미해병대, 쿠웨이트의 전투물자 집적소 폐쇄

[위종민]

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2022/06/06/marines-closing-down-kuwait-gear-stockpile-to-focus-on-pacific/

Marines closing down Kuwait gear stockpile to focus on Pacific

미해병대가 쿠웨이트의 전투물자 집적소를 폐쇄하려고 합니다. 2023 예산 요구안에 3100만 달러의 예산안 절감을 위해 Marine Expeditionary Unit Augmentation Program–Kuwait (MAP-K) 종료를 요구했다고 하네요. 

MAP-K는 쿠웨이트의 Camp Arifjan에 위치하며 미육군 물자도 집적돼 있습니다. 미해병대의 유일한 중동지역 사전배치 물자집적소이며 MEU의 연습, 훈련 및 활동시에 필요한 중장비들이 집적돼 있습니다. 이 곳에는 11MEU에 배속된 전차소대의 장비들 중 수송선으로 나르기 어려운 M1A1 전차 4대, M88A2 허큘리스 전차 회수차, 쿠거H 개량형 6X6 MRAP, 7톤 트럭과 지게차 각 1대등이 보관돼 있습니다.

반면 노르웨이 동굴의 사전집적소와 태평양 지역에 대한 투자는 늘어났고, 또한 현재 16,000명 규모의 MEB가 30일간 작전할 수 있는 물자와 장비를 실은 보급함 2개 전단으로 구성된 사전배치선단(MPF; Maritime Prepositioning Force) 구조도 개혁인 논의되고 있다고 합니다. 이 보급함들이 해상과 육상의 위협에서 너무 취약하며, 사전배치된 물자의 조정과 분산이 필요하다고 평가하네요. 

Marines closing down Kuwait gear stockpile to focus on Pacific

By Hope Hodge Seck Jun 7, 01:29 AM

5-6 minutes

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The Marine Corps is shuttering its combat gear storage program in the Middle East as it shifts attention to Europe and the Pacific.

The fiscal 2023 defense budget request called for divestment of Marine Expeditionary Unit Augmentation Program–Kuwait (MAP-K) for a savings of nearly $31 million.

This closure, which follows the August 2021 conclusion of the war in Afghanistan, “supports the reduction of forces in [the] U.S. Central Command area of responsibility,” a budget justification document states.

This notice, hidden inside budget documents, announces the end of a gear stockpile that was heavily used over the last 12 years, and further emphasizes the Marine Corps’ aggressive pursuit of the Force Design 2030 strategy, which focuses on fighting in the Pacific and littoral regions.

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The planned divestment also follows the Marine Corps’ conclusion of its crisis response task force deployments to the Middle East, begun following the deadly 2012 attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Established in 2010, MAP-K is based at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, an Army base that also houses other logistics and sustainment elements. It’s the Corps’ only land-based prepositioning location in the Middle East and has existed to issue heavy equipment to the ground combat elements of deployed MEUs for exercises, training and assignments in the region.

As of late 2019, according to a Marine Corps news release, MAP-K had issued more than 1,500 equipment items since its establishment.

The program had equipped a tank platoon attached to the 11th MEU with combat vehicles difficult to transport via ship: four M1A1 Abrams tanks, a M88A2 Hercules armored recovery vehicle, a Cougar H-variant mine-resistant ambush protected 6x6 infantry vehicle; a 7-ton truck and a forklift, according to a press release.

“The MAP-K program benefits this MEU … and future MEUs with their prepositioned stockpile of vehicles,” 1st Lt. Harris Emmons, tank platoon commander for India Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment Landing Team, said in the release. “It helps us maintain the armor-protected firepower and shock effect that the ground combat element needs.”

While the Marine Corps continues to fund a network of three climate-controlled gear storage caves in Norway, it’s throwing significant resources behind Pacific operations.

Its budget request asks for a $28.6 million increase for maritime prepositioning, the lion’s share of which, about $25 million, “will be utilized to provide the Marine Corps an ability to support the maintenance of an initial Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR) equipment set … in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility,” documents state.

The Corps is requesting another $4 million to carry out analysis, site surveys and experiments around a prospective overhaul of its prepositioning program structure.

Though details are few, budget documents state that the Marines want to “transition the legacy prepositioning program into a resilient prepositioning network of the future for Distributed Maritime Operations.”

This suggests the next target for major change may be the Marine Corps’ Maritime Prepositioning Force, made up of two squadrons of logistics ships, each capable of equipping and sustaining a 16,000-person Marine expeditionary brigade for 30 days.

