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“To comprehend something, you must observe it at the extremes.” Col. John Boyd understood that clarity comes when forces are stretched to their limits. In the Western Pacific, where strategic competition is rapidly tilting toward confrontation, the first unit to show up may decide who stays. III Marine Expeditionary Force, the Marine Corps’ only permanently forward-deployed Marine expeditionary force, lives daily at that extreme. Headquartered on Okinawa with forces scattered from Guam to Japan to Hawaii, III Marine Expeditionary Force is not only the Marine Corps’ most combat-credible formation in the Indo-Pacific — it is arguably the Joint Force’s best-positioned instrument of deterrence. It is also an organization operating without the mobility resources it needs to meet the demands of modern deterrence.

Without present, positioned, and ready U.S. forces, America cannot deter without fighting. Mobility is the prerequisite. While headlines often celebrate submarines, stealth aircraft, and long-range missiles, presence remains the bedrock of deterrence. Presence implies access, and access demands mobility. III Marine Expeditionary Force’s ability to move tactically and operationally, especially by surface, is not merely a Marine Corps problem — it is a joint challenge with strategic consequences.

III Marine Expeditionary Force operates on the ragged edge. Geography sharpens that edge: thousands of islands, shallow-gradient beaches, and distances that defy the assumption that airpower alone can sustain maneuver.

The strategic window is shrinking. Adversaries are modernizing. Exercises such as Balikatan, the Korea Marine Exercise Program, Iron Fist, and Resolute Dragon expose mobility gaps that risk turning credible deterrent efforts into PowerPoint promises. Fortunately, solutions exist today, and they do not require waiting for moon-shot technology. They require modest investment, decisive choices, and a willingness to embrace the imperfect.

In the Indo-Pacific, the first to arrive may not just win — their very arrival may prevent the fight. Without reliable mobility, III Marine Expeditionary Force risks becoming the most forward-postured but strategically stranded force in the joint arsenal. The task ahead is clear: fund the platforms, train the crews, and flood the zone before deterrence fails.

What We Have (and Why It’s Not Enough)

III Marine Expeditionary Force’s mobility toolkit is a study in improvisation. It relies on two primary platforms of record and a fragile set of interim surface assets. These systems, while often overlooked in favor of more headline-grabbing capabilities, form the logistical lifeblood of deterrence. Without them, III Marine Expeditionary Force is a world-class fighting force without the ability to move.

The first pillar of this toolkit is the C-130J Hercules, the theater’s unsung airlift workhorse. With a range of roughly 2,000 nautical miles and the ability to land on unimproved runways, it serves as the linchpin for moving marines, equipment, and supplies. It lifts a sizeable payload but its dependence on runways makes it vulnerable in an archipelago where many austere outposts lack airfields. With only a handful of aircraft in theater, commanders have to constantly prioritize missions. Reliable though it is, the C-130J alone cannot keep pace with mobility demands.

The second pillar is the USNS Guam, a high-speed transit aluminum catamaran originally built as a 370-foot Hawaii Superferry Huakai and repurposed as a civilian-crewed Marine expeditionary force go-to surface platform. It enables lift for exercises across Korea, the Philippines, and the Japanese archipelago. During Korea Marine Exercise Program 25-1, the USNS Guam executed multiple runs between Okinawa and Korea, overcoming weather delays and proving its tactical utility. For marines on the ground, it demonstrated the rare convergence of planning, platform, and presence, even if force closure took weeks.

With roll-on/roll-off capability, seating for over 800 personnel, and speeds of more than 30 knots, the USNS Guam bridges strategic mobility with tactical relevance. But it is finite — only one exists in theater. Its performance in rough seas is limited, earning it the nickname “Vomit Comet.” Moving a full formation requires multiple trips over several weeks. Still, its ability to close force packages across the theater makes it indispensable to daily deterrence.

The third leg of the mobility triad is less stable: a patchwork of commercial charters, leased prototypes, and repurposed vessels grouped under the Littoral Maneuver Bridging Strategy. These platforms are meant to serve as a stopgap until the Landing Ship Medium enters service, but each carries unique limitations and looming expiration dates.

One of the more instructive efforts has been the Stern Landing Vessel operated by Hornbeck Offshore Services. Its shallow draft and beaching capability on gradients up to 1:25 have allowed marines to experiment with how commercial conversions might support ambiguous operations. The vessel is not perfect, but it has provided valuable lessons on integration, maneuverability, and sustainment in littoral environments. Its charter, however, expires in 2025 without $17 million in contract renewal. A second Stern Landing Vessel operated by Sea Transport Solutions is optimized for even shallower gradients of 1:40, offering greater potential beach access. It too faces a funding cliff, with no sustainment plan identified beyond 2028 without approximately $30 million annually in program office or operating force coffers.

