Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert Neller says the service’s budget for fiscal years 2018 and 2019 is “more than adequate” to continue building near-term readiness, but there are still modernization needs to meet its goal of being able to fight a high-end war by 2025.
The Navy’s budget for fiscal 2019 overall is $194.7 billion, of which $27.6 billion is the Marine Corps share. That represents a $1.3 billion increase from the fiscal 2018 budget.
The budget covers 186,100 Marines and a $2.9 billion procurement account, up from $2.1 billion requested in 2018.
“Is there enough money there? Yes, I think there is,” Neller said March 29 during an appearance at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. “We stated what our requirement was and the Congress voted us the money, actually more in some cases than what we asked for. Our job now is spend it wisely and create the capabilities that we need to keep America safe.”
Neller said improving readiness was the top priority for any funding increase and that the service placed a down payment on that in fiscal 2017. The service is continuing that work, particularly in aviation, he said.
“This budget allows us to accelerate our modernization, particularly in aviation,” he said. “We’re in the process of replacing every model-type series aircraft. We’ve got a ground vehicle strategy that is currently evolving and the number of Marines is going to go up, particularly to provide us the capacity to do more cyber and information operations and electronic warfare.”
“That budget is more than adequate for that,” he added. “I’m confident that in spending this, we will be able to show an increase in our readiness. “
Once near-term readiness recovers, there are still future capacities and capabilities the Marine Corps still needs to fight a near-peer military by 2025, its stated goal to regain that ability, Neller said. Neller named information operations, long-range precision fires, protected maneuver, and air defense as areas the Marine Corps need to beef up its capabilities and equipment.
“When you think of enemy air attack you think about jets and bombers, but I think the real future enemy air attack is going to be swarming drones because it’s cheap and it’s easy and we know we can do it,” he said. “Our ability to deal with that right now is something we’re working on and we’re going as fast as we can.”
To help field future technologies faster, the Marine Corps and Navy are hosting industry tech rodeos called Advanced Naval Technology Experiments (ANTX). One such exercise last year focused on amphibious assault and saw hundreds of potential technologies, including sensors, robotic systems and weapons tested at Camp Pendleton, Calif. The second ANTX, also at Camp Pendleton, just concluded and focused on urban warfare technologies.
“We’re doing a lot of experimentation,” Neller said. “We use Marines as our … jury and we let them see the technology and we let them play with it and we let them use it. … They’re pretty cut and dry, you know, ‘This is junk’ or ‘This actually is pretty cool and this is how I would use it.’”
The goals of such exercises are to identify potentially feasible and appropriate technologies that are available and exposing Marines to new technologies in general.
“We look forward to anybody coming to see what ideas they have,” he said.