maneuver warfare (1)

ARTICLES

‘Innovate or Die’: OrganizationalCulture and the Origins

of Maneuver Warfare in theUnited States Marine Corps

TERRY TERRIFF

University of Birmingham, UK

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is twofold. First, this article contributesto the understanding of the origins of maneuver warfare as the capstone doctrine ofthe Marine Corps. It does so by identifying a second source that fostered change inthe Marine Corps – one in addition to disquiet about the conduct of the war inVietnam – which stemmed from the challenges posed by the United States’ post-Vietnam strategic and military reorientation. And second, this article examines theinfluence of organizational culture, or identity, on innovation in the Marine Corps.A critical strand in the growing literature on military innovation focuses onorganizational culture and how it influences the behavior and responses of particularmilitary organizations. This article contributes to this literature by analyzing theinfluence of the organizational culture of the Marine Corps in shaping what wasdeemed an appropriate response to the challenges it confronted in the 1970s.

KEY WORDS: Marine Corps, military innovation, military change, culture,identity, maneuver warfare, warfighting, post-Vietnam

In 1989 the US Marine Corps, at the direction of Commandant, GeneralAlfred M. Gray, promulgated Fleet Marine Force Manual 1 (FMFM-1),Warfighting.1 The document presents an understanding of war and theconcept of maneuver warfare that arguably is unique to the MarineCorps within the wider US military establishment. As its capstone

1The phrase ‘innovate or die’ is taken from the heading used for a letter to the editor ofMarine Corps Gazette. This heading was undoubtedly appended by the editor orsomeone else who worked for the Gazette. See Capt. Edwin W. Besch, USMC (Ret.),‘Letters: Innovate or Die’, Marine Corps Gazette, 62/2 (Feb. 1978), 10.

The Journal of Strategic StudiesVol. 29, No. 3, 475 – 503, June 2006

ISSN 0140-2390 Print/ISSN 1743-937X Online/06/030475-29 � 2006 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/01402390600765892

doctrine, FMFM-1 Warfighting has informed all subsequent MarineCorps doctrine and operational concepts. Unlike the case of the USArmy and its development of its version of maneuver warfare asembodied in AirLand Battle, the adoption of maneuver warfare by theCorps has been little examined. The few analyses that partially addressor touch on the adoption of FMFM-1 by the Marine Corps identify,correctly, a crucial source of the Corps interest in maneuver warfare asbeing its combat experiences in Vietnam and a resultant view held bymany Marine officers that there must be a better way to fight. Theseanalyses generally hold or imply that the idea of maneuver warfare wasinitially introduced to the Corps in 1980 when those convinced thatthere was a better approach to warfighting started to advocate the ideasbeing developed by Colonel John Boyd.2 Identifying 1980 as theparticular beginning of the Marine Corps’ road to FMFM-1 is natural,as this coincides with the rise in prominence of Boyd’s ideas and the startof a public discussion of the merits of the concept of maneuver warfare.3

To begin with the onset of this particular debate in the 1980s,however, overlooks that the concept of maneuver warfare had begun toemerge, if somewhat tentatively, from another, preceding debate withinthe Corps that was more about its post-Vietnam role than about itsexperiences in Vietnam. Through the 1970s the Marine Corps wasconfronted by the clear need to adjust to the post-Vietnam refocusing ofUS strategic and military policy to the defence of Europe, the changingcharacter of the modern battlefield and the prospect of engaging incombat with Soviet or Soviet-client state conventional military forces.The problematic nature of how the Marine Corps should respondresulted in a sustained debate within the Corps about the measures itshould take. The first tentative steps toward maneuver warfare emerged

2See Terry C. Pierce, Warfighting and Disruptive Technologies: Disguising Innovation(London and NY: Frank Cass 2004), 85–103; and Maj. Kenneth F. McKenzie, ‘On theVerge of a New Era: The Marine Corps and Maneuver Warfare’, Marine Corps Gazette77/7 (July 1993), 63 ff. McKenzie identifies three phases in the Marine adoption ofmaneuver warfare, the first which he claims begins in 1980. Also see Robert Coram,Boyd: The Fighter Pilot who Changed the Art of War (Boston: Little, Brown 2002), esp.Ch. 27 and 28; John G. Burton, The Pentagon Wars: Reformers Challenge the OldGuard (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 1993), 54–55; and Grant T. Hammond,The Mind at War: John Boyd and American Security (Washington DC and London:Smithsonian Institute Press 2001), 154. Coram, who provides the most extendedexamination of the influence of Boyd on the Marine Corps, starts his account in early1980 when Boyd meets Lt. Col. Michael Wyly, a key figure in the subsequent debateswithin the Corps on maneuver warfare. Burton makes the same connection.3The starting point of this debate, sometimes referred to as the ‘maneuverist vsattritionists’ debate, is seen as the article by William S. Lind, ‘Defining maneuverwarfare for the Marine Corps’, Marine Corps Gazette 63/3 (March 1980), 55–58.

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in the context of this debate in a very nascent form as early as 1975, withthe debate itself all but culminating with a two part argument by MarineCaptain Steven W. Miller, published in late 1979, in which he argued thatthe concept of maneuver warfare furnished a practical answer to theproblems the Corps were debating.4 Evident in this particular debate isthat a common concern underlying the various points of view werequestions of the survival of the Marine Corps as a distinct servicestemming from a cultural characteristic of ‘organizational paranoia’,which shaped what was perceived as an acceptable response.

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, this article contributes tothe understanding of the origins of maneuver warfare as the capstonedoctrine of the Marine Corps. It does so by identifying a second sourcethat fostered change in the Marine Corps – one in addition to disquietabout the conduct of the war in Vietnam – which stemmed from thechallenges posed by the United States’ post-Vietnam strategic andmilitary reorientation. And second, this article examines the influence oforganizational culture, or identity, on innovation in the Marine Corps.A critical strand in the growing literature on military innovation focuseson organizational culture and how it influences the behavior andresponses of particular military organizations. This article contributes tothis literature by analyzing the influence of the organizational culture ofthe Marine Corps in shaping what was deemed an appropriate responseto the challenges it confronted in the 1970s.

This article starts with a review of the role of organizational culturein military change, followed by an examination of the Marine Corpsorganizational culture, specifically on the cultural attribute oforganizational paranoia. Finally, an analysis is made of the debatewithin the Marine Corps in the aftermath of Vietnam that culminatedin Capt. Miller’s two articles, in which he argued that the concepts ofwhat has become known as maneuver warfare was a way to address theconcerns inherent to the different positions in the debate.

Organizational Culture

Military culture is most often employed to examine a militaryorganization’s approach to or understanding of organizational ways

4Capt. Steven W. Miller, ‘Winning through maneuver: Part I – Countering the offense’,Marine Corps Gazette 63/10 (Oct 1979), 28ff; and ‘Winning through maneuverConclusion – Countering the defense’, Marine Corps Gazette 63/12 (Dec. 1979), 57ff.The significance of Miller’s argument was recognized by Col. John Greenwood (USMCret.), the Editor of the Gazette, who included an addendum to the McKenzie article thatlisted the most significant articles on maneuver warfare, a list which starts with Miller’stwo articles. Marine Corps Gazette 77/7 (July 1993), 63ff.

