President's Notes

Open Access

Abstract

It was little more than a year ago, in the Autumn 1992 edition of these Notes, that I offered a brief explanation of the National Military Strategy and the Joint Chiefs of Staffs concept of "the Base Force" considered essential to the execution of that strategy. The Navy-Marine Corps elements in that force could be stated, in an abbreviated fashion, as a fleet of about 450 ships (down from a recent peak of nearly 600) and a Marine Corps with about 159,000 active personnel, down from roughly 200,000.