Ryan Evans:
<silence> You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on strategy, defense and foreign affairs. My name's Ryan Evans. I'm the founder of War on the Rocks, and in this episode I spoke with General Eric Smith, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, about a whole bunch of things. I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it. Thank you so much for doing this. Now that you are in the chair, no longer acting, but actual commandant, everyone is expecting, anticipating your Commandants Planning Guidance, what can we expect there? I guess starting with continuity versus change, uh, with the last commandants planning, guidance, and Force Design? Well,
Gen. Smith:
The Commandants Planning Guidance, it'll reflect me, my style, the way I operate, the way I communicate with, with my Marines, with my commanders. I'd like to have it done by the birthday ball. I think I will. And it'll, it'll have three big themes in there. It'll talk about Marines, how we find them, how we recruit them, how we train them, and how we retain them. Quality of life caring for them, which is retention. It'll talk about lethality. That's what we do. I mean, we are America's crisis response force. We are a lethal fighting force, a marine air ground task force. So it'll talk about lethality and it'll talk about mobility. 'Cause unless you can get to the fight, it doesn't matter what you bring to the fight, you have to be present to win. So it'll talk about those three themes. And if there's any doubt or confusion, is, is he gonna continue with Force Design? That's an easy answer. Yes. 'Cause Force Design, I won't say 2030 anymore because then I'd have to say 31 and 32. And every year update it. It is a correct journey. It's it's threat informed fact-based about how to make us more lethal, more mobile for a pacing threat that frankly we didn't focus on for about 15, 18 years in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, yep, we're gonna continue on with Force Design 'cause it's working, it is the correct destination.
Ryan Evans:
You mentioned people, one of your big focuses in your last job was the talent management strategy. Could you talk more about that and where that's heading and some things that you're gonna tease out of there and emphasize more?
Gen. Smith:
Talent management in my assessment was so simple. It was if, if you let a marine write their own tasking statement, they'll get it right every single time. Ask a Marine, what, what do you wanna do? Now, I may not be able to provide that, but, but first we should start with what would it take to keep you, I I, I want to retain you, I want you to stay a marine. What would that take? Does that mean an extension, uh, at your current duty station? Does that mean a different MOS Does that mean a promotion? And what would it take in, in my 36 years of experience, again, I have a son who's a Marine, so I get a lot of, uh, very candid feedback from from Marines. Marines just wanna be involved in the conversation. They just wanna have, have some say. They don't demand that they get to write their own career check. That doesn't work like that. This is a Marine Corps. We give orders, but they do wanna be involved in the conversation. And talent management is just how do we change policies to let you be more involved in the conversation? Everybody knows that if, if the Marine says, I want X and the Marine Corps says I have to have y the Marine Corps wins. That's who we are, right? We are our mission. Locate close with, destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver or repel the enemy, assault by fire in close combat. That's our mission. So the house, quote unquote, always wins, but it doesn't have to be adversarial because 90% of the time, maybe 95% of the time, we can come to an agreement that we both are happy with. That's talent management. There's nothing more complicated about talent management than that.
Ryan Evans:
I was actually just, uh, visiting with Frank Hoffman over the weekend.
Gen. Smith:
Sure.
Ryan Evans:
And we were talking about the differences between when he was in the Marine Corps and, and how it's changing now in terms of assignments and how the Marine Corps is or isn't changing the way it does business for those things. Especially when family considerations are involved. Uh, there's a lot of, and a lot of service leaders now talk about, it's about retaining the family. It's about retaining the family. But what are some of the specific things that the Marine Corps is doing to realize that in practice,
Gen. Smith:
Dynamics have changed? Most Marines are, well, not most still, but, but way more Marines are married today than when I came in, when I, my first platoon one, my first platoon is about 22 Marines instead of 41. 'cause of the way we, we did our manpower business. I think I had, uh, myself, my platoon sergeant and maybe three Marines were married. Now that same 21, probably, uh, 14 of 'em be married. There's a few things that we're doing. Spousal employment is a big one. And that means both us Department of Defense paying for credentialing for spouses. So you don't have to take a new teaching or nursing or medical. You can have portability with your expertise, whether it's law or whatever. You still have to obviously sit before the bar for each state. But we're doing everything we can to make it more transportable if you're a professional. The other piece is if you want to stay at a specific location for longer, it used to be three years and you're moving, didn't matter. You were east coast, west coast, overseas, east coast, west coast, overseas. What if a Marine says, look, my kid happens to be, uh, a junior in high school. My spouse happens to have a really great job, let's just say as a nurse, uh, or as a lawyer, and I'd like to stay for a second tour here at Camp Pendleton. We used to just say, no, just do what I tell you, Marine. Well, now I have Marines who also wanna stay at Camp Lejeune. I have Marines who want to stay in Okinawa or Hawaii. So you can't stay there for 10 years. But why can't you stay for six? That's reasonable. We're doing a few things such as opt out. Meaning, if you want to take, uh, if you do not wish to be considered for command this year, or even for promotion, one time for promotion because you know, hey, I'm actually not ready. I, I've been on a certain job and I'm not ready for that task of being promoted or being in command and for one time, one year I want to opt out.
