From Sharia is Coming!, I outlined or posed a question concerning the nature of those who advocate Sharia law.  You can read it (or re-read it) for yourself, but more important at the moment is what happened afterward.  Steven Metz made the following statement in response (in the comments section): “Should we worry about the creeping influence of the Boy Scout laws? More people follow that in the United States than sharia.”

Note well.  Steven Metz is a professor at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  And note full well.  He is comparing Boy Scout law with Sharia law.  This Boy Scout law – compared to this sharia law.  It’s all just hysterical rantings, this idea that those who advocate sharia law actually want it to be mandatory.  Next, consider Andrew McCarthy at NRO’s Corner.

Read it and weep — and you will want to weep. In Bangladesh a 14-year-old girl named Hena was raped by a 40-year-old man, Mahbub, who is described in a report as her “relative.” [Thanks to John Hinderaker for highlighting this story.] Apparently — the report is not clear on how this happened — the matter was brought to the attention of the sharia authorities in her village of Shariatpur. You’d think this was a good thing … except, in Islam, rape cannot be proved absent four witnesses — i.e., it’s virtually impossible to establish that what happened happened. That’s a dangerous thing for the victim — deadly dangerous in this instance — because if she has had sexual relations outside marriage but cannot prove she has been raped, she is deemed to have committed a grave sin. In Hena’s case, the sharia authorities ordered that she be given 100 lashes. The young girl never made it through 80; she fell unconscious and died from the whipping.

When I catalogue the horrors of sharia, I frequently hear in response that I am oversimplifying it, that I am relying on incorrect interpretations (oddly said to be inaccurate because they construe Islamic doctrine “too literally”), or that I fail to appreciate the richness and nuances of sharia jurisprudence that have made it possible for moderate Muslims to evolve away from the law’s harshness. Some even claim sharia is not a concrete body of law, just a set of  aspirational guidelines — as if Sakineh Ashtiani, the woman sentenced by an Iranian court to death by stoning, will merely be having advice, rather than rocks, thrown at her.

These criticisms miss the point. I don’t purport to have apodictic knowledge of what the “true” Islam holds — or even to know whether there is a single true Islam (as I’ve said a number of times, I doubt that there is). But that’s irrelevant. It should by now be undeniable that there is an interpretation of sharia that affirms all its atrocious elements, and that this interpretation is not a fringe construction. It is mainstream and backed by very influential scholars who know a hell of a lot more about Islam than we in the West do. That makes it extremely unlikely that this interpretation will be marginalized any time soon. There is no agreed-upon hierarchical authority in Islam that can authoritatively pronounce that various beliefs and practices are heretical.

Stop.  This last point is extremely important.  Now consider a point I made directly to Steven Metz at the Small Wars Journal after he said the following:

Claiming that all of Islam wants to “impose” its faith on others is not “being clear,” its being fantastic and ideological. There is a fringe in Islam who claims to want this (just as there is in Christianity). But claiming this is some inherent element of Islam is just nonsense. I don’t know any nicer way to put it.

And my response (a bit dry, but necessary).

Definitions are indispensable. When you say “impose its faith,” let’s delineate between voting your conscience and promulgating your faith by the power of force or violence. Laws are by their very definition legislated morality. A law against theft is society’s way of saying that it is morally wrong to steal and we won’t tolerate it. Our society has as its basis a system of laws that itself has a basis, just as all nation-states do. I assume that you are not arguing against a vote of conscience and representative government, so it makes sense to jump to the next possibility.

Now to the use of force or violence to promulgate a faith. Again, for the sake of argument, let’s define Christianity nominally as something like the following: adherence to the basic Trinitarian creeds (Nicene and Chalcedonian), with the soteriological skeleton filled out by a later creed such as Trent (for Roman Catholics, maybe plus Vatican I and II, or maybe not) or the Westminster Confession of Faith (for Protestants). The point is that one defining characteristic of Christianity is that it has throughout history been creedal and confessional. We aren’t left to wonder what Christianity teaches. It is all put forward for us is clear terms, with the fundamentals similar in all sects or denominations, and agreed to by the councils in church history.

