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 affec