This is John Batchel, a conversation with colleague Colonel Grant Newsom,

United States Marine Corps retired, not only on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the founding

the Marine Corps, but also to reiterate the analysis that Grant has offered before about the

planning for the Marine Corps to deploy into the Western Pacific, East Asia,

in the event of when China attacks, which is the title of Grant's book,

looking into the near future, the People's Republic of China launches a massive attempt

to secure Taiwan by attacking the Philippines, Japan, Australia, all of the above.

Where will the Marine Corps be?

Well, the planning right now is on islands with anti-ship missiles.

Grant is unhappy with this and explains why quickly.

Much more of this tonight.

Happy birthday Marines and what comes next? Question mark. Here's Graham.

The Marines, you'll find it in the Asia Pacific. You could find them having to do everything that I've just described, from humanitarian assistance to intelligence collection, rescuing down pilots,

to actually deploying this battalion-sized force from the amphibious ships.

I think you could see them particularly used in, say, seizing some key terrain and holding it

or driving, say, a Chinese landing force away from it

and using some of their long-range precision weapons to control an area that really helps the larger U.S. campaign get underway.

So it's got a number of things that can do.

One problem is that in recent times, the Marines have decided that

they're going to prioritize putting small missile units on different islands in the Pacific and take

shots at any Chinese ships that come by. And what that does is it reduces your ability to do all of the

other missions that the Marines are required. And as a result, the Marines perhaps today are not

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