Marines in Crisis: The Cold War Transformation of the U.S. Marine Corps, 1947-1995

Abstract

Throughout the Cold War and into the 1990s, the Marine Corps faced multiple strategic inflection points. Some of these moments were fights for institutional survival, some were based on emerging technology or internal upheaval, while others were more concerned with developing operational doctrine. When compared to the development of its amphibious warfare doctrine between World War I and World War II, these Cold War decisions related to the Marine Corps came about at an astonishing pace. Many of these post–World War II moments came only after painful experiences in increasingly complex and multidimensional Joint combat operations or humanitarian interventions, where international politics, rapidly changing technology, new societal norms, and even culture played an ever-larger role on the battlefield. For the Marine Corps, the Cold War and beyond seemingly required its senior leaders to predict the rapid-fire changes that impacted the new way of war and evolving politics of conflict. In response, those leaders continually transformed the Marine Corps to ensure it played a significant role in U.S. military matters.