Organizational Culture and the USMC 477

of war, with the aim being to explain anomalous behavior. A numberof studies have shown how military culture, or organizational culture,may influence the perceptions and behaviour of a military organization.Jeffrey Legro, for example, has argued that during World War II thedifferent organizational cultures of the German and British militariesinfluenced their perceptions of the acceptability of submarine attacksagainst civilian ships, strategic bombing of civilian targets and chemicalwarfare, and how this in turn shaped national priorities for limiting theuse of force during that ‘total’ war.5 In contrast, Isabel V. Hull hasargued that embedded assumptions and practices of the military cultureof the German Imperial Army led it increasingly to seek the utterdestruction of its enemies, including the annihilation of civilians, in thedecades leading up to World War I.6

In these two studies, military culture furnishes an explanation for whyparticular military organizations conducted war they way they did,which in one case resulted in limitation in the use of force while in theother it led to extremism in the use of force. Elizabeth Kier has demon-strated how military culture conditioned the French military’s choice ofa defensive doctrine in the interwar period that was inconsistent with theemerging technical and operational realities of the time, and which thushad disastrous consequences for France.7 Kier further has argued thatthe gentleman-officer culture of the British regimental system in the1930s resulted in resistance to the potential of massed armor,8 whileJennifer Mathers has examined how the military culture of the Russianmilitary made it reluctant to undertake clearly needed reform in thepost-Cold War era.9 Organizational culture thus can provide a compell-ing explanation for why specific military organizations may continue topursue ways of warfare that are incompatible with emerging orprevailing strategic and operational realities, or why they resist change.

Organizational culture can be broadly defined as the symbols, rituals,and practices which give meaning to the activity of the organisation.A focus on cultural norms, those beliefs which prescribe action for

5Jeffrey W. Legro, Cooperation Under Fire: Anglo-German Restraint During WorldWar II (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1995).6Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War inImperial Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2005).7Elizabeth Kier, Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine Between theWars (Princeton: PUP 1997), esp. 39–88; and Kier, ‘Culture and military doctrine:France between the wars’, International Security 19/4 (Spring 1995), 65–93.8Kier, Imagining War, 89–139.9Jennifer G. Mathers, ‘Reform and the Russian Military’, in Theo Farrell and TerryTerriff (eds.), The Sources of Military Change: Culture, Politics, Technology (Boulder,CO: Lynne Rienner 2002), 161–84.

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organizational actors, helps in understanding culture as a cause oforganizational action.10 Peter Katzenstein distinguishes between consti-tutive norms, that ‘express actor identities’, and regulatory norms, that‘define standards of appropriate behaviour’.11 These norms together‘establish expectations about who the actors will be in a particularenvironment and about how these particular actors will behave’.12 Inessence, ‘culture influences action not by providing the ultimate valuestoward which action is orientated, but by shaping a repertoire or ‘‘toolkit’’ of habits, skills and styles from which people construct ‘‘strategiesof action’’’.13 In other words, regulatory norms shape action by fur-nishing actors with ways of defining problems and responding to themappropriately, while constitutive norms shape action by enabling actorsto construct identities which give meaning to their actions and theactions of others. By providing identities and prescribing actions, normsshape the way actors define their interests and form preferences, as wellas suggesting what they should do. Simply put, in terms of change inorganizations, culture, as norms, condition what is deemed acceptable.

Highly institutionalized cultural attributes are transmitted from oneindividual to another in an organization as being ‘this is how things aredone’. Actors may adhere to ‘how things are done’ through two differentlogics. First, an actor will follow norms due to a ‘logic of consequen-tialism’. Norms in this logic are held to by actors as it benefits them to doso or as they are constrained to do so by sanctions.14 Second, an actorwill adhere to cultural norms due to a ‘logic of appropriateness’. In thislogic an actor has been socialised into complying with certain values,routines and roles. And as these values are internalised, they areaccepted uncritically and are instinctively acted out.15 Lynne Zuckercontends that, ‘the greater the degree of institutionalization, the greaterthe generational uniformity of cultural understanding, the greater themaintenance without direct social control, and the greater the resistance

10Legro, Cooperation under Fire.11Peter J. Katzenstein, Cultural Norms and National Security: Police and MilitaryPower in Postwar Japan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1996), 18–19.12Ronald Jepperson, Alexander Wendt and Peter J. Katzenstein, ‘Norms, identity andculture in national security’, in Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of NationalSecurity: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia UP 1996), 54.13Ann Swidler, ‘Culture and social action’, in Philip Smith (ed.), The New AmericanCultural Sociology (Cambridge: CUP 1998), 172.14Robert Axelrod, ‘An Evolutionary Approach to Norms’, American Political ScienceReview 80/4 (1986), 1095–1111; Aaron Wildavsky, ‘Choosing Preferences byConstructing Institutions: A Cultural Theory of Preference Formation’, AmericanPolitical Science Review 81/1 (1987), 3–21.15James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions (New York: FreePress 1989).


to change through personal influence’.16 Her point is that weaklyinstitutionalized culture will not persist, it will change or disappear inthe face of change, whereas strongly institutionalized culture willpersist. Strongly institutionalized, cultural attributes thus will not onlybe resistant to change, but will, as suggested above, strongly shapeidentities and prescribe actions that are seen as appropriate.

Organizational Culture of the US Marine Corps

The culture of any military organization will certainly be complex, witha great variety of mutually reinforcing and contradictory aspects.Military organizations are well known to be deeply steeped in tradition,constituted by a plethora of symbols, rituals and practices that givemeaning to their uncommon profession of war and to the sacrifices ofindividuals that this profession entails. The US Marine Corps certainlyhas a storied history, and hence a complex tradition, which is reflectedin its own symbols, rituals and practices. As General Tony Zinni USMC(ret.) has noted, its history and traditions are ‘part of the essence of theMarine Corps’.17 An important issue is how and in what way todelineate those aspects of the Marine Corps culture that are relevant toquestions of change and innovation.

A critical starting point for the analysis of the Marine Corps is First toFight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps, by Lieutenant GeneralVictor H. Krulak, USMC (ret.). Lieutenant General Krulak’s book,while broadly historical in its development, is broken out into six mainsections: The Thinkers; The Innovators; The Improvisers; The PennyPinchers; The Brothers; and The Fighters.18 Victor Krulak’s19 ‘insideview’ of the Marine Corps is particularly relevant because, as AllanMillet in his institutional history of the USMC has noted, his fingerprintsare to be found on many of the Marine Corps key innovations over a30-year period, starting with its adoption and implementation ofamphibious warfare in the late 1930s and early 1940s, through itsinnovative exploration of helicopter based military operations in the

16Lynne G. Zucker, ‘The Role of Institutionalization in Cultural Persistence’, in WalterW. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio (eds.), The New Institutionalism in OrganizationalAnalysis (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press 1991), 103.17Tom Clancy with Gen. Tony Zinni (ret.) and Tony Koltz, Battle Ready (NY: G.P.Putnam’s 2004), 142.18Lt. Gen. Victor H. Krulak, USMC (ret.), First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S.Marine Corps (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 1984).19Lt. Gen. Krulak will be consistently identified as ‘Victor Krulak’ to avoid anyconfusion with Gen. Charles C. Krulak, his son, who was Commandant of the MarineCorps from July 1995 to June 1999.

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early 1950s to the USMC’s counterinsurgency approaches in Vietnam inthe 1960s.20 The cultural attributes of the Marine Corps identified byVictor Krulak are, in Katzenstein’s nomenclature, constitutive norms, inthat they express critical elements of deeply felt understandings of whatit means to be a Marine. To put it another way, the characteristics hedistinguishes are a set of core, shared social knowledge that substan-tially constitute the identity of the Marine Corps as a distinct service.

Only one of the six characteristics of the Marine Corps discussed byVictor Krulak – The Thinkers – is central in the following analysis. Fourof the characteristics that he identifies as attributes of the MarineCorps – the Improvisers; the Penny Pinchers; the Brothers; and TheFighters – may manifest themselves in various ways in the discourse ofthe Marine Corps, and influence perceptions and processes within theCorps. But these four characteristics have no discernible influence on theparticular issue examined here and hence are not addressed. A few briefwords need to be said about his characterization of the Marine Corpsidentity as ‘innovators’ given that this analysis addresses innovation inthe USMC. Victor Krulak argues that the Marine Corps is a militaryservice that is innovative by nature. He points to the USMC’sconceptualization, development and adoption of amphibious warfare,with the consequent development of weapons platforms to enhance itscapacity to conduct amphibious operation, and its early conceptualiza-tion and development of heliborne military operations, as evidence ofthis attribute.21 General Zinni echoes this theme, stating that, ‘[w] havea reputation for innovation’, and having noted the above innovationsundertaken by the Corps, concludes, ‘[w]e’ve always gone afterinnovations like these.’22 It is clear that the Marine Corps perceivesitself as a military service willing and able to innovate, and this aspect ofits organizational identity is reflected in a minor way in the debateanalyzed. This perception also serves as an ‘environmental’ backdrop tothe analysis, for the Marine Corps self-identification as being innovativeimplies that Marines should be receptive at least to consideringsignificant proposed changes.