Ryan Evans:
Is it not ready or you just prefer for personal reasons? Or is it, does this not matter? I
Gen. Smith:
Won't say it doesn't matter. 'cause you still have to see the first general officer in your chain of command to say, this is why I'm opting out. I don't want to be considered for a command or for promotion. So it could be either, it could be I'm, I haven't finished enough of my professional military education right now. You know, my wife is finishing her doctoral thesis, or my husband is working on his veterinary degree, and this is a really bad year. Okay. You just, you have to see the first general in your chain and explain that. But the reasoning is up to you. And you can do it one time for promotion, for command. You could do it a couple of times. There's also a, a program that lets you have, I don't like the word intermission, but career intermission. So you've been in for 10 years and right now your mom is, is aging. We're all going through that. Your mom is sick. Your brother has cancer, God forbid. And you say, listen, I need a year to really take care of my brother right now. Or previously, the Marine Corps would've said, uh, there's not much I can do for you. I mean, you're a Marine. Go get it done. Why can't you take a year, go take care of your brother and then come back, pick up exactly where you left off. Same commitment, same requirements, but you took a year out. 'cause if I don't let you do that and you walk away, then I lost an eight or a nine year intelligence officer. That doesn't make sense to me. And it's not that we're quote, kindler and gentler. We're just smarter. I don't wanna waste that talent. So that's talent management. And those are some of the things for families. I would note too, on families DoDEA schools, which are highly useful, especially overseas, just got rated top in the nation.
Ryan Evans:
Yeah, I saw that. It was very impressive actually. Yeah.
Gen. Smith:
And not a surprise to anybody who's had their kids in a DoDEA school. We, everybody's got problems and drama and all that kind of stuff. But my son's a graduate of a DoDEA High School. They're phenomenal. 'cause everybody in there values education. 'cause your, your parents are, are military and we require professional military education constantly.
Ryan Evans:
What's your vision for how Marines compared to how they're learning now, whether that is, you know, training or education or anything in between. What's your vision for how that should change over the next five or 10 years?
Gen. Smith:
We can, we can be in so much smarter. Look, I don't do anything around this house or any house or on my, you know, I have, I have a, a fishing boat. I don't do anything without looking at a YouTube video to find out how to tie a certain knot, how to throw a certain lure, how to fix the washing machine. I mean, that's all on YouTube. The the challenge is, which of the 50 people telling you this is how you should do it? Do I listen to when we do that, when training and education command says, here's a video. This is how to change a trailer tire on your trailer. This is how to do whatever the task may be. That's coming from training education command. You can count on that. We have to get better about using that kind of visual training as opposed to, here's your computer-based class. It takes an hour. No matter how smart you are or, or how challenged you are,
Ryan Evans:
Click through this. And quizzes that don't really mean anything.
Gen. Smith:
Right, that, that don't. We, we want to make it more useful to the Marine. Now the Marines have to understand, we also have to account to Congress who has, who has directed. I need a one hour class on X or on Y. You have to actually account for that. You have to, to prove that you did what Congress told you to do. And since we support and defend the Constitution, we're kind of big on doing what Congress tells us to do. So there's a balance there. And I'll keep working with the departmental leadership and then members of Congress to say, I can get more of the effect you want in less time and more effectively using training that is, that's individually based and, and kind of YouTube based.
Ryan Evans:
Experimentation and war gaming played a big role in informing Force Design 2030 and, and General Berger's efforts, which you were a part of. How are you going to use experimentation and war gaming going forward? And there any specific examples you can give?