Dating from the 1980s, this floating gear stash is due for reimagining, according to a March 2021 Marine Corps Gazette article written by an unnamed group of officers from Headquarters Marine Corps. They noted that the current ships were too vulnerable to enemy attack from sea and land, and said the makeup and distribution of prepositioned gear needed to change to support the way Marines expect to operate in the future.

“While today’s prepositioning programs include both an afloat and ashore component, the future prepositioning network is envisioned to be a much more integrated network of afloat and ashore nodes that is optimized to support distributed Marine Corps operations in support of the maritime component commander,” they wrote.

The location and resourcing of the Defense Department’s prepositioning programs often provide insight into threat assessments and priorities.

The largest line item in the Pentagon’s European Deterrence Initiative, established after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, is “enhanced prepositioning.”

The Army has spent more than $3 billion in the past two fiscal years to maintain, renovate and increase stockpiles of heavy gear in Europe, an effort that has included opening four new sites in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Poland.

Earlier in 2022, military prepositioning programs had a major proof of concept when, days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Army activated all six of its stockpiles in Europe for the first time for a real-world contingency. The gear, most of it heavy rolling stocks, was issued to 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, as it headed to Germany to support NATO allies and await further directives.

Congress has yet to finalize and pass the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act; until it does, all military budget planning remains predecisional.

[백선호]

이제 중동에서 별로 석유 수입하지도 않으니 발을 빼는 모양새가 점점 더 확실하게 보이네요.

[위종민]

사우디 등 산유국들이 중국이랑 가까워져도 문제가 안 될 정도로 석유의 가치가 급격히 떨어진다고 예상하는 건지, 아니면 산유국은 알아서 살게 놔두고 시레인만 보장하면 된다고 보는 건지.

[백선호]

3월 26일 The Economist 기사입니다.

There are good commercial reasons for Saudi Arabia’s eastward pivot. More than a quarter of its oil exports go to China. Only 10% go to Europe, and 7% to America. Still, Prince Muhammad’s regime is unnecessarily antagonising the West by resisting calls to increase output, which it could do without compromising its business.

[백선호]

In fact, its resistance seems almost out of spite—and appears to have less to do with commerce and more with the kingdom’s security concerns, including ways to contain Iran and its proxies, which it feels President Joe Biden’s administration is ignoring. Underscoring such worries, in the past week Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck some Aramco facilities with missiles.

[백선호]

The kingdom’s rulers are in talks with China to price some of the crude supplies in yuan, the Wall Street Journal has reported. If this happens, that would dent the dominance of the dollar in the oil market and jeopardise a deal dating back to the Nixon era when the Saudis created petrodollars in exchange for American security guarantees.

https://cafe.daum.net/NTDS/5q4/727

[Minowski(김유철)]

지금 중동에서 뒤숭숭한 소식이 많이 들리는데 이게 트리거가 되서 재앙으로 변할지 걱정이네요. 이스라엘은 이란을 겨냥한 대규모 공습훈련을 했고, 거기에 이란은 동굴에 쟁여놓은 드론을 공개하는 등 일종의 second strike 능력을 과시했고..... 최근 사우디와 파키스탄이 접촉했는데 이게 겉으로는 경제지원이지만 실상은 핵무기 잔금치르는 것이라는 카더라도 있고........

[위종민]

60년대 영국이 빠질 땐 그 공백을 미국이 채웠는데, 이번 공백을 채울 강국은 어딜른지. 중동에서도 중국이 약진하는 건 피할 수 없어 보이네요.

[백선호]

혹시 사우디가 돈 주고 파키스탄의 핵무기를 샀을라나요???

[위종민]

2013년에 사우디가 파키스탄 핵프로그램에 돈 내고 원할 때 배달받을 수 있다는 뉴스가 있었네요. ( https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24823846 ) 그 외에도 사우디가 파키스탄에서 핵 샀다는 뉴스들이 꽤 많이 검색됩니다.

[스피드조(조용진)]

예전부터 사우디와 파키스탄의 핵공유 관련해서는 뒷얘기가 많더군요 사우디가 파키스탄의 핵무기 개발과정에 자금을 대고 유사시에 파키스탄으로부터 핵무기를 받기로 했고 사우디가 중국제 탄도미사일을 도입한것도 수량이나 정확도등을 고려해보면 핵탄두탑재를 염두에 둔거 아니냐는 식으로 해석하는 견해를 본거같습니다

[백선호]

중국이 북한에게 핵무기를 숨겨주겠다고 제안했다는 이 기사가 생각나네요.

http://cafe.daum.net/NTDS/5q2/407