Organizational Paranoia (The Thinkers)

Victor Krulak’s study of the character of the USMC, titled ‘TheThinkers’, focuses on the various political struggles of the MarineCorps to survive as a separate military organization within the greater

20Allan Millet, Semper Fi: The History of the United States Marine Corps (New York:The Free Press 1980, 1991), 582–83.21See Krulak, First to Fight, 67–110.22Clancy, with Zinni, Battle Ready, 142–43.


US military establishment. The Marine Corps began during theRevolutionary War as a small force whose role was to protect USnaval ships, as ship guards while in port and as anti-ship forces toprotect ships from being boarded by the enemy while at sea. From thissmall and inauspicious beginning, a beginning which now is almostservice myth, the Marine Corps has developed in competency and roles,and grown in scale and scope, into a combined air-ground militaryforce that is formidable in its own right. Yet the survival of the USMC,as Victor Krulak argues, was never assured. Writing in the early 1980s,he notes that through its history the Marine Corps has been faced withfive serious attempts, and a number of minor attempts, to disband it,emasculate it, or to fold it, in whole or in part, into one or another ofthe other US services,23 efforts that if successful would have meant theend of the USMC at least as a significant military organization.

Victor Krulak provides a historical examination of several of theseattempts but primarily focuses on the debates that resulted in thecreation of the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff inthe aftermath of World War II. In part his emphasis on this seminalpolitical event stems from his being very much personally involved inthe debates on behalf of the Marine Corps; in part because theinternecine political fights were illustrative of efforts by other servicesand other actors to do away with the Corps; and in part because thesuccess of the Marine Corps in fending off these efforts resulted inCongress first writing into law specific roles and missions for theUSMC. Central, however, is that in the debates over the 1947 NationalDefense Act there is clear public evidence that both the Army and theAir Force were intent on seeing the Marine Corps disbanded so thatthey could absorb respectively the ground and air elements of theUSMC and the attendant roles and missions.24

The inherent problem for the USMC is that, as a combined air andground military force that operates from the sea, from a functionalperspective its activities overlap with those of the Army and Air Force.Indeed, the Marine Corps arguably is a direct competitor with theArmy as they are both ground fighting forces even though the MarineCorps is ostensibly a seaborne force. In 1957 General RandolphMcC. Pate, then Commandant, asked Victor Krulak, ‘Why does the U.S.need a Marine Corps?’ Victor Krulak’s response was that he ‘wouldfind it most difficult to prove, beyond question, that the United States

23Krulak, First to Fight, 37. Elsewhere, he notes some 15 occasions in which only thevigilance of the Congress preserved the Marine Corps, 13.24For a detailed analysis of these debates, see Gordon W. Keiser, The US Marine Corpsand Defense Unification, 1944–47 (Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation Publishing 1996).

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does truly need a Marine Corps’.25 He further openly acknowledgedthat the Army and the Air Force could carry out the roles and missionsof the USMC equally well, and more tellingly, that this was true even inthe case of amphibious landing operations for which the Marine Corpsclaim to have, in his words, ‘mystical competence’.26 Not to put toofine a point on it, the Marine Corps arguably does not necessarilyprovide any particularly unique military function and, as a conse-quence, it is confronted with competition from both the Army and AirForce for roles and missions, as well as for resources.

The understanding that the other services, particularly the Army andAir Force, could fulfill the same functions, is deeply inculcated in thethinking of the Marine Corps, as is the knowledge that these serviceshave in the past sought to undermine or terminate the USMC. It isshared social knowledge that is perceived as fact, and hence it is a coreaspect of the organizational culture of the Marine Corps. As VictorKrulak puts it, the Marine Corps sees itself with respect to the Americanmilitary establishment as ‘perennially the smallest kid on the block in ahostile neighborhood’.27 Past experience has resulted in the MarineCorps being extremely wary of the aspirations of the other services whenit comes to its survival. As Victor Krulak notes, ‘[b]eneficial or not,the continuous struggle for a viable existence fixed clearly one ofthe distinguishing characteristics of the Corps – a sensitive paranoia,sometimes justified, sometimes not’.28 The Marine Corps sense oforganizational paranoia is not only firmly fixed in its organizationalculture, a critical aspect of its identity, it arguably is one of the, if notthe, dominant organizational cultural artifact that exerts an influence onother key organizational cultural attributes of the Corps.29

That the Marine Corps, as the smallest of the US military services,should be attentive to sustaining their assigned ‘roles and missions’ andits minimum share of the annual US defense budget, is natural given theintense interservice rivalries among its larger sister services. Yet the‘paranoia’ of the Marine Corps is not simply that they might lose someof their budget share per se, rather that losing some of their budgetshare, or an element of its assigned ‘roles and missions’, is or could be aharbinger of the end of the Corps as it understands itself. From the

25Personal Correspondence between Gen. Randolph McC. Pate, Commandant, andBrig. Gen. Victor Krulak, Oct. 1957, reprinted in Krulak, First to Fight, xiii and xiv.26Ibid., xiv. Emphasis in the original.27Krulak, First to Fight, 3.28Ibid., 15.29Gen. Charles C. Krulak told the author in an interview that the first thing the authorneeded to understand about the Marine Corps was that it was ‘paranoid’. Interviewwith Gen. Charles C. Krulak, USMC (ret.), 10 March 2004.


Marines’ perspective, the historical record furnishes plenty of evidencethat someone had indeed been out to get them, and this lends credenceto an enduring perception that someone is still out to get them. Whatdistinguishes the organizational paranoia of the Marine Corps as acultural trait, rather than simply a reasonable response to environ-mental conditions, is its pervasiveness and persistence, even when thereis no one out to get the Corps, and the propensity it creates to perceiveany and all challenges, real or imagined, significant or insignificant, asputative threats to the very survival of the Corps as a service and toreact accordingly in a forceful manner.

This organizational paranoia essentially manifests in three ways.First, the Corps is perennially wary of the implications for its organiza-tional survival of external pressures for change. Second, it is perenniallyvigilant to the ramifications of change in the strategic, military environ-ment, lest a failure to adjust make it appear effectively irrelevant as adistinct organization. And third, the Marine Corps is perenniallyconcerned that in adjusting to environmental changes or to pressures tochange, that it not be seen to be encroaching on the functions of theother US military services, or, worse, to be perceived as becoming littlemore than another version of another US military service, particularlythe US Army, lest this create the perception that it provides a redundantmilitary capability.

Victor Krulak, in his section titled ‘The Innovators’, links the efforts bythe Marine Corps from the early 1920s to the early 1940s to formulate aplausible doctrine for a successful amphibious landings and to procurethe equipment necessary actually to conduct such operations, to thissense of organizational paranoia. The Corps pursued this course eventhough other military organizations, including the US Army, hadconcluded that the 1915 fiasco at Gallipoli made clear that large-scaleamphibious landings in the face of an entrenched enemy could never besuccessful. One of the driving forces behind the Marine officers whorelentlessly pursued the idea of amphibious landings was a desire to carveout a unique role for the Corps as a sea-based force. The success of theMarine Corps amphibious missions in the long and terrible Pacific islandcampaign during World War II consolidated this ‘unique’ mission, andhence a distinctive role for the Corps within the US military establish-ment.30 It is little wonder that the Marine Corps claims, as Victor Krulakputs it, a ‘mystical competence’ in amphibious warfare.

