US Marine Corps

U.S. Marine Corps Dakota L. Wood he U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) is the na- This included approximately one-third of the Ttion’s expeditionary armed force, posi- Corps’ operational forces deployed to 60 coun- tioned and ready to respond to crises around tries and 11,000 Marines serving aboard ships.1 the world. Marine units assigned aboard ships During the year preceding its fiscal year (FY) (“soldiers of the sea”) or at bases abroad stand 2021 budget request, “[T]he Marine Corps ready to project U.S. power into crisis areas. executed 249 operations, nine amphibious Marines also serve in a range of unique mis- operations, [and] 151 theater security cooper- sions, from combat defense of U.S. embassies ation events, and participated in 68 exercises.” under attack abroad to operating the Presi- Among these involvements were support for dent’s helicopter fleet. operations Inherent Resolve (Iraq and Syria) Although Marines have a wide variety of and Freedom’s Sentinel (Afghanistan); oper- individual assignments, the focus of every ations across Africa and Latin America; and Marine is on combat: Every Marine is first a major exercises with many partner countries rifleman. Over the past several decades, the in Asia and Europe.2 Marine Corps has positioned itself for crisis Pursuant to the National Defense Strategy response, but while sustaining its historical, (NDS),3 maintaining the Corps’ crisis-response institutional, and much of its doctrinal focus capability is critical. Thus, given the fiscal con- on its historical connection to operations in straints imposed by the budget environment maritime environments, the majority of its op- of the past several years, the Marines have pri- erational experience over the past 20 years has oritized near-term readiness at the expense of been in sustained land operations. This has led other areas such as capacity, capability, mod- to a dramatic decline in the familiarity of most ernization, home station readiness, and in- Marines with conventional amphibious oper- frastructure. Over the past two to three years, ations and other types of employment within however, additional funding provided by Con- a distinctly maritime setting. Recognizing this gress has enabled the Corps to make advances shortfall, the Corps’ leadership has initiated in readiness and turn to modernization at what efforts to reorient the service toward enabling USMC Commandant General David H. Berg- and supporting the projection of naval power er has called “a significant scale.”4 As stated in in heavily contested littoral environments with DOD’s FY 2019 Defense Budget Overview, the a particular focus on the Indo-Pacific region. service elevated modernization as a means to As reported in February 2020, the Corps had improve readiness for combat.5 This is consis- 36,100 Marines deployed to remain “engaged tent with and central to its readiness-recovery in joint, integrated operations around the efforts and represents a shift to a longer-term globe, providing immediate response options, perspective. Recapitalization and repair of leg- assuring allies and deterring our adversaries.” acy systems are no longer sufficient to sustain The Heritage Foundation | heritage.org/Military 445 current operational requirements. New equip- infantry battalion, which is composed of ap- ment is necessary. proximately 900 Marines and includes three In general for the Joint Force, this Index fo- rifle companies, a weapons company, and a cuses on the forces required to win two major headquarters and service company.6 wars as the baseline force-sizing metric for the In 2011, the Marine Corps maintained 27 Army, Navy, and Air Force, but it adopts a dif- infantry battalions in its active component ferent paradigm—one war plus crisis response— at an authorized end strength of 202,100.7 As for the Marine Corps. While the three large budgets declined, the Corps prioritized readi- services are sized for global action in more ness through managed reductions in capacity, than one theater at a time, the Marines, by vir- including a drawdown of forces, and delays or tue of overall size and most recently by direc- reductions in planned procurement levels. Af- tion of the Commandant, focus on one major ter the Marine Corps fell to a low of 23 active conflict while ensuring that all Fleet Marine component infantry battalions in FY 2015,8 Forces are globally deployable for short-notice, Congress began to fund gradual increases in smaller-scale actions. end strength, returning the Corps to 24 infan- In previous editions of the Index, the capac- try battalions. ity of the Marine Corps was assessed against a The Corps operated with 186,200 Marines two-war requirement of 36 battalions: a histor- in FY 2020,9 perhaps a high point for the fore- ical average of 