I am trained in religion / theology at the graduate level. I am extremely well read, and fairly well-travelled in these circles. I know of not a single group of people who meet the nominal definition of Christianity we have given above that either believes or claims to believe that they have the authority or right to promulgate the faith through violence or force. It would be directly contrary to the very nature of Christianity. I could line up the Biblical data for a week, but it would save time simply to trust me on this point. If you feel that you have contrary examples, then I would like to correspond off line to ascertain just who these people are and what exactly they might believe. It would be interesting.

Now. With Islam it just isn’t that clear. Islam is not now and has never been creedal and confessional. It is loosely coupled and very diverse. A search of history for such creeds yields no fruit like the history of Christianity (if it did I would gladly spent much time in study). I am not making a value judgment here, simply an observation. The point of this observation is that when answering the question “What does Islam believe?” we have reversion only to (a) original source literature, and (b) its interpretation and application today (plus the history that can be determined to be accurate).

Here is what we know. We know that there is a large group of Muslims worldwide who do not believe that they have the right to hurt of kill you or your family in order to promulgate their faith, and they are quite happy with this hermeneutic. How large this group is is unknown. It might be the vast majority of all Muslims, or it may not be quite that big. We also know that based on the original source literature (quotes which I can line up a long time for you) there are ideas and quotes that are apparently amenable to a hermeneutic which interprets them to give Muslims the right and duty to promulgate their faith by violence and force. As best as I can tell, both hermeneutics live side by side every day in Muslim countries, with some aspects of each rubbing off on the other, and with this also being a source of controversy and tension in these countries.

So what I have said now is that their are competing hermeneutics within Islam, and that creedalism and confessionalism has not been and is not now a defining characteristic of Islam. These things present problems for us, as you can well imagine. To understand what Islam believes, you cannot refer to a confession. There is none. You can read the source literature and you can listen to its professed adherents as they speak.

The professed adherents who are of the Salafist / Wahhabist stripes, based on indisputable evidence, believe the later hermeneutic discussed above (and can point to numerous citations in the original source literature). While I understand that it is unfashionable to be religious in academia, and fashionable to make moral equivalency arguments comparing all religions to each other, it just isn’t correct. There is no sect or denomination of Christianity comparable to the Salafists or Wahhabists. It doesn’t help your argument to make the comparison.

This goes directly to the hearts of what McCarthy is saying.  Now that you have finished the dry part, let’s get to the basics – and I will make value judgments this time.  I believe that many parts of the Qu’ran are inherently contradictory.  Some Muslims deal with this problem by aligning themselves with the more or less non-violent hermeneutic, and simply ignore the logical problems.  In the words of Professor Alvin Plantinga, their “noetic structure” contains deeply rooted, logically problematic propositions, but they don’t know it (or have simply accepted it).  Others in Islam deal with this problem by choosing the violent hermeneutic, and the fundamental problem is that Islam is not now nor has it ever been a creedal religion (nor does it lend itself to such rigorous systematization).

McCarthy’s point is both well taken and important.  Continuing with his thoughts:

The closest thing Muslims have is the faculty at al-Azhar University in Egypt, and it is a big part of the problem. Whether this fundamentalist interpretation is accepted by only 20 or 30 percent of Muslims — or whether, as I believe, the percentage is higher, perhaps much higher — that still makes it the belief system of almost half a billion people worldwide. That’s not a fringe.

Sharia is not a myth or an invention of overwrought Islamophobes. It is very real. And that some Saudi-endowed Georgetown prof will inevitably come up with some elegant explanation of how the village authorities got it wrong will have absolutely zero influence over the way sharia is understood in Shariatpur. Nor will not make this tormented 14-year-old girl any less dead.

Just so.  Fundamentalist Islam, if it represents 20% – 30%, isn’t a “fringe element.”  This represents a whole lot of people, and the problem isn’t made any better by supposed “scholars” at the U.S. Army War College who think that Boy Scout law and Sharia law represent the same threat.  Dr. Metz is just shouting uneducated nonsense, but he has a willing audience among a very important element in our armed forces.  I am in fact as worried about that as I am either Sharia law or Boy Scout law.