30As Millet notes, with the success of its amphibious campaigns in the Pacific theater,‘the Marine Corps emerged from World War II with an institutionalized sense of self-importance . . . . The Corps had made a major contribution (perhaps the majorcontribution) to creating an essential Allied military specialty, the amphibious assaultagainst a hostile shore.’ Semper Fi, 459. Emphasis in original.

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This organizational paranoia is deeply institutionalized within theMarine Corps, to the point that it furnishes a cornerstone of its self-identity. Thus it should shape the way Marines define the interests andpreferences of their service as well as suggesting what they should do.Inseparable to its organizational paranoia is the cultural artifact of itsassertion that it is uniquely a seaborne, amphibious force, for this roleand mission is perceived as being effectively synonymous with theMarine Corps, both in the perceptions of Marines and in theperceptions of the society they serve.

Amphibious Warfare, the Central Front and Heavy Metal

Concern about what lessons the Marine Corps might or should drawabout strategy and tactics from its experiences in Vietnam was largelyabsent from public debate in the 1970s. With the withdrawal of majorMarine forces from combat in Southeast Asia in 1971, thenCommandant General Leonard F. Chapman observed that ‘we gotdefeated and thrown out, the best thing we can do is forget it’.31 TheMarine Corps was afflicted by what one Marine officer termed a ‘forgetVietnam syndrome’.32 Public debate within the Corps on Vietnam, onwhat had gone wrong and what lessons there were to be learned, waseffectively absent until the end of 1970s and early 1980s.33

Public debate within the Marine Corps about its future in the yearsafter Vietnam instead focused on several different issues.34 Oneimportant issue for many in the Marine Corps was the need to reassertits capacity as a seaborne force that specialized in amphibious warfare.This particular strain of argument emerged immediately in theaftermath of Vietnam and was to be a persistent theme that permeatedand intertwined with two other important issues of concern to theMarine Corps. The first of these two other issues was what should be the

31Quoted in Michael A. Hennessy, Strategy in Vietnam: The Marines and Revolu-tionary Warfare in I Corps, 1965–72 (Westport, CT and London: Praeger 1997), 181.32Capt. R.J. Dalton, ‘The Village’, Marine Corps Gazette 56/6 (June 1972), 10.33As indicated earlier, however, the ‘semi-official proscription’ on discussing andexamining Vietnam did not mean that officers simply forgot about that war or did notbelieve that there were no lessons to be learned. Many officers, including such as Col.Michael Wyly and Gen. Alfred M. Gray, devoted considerable study and thoughtduring the 1970s to understanding what the Marine Corps had done wrong, and whatwas a better approach to fighting.34One issue, one much debated and argued over but not relevant to this study, was howto redress the ill-discipline, use of drugs and racism that permeated the organization.This was a significant problem for the Corps, and one that Gen. Robert Cushman, thefirst post-Vietnam Commandant, devoted considerable effort to address.


role of the Marine Corps in the defense of Europe? After Vietnam, andcertainly by the mid-1970s, particularly under the direction of DefenseSecretary James Schlesinger, the US turned away from Southeast Asia tofocus on Europe and the confrontation with the Soviet Union in thatmost important theater. And second, what steps should the MarineCorps take given that there was a reasonable probability that it wouldbe tasked to fight against a superior Soviet military force in theEuropean theater, or even against a potentially Soviet-style force fieldedby a state in another theater such as the increasingly tumultuous MiddleEast? This analysis to a degree treats each of these three issues in turn asseparate strands, and in doing so misses some of the nuances, but itnonetheless captures the essence of the main themes.

Almost immediately after the Marine Corps had effectively with-drawn completely from Vietnam in 1971,35 it publicly sought to returnto its role as a seaborne, amphibious fighting force. As then Com-mandant, General Robert E. Cushman, stated in April 1972: ‘we arepulling our heads out of the jungle and getting back into theamphibious business . . . we are redirecting our attention seaward andre-emphasizing our partnership with the Navy and our shared concernin the maritime aspects of our national strategy’.36 For the Comman-dant of the Marine Corps to make such a pointed statement isindicative of how strongly the Corps felt about this issue. The Corpsexperience in Vietnam posed a dilemma, for in that conflict,

as in many past wars, Marines had primarily been engaged inground warfare, which is basically an Army business. It had notbeen by design, but it had happened. Literally thousands of menwho called themselves Marines hadn’t the slightest brush withsoldiering at sea. Those few who participated in the amphibiousoperations along the coast never got to see the entire spectrum ofan amphibious assault . . . . The Marines simply did not do the rolefor which they had been created and trained.37

In the wake of that difficult experience, as one USMC officer put it, theCorps could not ‘treat our Marine mission and organization as exactlythe same as any other infantry (e.g. Army) unit. Our recent Vietnam

35A small number of Marines did remain in Vietnam as, for example, military advisorsto the South Vietnamese Marine Corps until 1973, and it was the Marine Corps whichconducted the evacuation of Saigon in 1975.36Gen. Robert E. Cushman, ‘A Weapon System Defined’, Leatherneck 55/6 (June1972), 14ff.37Col. Paul E. Wilson, USMC (ret.), ‘U.S. Marine Corps: separate, but not equal’,Marine Corps Gazette, 63/1 (Jan. 1979), 20.

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experience may also cause us to think only in terms of land warfare, atendency we should assiduously avoid unless we want to be charac-terized as duplicating the functions of another service.’38 Thus, for theMarine Corps there was an early perceived desire to reassert themission that most clearly distinguished it from the Army – its capacityand indeed identity as a special force capable of effecting a forcibleentry from the sea.

As the US shifted its attention away from Southeast Asia to focusmore on Europe in the early to mid-1970s, the initial question for theMarine Corps was whether and what role it should play in that theater.The growing emphasis within the US military establishment onbolstering the European theater created a problem for the MarineCorps; should it or should it not bend to this trend by taking on a formalrole in the defense of Europe? The Corps, unlike the Army, had noelements forward deployed in Europe, hence it would most likely beonly deployed once conflict had erupted. In short, any role it undertookwould almost certainly involve being used to reinforce North AtlanticTreaty Organization (NATO) forces.

One line of argument was simply that the Corps need not, and indeedshould not, take on a formal role in Europe, for any war there likelywould end, for better or worse, before the Marines could even get there.Thus, to assume a formal role in the defense of Europe would needlesslydetract from the Marines Corps’ core mission – expeditionary amphi-bious warfare.39 Nonetheless, many within the Corps perceived thatdetermining a viable role in the defense of Europe had some urgency, forwith the US focusing intently on that continent, a failure to carve out aclear role and mission there could leave the Marine Corps, at worst,open to the predations of the other services or, at best, faced withreduced resources.40 Others, however, warned that the Corps shouldnot focus on fulfilling a role in Europe to the exclusion of other roles andmissions, as this would lead to the abandonment of its expeditionarydistinctiveness and thus would be to travel down the road to ‘extinc-tion’.41 The growing general view, then, was that the Corps had to find apracticable role in Europe, but not to the exclusion of its other missions,particularly its unique expeditionary amphibious role.

38Col. Lee R. Bendell, ‘An alternative proposal’, Marine Corps Gazette 55/9 (Sept.1971), 51. For a similar argument, see Col J.B. Soper, USMC (ret.), ‘By forcible entry’,Marine Corps Gazette 56/8 (Aug. 1972), 18.39Maj. Perry M. Miles, ‘Finding better use for the USMC than commitment to NATO’,Marine Corps Gazette 61/12 (Dec. 1977), 31.40See, for example, F.J. (Bing) West, ‘The case for amphibious capability’, MarineCorps Gazette 58/10 (Oct. 1974), 18.41Maj. E.E. Price, ‘Letters: Not in NATO’, Marine Corps Gazette 62/4 (April 1978), 11.


