The US Marines: They’ve Got the Answer, but Not the Ships

U.S. Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, Battalion landing team deployed from Okinawa, Japan, exit an Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV) during the U.S. and South Korean Marines joint landing operation at Pohang seashore, in Pohang, South Korea, on March 29, 2012. Chung Sung-jun/Getty Images

Commentary

The U.S. Marine Corps has been developing solutions to the China problem. Numbers will favor the People’s Republic of China in any crisis that features extended naval warfare within a few hundred miles of China’s coast, hence the importance of the Corps’ Force Design (FD) effort to field forces relevant to such conflict and the urgency with which the U.S. Navy’s shipbuilding problem must be solved.