Not bad for a department of the Navy
Written by: Beck
When reading fellow blogger Roach's site
mansizedtarget I came across
an article linking to
an article by Col Michael D. Wyly which I found quite interesting. The straightforward title of the article is "Fourth Generation Warfare: What Does It Mean to Every Marine?" Wyly identifies three primary things that the "new" marine should prepare for. The first two are relatively obvious, but his third point was what caught my eye.
There is much, much more that needs to be said about how to defeat a fourth generation enemy than I am going to write about here. But in a few words I can present the essentials very clearly.
- First, we must expect the unexpected in terms of new kinds of enemies and new kinds of forces that assume the function of soldiers and nondescript war makers...
- Second, we must come to grips with the fact that our traditional form of warfare, i.e., high tech with overwhelming firepower delivered from a distant standoff, no longer solves problems...
- Third, the Corps must be a bastion of Americans who really do support and defend the Constitution of the United States. To many of our politicians and judges, pressing issues outweigh the parameters the Constitution sets down. The Corps must become a repository of those rare Americans who read the document, know it, and believe in it. This must be so, partly because we swore we would, but mostly because it is the source of the freedom for which we fight.
In this time of the politicization of the practice of war, it's nice to see that someone remembers that the Constitution is our entire justification for everything we do. If we do not keep the Constitution in the front of our minds, we will quickly go astray.