In spite of this apparent tightrope the Corps had to walk, theperception that the survival of the Corps might be at stake meant it waswidely recognized that the important choice confronting the Corps wasnot whether it should be involved in Europe, rather it was ‘[s]hould theMarines be used to augment the NATO armies in Central Europe, orshould they be employed on the flanks?’42 The prospect of a designatedrole of fighting on the Central Front posed a dilemma for the Corps. Asone Marine officer made clear in 1977, the survivability of a Marineforce deployed to the Central Front was in serious doubt:

The Corps should have profited by the many lessons learned in thelast war in the Middle East. As for the Marines operating inCentral Europe, I truly feel this would be an exercise in futility anddownright suicidal taking into consideration the mass of troops,tanks and artillery the enemy would have, plus short routes ofcommunication for reserves and logistic support.43

The inherent concern was that any Marine force, as an amphibiousoriented force, was in effect ‘too light’. The 1973 Arab–Israel War haddemonstrated that the modern battlefield would be a very lethalenvironment due to the extensive presence of armor in the form oftanks and armored personnel carriers and the emergence of effectivemodern light anti-armor and light anti-aircraft weapons.44 To accept amission of fighting on the Central Front would be an unwise sacrifice ofMarines, and the clearly questionable capability of the Corps to fulfillsuch a mission would raise questions about its utility.

This concern was made manifest in a study published by theBrookings Institution in 1976, which received widespread publicity.The study, Where Does the Marine Corps Go From Here?, questionedthe feasibility of a Central Front mission for the Corps as it wascurrently constituted. The authors of the study suggested that to haveany future role in the defense of Europe the Corps would need totransform itself into a force organized and equipped primarily forsustained inland combat alongside the US Army in Europe.45 To accept

42Frank Uhlig Jr., ‘Assault by sea’, Marine Corps Gazette 60/6 (June 1976), 18.43Col. Ernest Brydon, USMC, ‘Letters: No tanks in Europe’, Marine Corps Gazette 60/11 (Nov. 1976), 12.44For two good analyses of the 1973 war by Marine officers, see Capt. John E. KnightJr., ‘The Arabs and Israel in perspective The October war and after’, Marine CorpsGazette 58/6 (June 1974), 34ff; and Col. Gerald H. Turley, ‘Time of change in modernwarfare’, Marine Corps Gazette 58/12 (Dec. 1974), 16ff.45Anthony Binkin and Jeffrey Record, Where Does the Marine Corps Go From Here?(Washington DC: Brookings Institution 1976), 82–86.

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such a proposed change would obviate its distinctive mission as anamphibious force, as to bolster its capability to fight and survive on theCentral Front would transform any designated Marine force into asecond land army.

For the Corps, the most favored designated role in Europe was toreinforce NATO’s flanks. Such a mission would provide the Corps witha formal and necessary mission in Europe, and do so while sustaining itsexpeditionary amphibious character. But the official acceptance of anamphibious reinforcement role on the flanks of Europe ultimately didnot remove the core dilemma of ensuring the future of the MarineCorps. The aforementioned Brookings Institution study, for example,challenged both the usefulness and the feasibility of amphibiousoperations in view of the emergence of long range, highly lethal andaccurate weapons, which the Soviet military had in abundance. TheBrookings study concluded that the Marine Corps as an amphibiousforce was primarily suited for small-scale amphibious operations inunderdeveloped nations and that the probability of conducting this typeof operation was rapidly diminishing.46 The Marine Corps thus founditself in the difficult position of having its effectiveness as a fighting forcein Europe, and thus its future as an effective and distinct fighting force,being challenged by outside sources even when it sought to adhere to itspreference of being deployed as an expeditionary amphibious force.

Internally, Marine officers were fully aware of this problem, and inresponse there emerged a growing argument that the Corps should‘heavy up’. That is, the Corps needed to increase the presence ofmechanization and armor in its tables of organization if it was plausiblyto fight in Europe, even if it was to do so as an expeditionary amphibiousforce operating on the flanks. The concern was that if the Marine Corpscould not adopt appropriate measures of battlefield effectiveness, evenin amphibious warfare, then the strong emphasis within the US militaryestablishment on Europe and the need to offset Soviet conventionalsuperiority could very well result in the Corps being relegated tomarginal roles and missions, and hence increasingly be starved ofresources. This concern was evident in the much publicized anddiscussed Brookings Institution study, which as well as suggesting anunacceptable role for Europe, suggested three other alternatives: the firstwas to sustain only a minimum amphibious capability and involved thepartial disbandment of the Corps; the second was to give the Corps arole solely in the Asia theater even as the US was shifting its focus toEurope; and the third was to make it the sole US quick reaction force bycreating an airborne Marine force.47

46Ibid., 30–41, esp. 41.47Binkin and Record, Where Does the Marine Corps Go From Here? 71–81.


Anyone of these alternatives would fundamentally change the natureof the Corps, change which could for all intents and purposes result inits effective demise. Thus, some officers argued that only way todemonstrate the Corps’ continued military effectiveness was to signifi-cantly increase mechanization and heavy armor, even if this meantweakening or even giving up its unique, and defining, character as anamphibious landing force.48

Those arguing for increasing the mechanization and armor of theCorps were few, but they were noisy.49 There were two main strands totheir arguments. The first strand emphasized that the Marine Corps hadto improve its survivability and firepower capability. This contentionflowed from a view that the Corps had to focus on the nature andcapabilities of the likely adversary, rather than focus on itself. As oneadvocate put it, as good as the modern Marine was, ‘on the modernbattlefield he is facing potential adversaries who possess an over-whelming inventory of sophisticated, powerful and usually mechanizedweapons. Indeed, it can be reasonably predicted that were a BLT[Battalion Landing Team] to engage a Soviet bloc or Soviet clientbrigade in head-to-head combat, the BLT would most probably bewiped out.’50 Other advocates argued that this problem applied withequal or even greater force in the Middle East,51 another theater wherethe Marine Corps could reasonably expect to fight. One Marine,apparently serving there at the time, wrote that in considering a Marineforce fighting without armor in that region, ‘I could only imagine howludicrous would look the BLT commander sitting in the middle of mile-upon-mile desert expanse with nothing between him and the enemy butthe bayonet clutched between his teeth.’52 In the eyes of advocates,unless the Corps improved significantly its survivability and firepower,which translated to increasing its number of tracked armored personnelcarriers (APCs) and tanks and developing new concepts of mechanizedwarfare, ‘it will be quite difficult to continue to justify our existence asAmerica’s force in readiness’.53

48West, ‘The case for amphibious capability’.49Kenneth E. Estes, Marines Under Armor: The Marine Corps and the ArmoredFighting Vehicle, 1916–2000 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 2000), 180.50Capt. Maxwell O. Johnson, ‘Tank Company FMF’, Marine Corps Gazette 60/6 (June1976), 33ff.51See, for example, Col. Ernest Brydon, ‘Letters: No tanks in Europe’, Marine CorpsGazette 60/11 (Nov. 1976), 12.52Maj. Ray Stewart, ‘Letters: An eye for tanks’, Marine Corps Gazette 60/11 (Nov.1976), 12. It is worth noting in passing that this statement contains an oblique allusionto the Marine Corps’ self-identify as ‘fighters’ or ‘warriors’, in the phrase ‘bayonetclutched between his teeth’.53Johnson, ‘Tank Company FMF’.

