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From: Marine Corps Times
The Marine Corps has canceled plans to deactivate three infantry battalions and a regimental headquarters amid growing need for manpower within the service's deployed crisis-response units, Marine Corps Times has learned.
The move is tied to a larger strategy that aims to slim the active-duty Marine Corps to 182,000 personnel. Moreover, it appears to signal the end to discussions of a 174,000-member force, which just last year senior military officials deemed likely as the threat of severe budget cuts loomed.
Marine manpower numbers continue to fall as part of a meticulous restructuring plan set in motion four years ago. Thousands of jobs have been eliminated while the service scales down from a wartime strength that peaked above 202,000 personnel.
A spokesman for Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Maj. Anton Semelroth, said this adjustment will leave the service with 24 infantry battalions. It saves 8th Marine Regiment, based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, along with 1st Battalion, 4th Marines; 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines; and 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines.
Officials changed course, Semelroth said, due to the demand for Marines to support commanders overseeing military activity throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The decision was made last summer, he added.
These specialized units are known as special purpose Marine air-ground task forces, or SPMAGTFs. Plans call for building them around a rotating headquarters element composed of Marine expeditionary unit and regimental headquarters.
There are now two SPMAGTFs forward-deployed: SPMAGTF Crisis Response-Africa, based in Moron, Spain; and SPMAGTF Crisis Response-CENTCOM, which operates in various locations throughout the Middle East. Both were created after a deadly attack in 2012 on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which highlighted a need to have rapid-response troops based within striking distance of the world's most to volatile areas.
Officials expect the service to reach its target size of 182,000 by the end of this year. Current end strength sits just below 185,000.
"Since 2010, the Marine Corps has taken a hard look at what formula best supports a ready force that meets national security requirements within the confines of future budgetary constraints," Semelroth said. "As variables change, so does the formula. In the end, our goal is to field a force that is optimized to meet mission requirements while working within end-strength limitations."
The plan to deactivate 8th Marines was first promoted in 2011 as part of a force structure review that took place a year prior. From that effort, officials sought to create a post-war force of 186,600 active-duty Marines. Those plans called for dozens of deactivations and realignments spread out over at least five years.
That calculus shifted with the arrival of sequestration, the deep across-the-board budget cuts targeting defense and other federal spending. In late 2013 and again in early 2014, the Marine Corps' commandant, then Gen. Jim Amos, wrote and testified in defense of a force numbering no fewer than 174,000. At that size, he argued, the Marine Corps could respond to a single major crisis and meet its demands around the world.
"At the end of the day, a 174K Marine Corps gives America the best balance of the requirements of steady-state operations and crisis-response activities while accepting increased risk in major contingency operations," he wrote in an essay for the U.S. Naval Institute publication Proceedings.
While it looks like new missions have spared the Marine Corps the worst of the cuts, budget uncertainty could still alter the service's plans, Semelroth said. Marine officials are continuing to review and manage manning levels mindful of budgetary constraints, he said.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/careers/marine-corps/2015/01/19/usmc-drawdown-infantry-battalions/22005769/
The Marine Corps has canceled plans to deactivate three infantry battalions and a regimental headquarters amid growing need for manpower within the service's deployed crisis-response units, Marine Corps Times has learned.
The move is tied to a larger strategy that aims to slim the active-duty Marine Corps to 182,000 personnel. Moreover, it appears to signal the end to discussions of a 174,000-member force, which just last year senior military officials deemed likely as the threat of severe budget cuts loomed.
Marine manpower numbers continue to fall as part of a meticulous restructuring plan set in motion four years ago. Thousands of jobs have been eliminated while the service scales down from a wartime strength that peaked above 202,000 personnel.
A spokesman for Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Maj. Anton Semelroth, said this adjustment will leave the service with 24 infantry battalions. It saves 8th Marine Regiment, based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, along with 1st Battalion, 4th Marines; 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines; and 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines.
Officials changed course, Semelroth said, due to the demand for Marines to support commanders overseeing military activity throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The decision was made last summer, he added.
