The Marine Corps is under fire from retired officers who say that outgoing commandant Gen. David Berger’s radical restructuring plan will undercut both national security and the service’s fundamental character.- Berger’s plan calls for smaller, lighter and more technologically-adept units he says will better assist the U.S. in a fight with China.
- “Their ‘debate’ is indeed a cultural issue, not a war fighting issue,” Brian Kerg, a fellow at the Marine Corps University’s Kulak Center, wrote in a social media statement.
The U.S. Marine Corps is facing fire from high-ranking retired officers as the outgoing commandant passes on responsibility to implement his radical changes to new leadership, according to experts and a review of arguments by current and retired Marines.
A secretive group of retired Marine Corps generals, including two previous commandants, renewed a years-long assault against what they characterized in multiple articles as dangerous narrow-mindedness underlying Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger’s plan to revamp the force, of which the latest update was released on Monday. As Berger is slated to depart by the end of this year and be replaced with his second-in-command, the service will face new struggles amid new leadership and political pressures, where the stakes could mean failure in a conflict with China, according to an expert and the retired officers.
“There is an intellectual civil war going on in the Marine Corps,” Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps Reserve colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
In 2020, Berger unveiled a new vision for the Marine Corps, Force Design 2030 (FD30), hinging in part on assumptions China would pose the greatest threat to the U.S. in the coming decade and the Indo-Pacific would serve as the major theater of conflict.
Opponents said the plan risks national security by limiting the force’s ability to address different kinds of threats worldwide, violating protocol and undermining the Marine Corps ethos.
Aware of the mounting information campaign against FD30, Berger shaped the 2023 update to address some of those concerns.
“The first two pages of the update seek to refute the generals’ criticisms, portraying FD 2030 as global, combined arms, force in readiness,” Cancian told the DCNF.
In December, retired generals, part of a mostly anonymous group that goes by “Chowder II” in reference to the 1946 Chowder Society that saved the Marine Corps from extinction, published a series of articles in the National Interest detailing their opposition to FD2030. It’s unclear exactly how many members Chowder II has, but they include former commandants Gen. James Amos and Gen. Charles Krulak.
“The retired generals want a more traditional design that applies globally and uses combined arms, whereas FD 2030 is targeted at the Western Pacific and China and centers around missile units,” Cancian explained.
Berger ditched all of the service’s tanks — its “maneuver” element — and slashed the number of infantry Marines and artillery units to fund experimentation and investment in island-defending “Stand-in Forces” and “Expeditionary Advanced Based Operations,“ accordingto a CSIS analysis. That means it will be less suited to conduct simultaneous infantry, artillery, armor and close air support operations, a foundational component of the force’s mission and structure as required by law, Krulak and former Marine and commander of U.S. Central Command Gen. Anthony Zinni argued.
The war in Ukraine, with its heavy reliance on ground-based maneuver warfare, underscores the risks inherent in Berger’s strategy, which prioritizes light and highly mobile amphibious units, according to Cancian.
However, under FD30, the Corps will be returning to its maritime roots and following guidance from the military commander in chief, proponents argue. Berger is responding to the positioning of China as the major strategic challenge for the U.S. military in President Trump’s 2018 National Defense Strategy and Biden’s 2022 version, they say.
“These officers are, in essence, urging the commandant to ignore strategic guidance from the president and the secretary of defense,” former under secretary of defense and Marine Corps artillery officer Robert Work wrote in a May response to Chowder II’s articles, adding that it is high time for the retired officers to let up on their campaign to tank FD30.
“We’re not waiting for 2030 or 2027 or 2025. Your Marines are ready to handle any crisis today,” the promotional video for the 2023 FD30 update states.
The 2023 update does not implement major changes, instead announcing that the Marine Corps has completed the “divest” stage and is ready to double down on “investing.” It calls for experimenting toward a fleet of kamikaze attack drones and, notably, scaling the number of infantry units up to 811 from an initial goal of 735.
“The infantry has traditionally been the center of the Marine Corps, so the structure of the infantry battalions is very important,” Cancian told the DCNF.
The update mentions redesigned reconnaissance units, hypersonic rocket boosters and a “Long-Range Attack Munition” capable of traveling distances across the Pacific, according to Breaking Defense. It also acknowledges that acquiring 35 of a certain type of warship in the specified time frame is infeasible given Berger’s objective to remain within budget, while making an argument for 31 amphibious warships.
“The original FD 2030 argued that large amphibious ships were too expensive and too vulnerable, so [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] and the Navy proposed cutting them to 24-27. The Marine Corps has been working with Congress ever since to justify higher numbers,” Cancian said.
High jump @USMC Marines jump from a KC-130J Super Hercules during parachute drills over Okinawa, Japan. The training sustains operational readiness while ensuring Marines are prepared to rapidly insert into austere environments through multiple methods. pic.twitter.com/n0IbNrofsm
— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) June 2, 2023
‘Only Part Of The Problem’
Congress appears to be largely in favor of the Marine Corps’ reorganization.
Congressional appropriators lauded Berger’s gutsy modernization moves, taking on significant risk associated with shedding certain capabilities, in a May 15 letter. They especially appreciated that Berger planned the transition without seeking or expecting additional budgetary support, with savings to the tune of $15.8 billion against the Department of Defense’s topline budget.
Berger “made difficult investment and divestment decisions that were a departure from institutional and doctrinal norms,” the bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote, nodding to the opposition including Chowder II. “However, we should commend the Marine Corps on its willingness to make difficult decisions for the Nation’s strategic advantage and security.”
President Joe Biden has not commented on FD30. For now, the Pentagon appears on board with the rapid changes the Corps is undergoing, according to Cancian.
“The concept has received strong support from the secretary of the Navy and, to a lesser extent, from the Defense Secretary and Chairman,” he said.
Biden tapped Marine Corps Assistant Commandant Gen. Eric Smith to succeed Berger on May 31. Smith has been at the forefront of advocating for FD30 against detractors and implementing its proposals, according to Breaking Defense.
“This also shows that [President Biden] is on board with the reshaping of the Corps,” former Senate candidate and Marine Lt. Col. Amy McGrath said in a social media statement.
In addition, Sgt. Maj. Carlos Ruiz will in August replace Sgt. Maj. Troy Black, who has served as the principal enlisted adviser to the commandant, responsible for issues of morale and discipline among the ranks since 2019, according to a press release.
The new sergeant major will have to address challenges arising from FD30-related mandates.
“The Marine Corps is also flirting with the idea of bringing in specialists without all the military skills the Marine Corps has been known for. To the extent this happens, the new sgt. major will have to deal with pushback from the senior enlisted Marines,” Cancian said.
The Marine Corps, with an authorized size of 177,000 troops, feels pressure to uphold its reputation as the anytime, anywhere rapid response force. Although the Marine Corps struggled less with recruiting than the remaining military branches, bringing on 28,608 active-duty enlisted personnel and 1,592 active-duty officers in fiscal year 2022 just above goals, it foresees difficult recruiting challenges, according to Marine Corps Times.
“FD 2030 is only part of the problem,” Marine Rob Barrow wrote on a forum for discussion about the service, saying the force has also caved to political pressures such as opening the service to women and allowing transgender Marines to serve in their claimed gender.
“What would Chowder II would say if asked their stance on these issues? May reveal that their ‘debate’ is indeed a cultural issue, not a war fighting issue,” Brian Kerg, a fellow at the Marine Corps University’s Kulak Center, wrote in a social media statement.
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Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
