Logistics A Challenge: U.S. Marine Commandant On China Threat

The Chinese military would seek to prevent the United States from mobilizing its forces in the Pacific should a war break out between the two countries, according to the highest-ranking officer of the Marine Corps. “This competition is going to go on for a while, and we’re going to have to figure out a way through it long term,” said Gen. David Berger, Commandant of the Marine Corps, during a talk at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, in Washington. The Marine Corps is currently undertaking a series of dramatic changes in its force design as part of an effort to develop advantages against near-peer opponents like China’s People’s Liberation Army. The effort comes after more than 20 years of counter-terrorism operations in which the Corps has often benefited from battlefield superiority in terms of intelligence and materiel. Berger said that the Corps “got comfortable” with such operational superiority during the Global War on Terror, and needed to relearn how to operate in a truly contested environment in which even seemingly simple logistical efforts could be impeded by malign Chinese operations, as reported by The Epoch Times. Berger added that Chinese military capability is “on a very different level” than it was just 10 years ago, and that the Corps’ extant processes “were not designed with that in mind.” “I think logistics in a contested environment is a huge challenge for us,” Berger said. “It’s not insurmountable, but we need to acknowledge that, like we’re going to do to them, they’re going to challenge our sustainment.”