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On the record, Marine and Army officials insist that their units do not overlap. Behind the scenes, however, Army officers charge that the Marines may be fine for assaulting enemy shorelines but "can't engage beyond the beaches." Marine Brigadier General John Sheehan counterattacked last fall by claiming that an Army light division, which has less firepower than a comparable Marine unit, "is light enough to get there, but just light enough to get itself into trouble. You don't need the Army building toward another Marine Corps." When Powell heard that senior Marine and Army officers would testify before Congress, he insisted on appearing with them to head off any public sniping. "The need for flexibility," he declared, "dictates that we maintain both Marine and Army ground forces."
Powell has a point in saying that the three forces do not exactly duplicate one another. The Marines, prepositioned in three expeditionary forces for power projection overseas, have the capacity to come ashore and sustain themselves for 30 days without further help. Their units come equipped with their own close air support, while the Army has to depend on the Air Force. The Army's mobile divisions, on the other hand, can drop on targets from aircraft. But to gain such mobility, they must travel with less artillery and heavy armor. The lightly armed Special Operations Forces are equipped to make lightning raids behind enemy front lines. Still, there is enormous overlap between the three separate forces. Taken together, they are simply too much of a good thing.
In an analysis of the Pentagon, defense specialist Richard Halloran argues that the best way to eliminate the glut of low-intensity forces would be to meld the Marines into the Army. Although many experts agree with Halloran, any move in that direction would encounter huge political land mines. Harry Truman once tried to slash the Marines on the grounds that the Navy did not need its own army, but he was beaten by what he described as a Leatherneck "propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's." Aside from the clout of ten Senators and 21 Representatives in the current Congress who served in the Marines, the corps exudes such a mystical aura that it is unassailable.
As the budget battle rages, the Marines will take heavy hits, but they seem sure to prevail once again, a testament to their political firepower.
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