Gates wants Marine Corps to head in wrong Direction...

Nothing in the world gets me more pissed off on the insistence the the Marine Corps should be 'light' and should do away with it's heavy equipment.  It's really a simple concept.  Helicopters are very limited can only carry so much.  Large cargo planes can carry more, but there are limits.  These limits DO NOT APPLY to ship-borne units.  They can bring extremely heavy equipment right up to the beach.

Yet it doesn't surprise me at all that Gates or the rest of the tools in Washington want to strip the Marines of the Heavy Equipment. 

In a speech in San Francisco, Gates spoke of “anxiety” over the future role of the service after nearly a decade of fighting on land in Afghanistan and Iraq. He said some feel the Corps has “become too heavy, too removed from their expeditionary, amphibious roots and the unique skill sets those missions require.” Though many Marines are battle-tested, some “may never have stepped aboard a ship.”

Even the commentator at ModernMarineCorps.com doesn't understand...

Marines deployed aboard Navy ships remain the go-to ready forces in a crisis. Unlike the Army, they are lightly equipped to move quickly ashore by sea or air to conduct evacuations, relief operations or initiate combat. Traditionally the first in, they also are usually the first out, replaced after a few weeks by heavier Army troops trained for the long haul.

No, no, no.  The Marines usually ARE NOT quickly replaces and they DO have heavy equip of their own.  STOP trying to make the Marines sound like the total failure 1980s Light Infantry Divisions. 

But Gates doesn't seem to understand that the force he thinks the Marines should be is far from the force he says is needed to be...

That “unique ability to project combat forces from the sea under uncertain circumstances — forces quickly able to protect and sustain themselves — is a capability that America has needed in this past decade and will require in the future,” Gates said.

No heavy equipment, no tanks, no AAVs, no LAVs, no artillery, getting arid of all the weapons that would make the Marines 'lighter' would make the Marines COMPLETELY UNABLE to protect and sustain themselves, much less fight and fight-to-win.  Have we totally forgotten the abject failure of TF Ranger in Somalia?  They were completely completely trapped, completely out numbers and would have been totally screwed if it wasn't for Pakistani tanks and Malay AFVs.  These were America's supposed Super Soldiers.  And they were less then 5 miles from the surf-zone.  How would a 'lighter' Marine Corps fair any better?  It wouldn't.  What Gates proposes, what several others have proposed since the end of the Cold War would do absolutely nothing but lose battles and get Marines killed needlessly.  Gates I guess wasn't happy with one Black Hawk Down.  He wants the Marines to repeat the experience every where they go.

And why does the Marines always end up playing the role of 'second land army'?  Because the first land Army never has enough active duty troops to fulfill the mission.  And their light infantry units are usually too poorly equipped, on account of their lightness, to do what the Marines do.