Lt. Col. Lloyd Freeman, a Marine infantry officer with three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, argues that the Marine Corps will need to make significant changes if it wants to avoid redundancy:
The Marines are a door-kicking service, designed to breach enemy territory and establish an entry point for the Army’s strategic land capability. But the U.S. military’s development of unmanned aircraft, combined with stealth technology and unmatched [Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance] capability, makes it almost impossible for an enemy today to significantly impede the landing of U.S. forces on a beach or at a port. Forcible entry no longer requires landing forces — it takes precision strikes, coordinated by special operations forces as needed. But if the door is going to be kicked in by a cruise missile, an unmanned aircraft, or other platform delivering precision munitions, why does the Marine Corps insist on maintaining such a large amphibious forcible entry capability based around the same Marine who stormed ashore at Tarawa? Because to argue that the United States does not need a forcible-entry force would be to question the very necessity of having a Marine Corps. Unfortunately, that is the question the Corps must now answer.
The Dish 