Acquisition Is Warfighting

Arming the acquirer to forge a decisive edge

The Core Problem: Forced Dependency and the High Cost of Waiting

It is a familiar and frustrating story: a multi-million-dollar weapon system that is key to a unit’s survival is rendered inert by a problem the unit has the skills to fix—but not the permission or knowledge to do so. Marines, trained to be self-sufficient, are reduced to customers waiting for a service call. On the battlespace, this waiting robs them of what makes them dangerous: their initiative, adaptability, and the ability to keep fighting when everything goes wrong.

The Mandate: Acquisition as a Warfighting Function

To eliminate this scenario of forced waiting and dependency, a new mandate from the Secretary of War gets directly to the point. This urgency is a direct response to a rapidly shifting global security landscape, where the resurgence of near-peer competition and the pacing threat of technologically advanced adversaries means victory will be decided by speed, resilience, and adaptability. The directive has fundamentally reshaped the landscape of military acquisition, redoubling focus on a single, uncompromising objective: delivering a decisive edge to the war-fighter at the speed of relevance. The directive, “Transforming the Defense Acquisition System into the Warfighting Acquisition System,” is more than a change in name; it is a seismic shift in philosophy. It declares that acquisition is not a support function, but a war-fighting function, critical to deterring our adversaries and winning the Nation’s battles. For the Marine Corps, this means treating an acquisition contract as a weapon. It requires arming the acquisition workforce, empowering the maintainer, and unifying our efforts for a decisive edge.

This transformation directly addresses the systemic challenges the Secretary of War identified that have historically hampered progress. For the Marine in the field, these challenges have manifested in tangible, mission-impacting ways: delays in fielding urgently needed capabilities, extended downtime for critical equipment, and a costly over-reliance on contractor support that cannot keep pace with operational tempo.

The core principles of the new War-fighting Acquisition System are simple and direct: instill a warrior ethos in the acquisition workforce, inject a relentless focus on speed and urgency, and empower those responsible for delivery to make and own their decisions. Every process, board, and review must now justify its existence by proving it directly supports accelerating capability to the FMF. We will no longer treat barriers in contracting and acquisitions as administrative hurdles but as a direct operational risk to mission success.

Marine Corps Systems Command’s Strategic Response: Equipping an Unrivaled Fleet

Answering this call to treat acquisition as a warfighting function, Marine Corps Systems Command unveiled its 2025–2032 strategic plan serving as the command’s roadmap. In the plan’s opening message, BGen Tamara L. Campbell, Commander of Marine Corps Systems Command, outlines a vision for “Equipping an unrivaled, future-focused Fleet Marine Force, powered by a dedicated acquisition workforce.” She further states, “The future threat is ever evolving, and we must be prepared to modernize our approach and processes to meet and defeat that threat.” This modernization enables the continuous adaptation of our warfighting capabilities to ensure Marines can forge an unfair fight and win. Marine Corps Systems Command is focusing on key areas of program management, process improvement, partnerships, and talent management to accelerate the delivery of lethal, agile, and ready capabilities. For Marine Corps Systems Command, the Secretary of War’s mandate is not just a new requirement to be met but a confirmation of the path it is already on—a path dedicated to ensuring that every acquisition decision directly contributes to combat power.

The Ownership Imperative: Forging Self-Sufficiency

Putting this warfighting mandate into action, Marine Corps Systems Command is focusing on its approach to contracting, intellectual property, and system maintenance. For a Marine in a contested environment, the legal jargon of a contract is a distant concept until the way the contract was written impacts mission success and survival. Marine Corps Systems Command’s new Product Support Strategy policy addresses this reality, which transforms acquisition strategy into a direct lever of combat power by ensuring the Marine Corps truly owns the systems it fields. Strengthening contractual rights in the acquisition of a system means a Marine can make necessary repairs or modifications to the system to sustain combat power instead of relying on a contractor to do so at additional cost and/or delay.

To make this a reality, the era of accepting unnecessary “vendor lock”—where the Marine Corps is denied the technical data and intellectual property rights to repair its own equipment—must end. While we respect our industry partners’ need to protect their commercial interests, dependency on a sole-source vendor creates a critical warfighting vulnerability that we can no longer accept. Doing so means navigating a complex legislative environment where established intellectual property laws, designed to protect innovation, can inadvertently hinder battlefield readiness. This necessary shift has, predictably, sparked debate, but the acquisition and sustainment communities will need to continue to drive for expanded data rights and technical data packages required to leverage advanced manufacturing, ensuring our systems remain lethal and sustainable in any environment.

… the Marine Corps is arming its acquisition workforce with the authority, tools, and analytical capabilities …

Marine Corps Systems Command’s Product Support Strategy order also makes it clear that failing to secure intellectual property and data rights is no longer an acceptable risk. The order is a direct response to the battlefield costs of ignoring this risk: degraded readiness, atrophy of organic maintenance skills, uncontrolled cost growth, and reduced lethality. The policy mandates that we must prioritize the “maximum integration of organic supply and maintenance capabilities while leveraging the Joint Logistics Enterprise’s capabilities, where appropriate,” shifting the focus from slow, outsourced repairs to swift, organic sustainment performed by uniformed Marines at the point of need. This reinforces the warfighting ethos of self-sufficiency and ensures that core maintenance competencies are honed, not lost.

For the acquisition community, these updates formally shift sustainment from a costly afterthought to a core design requirement. Program managers and the acquisition workforce now have the blueprint to integrate the product support analysis activities into the systems engineering process from the beginning, using analytical rigor to develop reliable designs and affordable support plans. This codifies an “own, not rent” philosophy, ensuring that systems fielded to the FMF are both highly capable and sustainable, which in turn builds a more resilient, self-sufficient force.

Arming the Acquisition Workforce: Empowering the Fleet

To turn policy into battlefield advantage, the Marine Corps is arming its acquisition workforce with the authority, tools, and analytical capabilities needed to execute the Secretary of War’s vision. This empowerment is being driven through three key lines of effort: restructuring leadership for integrated decision-making, providing tactical tools for smarter contracting, and embedding a data-driven mindset for sustainable systems. A cornerstone of this empowerment is how the Marine Corps is currently standing up a Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Marine Corps ground equipment. The Portfolio Acquisition Executive will be the single accountable commander for delivering warfighting lethality, moving beyond the simple management of program performance—breaking down the traditional, inefficient coordination between individual programs. This structure will empower the Portfolio Acquisition Executive to make rapid, integrated decisions that accelerate outcomes and provide a decisive edge, shifting the focus from managing programs to delivering a unified warfighting solution. For the FMF, this means receiving systems designed to work together from the start, creating a cohesive and far more lethal capability on the battlefield.

To complement this empowered leadership with practical tools for execution, Marine Corps Systems Command is also launching a dedicated site within its Logistics Knowledge Center. Previously, the workforce lacked streamlined access to the specific contractual language required to secure intellectual property and enforce sustainability goals. This new initiative solves that problem by providing a centralized repository of critical contracting language, data item descriptions, and additional toolkits and resources providing the tactical knowledge to write to write stronger contracts that secure data rights and break vendor lock where appropriate. The impact on the Marine in the field is direct: the technical data needed to repair their equipment will be available at the point of need, dramatically increasing self-sufficiency and reducing mission-crippling downtime.

The third piece of this empowerment strategy is embedding a data-driven mindset. To that end, Marine Corps Systems Command is further empowering the workforce with its updated Reliability-Centered Maintenance policy and handbook. The Marine Corps has traditionally relied on maintenance that is either reactive or based on fixed schedules, resulting in unnecessary work and unexpected equipment failures. Reliability-Centered Maintenance provides the data-driven analytical engine to create smarter product support strategies, determining the most efficient maintenance based on a system’s reliability and operating context. This policy is the catalyst for moving toward a predictive model using Condition-Based Maintenance Plus when the process determines the need for it on a particular system. For the acquisition workforce, Reliability-Centered Maintenance provides the analytical proof needed to build intelligent, affordable sustainment plans from day one. For the Marine, this translates to higher equipment availability and reliability, allowing maintainers to focus their efforts where they are most needed.

The Secretary of War’s mandate has set the clear, uncompromising direction: acquisition is warfighting.

This combination of empowered leadership, tactical tools, and analytical rigor is a force multiplier. The Portfolio Acquisition Executive provides the strategic why, the Logistics Knowledge Center delivers the contractual how, and the Reliability-Centered Maintenance policy provides the analytical proof. Together, these initiatives arm the workforce with the strategic authority, tactical precision, and data-driven justification needed to break down institutional barriers and deliver fully sustainable warfighting solutions. This ensures that the systems fielded to the fleet are not just collections of parts, but integrated, reliable capabilities designed to be owned and dominate in the battlespace, fulfilling the promise of a truly self-sufficient force.

Conclusion: Forging an Unfair Fight

It is this self-sufficiency that ultimately forges the unfair fight. The Secretary of War’s mandate has set the clear, uncompromising direction: acquisition is warfighting. Within the Marine Corps, this is an operational imperative. We must see our contracts as the first weapon sent downrange, engineered from the start to forge an unfair fight in our favor.

If the Marine Corps wants to win in austere conditions, we cannot merely field capabilities; we must be able to own it, repair it, sustain it, and fight with it indefinitely, even when the logistics tail is thin, contested, or cut entirely. That is how we preserve tempo, maintain lethality, and ensure the FMF remains truly expeditionary—not just in doctrine, but in execution.

Yet, for all the progress being made, we must recognize that the journey has just begun. The hard part starts now: the daily act of implementation, of changing a culture and holding ourselves accountable to these new standards. Success will not be measured by the documents we publish, but by the contracts we award, the data we secure, the deliverables we accept, and the speed, lethality, and self-sufficiency we deliver to the FMF.

The acquisition professionals of the Marine Corps are postured for this challenge, ready to prove—in the words of the Secretary of War—that in acquisition, just as in combat, “speed wins and speed dominates.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

>Mr. Bond is a prior Marine Corps Logistics and Intelligence Officer and the Product Support Director at Marine Corps Systems Command, where he has worked since 2010. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

The Industrial Battlespace: Manufacturing and Maneuver

During the brutal assault on Tarawa in World War II, Marines faced nearly insurmountable odds. The beach was heavily fortified, enemy fire poured down from all directions, and the Marines’ landing craft were slow, vulnerable, and difficult to maneuver. Casualties mounted as Marines scrambled to disembark. The lessons learned from this chaotic operation were pivotal in shaping future amphibious assaults, with one of the most significant being the urgent need for faster, more effective means of troop deployment. The experience of Tarawa reinforced the importance of rapid mobility and adaptability in ensuring the success of future operations.

