For those interested further about Moral Injury, Durham University (UK) has just opened The International Centre for Moral Injury which is promising if it actually creates dialogue and possible solutions at the international level. Here in Ukraine, we are facing it on all levels from the frontline troops to drone operators to volunteers to civilians and the displaced. The Centre is organizing a conference in April 2026 and is calling for papers in case anyone is interested. https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/moral-injury/events/conferences/
Regarding Benjamin Van Horrick’s thoughts on a Force Design “bar fight” debate, let me add a few of my own. For context I come to this from having spent my last 4 years on active duty at the Krulak Center at Marine Corps University, from 2019-2023, where a lot of thought-sharing on Force Design occurred. I had a line of effort at the Krulak Center where I tried to help foster part of that very debate Van Horrick seems to think didn’t happen. So my thoughts:
-I’ve read this elsewhere, that somehow there was no USMC-wide “debate” over Force Design. That’s simply not true. Marines both current and retired contributed opinions in a number of forums, some traditional like the Marine Corps Gazette or Naval Institute Proceedings, some newer like War on the Rocks. There were a LOT of articles both for and against, highlighting strengths and weaknesses. While these were not podcast formats, one of the things common about those platforms—and which I think is vital to actual debate as opposed to online shit-posting—is editorial rigor. Submissions have to meet a minimum standard for argumentation supported by evidence. So long as pro- or anti-FD pieces met those standards, they got published because the editorial staffs of those journals recognized the consequences of FD changes and that consequences should be discussed. These written pieces with the editorial standard are vital to debate because podcast hosts…well, they don’t always care about evidentiary standards for arguments so long as things get spicy and it gets them clicks. So the written parts of the FD debate may not have been as entertaining, but they were essential to actual debate because authors couldn’t just post shit or call each other names. And, the debate happened. Search the archives of those publications. There’s a lot there and it is by no means all “pro.” Why the retired general-grade officers who coalesced on the “anti” side as Chowder II stopped getting their work published in those venues is discussed below.
-Paul K Van Riper claimed that Marine Corps University stifled FD debate and stopped inviting him and other Chowder II officers to visit. The former is false; the latter may have factual truth but Van Riper omits important context, which I will add. I think it’s fair to say my time at Marine Corps University overlapped with the apogee of energetic FD debate going on in written forums. Van Riper claimed that students were not allowed to debate or think about whether FD was the right answer for the Corps. This is nonsense; in both formal and informal settings, I watched and heard students argue about it, and students regularly highlighted problems in FD in their final research projects. Some of these projects are available online (more on that shortly), and include things like using wargame software to actually lay out FD weapons systems in their intended deployment areas, against intended Red targets, and highlight shortfalls in desired effects on target if the weapons were not properly supported by other combined arm elements like long-range ISR. So at the center of intellectual ferment that is resident PME, FD debate was happening and it was not all “pro.”
-why Van Riper and Co stopped getting invited: there is no formal document keeping them off campus, indeed the Gray Research Center is a public library and anyone who can get on base can get to the library and the Krulak Center. But faculty and University leadership decide who they want to put in front of students, and Van Riper and Co effectively disqualified themselves by shifting their criticism from arguments to people. Across the platforms with, let’s say, less rigorous editorial standards where Chowder II published in the later years of the debate, they regularly accused the Commandant and other Marines who did the work on FD of lying, of falsifying data, of hiding information from Congressional oversight, and of killing the careers of Marines who got in the way. All of this was entirely unsubstantiated. Moreover, I would love to hear how calling Marines leaders liars, cheats, and manipulators is NOT horribly corrosive to good order and discipline. So I’d ask why, when faculty and University leadership have a wide variety of potential guest speakers and distinguished visitors to choose from, they would put in front of students guest speakers like the Chowder II officers who called active duty Marine leaders liars, cheats, and manipulators—with the implications to obeying orders and maintaining discipline those allegations entail. As for Van Riper himself, again, I have no formal document, but there was an occasional where University leadership had intervened and said he could not fulfill a speaker request from a University school; and my own hypothesis is that, in addition to the personal and unsubstantiated attacks he himself made against senior Marine leaders, part of the decision may also have been that on the Chowder II “discussion” forum (more on their definition of discussion shortly), Van Riper both made, and endorsed from other commentators, disgusting misogynistic attacks against the sitting female president of Marine Corps University at the time. So I don’t find it at all unreasonable that the female president of Marine Corps University decided that someone who made and endorsed sexist commentary against her declined to let him speak on campus.
