Marine Commandant Gen. Eric Smith observes Marines with 3rd Marine Littoral Combat Team, 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, perform a loading drill of a Navy/Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System on Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Sept. 12, 2024. U.S. Marine Corps / Staff Sgt. Kelsey Dornfeld
Funding gaps slowing down Marine Corps’ modernization efforts
Force Design 2030 is on track, commandant says, but just barely.
The Marine Corps is working to break out of the ground-combat box the Global War on Terror wedged them into, but whether Force Design 2030 is actually realized by that date depends quite a bit on whether Congress decides to fund everything it asks the military to do.
The Corps is on track with Force Design, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said Wednesday, but the precarity of the yearly budget cycle threatens to slow the effort—and hamstring the Pentagon’s efforts to deter China.
“I'll tell you, the challenges are going to be funding,” Smith said at a Defense Writers Group event. “With a continually delayed budget, we're losing years on Force Design…That doesn't get you ahead of the pacing threat of the [People’s Republic of China], who is moving at the cyclic rate.”
The Marine Corps hasn’t published an update on Force Design from 2024, but Smith said good progress has been made on efforts like the Marine littoral regiments, shallow-water forces that are among Force Design 2030’s signature initiatives.
“We're constantly looking to determine how many of them we need, how many of them and where they'll be positioned,” he said.
So far the Corps has two active MLRs in the Pacific and is planning a third.
But some of the acquisition projects that will equip those regiments are behind. The 3rd MLR received the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, a ground-based anti-ship missile, but so far has too few to mount an effective attack.
Then there’s the medium landing ship, which saw its request for proposals canceled late last year.
“We've got to get that built. We've got to get that put on contract,” Smith said. “We've got to find the right solution to give ourselves the littoral maneuverability, the littoral mobility within the first island chain,” also known as Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Indonesia.
The TPS Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar-80, on the other hand, is a “success story.” The next challenge will be to deployt the air-defense system throughout the Pacific.
“That thing has proven itself, you know, beyond its original capabilities,” Smith said. “And I'll be candid: it's been a little bit tied down in the Korean theater because it's such a good ballistic-missile defense system. We have to free it up to be able to operate throughout the first island chain.”