Samizdata

Now I know we said this before but this really is the last Samizdata article on the subject for a while… unless of course someone sends us an article which is pure genius and covers new ground. Patrick Phillips gets the last word

I thought I might offer my two-cents worth in the controversy concerning our armed forces in Afghanistan. The original post by Mr. de Havilland concerning the utility of the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy aircraft carriers was true as far as it went. But it also read like someone from the Navy frantically trying to justify the Navy/Marine Corps budget and force-structure. There’s nothing really wrong with that (and the USN/USMC certainly requires no justification to me), but the analysis provided was highly selective.

When it became obvious that Afghanistan needed to be targeted for the Taliban’s role in supporting the terrorists, we had precisely three things in our military arsenal that could be quickly mobilized to “reach out and touch” that distant, land-locked country. They were Special Forces (predominately Army), USAF heavy bombers, and the Navy’s carrier aircraft and cruise missiles.

We promptly used the available resources — and to impressively good effect. After only a few weeks of preparation time, the Special Forces were in-country conducting reconnaissance and contacting the locals, the USN had grabbed control of the air and performed cruise missile strikes, and the heavy bombers began working their own special magic on the local landscape. The results have been uniformly (pun intended) unpleasant for the Taliban.

As the conflict in Afghanistan moves into its (hopefully) last stages, the USMC is serving its role of providing an extremely competent, highly transportable combined-arms force that will provide more direct muscle than Special Forces can provide. So Marines have seized control of an airstrip that was previously raided/scouted by Army Rangers.

What point am I trying to make here?

Teamwork. We needed all of the capabilities discussed here.

At various times, every force I’ve mentioned above have been declared superfluous by various “experts”.

Heavy Bombers? Don’t need them — their job can be done with cruise missiles and by smaller fighter-bomber aircraft.

Special Forces and Rangers? They dangerously strip too much high quality manpower out of the Army’s regular units.

Cruise missiles? Expensive, ineffective, destabilizing in terms of arms control.

Marines and aircraft carriers? Well, that’s already been discussed.

So while I appreciate the point that the Mr. de Havilland was making, I do think it needed to be expanded upon.

Patrick Phillips

Samizdata will give Ed Collins the final word in the on-going knife fight pertaining to the roles of the US Army and USMC. Seconds away, round four!

Sirs,

I regret disputing with a former Marine, as I was once part of that illustrious organization, but the statements of Lt Col. Pastel are simply Marine Corps propaganda. I was a weapons platoon sergeant with the 82nd Airborne, an Army unit, in one of the battalions that invaded that island.

As I seem to recall, there was a Seal team that did indeed drown, by being put out too far offshore. This was about five men, not the fifty cited by Col. Pastel. Nor were there seven thousand Rangers, as he states. Two Ranger battalions made first contact with the Cubans by making a low-altitude junp onto the airfield at Pt. Salinas. One of them, I think 1st Bn, brought only their officers and NCO’s, leaving the ‘kids’ at home in Ft. Lewis, in the same spirit as Leonidas sending home his young from Thermopolaye. At most, there were a few hundred Rangers on the island at any time.

The Army eventually put five thousand people on the island, but these were brought in after combat operations were concluded and consisted of MP’s, medical personnel, etc.

The Marine battalion (6th MEU, I think) did nothing more than land at Pearl and drive around a bit. The center of action was always the air strip and the medical school at the south end of the island, in which the Marines took no part.

All due respect to the Marine Corps and Col. Pastel, but the Marines had little effect on Grenada.

Yours truly,
Ed Collins