In Abandoning the Pech Valley Operator Dan of This Ain’t Hell said:

Surrendering ground and outposts provides a propaganda victory for the Taliban. In conventional military terms, it provides them terrain from which they can rest, refit, and launch attacks. First it was the Korengal, now its the Pech, and next they will be knocking on the door of Abad and then Kunar is truly lost.

Remember, the Muj took control of the Eastern Provinces first and eventually used them to attack Kabul in the early 1990s’ against the Afghan Communists. A few of them (most of the Muj from then actually have aligned with us) have done this before.

And Dirty Mick, who has been there before, said:

I’m curious if 1/327 Battalion commander has a short memory. I was in Kunar when 2/12 infantry left the Korengal last April/May during the spring offensive when 1st and 2nd Battalion 327 took over Kunar. We got slammed all summer. The Taliban took it as a victory and scores of soldiers were killed and wounded during the summer. So what happens if we pull out of the Pech. Well I can gaurentee it will be another victory for the Taliban and every COP south of Asadabad will get attacked more frequently (fortress, joyce, penich, and badel already get attacked often) and it will eventually flow into nangahar province (where Jbad is).

By his rational if the insurgents in Sadr City, Mosul, Baghdad, Tal Afar, Ramadi, and Fallujah didn’t want us there then I guess we should have pulled out and left. By his way of thinking we should have never done the surge in Iraq in 2007. In order to Achieve Victory (yes I said it) we need to be aggressive and kill Taliban wherever they hide and lurk. It amazes me with these senior officers in the Army and Marine Corp it’s like they’re constantly reinventing the wheel or discovering fire for the first time. Disgraceful.

Just to pile disgrace on top of disgrace, reporter Harry Sanna who was embedded with the 101st Airborne Division, gives us this perspective based on his recent time there.

“Many parts of the east are still highly unstable. In the Pech Valley, it’s not uncommon for firefights between the U.S. soldiers and insurgent groups to break out five or six times a day. If they go ahead with their planned withdrawal from area, there are obvious ramifications that must be addressed. Namely, are the Afghan forces ready to take over security and, if not, who will step into the power vacuum created?

“I suppose what struck me the most from my time in Kunar was the widespread lack of knowledge as to what outcomes the withdrawal would create. Many Afghan soldiers expressed skepticism in their own army’s ability to hold the ground without international assistance. Many locals, including the scores of contractors hired from nearby villages that work on U.S. bases, did not know what to expect after foreigners left the valley. Anxiety is running fairly high, that much is obvious,” he said.

Well, Harry, here’s the deal.  We won’t have to wait until 2014 to find out what will happen to the Pech Valley when we withdraw.  In a tip of the hat to the doctrines of population-centric counterinsurgency, we intend to leave it well before then and head for the cities, just like the Russians did.

Here is a tip for future reading, study and, well, let’s be frank – wading through the misdirects that both the MSM and military PR sends your way.  When you hear the reflexive, tired, worn out mantra that we are having difficulty defeating the Taliban and those forces aligned with AQ because Pakistan simply won’t go into their safe havens and root them out, this is a nothing but a magic trick, a sleight of hand, a smoke screen, a ruse.  The issue is fake.  It’s a well-designed farce.

Oh, to be sure, the U.S. would indeed like for the Pakistanis to go kill all of the Taliban, Tehrik-i-Taliban and AQ affiliated groups so that we don’t have to deal with them in Afghanistan.  But we have the ideal chance to address the problem head on in the Pech Valley and other areas near the AfPak border – that Durand line that exists only as a figment of our imaginations.  Essentially, much of the Hindu Kush is available for us to do the same thing we want Pakistan to do, and in fact, if we began actually doing this, Pakistan might be persuaded to allow readier access to Pakistani soil (once they see we are serious about the campaign).

