The move is tied to a larger strategy that aims to slim the active-duty Marine Corps to 182,000 personnel. Moreover, it appears to signal the end to discussions of a 174,000-member force, which just last year senior military officials deemed likely as the threat of severe budget cuts loomed.
Marine manpower numbers continue to fall as part of a meticulous restructuring plan set in motion four years ago. Thousands of jobs have been eliminated while the service scales down from a wartime strength that peaked above 202,000 personnel.
A spokesman for Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Maj. Anton Semelroth, said this adjustment will leave the service with 24 infantry battalions. It saves 8th Marine Regiment, based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, along with 1st Battalion, 4th Marines; 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines; and 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines.
Officials changed course, Semelroth said, due to the demand for Marines to support commanders overseeing military activity throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The decision was made last summer, he added.
These specialized units are known as special purpose Marine air-ground task forces, or SPMAGTFs. Plans call for building them around a rotating headquarters element composed of Marine expeditionary unit and regimental headquarters.
There are now two SPMAGTFs forward-deployed: SPMAGTF Crisis Response-Africa, based in Moron, Spain; and SPMAGTF Crisis Response-CENTCOM, which operates in various locations throughout the Middle East. Both were created after a deadly attack in 2012 on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which highlighted a need to have rapid-response troops based within striking distance of the world’s most to volatile areas.
Officials expect the service to reach its target size of 182,000 by the end of this year. Current end strength sits just below 185,000.
“Since 2010, the Marine Corps has taken a hard look at what formula best supports a ready force that meets national security requirements within the confines of future budgetary constraints,” Semelroth said. “As variables change, so does the formula. In the end, our goal is to field a force that is optimized to meet mission requirements while working within end-strength limitations.”
The plan to deactivate 8th Marines was first promoted in 2011 as part of a force structure review that took place a year prior. From that effort, officials sought to create a post-war force of 186,600 active-duty Marines. Those plans called for dozens of deactivations and realignments spread out over at least five years.
That calculus shifted with the arrival of sequestration, the deep across-the-board budget cuts targeting defense and other federal spending. In late 2013 and again in early 2014, the Marine Corps’ commandant, then Gen. Jim Amos, wrote and testified in defense of a force numbering no fewer than 174,000. At that size, he argued, the Marine Corps could respond to a single major crisis and meet its demands around the world.
“At the end of the day, a 174K Marine Corps gives America the best balance of the requirements of steady-state operations and crisis-response activities while accepting increased risk in major contingency operations,” he wrote in an essay for the U.S. Naval Institute publication Proceedings.
While it looks like new missions have spared the Marine Corps the worst of the cuts, budget uncertainty could still alter the service’s plans, Semelroth said. Marine officials are continuing to review and manage manning levels mindful of budgetary constraints, he said.
