One of our favorite rhetorical devices is when a service chief takes a stab at humility by insisting he doesn’t know where the next war will be, or how it will be fought -- but then proceeds to explain exactly how it’ll all go down.
Speaking at a dinner event earlier this month, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said when mapping out the next war, “inevitably we’ll guess wrong,” but -- but -- “I think there’s some things we can say about what that next fight’s going to be. I think it’s going to be based on a maritime campaign: we’re going to fight with the Navy, we’re going to come from the sea, we’re going to seize some sort of naval base or maybe forward operating base. We may have to defend it against an enemy maritime threat.”
He continued, “I think our enemy is going to be different, I think it’s going to be a near-peer enemy. The enemy’s going to be networked, they’re going to jam our comms.” That’s pretty specific. Not that his assumptions are wrong, but the next war sounds pretty well tailored for how the Marine Corps views its role in America’s wars.
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