The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

70 Chapter 3
amphibious war advocate, 106 Russell became commandant in 1934, a decisive
moment in the Corps’s history, and threw his support behind the nascent
Fleet Marine Force. 107 Russell’s advocacy for the amphibious camp might
be regarded as somewhat surprising in light of his own small- wars service,
which involved time spent in the Dominican Republic and over a decade
in Haiti, including as high commissioner for eight years. 108 Not a surprise,
however, is his dedication to forging doctrine for the Corps. Russell had, as
a major eighteen years earlier, made a formal “Plea for a Mission and Doctrine,”
now considered one of the seminal pieces of Marine Corps doctrinal
history. 109 A year before he became commandant, Russell laid a rhetorical
foundation for the doctrine to come. Through the device of a fictional conversation
between General X of the Marine Corps and Admiral Y of the
Navy, Russell performed a bit of stage setting: General X points out that the
Marines’ “main job” is to “maintain expeditionary forces to seize advanced
Bases and perform other land operations for the Fleet.” Admiral Y concurs
but points out that “you have not sold the idea one hundred per cent to the
Navy or to your own Corps.” 110 The remainder of Russell’s piece is dedicated
to doing just that. As commandant (for a short two and half years given the
Corps’s mandatory retirement age), Russell swung his weight behind the Fleet
Marine Force but not without a bow to those advocating improved training
in small- wars expertise. 111 During his tenure, doctrine was codified in both
camps: the Tentative Landing Operations Manual and Tentative Manual for
Defense of Advanced Bases on the amphibious side and The Manual of Small
Wars for fighting in the bush. 112 Only one doctrinal emphasis, however, survived
more than a handful of years in Marine Corps classrooms. 113
Painful as it must have been for the Corps’s small warriors, next- inline
commandant Thomas Holcomb’s wholesale emphasis on amphibious
landings in the run- up to World War II can only be viewed in hindsight
as prescient. Both internal and external winds of change were blowing
the amphibious direction for the Corps, not least of which was a looming
threat from Japan. 114 Holcomb biographer David Ulbrich claims that
Holcomb was selected as commandant in 1936 over several more senior,
more obvious choices because “he fit a particular political profile inside the
Corps that placed him in the ascendant clique. Holcomb favored the new
dual mission of amphibious assault and base defense over the outmoded
mission of constabulary security in small wars.” 115 Holcomb’s speeches
throughout his tenure construct a narrative around this theme. According
to Holcomb, not only are Marines amphibious by birth—they have worked
since their infancy to refine a distinctive amphibious expertise. As “first
out,” their mission is to pave the way for the Army. Writing later, in the
thick of World War II, he declares:
In the course of this war, on a scale which the world has never
before seen, it is possible to lose sight of what your particular job