Instead of going after them in their safe havens, we want to focus on the population centers, set up governance, and assume that the criminals and thugs we leave in charge will be a better choice to the people than aligning themselves with the Taliban.  How’s that plan going?

Jim Foley gives us an interesting video journal report from Kandahar.

Jim appears conflicted, but listening to the justification at or around 7:00 minutes and following, the shooting seems justified.  At any rate, spotters are both difficult to detect and deadly for U.S. troops.  I have previously covered aggressive Marine Corps tactics concerning enemy spotters, and the approach taken in this engagement seems no different than that of the Corps in Helmand and Anbar.

On another front, while I understand the reflexive behavior to be sympathetic to the local Afghans, something about this translator bothers me.  The translator with the Marines in Sangin seems more in line with what you would want out of someone performing this service.

Ben Anderson with the Marines and Jim Foley with the Army have given us good video coverage of the engagements, and they are both well worth the study time.

It appears that the showdown between Hamid Karzai and ISAF may finally be here.

An article in today’s Washington Examiner leads with this:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s call to ban private security contractors and dismantle the NATO teams helping to rebuild the country is a high-stakes ploy that will make efforts to aid the Afghan people and contain the Taliban insurgency even more difficult, experts said. Karzai made the announcement in Germany over the weekend, saying it was part of his plan to speed up the process of withdrawal by foreign countries in the coming year. The reconstruction teams operate outside the Karzai government’s control in helping to build schools and provide basic services in remote parts of the country. The level of corruption inside the Afghan government is so high that many officials — both Western and Afghan — say the jobs can’t be done under Afghan government control.

U.S. officials in Afghanistan have not criticized Karzai’s statement, downplaying any suggestion it represented a rift between NATO and the Afghan government. U.S. Army Lt. Col. John Dorrian, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Forces, said “ISAF and President Karzai share the same goal of building capacity within the Afghan government to provide security and government services to the Afghan people. We will continue to support his efforts to eliminate the need for private security firms and provincial reconstruction teams, because they provide services that ultimately the Afghan government must provide.”

For Karzai, a public flirtation with the Taliban, while hastening divorce proceedings with the West, makes good internal politics.

“Karzai realizes that time for him is running out with the 2014 deadline looming,” one U.S. official said. “Karzai is beating his chest to show that he is not in the pocket of the U.S. Unfortunately, he has filled his pockets with the money of the Afghan people.”

The point has been made many times and in many places, but here we have a fresh example of why it is so self-defeating to announce dates of withdrawal.  Not only does it motivate the enemy by feeding the belief that they can outlast us, but it creates a political vacuum as the withdrawal date looms.

Whatever one may think of Karzai as a leader or ally against the Islamofascists, he has at least gotten this much right: if he is going to continue as head of the Afghan government (and keep his head, literally), he needs to build his own power base and legitimacy that does not depend upon American support.  In the long run, that is a good and necessary development.   In the short term, when the Afghan government and military are too weak to resist Islamist attacks, such thinking works directly counter to our efforts and makes victory that much harder to secure.

A military official, who works closely with reconstruction teams in the nation’s dangerous southern provinces, said that Karzai’s grandstanding on issues like taking control of reconstruction teams “is hurting the mission.” The official said that corruption in the local and national government has hampered efforts to bring needed supplies and services to the Afghan people.

“This shouldn’t be about politics and trying to play nice with Karzai,” the U.S. military official said. “The Afghan people don’t trust Karzai, so they don’t trust us because we support him. Our soldiers and Marines have given everything. What for, if we’re not going to finish what we started and do what we need to do to get the job done.”

It is worth pointing out, as well, that for all of the back-tracking and recent talk about staying committed to Afghan security, the Obumble Administration has not done a very good job convincing Karzai that the U.S. can be relied upon for support after 2014.

Time for a showdown

This is an intolerable situation for the U.S.  It is time for a showdown of sorts with Karzai.

Karzai and his cronies have been shrewd enough to realize that most NGO’s and private firms cannot function in Afghanistan without security.   By shutting down the private security firms, Karzai has made himself the only game in town.  These aid agencies are literally at Karzai’s mercy and can easily be intimidated and bent to his will.

