The Commandant of the Marine Corps and others have suggested that there should have been an amphibious ready group (ARG) with an embarked marine expeditionary unit (MEU) in the European or Central Command area of responsibility to help evacuate U.S. citizens from the war-torn nation of Sudan in April 2023. Instead, an ad hoc assembly of ships—including an expeditionary sea base (ESB) and an expeditionary fast transport (EFP)—supported the evacuation process. Traditionally, an ARG consisting of at least one large amphibious assault ship (LHA or LHD), one or more landing platform docks (LPDs) and a landing ship dock (LSD) have been deployed in large-scale personnel evacuations. Currently, the Navy has nine large amphibious ships (LHDs and LHAs), 12 LPDs, and 10 LSDs for a total of 31 amphibious warships. The Sudan mission, however, has raised anew a series of questions about amphibious shipping, including the number of and types of amphibious vessels needed by the Marine Corps for its new strategic concepts, the potential for cheaper, civilian alternatives to purpose-built amphibious warships, and the readiness of those amphibious vessels to surge in time for crisis operations. Here is yet another case where the nominal strength of amphibious ships in the fleet is at odds with the Navy’s ability to provide them in a ready condition to forward commanders.
The Sudan Evacuation Should be a Wakeup Call
It has always been a challenge to square the cost of combat-credible forward presence with the deterrence value many expect it to provide. While ARG/MEU deployments have seldom been linked with successful deterrence outcomes, such deployments can help with the aftermath of failed deterrence operations or in the wake of failed state violence and natural disasters. In the 2006 evacuation of Lebanon, the Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group (similar to an ARG) evacuated more than 15,000 U.S. citizens in two weeks. While it is hard to predict the need for such forces ahead of time, it is easy to envision the chaos that can ensue in their absence. In many cases, images of U.S. civilians boarding Navy and Marine Corps ships, aircraft, and vehicles for evacuation become iconic symbols of those operations.
No deployed ARG was available to support the recent noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) from Sudan. Instead, an ad hoc force of ships—including the expeditionary sea base USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB-3) and the aluminum expeditionary fast transport USNS Brunswick (T-EPF-6)—were pressed into service to move evacuees, with the destroyer USS Truxtun (DDG-103) acting as an escort. These vessels completed the NEO mission without incident, but their use raised questions about amphibious force readiness. Of the Navy’s current 31 large amphibious ships, only seven were deployed at the time of the operation. This included the four-ship America ARG forward deployed in Japan, and the three-ship Makin Island ARG conducting operations in the Philippines. The next Atlantic-based, three-ship Bataan ARG was still engaged in predeployment training and not available for operations. A force that can achieve only a 25 percent deployment rate seems a questionable one to rely on for crisis operations. Overall, the amphibious force size is projected to decline to 26 ships by the end of 2024 and will likely further dip as the LSD-41-classships are retired per Navy 30-year shipbuilding program documentation.1
There are also survivability questions in using vessels primarily crewed by Military Sealift Command personnel. In 2016, the former HSV-2 Swift, operated by the United Arab Emirates, was hit by a Houthi rebel’s cruise missile while transporting humanitarian cargo in the same region and was a total loss due to unrepairable damage.
The Post–Cold War Decline of the Amphibious Fleet
At the end of the Cold War, the Navy boasted a force of 61 amphibious warships, from large, big-deck amphibs to smaller tank landing ships (LSTs). By 2000, this number dropped to 41, and by the 2010s it had decreased to 31 ships. Over the course of the 1990s, the amphibious force stabilized at 12 amphibious ready groups (ARGs) with approximately three ships each, and three older types of amphibious ships (LPHs, the amphibious cargo ship LKAs, and LSTs) were retired, making the overall force easier to maintain. This force construct continued through the 2000s and 2010s and stabilized at 30–34 ships, supporting ten amphibious ready groups. The LPD-17 class has come into service with a full 12 ships, with three more authorized. The LSDs will eventually be phased out of service and replaced with a more austere version of the LPD-17. A number of medium amphibious warships (18–35 vessels) have been proposed to help make the Marine expeditionary force more distributed, in keeping with Marine Corps Commandant General David H. Berger’s reforms intended to make the Corps more useful in maritime combat. The official Navy 2016 force goal approved by Congress remains 38 large amphibious ships, but current shipbuilding and decommissioning plans do not support its attainment.
