Defense News – Today, the Navy has 31 amphibious ships — what the Marine Corps considers the bare minimum it needs — but the Pentagon plans to shrink the fleet below that number in fiscal 2024. As a result, there is anticipation that the Corps will be more challenged to respond to global crises.

Breaking Defense – “When things like Turkey or [Sudan] come up, and other aspects of the US Joint Force are responding, it’s uncomfortable because [the Marines] look at it as something that historically they have done,” said one analyst.

War on the Rocks – Washington should embrace global positioning to achieve logistics endurance that will better sustain forces in a highly distributed and undeveloped theater. This means rethinking how equipment and supplies are positioned to support operating forces and incorporating the air, land, and maritime domains. Currently, most of the equipment and supplies needed to support operating forces are either co-located at the home station of the unit or afloat on a prepositioned vessel. This model places a tremendous amount of stress on strategic lift platforms during a crisis when the joint force collectively will require these assets to position strategic deterrence capabilities. Global positioning would expand relationships with allies and partners to place equipment and supplies ashore and afloat, and drastically reduce the force closure window. 

Defense News – The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are nearing agreement on the requirements and cost of the Landing Ship Medium program, formerly called the Light Amphibious Warship, after the services previously diverged in their visions for this program, officials said.

War on the Rocks – Dear Next Commandant…

Defense News – The Pentagon team leading the charge to reduce the cost of amphibious warships has shown the Marine Corps drawings of scaled-down, less expensive ship designs — but a service general told Defense News he won’t accept them.

Modern War Institute – When the Marine Corps maximizes SIGINT and EW’s support to targeting, codifying these capabilities’ role in operations, innovating new procedures, and teaching electromagnetic-enabled targeting even at entry-level artillery courses—it will demonstrate that it has learned a vital lesson from the wars in Nagorno-Karabakh and Ukraine.

War Zone – While the relevance of the Marines’ AH-1Zs and UH-1Ys is being questioned, one top Marine is revamping their playbook to prove otherwise.

Breaking Defense – The new document, the first update since 1997, says Russia’s failure to establish competent logistics have been a “major factor” to why it has failed to achieve its objectives in Ukraine.

Defense News – The U.S. Marine Corps is asking lawmakers to compel the Navy to keep building amphibious warships, as the sea service wants to truncate San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock production and take a “strategic pause” to reconsider future amphib ships.

Marine Corps Times – The 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment — the first unit of its kind — isn’t set to reach initial operational capability until the fall. But a recent exercise, in which the 3rd MLR helped prevent a more traditional force from claiming terrain, demonstrated that it’s already an effective unit.

Defense News – The U.S. Marine Corps is asking for money in fiscal 2024 to speed up its forcewide modernization effort as it tries to rapidly field new weapons, sensors and data processors.

Modern War Institute – In the Indo-Pacific, the naval services are turning strategic planning guidance into operational reality. Two commands, Expeditionary Strike Group Seven and the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, recently embarked on an eighteen-month period of experimentation and naval power revitalization, creating Task Force 76/3 (TF 76/3). The implication of the new command extends beyond the Indo-Pacific region and naval services. TF 76/3 offers a template for the joint force to address issues of force design, interoperability, littoral warfare, and maritime campaign planning.

USNI News – The Defense Department’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget request will not seek to buy any San Antonio-class amphibious warships in the next five years, exposing a continued fissure between Pentagon and Marine Corps priorities.

USNI News – After making a series of modifications to an offshore support vessel, the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab is ready to start experimenting with a prototype for a landing ship the Marines say is key to the service’s island-hopping future in the Western Pacific.

Defense News – The Marine Corps’ logistics system can’t keep up with its new disaggregated operating concepts — or its old crisis response concepts, either — and must be overhauled if the Marines and the joint force want to succeed in future combat, according to a new Marine Corps report.

USNI News – The Marine Corps’ latest requirements call for nine smaller amphibious ships per Marine Littoral Regiment to shuttle Marines and equipment between islands and shoreline.

Naval News – A week ago, the Philippines and the United States took steps to expand the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) with U.S. access to four bases in the Philippines. This builds on the previous five bases in the original agreement created in 2014, greatly enhancing U.S. capabilities in the Philippines. This increased access can be of great benefit to U.S. forces which are seeking an increased presence in the region to counter adversaries, such as China. Of the U.S. services engaging with the Philippines with this threat in mind, the U.S. Marine Corps has taken center stage in these efforts. These new sites can prove to be crucial for Marine plans going forward in the Western Pacific. 

Naval News – The U.S. Marine Corps reactivated a new base on Guam.

1945 – James Holmes writes that straits are narrow seas by definition. So think about the Ryukyu defensive line as a series of short interlocking cordons overshadowed by missiles fired from shore, sea, or aloft. That’s a workable operational design. 

War Zone – F-35Bs operating from remote landing areas that could be destroyed soon after they takeoff is one way the Marines look to counter China.

Breaking Defense – A revamped US Marine Corps quick-reaction force outfitted with offensive and defensive weapons will be stood up on Okinawa by 2025, Japanese and American officials announced today during a high-profile engagement in Washington, the latest in a string of diplomatic moves by Tokyo apparently aimed at checking Chinese influence in the region.

USNI News – The commandant of the Marine Corps will have a direct say in both the requirements for the Navy’s amphibious ships and the force structure, according to provisions in the Fiscal Year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.

CIMSEC – The Marine Corps has two rapid options for establishing an ASW capability – a modified MV-22 or the MQ-9B Sea Guardian. Although the Corps has not planned to acquire ASW aircraft, the Commandant’s thoughts on the importance of ASW in the High North and the western Pacific combined with the ARG’s vulnerability means that consideration for a platform must be considered. The Commandant is divesting of legacy equipment and end strength to invest in future equipment. With the Navy’s shortage of ASW assets, it makes sense for the Marine Corps to support the maritime fight not just with land-based anti-surface fires and sensing, but also with its own ASW aircraft.

CIMSEC – The Marine Corps is faced with an intensified challenge of contested logistics as it employs its novel concept of Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO). EABO calls for Marines to act as Stand-in Forces using low profile, highly mobile Expeditionary Advance Bases (EAB) that will likely be within an enemy’s Weapons Engagement Zone (WEZ). Supplying these bases will be difficult since their location is expected to frequently shift, and reliance on the conventional global logistics chain may not be responsive in a contested environment. A possible solution is the use of unmanned or autonomous Self Propelled Semi-Submersibles (SPSS) to provide logistics support. It is important to consider how SPSS will be classified under domestic and international law, and what rights and obligations will be imposed on them during peacetime and armed conflict.