The U.S. and ISAF are the only, other rivals in the game.  It stands to reason that any activities undertaken by these forces are effectively outside of Karzai’s control and, by extension, corruption.  Karzai is embarking on a campaign to terminate or re-route every aid project not under his control.

Rather than allow that to continue, however, the U.S. and ISAF must keep the PRT’s and any, other effective aid organizations (such as the one Tim Lynch works for) under their protective cover– or at least away from Karzai’s.

Furthermore, not only should the U.S. continue direct funding to the PRT’s (to the extent that they are effective) and maintain their autonomy, the U.S. should re-direct, over some period of time, a greater share of funding directly to local, U.S. military commanders.

Battalion and company commanders in Iraq proved extremely adept at using their so-called “emergency funds” to leverage their positions in their area of operations.  Commanders in Afghanistan can be trusted with the money to a far greater degree than the Karzai government, and these commanders, at the ground level, will know how best to use it.

The only question is how far Karzai is willing to go to challenge this sort of thing.

Right now the U.S. military and the ISAF are the only things that work even half-effectively in Afghanistan.  We can maximize this asset if we by-pass the Karzai government and put the aid directly into the hands of our commanders, giving them the broad discretion to use the money as they see fit, including the ability to hire contractors for aid projects and development and, if appropriate, hiring local security forces as a multiplier.

Will Karzai order the ANA or ANP to confront the U.S. military?  Not likely.  The U.S. and ISAF are providing much of the training of the Afghan security forces; they heavily depend upon U.S. officers and logistics.

The U.S. can and should continue to talk a good game.  Like Lt. Col. Dorrian, the unified message should be that we support the goal of a strong Afghan government and the rule of law.   The unspoken message— the message privately conveyed to Karzai– is that they have yet to demonstrate a readiness to handle aid money and aid projects necessary at this time to win the war.

If the U.S. is not willing to do this, then it is simply a question of time until Karzai has so hamstrung our efforts there that a 2014 withdrawal is no longer an option but an inevitability.

Do not misunderstand: I do not favor staying in Afghanistan on a permanent basis.  But the U.S. cannot afford to leave in abject defeat, either.

From The Telegraph:

Information about every Trident missile the US supplies to Britain will be given to Russia as part of an arms control deal signed by President Barack Obama next week.

Duncan Lennox, editor of Jane’s Strategic Weapons Systems, said: “They want to find out whether Britain has more missiles than we say we have, and having the unique identifiers might help them.”

Professor Malcolm Chalmers said: “This appears to be significant because while the UK has announced how many missiles it possesses, there has been no way for the Russians to verify this. Over time, the unique identifiers will provide them with another data point to gauge the size of the British arsenal.”

Defence analysts claim the agreement risks undermining Britain’s policy of refusing to confirm the exact size of its nuclear arsenal.

The fact that the Americans used British nuclear secrets as a bargaining chip also sheds new light on the so-called “special relationship”, which is shown often to be a one-sided affair by US diplomatic communications obtained by the WikiLeaks website.

Details of the behind-the-scenes talks are contained in more than 1,400 US embassy cables published to date by the Telegraph, including almost 800 sent from the London Embassy, which are published online today.

Although the treaty was not supposed to have any impact on Britain, the leaked cables show that Russia used the talks to demand more information about the UK’s Trident missiles, which are manufactured and maintained in the US.

Washington lobbied London in 2009 for permission to supply Moscow with detailed data about the performance of UK missiles. The UK refused, but the US agreed to hand over the serial numbers of Trident missiles it transfers to Britain.

The Telegraph is referring to the New START treaty already ratified by the U.S. Senate, and for which Secretary Gates lobbied.  I had previously argued that the treaty was one-sided and brought the U.S. no discernible advantage in any area of weapons or nuclear technology, or foreign policy.  When Ronald Reagan advocated for the initial START treaty, even Time Magazine noted that it was one-sided in favor of the U.S., a fact which caused Time incorrectly to predict its failure.  Reagan negotiated from a position of strength.

