The Iwo Jima ARG/24 th MEU provided critical protection for the Kabul airport during the recent evacuation. The ships of the ARG have extensive command and control, intelligence, and medical facilities.Д®vents of the last year underscore just how useful and flexible the ARG/MEU can be. The ARG is the sovereign at-sea base for the MEU, which usually consists of more than a thousand marines in a reinforced infantry battalion as well as lots of heavy equipment and both rotary and fixed wing aircraft. The latter are being replaced by the LPD Flight II. The ARG consists of a group of large amphibious warships, typically a Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) Landing Helicopter Assault (LHA), a Landing Platform/Dock (LPD), and a Landing Ship/Dock (LSD). The key to this role for the Marine Corps is in its partnership with the Navy as personified in the Amphibious Ready Group/Marine Expeditionary Unit (ARG/MEU). As described by General Berger: вЂњSIF 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 in order to intentionally disrupt the plans of a potential or actual adversary.вЂќДЄt the same time it is evolving and creating new forces, as General Berger noted, the Marine Corps must continue to perform its role as the nationвЂ™s maritime 9-1-1 force. General Berger described the challenges facing his organization this way: вЂњeffectively playing our role as the nationвЂ™s naval expeditionary force-in-readiness, while simultaneously modernizing the force in accordance with the National Defense Strategy (NDS) вЂ“ and doing both within the fiscal resources we are provided.вЂќ The goal of this modernization effort is to alter how much of the Marine Corps is organized, trained, and equipped in order to enable it to operate survivable, lethal, and sustainable forces forward inside the envelope of prospective adversariesвЂ™ anti-access/area denial capabilities.ДЄs its thinking evolved over time, based on extensive exercises, experiments, and wargames, the Marine Corps realized that what it needed was a new stand-in force, one that could be forward, inside adversariesвЂ™ weapons engagement zones, operating in peacetime as well as from the outset of conflict. At the same, time, the Marine Corp had to maintain its ready-to-fight-today capabilities.

In his seminal force guidance document, Force Design 2030, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General David Berger argued that the nature of the threats posed by great power competitors, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, necessitated creating new forces and acquiring modern capabilities that could support high-intensity operations across a theater.

This will consist of dozens of new smaller and lighter vessels to deploy and support the stand-in force complementing a modernized fleet of large, sophisticated ships capable of carrying significant numbers of Marines, heavy equipment and even aircraft. To adequately address both new and traditional missions, the Marine Corps will need a larger fleet of amphibious warfare vessels. At the same time, The Marines remain committed to being this NationвЂ™s 9-1-1 force, ready to conduct a wide range of missions from large-scale humanitarian operations to amphibious landings.

Marine space warfare department