Armed services committee, working at the state department and also earning a masters degree in International Security from Johns Hopkins university. As though that werent enough to make many of us wonder what weve been doing with our own time. She also taught in the Political Science department at the Us Naval Academy and has been a candidate for both the u. S. House and senate. Its really a pleasure to welcome you amy and to have you join brookings very own Michael O Hanlon the defense analysts, analysts, author of articles and books and numbers that are way too high for me to count. And of course the philip h. Knight chair in defense and strategy. A reminder to our audience that you can send questions to events at brookings. E d. U. Throughout. And thanks to those of you who have already done so. In march 2020 commandant of the u. S. Marine corps. General david h. Berger released force design 2030. His plan to match the capabilities of the marine corps to what he understands to be the work that the nation will need the marines to do in the contemporary operating environment. General berger and his staff describe f. D. 2030 is being directly responsive to the 2018 and 2022 National Defense strategies which instruct the services to contribute to National Efforts to compete with russia and china with china as the pacing threat. General berger and his team also described the plan as being consistent with the history, traditions and culture of the marine corps in particular by focusing the force on Naval Expeditionary warfare. The commandants design includes considerable change with planned adaptations to lethality, mobility, resilience and Talent Management and to the marine role in joint operations. These change initiatives are far from trivial. They include reduction or elimination of certain types of units and some military occupational specialties and they involve the reorganization and in fact the downsizing of the force. As a result, f. D. 2030 has received a considerable amount of interest and attention and as is to be expected from people of conscience who are committed to the good of the nation and devoted to the role of the marines and serving the nation. There has been debate some of it quite impassioned about whether general bergers vision is or is not right for the core and for the country. Were fortunate today to be able to draw both on the rich content generated in that debate and on the robust set of materials that the marine corps has made available to the public to explain the origins and details of f. D. 2030. There is very much to discuss here and so im actually going to get us started. But with a fairly baselining and straightforward question for the both of you about the full project of marine modernization, put simply in your judgment, do you agree with general berger that the concepts and plans that have emerged under his leadership do reflect the intent of the 2018 National Defense strategy and what we know from the two page fact sheet about the 2022. 2020 do nds 2022 nds. Amy, why dont you go ahead and get started please . Well in short yes. And what is important to note is that the n. D. S in 2018 and what appears to be the way were going in 2022 is that this way of thinking of how we have to structure our force is a aligned with both the republican and a democratic administration. So this isnt a knee jerk reaction. Weve been thinking about moving from how do we move from sort of land conflicts in the middle east to focus more on sea based, you know, conflicts in the pacific and so this force design in my opinion from general berger is looking at how does the marine corps fit into that bigger piece . And i think, you know, i think it makes sense. Mike, over to you. Thanks, melanie, and also excellent introduction of the topic and of both of us and like you, i am thrilled to have my good friend amy mcgrath, just a real american hero. Part of this discussion today , for me, the answer is mostly yes, and well get into specifics in a little bit. There is a chance in my opinion, the general has gone slightly too far on a couple of the changes and the fact that the vision may be largely derived from and based on the National Defense strategies of 2018 and 2022 is good as far as it goes. But National Defense strategies arent always the last word. They sometimes change after four years. And that gives general berger some additional reason to believe that this is a solid foundation. So does i think his own very sound understanding of the geopolitics of the 21st century and the importance of chinas rise. But i would remind folks that of course the 2018 National Defense strategy still prioritized russia as well as china. Different scenarios for dealing with a russian threat could involve certain kinds of Amphibious Operations or tank warfare that perhaps war against china would be less likely to. And moreover, the marines still have to worry about lesser threats, which is much of their history. You pointed out that the current vision is largely about returning the marines to Naval Expeditionary warfare. Thats a very important point. And some of us who remember all the heroics of the marines in iraq and afghanistan can forget if were not careful, im sure no marine would ever forget. But some of the rest of us could forget that the marines really are part of the department of the navy and their history is indeed maritime and their future is certainly maritime. But there are other concerns where the marines have sort of been, as they like to say, the nations 911 force. Often those are in the middle east. They could be in north korea over north korea or could be elsewhere. And i want to make sure the marines dont give up what they might need for those kinds of sort of firefighting operations in service of perhaps an overly focused china emphasis with the current National Defense strategy. So i have some reservations but i generally support the vision and i like a lot of whats in it. Thanks. And you know, im really looking forward to getting into some of those specifics of your concerns and areas that we can tease apart. I do want to draw on what you just raised about the history of the marine corps and turn back to you amy if we could for you to share your perspective on the history of the marine corps, those Traditional Missions culture ethos and where you see those characteristics maybe aligning well with general bergers vision and if there are areas in which you might see some challenges. The history, the culture of the marine corps first of all, its always been worried about its own existence. Theres