(Via Milinet)
Armed Forces Journal International
June 2000
Keeping Up With Jones
From Coast To Coast, The Marine Corps Commandant Makes Sure
America
Gets The Story Straight. An Interview With General James Jones.
By Jason Sherman
Today's Marine Corps is not necessarily the Corps he joined. And
as
General James Jones, the 32nd commandant of that Service sees
it,that's not a bad thing. Unlike the force he joined in 1967,
all
172,000 Marines in today's Corps wear the uniform by choice
(none
enlisted to avoid jail time); by and large, nearly every recruit
has
finished high school; and, overall, Jones believes the Corps is
in
the best shape since he's known it.
Which is why the Marines' top general recently found himself
strutting up a walkway to the Bel Air home of movie director
Steven
Spielberg. The maker of "Jaws," "E.T.," "Amistad," and "Jurassic
Park" is now producing a television drama series about life in
the
Marine Corps today called "Semper Fi" that will air this fall.
The
general wanted to make sure that Spielberg, one of the world's
most
influential storytellers, has the story right.
The Vietnam conflict was influential in shaping how the military
is
viewed by the baby-boomer generation, those born after World War
II,
Jones explained to Spielberg and his staff. Jones told them that
with
an all-volunteer force, a zero-tolerance drug policy, and a high
priority placed on attracting high school graduates, the Corps
today
is very different from the late 1960s. "I spoke very directly,"
Jones
said.
Direct speaking becomes a four-star. And Jones backs up his
rhetoric
with action. When an MV-22 tilt-rotor test aircraft crashed in
April
and killed 19 Marines, igniting criticism of the new aircraft
program
on the grounds it was too expensive and not safe, Jones pledged
to be
aboard the first MV-22 to fly once the system returns to
full-flight
status. General Jones offered similar forthrightness during an
April
interview on a range of subjects (prior to the MV-22 crash) in
the
sunny living room of the historic commandant's residence in the
Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, DC.
The homily General Jones delivered to Spielberg was but a slight
variation on the talk that he frequently delivers in Washington
these
days, which is to remind the US political leadership of the
Marine
Corps' considerable contribution to national security. Jones is
an
infantryman who has commanded Marine Corps units from platoon to
division. He's also a seasoned observer of Washington politics.
As a
major and lieutenant colonel, he was a liaison officer to the
Senate,
where he got to know, among others, the then-new Republican
senator
from Maine, William Cohen.
When Cohen was named Defense Secretary in 1996, he tapped Jones
to be
his military assistant, a post Jones held until last summer. The
responsibilities of commandant were also not foreign to Jones,
who
was an aide to General Al Gray when he was the top Marine.
One of the issues of great interest to General Jones these days,
as
well as the other Joint Chiefs, is how much the US spends on
defense.
While each service chief has stated his allocation is adequate
to pay
its personnel, keep units trained, and modestly modernize, Jones
believes a greater investment in national security is required.
"I think one of the fundamental questions facing the nation from
a
national security standpoint is whether there is enough money
allocated for national security issues," said Jones. "As a
percentage
of our gross domestic product [GDP], we're investing about 2.9
percent of GDP in national security. That's less than three
cents on
the dollar for a country that has global responsibilities; the
60-year average is about eight percent. I don't think it should
be
eight percent anymore, but at less than three cents on the
dollar,
it's not a question of whether the Marine Corps has enough
money,
it's whether any one of [the services] has enough money. And I
don't
think we do.
"So I think that as we transition to the 21st century, we need
to
understand some of the things that catapulted the US through hot
wars
and cold wars into a position of leadership, and to understand
that
defense and national security is not an investment to be used
'in
case of fire' only," argued the Marine commandant. "And what's
hard
to quantify, but it is absolutely important that we do so, is
that
every day around the world we do things that impact our economy,
our
global marketing, and our leadership as we involve ourselves in
the
continued transformation of countries that don't have much
experience
with democracy. We influence foreign militaries to be like us:
subordinate to civilian control. That's an engagement strategy
that
sustains the other pillars that undergird our position in the
world
today, which is very important.
"At less than three cents on the dollar, I doubt that the Army
can
transform itself the way it wants to; I doubt the Air Force can
recapitalize its aging aircraft the way it wants to. I know the
Navy
can't recapitalize itself on a one-to-one basis, and the Marine
Corps
will continue to muddle along with some modern systems and some
legacy systems. And we won't ever get out of this dependence on
supplemental appropriations [from Congress]. Rather than having
to
rely on supplemental [spending bills] all the time, I would
prefer to
see an up-front investment," said Jones, adding, "If I did have
more
money I would modernize, both weapons and infrastructure. I
would put
a portion of it into modernizing our bases and infrastructure,
because that has a lot to do with retention and quality of life
of
the force. Fundamentally, if you want to maintain the
all-recruited
force, you've got to give them a certain standard of living."
