Marines to Take Over Responsibilities For Training Foreign Forces

[504PIR]

I first heard it in a over beers with a buddy from SEAL Tm 4.

Then somebody posted an article from Marine Corps Times in the General Discussion back in late Jan? Off the top of my head I don't remember the thread's name. Also a thread on Socnet as well.

Another amigo was BSing with a couple of their NCOs last month. Said pretty much the same thing.

I think its wasteful after all that sweat and work standing them up to shut them down. Not like there is a shortage of work for them.

[boat guy]

There is something a little disquieting about the posts here. The USMC did not ask for this mission and it is not their leadership which has created a pet project in FID. Word I have is that they were not asked by SOCOM, but directed to take on this project. SOCOM falls under title 22 and as such is limited by state department when it comes to the number of personnel in country. The USMC being title 10 is not subjected to the same regulation. They will receive no funding for this porject from SOCOM. Just as they received no funding for Det 1. Additionally they will not be allowed any manning increase for the bodies. The idea behind the shift is not to take away anyones niche, but rather to allow SOCOM personnel, who have many round holes, to continue in the filling of those holes which are of higher import and cannot be filled by anyone else. While I do know that the Corps is already accruing knowledge from lessons learned, I would find it very hard to believe that they would pull an Air Force stunt and ask for augmentation. The USMC will put their best foot forward on this and I am sure that they will be quite successful.

504, the CAP were quite successful. Were around from 65-71.

[Sinister]

Title 22? What crack are you smoking? " [edit by admin] Have a nice day"

[stanley_white]

I wonder if this mission for the USMC is another thing being prosecuted under the "Theater Security Cooperation" or TSC umbrella?

Can someone please tell me the difference between TSC and FID?

I always heard the TSC buzzword thrown around but never saw it specifically in action.

Is TSC the concept but FID is it in action on the ground?

Interested in some replies...

[Airbornelawyer]

TSC is just that, an umbrella. It covers a spectrum of military-to-military contacts for a variety of purposes. FID is a more specific category of activity with a more specific purpose, helping a nation deal with internal instability/insurgency.

In Europe, for example, TSC is mainly concerned with interoperability, confidence-building measures, bringing former Warsaw Pact countries up to NATO standards, etc. rather than FID. Right now, I think Georgia is the only place in Europe where we are doing FID (and Marines have been part of that for several years, BTW). I don't know if I would characterize US activities in the Balkans today as FID.

[boat guy]

Sinister and all,
Sorry for the lack of clarity. I was not as it seemed in my post, saying that the governing directive for SOCOM falls under Title 22, but rather that the training mission carried out by SOF (Title 10 forces) is regulated by the Embassy (title 22). While Title 10 section 167 and 2011 are the governing directive for SOF training with foreign countries, both dictate that the primary purpose must be to train US assets. When the primary intent of the training is for the foriegn force, the pot of money is different and the forces are then regulated under Title 22. Even during the conduct of JCETs the Embassy is almost always involved and maintains some degree of control. The mission that the USMC will undertake will not be subjected to the same. They idea is that they will be able to maintain autonomy from the Embassy as a title 10 FMTU. This may require law changes, no one knows just yet, but it will not necessarily slide in as TSC and it will NOT be FID.

[RAT]

Originally Posted by 504PIR

Not to bring up old stuff, but I recall not to long ago USMC was standing up Det 1. They were going be apart of Spec Ops, spent a bunch of money and stood up a great bunch of operators. Well they are disbanding now.....

I am sure that there are others here more in the know than me. As NousDefionsDoc said I heard the opposite as well.

As for the Marines doing this... IMHO Bad idea. We have taught FID in the past but the Corps is NOT the Unit for this. This is your (SF's) back yard. We do not have near the TO&E for this mission. We need to stickwhat we are good at. Reconnaissance and light infantry. MHO...

RAT OUT!!!

[504PIR]

Hopefully my information is dated, as I have been out of the loop for the last month. Southwest Missouri is not a hub of military activity.

We need to keep'm.

[NousDefionsDoc]

Article

Larger Special Operations Role Being Urged on Marines
Corps Plans New Force of Foreign Military Training Units but Balks at Ceding Its Elite Teams

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 8, 2005; Page A07

With conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan tying up many U.S. Special Operations forces, the Pentagon has found itself short of the elite teams it typically deploys around the world for specialized combat missions and for training foreign militaries, defense officials say.

To help fill the gap, the Marine Corps has stepped forward with a decision to establish a standing force of "foreign military training units" by this autumn. The units -- 24 teams, each with 13 members -- will be given special instruction in foreign languages and cultural awareness and tailored for assignments in one of four regions: the Middle East, Europe, the Pacific or Latin America.