Legacy platforms have also been pulled into the mix. The Navy’s Landing Craft Utility 1610 remains a proven craft, but availability is constrained by manning and maintenance shortfalls across the Naval Beach Groups. The Army’s Landing Craft Utility 2000, now commercially available, offers another option but comes at an additional commitment to bring into Marine Corps use.

Smaller experimental vessels, known as Ancillary Surface Craft, will also be delivered to marines on Okinawa in the coming years. Each measures 150 feet in length with approximately 1,300 square feet of deck space and a shallow bow draft designed for gradients beyond current landing craft. They are intended to be marine-crewed, but no training pipeline or dedicated sustainment funding has yet been established. Without a programmatic investment of roughly $3 million per vessel beginning in Fiscal Year 2027, they risk becoming one-off experiments rather than dependable workhorses.

Finally, to bridge near-term lift shortfalls, the Marine Corps via Military Sealift Command has turned to commercial spot charters for pier-to-pier movement in the Western Pacific. In the spring of 2025, Military Sealift Command awarded a contract for surface lift for rolling-stock/general-cargo and berthing for a squad of marines. These charters are, by design, temporary and lapse at the end of the period of performance unless follow-on funds are programmed.

Taken together, the Littoral Maneuver Bridging Strategy provides a set of imperfect but essential mobility options. Some can land directly on beaches while others are limited to established piers. Some exist today while others remain years away. All come with caveats: funding deadlines, technical and performance risks, training gaps, or crewing shortages. Without near-term support, many will vanish from III Marine Expeditionary Force’s playbook.

A Deterrence Platform, Not Just a Logistics Fix

The key insight is this: These platforms don’t just move capabilities. They enable presence, and presence is deterrence. The ability to reposition forces quickly, even in competition short of conflict, gives III Marine Expeditionary Force the credibility to support allies, shape the battlespace, and signal commitment. Without reliable lift, especially surface lift, III Marine Expeditionary Force cannot do what the nation expects of it. And yet, most of these systems are not program-of-record platforms. They operate on annual renewals, supplemental funding, or borrowed readiness. With the president’s Executive Orders and the millions of dollars in ship leasing available as part of the sealift investments, the Marine Corps has an opportunity to supercharge its forward-deployed force with what it needs to move and be present in the places that matter.

Mobility Decisions Through 2028

If strategy is about aligning ends, ways, and means, then III Marine Expeditionary Force’s mobility posture is at risk of becoming the strategy’s Achilles’ heel. The commandant’s guidance, the Joint Warfighting Concept, and Indo-Pacific Command campaign design all points toward a marine force that is distributed, persistently forward, and rapidly maneuverable across the First Island Chain. The ends are clear. The ways are known. The means, however, are under threat.

Several surface lift decisions cannot wait until the end of the decade. They require action in the next budget cycle if III Marine Expeditionary Force is to retain even the limited lift it has today. The most immediate choice involves renewing the spot charter that provides tens of thousands of square feet of pier-to-pier surge lift. For tens of millions of dollars, the Marine Corps can preserve a theater surge lift.

Another urgent decision is whether to charter six commercially available Landing Craft Utility 2000s. These shallow-draft vessels are among the most reliable beach-capable platforms with a long track record of operational relevance. At an annual cost of approximately $39 million ($6.5 million per vessel), they would provide immediate utility to meet the movement needs. Without a programming commitment in 2026, however, they will remain in commercial hands.

The Stern Landing Vessel chartered from Hornbeck Offshore Services also faces a near-term deadline. As one of the few turn-key platforms in the region able to move expeditionary advanced base capabilities, it represents a critical afloat option for the force. Yet in 2025, it will leave the theater unless funding is committed.

Together, these decisions represent the difference between a force with limited but real mobility options and a force effectively stranded bound to the lift capacity of the C-130J and the USNS Guam. Each carries a relatively modest price tag compared to larger Navy programs, but their combined impact on deterrence in the Indo-Pacific is disproportionate.

Beyond these immediate deadlines, the Marine Corps faces a series of decisions in the next five years that will determine whether today’s experiments mature into lasting capabilities.