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The second main strand of argument in favour of greater mechaniza-tion was an increased stress on the need for improved mobility. Amongthe proponents of ‘heavying up’ there slowly emerged an argument thatemphasized mobility more than survivability and firepower, with theline of reasoning for more mobility being virtually inextricablyintertwined with discussions of survivability and firepower. Mechan-ization and armor, via the procurement of more APCs and tanks, wouldfurnish the former attribute as much as the latter two. One of the firstsuch arguments was William S. Lind’s first interjection into debatesamongst Marines. In 1975 he proposed a revised force structure, one heargued would provide ‘the capability to task organize a substantialMarine Corps mechanized force’, and would make the Corps a projec-tion force that was ‘strategically mobile, insertion-capable, tacticallymobile, and heavy’.54 Lind, in subsequently responding to severalcritiques of his proposed force structure and his emphasis on cost-effectiveness,55 contended that these critics ‘fail to appreciate the pointin my article . . . that mechanization is needed to increase Marine Corpstactical mobility, not just firepower’. Lind went on to argue, ‘mobilitycan be used not only as a means of bringing firepower to bear, but as aweapon in itself. The basis of the Blitzkrieg concept is the use of rapidand unexpected maneuver to paralyze the mind and will of the opposingcommand, not to kill large numbers of enemy troops.’56

This particular perspective was echoed by Colonel Richard S. Taber,Sr. in late 1977, who argued that the purpose of tanks was not so muchto fight other tanks, rather that ‘[t]he more sensible roles for tanks inthis era of the smart weapon are for shock action, mobility andfirepower.’57 The emphasis on the utility of mobility generally tendedto be woven delicately through the debate, little explicated or exploredbeyond what Lind provided in his rejoinder. Hence, the germ of an ideato come that inhered to the concept of mobility was overshadowed, ifnot lost, in the much more forceful arguments about the threat posed bySoviet conventional forces and the need for a heavier Marine Corps –and the arguments against such a move.

For those arguing for the ‘heavying up’ of the Corps ran into stiffresistance. One major reason for this resistance to augmenting theamount of heavy armor was that it would have the effect of making the

54William S. Lind, ‘A proposal for the Corps: Mission and force structure’, MarineCorps Gazette 59/12 (Dec. 1975), 12ff.55See Brydon, ‘Letters’, 10.56William S. Lind, ‘Letters: Mechanization is needed’, Marine Corps Gazette 60/8(Aug. 1976), 12.57Col. Richard S. Taber, Sr., ‘One reason why the Marines should be in NATO’,Marine Corps Gazette, 61/12 (Dec. 1977), 34ff.


Corps look more and more like the Army. Marine Corps ‘ventures intomechanized warfare are clear evidence to some that the Corps isencroaching on Army responsibilities’.58 Indeed, the evidence by 1977that the Marine Corps was improving its capability to operate in anarmor-heavy combat environment, including a degree of increasedmechanization, led to questions exogenous to the Corps about whetherit was becoming like the Army. The Commandant, in an apparenteffort to forestall such a perception being used against the Corps,publicly stated, ‘We have no desire to be a second land army.’59 Thus,seemingly even in the highest echelons of the Corps there was concernthat to be perceived as becoming another land army was to put greatlyat risk its organizational survival.

A second reason for opposition to ‘heavying up’ the Corps stemmedfrom concern about the implications for its distinguishing amphibiousmission. As one officer argued:

[f]rom the Marine Corps’ perspective, the concept of a mechanizeddivision is incompatible with that of amphibious operations.Mechanized units are too heavy to conduct amphibious assaults.Their main combat power is concentrated in heavy units, tanks andAPCs, which must be landed administratively. They are incapableof vertical envelopment and are extremely limited by terrain. Theirfundamental value is in sustained operations ashore.60

Critics of the ‘heavying up’ school were concerned that to do so couldwell result in the demise of the Marines’ amphibious capability. In1978, two officers observed that:

We have witnessed recently a renewed attack on the MarineCorps, its mission and purpose. While these attacks have not beenas direct as the Collins Plan of 1946–47, they have suggested thatthe Corps’ primary mission, amphibious warfare, is neither arequired nor a viable military capability. Critics have developedsophisticated analyses in an effort to demonstrate that anamphibious capability is an expensive luxury that the U.S. canill afford in these days of the dwindling budget.61

58Wilson, ‘U.S. Marine Corps: separate, but not equal’.59Quoted in Taber, ‘One reason why the Marines should be in NATO’.60Capt. Mark F. Cancian, ‘NATO: obsession to the Corps’, Marine Corps Gazette 63/6(June 1979) p.24ff.61Lt. Col. Gerald L. Ellis and Maj. Gerald J. Keller, ‘No doubt; the U.S. needsamphibious forces’, Marine Corps Gazette 62/2 (Feb. 1978), 27ff. The Collins Plan

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For opponents, then, to significantly mechanize and armor the Corpswould make its signature amphibious operations even more imprac-tical, and could end it as a distinctive military service.

Armor proponents, however, argued that making amphibious opera-tions unworkable was not their intent. Their view was that armor andmechanization were not incompatible with amphibious operations. Asone advocate cogently argued,

the Warsaw Pact’s mechanized marines and their respective Navieshave already shown that armored and mechanized infantry forcescan be adapted to amphibious operations successfully. Mechanizedmarines are not merely a potential threat to be countered, but theirsea-launched mobile warfare capabilities should be adopted andimproved upon by the U.S. Marine Corps to fulfill its own role infuture amphibious operations and subsequent land campaigns.62

Such arguments, however, did little to sway opponents. A year aftermaking the above argument, the same advocate, in seeking to remakehis point and seemingly frustrated by the opposition to armor, wentso far as to claim, ‘[m]any Marines seem to be using the words‘‘amphibious operations’’ . . . in the same manner as a Transylvanianmight wave a crucifix to ward off vampires’.63 His metaphor, perhapsinadvertently, was very apt, for in the eyes of opponents a ‘heavying up’of the Corps would be to drain away its life blood. Or to reflect theincreasingly theological nature of the debate, the metaphor unwittinglycaptured the concern of opponents that to ‘heavy up’ the Corps wouldhave the concomitant result of devaluing, indeed making untenable, itsamphibious capability, something that in their perspective was akin tothe Marine Corps losing its soul.

Innovate or Die

Thus, by the second half of the 1970s, the Marine Corps wasconfronted with the dilemma of ‘innovate or die’. The debate within theMarine Corps over how to respond to the perceived threats to itsmilitary effectiveness and survival seemingly had reached an impasse, a

referred to above was an obvious attempt to eviscerate the Marine Corps and divvy upits capabilities, along with its roles and missions, among the other three services.62Capt. Edwin W. Besch, USMC (ret.), ‘Armored and other mechanized forces can besuccessfully adapted to amphibious operations’, Marine Corps Gazette 61/4 (April1977), 42ff.63Capt. Edwin W. Besch, USMC (ret.), ‘Letters: Innovate or Die’, Marine CorpsGazette 62/2 (Feb. 1978), 10.


stalemate that was characterized by considerable ‘sturm und drang’. Nomatter which direction it might move, the Corps’ survival appeared tobe at risk. This sense of organizational paranoia expressed itself differ-ently through the Corps. To some the Marines had to undertake a clearmission in Europe lest they be become marginalized. But this directionraised questions about both the Corps’ capability to operate in the new,increasingly lethal combat environment and its amphibious identity. Tosome this meant that they had to ‘heavy up’, or again be marginalizedas a fighting force. Yet to others, to ‘heavy up’ would make them morelike the Army, and worse, undermine the Corps ‘mystical competence’in amphibious warfare. As Captain Steven W. Miller astutely noted inearly 1978, ‘[i]n recent years, while the Marine Corps’ existence isbeing questioned from without, many of its members are experiencingan identity crisis of their own.’64 Virtually at every turn of the debatethe potential for the survival of the Corps to be jeopardized appeared toloom ominously. The dilemma it faced increasingly appeared to be notsimply ‘innovate or die’, but ‘innovate and die’.

The nature of this multi-level dilemma was increasingly inescapableby 1978, with arguments that the Marine Corps needed to find asolution to mechanizing without losing its amphibious character. Asone officer contended:

The challenge is clear: to mechanize in a way not inconsistent withthe traditional Marine role as light infantry nor with our missionas the United States’ force in readiness. Mechanization withimagination can add to Marine capabilities and flexibility.Mechanization the Army way is a guarantee of organizationalobsolescence or extinction.65

The officer’s view was that the challenge could only be met if Marineswere ‘alert to new and innovative solutions’.