Though not directly involved in the Tarawa landings, 1stLt Victor “Brute” Krulak recognized the need for change after witnessing the difficulties Marines faced during these early amphibious assaults. He advocated for modifications to the Higgins boat, a shallow-draft landing craft that revolutionized amphibious warfare by enabling Marines to quickly and safely reach the shore under heavy enemy fire, including the addition of a bow ramp. This adaptation, which allowed for quicker disembarkation and reduced exposure to enemy fire, became a key innovation in improving the efficiency and safety of amphibious landings. Krulak’s intellect and determination to adapt to battlefield realities are prime examples of how rapid innovation can drive success on the battlefield.1

This story of the Higgins boat, its evolution, and its impact on amphibious assaults ties directly to the principles of maneuver warfare, the Marine Corps’ approach to warfighting. Maneuver warfare is about achieving speed, flexibility, and decisive action through decentralized decision-making. It is the ability to make fast, effective decisions at the lowest tactical levels, allowing for rapid response and sustained operational tempo. The principles of maneuver warfare are not only ingrained in our doctrine but are woven deeply into Marine culture, from leadership development to battlefield execution. World War II demonstrated that victory depended on the ability to generate and sustain tempo through industrial strength. Today, that same contest has shifted from mass production to speed of adaptation, where the ability to rapidly develop, integrate, and field capability determines advantage for Marines in contact.

The industrial base is not just support; it is maneuver space. Every decision that shortens the path from concept to contact, whether in contracting, engineering, training, or sustainment, creates operational tempo for Marines at the point of friction. With the establishment of Portfolio Acquisition Executive Marine Corps (PAE Marine Corps), the Marine Corps is advancing how it integrates and delivers combat capability across the force. This shift reflects a deeper reality: acquisition is not a supporting function, it is a warfighting function that directly influences speed, tempo, and advantage in conflict. Within this construct, PAE Marine Corps serves as the focal point for delivering capability to the force, aligning resources, requirements, and execution to generate combat power. Supporting this effort, Marine Corps Systems Command (MARCORSYSCOM) is evolving into a critical force provider, responsible for developing and sustaining the acquisition workforce and enabling the broader enterprise. Together, they operate where strategy meets execution, where decisions about technology, talent, and resources directly shape tactical tempo and battlefield outcomes. Gen Alfred M. Gray Jr.’s reminder, “it doesn’t cost any money to think,”2 remains the moral compass for this enterprise. It underscores the critical importance of intellectual rigor, where every decision, from selecting new technologies to negotiating contracts, begins with thoughtful analysis. In a fast-paced acquisition environment, leveraging creativity and foresight ensures we stay ahead of adversaries, maintaining operational readiness and sustaining the edge that our warfighters need.

As Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen Gray oversaw the establishment of Marine Corps Research, Development, and Acquisition Command (now MARCORSYSCOM) in 1987. His vision to streamline the acquisition process, directly involve the operating forces in identifying deficiencies, and establish clear lines of authority, responsibility, and accountability laid the foundation for how the Marine Corps delivers combat capability. That same mindset continues to shape today’s evolution, as the Marine Corps refines its acquisition enterprise through the establishment of PAE Marine Corps, reinforcing a more responsive and integrated system aligned with its warfighting philosophy.3

China’s Strategic Vision: Long-Term Patience and Technological Superiority

It is essential to analyze the United States’ leading adversary and competitor to gauge our efforts in the acquisition realm. 

At the heart of China’s current strategy is a focus on long-term goals and patient ambition. The Chinese leadership, particularly under Xi Jinping, has articulated a clear vision for 2049, when China plans to assert itself as the dominant global superpower. This vision is underpinned by a military modernization program that spans multiple decades and draws heavily from Sun Tzu’s principles of warfare. Sun Tzu emphasized the importance of winning without direct confrontation, suggesting that the true art of war lies in outmaneuvering the enemy strategically before physical combat is necessary.4 In modern terms, this has manifested in China’s use of economic and geopolitical tools, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, to exert influence globally while simultaneously building up its military capabilities.

Sun Tzu’s strategy of deception, “When able to attack, one must seem unable; when active, seem to be inactive; when near, make the enemy think you are far away; when far away, seem to him to be near,” has guided Chinese military thinking and aligns closely with their incremental, often covert, approach to military modernization.5 China’s emphasis on stealth, long-range missiles, and cyber warfare reflects a strategy of attrition and gradual dominance, focused on eroding the United States’ power in a way that makes direct confrontation unnecessary until the time is right.

China benefits from its highly centralized control over both military and economic policy. This centralized approach allows for a unified vision across all domains of national power, military, economic, and political, making it easier for China to direct resources toward its goals and make steady progress on long-term projects like hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, and cyber capabilities. The United States, by contrast, faces a fragmented decision-making process, with budgetary priorities driven by political infighting and local interests. This disjointed approach can undermine efforts to maintain a consistent, long-term strategy.

Furthermore, China’s strategic vision is reflected in its ambitious goals for technological independence and its reduced dependency on foreign technologies. Although challenges remain, particularly in advanced sectors like aerospace and AI, China’s investment in indigenous innovation continues to grow, fueled by both state-directed efforts and market incentives. This shift toward self-reliance has been a critical element of China’s defense modernization strategy, as it aims to avoid the vulnerabilities associated with foreign supply chains.6

As China progresses in its military modernization, it continues to leverage its unity of effort, translating strategic vision into action. The Chinese military, armed with both cutting-edge technology and a long-term strategic outlook, is preparing to challenge the United States’ position as the world’s leading superpower. The Chinese approach to warfare is holistic, incorporating not only traditional military capabilities but also cyber, space, and economic tools to shape the global order.

The Nature of the Industrial Battlespace

Today’s competition reaches beyond conventional military power, extending into global supply chains, data networks, and material science, all contested domains. China’s dominance in rare earth elements and permanent magnets, controlling the vast majority of global processing capacity, illustrates how economic leverage can become a strategic weapon. When export controls tighten on critical materials like advanced semiconductors and rare-earth metals, operations slow before first contact, delaying systems and halting production lines. From a maneuver perspective, this is an attack on tempo at the strategic level.7

History is instructive. Interwar Germany galvanized industry to align with a concept of fast, combined-arms operations; standardizing components and prioritizing production that sustained tempo. The United States did the same at scale in World War II through the War Production Board and the Office of War Mobilization. Those efforts fused doctrine, industry, and logistics so that operations could be maintained at speed. In contemporary terms, this is the difference between sustaining precision warfare and reverting to attrition when inventories and production lines cannot keep pace. As Col Michael Wyly, a leading expert in military strategy and doctrine and one of the original proponents of maneuver warfare, has observed, wars are expensive; when a nation exhausts its capacity to produce advanced munitions and smart weapons at scale, it risks being forced to fight in a communication-degraded environment with non-precision munitions.

Industry as Maneuver Partner

Industrial resilience should be seen as a key part of warfighting readiness. Programs that depend on single-source suppliers, foreign refiners, or limited materials should identify these risks early and plan for backup sources or co-production with allies. Using digital tools like supply-chain dashboards and predictive analytics can help spot potential problems before they become critical. The Service’s Artificial Intelligence Strategy highlights using data to improve sustainment and make smarter decisions to keep operations moving smoothly under pressure.8

Industry is therefore not a roadblock, but terrain to be maneuvered upon. Successful examples already exist. Rapid counter-unmanned aircraft systems kits delivered through partnerships with small manufacturers, using other transaction authorities-based competitions and fleet feedback, illustrated the model: concurrent engineering, quick learning cycles, and tranche deliveries. The acquisition enterprise must design for adaptation, leveraging modular open systems architecture (MOSA), common interfaces, and standardized approaches so upgrades can be fielded without complete redesign.9 Industry’s responsibility is to provide maneuverable solutions that allow this adaptability to occur and not locked-down proprietary solutions that require the programs to start over at the beginning of each new contract.

Message to the Fleet

To the Marines in the fleet: The role of the Marine Corps acquisition enterprise is not separate from yours; it is part of the same maneuver system. Through the integration of capabilities under PAE Marine Corps, everything we do is focused on ensuring you have the right tools to execute your mission. Your feedback, from training to deployment, shapes the systems delivered to the force. The faster you communicate your needs, the more quickly the enterprise can respond. The faster equipment is fielded, the faster you can fight, and that depends on your continued partnership. Your involvement in requirements definition and early feedback loops ensures that you receive what you need faster and more effectively. When you are on the front lines, your readiness is our mission. Together, we ensure that technology and innovation do not just stay ahead of the fight, they stay ahead of the enemy.

Conclusion

Every generation of Marines must rediscover maneuver warfare in its own domain. While the character of war continues to evolve, the nature of war remains constant, defined by friction, uncertainty, and the contest of wills. For today’s force, that domain extends beyond the battlefield to the factories, laboratories, and data streams that sustain the fight. Within the Marine Corps acquisition enterprise, and through the integration of capabilities under Portfolio Acquisition Executive Marine Corps, ideas born in the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab and requirements validated by Combat Development and Integration are translated into realities in the hands of the fleet.

If maneuver warfare is about creating advantage through tempo, then our generation’s task is to restore industrial tempo, ensuring the nation never loses the ability to fight smart because it cannot produce at speed. The charge for the acquisition enterprise is clear: think boldly, act decisively, and deliver the capabilities Marines need to fight tonight and in the conflicts ahead.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

> SgtMaj Heider is the Marine Corps Systems Command Sergeant Major.

Notes:

1. David Vergun, “Junior Marine Played Vital Role in D-Day Success,” Department of War News, May 30, 2024, https://www.war.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/Article/3787398/junior-marine-played-vital-role-in-d-day-success. 

2. Alfred M. Gray, Grayisms: The Wisdom of General Alfred M. Gray, USMC (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Foundation, 1990). 

3. “The Brain of the Marine Corps,” Marine Corps History (Summer 2020), Marine Corps University Press, https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press/MCH/Marine-Corps-History-Summer-2020/The-Brain-of-the-Marine-Corps_. 

4. James P. Micciche, “The Art of Non-War: Sun Tzu and Great Power Competition,” War Room, March 18, 2021, https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/non-war. 

5. James McBride, Noah Berman, and Andrew Chatzky, “China’s Massive Belt and Road Initiative,” Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder, 2023, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative. 

6. U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries: Rare Earths (Reston, VA: U.S. Department of the Interior, 2024); see also U.S. Department of Defense, Industrial Base Assessments on Critical Materials. 