That is the easy part.

The hard part comes in another move under consideration that would have Marines play an even greater role in special operations beyond "low-end" overseas training missions. This would involve using more Marines in "high-end" anti-terrorist actions and other combat operations requiring exceptional skills.

The sticking point is whether to compel the Marines to cede their specialized units to the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), something the fiercely self-reliant Corps -- unlike the Army, the Navy and the Air Force -- has long refused to do.

SOCOM was established in 1986 to end the practice of creating and using Special Forces on an ad hoc basis. The command today oversees the organizing, training and equipping of such highly skilled troops as the Army Rangers and Green Berets, the Navy SEALs and the Air Force AC-130 gunship fleet. The Marines, by contrast, have preferred to retain control of their specialized teams and lend them to SOCOM only as needed.

That kind of time-sharing arrangement may no longer be tenable for SOCOM. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the command's role has expanded to include responsibility for managing the war on terrorism -- and with that has come a need for more troops under its direct management. While SOCOM plans to increase its ranks by 2,300 troops over the next four years, up to a new total of about 52,000, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has made clear he also wants the Marines more involved with the Special Command.

A meeting in February involving Rumsfeld, Marine Corps Commandant Michael W. Hagee and Army Gen. Bryan D. Brown, the head of SOCOM, resulted in no deal. The two generals are scheduled to present a new proposal to Rumsfeld later this month.

Although the Marines see themselves as a general-purpose force, they have developed some capacity to conduct special operations, ranging from the emergency evacuation of noncombatants to the stealthy capture of enemy fighters. These capabilities are frequently included in the expeditionary units the Marines regularly deploy.

In recent years, to relieve some of the strain on SOCOM, the Marines have taken on several missions outside the traditional scope of the sea-based service. For instance, they have led a task force in the Horn of Africa, set up in late 2001 to hunt down al Qaeda cells and other terrorists and now focused on providing security assistance and other training to countries in that volatile area. For the invasion of Iraq, the Marines lent SOCOM a Special Operations group known as Detachment 1, a year-long experiment that has become a prototype for the more permanent integration now under discussion.

Still, the idea of a marriage continues to stir some resistance on both sides.

"The Special Operations folks say the Marines had a chance to join SOCOM years ago and didn't, and now they are only after SOCOM's funding and, besides, they are too hard to work with," said one senior Marine officer who has been involved in the issue. "The Marine naysayers, on the other hand, say we're a general-purpose force. They worry that if we do this with SOCOM, we're going to diminish our forces and end up only a shadow of our former selves in a few years."

[NousDefionsDoc]

Hagee, speaking to defense reporters in February, indicated his reluctance to establish a subordinate command for Marines under SOCOM, similar to what has been done for Army, Navy and Air Force units.

"I have to be honest," he said. "I don't like headquarters upon headquarters upon headquarters."

At the same time, he said he is committed to finding the "most efficient and effective way to get" Marine capabilities to SOCOM, envisioning perhaps a combination of "continuous and ad hoc" arrangements.

What facilitated the foreign training initiative was the absence of any requirement to tie forces to SOCOM. The move also built on a history of Marine training missions, including recent ones in such places as sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet republic of Georgia, according to several Marine officers authorized to discuss the new organization.

These past missions, however, tended to be assembled on an ad hoc basis, with Marines being drawn from whatever active-duty or reserve troops were available, the officers said. Once formed, the units would receive crash courses in the relevant language and cultural conditions. Little continuity existed between missions.

Under the new plan, the preparation will be more structured and extensive, and the units will stay together for multiple deployments.

"We're institutionalizing and formalizing what was normally done by your basic average infantry company or platoon or battalion," said Lt. Gen. Jan C. Huly, the deputy Marine commandant for plans, policies and operations.

This approach resembles how the "A teams" of the Army's Special Forces are developed. These teams have traditionally performed most U.S. foreign military training. But Huly and other Marine officers said the intention is not to replace the Army teams, merely augment the effort.

The Marine units, although about the same size as the Army teams, will not be as highly skilled. Lacking the specialists in engineering, medicine and communications who serve on the Army teams, the Marines will focus on teaching basic infantry skills, the officers said.

Just where the new Marine teams will be sent has yet to be decided. But the Pentagon's revised "national defense strategy," issued in March, emphasized the need for more foreign military training as a way of bolstering other nations against the spread of terrorist networks and preventing local conflicts from mushrooming into major crises that can precipitate greater U.S. military involvement.

[The Reaper]

Should be an article about this in Marine Corps Times this week or next.

TR