The United States Marine Corps made vital strides in 2025, implementing new formations and technologies in an effort to remain ready for any conflicts that may abound.
This past year forced the Marines to prove modernization isn’t just a concept as an institutional imperative coined as Force Design has been intentionally developed to ensure the Corps remains ahead of adversaries in areas including wargame exercises and the retooling of ground units and beyond aligned to address conflict scenarios. That has been driven by various factors including AI-driven targeting systems that the Corps is already implementing, as well as other branches.
“Force Design is the Marine Corps’ strategic priority, and this update makes clear both our progress and our direction,” Commandant Gen. Eric M. Smith said in the initiative's announcement. “We have strengthened formations, fielded new capabilities and refined our concepts, but modernization remains a continuous campaign of learning and adaptation.”
The October update walks Marines through how new littoral regiments, aviation shifts and logistics reforms are supposed to work at the squad and battery level, answering rank-and-file questions about what will actually change in daily training, maintenance and deployments.
Gen. Smith said that the Corps is equipping troops for the battles they may inherit, not the ones they remember.
“We are equipping Marines with the tools to thrive in contested environments: precision fires, unmanned systems, advanced mobility, resilient command and control, and data-driven decision-making," he said.
AI Training, War Readiness
Project Dynamis accelerated decision dominance with capabilities meant to shorten kill chains across multiple domains. The Corps frames Dynamis as a connective program between AI-enabled command and control, autonomous sensing and precision fires supporting naval campaigns.
Work on these tools has been described as part of a broader push to treat data as a warfighting asset, linking target recognition models, sensor fusion and human-machine teaming to expeditionary units that may have only minutes to act on partial information.
Readiness training has moved beyond traditional standards to better address and overcome issues including contested logistics, resupply without guaranteed ports or airfields, and maneuvering without assured GPS or satellite bandwidth. Marines rehearsed casualty care while communications were jammed, or when they were swarmed overhead by adversaries while deploying air defense in certain environments. Live-fire assaults without aviation support were also simulated.
Instructors emphasized the ability to identify targets using analog methods when digital networks collapse. Platoons practiced repositioning under observation by drones to stress camouflage-based deception and speed over brute force.
Officials have stated these repetitions are designed to expose weaknesses quicker than adversaries.
Everywhere at Once
Marine Corps guidance throughout 2025 also emphasized partner integration over presence for presence’s sake, tying rotations to mission profiles: coastal radar calibration with Philippine units, force protection drills in Japan, cyber-recovery rehearsals with Australian teams, and expeditionary medical stabilizations with Indonesian forces.
Publicly released training footage showed Marines moving NEMESIS launchers off small landing craft and into firing positions in minutes to replicate the speed expected in a real-world confrontation.
One major multinational exercise showcased Marines running live ship interdiction, coastal defense and boarding drills alongside regional navies—treating a long-running maritime event as a test circuit for littoral tactics they could expect to require should sea lanes become contested in a real crisis.
Training in the Pacific has also highlighted how small launcher teams, remote sensors and mobile firing positions can be used to practice closing straits by tracking ships at long range, providing a glimpse of how stand-in forces could try to hold maritime chokepoints under threat of hostile fires.
Exercises described in modernization materials include scenarios where humanitarian-response missions transition into littoral operations. The training reflects conditions Marines expect to face if a crisis escalates. These engagements support the doctrinal role of stand-in forces integrated with the fleet to complicate adversary decision-making, according to planning documents and congressional research analysis.
Senior noncommissioned officers said the rotational rhythm has created a pipeline of corporals and sergeants with firsthand familiarity of Pacific geography, naval coordination and host-nation interoperability, providing the Corps with a generation of junior leaders who will not be seeing their first island or chokepoint on day one of a conflict.
New incentive messages for the next fiscal year have outlined bonuses for hard-to-fill specialties in cyber, intelligence, aviation maintenance and other high-demand fields—viewed as a signal that leaders are trying to match manpower policy to the kinds of units and skills Force Design is building out.
The Corps is balancing ambition with bandwidth as Marines absorb new systems and expectations. Efforts to upgrade aging barracks and living spaces have faced early hurdles due to funding gaps, contractor delays and inspection issues.
Fighting a New Kind of War
Recognition of the U.S. Space Force anniversary underscored how modern conflict spans domains Marines did not train for even a decade ago.
Amphibious roots remain fundamental but Marine Corps messaging highlighted a growing expectation for cyber-enabled targeting awareness, orbital timing and integration with joint fires networks. The Marine War College has begun experimenting with AI-enabled planning tools, wargames and decision aids that give field-grade leaders a preview of how human judgment might pair with algorithms in the next major conflict.
But reinvention often invites scrutiny, and the Corps is no different.
A training event in California earlier this year raised questions about how the Corps demonstrates readiness without undermining trust. A live-fire demonstration near Camp Pendleton, where an artillery shell detonated prematurely over a major interstate, raised safety questions about how training and public demonstrations are coordinated. Internal safety bulletins reviewed by Marines expanded guidance for live-fire demonstrations, crowd stand-off distances and emergency medical response timelines.
Additional questioned emerged in October when barracks inspections identified mold in high-humidity buildings, reigniting debates over whether modernization dollars are outpacing facility upkeep. Leadership has not publicly committed to a timeline for facilities fully aligned to Force Design-era requirements, such as secure workspaces for classified networks or hardened storage for autonomous systems.
More Pressure in 2026
Congress in 2026 is expected to weigh modernization budgets against competing priorities in Europe, the Pacific and the U.S.-Mexico border.
Lawmakers will decide if procurement lines for unmanned systems, precision fires and littoral mobility survive are viable both fiscally and within the confines of the U.S. warfighting mission.
The first potential real audit of modernization will come in wargames, where after-action reports will reveal whether distributed platoons can transfer fuel, ammunition and targeting data fast enough to meet expectations. Failures in those simulations could expose the gaps Force Design could not fix in one year.
Forward-positioned Marines and prepositioned gear will reveal whether contested logistics can hold under real-world stress. Transport aircraft and commercial sealift must prove they can sustain forces when refueling tracks are threatened and ports are compromised.
Training methodologies instituted in 2025 will continue to be enforced and reinvigorated as part of the future of a proud service, combining old methods of warfighting with current technological advancements to continue to protect the U.S. in situations that in many cases are still new on a global level.