-as to long-form digital debate, more podcast-formatted and free-flowing - that happened too, at least while I was on active duty at the Krulak Center, because I offered a platform for precisely that. For about three years I ran the #BruteCast, which a hybrid webinar/podcast that included a live component where people who registered for each episode could raise questions directly with the guests. The #BruteCast was not all about FD, but of the 130-odd episodes I ran during my time there, 27 were focused on FD, with guests on active duty who were directly involved in implementing FD changes. These episodes were not intended to carry water for the “pro” side, but do other things. First, given that many of the Chowder II critics were busy making unsubstantiated claims about FD in other forums, I wanted to give those doing the work in FD a chance to tell other Marines what they doing and do it in their own words, without interpretation or misinterpretation of second or third parties. Second, I wanted to give audience members the chance to CHALLENGE those guests working on FD so that questions and critics could be raised, and answered, directly with the people responsible for areas of FD. Registration for these webinars was free and open to anyone, including FD critics, and so long as audience questions were not personally insulting, I put them in front of the guests no matter how uncomfortable the questions might be. In 27 episodes, I never had a Chowder II member attend the webinar or bring forward the critiques they were so energetic in making elsewhere. I found this curious, given then vehement claims of wanting “open” debate; but as the years went on and Chowder II found fewer platforms willing to host their polemics, I deducted reasons as to why this did or didn’t happen. (All FD episodes still available here BTW: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5srRwO9nGAFso6W7PjVtpyg_paaAKo_H&si=7p0FOwiM3-qoxxId)
-so debate was happening, in many places and across multimedia forums, so why did the Chowder II critics keep saying debate was being suppressed or not happening at all? A few things happened. First, they themselves could not make arguments that met the evidentiary standards required by professional journals. There was a good long run of years where, for the Marine Corps Gazette for example, the Chowder II FD critics had many “anti” pieces published in deference to their former ranks and experience. However, a series of articles submitted by Chowder contained personal attacks against Marine leadership as well as critiques of FD unsubstantiated by basic evidence, and the Gazette editors told Chowder to amend their work to, you know, not have personal attacks, and provide evidence for their arguments. Chowder refused, and so their work wasn’t published. Proceedings and War on the Rocks told Chowder the same thing: meet our standard, provide evidence, no personal attacks. Chowder wasn’t interested in that form of discussion, so they were no longed published in those forums. Where Chowder DID publish, aside from less rigorous, more click-bait websites, was their own Substack platform, where they could make personal attacks and substance-free arguments all day long. Because some Marines, myself included, took them at their word that they were genuinely interested in two-sided debate, we attempted to make comments on their Substack and engage with Chowder II in their own forum. One by one, all of us were banned, and the Chowder II Substack is now wholly populated by a half-dozen commentators who only distinguish themselves by how violently they agree with Chowder II. So it turned out the FD critics did not desire an open debate forum where they themselves could be challenged. I suspect that’s why they never came on to the #BruteCast to ask questions; because in my open forum, they could ask questions but then were also vulnerable to having unsubstantiated arguments pushed back against by the Marines who were actually doing FD work. Their Substack is certainly not an open forum; after myself and others who attempted real debate with them were banned, I’ve visited periodically and there is an occasional voice of anti-Chowder dissent that tries to point out the holes in their unsubstantiated arguments and present facts on what the Corps is actually doing or not doing with FD. I could set my watch by regularly those voices, too, get banned.
Having a “bar fight” Force Design debate with advocates and critics able to openly argue with each other? Sure, I’d watch it; but I don’t think you’ll get any of the critics to participate, because there’s a long trail of evidence demonstrating that genuine and open debate is not what they’re truly interested in. Either they won’t show, or they’ll require so many constraints on the host or advocates that it would in no way resemble true debate.
So I do wish anyone trying to set up such a “bar fight” the best of luck. But getting the “pro” side to show up won’t be the problem.
Wonderfully stated
Excellent introduction. Well said.
