Five to Ten Years After Landfall

General Cartwright, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, laid out a possible new guideline for the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review.  Since the 1990's, military strategic planning has been based on the capability to fight two high-intensity wars simultaneously.  Instead, Cartwright suggests that planners count on extended, five to ten year conflicts.  This is long overdue.  Unfortunately, the Marine Corps seems to be moving in the other direction.  There is an inherent conflict between a Marine Corps focused on forced landings, and the first 60 days of war, and a Marine Corps focused on sustained conflict.

The Marines have explicitly stated that they are trying to get away from the Iraq/Afghanistan operational model, and go "back to basics."  Cartwright is saying that everyone needs to get used to the Iraq/Afghanistan model, and start planning to do it better, because the future is likely to hold more of the same.