this notion that we cant just be a second land army and so weve always sort of been focused on that. And the other thing that people have to understand, i think about the culture of the marine corps is that marines tend to focus on the being warriors, a people centric focus, and that that is really important to warfare. As opposed to more of a focus on technology which is some of the other services might lean toward. And so that has always been in our history and were very proud of that. So i think some of the force design 2030 and its focus on precision weapons, long range weapons, Electronic Warfare and some of that is scary to some because its a movement of maybe in their mind away from that, that sort of warrior ethos. However, you know, its important to note that not only this commandant but the previous one, general neller, understood that the marine corps is going to have to adapt is going to have to change because of the changing nature of warfare and that incremental change, which is whats been happening in the marine corps and in, in the past, you know, two decades, it is not happening quick enough. So thats why in my mind, force design 2030 has been developed because theres a real acknowledgement that things have to change. So i think that the other thing id like to point out is that, in terms of the, how you retain and recruit people and i know well get a chance to talk to this, but theres a real need to make sure that we retain people that we have spent a lot of money and years developing and that have the skills that we need to employ the new way of fighting wars. Shall we say, in this force design. Mike, i will welcome you to react or respond to anything you heard in amys comments. But then i do want to pick up on a couple of the things that she has introduced and turned to, it sort of comes back to a very sort of cut to the chase kind of question that we actually received from the audience, which is why are the major changes in the Marine Corps Force structure required . Mike, as someone who has studied military innovation for a long time im really into your , thoughts on general burgers reasons for and then the approach to modernization and in particular your views on the relationship between what general berger calls the three main realities of the International Environment today and the Modernization Program hes proposing in response to them. And those three main realities are the rise of the precision strike regime, adversarial Gray Zone Strategies and then the imperative of maritime campaigning. So i think that to reduce this a little bit more related to scenarios and specific operations, general berger i think is largely thinking about the Pacific Ocean. Not really even the entire indo pacific, primarily the pacific and largely the south and East China Sea areas and parts of the western Pacific Ocean that are contiguous to them. Places with a lot of islands, places with a lot of opportunity for setting up potentially small bases which do not depend on two mile long runways or other vulnerable infrastructure, but that can involve smaller teams of marines with the capability to develop their own intelligence on threats in the vicinity and strike those threats, probably largely with long range missiles and rockets. And therefore, general berger has decided the marine corps shouldnt have tanks anymore and made big changes there. Hes decided to replace a lot of the sort of dumb artillery with precision artillery. Hes decided to move from big amphibious ships where we put a lot of eggs and a lot of marines in one small basket or to be specific, about 35 ask its about 35 baskets. Thats the entire amphibious fleet. And he wants to move towards smaller ships, less vulnerable, more capable of limited operations and in a more dispersed kind of setting. And hes less worried about tank warfare in the broader middle east. Hes less worried about tank warfare in the Baltic States or the nordic countries dealing with russia. He apparently is less worried about being able to do an Amphibious Assault against north korea in the event of war there. And historically thats been thought to be a big part of a potential war plan, at least having the option after a north korean attack on south korea to potentially have marines establish a staging area inside of north korea itself, sort of an echo of what general macarthurs inchon landing did in 1950. But this time with primarily a marine emphasis or exclusively a marine emphasis. As i understand the war plans. I havent seen them and of course couldnt talk about them if i had. But those are the kinds of scenarios that i think general berger is deemphasizing in an effort to think about the maritime contest that could emerge either in so called low level gray zone operations or even in higher end combat and facing china in the western pacific. Well, lets talk a little bit then about the sort of Technology Element in particular. Because amy, you brought this up as something that might be sort of a point of friction in terms of the sort of historical or long term ethos of the marine corps and the human centric nature of it. Mike, in terms of military innovation, what strikes me about fd 2030 and, and you know, in fact all of general bergers sort of supportive material concepts, seems very much responsive to what he sees as a fundamental change in military technology. I wonder if either both of you agree with that or not or if you worry that the emphasis on the change in technology might lead to sort of these choices that, as you sort of describe, mike, create priorities in some areas and deemphasize others. My initial take is that what i liked about this force design is that there is almost finally, theres an acknowledgement that the marine corps cant do it all and we have to prioritize. There is this talk the marine corps needs to be this allencompassing force of readiness that can go anywhere at any time and fight anyone at any level short of nuclear war. What i liked about what general berger is trying to do is hes basically saying, we have physical constraints fiscal constraints in our country we will acknowledge, and because of the changing nature of war, because we are going to compete and fight and win in a war against a near peer competitor that has a precision weapons, is hard to detect, we are going to have to change. We are going to have to have people who are dispersed, marines that are expeditionary but cannot be seen necessarily. That basically forces that are resilient and not necessarily in one specific area but dispersed. Then you will have to have fires able