One of the most pressing is the future of the Stern Landing Vessel operated by Sea Transport Solutions. This ship, a shallower-draft companion to the Hornbeck vessel, is designed for more austere landings at shallower gradients. It is projected to be in operation by the end of 2025, but without follow-on resourcing it will have no future beyond 2028. Sustaining it in the 2028–32 would require tens of millions of dollars per year, a relatively modest investment compared to the capability it provides.

Another pivotal decision involves the Landing Ship Medium, the first purpose-built amphibious lift vessel designed specifically for the Marine Corps in decades. The opening block of this program should be resourced in the 2026 to 2027 budget cycle. Without that commitment, the Marine Corps will continue to rely on leased commercial conversions instead of building toward a sustainable fleet. A refined “Block Next” version with a lower draft and shallower beach gradient is also under consideration and represents an opportunity to reinforce legacy amphibious ships, tailoring Landing Ship Mediums for Indo-Pacific operating conditions.

The Marine Corps should also plan for the arrival of the Ancillary Surface Craft. These vessels are scheduled for delivery in 2027, but without a military occupational specialty-like manning plan, and funding for training and sustainment, they will remain unused. Absent a Manpower Affairs-led military occupational specialty-like crew program (aptitude standards, accessions, permanent change of station rotations), the craft’s manning remains in jeopardy. In terms of funding, approximately $3 million per vessel in operations and maintenance, combined with additional resourcing to create a training pipeline for marine crews, would ensure they arrive with the capability to operate immediately.

Individually these choices may seem incremental, but collectively they represent the foundation of an affordable, Indo-Pacific-ready mobility fleet. Taken together, the cost of sustaining these programs is less than the refit of a single Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. The real question is not whether the Marine Corps can afford them, but whether they can afford to lose them.

III Marine Expeditionary Force’s current and only operational beach-capable logistics platforms are living on borrowed time and borrowed money. Their budgets are not guaranteed. Most of what is outlined is not in the acquisition pipeline. They are not sustainable without deliberate, near-term investment.

This isn’t about making perfect decisions. It’s about not making fatal ones. The choice isn’t between luxury and austerity — it’s between presence and absence. The Marine Corps isn’t requesting gold-plated platforms. It’s asking for steel-decked ones, ready to move marines, missiles, and materiel wherever the nation needs them.

Beyond 2028

Waiting for a renaissance in large amphibious shipbuilding, or banking on a handful of exquisite platforms that arrive too slowly and in too few a number, risks leaving III Marine Expeditionary Force without the lift it needs. Americans want a Marine Corps that can move and fight across the Indo-Pacific. That requires an affordable fleet tailored for the maneuver and movement: shallow draft, beach-capable, and built at a tempo the industrial base can sustain.

One pathway is converting existing offshore service vessels into beaching variants. The Hornbeck Stern Landing Vessel already on charter has demonstrated operational utility during exercises, offering a model for small design modifications and commercial conversions. Conversions could yield voluminous ships capable of moving troops and equipment directly onto contested shorelines. By 2030, a fleet of six converted vessels could be operating, each maintained at standard charter-hire resourcing annually.

Another approach is to continue to build the Sea Transport Solutions design in commercial or allied shipyards. With its shallower draft optimized for austere landings, the class holds potential as a scalable solution. Constructed at potentially a fraction of the cost of other amphibious platforms and produced at a rate of two every 18 months, a dozen ships could be delivered by 2034. Building them in U.S. partner yards — such as in South Korea, Japan, and Australia — could be more economical than building in the United States while strengthening allied industrial capacity and regional interoperability.

The Marine Corps could also expand the Ancillary Surface Craft program. These craft are designed to be pier-agnostic, logistically simple, and suited for persistent tactical lift. Built for about $20 million per hull, with $3 million in annual operations and maintenance, the program could grow to a fleet of 18 vessels by FY2034. Unlike contracted platforms, they would be Marine Corps-owned and operated, providing an organic capability to maneuver day-to-day across the First Island Chain.

Taken together, these options represent a balanced portfolio: six converted offshore vessels, a dozen newly built shallow-draft stern landers, and 18 marine-crewed ancillary craft. By the early 2030s, such a force would provide redundancy, distributed logistics, and shore-to-shore maneuver at a scale appropriate to Indo-Pacific operations during competition, crisis, and conflict. The cost of this combined fleet would still fall below that of a single Columbia-class submarine, underscoring that the challenge is not financial but institutional.

This is not a call for a brand-new industrial base, but it does prime the pump for a more robust U.S. and partner nation industrial shift. It is a call to scale what works now and build what lasts, using a mix of conversions, small-yard builds, and marine-operated vessels. It is achievable, it could be cost-efficient, and it is how the Marine Corps can field a force that gets where it needs to be when it matters most.