Great editorial.🤘
For those interested further about Moral Injury, Durham University (UK) has just opened The International Centre for Moral Injury which is promising if it actually creates dialogue and possible solutions at the international level. Here in Ukraine, we are facing it on all levels from the frontline troops to drone operators to volunteers to civilians and the displaced. The Centre is organizing a conference in April 2026 and is calling for papers in case anyone is interested. https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/moral-injury/events/conferences/
How do we find more from the featured writers?
Also, could you please create a bit more of a break between sections/essays?
Regarding Benjamin Van Horrick’s thoughts on a Force Design “bar fight” debate, let me add a few of my own. For context I come to this from having spent my last 4 years on active duty at the Krulak Center at Marine Corps University, from 2019-2023, where a lot of thought-sharing on Force Design occurred. I had a line of effort at the Krulak Center where I tried to help foster part of that very debate Van Horrick seems to think didn’t happen. So my thoughts:
-I’ve read this elsewhere, that somehow there was no USMC-wide “debate” over Force Design. That’s simply not true. Marines both current and retired contributed opinions in a number of forums, some traditional like the Marine Corps Gazette or Naval Institute Proceedings, some newer like War on the Rocks. There were a LOT of articles both for and against, highlighting strengths and weaknesses. While these were not podcast formats, one of the things common about those platforms—and which I think is vital to actual debate as opposed to online shit-posting—is editorial rigor. Submissions have to meet a minimum standard for argumentation supported by evidence. So long as pro- or anti-FD pieces met those standards, they got published because the editorial staffs of those journals recognized the consequences of FD changes and that consequences should be discussed. These written pieces with the editorial standard are vital to debate because podcast hosts…well, they don’t always care about evidentiary standards for arguments so long as things get spicy and it gets them clicks. So the written parts of the FD debate may not have been as entertaining, but they were essential to actual debate because authors couldn’t just post shit or call each other names. And, the debate happened. Search the archives of those publications. There’s a lot there and it is by no means all “pro.” Why the retired general-grade officers who coalesced on the “anti” side as Chowder II stopped getting their work published in those venues is discussed below.
-Paul K Van Riper claimed that Marine Corps University stifled FD debate and stopped inviting him and other Chowder II officers to visit. The former is false; the latter may have factual truth but Van Riper omits important context, which I will add. I think it’s fair to say my time at Marine Corps University overlapped with the apogee of energetic FD debate going on in written forums. Van Riper claimed that students were not allowed to debate or think about whether FD was the right answer for the Corps. This is nonsense; in both formal and informal settings, I watched and heard students argue about it, and students regularly highlighted problems in FD in their final research projects. Some of these projects are available online (more on that shortly), and include things like using wargame software to actually lay out FD weapons systems in their intended deployment areas, against intended Red targets, and highlight shortfalls in desired effects on target if the weapons were not properly supported by other combined arm elements like long-range ISR. So at the center of intellectual ferment that is resident PME, FD debate was happening and it was not all “pro.”
-why Van Riper and Co stopped getting invited: there is no formal document keeping them off campus, indeed the Gray Research Center is a public library and anyone who can get on base can get to the library and the Krulak Center. But faculty and University leadership decide who they want to put in front of students, and Van Riper and Co effectively disqualified themselves by shifting their criticism from arguments to people. Across the platforms with, let’s say, less rigorous editorial standards where Chowder II published in the later years of the debate, they regularly accused the Commandant and other Marines who did the work on FD of lying, of falsifying data, of hiding information from Congressional oversight, and of killing the careers of Marines who got in the way. All of this was entirely unsubstantiated. Moreover, I would love to hear how calling Marines leaders liars, cheats, and manipulators is NOT horribly corrosive to good order and discipline. So I’d ask why, when faculty and University leadership have a wide variety of potential guest speakers and distinguished visitors to choose from, they would put in front of students guest speakers like the Chowder II officers who called active duty Marine leaders liars, cheats, and manipulators—with the implications to obeying orders and maintaining discipline those allegations entail. As for Van Riper himself, again, I have no formal document, but there was an occasional where University leadership had intervened and said he could not fulfill a speaker request from a University school; and my own hypothesis is that, in addition to the personal and unsubstantiated attacks he himself made against senior Marine leaders, part of the decision may also have been that on the Chowder II “discussion” forum (more on their definition of discussion shortly), Van Riper both made, and endorsed from other commentators, disgusting misogynistic attacks against the sitting female president of Marine Corps University at the time. So I don’t find it at all unreasonable that the female president of Marine Corps University decided that someone who made and endorsed sexist commentary against her declined to let him speak on campus.
