The year 2023 was one of continuity for the U.S. Marine Corps. Although a turnover of commandants took place in the summer, General David H. Berger’s milestone Force Design 2030 continued to drive the service’s planning for a potential high-end fight in a contested maritime environment. A month before relinquishing his post as Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC) in July, General Berger issued his final Force Design 2030 Annual Update. This update reviewed progress and provided guidance and priorities for ensuring the Marine Corps remains the premier naval expeditionary force in readiness. His successor, General Eric M. Smith, emphasized in his first guidance to the force that the trajectory set by his predecessor would be maintained and continue to be refined based on the service’s campaign of learning.1
The focus of the Marine Corps continued to be testing Force Design 2030 initiatives, especially identifying priorities and implementing capabilities to support expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO) and enhancing the Marine Corps’ expeditionary, combined arms, and global responsiveness. EABO-related capabilities have begun to be fielded. Experimentation, lessons from exercises, and insights gleaned from combat operations in Ukraine and the Middle East have influenced force improvement initiatives and refinements. A key issue requiring increased attention emerged during the year: the myriad challenges of sustaining forces in an increasingly contested logistics environment.
Marines continued to provide the nations’ combatant commands with ready and capable combat forces. This included more than 32,000 Marines deployed or stationed across 50 nations, with an emphasis on the Indo-Pacific region. However, the former Commandant identified a troubling trend: the significant reduction in the number of Marines operating on board ships. In 2018, about 16,000 Marines served on board ships, while four years later this number had decreased to just 12,660.2 At the same time, while the other services struggled to recruit, Marine Corps recruiting continued to surge.3
Diverging Priorities
The future of U.S. naval amphibious shipping remained a major issue in 2023. During testimony to the House Armed Services Committee in April, General Berger highlighted that, during the crisis in Sudan, the lack of an amphibious ready group and embarked Marine expeditionary unit (MEU) in the region greatly limited the options for the combatant commander.4 In his posture statement to the Senate, the Commandant highlighted the criticality of amphibious warships to the ability to project national power with greater visibility, deterrence, denial, disruption, and lethal combat power; to provide immediate crisis response; and to provide ambassadors with an on-call capacity to protect U.S. citizens. His conclusion was that “the nation requires no fewer than 31 traditional amphibious warfare ships (10 LHA/LHD and 21 LPDs/LSDs) to ensure the warfighting readiness and responsiveness of amphibious naval forces”—reiterating the statutory requirement contained in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.5
The Office of the Secretary of Defense directed a pause in the procurement of amphibious ships while a team assessed the cost-effectiveness of the LPD-17 Flight II ships. In the budget proposal submitted during 2023, the Navy indicated it plans to truncate the LPD-17 Flight II buy to three ships (stopping at LPD-32). With the planned decommissioning of the older LSDs, the projected number of amphibious warships in the 30-year shipbuilding plan will fall below 31 and will be between a mere 19 and 23 ships by 2053.6 As a result, for the second year in a row, the service placed funding for the LPD-33 ship at the top of its unfunded procurement priority list.
The Marine Corps has identified the need to complement the larger traditional amphibious warships with 35 smaller, risk-worthy medium landing ships (LSMs, previously referred to as light amphibious warships—LAWs). The LSM is envisioned to be a relatively simple and inexpensive beachable ship capable of carrying 75 Marines along with 600 tons of equipment in 8,000 square feet of cargo space and a cruise speed of 14 knots. It is also expected to have a helicopter landing pad.7 The Marine Corps views LSMs as critical to fully realizing the capabilities of the Marine littoral regiments (MLRs), supporting littoral mobility, and establishing and sustaining expeditionary advanced bases. However, the Chief of Naval Operations has suggested purchasing only 18 LSMs.8 The Navy expects to contract for the initial ship in 2025, with the construction of as many as four ships per year.
In support of the LSM program, the Marine Corps leased a commercial stern landing vessel in early 2023 to serve as a prototype/testbed to reduce acquisition uncertainties and risk. The Marine Corps is considering testing up to three prototypes—including foreign designs—with different attributes to enable comparison of capabilities. These prototypes could eventually provide a bridging solution while the LSM program reaches its full operational capability as well as augment the LSM fleet.
