Why is the life of a US Marine valued at less than that of a US Army Soldier?

Despite many rumored efforts to introduce common sense into the Defense Budget, the end result over many years has tended to be based more on the traditional split between the Services than on real requirements as dictated by the imperatives of National Defense (Not that anyone really knows what these are).

In other words, apart from supplementals, the Chiefs slice the defense cake according to hard won precedent rather than according to need. Typically, the pecking order goes Air Force, Navy, Army – and finally the Marines. This comfortable arrangement at least has the merit of stopping the Chiefs trading blows like a bunch of squabbling schoolboys as they share the spoils, and, better yet, it avoids their having to change the way they do business.

The generals and admirals, you need to understand, loathe change because it threatens the status quo of the military bureaucracy which was what made them generals and admirals in the first place – so, by definition, has to be good and defended at all costs. In addition, the military mindset of the brass at the top is stunningly conservative. In fact, given half a chance, they would bring back the Soviet Union tomorrow. Now there was a bureaucracy to rival their own, large enough to terrify the American public with and yet reassuringly predictable, conventional and inert.

The Soviets are sorely missed, let me tell you.

Yes, I know you have probably read stuff about ‘Transformation’ and how the services are transforming themselves into netcentric organizations optimized for the new digital age, but most of that is smoke and mirrors – albeit of a stupefyingly costly variety – designed to disguise the fact that the military mind remains as rigid as ever. Yes, there are exceptions but they tend to be outnumbered and outgunned; and prone to be suborned by offers of the good life through highly paid retirement jobs.

One has to admit that the military are outstanding at (verbal) camouflage – particularly in a hostile urban environment like Washington D.C.

Now all of this would merely be entertaining in the manner of a Mafia movie (think of one of those meeting where the Dons assemble to sort out their territorial differences while secretly plotting to kill each other and you’ll instantly understand the Pentagon) if we were not at war.

But we are at war, and that makes the games played in the Pentagon decidedly less funny. Above all, we need to make sure that our troops, who are in direct fire contact with the enemy, are properly resourced.

The fact is that the Marines are not properly resourced. Long on fighting spirit and a commendable determination to do more with less, they take pride in being the neglected offspring of the Armed Services but the reality is that in terms of investment per individual Marine, they show up badly in relation to the Army and the other services.

They are still flying derivations of the Vietnam era Cobra helicopter. Their Abram M1A1 tanks – of which they have only three battalions - are old. Their Humvees are falling apart. Their wheeled Light Armored Vehicles, although still deployed with great ingenuity, are decrepit. Their living conditions in Iraq are infinitely worse than the Army’s. And so it goes.

The Marines compensate with determination and ingenuity, and rarely complain, but given that they are doing much the same job as the Army – and have been so doing for about half a century now – it seems only fair and reasonable that they be resourced at the same rate. And right now, they are not.

Working out the details of military budgets is always tricky – because the military like it this way – but it is worth reflecting that the current Army budget is around $160 billion whereas the Marine figure, including their naval contribution, is about $32 billion. True, the Marines are only about a third the size of the active component of the Army – so lets multiply that $32 figure by three to gave equivalency (to yield $96 billion) – but that still demonstrates a substantial difference.

I don’t want to get into a battle of numbers at this time, because the Army generals would argue they have wider duties – which is true – but I do think the time has come for the average Marine in the field to be resourced at least as well as the average Soldier.

The reality is that inadequate resources do get our young men and women killed and wounded – and, in that context, it is worth noting that the Marines have taken casualties out of all proportion to their numbers in Iraq.

Fighting spirit is a fine thing but it won’t stop a bullet. Armor does.