U.S. Military Forces in FY 2021: Marine Corps

November 16, 2020

separate of U.S. Military Forces in FY 2021. The Marine Corps begins a major restructure to develop capabilities for big exponent conflict after two decades of conducting pacification ashore. The budget cuts units and personnel to pay for these new capabilities. however, many commentators worry that the restructure will make the Marine Corps besides narrowly focused .

 Key Takeaways

• General Berger’s new guidance aims to restore the Marine Corps to its naval roots after two decades of operations ashore, invest in capabilities focused on great power conflict in the Pacific, and divest unneeded forces.
• To pay for this, the Marine Corps’ active-duty end strength begins a decline to about 172,000, the level before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Despite a continuing high operational tempo, the Marine Corps is pursuing modernization over expanding force structure.
• Ground forces would gain long-range precision fires but give up three infantry battalions, tanks, and some counterinsurgency capabilities. Most artillery would convert from cannon to missile units
• UAVs would increase in number, but the Marine Corps is far behind the Air Force in this regard and the Marine Corps’ UAV development program is in disarray.
• The amphibious fleet will include large numbers of light amphibious warships (LAWs). These will provide more distributed capabilities that can implement the Marine Corps’ intention to be a “stand in” force that can operate inside an adversary’s defensive bubble. The trade-off is that, because of the LAWs small size, they will not be able to support the customary level of global forward deployments, which may decline as a result.
• The restructuring has been criticized for focusing too much on a maritime campaign in the Western Pacific, ignoring other global conflicts, and relying on unproven operational concepts.

The FY 2021 budget is an interim pace as the Marine Corps seeks to implement a major restructure. This restructure would shed capabilities designed for pacification and sustained operations ashore and cut a slice across the entire Marine Corps to pay for new capabilities. Because the restructure plan came out after the FY 2021 budget, fully execution is expected in the FY 2022 budget and its associated five-year plan.

End Strength in FY 2021

In FY 2021, the Marine Corps decreases active-duty end lastingness by 2,100. This is the first base increase of a larger decrease to pay for the commanding officer ’ s restructure .
Marine Corps Reserve end military capability stays level at 38,500, where it has been for many years. On the one hired hand, the memory and recruitment challenges of expanding are excessively great. ( The Marine reserves got into some trouble in the past when they tried to expand to over 40,000. ) On the other hand, the demands of maintaining a full division-wing structure prevent it from getting much smaller. General Berger ’ s guidance hints at some changes in the future : “ We will explore the efficacy of in full integrating our reserve units within the Active Component, deoxyadenosine monophosphate well as other organizational options. ” however, that is still pending.1
Marine Corps civilians increase slightly, as with Department of Defense ( DOD ) civilians overall, reflecting the stress on rebuilding readiness and the substitution of civilians for military personnel in subscribe activities. Marine Corps civilian strength levels have been relatively level for respective years. One celebrated decimal point is that the number does not go down, at least so far, as the active-duty force gets smaller .

not so long ago, the Marine Corps had talked about expanding the active-duty pull to 194,000. That level would have allowed the Marine Corps to build modern capabilities without sacrificing the old. however, compressed budgets required some trade-offs .
The projection in the FY 2021 budget shows a little decrease compared to the FY 2020 project. however, death year, General Berger said : “ If provided the opportunity to secure extra modernization dollars in commute for storm structure, I am prepare to do so. ” 2 His restructure plan, which came out after the budget was published, described cutting active-duty end lastingness by “ about 12,000 ” to pay for the new capabilities envisioned. That would take the active-duty Marine Corps toss off to 172,000, a reduction that will likely be incorporated into the FY 2022 budget .
even at that level, the Marine Corps would be coming out of the wars at about the lapp flush ( 172,000 ) that it went in ( 172,600 ) .
The McKenzie Group of 2013 ( named after its drawing card, then-Lieutenant General Kenneth F. McKenzie, now General McKenzie, commander of CENTCOM ) argued that ahead presence and crisis response were the Marine Corps ’ elementary storm drivers because of the deform that deployments put on the wedge. This may have besides been a observation of the time, at least in separate driven by 10 years of high wartime operational tempo ( OPTEMPO ) .3
In any lawsuit, that argument has disappeared. General Berger did not mention high OPTEMPO or personnel stress in his annual model statement to Congress.4 That is a change from statements pre-2016, when the commandants routinely cited the try of multiple deployments .