Intranet
One new investment the Marine Corps is considering is working
with
the Navy to develop an information network that would closely
tie the
two services. The program is in its early stages and is being
spearheaded by the Navy. General Jones voiced support for the
idea,
but was quick to raise questions about the potentially high cost
of
such a program.
"One of the criticisms of the whole Defense Department is that,
because it is so big, we tend to migrate and grow systems that
aren't
compatible. Or some people are operating newer systems, and
older
systems aren't compatible. So the idea behind this [Intranet] is
to
get everyone the same technology across the Department of the
Navy. I
think it's an excellent idea. But what is not known is what it
is
going to cost. And that is of critical concern to me. I think on
paper everyone says it's worthwhile to do, but it remains to be
seen
whether it can be done affordably," he said.
Army Transformation
Just before Jones became USMC commandant last summer, the Army
got a
new chief, General Eric Shinseki, who began pushing the Army to
make
its heavy forces more deployable and its light forces more
lethal.
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), a member of the Armed Services
Committee and
a former Marine, earlier this year mused aloud that: "It was
always
my understanding that the Marine Corps was the tip of the spear
and
that the Army is the spear. We don't need two tips, and we don't
need
two spears."
What does the Marine Corps commandant make of Sen. Roberts'
observation?
"I think the Army and Marine Corps of today have to work
together
more so than at any other time," he said. "The Army's been
reduced
some 37 percent over the last 10 years. The Marine Corps has
been
reduced some 13 percent. There is no war plan on the ground
where the
Army and Marine Corps, together, aren't absolutely essential to
being
successful. I think Sen. Roberts has a point in that sense, that
generally your first forces to arrive on the scene of any
conflict
are light, expeditionary, and agile. In the best-case scenario,
that's enough to deter or finish a conflict. But if it isn't,
you
need heavier forces to follow on, to deliver the knockout punch.
"I think the American people expect the Army to be the force of
decision. There is no major disagreement between the Army and
Marine
Corps over that issue. The Army wins wars; the Marine Corps wins
battles that help win the wars. So we have to make sure that we
understand each other in that context. And whatever reforms the
Army
wants to make, from the standpoint that they have to retain the
knockout punch that we count on, are great. And I don't think
the
chief of staff of the Army and I have any daylight between us on
that
issue," Jones said.
Is there any redundancy in the Army's planned transformation
initiative with what the Marine Corps does?
"I think the Army is going to have to maintain its knockout
punch,"
Jones said. "You can have medium-weight brigades. But the
strategic
airlift of the nation is a fixed commodity right now; sealift is
a
fixed commodity. So the difference between the Army and the
Marine
Corps is that the Marine Corps deploys on Navy ships. And we
have 12
amphibious ready groups. So we're already deployed out there.
The
Army, being essentially land-based, has a different metric. But
the
two are not mutually exclusive; the two are very complementary.
I
think what counts is what you do once you get there. Are you
going to
be able to do what the nation wants?"
While Jones says he doesn't believe the Army's transformation
efforts
encroach on Marine Corps prerogatives, Jones and Shinseki last
month
called in their senior warfighters from the field and gathered
their
entire Pentagon leadership for a three-day session in Carlisle,
PA,
"to sort this all out." As AFJI went to press, the plan was for
the
Army to present where it is going with its transformation
program and
the Marine Corps was going to explain what it brings to the
table.
"We're going to get to know each other a little better," Jones
said
in April of the planned meeting. "You'd think after 224 years
we'd
know each other pretty well; but I've researched the records and
I
don't think we've had a meeting like this in 224 years. It
should be
interesting.
"There is no significant land engagement that is going to occur
without the Army and Marine Corps fighting alongside one
another.
We've always been dependent on the Army for our procurement. All
of
our artillery comes from the Army. Most of our transportation
systems, by and large, are fielded by the Army. However, the
percentage of the warfighting capability that the Marine Corps
brings
is now, proportionally, probably at an all-time high." The
Marine
Corps has 20 percent of the nation's
tactical fighter squadrons; operates 17 percent of its attack
helicopters; and fields a third of the nation's combat service
support
structure in its active component.