Gen. Smith:
The, the campaign of learning continues. So we'll do the exact same thing that we have been doing. It's what I would call a, a virtuous cycle. I stole that from Doug Hoffman, who's our senior analyst, uh, Mr. Doug Hoffman. It is concept, war game, experiment, feedback, concept, war game, experiment, feedback, goes in a loop because first you just think of an idea, then before you apply people's time, you run it through a war game. And we have some really exquisite high-end modeling and simulation tools that we're using. In fact, in 2024 we'll open the Robert Neller Center, general Neller, right, uh, down the street at Quantico. And it will be a war gaming and analysis center after the war game. Then we'll go and experiment, actually put it to the test in the field. And that's what I'm most interested in, is the experimentation where real Marines put hands on real equipment and tell us what does and doesn't work. They provide us feedback and then we keep going. So I think what we've been doing is correct and we'll keep doing it in that same cycle. And you, you have to lean forward when your adversary is moving, as quickly as our adversaries are moving, and not just an adversary, all of them. You, you cannot wait to have a completely fleshed out, validated concept before you start moving toward it. Once I have enough data that says I'm comfortable and confident that that's gonna work, then you have to start moving toward it. In terms of procurement, training, education, organization, if you wait until it's completely validated, you'll get nowhere because the Commandant will change, the administration will change, the budget will change you. You can't do that. You'll be stuck in a quagmire. You gotta be pretty bold here. I mean that's, that's what we did in the twenties when Pete Ellis was out running around Micronesia and he wrote expeditionary advanced operations in Micronesia. We could have been even faster with what he found, right? Pete Ellis found before he died in 23, but we actually didn't move as fast as we could. And people say, oh, we, we did, we did a lot of experiments and war game. We allowed, did a lot of work. And we did, but we didn't do enough because we still got stuck on a reef at Tarawa 'cause we didn't have the right equipment. 'Cause we, I would say we hadn't fully been committed to, to an idea, a concept that that clearly had merit but wasn't fully fleshed out.
Ryan Evans:
And I, one thing I worry about with the war games, I mean, I'm a huge supporter of war gaming. Both, you know, for experimentation, for, for con-ops, for whatever, for education, certainly. But you'll see these war games make the news.
New Speaker:
Yeah.
Ryan Evans:
So someone will leak or, or formally talk about, uh, the results of a war game as if they are, that game is determinative of all reality.
New Speaker:
Exactly.
Ryan Evans:
And I think that the department.
Gen. Smith:
As opposed to a piece of the puzzle.
Ryan Evans:
Yeah, exactly. They, and they're played iteratively. And I think that both the department needs to get a little bit better about how it communicates about war gaming and the defense press needs to get a little more disciplined in how they report on it.
Gen. Smith:
I think you're right because all the war games, the, the war games that are of value are classified. I mean, if, if you're not fully informed, if, if you, if you do a war game that doesn't account for all of the tools that we have and that the adversary has
Ryan Evans:
For actual planning of yeah.
Gen. Smith:
For actual planning, then, then it's a conceptual war game. And you can learn some broad things. But if it didn't include all of the tools in both of your arsenals, then it's not actually a, a highly useful war game. So it's hard to do that and communicate. But to your point, one war game is, is one war game. It's not the end all be all it, it's an indicator. It's a data point. Now when I see 17 data points aligned and moving in a certain path or a certain trajectory, okay, now I'm interested but one, one war game, you know? And sometimes it's, well, the war game didn't fix the problem. Right? But it's better than it was. So that's a trajectory that we should stay on, as opposed to. Well go back to where you were. Why would I go back to where I was when the war game found out that where you are now is better than where you were still doesn't work, but it's better. Go back to the old way. Why would I do that? That's going backwards. That doesn't make sense.
Gen. Smith:
Along the lines of, uh, experimentation, you know, real life, uh, experiments going on right now.
New Speaker:
Yeah.
Ryan Evans:
And that of informed where, where do we stem with the marine littoral regiment. And could you talk about where that came from and where that's heading?