A New Force Structure

When General Berger became commanding officer, he issued planning guidance with four major themes : to reestablish the Marine Corps ’ naval roots after years of operations ashore in Iraq and Afghanistan ; to build structure and weapons for great world power conflict, particularly in the Pacific ; to eliminate bequest capabilities that did not fit with a new concept ; and to maintain a high gear degree of individual warfighting prowess.5 These themes were consistent with the National Defense Strategy ( NDS ) and previously published Marine concepts such as expeditionary Advance Base Operations and Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment. The Marine concepts envision a shift to distributed operations and the Marine Corps contributing to sea dominance in a naval campaign through shore-based aircraft and fires, not good by projecting power ashore .
In March 2020, the Marine Corps announced the specifics of the restructure in Marine Corps 2030.6 The sections below incorporate details .
Unlike the Navy ’ mho proposed restructure, General Berger stated, “ I seek no extra resources for this effort. ” 7 Thus, the restructure cuts many effect elements to create savings to acquire modern capabilities. Implementation will be a 10-year attempt, though some changes, such as the retirement of tanks, have taken place immediately. The document and General Berger ’ s statements since its issue stress that this is an ongoing process with proceed experiment and wargaming. In detail, the logistics social organization, reserves, and elements of air travel are unresolved .
The restructure maintains the three active-duty Marine Expeditionary Forces ( MEFs ) : I and II MEFs located in the continental United States ( California and North Carolina, respectively ) and III MEF on Hawaii, Okinawa, and mainland Japan. today, the MEFs are about identical, though they have minor variations, and III MEF is a bit smaller because of its oversea establish. however, Marine Corps 2030 notes that the MEFs may not be identical in the future .
The restructure besides maintains the reserve division-wing team, headquartered in New Orleans but spread over the stallion area. ( The reserve division-wing team lacks the headquarters to make it an MEF. Since the reserves are employed at lower unit levels, such a headquarters is not needed. ) The Marine Corps reserve, like the Army National Guard but unlike the other reserve components, mirrors the administration of the active-duty power. No capabilities reside disproportionately in the Marine Reserve ( except the small civil affairs community, which is about entirely in the reserves ) .
General Berger ’ s steering and restructure barely mention cyber and special operations, which raises questions about how they fit into his new concept for the Marine Corps. Both had been uncomfortable fits, with cyber Marines being hard to recruit and special forces Marines siphoning top talent from the regular line units.8
If in full implemented, the restructure would besides have a major cultural impingement on the Marine Corps. Hitherto, the infantry has been the centerpiece of the Marine Corps and the principal instrumental role by which it wins battles. Its mission has been net : “ locate, close with, and destroy the enemy. ” 9 Under this restructure, the Marine Corps would win battles using long-range fires from artillery and aviation. The infantry character would be by and large defensive, to protect these long-range ardor assets.10

Ground Forces

board 2 lays out the major changes that the restructure would make to Marine Corps ground forces. The Marine Corps emphasizes that experiment is ongoing, so extra changes are probable. In particular, the Marine Corps is still give voice plans for logistics and the reserves. ( For a detail assessment of Marine Corps 2030, see Mark Cancian, “ The Marine Corps ’ Radical Shift Towards China. ” 11 )

Infantry: The reduce of three infantry battalions appears to be a charge payer. The press dismissal says that the remaining battalions will be more “ mobile ” and reportedly “ commando-like. ” 12 That implies deleting some of the heavy weapons such as mortars and anti-tank missiles. On the early hand, in Marine Corps 2030, which came out belated, the commanding officer says, “ I am not confident that we have adequately assessed all of the implications of the future operating environment on the proposed structure of our future infantry battalion. ” He directs promote experiment, so the administration of the infantry battalion is not a close issue .
Cutting infantry battalions allows proportional cuts in supporting capabilities—in aviation, logistics, and fire support―thus creating adequate savings to pay for newly capabilities .
The infantry has farseeing been the heart of the Marine Corps, so, if implemented, this would be a major institutional deoxyadenosine monophosphate well as impel structure variety. The three active-duty divisions would have 27 infantry battalions at entire strength. The infantry battalions have been getting smaller over time, totaling about 1,050 Marines up until the mid-1980s. This change will take them down to about 725. thus, the full issue of Marines in infantry battalions goes from 28,350 in the early 1980s to 15,200 in the future, a cut of 47 percentage for a Marine Corps of about the lapp size .
Fire support: The artillery community will be roughly the same size after the restructure, but it will be dramatically different. Some of the newfangled batteries will be HIMARS, which fire long-range guided and unguided missiles at land targets. Some will be a raw arrangement that fires tactical Tomahawk anti-ship missiles. Because of their guide munitions, missile and rocket batteries can hit reason targets and ships at long stove. however, they do not support the infantry with mass and area fires as carom batteries do. This shift is a affirmation that the Marine Corps does not expect to face adversary armies close-up on the establish but will alternatively fight maritime campaigns at long distances .
Tanks: This has been the most visible change. Tanks have been part of the Marine Corps since World War II and have fought in every dispute since then. As with changes to the artillery, it is a dramatic statement that the Marine Corps does not plan to participate in reason conflicts in the future as it did in, for case, Desert Storm or the 2003 invasion of Iraq .
Bridge companies: These companies are useful for flat coat battle steer but not on islands .
Law enforcement battalions: These units are utilitarian for pacification but would have little character in a Pacific maritime crusade. The fact that the Marine Corps retains no capability here shows the focus on the Western Pacific scenario and a decision not to get involved in future pacification campaigns .

