

So while the violence there hasn't ended and there is still work to be done, at least there has been progress. Here's one article from as early as October that confirms it:

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSCOL24813120071022?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true



> Violence in Iraq drops sharply: Ministry
> Mon Oct 22, 2007 1:01pm EDT
> BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Violence in Iraq has dropped by 70 percent since the end of June, when U.S. forces completed their build-up of 30,000 extra troops to stabilize the war-torn country, the Interior Ministry said on Monday.
> The ministry released the new figures as bomb blasts in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul killed five people and six gunmen died in clashes with police in the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala south of the Iraqi capital.
> ...


----------

