WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is calling for a 7 percent increase in the Marine Corps budget as the service seeks to buy new high-tech platforms while returning to its roots as an expeditionary, emergency response force.
The president’s fiscal 2016 budget request, released Monday, seeks $24 billion for the Marines base budget, an increase of $1.6 billion. It also proposes $1.3 billion for Marine Corps “overseas contingency operations”, also known as OCO.
About $1.1 billion of the Marines’ budget would go toward procurement, as the service focuses on post-Afghanistan missions.
For more than a decade after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Marine Corps was engaged in slogging counterinsurgency warfare. But the last contingent of Marines in Afghanistan withdrew last fall, and other hot spots have grabbed the Pentagon’s attention.
The Marine Corps is in the process of rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific and has been tasked to respond to crises in Africa and the Middle East.
New rotational deployments to Australia are under way, and Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Forces have been set up in Spain and Kuwait to serve as rapid reaction forces in the event of threats to U.S. people and installations overseas.
Last year, Marines were dispatched to evacuate U.S. embassies in Africa and reinforce critical facilities in Iraq. In recent weeks, the Iwo Jima amphibious ready group was stationed off the coast of Yemen as political unrest engulfed the capital of Sanaa.
The budget request would buy the service’s top priority items in the new operating environment, including:
- 9 F-35B Joint Strike Fighters (Marine Corps variant).
- 2 KC-130J Super Hercules aerial refueling aircraft.
- 19 MV-22B Osprey troop transport aircraft.
F-35Bs and MV-22Bs can take off and land vertically like a helicopter but fly faster like a plane. KC-130Js enable Marines to fly long distances without landing.
During a recent visit to the USS America amphibious assault ship, which was designed to carry the F-35B and the MV-22, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told sailors and Marines: “Capabilities represented on this ship [showcase] the amphibious possibilities that our Marines are getting back to after 13 years of long war.”
The Marine Corps has been shrinking as the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan decreased. There are now 184,000 active duty Marines, down from a wartime peak of about 203,000. That number is slated to go down to 182,000. However, the fiscal 2016 budget request would keep end strength at 184,000 for at least another year “to pause the recent drawdown path while assessing the impact of the four-year drawdown on small unit leaders in the face of a continued high operational tempo,” according to budget documents.
Under the budget proposal, Marine Reserve end strength would see a slight decline, from 39,200 to 38,900.
Obama has proposed that military basic pay and civilian pay increase 1.3 percent in fiscal 2016.
harper.jon@stripes.com
Twitter: @JHarperStripes
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