7. U.S. Marine Corps, USMC Artificial Intelligence Strategy (Washington, DC: Headquarters Marine Corps, 2024). 

8. Ibid.

9. Defense Acquisition University, “Using Industry Best Practices to Improve Acquisition,” Defense AT&L, May–June 2018.

1989 Every Marine a Rifleman; 2029 Every Marine a Commando

Making it an unfair fight

Gen Gray oversaw our Marine Corps as Commandant from 1987 to 1991. Gen Gray notoriously reinforced that “Every Marine is, first and foremost, a rifleman.  All other conditions are secondary.” Our self-imposed standard that every Marine is a rifleman has served us well in countless kinetic engagements since our founding in 1775, with just one modern example being when then MajGen Mattis, commander of 1st MarDiv, stated that none of his infantry would be used to guard the supply chains of 1st MarDiv during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq (“as every Marine is, first and foremost, a rifleman”).  Notably, the 1st MarDiv made it to Baghdad in 17 days, with the Pentagon’s planners expecting it would take 55 days to reach Baghdad.1

While Gen Gray in the late 1980s reinforced our ethos that every Marine is a rifleman, in 2026, every Marine being a rifleman is not enough to add to our future battlefield success. Using modern nation-on-nation conflicts between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Russia and Ukraine, and Israel and Iran as our guiding features, we see that we must evolve from every Marine being a rifleman to every Marine becoming a commando. The author argues that this is how we will fully realize the potential of Force Design 2030 and create an “unfair fight.”2 Our Marines are our competitive advantage, and we must improve our truest capability by increasing our self-imposed standards.3 Thus, each Marine must be survivable, lethal, and able to deliver outsized effects in a denied environment against our nation-state enemies. Of note, one cannot be a commando without being a rifleman, but one can be a rifleman without being a commando.

What Is a Commando

World War II is considered by many as the birthplace of modern special operations, as “The Allies needed commandos in World War II because they did not have technological overmatch or initially possess the initiative—a situation which our Corps is potentially facing with strategic adversaries.”4 Many of today’s U.S. special operations forces can trace their heritage to World War II, such as the Navy SEALs (i.e., underwater demolition teams), Army Rangers, Army Special Forces (i.e., Jedburgh Program), and Marine Raiders. Of note, a definition for a United States Marine commando has been proposed as “a Marine who is assessed, selected, highly trained and equipped, able to endure sustained hardship, and is supported by the Marine Corps to train and conduct operations deep behind enemy lines, and in areas without a defined enemy line, both in and out of uniform, with minimal guidance from their higher unit, often without higher, adjacent, or supporting units, in which their actions will have direct effects on the operational, strategical, and national policy levels of war.”5

“There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.”
—Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

Why We Should Become Commandos?

Why should each Marine become a commando? Markedly, the concepts of stand-in forces (SIF) and expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO) are proposing this notion if we can appreciate the overlap between commandos and what the Marine Corps is asking us to become. As stated, “SIF are small but lethal, low signature, mobile, relatively simple to maintain and sustain forces designed to operate across the competition continuum within a contested area as the leading edge of a maritime defense-in-depth to intentionally disrupt the plans of a potential or actual adversary.”6 Additionally stated, “SIF impose costs on the enemy by presenting operationally relevant capabilities that cannot be ignored, even as their low signature, high mobility, dispersion, and use of deception make them difficult for an enemy to find and target.”7 The characteristics of EABO are: stand-in, mobile, persistent, low signature, integrated, and cost effective, or as stated “EABO are a form of expeditionary warfare that involve the employment of mobile, low signature, persistent, and relatively easy to maintain and sustain naval expeditionary forces from a series of austere, temporary locations ashore or inshore within a contested or potentially contested maritime area in order to conduct sea denial, support sea control, or enable fleet sustainment.”8 Simply put, the Marine Corps wants us to already be behind the enemy lines during the opening stages of conflict (i.e., commandos).

Figure 1 demonstrates that EABO and commandos possess mutual characteristics. Accordingly, emphasizing these shared characteristics in basic training (BT) and the Officer Candidate Course (OCC) would amplify our ongoing efforts to experiment with and validate EABO, and SIF within the FMF. Furthermore, applying and incorporating our lessons learned with EABO and SIF from and within the FMF into our initial training will enhance our quality of Marine. Thus, mandating the interdependence and integration of SIF and EABO into BT and OCC and vice versa increases our ability to impose our will against our adversaries.

As the Marine Corps seeks to transition to Force Design 2030 to enact concepts, such as SIF and EABO, which are centric to the idea of operating inside the weapons engagement zone (WEZ) of the People’s Republic of China, we must evolve our recruitment of civilians, our initial training pipelines (e.g. BT and OCC, School of Infantry, and basic officer course), and our sustainment training (i.e., FMF), as Marines are our competitive advantage.9 As we evolve, “we must ensure our efforts are in the right direction with both precision and speed,”10 while treating our evolution as an attack, with the phases of preparation (recruitment), conduct (initial training), and exploit (FMF).11 The emphasis of this manuscript will be to provide the rationale, justification, and suggestions for how we should evolve our initial training, specifically where civilians earn our title of United States Marine (i.e., BT and OCC). The earning of our title, United States Marine, is critical for our Corps as BT and OCC establish our identity as United States Marines, with each Marine having to pass through the test to earn a spot in our formation.

Figure 1: EABO and commando overlapping characteristics. (Figure provided by author.)

Evolving our Initial Training

A notable feature of a commando is that a commando is “an individual who is assessed, selected, trained, supported, and able to operate without control from their chain of command.”12 Talent Management 2030 states that one out of five Marines fails to complete their single four-year contract.13 Thus, we must treat our initial training as an assessment and selection.14 As the character of war changes, we must change and accordingly emphasize units of actions that are distributed, mobile, survivable, lethal, and that can generate the needed effects, which takes a higher caliber Marine, not simply more Marines. Thus, raising the standard to earn the title Marine would cause greater attrition but would make us more lethal inside the WEZ as smaller, distributed units of action that can generate effects are essential to adapting to the evolving character of war. Regarding commandos, “decentralized and small-unit action should always be the intent … especially considering a contested environment where dispersed operations provide security.”15

So, how do we evolve our BT and OCC? The first step is to divest any training that is not adding to our survivability or lethality in a denied environment. Accordingly, we should divest the amount of time we dedicated to drill. As stated, “One immediate adjustment that our Marine Corps’ leaders can enact now to make our Marines more prepared for modern conflict is to divest the amount of ceremony and drill conducted at BT and OCC,”16 as the notion of drill instilling discipline “is invalid, outdated, and dangerous to our warfighting organization.”17 “Here is the litmus test: if it does not directly correlate to lethality and survivability, we must divest of it.”18

Following divesting of non-essential tasks that do not add directly to lethality and survivability, we should simply apply the concept of less comfort; more discomfort as we evolve our initial training. For example, we should sleep less in our racks (comfort) and sleep more outside (discomfort). We should eat less in the chow hall (comfort) and eat more Meals Ready to Eat (discomfort). Rather than conduct movements during the day (comfort), we should increase the number of night movements (discomfort).

Next, we must raise our standards in all domains that add to early 21st-century warfighting performance. Within the true performance realization model, performance is impacted by the proposed seven influencers of performance (e.g., fitness, cognition, skills, abilities, leadership, will, and culture).19 As we evolve as an organization to increase our lethality and survivability, we must determine what influences early 21st-century warfighting performance to determine which standards we must raise.
Fourth, replicate the WEZ (i.e., the enemy’s most dangerous course of action) whenever possible. The book 7 Seconds to Die provides us with an excellent example of what could happen to us if we fail to adapt (i.e., the nation of Armenia).20 Fifth, we must realize that not all civilians need to earn the title Marine, and attrition will occur. Moving forward, quality over quantity will be more important than ever before in our 250 years of history. Accordingly, our task organization will need to change as well. Sixth, exploit these gained levels of performance and proficiency in our follow-on schools at the School of Infantry and basic officer course, as well as within the FMF.

These six simple recommendations can be implemented immediately in 2026 and increased and refined by 2029 to make us more effective in SIF and EABO. By divesting non-essential tasks, having less comfort and more discomfort, raising our standards, replicating the WEZ, allowing attrition to occur, and exploiting the higher level of Marine at follow-on schools and the FMF, we are stepping in the direction of every Marine becoming a commando (Figure 2). “Let us not view BT and OCC as only a prerequisite to earning the title Marine, but also as the greatest opportunity in the Marine Corps, since all Marines must make the passage through these courses to enter our formation.”21

Figure 2: Six recommendations to evolve initial training to facilitate EABO and SIF from 2026–2029. (Figure provided by author.)

To the Critic

To the critic of each Marine being a commando, will each Marine be equivalent in the fitness, cognition, and skills of modern-day special operations forces? No. However, by evolving our initial training, each Marine will be more survivable, lethal, and effective inside the WEZ. Accordingly, each Marine will have greater resiliency, fitness, cognition, skills, leadership, and abilities than those currently being formed at BT and OCC, which will lead to enhanced follow-on training. As stated earlier, one cannot be a commando without being a rifleman, but one can be a rifleman without being a commando; therefore, becoming commandos raises the quality of Marines, thus the Marine Corps.

The author will leave the reader with a final question and answer. Why should we modernize our initial training? Simple. If we seek to intentionally be inside the WEZ, then we must replicate the WEZ. We must replicate being behind enemy lines, in a denied, hostile, and logistically restrained environment, while able to create effects, which is akin to the tasks, expectations, and standards of commandos. This replication of the enemy’s most dangerous course of action must start with our initial training. By training to be a commando in our initial training, we are facilitating our effectiveness in SIF and EABO inside the WEZ. Anything less than this standard is unacceptable.

Conclusion

Former Commandant Gen Gray infamously stated, “Every Marine is, first and foremost, a rifleman. All other conditions are secondary.” Respectfully, the author argues this is an incorrect statement, as every Marine is first and foremost a Marine, and the transformation from civilian to Marine is the primary task of BT and OCC. During our initial training, we emphasize becoming and being a Marine, which is why we are not called Marines until the conclusion of BT or OCC. While being a Marine is linked to being a rifleman, being a Marine is additionally associated with success on the battlefield. As the battlefield evolves, we must evolve as United States Marines. As we seek to create an unfair fight, we must realize that our Marines are a competitive advantage, not technology, mass, or anything other than our Marines.22 Thus, we must evolve our Marines to impose our will against any enemy at any time.