to be employed at a lower level. You have to have different types of people, people that are better trained. I love that acknowledgment by the current marine commandant. I think we are on the right track and i like that they are saying look, we have fiscal constraints and we cant do it all, we have to focus on something. This is what the nation needs from us in the future. The only caveat i would add again is to say that im very hopeful. Im sure were all very hopeful that we actually never fight china. And i dont know what the risks are of war against china. I think theyre a little less than the conventional wisdom in washington, but we should want to make them lower whatever they are. They should be less because if u. S. China war ever did happen, we all know it could be a catastrophe that rivaled world war ii or worse if it goes to Nuclear Weapons employment. So to the extent that this can help deter china, i need to be pretty strongly in favor. And i would also reinforce and add an argument to what colonel mcgrath just said by noting that we have other parts of the u. S. Military that are capable of playing some Quick Response role, firefighting role, small war role. We have, for example, the 82nd Airborne Division in the u. S. Army. We have special forces and all special forces in all of the services at a somewhat smaller scale of potential combat. And so we dont need to ask the marines to do it all and we shouldnt for the kinds of reasons that amy has just mentioned. But again, i do worry that its more likely in my lifetime, im guessing, that therell be another conflict in the middle east, that there could be more trouble in europe or in north korea, that all these are places where we could see the nation challenged. And i have such love and admiration for the marine corps that i hate to see it give up core capabilities for those scenarios. And so just to be a little more specific, i have no problem with most of the concepts that general berger has not only conceptualized but experimented with, war gamed with, done some b Team Assessment of whether his Technology Analyses correct. I think hes done a good job. I think the marines have generally demonstrated the case for this kind of change pretty well. Im a little bit nervous about giving up all of the tanks and all of the maneuver warfare capability. Thats where my uncertainty ultimately winds up sort of distilling into that one particular concern. I dont know if one were to keep a smaller fraction of marine corps maneuver warfare capability, if that would be unrealistic and inefficient in light of all the other changes. And i appreciate general bergers concern about the federal deficit. He seems to be one of the very few people in the country that cares anymore. And i think were all gonna have to worry about the day when dods budget doesnt keep growing by 50 billion a year each year. So i admire the fiscal discipline. But i do worry that giving up maneuver warfare capability to the extent that this force design 2030 may do. That maybe just potentially one step too far. And that makes sense. And just to reiterate to you all and folks watching that it sounds, it appears though that the marine corps is still going to be designed to operate the same way that it has operated in the past, meaning its still going to have the Marine Air Ground task force, its still going to operate that way. We are still going to have muse. Muse are Marine Expeditionary units that are designed to be crisis response, forward deployed, thats not going away. Those are core components of what we all want and expect from the marine corps. And so, you know, my feeling again is that these, these changes are big. But the marine corps is pretty good at adapting when the nation needs us to adapt. And i think this is really important to be able to go up against a near peer competitor and be an incredible force that can fight against that near peer competitor. To just put a little bit of a fine point on it, what i dont hear either of you saying is that general berger and his team are falling victim to technological fetishism and sort of overdoing it on the basis of technology alone. But the concerns have more to do potentially for you, mike, about the kinds of engagements that the marines may likely be called upon to participate in. And so im curious about what you see or believe from what you have seen, is the role of the marines in the joint force now in light of these changes and how you see that sort of combination together, if you have concerns that it negatively affects the overall joint force capability, if its a matter of entrepreneurship and figuring it out. What is it that you see in these plans that sort of strike you about the role of the marines may be shifting in relation to its Sister Services . If you like, i will start this time i think generally its smart in terms of joint warfare because indeed we do have now five military Services Within the department of defense plus the coast guard. So six in total. And the marines should not be just a smaller second army, although sometimes theyre better at ground warfare than the army itself. And sometimes its good to see the two services in a sort of friendly way compete. And there are times, for example, with the vietnam war or with the anbar awakening in iraq where i think the marines actually had better counterinsurgency methods than the army. And sometimes counterinsurgency methods involved tanks, just to keep harping on that a little bit. But amy is also right that air Ground Task Forces involve a lot of things besides tanks and the marines can do those things with these new capabilities as well. I think the marines also put some useful friendly sibling pressure on the navy to rethink the focus on big ships. The navy is still going to own the amphibious ships that it uses to move marines around, those are within the navy service. But its the marine corps vision of what future Amphibious Operations could entail thats going to really influence how the navy builds those ships, designs of those ships, and i think the navy needs to do a more comprehensive rethink of how it sizes and scales its own fleet. Theres some indication its doing this under admiral gil day, but theres a long ways for the navy to go and maybe the marines can be a good impetus. So in that sense, in a contribution to the joint force, the marines can help shake up our thinking about the future of warfare. And the last point ill make is that people like dave at rand and others have been writing about the importance of having additional capability in the western pacific to