More Marines are coming to infantry battalions, drone units and air defenses under a sweeping plan to grow the force by more than 6,500 billets over the next five years.
The additional Marines will be spread across 64 initiatives, including reinforcing the Pacific fleet, creating a drone school and establishing new occupational specialties, the service announced Tuesday in a statement. The Corps is aiming for a 4% end-strength increase by 2031 and an additional 1% increase by 2032.
The announcement shows the Corps is looking to simultaneously bolster infantry units and digital tactics.
“By aligning trained Marines with modernized capabilities, the Marine Corps ensures prior and future investments in robotics, precision fires, counter-UAS, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems produce warfighting advantages,” the statement said.
The new slots come after the Corps has spent years experimenting, modernizing and honing its ability to fight in island-studded regions like the Pacific. Last week, the service released Ground Combat Element 2040, a strategy outlining how its ground forces will change over the next 15 years. The service also plans to increase crew-served weapons personnel, add more 60mm and 81mm mortars and create a supplementary heavy machine gun platoon.
According to the Tuesday statement, the initiatives and additions will give the Marine Corps four wartime advantages: stronger power projection, especially in the Pacific; integrated autonomous and robotic systems; expanded training pipelines; and more specialized Marines in the force.
A significant part of the growth will enlarge the Corps’ infantry formations, adding 19 infantry battalions and two littoral combat teams staffed with Marines to create heavy guns platoons and expand precision fires, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.
The Marine Corps is also building out the manpower and organizations needed for a drone-filled battlefield. Each Marine expeditionary force will gain a robotics and autonomous systems company and the service will establish its second Small Unmanned Aircraft System Schoolhouse at School of Infantry-West to train more Marines in the Corps’ small unmanned aircraft system specialty. In another initiative, installations are slated to get their own counter-drone personnel and capabilities to protect from non-friendly UAS.
Other changes create new occupational specialties. The Marine Corps is establishing the 0315 Scout specialty, which will fill a 26-person scout platoon armed with advanced sensors and optics. In a separate release, Lt. Gen. Jay M. Bargeron, Deputy Commandant for Plans, Policies, and Operations, called the job’s creation “a critical step in the modernization of our infantry battalions.”
It also creates a career path for digital operations — making the 0673 identifier a primary military occupational specialty.
Eve Sampson is a reporter and former Army officer. She has covered conflict across the world, writing for The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Associated Press.