15 battalions for a major conflict seeable future as the service plans to shrink to (30 for two major conflicts) and a 20 percent 184,100 in FY 2021 to free funding so that it buffer, bringing the total to 36. The Corps has can be reapplied to experimentation, retool- consistently maintained that it is a one-war ing, and reorganization as described in “Force force and has no intention of growing to the Design 2030.”10 The current size allows for 24 size needed to fight two wars. Its annual bud- infantry battalions, but future plans will likely 11 get requests and top-level planning documents see the number shrink to 21 battalions. reflect this position. One impact of reduced capacity is a strain on Having assessed that the Indo-Pacific re- Marines’ dwell time. Cuts in capacity—the num- gion will continue to be of central importance ber of units and individual Marines—enabled to the U.S., and noting that China is a more the Corps to disperse the resources it did re- worrisome “pacing threat” than any other ceive among fewer units, thus maintaining high- competitor and that the Joint Force lacks the er readiness levels throughout a smaller force. ability to operate within the range of intensely However, without a corresponding decrease in weaponized, layered defenses featuring large operational requirements, demand for Marine numbers of precision-guided munitions, the Corps units and assets has resulted in grueling Corps is reshaping itself to optimize its capa- deployment rates, a situation largely unchanged bilities and organizational structures for this since 2018.12 High deployment frequency exac- challenge. This Index concurs with this ef- erbates the degradation of readiness as people fort but assesses that the Corps will still need and equipment are used more frequently with greater capacity to succeed in war in the very less time to recover between deployments. circumstances for which the Marines believe The stated ideal deployment-to-dwell they must prepare. (D2D) time ratio is 1:3 (seven months deployed for every 21 months at home).13 This leaves Capacity more time available for training and recovery The measures of Marine Corps capacity in and provides support for a ready bench, with- this Index are similar to those used to assess out which readiness investments are immedi- the Army’s: end strength and units (battalions ately consumed. The Corps is currently sus- for the Marines and brigades for the Army). taining a 1:2 D2D ratio while working toward The Marine Corps’ basic combat unit is the the more desirable 1:3 ratio.14 446 2021 Index of U.S. Military Strength Infantry battalions serve as a surrogate In its heavy-lift rotary-wing fleet, the Corps measure for the Corps’ total force. As the first began a reset of the CH-53E in 2016 to bridge to respond to many contingencies, the Marine the procurement gap to the CH-53K and Corps requires a large degree of flexibility and aimed to “reset…the entire 143-aircraft fleet self-sufficiency, and this drives its approach to by FY20,”24 but recent reporting indicates that organization and deployment of operational the Corps is only one-third of the way through formations that, although typically centered the process.25 Even when the reset is complete, on infantry units, are composed of ground, air, the service will still be 57 aircraft short of the and logistics elements. Each of these assets stated heavy-lift requirement of 200 airframes and capabilities is critical to effective deploy- and will not have enough helicopters to meet ment of the force, and any one of them can its heavy-lift requirement without the transi- be a limiting factor in the conduct of training tion to the CH-53K.26 and operations. According to the 2019 Marine Corps Avia- Aviation. Despite being stressed con- tion Plan, the Corps completed its transition sistently by insufficient funding, the Ma- from the CH-46E to the MV-22 Osprey in rine Corps has made significant progress in 2019, with 18 fully operational squadrons in achieving its objective of 80 percent aviation the active component.27 However, the procure- readiness in FY 2020.15 However, even though ment objective could increase to 380 aircraft operational requirements have not decreased, pending the results of an ongoing require- fewer Marine aircraft have been available for ments-based analysis.28 The Osprey has been tasking or training. For example, according to called “our most in-demand aircraft,”29 which its 2019 Marine Corps Aviation Plan, the USMC means the Marine Corps has to reconcile high currently fields 16 tactical fighter squadrons,16 operational tempos (OPTEMPOs) with the compared to 19 in 201717 and around 28 during objective of maintaining the platform in in- Desert Storm.18 Though availability of legacy ventory

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