U.S. Marines Overhaul Strategy for China Threat, Drawing Fire from Retired Brass

At the White House, President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sat down to discuss military cooperation and security in the Indo-Pacific—a region increasingly defined by tensions with China and North Korea. The meeting reflected a strategic pivot that has been brewing inside one of America's most storied military institutions, and it has opened a rare and bitter divide among the institution's own leadership.

The U.S. Marine Corps, a force steeped in tradition and public memory, is undergoing a fundamental reimagining. In 2020, General David H. Berger launched Force Design 2030, a restructuring plan meant to prepare Marines for potential conflict with China rather than the counterinsurgency wars that have consumed the past two decades in Iraq and Afghanistan. The shift is not subtle. It means abandoning the large-scale amphibious assaults that defined World War II—the kind of operations that still dominate public imagination, from John Wayne's 1949 film "Iwo Jima: The Gateway to Glory" to Steven Spielberg's recent miniseries "The Pacific." Instead, the new vision calls for smaller units scattered across island chains in the Pacific, armed with long-range missile systems, drones, and precision-guided weapons.

To make this happen, the Marines are cutting infantry battalions, eliminating all tanks, reducing helicopter squadrons, and replacing three-quarters of their towed artillery with rocket systems. The plan will cost $15.8 billion, funded by cuts totaling roughly $18.2 billion. But the price is not merely financial. Retired senior commanders—an unusual step in military culture—have begun speaking publicly against the plan. Jim Webb, a former Navy Secretary and Virginia senator who served as a Marine officer in Vietnam, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Force Design 2030 is "insufficiently tested" and "intrinsically flawed." He warned that the dramatic reductions in force structure, weapons systems, and personnel would leave units vulnerable to constant casualties in most combat scenarios. Other retired generals have convened regularly at seminars and think tanks, developing their own alternative proposals and voicing frustrations that rarely surface in military circles.

The core complaint is that the Marines are abandoning their identity as America's first military responder—a force capable of rapid deployment anywhere in the world to handle diverse crises. By narrowing focus to China and the Indo-Pacific, critics argue, the Corps risks losing the flexibility and global reach that has defined it for generations. The elimination of tanks particularly stung, symbolizing a break from the past that some saw as reckless.

Defenders of the plan, however, point to the lessons of modern warfare. Mike O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution argues that the real shift came with the withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, not with Berger's vision. Frank Hoffman, a former Marine officer now at the National Defense University, contends that critics are gazing backward at a "glorious past" while failing to grasp the strategic picture. The Ukraine war, he notes, has already demonstrated the value of drones, precision rocket artillery, and long-range strike capability—exactly what Force Design 2030 emphasizes. Smaller, more agile forces spread across vast distances, equipped with advanced sensors and missiles, may prove far more effective against a technologically sophisticated adversary than traditional heavy formations.

Yet the plan faces enormous practical hurdles. Distributing forces across the Pacific requires new types of smaller naval vessels—many more of them—to transport and support scattered units. Large traditional amphibious ships would be too vulnerable to modern weapons. Building these smaller vessels quickly enough, and securing funding while the Navy also needs new warships, remains uncertain. The logistical challenge of sustaining dispersed forces across thousands of miles of ocean is formidable. Force Design 2030 is evolving, with changes already made and more expected, but the fundamental tension remains: how to prepare for a specific threat without sacrificing the global flexibility that has long been the Marines' defining strength. The Ukraine crisis has already shown that old threats can resurface just as a force commits to an entirely new path.