Marines Need To Buy Lots Of Small Boats To Fight China

PAUL’S DEFENSE BRIEF (PDB) – The Marines need to invest in small boats for a big payoff. The author argues that its lack of investment in small boats is a liability for the Marine Corps in the Indo-Pacific.

It’s 2027. A Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR) is positioned deep in the First Island Chain, ready to support Joint Force operations in a contested Indo-Pacific.

But something is wrong. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ships, unmanned vessels, and maritime militia move confidently through key chokepoints, exploiting gaps in our coverage. The MLR is stuck, tethered to terrain, short on mobility, and unable to contest the maritime space it was designed to dominate.

It’s not a failure of strategy. It’s a failure of mobility. It’s a failure of imagination. And most critically, it’s a failure to invest in small boats.

As the Marine Corps modernizes to meet the demands of great power competition, it cannot ignore one of the most cost-effective, adaptable tools in the naval arsenal: small boats, defined as 65 feet or less in length.

These vessels, manned and unmanned, legacy and next gen, are the connective tissue between Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) theory and execution. Without them, the MLR will be operationally brittle and strategically incomplete.

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY – Here’s a roundup of today’s other top defense stories ending the week from conservative national security expert PAUL CRESPO.

Not the President’s Daily Brief, but almost as good – PAUL’S DEFENSE BRIEFING – the PDB:    

GOLDEN DOME

Missile Defense Agency will kick off the acquisition of the Golden Dome missile shield with a 10-year, $151 billion multiple-award contract.

Trump said that Canada is “considering” his offer of joining the U.S. as the 51st state in exchange for no-cost protection by the proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system.

The real Golden Dome opportunity – defense acquisition reform. The missile shield is ambitious, alluring and amorphous. But what is ‘Golden Dome’? The system of systems that will bring additional layered capability into the U.S. missile defense architecture is still undefined in any traditional military requirement process.

A radar system that can track hypersonic missiles flying five times the speed of sound has been delivered to the military, marking a major upgrade to one of its most essential missile defense systems.

HOMELAND SECURITY

Nets and high-tech hijackings: Anti-drone systems offer new ways to counter rising threats. Drones have harassed airports and bedeviled local police and trespassed over nuclear plants and prisons. On the battlefield, they can kill.

PENTAGON WOKE WATCH

Active-duty sailors diagnosed with, or displaying symptoms of, gender dysphoria must leave the service by June 6 or they will be involuntarily separated.

POLITICS

DOD announced plans to replace the military’s top senior enlisted adviser, marking the latest leadership shake-up at the Pentagon.

Starting next week, DOD will no longer require civilian employees to submit DOGE-inspired five-bullet point emails spotlighting their previous week’s accomplishments.

Elon Musk — who spearheaded the cost-cutting efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — is “disappointed” in the GOP’s massive legislative package, saying it ‘undermines’ DOGE’s work.

US POWER OVERSEAS

Navy’s Carrier Air Wing 1 aboard the USS Truman engaged in the largest maritime strike in Navy aviation history in terms of bomb tonnage earlier this year.

These are the approximate positions of the Navy’s deployed carrier strike groups and amphibious ready groups throughout the world as of May 27, 2025.

Army leaders would extol the importance of land forces, even in a theater dominated by water, is as predictable as the Pacific tides. But for a naval aviator to do so? That’s a bit more surprising.

In January, the military moved to halt work on the new AN/TPY-6 radar, one of seven key elements of the huge new air and missile defense architecture taking shape on Guam, and its current status is now unclear.

CHINA THREAT

New more detailed imagery has emerged of China’s new heavyweight airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) platform, the KJ-3000, of which the first, low-quality photos began to appear last December.

A South Korean soldier raised in China has been arrested on suspicion of leaking classified military information about joint U.S.-South Korean exercises to Chinese intelligence agents.

RUSSIA THREAT – UKRAINE WAR

President Trump has warned Vladimir Putin that he is “playing with fire,” after attacks on Ukraine, launching a fresh broadside at his Russian counterpart over stalled Ukraine peace efforts.

As its bombing campaign slows, Russian forces have taken four border villages in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, days after Putin said he had ordered troops to establish a buffer zone along the border.

U.S. and Russia have agreed to a prisoner swap with Ukraine, amid growing public frustration from Trump toward Putin.

As Ukrainian POWs die in Russian prisons, autopsies point to a system of brutality.

Ukrainian invasion ‘brutal wake-up call’ for European security leaders, says UK ambassador to U.S. Europe has “lived in a fantasy” that a heavyweight like the U.S. will always come to its side in every crisis.

As the NATO summit approaches, some leaders seem to have warmed to a 5% spending pledge through a novel, two-tiered approach — but one that comes with its own significant caveats, and strings attached.

IRAN THREAT/MIDEAST

Israeli military opened fire on crowds of people who rushed to an aid distribution point set up by a controversial organization backed by Israel and the US.

NORTH KOREA THREAT

U.S., South Korean troops team up for day and nighttime live-fire training near DMZ, aiming to sharpen their combat readiness as tensions continue to tick up on the peninsula.

SPACE THREAT

After delays, hundreds of full-time Air Force reservists are preparing to join the Space Force this year, while the plan for their part-time colleagues is still in the works.

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

French Navy is stepping up drone use in the air and in the water, relying almost entirely on unmanned systems to recapture a beach in southern France in an amphibious operation during an exercise in March.

Royal Navy’s first-in-class Type 31 frigate, HMS Venturer, has officially rolled out from the build hall at Babcock’s Rosyth dockyard.

New Boko Haram terror attacks are shaking Nigeria’s northeast, as Islamic extremists have repeatedly overrun military outposts, mined roads with bombs and raided civilian communities since January.

US MILITARY

Eighteen soldiers have been decertified from training future Rangers while the Army investigates allegations that they fired blank rounds at a Florida beach full of civilians with no notice.

Airmen this month conducted the first mission training sortie for the new EA-37B Compass Call, a milestone for the adoption of the Air Force’s new electronic attack aircraft.

END of PDB

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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