The United States Needs Its Marine Corps Now More Than Ever

Commentary by Patrick Panjeti and David Batcheler

Published December 15, 2025

Shortly after the United States Marine Corps celebrated its 250th anniversary, a familiar debate has resurfaced; commentaries and opinion pieces are once again circulating suggesting the Department of Defense eliminate the Marine Corps. The arguments for abolition are fiscal and functional: Critics contend that the U.S. Army handles ground combat, the U.S. Navy handles sea power to include an amphibious capability, and the Marine Corps' more than $50 billion annual cost is an inefficient use of defense spending. Further, they point to the lack of major amphibious assaults in recent history, citing the absence of modern-day Incheon's or D-Day as proof of the service's obsolescence, furthermore insinuating that the Marine Corps' only talent relies on its amphibious roots. Service capabilities do not change at a whim; force structure is postured across the U.S. military to achieve the most decisive victory in every global crisis the nation encounters. With approximately 71 percent of the Earth's surface covered by water and adversaries operating across all domains, investing in an amphibious and expeditionary force remains strategically essential.

This line of reasoning concludes that marines are effectively a "mini-army" with overlapping capabilities that the larger Army could simply absorb. However, the thought of ridding the joint force of the Marine Corps during an era of great power competition and hemispheric littoral focus is a dangerous one. Abolishing the Marine Corps to save roughly 6 percent of the defense budget would sever the Navy's ability to project power onto land and leave the United States without a credible and lethal rapid-response force in the Pacific or anywhere else in the world. The United States should not maintain the Marine Corps for "sentimental" reasons or because the Marine Corps is embedded in the roots of U.S. culture; the Marine Corps exists and serves because the U.S. Navy needs it to achieve victory.

The Sea-to-Shore Continuum: Marine Integration into the CWC Structure

The argument for redundancy ignores the Marine Corps' statutory role as a naval expeditionary force. While the Army is designed to sustain long-term land campaigns, such as occupation and nation-building, the Marine Corps is purpose-built for forcible entry operations and sea control using one of its most advantageous assets, a scalable Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) that uniquely intertwines itself within the command-and-control architecture of the U.S. Navy. This distinction is most visible in how the two services interact within the fleet.

The Marine Corps' strategic advantage lies in its intertwined relationship with the Navy as its primary naval infantry. Specifically, marines deploy on amphibious ships, integrating directly into the Navy's Composite Warfare Commander (CWC) structure (Reference Joint Publication 3-32, Joint Maritime Operations, Chapter II for CWC construct). In this architecture, marine assets are not merely "riders" or cargo; they are sensors and shooters that extend the fleet's lethality through fast-moving, small-unit actions. Conversely, the Army does not possess the culture, training, or equipment to live on and fight from ships for months at a time. Furthermore, the CWC structure allows for operational support to sustain marine units for extended periods of time without rapid replenishment, allowing for prompt and decisive actions in a nonpermissive environment against the nation's adversaries or in support of U.S. allies and partners.

The Marine Corps serves as the hinge between the fleet and the shore. In a potential conflict with the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the South China Sea, the environment will be defined by the doctrinal Air-Sea Battle. At some point, the U.S. Navy's sea power must be projected ashore. The Army requires a secure port or airfield to offload heavy divisions, of which most islands and blue water land masses cannot sustain. It is the marines who project the Navy's sea power ashore to seize a port or airfield for an operational advantage, ensuring the Army can enter the fight uncontested to begin large-scale land campaigns and rebuilding efforts. Without the marines, the joint force lacks a forcible entry capability from the sea; this cannot be replicated.

The MAGTF: Agility in the Littorals

The unique value of the Marine Corps is best exemplified by the MAGTF. Critics often overlook that the U.S. Army does not have the agility to rapidly deploy a scalable platoon, company, battalion, or regimental landing force complete with organic sustainment, including its own logistics and air support, all of which can be sustained for upward of 30 days with its organic and naval backing. The most common MAGTF seen constantly forward-deployed is that of the Marine Expeditionary Unit, always supported by its naval counterpart, the Amphibious Ready Group.

The MAGTF allows a commander to bring a self-contained ecosystem of violence to the battlespace. Unlike the Army, which relies on the Air Force for strategic airlift, close air support, and heavy logistics chains for supply, a MAGTF arrives with its own aviation combat element and combat service support, complete with command-and-control structure and sufficient logistics capability for combat and humanitarian operations. This is critical in the littorals, where the United States Air Force is neither trained nor equipped to establish and maintain air superiority in contested maritime pockets. The MAGTF will always outperform other purpose-built units due to its inherited immediate response capability, or more commonly known as the nation's 911 force.

The integration of marine aviation on platforms like the America-class amphibious assault ships allows the force to rely solely on projecting air power in a contested maritime environment without needing land bases immediately, all the while retaining its nucleus for support aboard amphibious shipping. This organic unity of command-air, ground, and logistics under a single commander-provides a speed of decision-making and execution that a joint ad hoc formation of Army and Air Force units cannot replicate.

Great Power Competition Requires Amphibious Capability

The assertion that major amphibious assaults are a thing of the past and therefore an amphibious branch is unnecessary is utter nonsense. Modern amphibious warfare is not about storming beaches into machine-gun fire; it is about the geometric advantage of the sea. Implying that amphibious and air assaults from the sea do not mature and change with the character of war is of similar thought to that of the technological advancements in air-to-air combat. Suggesting that limited amphibious operations in recent decades are a reason for abolishing a service would contrast with the advancements of fifth- and sixth-generation fighters with their limited air-to-air combat in similar decades, especially when comparing budgetary allocations. Modern conflicts change and amphibious warfare change at pace. The Marine Corps focuses its strategy of manning, training, and equipping its forces for naval warfare to answer the changing character of war.

In First Island Chain scenarios involving the PRC, the ability to move small, lethal units from island to island in austere locations, maintaining a low signature to establish anti-ship missile batteries, is critical. This is a denial strategy that turns the geography of the Pacific against an adversary. The Marine Corps' Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) concept serves as sea denial or sea-control stations that allow for the rapid creation of temporary bases, leading to distributed lethality across a littoral environment while under a contested atmosphere. Current and future theaters of conflict will require the EABO concept to be successful. Abolishing the Marine Corps reflects a continentalist view of warfare-an assumption that wars are fought only on large land masses.

As a maritime power, the United States relies on the oceans for trade and security. To view the Marine Corps as a redundant land army is to misunderstand the geography of the next war. The United States needs a force that is comfortable in the chaos of the littoral zone, capable of bridging the gap between the blue water Navy and the land-centric Army. That force is and remains the U.S. Marine Corps.

Patrick Panjeti and David Batcheler are military fellows with the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.

The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views or policy of the U.S. Defense Department, the Department of the Navy, or the U.S. government. No federal endorsement is implied or intended.

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