But what we’ve learned now goes past a bad treaty – and it was a bad treaty.  It goes to reputation, to status, to honoring allies and friendships, to standing.  It makes this administration out to be pusillanimous weasels willing to sell out even our closest friends to enemies and criminals for a mere smattering of success on the world stage.

We pressed the reset button in foreign policy with Russia, but Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev viewed this as having made us sniveling lackeys.  Our enemies think we are fools and clowns, while our allies cannot trust us.  So much for success on the world stage.  Mr. Obama, we all knew Ronald Reagan, and you sir are no Ronald Reagan.

Michael Yon authored a prescient article on Sangin entitled Bad Medicine, in which Yon was embedded with the British Army in Sangin.  It’s worth studying this piece again in preparation for an important report from the BBC.  Since the BBC doesn’t give embed code, it’s good that this piece is out on YouTube.  Thanks to Michael Yon for bringing this to our attention.  It’s well worth the twenty nine minutes you will spend watching this report.

The British enlisted men have fought bravely in Sangin and lost many men there.  But more than two years ago the British announced a plan to deescalate the violence against the Taliban.  There is little doubt that this plan dovetailed with the abandonment of the forward operating bases in and around Sangin.  Also in the Helmand Province, the British forces allied themselves with a shyster and con man named Mullah Abdul Salaam in Musa Qala.  He and his forces were supposed to go to arms against local Taliban when the fight for Musa Qala began by British and U.S. forces, and instead they screamed like little girls and ran for cover, making frantic calls for help to Karzai.

In fact, even recently the U.S. Marines and British Advisers have been at odds about how to approach the Helmand Province.  The U.S. Marines are intentionally taking a more aggressive approach in Sangin than the British, and their casualties show it.

Yon sent me a note praising the hard work of the Marines, but lamenting the fact that we’re taking the same soil twice, and paying dearly for it.  Yon is right, but this isn’t the only sacred soil stained by the blood of U.S. Marines that is being taken more than once.

Two years and eight months ago, the 24th MEU Marines went into Garmsir.  At great cost, the Marines killed some 400 Taliban fighters in and around Garmsir.  But the 24th MEU had to leave, and they turned over to the British.  One and a half years ago I was writing about the resistance a new deployment of Marines was finding in Garmsir.

This report is remarkable in that it could have been written exactly one year ago during the tenure of the 24th MEU in the Garmsir District in 2008.  During that operation, the U.S. Marine Corps had taken over from the British who were not able to force the Taliban out of Garmsir, and after a major gun battle took over the Garmsir area from the Taliban.  The primary concern of the residents during this operation was that the Marines would leave, allowing the Taliban to re-enter the district and punish those who had cooperated with the Marines.

The Marines turned operations back over to the British, who were then unable to maintain control of the Garmsir District, and now the U.S. Marines are back again in Helmand generally and Garmsir particularly.  It’s not that the British are unable to fight, but rather that they aren’t supplied well enough, equipped well enough or provided with enough troops (we might add that their officer corps seems mostly to be sidetracked and confused with a version of counterinsurgency doctrine taken from their experience in Northern Ireland).

In fact, the U.S. Marines are finding Taliban resistance even today in Garmsir.  So the hand-offs between forces go a long way back in the Helmand Province, and while there is no lack of bravery on the part of any of the forces who have had responsibility for Helmand, there is a difference in approach and continuity.  This has caused a sad state of affairs, with the spilling of blood and losing of limbs to take the same soil more than once.

This soil is now sacred to us, made so my the blood of the sons of America.  Tim Lynch has written me saying that he has seen first hand the progress the Marines are making in Helmand.  Tim says something that we have said before and with which we can all agree.

I tell you what. The Marines down south are making nice gains against the Taliban. They find them and kill them. These types of gains are not “reversible”. Might I suggest something crazy? Let’s emulate the marines on all levels of the playing field metaphorically of course. If someone shoots at us lets hunt them down and deal with them. Here is some more valuable ground truth, “Afghans respect strength”. We might have to wait two more years to implement this one.

