WASHINGTON -- When Marine Capt. Robert Alexander was blown off his jeep-like Humvee by Iraqi shells during the Persian Gulf war, he radioed: "Under heavy artillery. Need immediate air support -- now."
Minutes later, two Marine Harrier jets swooped low over the desert to destroy the mortar platoon that was pinning down the U.S. troops below.
"It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen when those four bombs were arcing through the air," Captain Alexander said.
He was heartened to see fellow Marines overhead rather than Air Force or Navy pilots, who are also trained in close air support.
The ability of three services to drop the bombs that saved the Marines that day goes to the heart of a debate that is currently convulsing the Pentagon: Who should do what in modern warfare? And which service does it best?
For the first time in almost 50 years, the traditional roles and missions of all the armed services are under scrutiny as Congress tries to sort out the best way to fight wars in the 21st century.
Should all four services have their own air forces? Does the United States need two ground forces, the Army and Marines? Why are the nation's missile defenses split among three services -- the Army, the Air Force and the Navy? And can Air Force bombers do the job of carrier-based Navy attack aircraft?
Answers to these and other questions affecting the duties and responsibilities of the services in the post-Cold War era are being prepared by an independent commission of defense experts.
The panel is scheduled to report to Congress in May. The last major review of the services' roles was in 1947, when the Army Air Force became the independent U.S. Air Force.
Already shaken by budget-driven downsizing, the armed services now face possibly revolutionary changes in how they go about defending the nation. Deciding what those changes should be will not be easy.
As John White, a former Carter administration assistant defense secretary who chairs the Commission on Roles and Missions, told an audience this month: "I have decided that Machiavelli got it about right when he wrote: 'There is nothing more difficult to carry out or more doubtful of success, nor dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies -- and only lukewarm defenders.' "
Mr. White added: "I am having trouble finding those lukewarm defenders."
Deprived of the superpower adversary that gave defense strategy its focus in the post-World War II era and confronted by ever tighter budgets, the military services are embroiled in a virtual civil war over tradition, turf, dollars, prestige and power.
"This is a major, major issue," said Loren B. Thompson, defense analyst with the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, a moderate-conservative think tank in Virginia. "Roles and missions really defines the identity of the military services in the future. People are willing to spill blood and honor to prevail in this debate."
The debate has a powerful human dimension that serves as background noise as the experts go about their work. Captain Alexander, for example, wanted Marines overhead that day in the desert, not Navy or Air Force jet jockeys.
"I don't think it would have happened as quickly or as easily [if they were Navy or Air Force planes]," he said. "I certainly believe the Marine Corps are the duty experts in close air support."
First volley
A pre-emptive attack on the traditional order of battle was launched last year by the chief of staff of the Air Force, Gen. Merrill A. McPeak, now retired. He suggested that the Army's control of the battlefield should be limited, the Marines' close air support should be cut back, the Air Force and the Navy should co-manage missile defense, and the Air Force should be given primary responsibility for all military programs in space.
The Air Force believes that it can be "the decisive arm, that air power alone is sufficient to be decisive," said an Army colonel familiar with the debate. "We don't. Until you stand there with your bayonet and stick it in someone, they are not going to leave."
While the Army is seeking to defend its battlefield role, claiming it is already a reordered and modernized service, the Navy sees the pride of its fleet -- the carriers -- under attack as too slow and too vulnerable.
"Blood in the scuppers, we call it," said a Navy admiral engaged in helping define the future roles and missions. "A lot of service culture is at play here, which is good for us as a nation.
"The Air Force says, 'We will do what the carrier is doing, and we will take the carrier money and buy bombers with that.' We say, 'Wait a minute. How are you going to do that? That's not the way the real world works.' "
Deja vu for Marines
At Marine Corps headquarters, the furor invites a sense of deja vu.
"About every 10 years since Andrew Jackson was president, someone has wanted to do away with the Marine Corps," said Maj. Gen. Thomas L. Wilkerson, the Marine point man in the debate over who should do what. "We have had to live our lives justifying our existence. I don't think there are any new dangers."
These days, according to General Wilkerson, justifying the role of the Marines is easier than ever. What the Marines are trained to do is exactly right for these turbulent times: rapid deployments to distant trouble spots: Rwanda, Somalia, Haiti.
"The Marine Corps mission is the mission of the day," he said. "Floors, windows, odd jobs -- crisis response."
But the Army was delighted to demonstrate that it, too, could do "floors, windows, odd jobs," when soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division boarded the carrier USS Eisenhower in September for the U.S. intervention in Haiti.
Departing from their traditional airborne method of making forcible entries, the soldiers were prepared to make an amphibious assault landing from a carrier, the home-away-from-home of the Marines.
"We were tickled pink to be called on to show we could do what the Marines did," said an Army major in the Pentagon. There was less joy among the Marines.
"It was one of those dances where it didn't look like anyone was happy but the Army," said General Wilkerson. "But it was the right thing to do, and we accomplished the mission. Is it the wave of the future? Or was this operation an aberration because Haiti is very close to our coastline?
"Regular six months' deployment on ships and projecting power from the sea is what the Marines and sailors are organized and equipped to do, not what the Army does."
What the Army does is view the battlefield as a continuous combat arena. But the Air Force wants future battlefields divided neatly into five sections, with each section designed to exploit the strengths of the forces involved.
Under the Air Force plan, the Navy and Marines would control the maritime and coastal battle. The Air Force would be responsible for the battle in the air and deep inside enemy territory. The Army would concentrate on the immediate ground fighting.
By land or by air?
"The Air Force proposal was to limit the Army's flexibility," said Brig. Gen. John Costello, chief of the Army's roles and missions office. "The Army is saying you can't restrict us to a certain distance in front of our troops. You can't tell me I can only go out so far and that's it.
"The Army believes a decisive victory occurs on the land, so those people who espouse victory through strategic air power we don't agree with. There are some fundamental, historical, philosophical differences that always remain among the services."
Was the Air Force proposal a power grab? "I would say it sure was," said General Costello.
The new Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Ronald Fogleman, has been less confrontational with the other services than General -- McPeak, but he has continued to press many of the controversial points in the original Air Force blueprint.
Marine General Wilkerson said that the current debate should be about what the services do but that to his dismay it was focusing, instead, on dollars.
"There is no other alternative for the services than to defend their own castle and attack the other services' castle," he said.
Commission Chairman White, for his part, promises "very specific recommendations" to Congress.
"We have a very rare opportunity to influence the future defense of the nation," he said. "And that is exactly what we intend to
do."
ESTIMATES OF MILITARY SAVINGS
The Congressional Budget Office estimates these five-year savings from changing certain roles and missions of the military services:
Rely more on the Air Force for power projection by eliminating five Navy aircraft carriers, 80 surface ships,10 submarines, 3 air wings and canceling orders for new nuclear carrier.
billion
Rely more on Marine Corps for expeditionary operations by reducing Army light infantry.
$14.5 billion
Give Army responsibility for its own close air support by eliminating six Air Force wings of A-10s and F-16s.
$3.5 billion
Make Army responsible for tactical missile defense by canceling Navy air programs.
$2.2 billion
Reduce Navy air support of Marine operations by retiring 120 F/A-18s.
$1 billion