Gen. Smith:
Yeah. There's two littoral regiment, well there's one who's, who's FOC fully operationally capable. That's the third Marine littoral regiment out of Hawaii. They're up, they've been used, tested, experimented with. They've been used in Balikatan. They're asked for, the combatant commander wants them. He wants another one as quickly as he can get it. That'll be the 12th MLR that'll be in Japan. That littoral regiment that's in Japan. That is the most significant change to our Japanese lay down that we have had in the 15, 20 years. Uh, because the Japanese government sees the threat the same way we do. And they said, yep, you can keep the 12th MLR on Okinawa. That is a big step because it's long range fires. It's a stand in force capability. It's, it's quite lethal. It's got sense, make sense capabilities, reconnaissance, counter reconnaissance. So those two MLR's the third, which is stood up now and fully operationally capable, followed by the 12th, which will come in the coming years informed by the third. They're, they're exactly what we need in the Pacific. And I would remind people we were not best trained, organized, or equipped to deal with the task that we'd been lawfully given in the last two national defense strategies. So we had to make a change. So we did what Marines do. We took a different approach to a Marine air ground task force. 'Cause the MLR is a marine air ground task force. It's no different than a MEU or a MEB or a MEF. It's just sized and it's purpose built for its task, which is to be light lethal, austere and be able to stand in, to the weapons engagement zone when others are gonna have to leave because of the threat. It is the best solution to the task we've been given. So they're doing well.
Ryan Evans:
You talked about long range fires. What are some of your early thoughts as Commandant about the future of long range fires in the Marine Corps?
Gen. Smith:
Fully committed to long range fires. The modern battlefield where almost everyone, state actors and non-state actors have access to really long range fires. Either through drone technology, missile technology, which has gotten cheaper in some ways over time. Kinda like the, the wristwatch, you know, the original Cassio wristwatch when they first came out, like 250 bucks, now you can get 'em for $20 computers. Those were six, $7,000 laptops. Now you can get 'em for, you know, 900 bucks. So that technology is now available to include long range fires for others beyond state actors. We're committed to long range fires. We're also committed to lightweight long range fires. That's our conundrum. We're a light force, we're a mobile force. If we are dragging around systems that are so heavy that we can't get there in time, then we have to spend our money trying to make 'em smaller. So that's what I'm focused on is the Naval Strike Missile. How do I extend its range or use something like Precision Strike Missile because I want missiles that I can move and have a deep enough magazine 'cause I can carry volume. So that's gonna be my focus is extending the range of our smaller, lighter rockets, missiles such that I can take more of them and be more mobile.
Ryan Evans:
I read the interview you did with Defense one, which was very useful. I thought the issue of organic mobility is a big priority of yours.
New Speaker:
Yes.
Ryan Evans:
What Does that mean to you?
Gen. Smith:
Organic mobility is a combination, first and foremost of amphibious warships. All stop. We have to have, well the law directs us to have minimum of 31 amphibious warships, 10 big decks and 21 LPDs. And we'll need landing ship mediums, LSMs, which will are the ship to shore connectors that best enable the marine littoral regiments. 'Cause when you have only a few, let's just say a few days of unambiguous warning, you need to move and to get yourself strategically positioned, not quote flung across islands, but strategically placed in pre-planned locations to provide sea denial, which leads to sea control for the Navy, which is distributed maritime operations. That enables the movement of things in and outta the weapons engagement zone and causes an adversary to question what they're doing. Is this the right trajectory? As Dr. Hicks often says, the Dep-SECDEF what we're looking for in this case China, to say, Hey, today's not the day. Maybe tomorrow, but not today. Every day we buy back is a day our technology advances the what the day that our cyber skills advance our undersea, uh, dominance advances. So that's how I see organic mobility, first and foremost, amphibs and then our own true marine organic mobility, which is KC-130s. That's why we're adding the second squadron to Hawaii. And then our 53s and our V-22s, uh, tertiarily, new word there, which is impressive for a guy from Texas A&M tertiarily. If I would've gone to UT, which I didn't, um, my daughter did, um, and we talked about that a little bit then I'd have, I'd have been faster with that word. But in a tertiary sense, it is unmanned systems both undersea, at sea and from the air being able to, to produce and provide logistics, specifically fires, communications from an unmanned perspective. 'Cause that kind of mobility matters too. Moving radios, moving signals. It's not just moving people and weapons.
Ryan Evans:
And I don't say this in a critical way at all. So the Marine Corps culture is offensive tact, at the tactical level. A lot of this thinking and des and Force Design that we're seeing in the Marine Corps, as well as the way that technology is going sort of emphasizes and advantages the defense. I mean, I would view, and maybe this is incorrect, stand in forces as mostly a defensive concept of operations. Do you see that it's a problem for the Marine Corps? Do you disagree with my characterization on that?