Aviation Forces and Challenges

mesa 3 shows the current aviation structure and proposed changes under Force Design 2030 .

Tiltrotor: The restructure cuts three squadrons because they chiefly support infantry, which is getting smaller. The reduction may create some stress on the remaining squadrons since MV-22s have been used heavily. The Marine Corps has purchased all 360 MV-22 aircraft, so it is unclear where the cut aircraft will go, possibly retained for the train base ( which has used older models ) and future attrition .
Rotary wing—light attack: The Marine Corps ’ light-attack helicopters ( AH-1Zs ) are most useful against enemy armor and infantry. Although the helicopters have adequate range to participate in sea control, they lack a long-range stand-off weapon and need to get close to their target. Because the Marine Corps recently completed the bribe of these aircraft, they will probably go into storage for later use. The reduce size and character for attack helicopters raises questions about whether the Marine Corps will participate in the Army ’ s Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft course of study .
Rotary wing—heavy: The state rationality for the cut is that with less heavy equipment and less infantry, there is less indigence for heavy-lift helicopters. however, it is probable that General Berger besides considered the high cost to maintain these large and expensive helicopters. The cut of three squadrons implies a one-third cut to the substitution CH-53K program, which is fair entering production .
Fixed-wing fighter attack: The reduction in aircraft per squadron implies a cut of about 45 F-35s when train and care operating expense are included. As a key argue for the decrease, the restructuring report points to a fly dearth and the Marine Corps ’ inability to fix the deficit. however, the commanding officer ’ randomness guidance besides signaled a willingness to trade off expensive and manned fixed-wing aircraft for UAVs. Nevertheless, General Berger indicates that the changes are not settled : “ I am not convinced that we have a absolved sympathize so far of F-35 capacity requirements for the future force. ” He reinforced the point in a subsequently media roundtable.13 Cutting F-35s will be controversial because of the course of study ’ second strong subscribe in Congress, which has annually added aircraft to the budget.

C-130 cargo aircraft: This increase probable recognizes the motivation to support geographically widespread teams in distribute operations. Because C-130 aircraft can land on rocky airfields, they can supply forces in austere, forth locations. The increase would consequently be for the cargo deputation and not for the refuel mission since the number of Marine aircraft overall would decline .
UAVs: The Marine Corps has fallen far behind Air Force and Army in fielding arm UAVs as a leave of its focus on manned aircraft such as the F-35. This change is long delinquent but obviously delayed far by waiting for a developmental system. See the discussion below .

Marine aircraft inventories have increased for the last few years. The rotary-wing fleet has by and large been recapitalized with the MV-22 and UH/AH-1 procurements, so it is modern and relatively young. The CH-53K broadcast will complete that recapitalization. The fixed-wing evanesce is in the procedure of recapitalization with the F-35. thus, despite the high cost of contemporary aircraft, Marine aviation is in reasonably adept shape, unlike the Air Force .
The effect of Marine Corps 2030 on aircraft inventories is unclear. It will cut rotary-wing, tiltrotor, and fixed-wing fighter attack but increase UAVs and C-130s. Since the forces being supported get smaller, the air travel stock will likely besides get smaller .