While Gen Gray re-emphasized that “Every Marine is, first and foremost, a rifleman,” Gen Smith, our current Commandant, states that SIF will open “the door from the inside”23 as we will be placed inside the WEZ to enable Joint Force entry. With the dilemma and threat, as well as the opportunity of being forward deployed inside the WEZ, we must evolve now. What was valid in the late 1980s is no longer valid in 2025 and beyond. While the change may seem monumental, as stated by Gen Berger, “We have been here before. Over the course of our history, Marines have often been on the leading edge of our Nation’s forward deployed forces … Marines have also embraced truly difficult operational problems and come up with solutions no one thought possible. And Marines have gone into contested areas that others feared to enter and returned victorious.”24

As stated, “What we can provide today that our other Services cannot provide, are the United States Marines. We need to raise our standards within our Corps. The Army can have its mass, the Navy can have its ships, and the Air Force can have their budget; let us have our Marines.”25 If in 1989, every Marine was a rifleman; in 2029, every Marine needs to be a commando.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

>Maj Carter is currently serving as a Special Operations Officer in MARSOC. He previously served as an Infantry Platoon Commander, Company Executive Officer, and Company Commander. Before commissioning in the Marine Corps, he was a Strength and Conditioning Coach, a Researcher in Sports Science, and a Graduate Teaching Assistant. He is still currently active in the human performance community, is a reviewer and editor for three different human performance journals, and is the President of True Performance Realization (trueperformancerealization.com).

Notes:

1. Jim Proser, No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy: The Life of General James Mattis (New York: Harper’s Collins Publisher, 2018). 

2. Gen David H. Berger, Force Design 2030 (Washington, DC: March 2020).

3. Jeremy Carter, “United States Marines: Our True Competitive Advantage- Expounding our Capability,” Marine Corps Gazette (Accepted).

4. Jeremy Carter, “21st- Century Marine Corps’ Commandos: Why We Need Them and How We Get There,” Marine Corps Gazette, November 2022, https://www.mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/21st-Century-Marine-Corps-Commandos.pdf.

5. Ibid. 

6. Gen David H. Berger, A Concept for Stand-in Forces (Washington, DC: December 2021).

7. Ibid. 

8. Headquarters Marine Corps, Tentative Manual for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations 2d Edition (Washington, DC: 2023).

9. Force Design 2030;  A Concept for Stand-in Forces; Tentative Manual for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations; and “United States Marines: Our True Competitive Advantage- Expounding our Capability.” 

10. Jeremy Carter, “The Need to become an Ability Organization: A Novel View of Capabilities versus Abilities,” Marine Corps Gazette 109, No 2 (2025).

11. “United States Marines: Our True Competitive Advantage- Expounding our Capability.” 

12. “21st- Century Marine Corps’ Commandos: Why We Need Them and How We Get There.” 

13. Gen David H. Berger, Talent Management 2030 (Washington, DC: November 2021).  

14. Jeremy Carter, “Talent: We Do Not Need It Eleven challenges to Talent Management 2030,” Marine Corps Gazette 108, No 11, (2024).

15. “21st- Century Marine Corps’ Commandos: Why We Need Them and How We Get There.” 

16. “United States Marines: Our True Competitive Advantage- Expounding our Capability.” 

17.  Jeremy Carter, “Divest of Drill; Invest in Discipline: Evolving our Initial Training to meet the Demands of Modern Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette (Accepted).

18. “United States Marines: Our True Competitive Advantage- Expounding our Capability.” 

19. See https://trueperformancerealization.com.

20. John F. Antal, 7 Seconds to Die: A Military Analysis of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and the Future of Warfighting (Havertown: Casemate Publishers, 2022).

21. “United States Marines: Our True Competitive Advantage- Expounding our Capability.” 

22. Ibid. 

23. Thomas A. Walsh and Alexandra L. Huber, “A Symphony of Capabilities: How the Joint Warfighting Concept Guides Service Force Design and Development,” Joint Force Quarterly 111 (2023). 

24. A Concept for Stand-in Forces.

25. “United States Marines: Our True Competitive Advantage- Expounding our Capability.” 

A Letter from the Deputy Commandant for Aviation

The Aviation Combat Element (ACE) is the most lethal arm of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force. As such, Marine Aviation remains in high demand as proven multiple times over the past year. From the Middle East to Africa to the Western Pacific and closer to home, Marine Aviation remains highly requested by the Joint Force and we remain ready.

Our core challenge moving forward is daunting but clear—we must simultaneously balance the readiness demanded for today’s crises with the urgent need to continue to modernize our equipment, training, and procedures to meet tomorrow’s threats. The recently released 2026 Marine Aviation Plan, nested within Project Eagle, serves as our strategic blueprint for delivering that balance while ensuring the ACE not only remains combat-credible today, but also fully prepared to defeat the adversaries of tomorrow.

A central theme of our 2026 Aviation Plan is our decisive shift toward Distributed Aviation Operations (DAO) to enhance our survivability and lethality in contested environments. Foundational to this is the elevation of Aviation Ground Support (AGS) to the seventh function of Marine Aviation, a long-overdue recognition that our ability to sustain operations from austere, expeditionary sites is the very backbone of the distributed fight. DAO is not just a change in tactics; it is a fundamental change in how we think about generating combat power and will challenge all elements of the MAGTF to execute at scale. 

The concept of Decision-Centric Aviation Operations (DCAO) underpins our plan. We will harness data and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to make faster, smarter decisions than our adversaries. We will incorporate it in all we do on the flightline, at the MALS, in the S-shops, and eventually in the cockpit. This effort is fully aligned with Project Dynamis and will allow us to integrate aviation seamlessly into the larger MAGTF and Joint Force.

While we invest in next-generation platforms and cutting-edge technology, we reaffirm that our people remain our decisive advantage. Our Aviation “TEAM” will be our guiding principle that calls on us to: Take Care of our Marines, Execute the Basics with Brilliance and Precision, Attain and Maintain our Readiness, and Mitigate Risk in everything we do.  It also demands that we relentlessly pursue improvement. Innovation—what I refer to as “More Cowbell”—is not optional. It is the expectation that every Marine, Sailor, and Civilian looks for better ways to fight, sustain, train, and lead. Cowbell is not about recognition; it is about improving your position and, if replicated, improving our entire TEAM. We will continue to encourage and reward those who find ways to improve our processes, enhance readiness, and sharpen our combat edge.

That same commitment to disciplined improvement must also define how we approach risk and safety. We will protect our aviation assets through a campaign entitled “26 in 26,” which aims to reduce our Class A through D mishaps by 26 in fiscal year 2026 through education, engaged leadership, and ruthless adherence to standards and procedures. This focus on safety is inseparable from our professional obligation to “Execute the Basics with Brilliance and Precision.”

This edition of the Marine Corps Gazette offers us a unique opportunity to focus on the “A” in MAGTF to expand our collective knowledge of the air domain—regardless of specialty. I hope the articles herein will ignite spirited discussions in ready rooms, in the field, and aboard ship about how we get better every day and where we need to go in the future.  

In conclusion, by transforming our aviation sustainment model, deliberately sequencing our modernization efforts, and relentlessly focusing on the development and well-being of the individual Sailor and Marine, we are building a more lethal, resilient, and data-driven ACE. This will ensure Marine Aviation remains ready to generate decisive combat power to fight and win whenever the Nation calls.

Semper Fidelis,

William H. Swan
Lieutenant General, U.S. Marine Corps
Deputy Commandant for Aviation

2026 AVPLAN

Balancing crisis response with modernization for the future fight

“Aviation provides the lion’s share of killing power on the battlefield … we must maximize this critical MAGTF capability.”
—39th Commandant of the Marine Corps, 2026 Marine Aviation Plan

The Commandant’s directive is both affirmation and mandate. Marine Aviation is not a supporting arm of the MAGTF; it is the principal source of combat power that enables maneuver, sustains distributed forces, and delivers decisive effects across the battlespace. In an era defined by contested logistics, precision fires, and persistent sensing, maximizing this capability requires more than platform modernization alone. It demands a deliberate balance between sustaining crisis response readiness today and transforming the Aviation Combat Element (ACE) for the fight of tomorrow.

The central challenge facing Marine Aviation is unchanged but increasingly complex: we must remain ready to fight tonight while modernizing for the future fight. The 2026 Marine Aviation Plan (AVPLAN) deliberately balances these imperatives by sequencing modernization without sacrificing crisis response capacity. It operationalizes distributed aviation operations (DAO) as the central warfighting concept and aligns platforms, sustainment, data, and talent management. The result is a more survivable, more distributed, and more lethal ACE that remains combat credible today and prepared for the future.

Balancing Readiness and Modernization

Readiness remains Marine Aviation’s most important measure of success. The 2026 AVPLAN reinforces funding and prioritization of sustainment, flight hours, and training to ensure mission-capable aircraft, proficient aircrew, and expeditionary enablers are ready to respond to global contingencies. A global presence remains essential for deterrence and crisis response. Modernization efforts described in the AVPLAN are deliberately sequenced to avoid creating capability gaps during platform transitions.

This balance also requires disciplined risk management as we integrate new technologies and operational concepts. The Safety North Star, “26 in 26,” establishes a measurable commitment to reduce Class A through D mishaps by 26 in fiscal year 2026. Readiness and safety are inseparable. As we modernize the enterprise, brilliance in the basics, strict adherence to standards, and engaged leadership remain foundational to sustained combat power.

At the same time, the character of warfare demands transformation. Strategic competition, contested logistics, complex sensing networks, and precision fires require a more agile and distributed aviation enterprise. The 2026 AVPLAN positions modernization as a readiness enabler rather than a competing priority. Through Project Eagle, initiatives are aligned across three Future Years Defense Programs (FYDPs) to ensure coherence, affordability, and operational relevance.

The accompanying figure illustrates this deliberate balance, which depicts Marine Aviation’s progression across successive FYDPs. It shows how platform transitions, sustainment modernization, and next-generation capabilities are sequenced to preserve today’s crisis response capacity while accelerating transformation for the future fight. The visual reinforces the plan’s central premise: Marine Aviation must remain combat credible now while deliberately building the Next Generation ACE required for tomorrow.