These specialized units are known as special purpose Marine air-ground task forces, or SPMAGTFs. Plans call for building them around a rotating headquarters element composed of Marine expeditionary unit and regimental headquarters.
There are now two SPMAGTFs forward-deployed: SPMAGTF Crisis Response-Africa, based in Moron, Spain; and SPMAGTF Crisis Response-CENTCOM, which operates in various locations throughout the Middle East. Both were created after a deadly attack in 2012 on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which highlighted a need to have rapid-response troops based within striking distance of the world's most to volatile areas.
Officials expect the service to reach its target size of 182,000 by the end of this year. Current end strength sits just below 185,000.
"Since 2010, the Marine Corps has taken a hard look at what formula best supports a ready force that meets national security requirements within the confines of future budgetary constraints," Semelroth said. "As variables change, so does the formula. In the end, our goal is to field a force that is optimized to meet mission requirements while working within end-strength limitations."
The plan to deactivate 8th Marines was first promoted in 2011 as part of a force structure review that took place a year prior. From that effort, officials sought to create a post-war force of 186,600 active-duty Marines. Those plans called for dozens of deactivations and realignments spread out over at least five years.
That calculus shifted with the arrival of sequestration, the deep across-the-board budget cuts targeting defense and other federal spending. In late 2013 and again in early 2014, the Marine Corps' commandant, then Gen. Jim Amos, wrote and testified in defense of a force numbering no fewer than 174,000. At that size, he argued, the Marine Corps could respond to a single major crisis and meet its demands around the world.
"At the end of the day, a 174K Marine Corps gives America the best balance of the requirements of steady-state operations and crisis-response activities while accepting increased risk in major contingency operations," he wrote in an essay for the U.S. Naval Institute publication Proceedings.
While it looks like new missions have spared the Marine Corps the worst of the cuts, budget uncertainty could still alter the service's plans, Semelroth said. Marine officials are continuing to review and manage manning levels mindful of budgetary constraints, he said.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/careers/marine-corps/2015/01/19/usmc-drawdown-infantry-battalions/22005769/
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Posted 10 y ago
Responses: 4
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Theres a lot of fat to be trimmed from the budget. I don't think we'll need to here, however, most of our foreign aid should be. I'll be dammed in I don't understand why America's infrastructure has taken a hit and we are giving billions away to other countries.
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SSG (Join to see)
As stuffy as it was, in my small mind, back in the 50 's and I guess the 60 's. I kinda wish it would be like that again. At least my thought or version of it. Because they did more family and hard working in America. Building it and fine tuning it. Now look at the mess we are in. I think those that came before us would hang there head and shame us.
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SSG (Join to see)
I'm a child of the 70's and 80's when men were still men, my brother who I admire was 60's about your age and he was a Ranger. He saw combat, and I hold him in High Regard. Really as well as other or any combat veteran as I am not. I have served during both wars of the cat box. But have yet to have the privilege of combat.
They were men back then and took care of their families and were doing BBQ's outside with the whole "American" motif. It's a good feeling in my mind and heart thinking about those times, really looking at photographs of them. I'm sure that there were not so great times, however the "spirit" of the times is magical in my eyes.
They were men back then and took care of their families and were doing BBQ's outside with the whole "American" motif. It's a good feeling in my mind and heart thinking about those times, really looking at photographs of them. I'm sure that there were not so great times, however the "spirit" of the times is magical in my eyes.
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As a Nation we draw down on the end of our bigger wars, then ramp up again when the next one hits (roughly 20-30 years-ish)...it's just what we do. Within that greater cycle are the minor cycles based on politics and world events.
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MSgt Kenneth Seif
Well we need to be building up not tearing down the military we have a problem and it isn't going away any time soon.
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Capt Richard I P.
Sgt Joseph Potts My professional opinion is that we exist to implement the will of policymakers. They've decided on a policy of reduced end-strength, and that fits the cycle of what we tend to do as a nation after long wars.
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