How The Marines Plan To Win Washington’s Budget Wars (From Forbes)

The Marine Corps has a plan for emerging victorious from the Pentagon’s seemingly endless rounds of budget-cutting. It focuses on explaining the enduring value of sea-based expeditionary forces, as reflected in three measures of military merit: relevance, readiness and realism. Not only are Marine units well-suited to supporting emerging U.S. strategy in the Pacific, Middle East and elsewhere, but they are in the high state of readiness required for first responders. Marine leaders also exhibit a hardheaded sense of realism when it comes to judging the behavior of other countries and other military services. Collectively, these three features of the Marine battle plan for Washington’s budget wars make the ultimate success of the Corps a safe bet. I have written a commentary for Forbes here.