The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

Norms and Perceptual Lens 133
Corps. However, for good reasons which completely transcend cold logic,
the United States wants a Marine Corps.” 98
The Marine Corps leadership guide acknowledges in its very first pages
that Devil Dogs have a special relationship with their national public: “Feared
by enemies, respected by allies, and loved by the American people, Marines
are a ‘special breed.’” 99 Avant notes that Marines keep a weather eye on the
civilian institutions that keep them alive and prepare to adapt themselves
accordingly. 100 Keeping this relationship healthy requires that every Marine
be a publicist. 101 Marines are expected to be personally modest but enjoy
full boasting rights on their Corps. One gray- haired Marine in Spooner’s
legends is reflecting back on his decades spent in the nation’s service and
the men he fought alongside: “He knew warrior- monks who were professionals,
some were bonafide [sic] heroes but most denied it. Real Marines
brag about their Corps but not about themselves.” 102 Over the course of the
last seven decades, Marines have taken the publicity task to heart and have
become accomplished enough to inspire the ire of their political opponents.
An exasperated President Harry S. Truman, in a moment of poor judgment,
wrote into correspondence: “For your information, the Marine Corps is the
Navy’s police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain.
They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin’s.” Truman
was made to publicly apologize for the “Stalin” bit of his comment, but
modern Marines repeat the legend with a bit of wry pride. 103
Leathernecks perceive popular adulation to be in jeopardy, however, if
the Corps becomes the force that takes up and executes small wars, a type
of war Cranmer characterizes as “slaughter of a civilian populace, torture,
and the prolonged struggle that sucks every resource from the country like
a leech.” Cranmer cites the Good Neighbor Policy of 1933 as an attempt
to distance the American government from the “unpopular interventions in
South America.” Roosevelt, in so doing, “left the Marine Corps hanging out
to dry” as the public face of such interventions. In Cranmer’s estimation,
“there has never been a small war that has been good or popular.” Amphibious
assault, on the other hand, belongs in the camp with “good wars” and
is therefore far more likely to meet with popular approval and support. 104
Marine attitudes that stability operations in irregular settings are “unglamorous
and, perhaps, un- Marine,” 105 founded in painful instances of
public censure during earlier counterinsurgency eras, stand in contrast to
national opinion today. Both the Army and Marine Corps have received a
significant boost in popularity and esteem in the eyes of the American public
during this century’s counterinsurgency campaigns. The Marine Corps’s
prestige numbers have moved up ten percentage points since 2001, raising
their already number- one position among the services significantly higher
than it had been on the eve of 9/11. 106
Marines survive as an American institution because of the championing
of Congress and the love of the American people. They survive as a physically