make sure that china cant easily invade taiwan. That it could not mount a big Amphibious Assault quickly and somehow get away with it, especially if it chooses to preempt and destroy or incapacitate a big fixed infrastructure like the u. S. Air force Kadena Air Base on okinawa, japan or any aircraft carriers that the United States may have operating in the vicinity of taiwan. And if the marines can lead the way towards deploying these teams that have the capacity for medium range fires that could , for example, sink amphibious ships and maybe even find them with its own Sensor Networks that are not dependent on satellites that may be incapacitated or jammed in their Communications Links by china in a future scenario, then the marines may be again pointing the way towards the joint force obtaining crucial capabilities that are necessary not just for winning a war but more importantly for deterring it in the first place. So again, even though ive had some caveats in this discussion so far about my view of forced design when 30, for the most part the overall thrust is very solid in terms of Overall National strategy, in terms of key military scenarios and in terms of the Technological Capabilities that we now have available and should be exploiting. Yeah, i think we always have to go back to what the goal is , and you said it a few times, mike, and the goal is to deter major conflict in this region. In order to do that you have to have a credible force that has the conventional capability to fight and win. Given the nature of war and the way it is moving. So that is what the goal is here. I think the testimony, going back to your question, melanie the testimony that weve seen so , far from the combat commanders when asked about this new force design from the marine corps has been generally positive and that is important to point out. These are the commanders, the four stars who are out there looking at their regions every day, and it is not just the pacific region, you know . The other regions have also said that this has been generally positive. So i think the marine corps has a history of trying to shake up thinking and thats a good thing. And i think this aligns with that past history. The other thing that is important to note is that when reading and studying the force design 2030, the other thing that i really liked is theres an acknowledgement that we havent figured it all out. This isnt set in stone. There are other things that need assessment. Again, this isnt a knee jerk. Theres been lots of war gaming. Lots of studies. But for example, the commandant talks about needing more assessment about the f35 capabilities, about the ground tactical vehicles capabilities. The Infantry Battalion redesign hasnt been set in stone. Theyre talking about logistics and that they need to think through all of these things. Theyre also talking about the future of, you know, what other capabilities might we need to look at either connecting more with the navy or even bringing into the marine corps, like coastal mine countermeasures and that sort of thing. So i think this is good, in a sense that saying, hey, we need more assessment on these things we are being transparent about it, and that is refreshing. I want to ask a quick question on the tail end of this, and then i might change us a little bit and look at a bit more of the people element. But before we do that, mike i , wanted to ask you, amy just brought up the very explicit acknowledgement in force design 2030 and throughout about how much more there is to learn and the process through which the marine corps will continue to do that. General berger has called it the campaign of learning. It is very much a feature of the documents that theyve produced. Use of the overall thrust of the entire design seems to you at least from the joint perspective to be on track and a good idea. What could you see in this campaign of learning or what features of the International Environment might change that would suggest to you that a real redirect of prioritization in the marine corps would need to happen . What is it that we could see happen that would convince you away from this general design . A u. S. China friendship i guess would be the number one bottom line. Because i do feel that as long as we have the unresolved disputes with china in the western pacific and im not as much as a sign of folk sinophobe or a china hawk as a lot of people i know but i would acknowledge that having just been with you in taiwan and revisiting that issue certainly , understanding the threats that china has declared it would consider posing to taiwan to various claims it has in the south china sea, to the senkaku islands. Also claimed by japan in the East China Sea. That i just think theres a lot of maritime mischief that could go down in the next 5 to 25 years or more. And unfortunately even though most of the stakes, with the exception of taiwan and access to key shipping lanes, most of the stakes are relatively small. Once a war gets started and theres enough mutual suspicion and antagonism between the two great superpowers of the 21st century, as i expected china and the u. S. Will be, then theres no telling where a conflict could go. And so it really is correct to center on this relationship with an eye towards improving deterrence. And its just so important. On the other hand, Vladimir Putin is the guy whos actually killing people right now and actually disrupting the international order. So any strategy needs to stay as focused on him as on china. I think the 2018 National Defense strategy had it right when it prioritized those two countries and i am a little nervous that the 2022 nds, or what we know about it so far, might overemphasize china. But certainly this could be, you know, arguing about how many angels dance on the head of a pin because weve got to think about both and weve certainly got to think a lot about china. Amy, i would welcome your thoughts on that as well but i also want to touch on some of the people elements that you had mentioned earlier. So the kind of people that you think the marine corps will need in the future, the skills and attributes theyll want to have. And then if you can talk a little bit about what you might anticipate for the transition from the recruit and replace model to a new retain and invest approach. Well, just, you know, before i go into the personnel and the Talent Management, when mike was speaking, it reminded me of what robert gates used to say. And im trying to paraphrase it here, but he said something along the lines of the United States has a