The Top Marine
Gen. James Conway says it’s not too late to build
the force to the level needed to win the ‘long war’
Gen. James T. Conway, who became Marine Corps commandant
in November, inherited from Gen. Michael W. Hagee a Corps
stretched thin by ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. While
winning the “long war” is certainly the top priority, Conway faces the
additional challenge of overseeing unprecedented growth in the
Marine Corps — some 22,000 Marines in the next five years.
Conway realizes growth will cause some heartburn. Personnel costs
alone currently eat up about 65 percent of the service’s budget, not
counting the infrastructure needed to support each Marine. The Corps
also will have to draw on an increasingly limited pool of potential recruits.
But Conway has been adamant about not lowering standards, instead
relying on more recruiters and “mild incentives” to boost numbers.
LISA NIPP
The commandant admits the Corps is not training for its expeditionary role, concentrating instead on counterinsurgency. “We’re getting heavier instead of lighter,” he said, adding that a true expeditionary force is “light, agile, hard-hitting and fast.”
As its counterinsurgency role grows, Conway and his Marines are able
to point to progress in Anbar province in western Iraq, long one of the most dangerous and bloody parts
of the country. The drop in violence and increased cooperation among the local tribes, Conway said, can
be attributed to the consistent message of a better future offered by Marines and the eventual realiza-tion on the part of the local populace that the insurgents, mostly al Qaeda in Iraq, offered little else than
returning them “to the 15th century.”
A Marine since 1970, Conway was director of Operations, J- 3, Joint Staff, before being named 34th commandant of the Marine Corps. Prior to that, he commanded I Marine Expeditionary Force during two combat tours
in Iraq. He also commanded Battalion Landing Team 3/2 during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
In a recent interview with Associate Editor Matt Hilburn, Conway discussed current operations and the
challenges ahead. Excerpts follow:
To what do you attribute the Marines’ progress
in Anbar province?
CONWAY: Anbar is still a dangerous place. We still get
casualty reports too frequently. But there have been
successes, and there is progress, and I attribute it really to several things. We had a lot of great battalions and
smaller group companies and vets go through there
over an almost three-year period. We’ve been consistent with our theme of putting Iraqi security forces in
the lead to provide stability and security to create a
better quality of life.
Every command headquarters has kept that same
set of themes. Our headquarters stay for a year and,
although we rotate units at the seven-month cycle, it’s
