Pacific Marines Strategy 2025
U.S. Naval Institute Staff
May 30, 2025 7:20 AM
The following is the U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific document: Pacific Marine Strategy 2025.
From the report
The Purpose
The U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific (MARFORPAC) Strategy is the Commander of MARFORPAC’s (COMMARFORPAC) strategic guidance that provides the specific vision, approach, and characteristics required of Pacific Marines to contribute to the National Defense Strategy (NDS) and National Military Strategy (NMS) priorities, and the Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s (USINDOPACOM) “Prevail Strategic Assessment and Operational Design.” This Strategy offers the underlying intent and guidance that informs the MARFORPAC Campaign Order Fiscal Year 26-30 and is accessible to Pacific Marine leaders of every level. It informs the “why” behind the operations and activities, all of which contribute directly to extending deterrence of adversaries, assuring allies and partners, and recommendation, responding to regional crisis. Should deterrence fail, Pacific Marines are set for transition to combat in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.
The Problem
Pacific Marines simultaneously face both the most challenging terrain and the most dangerous adversaries across the geographic combatant commands. The Indo-Pacific is a vast and diverse region that includes the majority of the world’s population spread across 38 countries and thousands of islands. It includes both the world’s largest military and economic powers as well as some of the smallest. Pacific Marines may operate from the Arctic Circle to the Southern Ocean and from India to Arizona in a region known for its natural hazards like monsoons, earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, and volcanic eruptions.
Within the Indo-Pacific lies the most significant challenge to U.S. national security, the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The PRC aims to reshape both the Indo-Pacific and global order, based on a different set of values and international norms. For Pacific Marines, this translates to the PRC aggressively leveraging its military and economic power, with ambitions of unifying with Taiwan through non-peaceful means, seeking control over the East China and South China Seas, using coercion against countries of all sizes throughout the Pacific, and extending its influence beyond the Indo-Pacific region.
However, the PRC is not the only adversary in the region. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) continues to expand its nuclear and missile capability to disrupt U.S. alliances with the Republic of Korea and Japan. Russia continues to grow its relationship with both the PRC and DRPK as a means to resupply its war effort in Ukraine and distract the West. Violent Extremist Organizations and Transnational Criminal Organizations continue to exploit the region’s archipelagos and sea lanes to find safe havens allowing the trafficking of drugs, weapons, and humans.
https://news.usni.org/2025/05/30/pacific-marines-strategy-2025