Gen. Smith:
Yeah, I would disagree. Stand in force is offensive. 100%. 'Cause it is sense and make sense. And what, what are you sensing? You're sensing the adversary. Makes sense, makes sense of what? His intentions. Okay. So I sense that he is doing something and I can make sense, because I'm there and I have battle uh, battlespace domain awareness and I sense what he's doing and why he is doing it well in order to do what, in order to kill him.
Ryan Evans:
So, but defending involves killing too, right?
Gen. Smith:
Defending involves killing. But if you are sitting waiting for something that's, that perhaps is not how Marines wanna be. We are offensively minded. What we're trying to do is, I'm trying to make you stop going in direction one or direction two, either change your trajectory or to kill you. Everything we do is with an offensive mindset. It is to, to Im impose my will on you. That is, that is warfare is me imposing my will on the adversary. And everything we do is part of a kill web. So the person who pulls the trigger is the last piece in the kill web. The most important part is actually finding the adversary. Then you gotta fix 'em, gotta hold 'em in place, gotta track 'em. And then somebody's gotta pull the trigger and put, as we say, a warhead on a forehead. We can do that and still build a marine who understands and is ready for the gritty, nasty, harsh, horrible realities of ground combat. 'Cause again, our mission locate close with destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver. So we're still teaching bayonet fighting and we will, we'll continue to teach that. I mean, it is still at some point rifle squads closed non rifle squads. But when they were teaching bayonet fighting in World War ii, if you look at the, the manual, they were teaching knife fighting. The instructors put in there, the last thing you wanna do is what I'm about to teach you. You want to kill the enemy as far away as you can. First kill 'em with artillery, then kill 'em with a machine gun, then kill 'em with a rifle, then kill 'em with a pistol. And if worse comes to worse, kill 'em with your bayonet. And then you might have to kill 'em with your hands. But you want to kill the adversary way, way out. So if I enable a navy tomahawk to kill an adversary at, let's just say hundreds of miles away, that is way better than a marine killing 'em with a rifle. It doesn't mean we're not offensively minded. It means I'm feeding a kill chain that's killing people way further out than I would be able to do on my own.
Ryan Evans:
You mentioned the squad and there's been a lot of, especially during general Berger's tenure, a lot of debate and controversy over the size of the infantry battalion.
New Speaker:
Mm-Hmm.
Ryan Evans:
Can you preview where we're heading with that? Is that still undergoing experimentation or?
Gen. Smith:
Yeah, the size is 811. It was 896, although it really wasn't because no battalion had all their people, like I said, my, my first platoon of 41 was actually a platoon of about 21. So we did an experiment. We went out to each division, and they formed a battalion and we told 'em to take a look at, uh, this is kind of rehash in the past, but we had 'em take a look at a really hard objective. 730. We said, can you get by with 730? Knowing that we were shooting way long at the target, each division formed a battalion, and they tested it. They tested it on a marine expeditionary unit, tested it on a unit deployment program and just tested it in a regular training regime. And they all came back and said, no, too small. What's the right number? We asked 811. Okay, so the commandant said 811, we're continuing with IBX, infantry battalion experimentation to validate that. So if that number proves to be, if the facts and data come in and say you need to add 10 or you need to drop seven or add 20, then I'll do it. But I have to see the data first. But right now the number's 811 and it's smaller. But they do in fact have more lethality, more capability, more range, more communications than they had before. And they're entirely capable. 'Cause a normal battalion in most other services about 500 we're still behemoths compared to most other people.
Ryan Evans:
Largest infantry battalion in the world. I think so.
Gen. Smith:
In the world.
Ryan Evans:
Yeah. And I think a lot of people don't appreciate how much, and you said this, but it's worth emphasizing how much more lethal and how much more range is in a marine infantry battalion today than 10, 15, 20.
Gen. Smith:
We used to talk about your 81s were your big thing. You know, you're, you're reaching out there maybe 5,800, 6,000 on a good day, six kilometers. We're pushing stuff out now at the infantry battalion, 30, 40 kilometers. I mean it's, it is not even remotely the same as it was. But that comes with the cost, right? You have to have the technology, the training, you have to carry the equipment. But if you don't have range to sense the adversary before they sense you, then you're playing defense. 'Cause he found you before you found him. The advantage is always to the hider.
