The Marine Corps is working on building out its logistics capabilities abroad, aiming to better resupply and sustain forces in the Pacific in the event of a major conflict. That’s according to the latest Marine Corps Force Design update, which outlined the service’s priorities as it marks the halfway point of a decade-long overhaul.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith released the Force Design 2030 update on Thursday, Oct. 23, calling the decade-long modernization of the force its “strategic priority.”
“We have strengthened formations, fielded new capabilities, and refined our concepts, but modernization remains a continuous campaign of learning and adaptation,” Smith wrote.
The 24-page update compiles where the Marine Corps stands in 2025 with reorienting the forces for large-scale fighting across islands and archipelagos. Much of the update lays out what the Marine Corps has already accomplished, such as the fielding of reorganized forces, new weapons systems meant to take on enemy ships and what it’s doing to deal with threats such as drones.
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The Force Design 2030 was put out in 2020, as a way to reorient the Marine Corps towards fighting naval conflicts by the end of the decade. Then-Commandant Gen. David Berger said the plan was “designing a force for naval expeditionary warfare in actively contested spaces.”
One major focus in the Marine Corps’ update is keeping “stand-in forces” well equipped and resupplied, even in contested environments, to “ensure our units remain capable of deterring and defeating peer adversaries in the First Island Chain,” referring to the network of islands and archipelagos in the western Pacific that include Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. The peer adversaries were not named, although Marine and other military leaders have long mentioned China as the main peer adversary in the Pacific.
Some solutions to the logistics issue include a dozen expeditionary fabrication labs, which can manufacture pieces and parts for in-the-field repairs rather than wait for parts to be shipped out from domestic factories. Other high-tech options include newer uncrewed vehicles, such as the Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel, to transport equipment and supplies with minimal risk to personnel. And then there are some low-tech plans, including one to simply set up more pre-placed stockpiles in the Indo-Pacific so that Marines can more easily access weapons and ammunition. These ideas are being done to support newer Marine forces such as Marine Littoral Regiments which are meant to operate in forward-deployed areas.
The other major focus is on building out the Marine Corps’ firepower. The update noted that the corps has been able to field multiple offensive weapons including the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, or NMESIS, that fires ship-killing missiles, and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems or HIMARS. It also has started fielding air defense systems including the Marine Air Defense Integrated System, or MADIS, which are meant to counter drones and missiles. Last month, Marines brought the NMESIS and MADIS systems to Japan for a two-week exercise with the Japanese Self-Defense Force that focused on coastal island defense. This coming week III Marine Expeditionary Force is set to test HIMARS near Mount Fuji, according to III Marine Expeditionary Force.
The evolution of the Marines Corps’ overhaul has evolved with newer shifts in warfare, such as the surge in drones in combat. The update acknowledged the rapid changes, while sticking with several key initiatives in the design and in Smith’s own guidance from the fall of 2024. The Marines even get philosophical in their conclusion when noting that “Force Design is not an endstate but a journey.”