2026 AVPLAN lines of operation. (Figure provided by author.)

Aviation Ground Support: The Backbone of DAO

A defining shift in the 2026 AVPLAN is the full elevation of aviation ground support (AGS) as the seventh function of Marine Aviation. While the 2025 plan expressed intent to codify AGS doctrinally, the 2026 AVPLAN institutionalizes AGS as the backbone of DAO. Expeditionary fuel distribution, airfield damage repair, forward arming and refueling points, and resilient aviation logistics are decisive capabilities rather than supporting enablers. This shift strengthens the ACE’s ability to persist and generate combat power from austere and dispersed locations. By aligning AGS modernization with platform transitions and digital interoperability initiatives, the 2026 AVPLAN ensures sustainment capabilities evolve in parallel with operational concepts.

Transforming Sustainment: From Reactive to Predictive

The 2026 AVPLAN marks a fundamental evolution in aviation sustainment philosophy. Where the 2025 plan emphasized traditional sustainment and incremental supply chain reform, the 2026 plan integrates predictive maintenance, dynamic aviation supply, and optimized operations as core components of a transformed sustainment system. These initiatives anticipate readiness trends, reduce downtime, and increase aircraft availability across distributed environments.

The figure illustrates this transformation through three deliberate lines of operation (LOO): LOO 1, Dynamic Aviation Supply, shifts the enterprise from reactive resupply toward demand forecasting, reduced logistical footprint, and resilient distribution networks capable of supporting distributed operations. LOO 2, Predictive Maintenance, leverages AI-enabled data analysis to anticipate component failures, reduce maintenance hours, and increase readiness. LOO 3, Optimized Operations, integrates maintenance, supply, and operational data into a unified decision-support framework that improves scheduling and planning. Together, these lines of operation move Marine Aviation from a reactive sustainment culture toward a proactive, predictive, and data-informed enterprise aligned to the demands of the future fight.

The challenge is balancing crisis response and modernization in a fiscally constrained environment. (Figure provided by author.)

Decision Advantage and AI/ML Integration

Decision advantage is foundational to success in distributed operations. The 2026 AVPLAN elevates artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) from conceptual discussion to an active modernization effort. Artificial intelligence/machine learning initiatives are now integrated into aviation decision-making processes, consolidating enterprise data, and enhancing operational visualization.

Through decision-centric aviation operations, Marine Aviation seeks to sense, process, share, and act faster than any adversary. The AI/ML-enabled tools reduce cognitive burden on commanders, provide predictive readiness insights, and enable faster, more informed decisions. Data architecture, sensing networks, and Digital Interoperability/MAGTF Agile Network Gateway Link integration receive significantly greater depth in the 2026 AVPLAN, reflecting the increased emphasis on networked warfighting and kill-web integration.

This approach transforms data from an operational byproduct into a decisive warfighting capability. By integrating digital tools across maintenance, logistics, and operations, the ACE strengthens its ability to rapidly close kill webs and operate effectively in contested, denied, and degraded environments.

Platform Modernization and Future Force Design

Platform modernization in the 2026 AVPLAN is more detailed, sequenced, and explicitly aligned with DAO requirements. The Tactical Aircraft Transition Plan advances F-35 integration while deliberately sequencing the sundown of legacy platforms to prevent capability gaps. The CH-53K transition continues, alongside modernization of the MV-22, H-1, and KC-130J fleets. Digital upgrades, survivability enhancements, and expanded unmanned capabilities further strengthen operational flexibility.

The unmanned aerial systems enterprise grows substantially, with increased focus on collaborative combat aircraft and manned–unmanned teaming. Platform roadmaps are tied to distributed operations and kill-web integration rather than being viewed as isolated modernization efforts. Additionally, the 2040+ future force design is more clearly articulated, providing a long-term vision for the Next Generation ACE beyond the immediate FYDPs.

This deliberate sequencing ensures modernization remains coherent and operationally grounded. It aligns resources, capability development, and concept evolution across the aviation enterprise, reinforcing that transformation is cumulative and strategically synchronized.

Marines Remain Our Decisive Advantage

Despite the emphasis on digital integration and advanced platforms, the 2026 AVPLAN underscores that Marines remain the decisive advantage. Mission readiness depends on properly manned, trained, and equipped Marines who execute with discipline and initiative. Talent management, instructor quality, technical training, and leadership development are priorities to sustain world-class aviation professionals.

As new technologies emerge, the plan deliberately aligns subject-matter expertise with these capabilities. Immersive training environments and standardized best practices empower maintenance professionals, aircrew, and support personnel. A culture of trust and a team-of-teams approach strengthens integration across squadrons, wings, and headquarters elements.

Modernization without leadership is fragile. The 2026 AVPLAN reinforces that technology enhances, but does not replace, disciplined Marines capable of exercising judgment in uncertainty. By investing in people alongside platforms and data systems, Marine Aviation ensures its competitive advantage endures.

Conclusion

The 2026 AVPLAN represents the maturation of Project Eagle from strategic blueprint to operational execution. Distributed aviation operations is no longer emerging; it is central. The AGS is no longer aspirational; it is institutionalized and recapitalized. Additionally, AI/ML is no longer conceptual; it is embedded in sustainment and decision-making processes. Platform modernization is sequenced across FYDPs and tied explicitly to distributed warfighting requirements.

Through this deliberate balance, Marine Aviation ensures it remains combat credible today while building the Next Generation ACE required for the future fight. The 2026 AVPLAN and Project Eagle provide the roadmap to do both, strengthening the MAGTF’s principal source of combat power and ensuring that the lion’s share of battlefield lethality remains firmly in the hands of Marine Aviation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

>LtCol Carlson is a UH-1Y Pilot. She is currently assigned as the Aviation Strategy and Plans Officer for Headquarters, Marine Corps Department of Aviation.

Forging Decision Dominance with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Warfighting Teammate

A Transformative Journey for Marine Aviation

The character of war is changing, and the speed of decision making has become the critical axis of victory. To maintain its edge, Marine Aviation is embarking on a transformative journey—an evolution, not a revolution—to accelerate its operational tempo to machine speed. Marine Aviation’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy is a comprehensive plan to embrace, equip, and enhance the force by integrating cutting-edge AI and machine learning (AI/ML) into aviation sustainment, maintenance, and operations. This effort complements broader modernization initiatives outlined in the 2026 Marine Aviation Plan and supports the Service’s transition toward a more data-centric and data-informed force.

The problem is a familiar one: a reactive culture in maintenance and supply, labor-intensive manual processes, and disconnected data systems that hinder readiness and the ability to sustain distributed aviation operations. Marine Aviation’s AI Strategy tackles this head-on, aiming to shift the enterprise from a reactive posture to a predictive, data-informed force capable of generating sustained combat power on demand.

The Vision: Meet “Agent Alfred”

At the core of the transformation is Agent Alfred, an AI-powered warfighting teammate that integrates seamlessly into a Marine’s workflow. Named in honor of Alfred A. Cunningham, the first Marine Corps aviator, this AI agent serves as a pathfinder, starting with back-office tasks and progressively earning its place in more complex and critical environments. By rapidly synthesizing large volumes of operational, maintenance, and logistics data, Alfred enables Marines and commanders to make faster, more informed decisions in increasingly complex operational environments.

“Agent Alfred.” (Photo provided by authors.)

The vision for Alfred is not to replace Marines but to augment them. As described in the initiative’s foundational documents, Alfred is envisioned as a multi-modal, ambient, contextual, and emergent teammate. Automating repetitive, data-heavy tasks frees Marines to focus on what humans do best: critical thinking, leadership, and complex problem-solving. The end state is a force where AI-driven decision support is ubiquitous—operating in the ready room, on the flight line, in the field with our enablers, and ultimately in the cockpit.

The Blueprint: Initial Lines of Operation

The theory of victory for Marine Aviation’s AI Strategy is to sustain combat readiness and increase lethality by transforming the aviation enterprise from a reactive system into a predictive, data-informed force capable of generating combat power at the speed of modern warfare. This strategy is broader than any single initiative. The lines of operation (LOO) described below represent the initial focus areas where AI-enabled capabilities can begin delivering immediate operational value while the broader strategy continues to mature across the aviation enterprise.

• LOO 1: Dynamic Aviation Supply. This effort aims to transform the logistics footprint from a reactive system to one that anticipates demand. By leveraging AI to analyze historical data and operational tempo, we can forecast the need for parts and resources.

• LOO 2: Predictive Maintenance. This approach focuses on moving beyond the current reactive maintenance culture. Instead of fixing aircraft after a component fails, AI will analyze a longitudinal history of aircraft behavior to forecast failures before they occur. The failure prediction allows maintenance officers to proactively schedule what is typically unscheduled maintenance ahead of detachments and cross-country movements, or in conjunction with phase maintenance, reducing maintenance hours and increasing readiness.

• LOO 3: Optimized Operations. This LOO focuses on using AI to enhance every facet of operational planning, from optimizing daily flight schedules to managing pilot training. Artificial intelligence will provide commanders with data-informed insights to accelerate and improve decision making.

• Future LOOs. Additional development efforts for aviation workflows will be added iteratively as technology improves and appropriate use cases expand to areas such as enhanced maintenance staffing, improved command safety, and other future use cases. The intent of all such efforts is not adoption of technology for technology’s sake, rather they are part of our deliberate approach of adopting a digital data culture advancing our decision-making advantages at speed. 

The Rollout: A Phased Approach to Integration

The implementation of Marine Aviation’s AI Strategy is a deliberately phased, iterative journey, designed to build trust and demonstrate value at each step.  The approach ensures that technology is adopted in a way that enhances, rather than disrupts, existing processes.

• Phase 1: Aggregate Data. The initial, foundational step focuses on identifying, accessing, and cleaning maintenance, supply, and operations data from the myriad of disparate systems where it currently resides. The outcome is clean, analysis-ready data, the essential fuel for any AI system.

• Phase 2: Apply AI. With aggregated data, we can begin applying AI algorithms for analysis. This phase involves creating the predictive capabilities central to the vision, such as forecasting part demands and identifying aircraft likely to experience component failures. This provides the data-informed insights necessary for dynamic aviation supply and predictive maintenance.

• Phase 3: Ensemble AI Tools. The final phase integrates these individual AI tools into a comprehensive, user-friendly solution. The goal is to deploy Alfred on a common compute platform, creating a comprehensive operational planning tool that provides a holistic view of aviation operations, from sustainment and maintenance to staffing, ultimately yielding improved readiness with the capacity for future growth of other agentic workflows.

