The establishment of the Marine Littoral Regiment has been a key part of Gen. David Berger’s Force Design 2030 efforts. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Patrick King)
WASHINGTON — In his last Force Design 2030 update as US Marine Corps commandant, Gen. David Berger set the stage for several specific initiatives, from a new reconnaissance battalion to working with hypersonic weapons, while reinforcing the key themes of his cornerstone strategy.
The service today published its annual update to Force Design 2030, the overarching plan to revamp the Marine Corps’ technology, recruitment, installations and training that Berger kicked off in 2019. The plan has had its share of controversies, but in general, has received broad bipartisan support from Capitol Hill.
Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, the service’s top requirements officer, told reporters on Friday in advance of the document’s release that when he began his job two years ago, Force Design 2030 was mostly “conceptual.”
“It’s the complete opposite now. We are fielding things… we’re experimenting, we’re iterating, we’re failing as fast as we can and learning faster,” he said.
Read more of Breaking Defense’s ongoing coverage of Force Design 2030.
Now, Berger is set to retire in the coming weeks, and the senior Marine who played a key role in helping him shape Force Design 2030, Gen. Eric Smith, currently the assistant commandant, has been formally nominated to become the next top Marine. A career infantryman and fierce advocate of Berger’s plans, he is viewed as a choice that solidifies Force Design 2030’s role for the foreseeable future.
This is an excellent choice. It's also pretty rare for the ACMC (Assistant Commandant), the #2 in Marine Corps leadership, to then become the CMC (Commandant). To me, this also shows that POTUS is on board with the reshaping of the Corps that has been initiated by the current… https://t.co/4bVRGXGpxj
— Amy McGrath (@AmyMcGrathKY) May 31, 2023
“We have made significant progress in both the design and delivery of the future force since initiating action in 2019 and are seeing tangible results from our modernization efforts today,” Berger wrote of the update. “The collective efforts of thousands of Marines across the combat development enterprise and Fleet Marine Force have resulted in a Marine Corps that remains the premiere expeditionary, combined arms, and global crisis-response force.”
But before Berger walks out of the Pentagon, the latest Force Design 2030 update, in addition to reinforcing the bigger ideas, previews a variety of new, specific technologies the Marines see as vital for a future fight.
From Recon To Missiles
One of those new ideas is a “Mobile Reconnaissance Battalion” in lieu of the service’s existing light armored reconnaissance battalions. While previous Force Design documents had mentioned the MRB, today’s update provides a deadline to set its establishment in motion, September of this year. The document states the service’s wargaming and simulations, as well as ongoing events in Ukraine, show the current battalions aren’t sufficiently equipped to conduct “all domain” reconnaissance.
“We’re looking at a family of systems,” Brig. Gen. Stephen Lightfoot, director of the capabilities development directorate at Marine Corps Combat Development and Integration, told reporters on during the same call with Heckl.
“When you look at that multi-domain, Mobile Reconnaissance Battalion, it’s not simply just for getting a vehicle out there. We’re looking at a combination of systems. So, we’re looking at ultra-light vehicles. We’re looking at light vehicles. We’re looking at potentially light-armored vehicles, and that’s where the ARV comes in,” he said, referring to the service’s upcoming Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle.
In practice, the first step to bringing this new battalion online will be to establish a program manager for mobile reconnaissance, and the Force Design update states the service must deliver to the assistant commandant a plan to do that by September.
The document also makes a brief reference to the Marine Corps starting work on a “common launcher for the family of ground launched loitering munitions and testing a low-cost, hypersonic booster.”
Hypersonic technology has been a high-profile focus for all the services in recent years, with the Army, Navy and Air Force each initiating, and in some cases canceling, their own programs.
“Hypersonics is something we are obviously interested in and will experiment with options in this field,” Maj. Josh Benson, a Marine Corps spokesman, said in response to questions from Breaking Defense. “Something important for us to consider is that the material solution can be logistically supported in a contested environment. Characteristics such as size and weight are critical to ensure we remain a light, lethal, and mobile force.”
Another new technology that received a brief mention in the update is a “Long-Range Attack Munition” the service is developing in concert with the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.
Lightfoot, who is an aviator, said the service’s current AH-1 helicopters firing a Hellfire missile can only reach about eight kilometers in range.
“When you move over to the Indo-Pacific and some of the distances we’re talking about, that eight kilometers doesn’t really do as much as you’d want to have happen,” said Lightfoot. The Long-Range Attack Munition “is a capability that brings hundreds of kilometers and that allows us to be able to use a current platform to be able to do things that we never thought that it would be able to do. The [munition] is absolutely critical.”
The Ships And The Fight To Buy Them
One of the key ideas from Berger’s original Force Design 2030 published in 2019 was the “Light Amphibious Warship,” which has now been re-named “Landing Ship, Medium.” The service has since determined it needs at least 35 LSMs in the fleet for all three Marine Littoral Regiments to be equipped, while also allowing for some number of ships to be in maintenance.
On LSM, the annual update acknowledges the realities of the service’s budget and states funding “limits our ability to bring this capability online within an operationally relevant time frame.” In response, the service has initiated other interim solutions that may serve its purposes in the meantime.
But these interim platforms “will fall short of desired capabilities if called upon in an operational setting,” the document warns. “Our modernized expeditionary forces need a comparably modern mobility platform to bring the full weight of their capability to bear on competitors or adversaries, particularly in littoral regions.”
On amphibious ships, a subject that has taken center stage for the Marine Corps this budget cycle, the document highlights the intense congressional support for a larger amphibious fleet, including legislation that solidifies the service’s requirement for 31 amphibious vessels.
While speaking to reporters, Heckl said the Marines’ ability to be the “pre-eminent crisis response force,” is directly related to amphibious ship readiness.
“We have got to get our amphibious fleet healthy again and we need to get back to having that continuous presence with our” Marine Expeditionary Units/Amphibious Ready Groups, he said.
The One Thing That Won’t Change
The development of the LSM, the importance of amphibious ships and the establishment of the Marine Littoral Regiment, among other things, are all issues reinforced in the latest update that service leadership have been touting since Berger unveiled his ideas back in 2019.
But Berger himself has said one of his early mistakes in presenting his ideas to the public was a failure to describe what will not change about the Marine Corps. It’s a point service officials in recent months have started emphasizing.
“We are changing and modernizing, but the individual Marine and how we make them and all the things that we have been since the beginning of time — our existence — is not changing,” said Sgt. Maj. Jacob Reiff, the senior enlisted man at Heckl’s command, told reporters on Friday.
In his closing remarks to reporters, Heckl, who relieved Smith as the top requirements officer, hinted that Force Design 2030 was unlikely to slow down in the future — with or without Berger at the helm.
“I think the guidance in the commandant’s final update, where he sets the stage for [the next commandant] — now we know the president’s pick is Gen. Eric Smith — we are ready to move out,” said Heckl. “There will not be a moment’s hesitation having now worked for the commandant for a few years and knowing Gen. Smith like I know him, I think the accelerator is going to be pressed even faster.”