Brigades
Because the Marine Corps fights on land, water, and in the air,
the
Service sometimes faces charges of being redundant. To such
critics
General Jones quotes retired Lt. Gen. Victor Krulak, who said:
"In
terms of cold, mechanical logic, the Unites States does not need
a
Marine Corps; however, for good reasons which completely
transcend
cold logic, the United States wants a Marine Corps." And to help
warfighters who aren't Marines better understand what the Corps
brings to the fight, Jones has reinstituted "brigades."
"Actually, they never disappeared. We just called them something
else
to cause them to 'disappear.' We've always had the Marine
Expeditionary Unit, the brigade, and the Marine Expeditionary
Force
[MEF]. The brigades used to be standing headquarters," said
General
Jones. "When we went through our own downsizing, it was decided
that
we couldn't afford to have standing headquarters, so we subsumed
the
brigades into the larger Marine Expeditionary Force
headquarters. We
called it MEF Forward. So if you engaged any unit short of the
MEF,
even though it was brigade-size, we called it MEF Forward. We
really
complicated things in the joint arena. People didn't really know
how
to use it. So in order to make it clearer, I dusted off the old
MEB
[Marine Expeditionary Brigade] title and brought it back. We
reestablished MEB commanders without standing up the MEB
headquarters, but have MEB commanders and MEB staffs
identified,"
Jones said. "Frankly, the reaction has been very good among the
warfighting CinCs [commanders-in-chief] and they're using it."
Fire Support
If the transition to the new name for an old concept is going
smoothly, Jones is less easy with old fire support systems that
are
being carried into a new century to support Marine operations.
"I have a lot of concerns about naval surface fire support. I
have
equal concern about what has been done over the years to our own
organic fire support systems which, in my view, are inadequate.
"I was on Capitol Hill in the early 1980s working in the US
Senate as
the Marine Senate liaison officer, and participated in the first
reactiviation of the [battleship] USS New Jersey," he said. "The
logic of doing that at that time was unimpeachable. It was a
tremendously good thing to do. I regret that battleships were
taken
out of service, although I understand why that was done. As for
their
warfighting capability, I regret that we took them out of
service
before we had actually fixed the naval surface fire support
problem.
Having said that, the Chief of Naval Operations [Admiral Jay
Johnson]
and I are in absolute agreement that this [fire support
deficiency]
is something we can't allow to continue. We're [waiting on new]
technology right now, particularly the [ship-fired]
extended-range
guided munition round [in development] and the [planned] DD-21
Land-Attack Destroyer, which is
going to have the 155-millimeter artillery system. That's the
gun
we're really looking forward to. Until those systems become
operational, we're going to be moving in what I consider to be a
higher-risk condition. That's something I'm not really
comfortable
with.
"Organically, the Marine Corps uses the [towed] M-198 [155mm
howitzer], which is a good weapon. It's just not very
'expeditionary'. Because of the tight spaces in which we
operate, we
sustain a lot of wear and tear. I regret the fact that we didn't
get
into rockets; I'm trying to make up for a lot of those
decisions. The
Marine Corps should be concerned about fire support from the sea
and
its own organic capability. We're not where we ought to be."
The Navy's decision to outfit the DD-21 with an electric-drive
propulsion system delays fielding that new fire support system
until
the end of the decade. In the meantime, Jones said, "we're going
to
rely on other things. What has taken up the slack for us is
aviation.
We've got attack helicopters. We've got close air support, of
which
we in the Marine Corps are the prime users, the prime believers,
and
developers. That helps, as we saw during a sortie raid in Kosovo
in
bad weather, but we still haven't solved the problem of how to
see
through the clouds in the close air support business or to
deliver
ordnance in all kinds of weather. Naval gunfire and good organic
systems on the ground help you get through that."
Next QDR
The commandant has tapped Maj. Gen. Dave Magnus as the Marine
Corps'
point man in the next Quadrennial Defense Review, set to kick
off
later this year. Jones, who observed the 1997 QDR from a perch
in
Defense Secretary William Cohen's office, said he hopes the next
defense review will avoid the pitfalls of parochialism that
critics
say hampered the 1997 effort.
"I've been through one QDR. I hope that this one will be
different.
There's a relationship between the service chiefs in this
particular
edition that's very strong. We're a very cohesive unit. We've
talked
about how we need to step up as leaders and make sure that we do
the
right thing and make sure the QDR is strategy-driven, as opposed
to
being budget-driven, and that we resist the temptation to fall
back
into a 'circle-the-wagons' mentality to protect each of our
services'
core competencies. I think that we have a good shot at doing
this. So
I believe you'll see more leadership on the part of the service
chiefs; we'll work together more than our predecessors did
during the
last round."
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Armed Forces Journal International
June 2000
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