Ryan Evans:
Ever since Berger's planning guidance was issued, it has seemed to me that the biggest, one of the biggest problems the Marine Corps has in realizing its vision, which I support for Force Design is, and this is Ryan's opinion here, is the Navy isn't meeting the Marine Corps where they need to. Part of this is number of amphibs, which I know is a subject of disagreement.
Gen. Smith:
Actually, it's not. We're good. Admiral Franchetti and I are both set on 31.
Ryan Evans:
Okay.
New Speaker:
Minimum 31.
Ryan Evans:
Well, I withdraw the comment.
New Speaker:
Which is actually great because it's what the law requires.
Ryan Evans:
Has been a subject of disagreement.
Gen. Smith:
Has been, yeah. We're, we're both set on 31 as a minimum.
Ryan Evans:
Are you happy with where the Navy's meeting you on other issues as well? Or what, what more would you like to see from the Navy?
Gen. Smith:
So one Admiral Franchetti and I truly good friends, we get along, we both share a vision of a, of a powerful naval expeditionary force that's globally deployable. You're certainly seeing that now in the vicinity of Israel. What neither of us is happy about is the state of maintenance of ships. The maintenance numbers are in the thirties and 40 percentile. That's not acceptable to , to our vice CNO. Uh, hopefully our soon CNO, not acceptable to me. So that's I think where we wanna focus. 'Cause we need our ships ready to go. But when we add the LSM, landing ship medium and a minimum of 31 amphibs, we're, we're in a good place.
Ryan Evans:
You mentioned Israel, the, uh, 26 Marine Expeditionary Unit is on, its, I believe on its way to the Eastern Mediterranean, if not already there. I don't really know the schedule, but what is its mission there and what are you watching its mission for? Not just for the immediate consequences on the war that's ongoing, which hopefully we don't have to get directly militarily involved in, but for learning for the Marine Corps.
Gen. Smith:
So the mission of the 26 MEU, I will not violate the classification level or pre pre-decision. What I can tell you is the, the MEU has been disaggregated or distributed. We've had the Mesa Verde doing operations in the high north with our allies and partners there to include Norway. We've had the Bataan and the Carter Hall down in the, uh, Gulf of Oman. They've been up into the Strait of Hormuz. So the decision on where the MEU will be still to be made can tell you that what they have a capability to do is to strike. They have a capability to do non-combatant evacuation operations at scale. And I mean, I, I had a, an amphibious ready group when I was a company commander. We did the evacuation of Liberia and we're moving thousands of people. It, it's one thing to move a couple hundred, 300, it's different, to move thousands, that requires an amphibious ready group and a lily lily pad, which is that big deck. So we'll see what the, what the decision by the secretary is for where the MEU goes or doesn't go. But we certainly have the capability to do, uh, whatever's required in either the Mediterranean or the Middle East. I'll just leave it at that.
Ryan Evans:
Shifting To the Indo-Pacific, there's two interesting deployments going on right now, is one marine rotational force, Southeast Asia and the others is, uh, Darwin. Could you talk about What we're learning from those missions and what they're doing in Asia?
Gen. Smith:
Yeah, and I failed to, to hit the, the experimentation piece that you talked about for the MEU every unit that goes out for a deployment to Okinawa on a MEU to MRF-SEA and that's SEA Southeast Asia, not MRF-C 'cause the other one's MRF-D the letter MRF Darwin,
Ryan Evans:
I'm sure that never gets confusing.
Gen. Smith:
Oh, people screw that up all the time. I see it. MRF dash in the letter C. It's like, nope, it's SEA. Every one of them is tasked to experiment with drones, with, with VBAT systems, tail-sitters with, uh, communications gear. Every one of them is, is working by, with and through Marine Corps war fighting lab. So what those units are doing, MRF-SEA, MRF-D and the MEU is looking at our distributed operations. How do you sustain yourself? How do you do three-d printing and additive manufacturing at sea or in austere environments? How do you do new formations? How do you use your ability to use expeditionary contracting? 'Cause you can buy just about anything anywhere in the world. If you bring enough money with you. I mean, people will sell you chow, they'll sell you water, they'll sell you everything but ammo. So they're all doing those experimentations and they're doing command and control. How do they, how does that small command element sense make sense of the battlefield, the cop, the common, uh, common operating picture and then pass that data in time that matters, meaning seconds or milliseconds to the rest of the joint force and our partner force. And that last piece, how do you be interoperable with your allies and partners, not just reassure 'em. We got great allies and partners who don't need that much reassurance. What they need is interoperability. So they can call targets for me, I can call for them. That's what MRF-SEA and MRF-D and the MEU are doing. We just had Spaniards and Italians on our ships and simultaneously, and we do the same thing with, uh, with our Filipino partners, our Japanese partners, Korean partners, Australian partners. Pretty much, we have a lot of friends. China has a lot less friends. Russia has almost no friends, um, except for China who has no friends. So that's how it usually works, is people with no friends hang out together.