Lag in Fielding UAVs

The Marine Corps, having led the way on UAVs in the 1980s, now lags far behind the other services. General Berger vows to change this, saying that “ starting with POM-22 [ the Marine Corps will ] develop a much broader syndicate of unmanned systems. ”
The Marine Corps considered acquiring MQ-9 Reapers as an interim capability. It bought two MQ-9 Reapers in FY 2020 budget and was going to request another three in FY 2021 but did not. rather, the Marine Corps is waiting for the USMC-developed large UAV ( called MUX ) because of its shipboard capabilities. however, the program is being restructured, having collapsed from having besides many requirements piled on it. The Marine Corps hopes to have a family of systems with something fielded in the FY 2023 timeframe but the program is unsettled.14
This is a admonitory fib about letting the requirements process choose for the perfect ( MUX ) over the well ( MQ-9 ) .

The fortune of the Marine Corps ’ RQ-21 Blackjack is unclear. Fielding has been completed to four functional squadrons, having experienced difficulties in development and a decrease in plan quantities to 21.15 Located at regiment/MEU degree, it will be able of operating both ashore and from L-class ships. It performs reconnaissance and surveillance functions but has no attack capability .
however, Force Design 2030 seems to indicate uncertainty about the future of the MQ-21 flit. “ We need to transition from our current UAS platforms to capabilities that can operate from ship, from prop up, and be able to employ both collection and deadly [ emphasis added ] payloads. ” 16
The Marine Corps besides fields a wide variety show of smaller UAVs ( RQ-11, -12, -20 ) for tactical reconnaissance and target and is experimenting aggressively with integrating such capabilities into humble unit operations. none of these systems have attack capabilities, however .
Like the Navy, the Marine Corps has focused on manned aircraft and is army for the liberation of rwanda behind the Army and the Air Force in fielding UAV capabilities. General Berger wants to go in a different commission, but the Marine Corps MUX broadcast is in disarray, and he faces decades of air travel polish built around manned aircraft .

Reaction to Marine Corps 2030

The proposed restructure has been met with both accompaniment and doubts. support comes from strategists who see China as the chief threat and would focus department of defense efforts tightly on that adversary. They endorse the fresh technologies and operational concepts.17
Doubts arise from five elementary concerns.18

• The focus on China downplays the possibility of conflicts elsewhere. Since World War II, the United States has fought many regional conflicts but never a great power conflict. Thus, James Webb, former senator, former secretary of the Navy, and Marine combat veteran, criticized a narrow focus on China: “If history teaches us anything in combat, it is that the war you get is rarely the war that you game. .. [The restructuring] could permanently reduce the long-standing mission of global readiness that for more than a century has been the essential reason for [the Marine Corps’] existence as a separate service.”19
• The new warfighting concepts are unproven. The restructure assumes that in a conflict with China, Marine forces could move into the Chinese defensive bubble, survive, and be supported. That briefs well but may not work in a contested environment where logistics need to move forward continuously and adversary firepower can strike isolated Marine outposts.20
• A force design for one kind of operation cannot necessarily conduct a different kind of operation successfully. Thus, a Marine Corps designed for an island campaign against China in the Western Pacific will be poorly designed for conflicts elsewhere, particularly regional conflicts that might occur in Korea or the Middle East. The U.S. Army of the 1960s that was designed to fight the Soviets on the plains of Germany was poorly positioned to fight insurgents in the jungles of Southeast Asia.21
• Conflicts against China and Russia are likely to operate in the gray zone and are not high-intensity and kinetic. The new force design is not well suited for these demands because of reductions to counterinsurgency capabilities and the reorientation of training to focus exclusively on a high-end fight.22
• All warfighting requires close-in firepower. The new structure focuses on long-range precision fire, but the need for close-in fires, including tanks and cannon artillery, has not gone away.23