How Many Amphibs are Enough?
The Marine Corps has long based its amphibious ship numbers on the ability to carry two Marine expeditionary brigades (MEBs) in an opposed assault. The Marines have interpreted that to mean about 34 ships, with 17 ships needed per MEB. Both the 2019 Commandant’s Planning Guidance and the original Marine Corps Force Design 2030 plan from 2020 may have upset the traditional amphibious force calculation by saying that the Marine Corps needed “smaller, lower signature, and more affordable amphibious ships,” and had a shortfall in “affordable, distributable platforms that will enable littoral maneuver and provide logistical support in a very challenging theater for the kind of operations envisioned in our current concepts.” Some in the Navy—and especially in the Office of the Secretary of Defense—seized on this as a chance to reduce traditional amphibious force requirements to reprioritize those resources toward other naval warfare areas.
The Marine Corps has vigorously responded with the recurrent requirement of 31 amphibious ships, but there remains a disconnect between the number of traditional amphibious ships, the smaller medium landing ship, and the actual number of ships needed to move and deploy Marines for combat as desired in their expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO) concept. The Marine Corps and the Navy need to update that figure with specific numbers as had previously been the case with the 2.0 MEB movement. In a recent War on the Rocks article, former Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work said, “It is not yet clear where these debates will land,” yet the 31 large amphibious ship requirement remains in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. However, these debates need to end for the Navy and Marine Corps to present a united front on amphibious ships to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
A Way Ahead on Amphibious
Keeping the LPD-17 line open is an essential first step to replacing the retiring LSD-41 class and not further dropping the amphibious ship count below the Congressional mandate. The Navy and Marine Corps need to agree on both the design and number of the medium landing ships and commence construction to reach those agreed numbers and make that part of the Marine Corps’ Force Design 2030 operational. ESBs and EPFs are suitable for low-end operations but they are not a substitute for a full ARG. The Department of Defense and regional commanders should reconsider their decision to gap key geographic areas of ARG/MEU presence such as the Mediterranean/Middle East region. The Navy and Marine Corps need to investigate ARG/MEU readiness so that a continuous ARG/MEU presence without gaps in coverage can be maintained beyond the Indo-Pacific. There is justifiable concern that the Navy needs more combatant ships for a “fight tonight” scenario in the Indo-Pacific, but any maritime strategy needs to address global maritime force requirements. ARG/MEU combinations are essential forces in securing maritime choke points and horizontal escalation campaigns against scattered and ill-defended adversary installations. The peacetime value of the ARG/MEU has already been demonstrated in numerous noncombat operations. One of the Pacific ARG/MEUs based around the USS Makin Island (LHD-8) recently prepared to provide potential typhoon relief in Guam.
The NEO operation in Sudan was a wakeup call regarding the decline in amphibious force size and readiness. The Office of the Secretary of Defense, Navy, and Marine Corps need to improve amphibious force readiness to meet both peacetime and potential combat uses of ARG/MEU forces. The next government collapse or natural disaster may not be so easily met with ad hoc combinations of ships, and future combat action in the Indo-Pacific and farther afield will require combatants and amphibious ships for a range of missions beyond airstrikes and missile salvos. The next Chief of Naval Operations and the next Commandant of the Marine Corps need to be on the same page on force design and operations. The expected decline of the total number of large amphibious ships must be met with continued LPD-17 production and rapid fielding of the medium landing ship.
The Navy–Marine Corps team is at a force structure inflection point, where the services need to justify the right number of amphibious ships for both combat operations under expeditionary advanced base operations/littoral operations in a contested environment and the right number of “ready” amphibious ships for the mixed-bag of noncombat, phase 0 operations that the Navy/Marine Corps team is called on to accomplish, such as the 2006 Lebanon NEO and the 2023 Sudan event. It is hard to predict these events, and the ships, fuel, and people come with some significant costs to deploy. But when a noncombat need for these ships arises, the results, such as moving 15,000 U.S. civilians out of danger quickly, are priceless.
1. Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfighting Requirements and Capabilities—OPNAV N9, Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year 2024, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (March 2023), 24.
