America's Marine Corps plans to get rid of all their tanks in favour of nimbler weapons
THE OFFICIAL hymn of the United States Marine Corps, a jaunty tune written by Jacques Offenbach in 1867, proudly declares that “From the Halls of Montezuma/ To the shores of Tripoli/ We fight our country’s battles/ In the air, on land, and sea.” But despite their naval origins and ethos, America’s marines have spent most of the last two decades waging war in the deserts, mountains and cities of Iraq and Afghanistan.
That image of seafaring, beach-storming warriors blurred after the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, when the marines turned from a naval strike force into a duplicate army with the job of hunting down insurgents and jihadists in grinding land wars. The result, says Mark Folse of the US Naval Academy, who served as an enlisted marine in Iraq and Afghanistan, is “an entire generation of marines who have little to no experience of the navy.
The idea is that in a war with China, America’s hulking aircraft carriers might be pushed far out to sea by the threat of missiles. But small groups of 50 to 150 Marines, wielding armed drones, rockets and anti-ship missiles, could get up close, fanning out on islands along and inside the chain from Japan to the Philippines.
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