The U.S. Marine Corps maintained the momentum it gained over the past five years, balancing crisis response capabilities and capacity while continuing its ambitious force modernization. The aggressive Force Design goals have been marked by experimentation and a campaign of learning. They seek to ensure that readiness enables the Marine Corps’ “first to fight” capabilities in a strategic environment defined by great power competition and an operational one defined by the contested maritime domain and a return to naval maneuver.
Significant developments included growing questions about the readiness, availability, maintenance, and development of the amphibious ship force; and encouraging enhancements in the scale and scope of Marine Corps activity in the western Pacific that continues to bolster deterrence against China’s coercive and aggressive actions.
L-Class Ship Readiness Failures
Commandant of the Marine Corps General Eric Smith provided preliminary guidance to the Marine Corps with his April 2024 “frag order” (FRAGO) 01-2024, which stated, “The Amphibious Ready Group/Marine Expeditionary Unit (ARG/MEU) remains our crown jewel, and our Amphibious Warfare Ships are the key enabler of our critical missions of campaigning and crisis response.”1 However, the year was marked by major problems with amphibious ship readiness and the deployability of ARG/MEUs. Only three deployed from the East and West Coasts.
The Bataan ARG and 26th MEU deployed from the East Coast in July 2023, completing their eight-and-a-half-month deployment in March 2024. Following the October 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, the Bataan ARG remained primarily in the Eastern Mediterranean, conducting exercises and providing crisis response.
In June, after more than two months without ARG coverage in the Mediterranean, the Wasp ARG and 24th MEU deployed from the East Coast as the replacement for the Bataan ARG. The Wasp ARG returned in December.
From the West Coast, major challenges were faced in deploying the Boxer ARG and embarked 15th MEU. Extensive maintenance issues significantly delayed departure, which finally happened piecemeal.
Overall, ARG/MEU deployments from the continental United States (CONUS) did not meet the Commandant’s operational tempo goal. Of the eight amphibious assault ships (LHDs and LHAs) that form the core of deploying ARGs from Norfolk, Virginia, and San Diego, California, on average only 1.1 were deployed at any time during the year—less than the desired 2.0 and about 14 percent of the available CONUS-based force. For comparison, the Navy deployed carrier strike groups (CSGs) at better than twice this rate. During 2024, CSGs achieved an average 2.33 deployment rate, a little more than 25 percent of the available CONUS-based units. (These numbers do not count the forward-deployed naval force in Japan and the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in long-term refueling and complex overhaul.)
In December, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report noted, “Amphibious warfare ships are critical for Marine Corps missions, but the Navy has struggled to ensure they are available for operations and training.” The report highlighted the unsatisfactory material condition of the amphibious fleet in explaining how the low availability “has negatively affected training and operations.” The GAO rated “half of the amphibious fleet . . . in poor condition” and assessed that the improbability of these ships meeting their expected service lives means the Navy “is likely to face difficulties meeting a statutory requirement to have at least 31 amphibious ships in the future.” This scathing assessment cited numerous failures in planning, supervision, and long-term trends in which “amphibious ships have historically scored lower than the overall fleet on material inspections.”2
The delays associated with deploying the Boxer ARG with the 15th MEU provide a case example. The ARG, comprising the USS Boxer (LHD-4), Somerset (LPD-25), and Harpers Ferry (LSD-49), was originally scheduled to deploy in September 2023. All three ships experienced maintenance delays that resulted in each deploying separately from the West Coast. The Somerset departed in January 2024, with the Harpers Ferry following in March. When the Boxer finally departed in April, she quickly had to return to port for an extended period because of a rudder equipment casualty. The extent of repairs and the lack of immediately available dry-dock space delayed the ship’s deployment until July, depriving the ARG/MEU of significant capabilities, including its detachment of F-35B aircraft, and affecting planned commitments. The America ARG, built around the USS America (LHA-6) and based in Japan, also experienced maintenance issues that likewise resulted in the ARG and its assigned 31st MEU failing to fully support their presence and exercise commitments during a 2024 patrol.
