U.S. Marine Corps Transforming to Defeat China

The U.S. Marine Corps has long been a leader in transformational warfighting. It perfected modern amphibious operations in the 1930s and pioneered helicopter vertical envelopment operations in the 1950s. It also wrote the book on counterinsurgency — the Small Wars Manual in 1940.

Today, the innovative new Commandant, General David Berger, has embarked the Corps on its most sweeping transformation in decades. His new focus will align the Marines with President Trump’s 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) that prioritizes near-peer threats, especially China.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) – Berger served as the top Marine commander in the Pacific, then led the Marines’ Combat Development Command (MCDC), which develops new war-fighting concepts. MCDC has run classified wargames like “Pacific Surprise” and “Ghost Fleet,” to evaluate how the Marines could counter the growing Chinese threat.

What they showed was the Marines were not up to facing a near-peer threat like China. Hence, Berger’s new counter-China strategy. (RELATED: Time U.S. Commits Fully to Defend Taiwan Against China)

So, now the Marines are shedding their recent counterinsurgency and land warfare focus to become a ‘littoral warfare’ force-in-readiness — oriented specifically to fighting China in its own backyard. As stated by The Diplomat, “Traditionally, the Navy has provided control over the seas for the purpose of safely delivering marines ashore. The new concept reverses the Marines’ role to one of helping the Navy control sea lanes…”

To accomplish this new “distributed warfare” mission, the Marines will need to be much lighter, leaner, and much more agile. As such, the Marines will be shedding many heavy units, as well as aviation and rotor assets.

By 2030 the Corps will have divested all its tank battalions, specialized law enforcement units, and combat bridge companies. Additionally, notes USNI News, the Corps will reduce the number of infantry battalions; artillery cannon batteries; amphibious vehicle companies; and reduce tilt-rotor, attack, and heavy lift squadrons. Overall, the Corps will shrink by 12,000 personnel.

This shift means the Marine Corps will now be “trained and equipped to operate inside actively contested maritime spaces in support of fleet operations.” As described in a report by CSIS, the think tank:

Central to Berger’s vision is the ability to operate within an adversary’s (read China’s) bubble of air, missile, and naval power (which the Marine Corps calls the weapons engagement zone, or WEZ)… the Marine Corps will be a “stand-in force” that will operate within this WEZ, not a stand-off force that must start outside and fight its way in… “Stand-in forces [are] optimized to operate in close and confined seas in defiance of adversary long-range precision ‘stand-off capabilities.’”

Essential to this concept are new maritime expeditionary units — called “littoral regiments” — which will take the fight to the Chinese navy. The first of these three new regiments is now being stood up in Hawaii — renamed the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment.

As Military.com reported, “these littoral, or nearshore, Marines will become specialists in ship-to-shore capabilities in austere conditions to, among other things, sink ships at sea using missiles fired from unmanned vehicles that look like bulked-up Humvees.”

To achieve this, the Marines are developing “expeditionary advanced base operations,” or EABO, to distribute highly mobile Marines across Pacific islands and arm them with advanced missiles that can sink enemy ships in contested choke points,” according to Military.com.

It added, Berger said, “Our peer adversaries need to perceive a bunch of small, mobile Marine units in their backfield with low signatures, bad attitudes and toolkits full of disruptive capabilities.”

As military tensions might rise, the regiments would disperse small 50-100 person Marine teams, armed with drones for use in the air, on the sea and underwater, aboard sleek new landing craft, to the tiny islands throughout the South and East China Seas, according to Gen. Berger, notes the WSJ. (RELATED: China’s Growing Military Power Eyes the Asia-Pacific Region and Beyond)

This way, the Marines would target Chinese warships with anti-ship missiles before they ventured into the wider Pacific Ocean. These teams would then island-hop every 48 or 72 hours onboard new, remotely piloted amphibious boats to avoid detection and counter-fire.

This radical transformation appears to be one bold solution to the growing Chinese military threat. However, some wonder if the Marines may be throwing all their eggs into only one basket. That will be the focus of another piece.

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AAN Staff