Ryan Evans:
One of the contingencies that people talk a lot about, and that is driving a lot of planning in, uh, the Defense Department is, is a Chinese attack on Taiwan. In our pages, Benjamin Van Hoek wrote an article a straight too far that basically points out how historic weather and patterns make the Taiwan strait's very difficult to navigate, certainly for an amphibious landing force between June and August, and then again from Nove November to February. Yeah. So it really leaves small windows in the year where China could feasibly launch such a intact if those weather, weather patterns hold, how does this correspond to schedules for exercises and rotational deployments for a deterrent purpose?
Gen. Smith:
I won't get into Admiral Aquilino Lane, the INDOPACOM commander who, who owns the for, you know, I provide forces, he employs forces. But I can say as a member of the Joint Chiefs, that what is always on the table is, do we have our experiments and our exercises correct in time? Do you want to be in location A, B, or C at the high time of maximum pressure or danger or challenge? So I think everyone's open to redoing exercise and experiments to make sure that, you know, you focus and have forces available when it is most likely that an adversary will do A, B, or C. And I think that's where the, the, again, that's where the Marines are so valuable in those standing forces. 'Cause they're other forces will move outside of the weapons engagement zone. We won't, and that's not bravado. That's who we are. Someone has to be first in the door. I use this analogy a lot when you clear a room, we, we build a stack. Somebody has to be first through the door. The other Marines support them. But on behalf of those three behind, somebody has to go first. And that is us. That's first to fight. You can't enable the joint force and be useful unless you can sense make sense, target and fire at range. Which is why we've made some of the modernization changes. 'cause you know, frankly, some of the systems that we had after 15 years in Iraq and Afghanistan, just, they don't have the range. They just don't, you have to modernize or will be fighting the last war or fighting the next war with last war's equipment.
Ryan Evans:
Shifting gears a little bit, there's been some tragic accidents that the Marine Corps has experienced this year that have seen Marines killed and and injured. This has been a big issue for you. I know since you, uh, took command both as acting and as and as Commandant, what are some of the initiatives underway to, I I don't want you to prejudge any investigations, of course, but to, to make sure that this doesn't happen again as, as best as we can guarantee that.
Gen. Smith:
We did two different safety. One, a safety review and then a safety stand down after the tragic loss of the MV-22 down in the Tiwi Islands up on Melville Island. And the results of that are still pending. And that, that often takes months to truly understand what happened, the results of the initial, what things could we do better. Should we do better? Not to stand down, but the, the safety review, those are done. Those are coming to me this next week, Colonel Good. Uh, callsign Fingers is the head of my safety division until I get a one star in there next summer. And I'll have some more probably in this month or early next month. And here's what we found in our maintenance procedures. In our ready room procedures. In our driving procedures. So I'll probably have a little bit more for you in the next 30 days. I'm not ever satisfied with, well, what we do is a dangerous business. Inherently my job is to drive every ounce of risk out. Our, our aircraft are safe, our pilots are well-trained. Our vehicles are safe. We do things though with them that others could never do. We fly in close formation at night, long ranges, low visibility in order to deliver ordnance on highly defended targets. That's not what Delta American Airlines do. We drive our vehicles on roads that no FedEx guy would ever go on. That's what we do. We have to do it. So there is some risk in what we do, because of the environment in which we do it. But my job is to drive that risk to as near zero as I can.
Ryan Evans:
Before you were a general officer, who's the best boss you ever had in the Marine Corps?
