Commentary
We Need a Marine Corps, Part III: A Corps Recentered
June 24, 2025
Ben Connable
Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of three articles on the U.S. Marine Corps. The first article was published on June 16, 2025, and the second article was published on June 19, 2025.
Commandant Eric Smith clearly articulated his vision for the future of the Marine Corps: While retaining focus on the China threat, the service will recenter on global crisis response. This means getting more marines — and more of their combat gear — on ship and deployed around the world. Smith believes marines should be America’s premier 9-1-1 force, just like they were before the “Global War on Terror.” But as I pointed out in the first two parts of this series, he faces some daunting challenges. Recentering the Marine Corps on crisis response will require more than just “re-bluing,” or getting marines back on globally deployed Navy ships.
Recentering on crisis response demands on-hand combat power to respond to at least any mid-range crisis, including land war. It means rethinking the Force Design approach to ground combat power and finding creative workarounds to the lack of available amphibious shipping. It requires some rebranding of the stand-in force and of the Marine Corps more broadly. Much of this recommended recentering is more about changing missions and altering perceptions than about buying gear.
Recentering also opens up some great opportunities. Marines can take charge of mostly abandoned mid-range irregular warfare missions like counterinsurgency and partnered, combat unit to combat unit foreign internal defense operations. And recentering allows the Marine Corps to take on out of area, high risk competition missions against China, Russia, and other adversaries — these missions fit almost perfectly within the Marine Corps’ existing capability set.
https://warontherocks.com/2025/06/we-need-a-marine-corps-part-iii-a-corps-recentered/