Infantry Battalion Refinement
After two years and 13 live-force experiments, Phase I of the Marine Corps War-fighting Laboratory–led Infantry Battalion Experiment 2030 (IBX30) was completed, and the Marine Corps began implementing an infantry battalion structure of 811 Marines for both active and reserve units. The revised battalion has improved command-and-control capabilities, persistent all-weather surveillance, increased antiarmor weapons at the company level, and additional indirect fires capability. The latter includes loitering munitions—organic precision fires—of varying sizes and mobility at the platoon, company, and battalion levels, as well as unmanned aerial systems (UASs) to improve surveillance and target acquisition.
Phase II of IBX began by employing two battalions to experiment with further refinements focusing on command and control; information technology; intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting (ISRT); sensing; and lethality. In addition, Phase II will explore enhancements to ensure sustainment that facilitates distributed operations, captures the lessons of recent major combat in Ukraine, and fully evaluates the challenges and requirements for intense, long-duration operations.
Marine Littoral Regiments
The 3d Marine Littoral Regiment, which stood up in 2022 as the first of three planned MLRs, conducted multiple exercises in the Indo-Pacific region during 2023. In January and February, the 3d MLR, based out of Hawaii, conducted service-level exercises along the West Coast to train its units and demonstrate its capabilities to operate as the stand-in force from expeditionary advanced bases (EABs); collect intelligence; screen operational forces; and conduct timely, over-the-horizon precision-strike missions. This training culminated with 3d MLR defending coastal terrain from an amphibious landing by a simulated near-peer adversary assault force composed of the reinforced 7th Marines. This was followed in April by 3d MLR’s deployment to the Philippines to participate in exercise Balikatan 2023, which included 17,500 Marines, sailors, soldiers, and airmen from the Philippine, Australian, and U.S. armed forces.9
In September, 3d MLR also participated in the Force Design Integration Exercise to validate new concepts and initiatives. The exercise, led by U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, worked on integrating surface, subsurface, ground, and air-based capabilities. Third MLR Marines conducted stand-in force operations on and around the Hawaiian Islands of Oahu and Kauai by establishing multiple fires and intelligence/sensing EABs. The Marine Corps says the exercise increased the capabilities of the overall force to understand the battlespace, seize and hold key littoral terrain, and conduct reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance operations.10
In November, the Marine Corps established its second MLR at Camp Hansen, Okinawa, Japan. With the redesignation of the 12th Marine Regiment as the 12th MLR, the 3d Marine Division’s former artillery regiment will now focus on providing stand-in forces and establishing EABs inside the first island chain. As with 3d MLR, the 12th is expected to have between 1,800 and 2,000 Marines and sailors organized into three subordinate elements: a littoral combat team (LCT), a littoral antiair battalion, and a combat logistics battalion. The LCT is built around an infantry battalion along with a long-range antiship battery. The third and final MLR is expected to be established in 2027 when the 4th Marine Regiment transfers from Okinawa to Guam.11
Marine Rotational Forces
In the Philippines during September and October, the new Marine Rotational Force–Southeast Asia (MRF-SEA) participated in the largest-to-date iteration of the multinational Sama Sama exercise. This was MRF-SEA’s second rotational deployment. The tailored task force of 200 Marines and sailors operated under the control of the MEU headquarters element from I Marine Expeditionary Force in California. The force trained alongside regional allies and partners to counter adversary influence and “[stand] ready to support crisis or contingency response.”12
In November, MRF-SEA and Philippine Marines practiced defending beach and littoral areas on Palawan Island in the South China Sea, near where Philippine and Chinese ships have clashed at Second Thomas Shoal.13 Other participants in this exercise included elements of 3d MLR, the Philippine Coastal Defense Regiment, and Japan’s Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade. During this exercise, MRF-SEA employed the U.S. Army’s Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) to improve maritime domain awareness. TITAN’s next-generation data processing uses artificial intelligence to speed ISR processing and enable more rapid kill chain actions.14 From there, MRF-SEA deployed to Indonesia in late November to support an interoperability exercise with Indonesian Marines.