perfect record in modern times of predicting when and where future outbreaks or future wars are going to happen and we always get it wrong. A perfect record of getting it wrong. But i also think through deterrence, as you have said, we also have a perfect record of preventing largescale conflict in the places that matter. And i think that this is doing that, you know . This is a move toward that end. But in terms of the talent, i mean in the skills in order to change your force and design it the way that the marine corps seems to want to go, theres an acknowledgment that you have to shift from this attitude of we are going to recruit and replace , meaning every four years we will get a new batch of folks in there. That has been the way the marine corps has run for a long time, and shift to trying to retain and invest in people. And why is that so important . Because you, for example, if in this plan, the marine corps is getting rid of some Infantry Battalions, but the response to that is, but the Infantry Battalions that are left are going to be better trained. Well, better trained means you need to keep people for longer. Youre investing a lot of money into them. Youre investing a lot of training, a lot of education, a lot of time into them. So what is it going to take to keep people . And this is where the folks in the marine corps and i know they are super smart and they look in there trying to figure out how you keep the right people and the system of Talent Management, this personnel system that weve had in the marine corps for 70 some years theres a lot of folks , looking at that saying, does it, does it meet the needs for 2022 . Is it going to meet the needs for 2030 . The same rigid way that we have had this personnel system for so long, does it meet the needs of the modern family, the modern marine family . You know, spouses. So much of keeping people is keeping spouses happy and employed. Thats so important. Should we be moving people every three years . How about things like daycare . I always tell the story of the most stressed that i was in 20 years in the marine corps was not in combat, it was trying to get daycare for my second child when we had pcs. And these are the types of things where you have to look at it and say, how do we retain the people that we have invested in . Because again, why is that so important if youre gonna do these dispersion operations that the marine corps wants to do, where you have folks of the lowerlevel being able to be trained at a higher level in order to go against a near peer enemy. When you have that you have to invest more in education, you have to invest more in training and because these folks are , gonna have just a higher level of technological savvy. Mike, did you have anything that strikes you about any of the personnel, Talent Management changes the marine corps making or do you also have a stressful daycare story you want to make sure we are where are aware of . I may not be that smart, but im smart enough not to want to compete with amy mcgrath on a marine corps personnel story or a daycare story. I will, if you dont mind, and less are going to get to it later, i would like to bring in one other perspective that i think generally supports general vergers bergers vision which is based on history of , military revolution and innovation. If i could add a word on that please. And i think there have been plenty of times when weve seen, you know, revolutions in military affairs. If you want to use that hackneyed phrase or whatever expression where theres been big change in the nature of warfare and its been important. Its been crucial to National Victory or even survival. We saw a lot of innovation for example, in world war ii. Unfortunately initially on the german and japanese sides with blitzkrieg and the attack on pearl harbor. But then we adapted, our allies adapted, and we ultimately did a lot of things, including certainly in the pacific with Amphibious Operations and the marine corps, that lead to our ultimate victory and that was crucial for the good of the world. So military innovation is really important and its especially important for a country thats sort of on top of the heap, not to sit on its laurels, get sloppy and lazy and wait for the next rival to get all innovative and creative and do some things that were not previously expected. Thats happened a lot in the history of warfare as well. But on balance, i think that the marines have thought this through pretty well. There have been times where weve had bad ideas for military revolutions, just to quickly name three or 4 the curtis lemay concept of Preventive Nuclear attack on the soviet union in the 1950s, which was thought to be a potentially useful strategy for dealing with the soviet threat i think was just too heartless to be american, frankly, and unrealistic as to when you would really decide to pull the trigger. The army also made some big mistakes with Nuclear Weapons with the socalled Pentomic Division thinking you could use Small Nuclear artillery to essentially defeat an enemy three miles downrange, have your own guys sort of go to ground and lie flat during the Nuclear Detonations and then 10, 15 minutes later, seize the land that had been essentially liberated from these dead, still smoldering enemy soldiers who had been killed by Nuclear Weapons. Even if you detonated the weapons high enough that you didnt get a lot of follow, again this was potentially going , to make a nuclear, you know, cemetery out of much of europe. It was a bad idea. The army figured out that it was a bad idea. We can go through a number of other cases like this, but one more thats at least worth mentioning briefly is that in the debate about the revolution 1990s of military affairs or the so called revolution, people thought that precision strike weapons could do it all after watching operation desert storm. And then of course, we had the black hawk down tragedy in somalia and then we had the inability to affect the sort of small scale marauding serbian militias in bosnia and kosovo where High Altitude air power really couldnt get the job done if it couldnt target the people on the ground who were causing the mischief, because we didnt have people there to do it. And then finally, in the early years of the 21st century, the army had this notion of a future combat system and a much lighter, more maneuverable army that would not require big tanks , that would be able to sort of sense an enemys presence and preemptively attack it before being hit. So it wouldnt need all the armor. And the whole army vision for its 