FORCE DESIGN 2030 - AND CRAZY

FORCE DESIGN 2030 - AND CRAZY

By Andy Weddington

Sunday, 10 April 2022

Not everyone is capable of madness; and of those lucky enough to be capable, not many have the courage for it. - August Strindberg

Before settling into the studio for a day of thought and painting, a short "Part 2" to Friday's short commentary likening the Marine Corps Force Design 2030 (FD2030) to a Phillips head screwdriver; in contrast to the multipurpose tool of a Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF). 

Yesterday afternoon I spent several fascinating hours - including 90 minutes or so at an entertaining concert by a volunteer pianist/vocalist - with seniors struggling with sundry forms of dementia. 

Music bore through fog tapping memories and sparking life - smiling, laughing, singing, clapping, toe-tapping, dancing, giddy happy; touching heart and soul. 

Observing and speaking with these once capable but still wonderful people forges new streams of thought. 

As I have been engaged daily with a dementia patient for more than two and a half years and mingling regularly with others so diagnosed for some 8 months - noting common and individual confounding behaviors - the thought of dementia as element for analysis in the FD 2030 debate has crossed my mind. 

And to be clear, no one consciously decides to suffer dementia. It just happens. 

Sounds crazy. 

Yes! Of course. But that's just when things begin to get intriguing. 

This morning's thought and keeping it simple ...

All the sudden, these past two years, there's hasty and hectic rush to implement a major warfighting capability that's no where near fully developed (e.g., Marines, gear, equipment, weapons, etc.) much less been subjected to rigorous analysis, testing, and evaluation?

And announced to the world while stripping the Marine Corps of combat capability and power? 

For sake of discussion, consider China has been on the radar as serious peer threat for at least 25 years. Longer, really.

The span includes Marine Corps commandants Generals Krulak, Jones, Hagee, Conway, Amos, Dunford, Neller, and now Berger.

None of General Berger's predecessors wise to the China threat and understood duty?

None acted to build (the obvious) FD2030?

Each incompetent?

What was their Warfighting Lab(s) doing?

Back a few more commandants - Generals Krulak, Mundy, Gray, Kelley, Barrow, and Wilson. 

And their labs?

None visionary (as to China)? 

And General James Mattis, not a commandant but revered as voracious reader and strategist, as and Secretary of Defense didn't act to start building (a) FD2030?

How peculiar.

With age comes respect for correlation between crazy and truth. 

Only courage reveals truth.

To get truth to speculate crazy and pursue necessary. 

Real world ...

National security the issue.

Because madmen about the world. 

So here crazy must be taken seriously.

Crazy is only crazy until crazy is not crazy. 

As to FD2030 ...

Crazy, seems to me, yet to be addressed.

Why not?

Is dementia in play?

What if dementia is not in play? 

Is FD2030 but distraction concealing bigger (threatening) truth?

To laugh casually crazy. 

To laugh nervously healthy. 

Albert Einstein ... "A thought that sometimes makes me hazy: Am I - or are the others crazy?" 

Listen to the music.