Marine Rotational Force–Darwin (MRF-D) has deployed to Australia since 2012. During its April to August 2023 rotation, MRF-D’s 2,500 Marines and sailors conducted a range of training exercises and prepared for crisis and contingency response. In July and early August, MRF-D participated in the largest iteration to date of exercise Talisman Sabre, which included 35,000 military service members from 13 countries.15 During a follow-on exercise with forces from Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and East Timor in late August, a U.S. Marine Corps MV-22B Osprey crashed, killing three Marines and injuring 20.16
Equipment Modernization
In June, a Marine Corps artillery battery from Camp Pendleton, California, test-fired a Naval Strike Missile (NSM) from a Navy/Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) launcher at Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California. By the end of 2023, the 3d MLR’s medium-range missile battery had been expected to field the first six operational launchers, although no announcement had been made as of press time. In October, the 3d MLR achieved initial operational capability (IOC). Full operational capability of 14 medium-range missile batteries is expected by 2030.
The Marine Corps is developing a long-range precision-fires capability that will be able to launch both ground-launched Tomahawk Land-Attack and Maritime Strike Missiles, the latter of which can hit moving targets at sea. The system employs the same modified JLTV-based Remotely Operated Ground Unit for Expeditionary (ROGUE) fires vehicle as the NMESIS, mounting a single Mk 41 vertical-launch system cell to accelerate development. The current plan is to establish three 16-launcher, long-range missile batteries by 2030. The first four operational launchers are scheduled to be fielded by the end of 2024. At Camp Pendleton in July, the 11th Marine Regiment stood up the first battery to receive these systems.
The personnel variant of the wheeled amphibious combat vehicle (ACV)—replacing the 1970s-era tracked assault amphibious vehicle (AAV)—continued to be fielded, with more than 200 now delivered to training and operational units. In addition, the command-and-control variant, ACV-C, began full production in 2023 and is expected to achieve IOC sometime in 2024. Three 30-mm cannon variant ACV-30s are expected to be delivered for testing in 2024.17 In response to a series of accidents in 2022, the Marine Corps established a new ACV operational certification course to standardize operator and maintenance training.18 However, in December, an ACV rolled over at Camp Pendleton, killing one Marine and injuring 14 others.
In aviation, in January the Marine Corps activated Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 153 (VMGR-153) in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. It will operate 15 KC-130J aircraft by 2026. In August, Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 3 (VMU-3) achieved IOC as the first operational Marine Corps unit to fly the MQ-9A Reaper—capable of reconnaissance for 20 hours at 25,000 feet. Also in August, the CH-53K King Stallion helicopter program entered full-rate production with the award of a $2.77 billion contract to Sikorsky for 35 aircraft.19 Deliveries will begin in 2026.
Training Modernization
The Marine Corps issued Training and Education 2030 in January, a key pillar of the service’s modernization effort. It seeks to guide and modernize learning. The establishment of a live, virtual, and constructive training environment (LVC-TE) at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California, was a critical initial step in realizing this initiative. LVC-TE capabilities are planned to be deployed to a total of five installations by 2025. The systems allow simultaneous training among geographically dispersed but globally connected units, including those training with cost-prohibitive or sensitive capabilities.20 The integration of LVC-TE assets specifically at Twentynine Palms enabled integration of joint assets and doctrine into live-fire training events. In addition, the base’s Range 400—the service’s premier company-supported live-fire and maneuver training facility—has now been expanded to include night exercises to accelerate more realistic small-unit skill progression.