Gen. Smith:
Oh wow. That's hard man. I have had so many, uh, bosses. So before I hit my bosses, let me in instead and I'll hit the bosses. Let me, let me talk about who I learned the most from. I learned the most from my sergeants major and I can list every one of 'em. My first platoon sergeant, very, very first one. Rick Hawkins. First company, first Sergeant Joe Morgan. Both retired sergeants Major Chuck Bloomberg at one five. Dave Job Sergeant Major at eighth Marines. Tom Eggerling at MCCDC, Mario Marquez out at the three Mef. Tom Sauers, first Mar-Div. So, uh, and, and when I was an officer selection officer, I had a guy named Lou Hapshey was a master sergeant, then a gunny was my officer selection team recruiter. I learned the most from my staff NCOs 'cause they're the backbone of the core. They provide the discipline. It's a hard life. So it is from my staff, NCOs, who I have learned the most. Gunnery, Sergeant Baxton, our company, gunny Alan Slater, my First Sergeant Weapons Company Two Two. Bosses. I've had so many great ones. Uh, John Toolan Jocko was both my OCS platoon commander. So he's responsible for letting me in the Marine Corps. He might regret that today. I don't know. And then he was my boss at eighth Marines. Larry Nichols at, uh, first Marines, sorry, Larry Nicholson was my boss at Fifth Marines. Uh, absolutely loved, loved working for both those gents. Uh, I had, I had many, many more, but I'll, I'll leave it at those, those two for now. 'Cause if I go anymore, I'm gonna start talking about 85 different bosses. I
Ryan Evans:
Want you to let me know after this airs, how many, what about me emails you get.
Gen. Smith:
Oh, I'm gonna get 'em.
Ryan Evans:
All right.
Gen. Smith:
So I'm, because, I'm sorry. But it, it is not an an exhaustive or ex extent, uh, or a complete list. 'Cause there's so many other people that I learned from, Jeff Patterson at two two. I mean, I could, you know, if I start down this role, rabbit hole, we'll be here all freaking day. And, and, and also I wanna back that up because not just military. I had great civilian bosses. So remember I worked for three DEP-SECDEFs and one SECDEF.
Ryan Evans:
As their military.
Gen. Smith:
Yes, as their senior mil assistant. I worked for a guy named Ash Carter. He's deceased now. God bless him. Phenomenal boss. Learned so much from him. I worked for Bob Work, retired Marine Colonel DEP-SECDEP astoundingly good boss. And I worked for Christine Fox. I will tell you I loved working for Ms. Fox. She, she was the acting DSD, just a stellar lady and a machine. Oh my God. Wicked smart. She was a machine like 0730 arrived, boom, doing reading finished by eight o'clock. She was a clock. And, uh, and treated people extremely well. So I've had great bosses, uniform and civilian.
Ryan Evans:
What are some books that have had a big impact on you throughout your career?
Gen. Smith:
Yeah. Oh man. That, that, that's a long one. I mean, okay. All the way back to the beginning. You know, we, we all had to read Fields of Fire by Webb great book on how to suffer adversity. Um, phenomenal book of late was a book called for Country and Core. It was, uh, written by the granddaughter of Op Smith. And it was his General Smith's life focusing a lot on Korea. And it was about leadership and what, what real leadership is and how to be stoic. I read a pretty good book, uh, about Red Mike Edson, which I, I thought was, um, I thought was, was pretty, pretty stellar. Uh, I read a, a good book by give him a shout out to Chris Brose called Kill Chain. That was a great book. And if you're looking for something that's, that's not factual or not, uh, it's fiction. If you haven't read Once an Eagle, that is, that's formative, right? If you put yourself in that particular book.
Ryan Evans:
It's Been recommended many times on this show. Although I think you're the first Marine, uh, it's usually soldiers that recommend that.
Gen. Smith:
Really. Yeah.
Gen. Smith:
It's a great book. You know, do you wanna be Massengale? Um, probably not. You know, so that, that is a phenomenal book. And then I think for Marines, one of the Seminole, well two more and I'll stop a Hastings Battle for the Falklands because you understand what it, what happens when you show up without the kit that you need. And the Brits did a significant change after the Falklands to their, to their kit. So I think that is a good one. If I'm, if I'm calling just one other one out, it's so hard. 'Cause you, you, you don't wanna, you don't wanna forget, forget anybody if, if you haven't done this Kind of War by Fehrenbach, then you don't understand what it is to start with nothing. And except for your pride, except for your ethos, which is where we were at the Pusan perimeter in the first provisional brigade. So I think, um, I think this kind of war is a book that is, is, should be formative for everyone about how we, we didn't just survive, we thrived in Korea. That one is key for Marines. Cause we're always doing a little bit more, with a little bit less.
Ryan Evans:
Thank you so much for this. This is great.
Gen. Smith:
Hey, thanks a lot.