The Marine Corps identified that, from 2010 to 2021, delayed amphibious warfare ship maintenance “resulted in 28.5 years of lost training and deployment time for those ships and their associated Marines.” The GAO report identified multiple root causes, including obsolescence, poor equipment design, poor contractor work quality, and deferred maintenance. The deferral of major maintenance was partially the result of the Navy’s plan a few years ago to divest all ten LSDs before the end of their service lives without replacement. While this decision was taken before attaining required congressional certification, it also was made in light of the 2019 Commandant’s Planning Guidance directive that the Marine Corps would no longer reference a “2.0 Marine expeditionary brigade” lift or the 38 ships required to perform it.3
In addition, seven of the LHDs that make up a critical core of the amphibious fleet are the few remaining steam-powered ships in the battleforce. The only other ships still powered by steam are not frontline combat ships, and almost all have civilian mariners manning their engineering plants.4 Power plant design decisions that date at least as far back as the 1980s and the resulting limitations on trained manpower, supply chain, and maintenance capabilities are now significantly affecting the amphibious fleet.
In June, the Navy and Marine Corps agreed on metrics to define amphibious ship readiness, but they have yet to set a standard “on how many ships within the amphibious fleet should be available for operations and training at any given time.”5 At the same time, the Chief of Naval Operations’ 2024 Navigation Plan mandates that by 2027, the entire U.S. Navy must “achieve and sustain an 80 percent combat surge ready posture for ships, submarines, and aircraft.”6 However, until the services can reach an agreement, ARG/MEU deployments will continue to risk delays, and naval forces will risk failing to provide combatant commanders and national leaders with the full range of tools and options to respond to crises, build partners’ capacity, prevent escalation, and fight and win if it comes to it. During World War II, the size of the amphibious fleet ended up exceeding the size of the surface combat fleet (battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and destroyer escorts) by 239 percent as measured by ship tonnage. Strike, fires, and destruction, while important, “tend to provide only ephemeral effects.”7
The challenges increased significantly as 2024 came to a close when the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) launched its first Type 076 LHD. This innovative amphibious assault ship includes an electromagnetic catapult and an arrestor system that enables the operation of light conventional aircraft, most probably unmanned. The potential extended combat reach and interoperability with carrier-based aircraft—such as command-and-control and early warning fixed-wing aircraft—significantly increases the dilemmas U.S. naval forces will face in a future war at sea.
Bolstering Deterrence
It was not all bad news in 2024. The Marine Corps conducted numerous exercises, activities, and responses to crises in the western Pacific, particularly in the Philippines and Japan, as well as with other key Indo-Pacific allies such as Australia. The increasing deployment of PLAN forces—including a CSG around Japan and the Philippines—beyond the first island chain into the Philippine Sea provided impetus for increasing visible deterrence actions and working closely with regional allies and partners.
During February and March, Marines from forward-deployed elements of the 15th MEU, as well as forces and observers from 30 countries, took part in the annual Cobra Gold exercise in Thailand. In Korea, Marines from III Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) from Okinawa and the 1st Marine Division from Camp Pendleton, California, were deployed to work alongside Republic of Korea Marines and employ the Combined Marine Component Command during Exercise Freedom Shield 24. At the same time, the 31st MEU and the America ARG participated in the biannual Iron Fist 2024 exercise with Japanese forces, which moved this year from California to southern Japan and Okinawa for the first time. The U.S. forces conducted amphibious, ground, and naval operations in close coordination with Japan’s Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade and naval forces.
In April and May, elements of the 15th MEU and 3d Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR) participated in the 39th iteration of Exercise Balikatan in the Philippines. More than 16,000 servicemen and women from four nations—the United States, the Philippines, Australia, and France—trained through joint and combined events in Palawan and Luzon near the Luzon Strait, which opens into the strategically important South China Sea. This event included maritime security, amphibious, combined-arms, aviation, information, and cyber operations.
Balikatan saw the first overseas employment of the Marine Corps’ wheeled Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV)—the replacement for the 1970s-era tracked Amphibious Assault Vehicle—deployed with the 15th MEU after more than a year of domestic operations. ACV use had been restricted to allow enhanced operator training in the wake of vehicle roll-over issues. Also during Balikatan, the 3d MLR’s littoral reconnaissance teams conducted reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance operations. The exercise included humanitarian assistance activities, in part in response to China’s activities.