-as to long-form digital debate, more podcast-formatted and free-flowing - that happened too, at least while I was on active duty at the Krulak Center, because I offered a platform for precisely that. For about three years I ran the #BruteCast, which a hybrid webinar/podcast that included a live component where people who registered for each episode could raise questions directly with the guests. The #BruteCast was not all about FD, but of the 130-odd episodes I ran during my time there, 27 were focused on FD, with guests on active duty who were directly involved in implementing FD changes. These episodes were not intended to carry water for the “pro” side, but do other things. First, given that many of the Chowder II critics were busy making unsubstantiated claims about FD in other forums, I wanted to give those doing the work in FD a chance to tell other Marines what they doing and do it in their own words, without interpretation or misinterpretation of second or third parties. Second, I wanted to give audience members the chance to CHALLENGE those guests working on FD so that questions and critics could be raised, and answered, directly with the people responsible for areas of FD. Registration for these webinars was free and open to anyone, including FD critics, and so long as audience questions were not personally insulting, I put them in front of the guests no matter how uncomfortable the questions might be. In 27 episodes, I never had a Chowder II member attend the webinar or bring forward the critiques they were so energetic in making elsewhere. I found this curious, given then vehement claims of wanting “open” debate; but as the years went on and Chowder II found fewer platforms willing to host their polemics, I deducted reasons as to why this did or didn’t happen. (All FD episodes still available here BTW: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5srRwO9nGAFso6W7PjVtpyg_paaAKo_H&si=7p0FOwiM3-qoxxId)
-so debate was happening, in many places and across multimedia forums, so why did the Chowder II critics keep saying debate was being suppressed or not happening at all? A few things happened. First, they themselves could not make arguments that met the evidentiary standards required by professional journals. There was a good long run of years where, for the Marine Corps Gazette for example, the Chowder II FD critics had many “anti” pieces published in deference to their former ranks and experience. However, a series of articles submitted by Chowder contained personal attacks against Marine leadership as well as critiques of FD unsubstantiated by basic evidence, and the Gazette editors told Chowder to amend their work to, you know, not have personal attacks, and provide evidence for their arguments. Chowder refused, and so their work wasn’t published. Proceedings and War on the Rocks told Chowder the same thing: meet our standard, provide evidence, no personal attacks. Chowder wasn’t interested in that form of discussion, so they were no longed published in those forums. Where Chowder DID publish, aside from less rigorous, more click-bait websites, was their own Substack platform, where they could make personal attacks and substance-free arguments all day long. Because some Marines, myself included, took them at their word that they were genuinely interested in two-sided debate, we attempted to make comments on their Substack and engage with Chowder II in their own forum. One by one, all of us were banned, and the Chowder II Substack is now wholly populated by a half-dozen commentators who only distinguish themselves by how violently they agree with Chowder II. So it turned out the FD critics did not desire an open debate forum where they themselves could be challenged. I suspect that’s why they never came on to the #BruteCast to ask questions; because in my open forum, they could ask questions but then were also vulnerable to having unsubstantiated arguments pushed back against by the Marines who were actually doing FD work. Their Substack is certainly not an open forum; after myself and others who attempted real debate with them were banned, I’ve visited periodically and there is an occasional voice of anti-Chowder dissent that tries to point out the holes in their unsubstantiated arguments and present facts on what the Corps is actually doing or not doing with FD. I could set my watch by regularly those voices, too, get banned.
Having a “bar fight” Force Design debate with advocates and critics able to openly argue with each other? Sure, I’d watch it; but I don’t think you’ll get any of the critics to participate, because there’s a long trail of evidence demonstrating that genuine and open debate is not what they’re truly interested in. Either they won’t show, or they’ll require so many constraints on the host or advocates that it would in no way resemble true debate.
So I do wish anyone trying to set up such a “bar fight” the best of luck. But getting the “pro” side to show up won’t be the problem.
Huge thanks for engaging at this depth and complexity. We’d love to host something from you here.
Be happy to!