Contested Logistics
Speaking in May, General Berger said, “My focus is logistics, logistics, logistics.” He highlighted that protecting lines of communication is a growing challenge and that wargaming has demonstrated the force needs to better prepare to overcome these challenges to sustain high-tempo operations. He cited the need for an alternative to the current prepositioning structure, employment of artificial intelligence to harness data more effectively, and a transition from the legacy, linear supply chain approach to a web-style approach.21
In that same vein, the Marine Corps published Installations and Logistics 2030 in February 2023. This document identifies capabilities to diversify distribution, increase sustainment options and force resiliency, and improve sustainment through greater distributed and nonlinear solutions with smaller footprints. The Force Design 2030 Annual Update directed increased prepositioning of sustainment through establishment of a global positioning network (GPN). In the near term, the Marine Corps wants to establish three GPN ashore sites in the Indo-Pacific by 2025.22 In addition, the Marine Corps and Navy are exploring smaller maritime prepositioning ships that can operate from smaller ports and are less targetable. Initial wargaming and analysis were conducted in 2023, and the service plans to have at least one such ship in service by 2030.23
In October, the Navy and Marine Corps announced IOC for the TRV-150C tactical resupply unmanned aircraft system (TRUAS) at Kaneohe, Hawaii.24 Requiring only two operators, the TRUAS has a nine-mile range and can transport up to 150 pounds of ammunition, food, medical supplies, batteries, and other cargo to distributed forces where the risk to manned aircraft would constrain resupply over the so-called last tactical mile. The Marine Corps also is developing a medium-capacity UAS with an expected 100-mile range and payload of between 300 and 600 pounds to be fielded by 2025.25
General Berger told the Senate Appropriations Committee in March that the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory is collaborating with the operating forces and the Navy to test a variety of technologies to overcome contested logistics challenges. These include a wing-in-ground-effect aircraft and an autonomous low-profile vessel similar to those used by drug-running cartels.
Safety and MV-22B Grounding
In response to a string of training accidents, including one in August that resulted in the deaths of three Marines, then–Acting Commandant General Eric Smith directed a Marine Corps–wide safety culture review. This was followed in early December by the decision to establish a new safety center to be led by a general officer.26 However, in December the entire Department of Defense V-22B Osprey fleet was grounded following the crash of a U.S. Air Force CV-22B off the coast of Japan in late November. The initial investigation found evidence of a material failure.27 With more than 160 operational MV-22Bs providing the Marine Corps’ primary medium-lift aviation assault support, this grounding (still in effect in mid-January) has had significant adverse effects on Marine Corps training and operational capability. Of note, however, combatant commanders can authorize limited Osprey operations in an emergency.
Force Design 2030 Debate
Force Design 2030 and force modernization continued to spur significant public debate in 2023. The critics were vocal.
Multiple retired three- and four-star Marine generals have argued that the force modernization efforts have dismantled the balanced expeditionary combined-arms force and undermined the Marine Corps’ warfighting contribution across a range of crises and contingencies. These public criticisms helped generate a requirement in the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act for “a federally funded research and development center” to assess the Marine Corps Force Design 2030 concept.28
But support for the initiatives grew during 2023. In the January Proceedings, retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel J. Noel Williams explained “What Force Design 2030 Really Does,” and former Deputy Secretary of Defense (and retired Marine Colonel) Robert O. Work offered additional education in the Summer 2023 Texas National Security Review. Each sought to correct misinformation from critics and highlight how the new capabilities will ensure Marines continue to provide the full-range of expeditionary warfighting capabilities required by combatant commanders.
Leadership Turbulence
While the Marine Corps’ momentum and focus do not appear to have suffered, the transition of senior Marine Corps leaders during the year was more turbulent than in the past.
When General David Berger relinquished his office and retired on 10 July 2023, the Assistant Commandant, General Eric Smith, had been nominated to succeed him but not confirmed. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) had placed a hold on all military general and flag officer nominations.
For two months, General Smith served as Acting Commandant until he was confirmed by the Senate on 21 September, but the Assistant Commandant position remained vacant. This situation was exacerbated at the end of October when General Smith suffered cardiac arrest and was hospitalized for a few weeks, followed by an extended, directed medical rest. (He underwent open heart surgery to repair a heart valve in early January 2024.) In the meantime, Lieutenant General Karsten Heckle, the Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration at Quantico and the most senior general officer in Marine Corps headquarters, took charge until the nominee for Assistant Commandant could be confirmed.
Since his 3 November confirmation, the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Christopher J. Mahoney, has been serving as Commandant in an acting capacity. General Smith is expected to make a full recovery and return to his duties sometime in 2024.