In October, Philippine Marines and amphibious forces from the Boxer ARG and 15th MEU, as part of exercise Kamandag, conducted a combined-arms operation to defeat an adversary force attempting to make an amphibious assault from the South China Sea onto Palawan. Marine Corps F-35Bs, attack helicopters, artillery, mortars, antitank missiles, and other crew-served weapons were employed to defeat the invading force.
Additional participants included the Marine Rotational Force–Southeast Asia (MRF-SEA)—a forward-deployed force built around the command element of the 13th MEU and supplemented by personnel from the 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, I MEF Information Group, and 1st Marine Division, as well as Philippine, Japanese, South Korean, Australian, and British allies operating from Northern Luzon to Palawan. MRF-SEA Marines then redeployed to Malaysia and Indonesia to conduct exercises with these regional partners.8
Before Kamandag, the 15th MEU, the Boxer ARG, MRF-SEA, and Marines from III MEF provided humanitarian assistance to areas of the Philippines hit by Typhoon Krathon. Working in close coordination with Philippine forces and relief agencies, the Marines delivered more than 48 tons of supplies to Bataan. Earlier in the year, III MEF assisted with similar disaster relief on Mindanao after heavy rains.
Other key Marine Corps actions to strengthen the U.S. position in the western Pacific included the August deployment of a III MEF TPS-80 Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) to Japan’s Yonaguni Island near the southern end of the Ryukyu chain. Located almost 70 miles east of Taiwan, the island is critical to the defense of the disputed Senkaku Islands and detection of Chinese incursions. The Marine radar’s ability to track missiles, manned and unmanned aircraft, rockets, artillery, and mortar fires reinforced Japan’s capabilities.
Also in August, Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 3 moved a detachment of Marine Corps MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Okinawa. The Reapers operated from Kadena Air Base to expand intelligence gathering and reconnaissance capabilities in the region. In addition, cyber-trained Marines from Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command rotated to Okinawa to provide III MEF with help to protect critical networks and infrastructure.
On Peleliu, a Pacific island that was the site of a brutal amphibious battle in 1944, Marine Corps engineers rehabilitated an old World War II airfield. In June, a Marine KC-130J refueling aircraft landed on the recertified field, demonstrating dispersed maritime and expeditionary advanced base options and capabilities.
The year was also marked by enhanced basing and training options. In August, the United States and Australia announced increased access for U.S. forces to training areas in the northern and western parts of the country. Strong cooperation with Australian allies is expected to grow, but it is still unclear how this agreement could increase the size and the length of Marine Rotational Force–Darwin, currently an annual six-month deployment of approximately 2,500 Marines and sailors from the West Coast I MEF.
In December, the long-planned move of some Marine forces from Okinawa to the new Marine Corps base on Guam—Camp Blaz—began with about 100 Marines moving from Okinawa to perform initial logistics work. These measures, including increasingly realistic and demanding joint and combined training events, are improving Marine Corps forces’ operational posture and close cooperation among America’s key allies in this important region.
Continued Standup of Marine Littoral Regiments
The Marine Corps continued to establish Marine littoral regiments comprising approximately 1,800 to 2,000 Marines and sailors. Critical to stand-in force operations in the western Pacific, these versatile organizations are designed for integrated sea-control and -denial operations in contested maritime environments and support expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO). In December 2024, the 3d MLR, based in Hawaii and which achieved initial operational capability in 2023, received the Navy/Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS), the Marine Corps’ first operational land-based anti-ship capability. Mounted on a modified unmanned JLTV-based Remotely Operated Ground Unit for Expeditionary (ROGUE) fires vehicle and armed with two antiship Naval Strike Missiles, NMESIS batteries are capable of hitting targets out to a range of approximately 100 nautical miles.
At the end of 2023, the 12th Marine Regiment (historically the 3d Marine Division’s artillery regiment) headquarters on Okinawa was redesignated as the 12th MLR command element. In October 2024, a combat logistics battalion from the 3d Marine Logistic Force was designated 12th Littoral Logistics Battalion (LLB) and assigned to the MLR. It will evolve toward providing the regiment with focused logistical support in contested forward areas. This was followed in November by the standup of the 12th Littoral Anti-Air Battalion (LAAB) at Camp Hansen, Okinawa, which is tasked to conduct naval air defense, air surveillance, and early warning and control, as well as forward rearming and refueling operations. The final element of the 12th MLR was established shortly after the 2025 New Year when 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, was redesignated as the 12th Littoral Combat Team at Camp Pendleton, California. Eventually, it will be fully reorganized as an infantry battalion with an antiship missile battery and transferred to Okinawa.