Anticipating the Critics

Every proposal for mobility that does not involve a traditional amphibious ship, or a major new acquisition program invites skepticism. The familiar critiques are that the Indo-Pacific lacks sufficient pier space, that commercial charters suffice in peacetime, or that it is better to wait until prototypes prove themselves. Others argue that mobility within the theater should remain a Navy problem, not a Marine Corps concern.

Each of these objections falters under operational scrutiny. Pier space is precisely why beach-capable and pier-agnostic vessels matter. Commercial charters may work in peacetime, but in competition or conflict their availability and reliability are questionable. Prototypes cannot be left unfunded while marines are already employing them in real exercises, gaining lessons that vanish if the platforms do. And while the Navy retains Title 10 responsibility for strategic sealift, it is the Marine Corps that can occupy and seize land masses, which requires organic movement across water space.

What all these critiques assume is that time is on our side. It is not. Every delay in resourcing erodes deterrence, drains hard-won experience, and leaves marines with fewer options in the very theater where presence matters most.

Flood the Zone

If III Marine Expeditionary Force is the Marine Corps at its extreme operating forward, under-resourced, across an archipelago of contested terrain then its mobility posture is a diagnostic readout of the Joint Force’s ability to deter in the Indo-Pacific. And right now, that posture reads: insufficient.

This isn’t a crisis of imagination. It’s a crisis of prioritization. The platforms exist. The industrial pathways exist. Even the funding lines, modest by Defense Department standards, exist. What’s missing is a shift in mindset: from building exquisite ships for future war, to building practical lift for everyday deterrence. The danger is not overreach but underinvestment, losing practical lift options while chasing perfection. At its core, this is not just about moving marines. It’s about enabling presence, and presence is what separates deterrence from delay, strategy from slogans, and assurance from absence. If we want to compete forward, we ought to move forward with steel in the water, marines at the rail, and options in the playbook.

The Myth of the Pile of Money

In defense planning, it’s tempting to assume resourcing is a binary problem: either you’re broke or you’re rich. But when it comes to mobility, the question isn’t whether the United States has a pile of money. It’s whether it’s spending even a fraction of it on the right things.

All the critical near-term decisions identified earlier — charters, sustainment, prototype extension — combined cost less than the refit of a single destroyer. A dozen Stern Landing Vessels, a fleet of marine-crewed Ancillary Surface Crafts, and a scalable amphibious “bridge” all fall below the budget lines of a single exquisite program that might never dock in the littorals.

We are not asking to rewrite the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan. We’re asking to spend smart now to avoid strategic regret later.

Practical Over Perfect

The Marine Corps isn’t waiting for perfect platforms. It’s fielding what works. But the service can’t do it alone. The broader defense establishment, Congress, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Navy, and the Joint Staff should recognize that the mobility gap is not conceptual, it’s physical. The platforms are not hypothetical, they’re real. The need is not tomorrow, it’s today. We don’t have to build for 2050 to succeed in 2025. America should buy time, capacity, and deterrent credibility now.

One Last Note from the Arena

This article is not theory. It’s an operational after-action report from marines who have planned with spreadsheets open, maps on the table, and weather delays testing force closure timelines. There’s no glamour in arguing for surface vessels and a lot of the figures will be further refined as this work is published. But there are real consequences for not resourcing what III Marine Expeditionary Force needs. The truth is: Mobility is the predicate to everything else fires, command and control, sustainment, partnership, and presence.

Brandan R. Schofield is a Marine acquisition officer serving as the team lead on expeditionary fuel and water systems at Marine Corps Systems Command. He recently completed a tour as an Exercise Planner for the 3rd Marine Logistics Group, and the logistics officer for the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. He holds a Master of Science in Information Technology Management and a Master of Business Administration. He is published by the Naval Postgraduate School and the Marine Corps Gazette.

Andrew C. Edwards is a Marine logistics officer currently serving as the training team officer for the 12th Marine Corps Recruiting District. He was previously a logistics officer for the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. He recently served as the lead capabilities integration officer for III Marine Expeditionary Force G‑9, directing integration of new logistics capabilities and surface vessel prototypes.

The views expressed here are those of the authors. They do not represent the views, policies, or positions of the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Department of the Navy, the U.S. Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.

**Please note, as a matter of house style War on the Rocks will not use a different name for the U.S. Department of Defense until and unless the name is changed by statute by the U.S. Congress.

Image: Gunnery Sgt. Jonathan Wright via DVIDS