Together, these phases enable Marine Aviation to transition from fragmented data environments to an integrated decision-support ecosystem that improves readiness forecasting and operational planning. This rollout will begin with Alfred assisting with low-risk, high-impact “back-office” tasks in the ready room, such as drafting training plans and flight schedules. Alfred will “earn its quals” by demonstrating value and reliability. From there, its capabilities will expand to the flightline, assisting maintainers with failure predictions and parts tracking to the field, where it will act as a collaborative planning partner in complex, distributed exercises. This crawl-walk-run methodology ensures a smooth, effective, and trustworthy integration of a powerful new teammate into the MAGTF.

Machine learning has multiple applications. (Photo provided by authors.)

Marine Aviation’s ability to generate and sustain combat power has always depended on the ingenuity and professionalism of its Marines. Marine Aviation’s AI Strategy builds upon that foundation by providing Marines with the tools necessary to operate at the speed of modern warfare. By integrating AI/ML into aviation sustainment, maintenance, and operational planning, Marine Aviation is creating a more predictive, data-informed enterprise capable of supporting distributed aviation operations and enabling faster decision making. This evolution ensures that as victory becomes a race of decision making, Marine Aviation is not merely keeping pace but setting the pace, delivering lethal effects for the Marine on the ground at the speed of relevance. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

>Ms. Elizabeth Ruggles is an Aerospace Engineer.  She is currently assigned as the AI/ML Integration lead for the Deputy Commandant for Aviation.

>LtCol Carlson is a UH-1Y Pilot. She is currently assigned as the Aviation Strategy and Plans Officer for Headquarters, Marine Corps Department of Aviation.

MCCE Convergence Overview

IC4’s Strategy for Transforming Network Resourcing and Cybersecurity

In an era defined by peer competition and ubiquitous information, the ability to decide and act faster than the adversary is the central requirement for victory. Recognizing this, the Information Command, Control, Communications, and Computers (IC4) for Headquarters Marine Corps drafted a Deputy Commandant of Information strategy to transform the Marine Corps’ approach to network operations and cybersecurity. The blueprint for this transformation is the Marine Corps Cyberspace Environment (MCCE) Convergence Strategy, a focused effort to build a communications and cybersecurity ecosystem that is more lethal, connected, and capable of enabling command and control in the most complex and contested environments.

For years, the Marine Corps has operated a collection of purpose-built networks and information systems. While effective for their intended functions, these systems often created information silos, fragmented environments where data could not be easily defended. This stove-piped architecture limits situational awareness, slows decision making, and inhibits the Corps’ ability to fully leverage its information-gathering assets. In a modern conflict, where victory is measured in seconds, these limitations present an unacceptable risk.

The MCCE Convergence Strategy directly addresses this challenge and is IC4’s contribution to Force Design and Project Dynamis Pillar 1. It is not a single program or a new piece of technology but rather a guiding vision for a multi-year effort. The strategy aims to converge the disparate elements of the MCCE into a single, data-centric ecosystem. The goal is to ensure that critical information is visible, accessible, understandable, and trustworthy for any Marine, on any device, in any clime and place. This article, based on the drafted foundational strategy, will outline the core logic, guiding principles, and intended outcomes of this essential transformation.

Defining the MCCE

The Marine Corps Information Environment Enterprise is an ecosystem of people, processes, and systems that together provide capabilities that connect users with data to accomplish a mission, unifying organizations, data, and processes across both classified and unclassified networks. The MCCE is the Marine Corps’ specific portion of the larger DOD information network. The MCCE encompasses all Marine Corps information systems used for collecting, processing, storing, and transmitting information on all network classifications, and it includes the cyber elements of the Marine Corps Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Enterprise. This enterprise is composed of various components, including programs of record, tactical networks, the Marine Corps Enterprise Network, extensions to commercial cloud providers, and Commercial Solutions for Classified, among others.

Flexibility, survivability, and unity of effort in cyberspace are undermined by our current approach.
(Figure provided by authors.)
The Strategic Imperative: Why Convergence is Necessary

The modern battlespace is information-saturated. Adversaries employ sophisticated methods to contest the electromagnetic spectrum, cyberspace, and the information environment itself. To succeed, the Marine Corps must achieve and maintain information advantage, a state where the friendly force can exploit a persistent and decisive information superiority over the enemy. The current C4 architecture, however, was not designed for the speed and complexity of this environment.

The Marine Corps’ ability to provide assured command and control (C2) is at significant risk due to a fragmented MCCE management approach. This fragmentation creates a cascade of problems that jeopardize Service-level compliance and resourcing, and it fuels misaligned investments and engineering efforts that hinder operational success. When seconds matter, our forces struggle to share common operating pictures and targeting data, creating self-imposed limitations that our pacing threats are positioned to exploit. This challenge is set to intensify, as departments increase mandates for advanced capabilities, such as artificial intelligence and Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control.

The Vision: A United, Federated Information Environment Poised to Support Global Operations

The central vision of the MCCE Convergence Strategy is the creation of a unified digital ecosystem with assured access to capabilities spanning from undersea to orbit. By integrating diverse networks, from garrison to the tactical edge, into a seamless platform, it will connect Marines across every warfighting domain. This comprehensive approach is aligned with five strategic themes.

(Figure provided by authors.)
The Five Strategic Themes

The MCCE Convergence is built upon five interconnected themes that guide its implementation. First, it will provide commanders assured C2 across warfighting functions, enabling rapid decision-making at every echelon. Second, it will adopt modern cybersecurity principles and capabilities by increasing visibility and automation to allow for timely incident response. Third, the plan will standardize governance for C2 and the operation of the MCCE with clear lines of authority. Fourth, it will optimize the application of resources to provide ready and mature capabilities to the total force by realigning personnel and funding. Finally, it will modernize communications forces and training to ensure Marines and their formations are prepared for the future fight.

The Way Forward: End State and Immediate Action

The end state is clear: a unified, federated information environment poised to support global operations. Whether coordinating fires, sharing data, or enabling supporting establishment functions, Marines will have secure, reliable access to the digital capabilities they need to fight and win. While detailed implementation guidance is forthcoming, the work has already begun. Critical initiatives to modernize transport infrastructure, implement the Zero Trust Framework, unify the Marine Corps Enterprise Network, and modernize the communications occupational field and its formations are already being executed to secure immediate gains while the full transformation roadmap is developed.

The ultimate outcome of this strategy will be a Marine Corps that is better equipped for the challenges of the 21st century. By breaking down information silos and creating a united, data-centric C4 ecosystem, the MCCE Convergence Strategy will empower Marines at every level. It will shorten the kill chain, enhance situational awareness, and provide commanders with the information advantage needed to out-maneuver and defeat any adversary. It is a foundational effort that will ensure the Marine Corps remains the Nation’s premier expeditionary force in readiness for years to come.

The MCCE Convergence Strategy. (Graphic provided by authors.)

>As the driving force behind MCCE Convergence, this Information Command, Control, Communications and Computers branch develops the vision, strategy, and policy for future communications, governs the Marine Corps Tactical Grid, and serves as the primary interface between Headquarters Marine Corps and Operational Force Communicators, ensuring MAGTF’s continued command, control, communications, and computers operational effectiveness.

From Sensor to Shooter

Demand for data and transport interoperability

Sgt Jones is a member of a Marine littoral regiment reconnaissance team, operating deep within the adversary’s weapons engagement zone. He identifies a time-sensitive surface threat. The targeting data is perfect, captured with high fidelity, yet it remains a fleeting digital image on a single screen. To act on this intelligence requires Sgt Jones to exit one application, manually transcribe coordinates into another, and then pray that a voice call can find its way over a strained satellite link so he can verbally pass information that there was no option to enter digitally. In the precious minutes this takes, the opportunity is lost, and Sgt Jones’ transmissions have compromised his position.

This is not a hypothetical scenario; it is the central warfighting challenge of our era. It is the precise reason that Marine Forces Cyberspace Command, by direction of the Commandant, has issued the MCCE Battlespace C2 Execution Order, formally operationalizing the Marine Corps’ transition to a new way of thinking about and codifying major subordinate commands’ boundaries and responsibilities across secure, operate, and defend missions. It is the reason that the Deputy Commandant for Information published the Marine Corps Transport Strategy in 2025, and the reason that Information, Command, Control, Communications, and Computers is developing the Marine Corps Cyberspace Environment (MCCE) Convergence Strategy. We are moving beyond the theory of data-centricity and into the hard, practical work of execution.

The Problem

The problem is clear; data silos degrade operational effectiveness in a multi-domain conflict. Limited means of data transport outside the silo degrade effectiveness by creating artificial limitations within command-and-control systems. The Service’s traditional approach to acquisition and procurement of weapon systems, command-and-control platforms, sensing capabilities, and data systems has built data stovepipes into the ecosystem, where manual transcription is still sometimes the solution for passing data between systems. Proprietary hardware and software for prototypes and programs of record do not seamlessly integrate into the larger Service transport, and the data ecosystem’s slow transmission of information to speeds renders even the most exquisite sensing and engagement systems useless in denied, degraded, intermittent, or limited connectivity environments. The lag, as online gamers would call it, that this creates in the chain from sensed to targeted to engaged will only continue to degrade the effectiveness of kill webs. 

The Solution

The solution is two-pronged. To enable concurrent, decentralized operations envisioned by our (not so) future operating concepts, the Marine Corps must re-architect its digital battlespace from a collection of disconnected systems into a cohesive environment where information moves across systems and enclaves at machine speed. These strategies are not static concepts; they are being actively implemented by the Service. The Marine Corps is already making this a reality through two key, interconnected strategies. The MCCE Convergence Strategy provides the blueprint for a seamless hybrid cloud ecosystem, the destination for our data and the home for our warfighting apps. The Marine Corps Transport Strategy builds the foundational highway to get it there, creating a single, agnostic transport layer to fuel the entire ecosystem with data. Together, they provide the vision to enable decision dominance. 

Simultaneously, the Marine Corps must adapt its acquisition and procurement strategies to reinforce this vision. Internal progress is not enough; the Service must ensure that every dollar spent and system procured actively align to and supports a data-centric model. This will require sending a clear, consistent demand signal to our industry partners. 

For Marine littoral regiment reconnaissance teams to report in real time without compromising themselves requires the Corps to remove artificial limitations within command-and-control systems. (Photo by Cpl Ernesto Lagunes)

Demand Signal for Change

The Marine Corps cannot achieve this vision alone. Efforts and progress made through efforts like Marine Corps Enterprise Network Unification, Sensing the MCCE, and other Deputy Commandant for Information and Marine Forces Cyberspace Command initiatives demonstrate the Service’s resolve. Despite this progress, the problem requires a demand signal to be sent to the Service’s industry partners.  The statement is this: To achieve decision dominance and fight and win, this is what we need and this is what we will prioritize.