Does this sound like Follow and Kill Every Single Taliban?  Yes, Tim is right, but here is my concern.  Recall the warning from the elder in Sangin near the end of the report above?  What did he say would happen when the Marines leave?  That’s right.  The Taliban would return.

Those who haven’t been killed will return.  If we play whack-a-mole counterinsurgency and merely squeeze them from one location to another, one safe haven to the next, we haven’t accomplished anything.  In Sangin and Garmsir, the Taliban returned.  The resistance we see today proves my point.  There is no debate, and the point cannot even be contended.  It simply must be accepted as axiomatic in this fight.

Thus I have advocated saturation of Marines (more troops) and chasing the enemy.  To fail to do so doesn’t just facilitate failure.  It desecrates what is now sacred soil.

Prior Featured: The Five Hundred Meter War

From NPR:

The “Soldiers of the Sea” have been fighting on land for a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan.The Corps’ amphibious troop carrier has just been canceled; its new fighter jet was postponed.

And the Marine Corps itself is finishing up its own review, asking this basic question: What should the Marine Corps look like in the 21st Century?

The Marine Corps has made a name for itself storming beaches: Barbary Coast and Veracruz, Iwo Jima and Inchon.

“For many years now, its core mission has been forcible entry, meaning going ashore in the face of hostile fire to claim enemy beaches and then push inland quickly before defenders regain their balance,” says defense analyst Loren Thompson. He says those days may be over.

That’s because Defense Secretary Robert Gates has done something that pirates in the 19th century and Japanese troops in World War II couldn’t do — he has the Marine Corps reeling.

Gates stopped the Marines from going ahead with their Joint Strike Fighter, a stealthy warplane. And he canceled the Marines’ amphibious troop carrier, known as the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle or EFV.

“The EFV, originally conceived during the Reagan administration, has already consumed more than $3 billion to develop, and will cost another $12 billion to build, all for a fleet with the capacity to put 4,000 troops ashore,” he said.

That’s a lot of money to get a few thousand Marines on the beach. So the Marines will update their decades-old amphibious troop carrier instead.

The cuts and delays to the Marine Corps’ budget are symbolic of a larger debate about the role of the Marine Corps in future warfare. Many potential adversaries have sophisticated long-range missiles that could strike the Marines in their landing craft long before they reach the shores.

So Gates already has said it’s unlikely the Marines will be hitting the beaches like they did at Iwo Jima.

And Thompson says that raises questions about the relevance of the Marines.

“If the Marine Corps is no longer going to do opposed landing on enemy beaches in the face of hostile fire, then its role will be significantly diminished in the future,” he says.

The Marines publicly dismiss talk they’re becoming less relevant, and say that attacking enemy beaches is just one of their jobs. Their senior officer, Gen. James Amos, said recently they’ve been busier than ever.

“Since 9/11, U.S. amphibious forces have responded to crises and contingencies at least 50 times, a response rate more than double during the entire period of the Cold War,” Amos says.

That includes everything, from Marines fighting Taliban fighters 10 years ago, to helping Pakistanis caught up in massive flooding last fall.

The ability for Marines to float offshore and quickly respond offers any president a way to influence events, says retired Marine Gen. Chuck Krulak.

“They can remain over the horizon, they can come on to the horizon and be seen and increase the pressure, or they can come ashore,” he says.

And the Marines’ physical presence, Krulak argues, cannot be replaced by high-tech weapons.

“A B-2 bomber flying at 60,000 feet is not present, it’s nothing more than contrails in the skies,” he says.

The Marines may argue they’re irreplaceable. But Gates has suggested cutting their numbers — not just their weapons. Gates wants to reduce the Corps by some 15,000 to 20,000 in the coming years.

Defense analyst Gordon Adams says that’s a higher proportion than the cuts Gates has called for in the Army.

“My view would be that the Army deserves to be significantly cut rather than the Marine Corps,” Adams says.

