Breaking Defense – Navy and Marine Corps leaders said they are considering shaking up the 36-month Optimized Fleet Response plan, in lieu of a longer cycle that can accommodate two deployments.

The War Zone – Ground Combat Element 2040 offers hints into how the Marines expect to fight in a future dominated by AI and autonomous weapons.

USNI News – The Marine Corps is preparing to deploy Marines on specialty platforms like the Expeditionary Fast Transport and the Expeditionary Sea Base to meet combatant commander demands in the Caribbean.

USNI News – A class of landing vessels designed by a Dutch firm – first built in the United Arab Emirates and debuted by the Nigerian Navy – will become the mainstay of U.S. Marine Corps and Australian Defense Force amphibious operations across the Indo-Pacific Region in the coming decades. 

USNI News – American missile systems were deployed last week to a remote Luzon Strait island 100 miles south of Taiwan as part of Washington and Manila’s Balikatan 2026 military drills.

Defense News – The U.S. Marine Corps and Navy are collaborating to boost the nation’s current inadequate amphibious fleet size, according to the top-ranked U.S. Marine Corps officer.

USNI News – The U.S. Marine Corps is extending the deployment of Marine Rotational Force-Southeast Asia (MRF-SEA) to the Philippines to focus on cooperation with the country’s military, according to a Tuesday announcement.

War on the Rocks – If the whole point of seizing Kharg — operationally feasible — is to crush or significantly degrade Iran’s ability to disrupt oil traffic through the strait, it may not work because Iran will still have asymmetric military capabilities to do just that.

The War Zone – The F-35Cs, operating from land bases, look set to join a Marine combat capability that is about to balloon in size in the Middle East.

USNI News – Big deck amphibious warship USS Tripoli (LHA-7) and its embarked Marines are heading to the Middle East as the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran enters its third week.

The War Zone – The U.S. Marine Corps is aiming to acquire a new single “capability” to fill gaps left by the retirement of its AV-8B Harrier jump jets, AH-1Z and UH-1Y helicopters, and legacy F/A-18C/D Hornet fighters. Dubbed the Future Attack Strike (FASt) plan, the current vision is to have the ability to attack targets kinetically and non-kinetically, and to work together with future uncrewed aircraft.

The War Zone – U.S. Marine Corps legacy F/A-18C/D Hornets are in line to add air-to-air optimized versions of the 70mm Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) rocket to their arsenal. This will give the jets an important, lower-cost boost in their ability to take down drones, as well as certain cruise missiles.

USNI News – While Navy and Marine Corps officials touted progress in overcoming a fatal V-22 Osprey gearbox issue that has limited operations since 2023, lawmakers lamented falling readiness rates and increasing mishaps Tuesday during a hearing on Capitol Hill. 

USNI News – Confidence in Amphibious Combat Vehicles grows as landing craft deploy.

Modern War Institute – Marine Corps leadership has not clearly articulated the demands stand-in forces will face and the joint dependencies they will generate. To prepare for war in the Pacific, leadership must anticipate and define these forces’ worst day. Through this necessary—yet sobering—visualization, the Corps can identify and train for the challenges they will face when (not if) crisis strikes in the Pacific.

CIMSEC – As the 21st century’s strategic environment becomes increasingly complex with peer competitors, the enemy’s advanced anti-access/area-denial capabilities, and the proliferation of long-range precision fires, the Navy and Marine Corps must embark on a new phase of naval integration. The CNO, in conjunction with the CMC, should provide guidance on how to enhance maritime lethality to transcend the traditional ARG/MEU construct, thereby forging an integrated naval force capable of securing contested littorals and responding to emergent threats. 

War on the Rocks – In the Indo-Pacific, the first to arrive may not just win — their very arrival may prevent the fight. Without reliable mobility, III Marine Expeditionary Force risks becoming the most forward-postured but strategically stranded force in the joint arsenal. The task ahead is clear: fund the platforms, train the crews, and flood the zone before deterrence fails.

USNI News – Gulf Coast-based Bollinger Shipyards won a $9.5 million contract to build the first Landing Ship Medium.

Naval News – The U.S. Marine Corps is planning to branch out across the West Pacific with new prepositioning sites as the force continues to shape its force design and long term planning goals around restricted mobility and a lack of hardened supply chains, according to documents published by the service last month.

USNI News – The U.S. Marine Corps continues to refine the role of MV-22B Ospreys in anti-submarine warfare, this time with an eye on the Indo-Pacific.

USNI News – The Marine Corps recently refined how MV-22B Ospreys can support anti-submarine warfare during an exercise alongside U.S. and Dutch forces off the East Coast.

Naval News – The U.S. Marine Corps’ Long Range Fires (LRF) launcher, built around a single-cell Mark 41 VLS cell for Tomahawk missiles on a ROGUE-Fires carrier vehicle, has been cancelled due to concerns over maneuverability in littoral and austere environments.

War on the Rocks – 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.

War on the Rocks – In just over 20 years, the Marine Corps has gone from being America’s reliable middleweight force in readiness to more of a secondary, general purpose backup force. Today, marines are more likely to find themselves assisting special operations teams and U.S. Army crisis response task forces than spearheading operations. Without meaningful change, a dangerous question resurfaces: “Why do we need a Marine Corps?”

War on the Rocks – Marines have spent too much energy in the past five years debating the merits of former Commandant David H. Berger’s Force Design 2030 plan. Force Design is now part of the Marine Corps. It is time for all marines on and off active duty to set aside their disagreements and focus forward, towards the vision articulated by current Commandant Eric M. Smith. And it is time for the allies of the Marine Corps to lean in and support this reorientation. The U.S. Marine Corps is facing a relatively slow moving but all too real existential threat.