We need to embrace data sharing. We will prioritize and procure systems that serve as nodes within our broader ecosystem. Systems that silo their data and require additional effort to integrate into our enterprise will be at a competitive disadvantage.

We need to embrace agnostic transport. Your systems must be engineered to connect seamlessly to our unified transport infrastructure. We are building the highway; your products must be able to use the standardized on-ramp, fit in the lane, and comply with safety and operational requirements. Cars without blinkers, headlights, and seatbelts will not be allowed. 

We need to compete on capability, not on data hoarding. We need applications and analytics that work together to build situational awareness and accelerate decision-making. Your competitive advantage will now be judged by how well your system shares and enriches data for the entire kill web, not by its ability to perform a single function in isolation.

Conclusion

With the principles from this statement in mind, we are moving this vision from theory to practice. The question for our industry partners is no longer about understanding our vision but about having the agility and foresight to align with its implementation. The partners who embrace their new role as application providers on a common platform will be the ones who help us deliver victory in the information-driven conflicts of the future.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

>Maj Raymond is is a Supply Officer serving his Data Systems Management Officer payback tour at Headquarters Marine Corps, Deputy Commandant for Information, Information Command, Control, Communication, and Computers.

>Maj Wleklinski is is a Cyberspace Warfare Officer and Data Systems Management Officer currently serving at HQMC, Deputy Commandant for Information, Information Command, Control, Communication, and Computers.

Identity-Centric Warfare

The decisive terrain of the Department of War

The Vignette: The Ghost in the Approval Chain

A task force staff deployed a workflow agent to reduce friction across planning and sustainment. It lived in a developer’s toolchain, connected through a remote tool server, and could pull data, draft products, open tickets, and route approvals. For weeks, it worked flawlessly until an urgent sustainment action arrived during a high-tempo period.

The agent read the plan, selected a task, and initiated a chain of actions: vendor research, draft language, routing, and packet generation. The packet arrived looking complete, the routing looked normal, and the staff trusted the system’s prior performance. Under pressure, reliable substituted for verified. The agent was not malicious. It was over-permissioned.

Months earlier, broad roles were granted to get the prototype working. They were never removed. Credentials were cached. Privileges were inherited. When the agent encountered a compromised input, it did not need sophistication. It needed only standing access. The resulting actions were technically successful and operationally damaging because no one could answer the continuous accountability question: who authorized this action, on whose behalf, with which privileges, at that moment?

The command paused execution to validate outputs. Intelligence provenance became suspect. Sustainment actions were rolled back, and then the audit questions arrived, simple questions with no defensible answers about ownership, authorization basis, and least-privilege evidence.

The lesson landed: warfighting credibility and financial credibility now rise and fall together, and both depend on identity governance.

Argument

Multi-domain operations depends on decision advantage at machine speed, but machine speed also amplifies the oldest problem in warfare: authority without accountability. Agentic artificial intelligence (AI) introduces a surge of non-human identities, delegated tool calls, and cross-domain connectors that make identity and access the new control plane of operations. Winning in this environment requires treating human and non-human identities as warfighting infrastructure and governing them through an identity-centric approach anchored in Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM), Zero Trust, and continuous auditability.

Supporting Argument 1. The Pattern: Same Attack, New Control Plane

Across technology waves, the exploit pattern stays consistent. Adversaries don’t break in, they login. What changes are where “login” occurs and how fast it propagates.

Evidence 1. Agentic AI accelerates non-human identity sprawl: one “agent” becomes many identities across platforms, toolchains, and workflows.

This is not a niche cyber issue; it is an operational risk because permissions become the fuel that turns benign automation into uncontrollable action. The risk is not intelligent agents. The risk is agents with forgotten permissions.

Evidence 2. Agentic AI does not introduce a new class of threat so much as it compresses multiple historic lessons into one operational reality:

• The insider-risk lesson (Snowden as a reference model): Trusted access plus weak governance yields catastrophic data compromise, often with no “break-in.”

• The corruption-and-oversight lesson (Fat Leonard as a reference model): Opaque processes and weak accountability create seams where influence, fraud, and mission distortion thrive.

Agentic systems widen both seams simultaneously because delegated, tool-driven actions can look procedurally valid while bypassing the intent of policy.

Supporting Argument 2. What Changed: Agents Behave Like Non-Deterministic Operators

Agents are AI systems that can autonomously plan and execute complex tasks. Unlike workflows (defined paths), agentic behavior is open-ended and difficult to predict. That unpredictability collides with traditional identity and access management, which was designed for humans, static roles, and session-based tokens.

Evidence 3. In an agentic environment, three things are consistently true:

• The identity surface area explodes. Agents call tools, tools call services, services call APIs—each hop can carry a distinct credential.

• The delegation chain becomes the attack chain. If provenance and authorization basis aren’t captured, accountability collapses.

• Static identity and access management breaks down. Coarse permissions cannot express runtime intent, and audit trails fail to capture the true authorization basis.

This is why governance must shift from point-in-time access to continuous validation: identity behavior over time, contextual access decisions, and enforcement that follows the agent.

Supporting Argument 3. Identity-Centric Warfare and the Warfighting Functions

Identity-centric warfare is the deliberate use and governance of identity, credentials, and access as operational instruments.

Evidence 4. It maps cleanly to the warfighting functions:

• Command and Control: Identity determines who can see, decide, and direct at speed. If identities are not governed, command and control devolves into “trust me” operations.

• Intelligence: Collection and dissemination depend on assured identity and authoritative sources. Agents that pull, summarize, and route intel must be attributable and constrained.

• Fires: Digital authorities gate kinetic and non-kinetic effects. Uncontrolled delegation becomes uncontrolled fires, especially where target data and authorities traverse tools.

• Movement and Maneuver: Access to navigation, timing, logistics systems, and mission apps depends on trust signals that increasingly must be machine-speed.

• Protection: Zero Trust is protection doctrine for the digital fight, never trust, always verify; least privilege; micro-segmentation; real-time monitoring.

• Sustainment: Identity governs contracting actions, supply workflows, and service access. Sustainment is where speed meets accountability and where fraud exploits seams.

Multi-domain operations require convergence across domains and partners; convergence requires trust at machine speed; identity is how the Joint Force measures and enforces trust.

Supporting Argument 4. ICAM: The Governance Spine for Warfighting and Auditability

Identity, Credential, and Access Management is the set of enterprise capabilities that establish trusted identities (human and non-human), issue and manage credentials, and enforce auditable access decisions across systems.

Evidence 5. In the Agentic Age, ICAM enables:

• Identity proofing and authoritative identity data (people, Services, agents, non-person entities).

• Credential issuance and lifecycle management (including revocation).

• Access management and policy enforcement (least privilege, privileged access control).

• Federation and interoperability across organizations and environments.

• Audit-ready logging and accountability that ties actions to authority.

This is where an “additional element” becomes equal to warfighting: the ability to pass an unmodified audit opinion. Auditability is not administrative overhead; it is institutional legitimacy. If the Department cannot prove who acted, with what authority, for what purpose, it cannot credibly govern itself under stress. In today’s climate of transparency and accountability, that is a strategic liability.

A workflow agent—an AI identity—with improper permissions can lead to technically successful but operationally damaging actions on the battlefield. (Photo by Cpl Ryan Ramsammy.)
Conclusion

Multi-domain operations demands convergence at speed, but speed without governance is a liability. Agentic AI is forcing a return to fundamentals: authority, accountability, and control. Identity-centric warfare recognizes that identity is now the control plane of modern operations—and ICAM is the governance spine that makes trust enforceable across humans, systems, and agents.

The decisive advantage will not belong solely to the force that automates fastest. It will belong to the force that can prove continuously who is acting, with what authority, for what purpose, and under what constraints. That is how the Department preserves operational trust and earns an unmodified audit opinion in the agentic age.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

>Capt Rosario is a Cyberspace Warfare Officer and is currently serving at  Headquarters Marine Corps Deputy Commandant for Information, Information Command, Control, Communications, and Computers–Compliance Chief Information Officer Section as the Technology Integration Officer overseeing Identity, Credentialing, and Access Management across the Marine Corps.

A Message from the Deputy Commandant for Installations and Logistics

March 2026

The Marine Corps Gazette is well-known for providing generations of Marines with a virtuous push-pull cycle of learning through which they can both share their ideas and arguments with other Marines through publication, and further benefit from those same Marines’ divergent thoughts and conclusions each month. While traditionally focused on tactical-level challenges and tactical excellence, the Gazette has never engaged in intellectual caution or retreat when confronted by larger operational or strategic issues and challenges—most memorably the Maneuver Warfare debates all across the 1980s, or discussions on Dr. Strange’s Center-of-Gravity Analytic Model in the late 1990s. It is in a spirit consistent with those broader operational-and-strategic-level discussions that this month’s edition is focused, and that logisticians and campaign planners across the force remain focused. 

At the strategic level, logistics (sustainment) is a key component of deterrence. According to former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, the key to deterrence is that “it cannot be a bluff; it must be credible.” In the context of modern warfare, particularly against a peer adversary, deterrence credibility and prospects for prevailing are largely attained by solving three core challenges of operational employment: force mobilization and deployment, force closure, and force sustainment of operations.   

• Force Mobilization and Deployment: This is the rapid aggregation and initial movement of forces from their home stations to the theater of operations. It sets the clock for the entire campaign. As maneuverists, we seek to create temporal warfighting advantages for the FMF via rapid deployments. 

• Force Closure: This is the systematic assembly and compositing of the force, linking personnel with their equipment and initial supplies in actions that enable reconstitution of the force within the theater. It ensures the commander has the complete, ready force required to restore the pre-conflict status quo or terminate the conflict to our advantage.

• Force Sustainment of Operations: This is the continuous flow of everything needed to maintain and prolong operations—fuel, ammunition, spare parts, medical services, and personnel support. It is the most challenging and enduring problem when all domains will be actively contested.

Taking a page from Chinese naming conventions, I refer to these steps collectively as The Three Principal Moves, and they encapsulate the actions necessary to deliver comprehensive operational effectiveness. 

The advent of modern warfare, however, has significantly complicated the execution of The Three Principal Moves. Unlike in the past, all actions of the force in each move will be contested simultaneously across all domains. As I stated in last year’s “Focus on Logistics” edition of the Marine Corps Gazette, successful operations in contested environments require us to think, act, and operate differently. Our historical successes are undeniable, but at the strategic and operational levels, those methods of deployment, force closure, and sustainment were effectively conducted in permissive environments; we could fly, sail, offload, and operate anywhere we wanted with minimal concerns about enemy impediments to those actions—and we did just that. Modern warfare does not offer such luxuries. Each domain will be contested to varying degrees throughout our conduct of The Three Principal Moves.