The potential solution to the dilemma the Marine Corps facedemerged slowly in the latter part of the 1970s on the margins of themain debates. There were a few instances of arguments put forth thatthe Corps needed to develop new tactics to incorporate and utilize newtechnologies in creative ways.66 William Lind, however, very directly

64Capt. Stephen W. Miller, ‘Marine: a question of identity’, Marine Corps Gazette 62/1(Jan. 1978), 14ff.652nd Lt. Jonathan J. Mott, USMCR, ‘Going the mechanization route’, Marine CorpsGazette 62/10 (Oct. 1978), 17ff.66See, for example, Lt. Cols. Ray M. Franklin and John G. Miller, ‘Modern battlefieldtechnology calls for reinvention of the longbow’, Marine Corps Gazette 61/10 (Oct.1977), 41ff.

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pointed out in the Gazette that ‘[w]hat rarely appears is an articleproposing a new tactical or operational concept’.67 The mainthrust of Lind’s article was that Marines needed to study history morerigorously and critically in order to develop a capability to thinktheoretically about war. Seemingly cognizant of the deeply rootedcultural nature of the debate, he concluded his argument by challengingMarines’ own sense of themselves: ‘If the United States wins its nextwar, it will only be because Americans developed new, better conceptsof tactics and operations. It is time for Marines to rediscover their ownintellectual heritage and begin to do the kind of innovative thinkingabout tactics and operations that once characterized the Corps.’68

Lind’s cri de coeur generated a number of responses over the nextyear, some supporting his argument for teaching history and creativethinking on tactics, some questioning aspects of his argument. Therewere also other, seemingly unrelated, calls for the Corps to develop newtactics.69 What it did not immediately generate was any specific theoriz-ing on new concepts. Even Lind’s next interjection, which he based onthe observation that there was need ‘to mechanize some portion of theMarine Corps’, examined several models of mechanization, rather thandeveloping or presenting a new conceptual or theoretical approach forthe conduct of war, other than some historical allusions to Germanforces and their development of Blitzkrieg.70 Rather it was CaptainStephen Miller who started to develop a delineated thread ofargumentation, based on the concept of mobility and maneuver. Inthe June 1978 Gazette he published an article, boldly yet diplomaticallytitled ‘It’s time to mechanize amphibious forces’, in which he arguedthat it was time that the Corps became a total mechanized force. Whatdistinguishes his argument from earlier pro-heavy armor argumentswas that, while he did not ignore tanks per se, his discussion focused onthe need for mobility and, to achieve this quality, for obtainingcomparatively ‘light’ wheeled armored carriers.71 The basis of hisargument was that the Marine Corps, ‘configured as a high mobility

67William S. Lind, ‘Marines don’t write about warfare’, Marine Corps Gazette 62/2(Feb. 1978), 14ff.68Ibid.69See Lt. Col. Jack D. McNamara, ‘Seek new tactics for the battlefield’, Marine CorpsGazette 62/3 (March 1978), 19ff. McNamara was responding not to Lind’s article, butto Franklin and Miller’s article, ‘Modern battlefield technology calls for reinvention ofthe longbow’, fn 86.70William S. Lind, ‘Proposing some new models for Marine mechanized units’, MarineCorps Gazette 62/9 (Sept. 1978), 34ff.71His point was that wheeled armored carriers were up to 75 percent lighter thantracked vehicles and were thus suitable for expeditionary warfare.


mechanized force with a substantial antiarmor and antiair capability,used in a high speed amphibious assault could have a pronouncedimpact on [the European] battlefield’.72

Miller returned to the theme of mobility and maneuver in a letter inthe Gazette in which he used the term ‘maneuver operations’, arguingthat ‘the nomenclature ‘‘mechanized’’ needs not be restricted to a forcecomposed of main battle tanks, tracked armored vehicles and trackedself-propelled guns.’ After again pointing out the potential usefulness oflight wheeled armored carriers, he argued that ‘being ‘‘mechanized’’ isless a function of equipment – as important as that may be – as it is atactical concept, a method of operations and a state of mind’.73

Miller subsequently laid out his conceptual thinking in his two partseries on how the Marine Corps could use maneuver warfare to defeatthe enemy. In the first article, he rooted his thinking in history, notingthat ‘[t]hroughout history commanders have won battles with limitedresources by out-maneuvering the enemy on his own battlefield.’ Hethen proceeded to examine Soviet doctrine (the superior enemy) andthen described how a mechanized Marine amphibious force (limitedresources) could attack, counter and defeat the Soviet forces. As heconcludes, ‘[t]hrough the high tempo of operations, constant shifting offorces and fluid, flexible action by ground and air elements working inclose harmony, the Soviet-styled enemy will rapidly lose control,cohesion and momentum.’74 In the second article, published twomonths later, Miller again describes a battle between the Marine Corpsand the Soviet opponent, this time in terms of how the Marines coulduse maneuver warfare concepts to defend against a Soviet opponentconducting a counterattack. All the elements of maneuver warfare arethere in his description of both fights.

In the concluding paragraph of the second article Miller observesthat ‘maneuver doctrine’ was not new, referring to a range of pastpractitioners and writers of the concept, with a final acknowledgementto ‘Col. John Boyd, USAF (Ret.)’. Contending that maneuver warfare75

72Capt. Stephen W. Miller, ‘It’s time to mechanize amphibious forces’, Marine CorpsGazette 62/6 (June 1978), 39ff.73Capt Stephen W. Miller, ‘Letters: Defining mechanization’, Marine Corps Gazette63/2 (Feb. 1979), 12.74Capt. Stephen W. Miller, ‘Winning through maneuver: Part I – Countering theoffense’, Marine Corps Gazette 63/10 (Oct 1979), 28ff.75Miller uses the term ‘maneuver warfare’ only in the final paragraph of the secondarticle, instead more commonly using the term ‘maneuver doctrine’ to describe theconcept. Seemingly the first use of the term ‘maneuver warfare’ is by Lind, in a letter inthe Oct. 1979 Gazette, coincident with Miller’s first article. See William S. Lind,‘Letters: Only a beginning’, Marine Corps Gazette 63/10 (Oct. 1979), 12.

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could and should be applied to amphibious operations, Millerconcluded his second article arguing that ‘[m]aneuver doctrine canpropel the Marine Corps into the 21st century where it will again, as inWorld War II, provide the leadership to this revolution in warfare.’76

What Miller was proposing was that the concept of maneuver warfarefurnished a way for the Marine Corps to improve its combat effective-ness while retaining its distinctive amphibious warfare role, and itcould do so without having to become overburdened with ‘heavy metal’and thereby being transformed into little more than a second army. Inhindsight, it is probably not surprising that it was an officer that ini-tially entered the debate with an observation about the role of identityin an increasingly theological debate, suggesting that he was sensitiveand possibly even sympathetic to the force of cultural norms, who firstput forward a way to cut the Gordian knot confronted by the MarineCorps. The essence of his proposal was that the Marine Corps use ideasso that it could ‘innovate and not die’.