1. Gen Eric M. Smith, USMC, White Letter 1-23: “Guidance to the Force,” 1 August 2023.
2. “Statement of General David H. Berger, Commandant of the Marine Corps, on the Posture of the United States Marine Corps Before the Senate Appropriations Committee, March 28, 2023,” Senate.gov. Hereinafter “CMC Posture Statement.”
3. Lolita C. Baldor, “Marine Corps Recruiting Surges While Other Services Struggle,” Marine Corps Times, 31 July 2023.
4. Megan Eckstein, “Marines Want 31 Amphibious Ships. The Pentagon Disagrees. Now What?” Defense News, 2 May 2023; and Justin Katz, “Short on Amphibs for Turkey, Sudan, the Marines Grapple with Crisis Response Ethos,” Breaking Defense, 1 May 2023.
5. CMC Posture Statement.
6. Ronald O’Rourke, “Navy LPD-17 Flight II and LHA Amphibious Ship Programs: Background and Issues for Congress,” crsreports.congress.gov, 10 December 2023.
7. Sam LaGrone, “Draft Proposal for ‘Affordable’ Medium Landing Ships Out to Shipbuilders,” USNI News, 16 October 2023.
8. Ronald O’Rourke, “Navy Medium Landing Ship (LSM) Program: Background and Issues for Congress,” crsreports.congress.gov, 20 December 2023.
9. Mallory Shelbourne, “Balikatan 23 Features New Marine Littoral Force in First Major Joint Exercise,” USNI News, 12 April 2023.
10. 1stLt Anne Pentaleri, USMC, “3d MLR Paves the Way with Force Design Capabilities,” marines.mil, 23 October 2023.
11. “12th Marine Regiment Redesignates to 12th Marine Littoral Regiment,” marines.mil, 15 November 2023.
12. Irene Loewenson, “Marines Double Down on Ties to Philippines with New Deployment,” Marine Corps Times, 6 October 2023.
13. Seth Robson, “U.S. and Philippine Marines Practice Defending Island as Defense Chiefs Meet,” Stars and Stripes, 17 November 2023.
14. Aaron-Matthew Lariosa, “Marines Perfect Maritime Domain Awareness, Coastal Defense in Joint Philippines Exercise,” USNI News, 22 November 2023.
15. Gordon Arthur, “Largest Ever Talisman Sabre Exercise Wraps in Australia,” USNI News, 4 August 2023.
16. Rod McGuirk, “Bodies of 3 Marines Killed in Osprey Crash in Australia Retrieved,” Marine Corps Times, 30 August 2023.
17. Megan Eckstein, “Three of Four Planned ACV Variants Rolling down BAE’s Production Line,” Defense News, 13 July 2023.
18. Gidget Fuentes, “First Crews Graduated from New, Tougher ACV Training; Marines Still Working on Surf Operations,” USNI News, 29 July 2023.
19. Megan Eckstein, “U.S. Navy Awards Sikorsky $2.7 Billion for 35 CH-53K Helicopters,” Defense News, 24 August 2023.
20. Gen David Berger, USMC, Force Design 2030 Annual Update (Washington, DC: Headquarters Marine Corps, June 2023), 3.
21. John Grady, “‘Logistics, Logistics, Logistics’ Is Now Marines’ Top Focus, Says CMC Berger,” USNI News, 24 May 2023.
22. Berger, Force Design 2030 Annual Update, 12–13.
23. Megan Eckstein, “U.S. Marine Corps Begins Developing Smaller Pre-Positioning Ship,” Defense News, 28 June 2023.
24. “Tactical Resupply UAS Ready for the Fleet,” NAVAIR News, www.navair.navy.mil, 1 November 2023.
25. CMC Posture Statement, 10.
26. Megan Eckstein, “Marines to Establish ‘Overdue’ Safety Center Led by General Officer,” Defense News, 6 September 2023.
27. Mark Huber, “Osprey Crash Triggers Worldwide Grounding,” Aviation International News, 9 December 2023.
28. Irene Loewenson, “Defense Bill Calls for Outside Scrutiny of Marines’ Modernization Plan,” Marine Corps Times, 8 December 2023.