Q & A GEN. ROBERT B. NELLER, USMC
We will also bring in outside folks to red cell it, to ask why we did that and didn’t do this. We’re not dragging our feet, but we are not in a hurry to make a bad decision.
Does what you’ve learned so far sug- gest you will restructure the basic infantry unit? I think so. Not a huge change but [pos- sibly a change] to capability sets in different places throughout the ground combat element.
But this is nothing new. I’ve been doing this for over 41 years. We used to have fi ve tanks [not four] in a pla- toon [and] fi ve howitzers [not six] in a battery. We used to have TOW [tube-launched, optically tracked, wire command link-guided] missile battalions, then TOW companies and TOW platoons. Mortars used to be a [headquarters and services] com- pany; now they’re a weapons com- pany. We didn’t have heavy guns, and now we do. So we’re always iterating structure and organization.
Marines have spent many years in Iraq and Afghanistan. What did being in a landlocked war for that length of time do to your amphibious warfare capabili- ties? And if you lost readiness, have you gotten it back? We never stopped deploying Marines off of ship[s]. But after the start of Op- eration Iraqi Freedom, the focus was preparation for combat in Iraq. We had small numbers of forces in Afghanistan concurrently. And by the time the Ma- rine Corps left Iraq in early 2011, we had transitioned to Afghanistan.
I wouldn’t call it landlocked, just
a diff erent kind of fi ght. The focus institutionally was counterinsurgency and stability [operations]. That drove our training and equipping. The IED [improvised explosive device] became a focus of eff ort, and we operated in a
52 MILITARY OFFICER NOVEMBER 2016
I want a holodeck ... so we could
do any simulation we wanted.
It doesn’t exist, but that’s the vision.
very diff erent way than we did when I was growing up [in the Marine Corps].
So engaging insurgent forces all those years left the Corps in need of sharper skills and tactics against other potential adversaries having standing armies, such as Russia, China, and North Korea? All the services are in that place now, looking at modern peer adversar- ies who have air forces, unmanned airplanes, accurate indirect fire, the ability to disrupt electromagnetic spec- trums, or [fight in] cyberspace. Those are things we haven’t had to deal with, or even consider, since the Cold War. There is a retraining piece for all of us.
Marines, soldiers, sailors, and air- men who fought for the past 15 years did a great job. But they were focused on that threat. We have to reshape the training environment and give them more opportunities to go to sea. We’re trying not to forget lessons we’ve learned because of a probability we’ll continue to conduct stability opera- tions for insurgencies. At the same time, we’ve got to prepare for what we think are more likely scenarios.
Many of today’s Marines, I presume, have seen combat. But perhaps not
the kind of combat they might see in the next 10 years? We’ve got experienced officers and staff NCOs. But remember, every year the Marine Corps turns over about 35,000 Marines. When I stand in front [of] a group of Marines today and ask how many were in Iraq or Afghanistan, the great major- ity of captains and above, [and] staff sergeants and above, raise hands. Some sergeants do too, but not lieu- tenants or corporals and below. The reservoir of experience isn’t like it was in 2008 or 2009, when most everyone was on a second, third, or fourth deployment.
If you compared the capabilities of a typical Marine unit against Chinese, Russian, or North Korean units before 9/11 and then today, how has the Ma- rine Corps fared against the gains made by potential adversaries? While we were focused on the mis- sions we had, some of those other countries had the opportunity to recapitalize what they had or to build completely new. Some of them have some really good capabilities. It would be an interesting test.
The real advantage we have is our people. They’re motivated, smart, adaptable. The gear is the gear. We don’t man the gear; we equip the individual. And we’re not sitting idle while others develop capabilities. The U.S. military is a learning, growing, and adjusting organization. We don’t want a fair fi ght. I want it to be unfair, because we have to win.
Are we closer to a fair fight today than 15 years ago? I think so.
How are readiness rates today com- pared to what’s optimal?
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