Marine Air-Ground Task Forces

The Marine Corps has long prided itself on being able to task organize—that is, to put existing units in concert into irregular groups for a particular function. The Marine Corps has a criterion fit of undertaking force templates for what it calls Marine Air-Ground Task Forces ( MAGTFs ). Each of the standard templates has four elements : a command component, a land fight element, an aviation component, and a logistics element. The largest, a Marine Expeditionary Force ( 46,000–90,000 Marines ), is built around the Marine part and air annex. The middle-sized wedge, the Marine Expeditionary Brigade ( 4,000–16,000 Marines ), is built around an infantry regiment and air group. The smallest, the Marine Expeditionary Unit ( MEU, about 2, 200 Marines ), is built around an infantry battalion and composite squadron.24
Two newly job forces have received attention : special-purpose MAGTFs ( SP-MAGTFs ) and littoral fight regiments .
SP-MAGTFs: Although not new, SP-MAGTF units represent a different capability for the Marine Corps. traditionally, the smallest whole that the Marine Corps deployed was an MEU. To provide rapid reply and haunting presence in AFRICOM and CENTCOM and periodic field employment in SOUTHCOM, the Marine Corps established these land-based special-purpose units, which are smaller than the MEU. That made them both more agile and easier to deploy, though at the cost of logistics and firepower .
The Marine Corps appears to be reconsidering the mission and staff of SP-MAGTFs, using deployed MEUs when these are in the region and regular units to meet specific taskings. This eases the burden of creating new special-purpose units, even relatively small ones .
Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR): This new kind of unit would deliver anti-ground and anti-ship fires and be able to survive inside an adversary ’ sulfur ( for example, China ’ second ) defensive ripple. These new units harken back to a World War II capability, Marine defense battalions, which were designed to protect forward bases from naval and air approach. The Marine Corps is experimenting in Hawaii using troops stationed there. MLRs tentatively consist of a combat team, an air-defense battalion, and a logistics unit, though their accurate structure and numbers are indecipherable at this point.25
besides indecipherable is whether MLRs will be permanent or task-organized units. MLRs look a set like a specialize MEU, though they are not characterized that way .

Guam and Pacific Force Stationing

This is a classic good news ( Australia ) and badly news ( Okinawa/Guam/Japan ) story .
Okinawa/Guam/Japan: The Marine Corps is engaged in a long-run effort to ease the burden of its wedge footprint on Okinawa by moving forces to Guam, though besides to mainland Japan, Hawaii, and the mainland United States. The current plan is for the count of Marines on Okinawa to be halved, to 11,500, by 2027.26
The government of Japan is paying for a lot of the massive adeptness construction on Guam, and construction is going forward, though the timeline has slipped repeatedly.27 In September, the Marine Corps christened a new base, Camp Blaz, named for a Marine general of Guamanian descent. apparently only 1,300 Marines will be permanently stationed on Guam, with another 3,700 coming to the island as a rotational wedge. This is a change from the original arithmetic mean that all troops would be permanently stationed on Guam.28
The re-stationing effort besides involves building a newfangled air facility—called the Futenma refilling facility—in the less inhabited northern area of Okinawa at Camp Schwab. This project continues to have difficulties, with the completion date pushed out again, to 2030, and the price rocket. It appears improbable that this will always be completed.29
The entire re-stationing effort is a cautionary fib to those seeking to move U.S. forces around the earth. Although there are strong strategic reasons for such military capability changes, executing them can be highly challenging in the actual universe of local politics, regional tensions, and the inevitable difficulties involved with large-scale structure projects .
Australia: By contrast to the boring and controversial moves on Okinawa and Guam, the Marine Corps ’ rotational deployments to Darwin, Australia continue into their tenth year without controversy, with six-month rotations on the ground of about 1,200 personnel each year. Rotations restarted after a hesitate during the pandemic. The rotations have continued through changes of government in both Australia and the United States, so the politics look settled. The disadvantage is that the forces are a great distance from any likely conflict ( 2,500 miles from the South China Sea ) .

Amphibious Ships, Alternative Platforms, and Global Deployments

Amphibious ships: The Navy chapter described how the amphibious fleet will lose some of its high-end ships, potentially up to six helicopter carriers ( LHAs/LHDs ) repurposed to be “ light carriers ” that complement the “ supercarriers ( CVNs ). ” The Navy might curtail the number of LPD ’ s escape I and II, although it has not released specifics. alternatively, the amphibious fleet will add 28 to 30 light amphibious warships ( LAWs ). Each law would carry 75 Marines. Because such a ship is much smaller than anything in the current or holocene inventory, it will change the way Marines mastermind and train for amphibious operations. It is besides unprecedented in late amphibious ship design in that it is intended for relatively short-circuit voyages, transit from item A to point B, and not for long-run deployments .
Global deployments: The total numbers will go up, but the count of ships capable of ball-shaped deployments will go down. This new amphibious fleet will not sustain the current social organization of seven MEUs ( one in Japan, three on the West Coast, three on the East Coast ) and their long-standing ahead deployments .
Mark Cancian ( Colonel, USMCR, ret. ) is a senior adviser with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C .
This report is made possible by general support to CSIS. No conduct sponsorship contributed to this report.

This report is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).
© 2020 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.
Please consult the PDF for references.