21st Century Force was built upon this idea, including the notion of replacing a 70 ton abrams tank with a 20 ton combat vehicle. It didnt pass muster because the technologies werent ready and because the army was our backstop against the potential for largescale ground warfare. Fastforward 20 years, the marines are now trying to be lighter, more supple, more deployable. You could say are they making the same mistake that the army made 20 years ago . But i would tend to say no because first of all the technologies are much more advanced, and the marines are second, not our top land power backstop. They are indeed our expeditionary Maritime Force first and foremost. And so i just wanted to add that Historical Perspective because i think it points out both the essential, you know, imperative of innovating in warfare, but also some Cautionary Tales of when we pushed too hard, when the vision was not good, was not well grounded in strategy or technology, and when it failed. In this case, i think the marines have avoided most of those previous mistakes. So again, i generally support the vision with that one caveat about maneuver and tank warfare capability. Thank you very much for that. I cant resist adding just sort of one other element to the themes that youve just brought up and the observations that you made. So i think there is an important difference between the periods in which, in particular, the light armor vehicle and army changes in the nineties as compared to today. And i think that element is that during that period, the military was doing capabilities based planning. Today were back in an , environment where we can think about planning in terms of place and adversary. And so i think that what i see at least in the marine corpss changes is a responsiveness to technological advancements, the maturity of precision strike and the ability now to think much more concretely. Not just about comparison of capabilities but comparison relative to a particular adversary in a particular kind of environment. So sorry, forgive me for that intrusion into the conversation. But i do want to stick a little bit if i could on the theme of military innovation. Weve had some questions coming from the audience and they sort of cluster around the effects of observing whats happening in ukraine, in the conflict with russia, and how, if at all, this changes or should change thinking about the marine corps plan. Is there something that you see in whats been unfolding in that conflict that you think relates usefully to force design 2030 or the marine corpss broader modernization plans either to the good or potentially as part of the campaign of learning that might suggest that theres some needed adjustments . Amy, ill start with you this time. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is the 300 plus tanks and russian vehicles that have been destroyed in this fight. And the notion that were worried about tanks going away in the marine corps and you know, i look at ukraine and im thinking, well that the tanks , are getting destroyed there. So i think that were all watching whats happening in ukraine. But in general, i still think the force design 2030 is still going in the right direction. And what strikes me about ukraine initially was the so much of what has happened is being seen by the entire world, using cell phones and other things, and how that affects the morale of troops and how that has shaped how the world has responded to this. And the fact that ukraine is, is getting so many weapons and supplies from the rest of the world because of its initial resistance. But because that initial resistance was communicated in the way it was to the rest of the world was just extraordinary. And i think the marine corps, and our entire nation, our military needs to look at that. In terms of like, hey, its not always just about tactics and weapons. Its also about how the war, how the conflict is being presented to the rest of the world in terms of the strategy to win, whatever that political in state should be. I hope that makes sense. I would add a couple of points. One i think, you know, even though some of the commentary about marine corps innovation and force design has alleged 2030 that the marines are getting away from artillery, its not really true. Maybe im oversimplifying myself, but im pretty sure im closer to the truth to say the marines are getting away from inaccurate artillery and moving more and more towards the kind of systems that we are seeing ukraine now employ effectively against russian infrastructure command centers, weapons depots, specifically the high mars the high mobility artillery rocket system and weapons like that. And the marines are adding that kind of capability to their force structure as part of the redesign. So kudos on that. Also, its been crucial that ukraine has managed to retain intact command and control Communications Intelligence systems and acquire information locally often about russian , forces through various kinds of methods, some of which have made it to the press and some havent. But but we can see theres a lot going on and it does underscore the importance of tactical reconnaissance, especially in an environment where an enemy could try to attack the National Level infrastructure, including satellites, fiber optic cables, large command centers. And so i think the marines are again, general bergers again correct in his assessment of trends in warfare on that front. I will add the one point as were having this friendly debate on tanks, that of youre right, amy, of course that a lot of russian tanks were destroyed. Thats because the russian combined arms methods were so poor. U. S. Marines would never fight with such poor combined arms methods. They would use dismounted infantry to create protection for those tank convoys and they would maneuver in better chosen places than Vladimir Putins decision to come down on the road on february 24 in the middle of the ukrainian winter and predictable locations. Marines would never do that. So anyway. But i take the spirit of your point and i generally like the spirit of what the marines are doing with their forces. I do think the ukraine war tends to reaffirm and shore up the logic of what theyve argued. Thanks to both for that. I want to bring in another audience question because i think it accesses something that we havent addressed just yet. The question is this how will f. D. 2030 support Security Cooperation strategy to build capability and capacity of partner nations in the indo pacific, specifically to deter aggression . But in general