At the heart of this construct is a strong, resilient, and responsive logistics enterprise that enables equal success across all At the heart of this construct is a strong, resilient, and responsive logistics enterprise that enables equal success across all domains. Without the ability to sustain protracted fires through the creation of an inexhaustible magazine afloat, ashore, or in the air, then there is no combat credibility. If there is no combat credibility, then there is no deterrence.  Yes—deterrence requires more than just advanced weaponry; it requires a demonstrated ability to sustain those forces in a fight, and the reality of modern war involving major power peer adversaries is that such a fight will most likely be protracted.  A force’s ability to sustain operations in a protracted conflict will be the deciding factor in enabling that force to prevail.  

At the operational level, logistics is the indispensable bridge that connects strategy to the tactical realities of the modern all-domain battlespace. It is the lifeblood that sustains combat forces, providing the necessary resources to project power, maneuver, and sustain the fight with endurance; logistics drives strategy, and it enables operations, particularly protracted operations. Far from being a mere administrative or secondary function, logistics is the determinant warfighting function. Logistics ultimately determines the success or failure of any military campaign, and well before that, it determines whether a force is ready. I support the conclusion of GEN Dwight D. Eisenhower, who observed, “you will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics.” 

The Marine Corps Installation and Logistics Enterprise, including global prepositioned stocks and resilient infrastructure, directly prevents the FMF from reaching its culminating point in conflict. The culminating point is the point in time and space where a military force no longer possesses the superiority in combat power to continue its advance, forcing it to assume a defensive posture or retreat. This point is almost always reached due to the exhaustion of resources that drains a force’s will or depletes its ability to fight long before it is defeated in battle. 

The true measure of Joint Force and naval power is not the total inventory of our equipment, but the ability to deliver that equipment at the decisive place, when needed, and keep it functional over time. When logistics is seen as robust, resilient, and redundant, it signals to an opponent that any initial tactical success will be fleeting, as the opposing force has the capacity to absorb losses and continue fighting indefinitely. As such, a strong logistics footprint is itself a deterrent effect. 

I would like to thank all our authors and contributors, and encourage all consumers of the Gazette to continue to use it as a marketplace of ideas. I have repeatedly challenged you to “Think, Act, and Operate differently,” and I am greatly appreciative of how many have truly embraced that necessity. Over the past year, some tremendously innovative ideas have been developed across our Corps—by all ranks. This is the perfect venue to share how you have been thinking differently with your peers, and to challenge them to reconsider their assumptions, and further, ask themselves—what if I am wrong?  Keep thinking. Keep writing. Keep challenging yourselves and each other. The time to act is now.

Stephen D. Sklenka
Lieutenant General, U.S. Marine Corps
Deputy Commandant for Installations and Logistics

Fortifying the Foundation

Winning when demands rise and margins shrink

There is a conversation we must have as a Corps. It is a difficult, uncomfortable conversation that strikes at the heart of our culture, our expectations, and the future of our warfighting readiness. In my estimation, there is a perfect storm gathering on the horizon, a storm that is now approaching our bases and stations. The collision of our necessary and ambitious modernization with the brutal reality of our fiscal constraints has brought us to a breaking point with facilities. We can no longer afford what we have, let alone what we say we need.

Installations serve as the crucible where Marines are forged and prepared for combat, providing the critical infrastructure for training, equipping, and deploying our forces. Failure to invest in these platforms directly compromises our ability to project power and deter aggression. Realistic training environments that simulate the complexities of modern warfare are essential, including ranges equipped with advanced targetry, urban training facilities, and cyber ranges. Investment in live, virtual, and constructive training capabilities allows Marines to hone their skills across varied, realistic scenarios, preparing them for the multi-domain battlefield they will face. This is the reason we exist; however, none of this can be accomplished without power, water, wastewater, and other basic utilities. Likewise, our commitment to warrior and family readiness through adequate housing, healthcare, and support services is not a luxury. A positive living environment is a necessity that directly impacts training, morale, and our ability to recruit and retain the high-caliber Marines and families that our Nation requires.

For two decades, as a Corps, we made the right and necessary choices. We prioritized the immediate needs of the warfighter in Iraq and Afghanistan, ensuring they had the weapons, armor, and technology to win on the battlefield. We consciously accepted risk in our installations portfolio, leveraging sustainment, restoration, and modernization funds to pay for urgent operational requirements. This was the correct answer at the time, but the installations bill is now due. The accumulated debt from years of deferred maintenance has collided with a perfect storm of external pressures: staggering inflation, a strategic pivot to the highly expensive Pacific theater, and the necessary, but costly, demands of accelerated Force Design modernization. The result is a fiscal crisis that threatens the very foundation of our readiness. As Marines, we must face this problem, attack, and win.

The challenge before us is not academic; it is a clear danger to our warfighting ability. The gap between what our installations require and the resources we receive is no longer a gap; it is a chasm.  Analysis reveals an average shortfall of 55 percent between the requirement and the budget received for our facilities. Compounding this, military construction costs have exploded by an average of 30 percent since 2020, while unpredictable budget cycles and continuing resolutions have made long-term planning an exercise in futility. We are being asked to do more with less, but the laws of physics and finance are unforgiving.

The consequences of this resource crisis are not abstract. They are visible in the crumbling interior conditions of our barracks and the at-risk electrical grids that threaten our high-tech training simulators. The Marine Corps faces a $28 billion backlog in deferred maintenance, with a significant portion concentrated in the Pacific region, that grows each passing day. In a recent Naval Facilities Command analysis of 200 buildings in the East and National Capital regions, eleven percent were found to be at moderate to severe risk of structural failure. This is about operational risk. An F-35 is a museum piece without a powered hangar. A cyber warrior cannot train for network defense on a system that is constantly down. A Marine cannot maintain focus on their mission when their barracks room has mold, and the chow hall is closed for emergency repairs. For too long, we have viewed our installations as sanctuaries, administrative rear areas separate from the fight. That view is now dangerously obsolete. Our installations are operational platforms, integral to every phase of conflict, from deterrence to high-end combat. Continued underfunding is no longer a budget problem; it is an operational failure in the making.

But in this crisis lies our opportunity. This is not a time for despair; it is a time for action. The future we envision is one of operationally ready, resilient, and lethal installations that directly generate readiness, but more importantly, are ready to fight. Imagine our bases not as liabilities, but as unsinkable aircraft carriers and forward logistics hubs—the very springboards of power projection. From the shores of Camp Lejeune to the forward-deployed positions of Camp Hansen, our installations are part of the battlespace. This must be reality in today’s environment, and it is within our grasp if we have the courage to shed the institutional habits of a bygone era and forge a new, more disciplined path.

First, we must have the discipline to fund what is foundational. These are the must-pay bills: the minimum set of infrastructure, services, and security measures necessary, regardless of the installation’s mission, to sustain assigned personnel, protect assets, and support training. Think protection, power, water, barracks, and chow halls. These are not discretionary items to be traded away; they are the bedrock that underpins all other capabilities. This funding must be incorporated into every Program Objective Memorandum and remain untouchable—similar to the manpower account.

Second, for every new requirement, we will relentlessly pursue the concept of Minimum Viable Project. This is not about building cheap facilities; it is about building smart. It is the architectural equivalent of our “fight light” ethos—stripping away every non-essential feature and every square foot that does not directly contribute to putting rounds on target.

Third, we will attack our own footprint. We have too much aging, inefficient, and costly infrastructure. Our goal is to execute an aggressive, deliberate, and conditions-based demolition plan that reduces our total facility footprint by more than ten percent of the existing square footage.  Every square foot we take off our books is a recurring cost we no longer must pay, freeing up resources to invest where they matter most. This is not retreat; it is shedding dead weight to become faster and more lethal.

Fourth, our first question for any facility requirement will no longer be where do we build new? but what can we renovate or repair? We must pivot from a reliance on new military construction to a smarter, more sustainable model of restoration and modernization. A well-renovated maintenance bay that is back in the fight in eighteen months is far superior to a new MILCON project that will not break ground for five years.

This is not just a theory; we at Marine Corps Installations Command are already on the attack. We have declared war on inefficiency. We are developing a portfolio of standardized facility designs, challenging the outdated Unified Facilities Criteria, and using more advanced construction methods. And we are leveraging new Other Transaction Authorities granted by Congress to accelerate project delivery. These are our proof points—concrete actions that demonstrate a faster, leaner, and more affordable model is not just possible  but is already being implemented.

This brings us to the final, unavoidable truth. The principles of Minimum Viable Project, demolition, and renovation will make us far more efficient, but they cannot reverse decades of underinvestment by themselves. Efficiency alone cannot blunt a $28 billion maintenance backlog and simultaneously modernize our bases to support the exquisite and complex equipment of Force Design. To do that, the Service must make a committed, sustained investment in its platforms.

The professional, data-driven standard for maintaining a large and complex infrastructure portfolio is to fund Facilities Sustainment, Restoration, and Modernization at a set percentage of the total Plant Replacement Value. The Marine Corps must commit to funding our installations at a sustainable and consistent rate of Plant Replacement Value annually. This level of investment is not for building monuments. It is the fuel required to work off our crushing maintenance backlog, to execute our plan of targeted demolition, and to resource a sustainable cycle of repair and renovation that will ensure our platforms can support the warfighter.

The path ahead requires a unified effort and a profound cultural shift. It demands that our leaders champion the 80 percent solution that can be delivered now over the 100 percent solution that may never arrive. Our mission is to defend the force and our families, support the MEF, and improve the lives of our warriors. By embracing this new, leaner approach, and resourcing it appropriately, we are not diminishing our capabilities; we are sharpening them. We are converting fiscal discipline into a strategic advantage, ensuring our installations are the resilient, operational platforms our Corps requires to meet any challenge, anywhere on the globe. The storm is here, but we have a plan. We are Marines. We will attack this problem, and we will win.

That path forward, the bridge from our current crisis to our future vision, is built on a ruthless return to our core identity as a frugal and expeditionary force. It is not about simply asking for more money—though we must; it is about fundamentally changing how we spend every dollar we get. This new model is built on four unwavering principles.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MajGen Woodworth currently serves as Commander, Marine Corps Installations Command; Commanding General, Marine Corps National Capital Region; and Assistant Deputy Commandant, Installations and Logistics, Facilities and Services.