Want to win from the water? Add a fourth ship to deploying amphibious ready groups and double the number of strike fighter aircraft aboard.

The Marine Corps prides itself on being able to project power from sea to shore. But its land vehicles are just too heavy for its key airborne ship-to-shore connector, the MV-22 Osprey to carry. In a report released yesterday by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, authors Bryan Clark and Jesse Sloman say increased protection requirements are making new vehicles even heavier than the old ones they’re replacing.

Marines are famously aggressive, but a new battle plan from a leading thinktank makes Iwo Jima look low-risk. The Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments’ proposed concept of operations is imaginative, exciting and more than a little scary.

Last month, Houthi rebels in Yemen twice fired anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) at the guided-missile destroyer USS Mason, forcing the ship to take defensive measures. In September, the same rebel group attacked a former U.S. high-speed vessel, burning it to the waterline. 

The fleet could be grown to the size advocated by Trump, or at least close to it, by the 2030s, said Bryan Clark, a former senior aide to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert and an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

National security and defense issues did not play prominently in the campaign, and when they did the discussion was largely thematic: strong or weak on defense, leading or following against Islamic terrorism, etc.