thoughts on the marine construct and its implications for our relationships with our allies and partners . Well, my initial thought is that still needs to be a really important part. Security cooperation look, we have seen, i think in ukraine even, the fact that we have been partnered with ukraine for 20 years has really helped them defend their country, and in lots of different ways. We need to know that Security Cooperation is so important to our own defense because theres going to be times where the president of the United States is not going to want to commit u. S. Forces to the battle, and to have partners that can, you know, from other nations have the capability to defend themselves or to work in a theater when we cannot because of the constraints think of ukraine. Were not gonna send forces there. Why . Because of the nuclear conflict. So weve got to have other partners that that have the capabilities to defend themselves in our own interest , in the interest of the United States. And so i think that that this is really important to make sure that we continue that that mission. Great, thanks. Im going to add another, and this one is a fairly specific audience question, but it is about aircraft wing. So im gonna put it out there for either or both of you to address. F. D. 2030 has reduced the size of the Marine Aircraft Wing and eabo or Expeditionary Advanced basing operations has a limited role for crude aviation. Was this move justified at the time and do events since then reinforce or contradict this decision . And the crude part is c r e w e d, not the alternative crud. Just to be sure my pronunciation came through clearly. Its very kind of you and then amy at least can clean up my mess with this. I think that in general, fixed wing aircraft operating off of long runways should not be the centerpiece of our capabilities for anything we do in the western pacific. So thats the starting point. Thats the most important point. Second, even aircraft operating off of big ships. While there is a better hope that big ships can survive because they can sail further away from china and we can try to jam satellite links and things like that, try to operate with electronic silence. So there are some things, although its not as easy when youre launching and recovering airplanes to be in radio silence. But nonetheless, i think that on balance, i would want to have more of my aviation thats able to operate vertically or from short runways and improvised runways as a general proposition. So i would start with those core principles. Im less worried about the specifics of a force design. I dont really have a particular commentary on what the marines are thinking about for that. And i agree with what you just said, mike. And my understanding when i read through force design 2030 and talking to some folks is Marine Aviation, its only its sort of drilled into you from the very beginning of being a marine and going to flight school, is Marine Aviation only exists to support the ground forces. Its this Marine Airground Task force, we are all this team. And if youre going to not have as many numbers wise of ground forces, so not as much infantry, you dont necessarily need the same amount of aviation support to support the ground forces. So the marine cuts that are proposed to, say, ch53s, mv22s, cobras, saying were gonna cut those numbers of squadrons down or those numbers of aircraft down thats pretty , much because if you cut or reduce the ground forces, you dont need the same level of aviation support. Although the fighter support, the fighter attack support doesnt seem to be cut very much at all. Just maybe slightly. And thats probably because theres an acknowledgement that we need that long range capability for precision attacks still. And all of the capabilities that come with the f35 are so important to make sure that we have available for modern warfare in the future. C, mike, that worked out just great. You didnt need to be corrected at all. Everybody enriched the conversation, so its perfect. My plan worked amazingly well. Im gonna ask another specific question, but this one comes from the audience again, its a history question. It takes us back to pearl harbor. And the question is essentially that, you know, maybe history doesnt repeat itself, but there are some similarities that this questioner sees. Advanced base garrison by smallish marine units dependent on Long Range Anti air and surface long rage fires, but widely dispersed over a vast logistically challenging environment are we at risk of , the same pitfalls and disasters of early 1942 and or how would we avoid those . So if thoughts emerge to you on that. I will start again with you, mike. Its a good question. Although the specificity about early 1942 has me a little bit scratching my head about what the questioner most refers to, because we werent really doing that much in early 1942 except licking our wounds and thinking about the ultimate operations in the coral sea, guadalcanal area. Later that year, where i think we did improvise our way pretty well. It was tough going and its a fascinating part of world war ii, if thats whats being referred to here, and the marines were, you know, the whole joint force was, was part of it. As we started to figure out on a smaller scale, some of the Amphibious Operations and Island Hopping methods that we would employ as the war went on. And so in a sense, it does show what you can do even with relatively modest numbers. It does show the difficulty of logistics, but we kept those forces going and alive. The japanese struggled to feed their forces on some of those islands. I think that its true that keeping people provisioned on small outposts and a lot of different islands is gonna be hard if we wind up in an actual hot war with china. Again, the primary goal here is deterrence, but also you can station those marines with several months worth of certain kinds of supplies. As technologies improve for Power Generation and water distillation and purification you can actually probably ask , those marines to be effective with a smaller logistics footprint over a certain period of time. And if theyre if theyre only using five or 10 weapons to sink five or 10 key ships, they dont need a whole lot of ammunition. This is not just some artillery. So i think that the logistics piece is at least partly addressable through the vision that general berger has laid out. Thanks. The logistics question has come up, so appreciate you addressing that. I do wanna fit in one last question here. Because weve had a lot of interest from the audience