Adams worked on Pentagon budgets in the Clinton administration and thinks Gates’ cuts are ill conceived.

“His decisions have by and large been driven largely by technology, costs and efficiency,” Adams says.

But not by strategy, he adds. Adams says the Marines are more agile than the Army and cost less. They can handle a range of missions — everything from delivering humanitarian assistance to training foreign militaries to fighting insurgents.

The Marines have no trouble speaking for themselves. In the coming weeks, they’ll outline to Gates why they’re still relevant.

Regular readers know that I oppose humanitarian missions for the U.S. Marines.  Not that I oppose humanitarian missions.  I oppose humanitarian missions for the Marines.  You don’t design and build the most effective and violent fighting force on earth and send it on humanitarian missions.  That we have done that before in recent history is a sign that the Marines are looking for a mission.

And the lack of opposed landing in the grand strategy doesn’t in the least diminish the relevance of the U.S. Marine Corps.  Let me tell you what does diminish the relevance of the USMC.  Reliance on gadgets, doohickeys and thing-a-ma-bobs.  You know – electronically controlled, electrically powered crap that needs heavy generators which then need to be moved by massive flotillas to site by logistics engineers months in advance of operations in order to supply the necessary power – or, crap that needs high tech solar panels to operate in the field because massive generators can’t be moved there.

Lack of ability to get water from their surroundings diminishes the relevance of the USMC.

Goulding, a retired marine, flew over the mountainous Kahukus Training Range twice in a helicopter during the exercise. “There is water everywhere in the Kahukus,” he pointed out, but the marines had to rely on drinking water supplied from the ship.

From backpacking, hiking and camping, I and each of my four children know how to purify water from our surroundings.  I and each of my four children know how to climb and rappel.  I and each of my four children know how to make decisions on the fly, not waiting on specific commands but relying on broad mission goals to guide our actions.  And only one among my four children is a Marine.

Long times to deploy troops diminishes the relevance of the USMC.  Reliance on the future needs for large scale amphibious assault landings diminishes the relevance of the USMC.  The overly expensive Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle diminishes the relevance of the USMC.

Let me tell you what ensures the relevance of the USMC.  Short notice deployments.  Pressing responsibility and authority down in the chain of command.  Making efficient and effective use of their surroundings.  Distributed operations.  And again, distributed operations, with reliance on chain of command pressed down in the organization.  Training exercises to make sure that the USCM is still capable of forcible entry without long deployments of MEUs assuming that such entry will be called upon against a near peer state.  Forcible entry based on another premise than AAV or EFV or LCACs, namely, air-based forcible entry and fast roping.  Landing behind the beach head, securing land, and then allowing the Navy to transport heavy equipment while the Marines fight.

Being called upon to secure people, free hostages, raid locations, kill enemy on short notice, and all other manner of short term operations, and being called upon to do this in lieu of SOCOM, and outside the SOCOM chain of command, which has now usurped the authority of the branch chains of command.  Less reliance on Force Recon and SOF and SOCOM.  Ensuring rifleman skills superior to those of the other branches.  At one time in our history, the USMC was the branch capable of projecting power – large and small – on foreign shores at a moment’s notice.  Now, SOCOM chain of command and SOF operators have taken this mantle.  Admit it.  It’s the truth.

The USMC can pound their chest and train for large scale forcible entry, go on large nine months MEUs where there is no enemy to engage and where the President doesn’t call on them to conduct operations, and the USMC can become irrelevant.  Or, the USMC can embrace a new vision, a vision other than that of 60-year-old large scale amphibious assault landings with water-borne craft susceptible to land-based rockets.

It’s up to them.  I think the Marines are more versatile and capable than the Army, and I choose the later.  Let’s see what the Marines choose.  They may be readying themselves for 21st century irrelevance.

Prior:

Will the USMC Become a Second Land Army?

The Best Way to Ensure That the Marines Become Irrelevant

The Future of the Marine Corps

G-RAMM, the EFV and the Fundamental Paradox of the Marine Corps Vision