During 2025, both the 3d and 12th MLRs will work toward achieving full operational capability. The third and likely final MLR is projected to stand up in 2027 when the 4th Marine Regiment transfers from Okinawa to Guam and is redesignated 4th MLR.9
Littoral Maneuver Ship Change of Course
The Marine Corps asserts that “the procurement of no fewer than 35 Medium Landing Ships [LSMs]” as littoral maneuver connectors “is critical to supporting the mobility and sustainment of MLRs” and conducting effective stand-in force and expeditionary advanced base operations. The Commandant has also made clear that LSMs are not amphibious warships and are “separate from the congressionally mandated 31” amphibious warfare ships.10
The LSM is envisioned to be a relatively simple and inexpensive beachable ship with a cruise speed of 14 knots, capable of carrying about 50 Marines and 648 short tons of equipment in 8,000 square feet of cargo space. It is also expected to have a helicopter landing pad.11 In January 2024, the Navy released to industry a request for proposals to build the first six LSMs. However, in December, the service canceled the request because the bids were coming in much higher than expected. The program is still planned to move forward, but it is now undergoing changes. In part, the cost issues are driven by Navy warship survivability requirements, while the Marine Corps will accept greater risk and the use of reasonable commercial ship design standards. Acceptance of more commercial standards may end up as the path forward to get closer to the target cost.12
In the meantime, the Marine Corps is pressing forward with leasing two stern landing vessels (SLVs) that are seen as vital for experimentation of stand-in forces and EABO capabilities but which will not satisfy the Marine Corps’ “near-term mobility requirements.”13 The first SLV, a modified commercial support vessel from a Louisiana-based shipbuilder, completed testing on the West Coast and deployed to Okinawa to support evaluation with III MEF in the fall. The second SLV completing construction in Australia is projected to be delivered later this year. Initially, the Marine Corps plans to conduct experiments with this vessel alongside Australian Army units.14
Other Major Events
After more than three months grounded, in March the Marine Corps fleet of MV-22B Ospreys returned to safe flight. Almost all the Department of Defense Ospreys had been grounded after a U.S. Air Force CV-22 crashed in November 2023 with the loss of eight service members. This mishap followed an August Osprey crash in Australia that resulted in the death of three Marines. The return to flight included restrictions on total flight hours permitted for proprotor gearboxes.15
The Marine Corps continues to retire its aging fleet of F/A-18C/D Hornets and AV-8B Harriers. At the end of July, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 311—the service’s second aircraft-carrier-capable F-35C squadron—reached initial operational capability. In December, VMFA-251 was reactivated and began receiving F-35Cs. In November, VMFA-314 F-35Cs from the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) carried out the F-35C’s first combat missions, against Houthi targets in Yemen.16
At press time, the service released its 2025 Marine Aviation Plan, which calls for a rebalancing of the number and size of Joint Strike Fighter squadrons, with the planned number of F-35C units increasing from four to eight. This will reduce the planned F-35B short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) squadrons from 16 to 12.
In July, Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 269 based at Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina, was reactivated. The squadron, one of two equipped with AH-1Z and UH-1Y aircraft, had been deactivated in 2022 as part of the Force Design reorganization initiatives. However, subsequent analysis focused on “future exercises and deployments to ensure sustained support to priority II MEF warfighting tasks” determined the continued need for this squadron.17
The Marine Corps opened its new wargaming center in Quantico in June to enhance the campaign of learning and capability development through in-depth and immersive analyses employing advanced graphics and simulation and modeling to understand emerging threats and the best warfighting approaches to win against future adversaries. A notable experimentation effort during 2024 was the testing of a prototype logistics supply sea drone, modeled in part on drug smugglers’ narco-semisubmersibles. To address compelling contested maritime environment challenges, a key configuration will be the ability to carry NMESIS resupply missiles to sustain the stand-in forces.
The Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle (ARV) program to replace the venerable 1980s Light Armored Vehicles (LAVs) continued to move forward. In March, two companies—General Dynamics and Textron—were selected to design and deliver prototypes of a variant equipped with 30-mm cannon. A down-select based on testing is expected to lead to procurement by fiscal year 2028.18
Leadership and Legacy
In March, the 29th Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Alfred “Al” M. Gray, who led the service during the end of the Cold War and Operation Desert Storm, passed away at age 95. Rising from private, the general was a legend among Marines, recognized as a leader in war-fighting innovation and the development of a maneuver warfare culture and capabilities along with warfighting readiness.
Also in March, General Smith returned to work after suffering a heart attack in October 2023.19 In April, he issued a “frag order” to the Marine Corps, followed in August by a more detailed Commandant’s Planning Guidance. Both laid out the following priorities: (1) balancing crisis response and modernization; (2) naval integration along with organic mobility; (3) quality of life; (4) recruiting, making, and retaining Marines; and (5) maximizing the potential of the Marine Corps Reserve.20
As the Marine Corps enters 2025 and approaches the upcoming celebration of its 250th anniversary on 10 November, it begins the year with Vice President J. D. Vance, an Iraq War veteran, entering office as the first nationally elected Marine. In November 2024, the nonprofit Tun Tavern Legacy Foundation broke ground in Philadelphia to build a replica of Tun Tavern, where the Marine Corps was founded when its first commandant, Samuel Nicholas, recruited the first Marines. The expectation is that Marines will be able to raise a pint to celebrate the semiquincentennial. In commemoration at the other end of the Marine Corps’ long history of achievement, the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia, opened two new galleries in October. These galleries feature events and hundreds of historical artifacts from operations during the period between 1976 and 2021, including extensive attention on the Gulf War in 1991 and 21st-century engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan.
1. Gen Eric Smith, USMC, FRAGO 01-2024: “Maintain the Momentum,” April 2024.
2. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Report to the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, Amphibious Warfare Fleet: Navy Needs to Complete Key Efforts to Better Ensure Ships Are Available for Marines (Washington, DC: GAO, December 2024).
3. Gen David Berger, USMC, Commandant’s Planning Guidance (Washington, DC: Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, July 2019), 4.
4. The others are the USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19), Mount Whitney (LCC-20), Emory S. Land (AS-39), and Frank Cable (AS-40). Steam-powered ships manned by civilian mariners not in the battleforce include both hospital ships and eight fast sealift ships.
5. GAO, Report on Amphibious Warfare Fleet, 10.
6. ADM Lisa Franchetti, USN, Chief of Naval Operations Navigation Plan 2024 (Washington, DC: U.S. Navy, September 2024).
7. See LtCol James W. Hammond III, USMC (Ret.), “A Fleet Out of Balance,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 139, no. 2 (February 2013). Maneuver forces, including those ashore in the littorals, generate “more enduring levels of desired control.”
8. Aaron-Matthew Lariosa, “Forward-deployed Marines Conclude Philippine Drills, Prepare for Exercises with Indonesia and Malaysia,” USNI News, 29 October 2024.
9. Andrew Feickert, The U.S. Marine Corps Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR) (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, January 2025).
10. Gen Eric Smith, USMC, 39th Commandant’s Planning Guidance (Washington, DC: Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, 2024), 16.
11. Ronald O’Rourke, Navy Medium Landing Ship (LSM) (Previously Light Amphibious Warship [LAW]) Program: Background and Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, December 2024).
12. Mallory Shelbourne, “Landing Ship Medium Program Stalled Over Price, Navy Cancels Industry RFP,” USNI News, 17 December 2024.
13. Smith, Commandant’s Planning Guidance, 16.
14. Nick Wilson, “First Stern Landing Vessel Heads to III MEF as Marine Corps Moves toward LSM and Interim ‘Bridging Solution,’” Inside Defense, 23 September 2024.
15. Stephen Losey, “Navy, Air Force Cleared to Fly Ospreys after Inspecting Gears,” Defense News, 20 December 2024.
16. “U.S. Marine Squadron Conduct First Combat Strikes Using F-35C Platform,” Marine Corps press release, 20 November 2024.
17. Todd Smith, “Corps Reactivates East Coast Helicopter Squadron It Closed in 2022,” Marine Corps Times, 5 July 2024.
18. Andrew Feickert, Marine Corps Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, January 2025).
19. In a November 2024 video message to the service, General Smith reminded Marines to ensure they conducted their annual combat readiness physical fitness test and reported he had just completed his.
20. Smith, FRAGO 01-2024.