Conclusion

Miller’s proposal that a combination of some mechanization byincorporating wheeled armored vehicles married with a new opera-tional concept offered a plausible solution to the issues confronting theCorps did not definitively end the debate. But it did effectively mark thehigh-water mark of the debate, with the issues and surroundingcontroversy starting to fade toward the middle of 1980. A significantreason for the petering out of the controversy was the decision in thefirst part of 1980 by the Marine Corps to investigate the acquisition ofa light armored vehicle (LAV) capability,77 the end result of which wasthe procurement of the Canadian-built wheeled LAV. Another reasonfor the demise of this debate was that it became overshadowed by thegrowing discussion, both public and private, of the merits of theconcept of maneuver warfare. Miller’s argument, along with Lind’s

76Capt. Stephen W. Miller, ‘Winning through maneuver Conclusion-Countering thedefense’, Marine Corps Gazette 63/12 (Dec. 1979), 57ff.77The move by the Marine Corps to acquire LAVs came in early in 1980, when theResearch and Development Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committeeasked the Marine Corps if it would be interested in procuring LAVs to enhance itsRapid Deployment Force (RDF) capability, if extra funding was provided for thispurpose. The Marine Corps quickly determined that it was interested, and establishedthe Light Armored Vehicle Directorate, in the Development Center at Quantico, on 2Sept. 1980, to start the process of evaluating various LAV with the aim to procure some400–600 vehicles, sufficient to assign to a RDF Marine Corps unit. See Col. LarryR. Williams, ‘Acquiring new armored vehicles & weapons’, Marine Corps Gazette 64/12 (Dec. 1980), 28ff.


article three months later that clearly defined the concept of maneuverwarfare, effectively forms the starting point of this particular debate inpublic forums.78

The significance of Miller’s argument is that the idea of maneuverwarfare did not just suddenly erupt in late 1979 and early 1980, ratherit initially emerged tentatively and episodically from several antecedentdebates reflecting concerns other than disquiet about the conduct of thewar in Vietnam per se. The initial public germ of the idea came fromLind in 1975, with his reference to mobility and the German Blitzkrieg,but it was Miller who, acknowledging the influence of Colonel JohnBoyd, ultimately first provided the public description showing how theconcepts of maneuver warfare could furnish the Marine Corps with themeans to defeat a putative superior enemy. These early debates aboutpressing concerns for the Marine Corps thus are one source for thesucceeding debates about, and eventual adoption of, maneuver warfareas the Marine Corps’ overarching doctrine.

The analysis of the debate in the 1970s demonstrates that the MarineCorps organizational culture, specifically its organizational paranoia,increasingly shaped how it perceived and responded to the issues itfaced. One issue the Corps confronted was the growing US emphasis onthe defense of NATO while at the same time defense budgets were declin-ing and the American military was being downsized. The second issuewas the changing character of the modern battlefield stemming fromnew weapons technologies and increased mechanization. If the MarineCorps was to ensure its share of available resources it had to undertake aformal role in the defense of Europe and it had to renovate its measuresof military effectiveness. The Marine Corps, influenced by its organiza-tional culture, opted not to take on a role in the Central Front, but ratherto take on the role of reinforcing NATO’s flanks. This response can beseen to be consistent with its organizational culture, particularly itsunique identification with amphibious warfare. Norms, in this caseexpressed as organizational paranoia, and its self-identity as anamphibious force, shaped the Corps preference for the role it undertook.

The decision to serve, in effect, as a strategic reserve force to beutilized to reinforce NATO’s northern flank sustained the distinctiveamphibious character of the Marine Corps, but it left unresolved thehard question of how it should meet the demands of the modern,mechanized battlefield, particularly given that it might be fightingoutnumbered. If it was to remain an effective fighting force on the

78Miller subsequent to the publication of his two articles in 1979 was not an activeparticipant in the debates on maneuver warfare; as he disappears from the publicrecord by the end of 1980, he likely completed his tour in the Corps and left for civilianlife.

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modern battlefield, most specifically if (and when) up against superiorSoviet forces, a rational and pragmatic response by the Corps would beto ‘heavy up’ its Table of Order. Put another way, these argumentswere that the Marine Corps, in order to be effective on the modernbattlefield, should emulate the Army in substance, that the MarineCorps should be become more like the Army, so that it could sustain itslegitimacy as a fighting force. Such arguments made by a small factionof Marines were contrary to the Corps sense of self-identity. Theproposal that the Corps should ‘heavy up’ was met by concern that todo so would make the Corps too much like the Army. More tellingly,opponents were anxious that any move to being a heavy armor forcewould seriously and dangerously undermine its capability to effect anopposed amphibious landing successfully, to the point of makingamphibious operations untenable. The constitutive norm representedby the Marine Corps’ organizational paranoia shaped what wasdeemed to be an acceptable response, and the condition was that anyanswer had to ensure that the Marine Corps retained its signatureamphibious warfare capability and hence its unique identity.

The deeply institutionalized cultural attribute of paranoia, manifestin resistance to the devaluing or even loss of the Corps’ defining culturalcharacteristic of being a seaborne, amphibious force, shaped what wasconsidered to be viable responses to the perceived requirement to takeon a formal role in Europe. It proved stronger than pressures to becomea heavy force like the US Army (and indeed many of its potentialbattlefield opponents). Stemming from its organizational paranoia, theconcept of the Marine Corps as being a premiere seaborne, amphibiouscombat force is a cultural artifact that is extremely central to its senseof self-identity. In the end, the dominant view was that the MarineCorps, if it was to survive, had to remain unique within the US militaryestablishment. This meant remaining first and foremost an amphibiouswarfighting force. Miller’s particular role was to show how the Corpscould square the circle of the debate, by demonstrating that the use ofmaneuver warfare concepts could permit the Marine Corps to sustainits amphibious warfare character while making it effective, or legiti-mate, on the modern, more lethal battlefield, as exemplified by theperceived superiority of the Soviet military, without becoming like theUS Army. Simply put, the Marine Corps’ organizational paranoia as aconstitutive norm conditioned how it responded to pressures to adoptnew missions, and impeded the adoption of the specific approach ofadding more armor and tanks that was being advocated by some as thebest means to enhance its capability to fight on the modern battlefield.

The influence of the organizational culture of the Marine Corps, inparticular its organizational paranoia, was a prevailing influence thatshaped the outcome of the debate in the 1970s. The Marine Corps’


organizational culture constrained and foreclosed some plausibleresponses to the problems it faced, leaving it with few options otherthan to change its organizational way of warfare. The persistence andinfluence of its organizational paranoia remained authoritative, to leapahead of the story analyzed here, even as the Corps generated andpromulgated FMFM-1, Warfighting, at the end of the 1980s. In 1988,in a memorandum of a meeting with General Gray, the Commandant isquoted as saying: ‘We can’t let the Army be perceived as the frontrunners in tactical thinking with their FM 100-5. They have a book andcan’t do it, we can do it but don’t have a book.’79 Further, when Graywas presented in 1989 with a final draft of Warfighting, he reportedlyread the draft with a copy of the Army’s doctrinal manual FM 100-5 tohand, to ensure that the Marine Corps’ interpretation of maneuverwarfare was different, and indeed better, than that of the Army.80

These two vignettes reflect the persistence of the abiding concern thatthe Corps had to seen to be as effective a fighting force as the Army, ifnot more effective a force, and that it not be perceived as doing littlemore than imitating the Army, that it not be seen to be little more thana second land force. The Marine Corps’ cultural characteristic ofparanoia thus persisted even as it was instituting a profound change –the persistence of culture meant that, above all else, the Marine Corpseven when it was changing perceived, rightly or wrongly, that if it wasto survive it had to be seen to be, and indeed had to be, unique.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank very much Theo Farrell and theanonymous referees for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of thisarticle. I would also like to extend my sincerest appreciation to GeneralCharles C. Krulak and the great many other Marines, both serving andretired, for their time and consideration in not only sharing with metheir experiences but also in helping me to understand the characterand culture of the Marine Corps. I would also like to express myappreciation to William S. Lind for sharing with me his experiences andperceptions of the debate examined here. Many thanks are also due tothe staff in the Library and Archives of the General Alfred M. GrayResearch Center, Quantico, Virginia, for their cheerful help inaccessing and locating information, as well as for the hospitality they

79Brig. Gen. F.E. Sisler, Deputy Commander, Training and Education, ‘Memorandumfor the Record’, 15 July 1988, 2; Gen. Alfred M. Gray Papers; Studies and Reports –PME, 1979–89, Box 6; File, Meeting with CMC on 8 July 1988, Concerning OfficerEducation and Training, 15 July 1988.80Interview with senior Marine officer (ret.), June 2004.

500 Terry Terriff

extended. Finally, I would like to thank very much the Economic andSocial Research Council (United Kingdom) ‘New Security Challenges’Programme for providing funding support for my project on militarychange in the Marine Corps, without which this research could nothave been conducted.

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maneuver warfare (1)

Documents

us marine corps

marine corps road

editor of marine corps

marine ofcers

concept of maneuver

origins of maneuver

version of maneuver

idea of maneuver warfare