about the about taiwan contingencies specifically. And so youre welcome to comment on any element of the taiwan question that you see fit. I will give you one specific, and it has to do with the idea that the american public, in this questioners words seems , predisposed to provide self defense assistance but not to send combat forces. So does that affect recent current or potential usmc assistance specifically to taiwan . Amy, i will start with you. That is a great question, and i dont know the answer. However, i would say this yes we have been predisposed to only , send selfdefense equipment in the past. However with ukraine and what , has been happening, my hope is that the American People will look at that and say, you know, maybe we need to be supplying our partners with more lethal weapons here. And so that gets the political push to be able to do that. Because i think that might be really important. I know, and mike is the expert in this area, so i will shut up shortly, but i know there is a fine balance here with not pushing too far when it comes to china. We all want to deter major conflict. So the debate is how do you do that . And if you send too much too , many aggressive, more aggressive weapons to taiwan, does that tip the balance to make source . And that something i will kick over to mike. Thanks. Ill respond on that but i also was reflecting on the previous question and perhaps it was intended to evoke the terrible tragedy of the Bataan Death March in the philippines early 1942, which does sort of drive home the point of the vulnerability of a bastion of American Forces and what can happen if they are overwhelmed. And so i think the question is very good for getting us to think hard about whether are we talking about 100 small outposts with 100 marines each . Are we talking about 10 that are more defensible but that have some Geographic Scope that can fall back into a more limited space and form a defensive perimeter if there is a chinese Amphibious Assault on one of those islands, lets say in the philippine archipelago or somewhere else . So i appreciate the question. I think thats the kind of ongoing analysis were gonna have to keep doing. On the taiwan question, i think that amy said it right about how to think about taiwan. Its own defenses. Im mostly concerned about taiwan being able to defend itself early against potential invasion, when its not yet clear the United States will react fast enough and when we may not want to be the ones to draw first blood against china. So lets imagine this hypothetical where china loads up 100 or 500 or even 1000 smaller ships. And its clearly preparing either to do a very menacing, realistic exercise that simulates an Amphibious Assault on taiwan or its preparing the actual thing. And its only realistic hope is gonna be that either it takes American Forces out of the war early and also taiwan runways and other, you know, capabilities that could attack those ships through a preemptive missile strike, maybe some cyber strikes and commando operations , or that somehow we just sit out the war, because we dont want to draw first blood. Weve got a policy of strategic ambiguity. And so we want taiwan to be able to fend off that initial invasion by itself. So that a future american president doesnt have to make that momentous decision about deciding to sink 100 chinese ships before the chinese have even fired at us. In other words, to essentially accept the risk of world war iii because that president disbelieves the chinese claims that this is just an exercise, just a threatening maneuver we dont really want to leave an american president with that binary choice. So we want taiwan to be able to handle its own defenses at first, in that scenario in particular. I think our weapons transfer policies should therefore focus on improving its porcupine defense capabilities. Antiship missiles, smart Shallow Water minefields, stinger, anti aircraft missiles, some javelins in case some of the chinese do get ashore. And the good news is those weapons are not threatening offensively against the chinese mainland. So i think we can do a lot of this while avoiding the conundrum that amy rightly points out. Great. I cant thank you both enough for this conversation today. The very thoughtful approach, different perspectives, the use of history, the use of experience. Before i sign us off, i cant resist taking advantage of the last three minutes that we are allotted and inviting you both to add anything you think was overlooked or any lust quick thoughts you would like to share with the audience today. Amy, to you first please. I will just reiterate i thought this force design 2030 is well thought out. Its not a knee jerk reaction. Its aligned with the greater strategic message and guidance of two administrations now, one on the republican side and one on the democratic side. And i think we are moving in the right direction, and im glad to be with you today. And i will just say first, im glad to be both of you glad to be with both of you, and again, amy, it is a privilege. Youre a great friend. But youre also just a Great American and inspiration and were so pleased to do this event with you at brookings. I also want to say as a non marine, i want to give all my marine friends a shout out because i think this debate that the marines themselves have often been having with each other and often in public and often with a little bit of tension has been for the nations good and melanie. You referred to this earlier yourself and using laudatory language about all the marines youve heard in this debate. I know sometimes its made things uncomfortable for the official marine corps positions and some of the retirees who have been involved in the debate, but ive learned by listening. Ive learned by listening to that debate and its made the questions more pointed and therefore helped me and others analyze them more thoroughly. I think thats what democracy is about. That kind of healthy debate. Even when there might be a culture that says, you shouldnt have those debates in public. Youve educated us all with those debates. So regardless of who you are and which position, which side of the debate you have been on i , want to extend a personal note of gratitude. I couldnt agree more. That is just the right note to end on. On behalf of brookings Foreign Policy our thanks to you amy and , to you mike for the excellent discussion and to our audience for tuning in today. I hope everybody has a wonderful day. Thanks very much. Cspans washington journal. 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