Tip of the spear, or stranded on beaches? Chinese planners dissect USMC Pacific posture

The U.S. Navy has taken some heat recently for focusing too heavily on the Middle East and neglecting the Asia-Pacific. The same cannot be said of the U.S. Marine Corps , which unveiled a new strategy in 2019 relying on dispersed groups of Marines to wield drones and anti-ship missiles in archipelagic warfare in order to unhinge Chinese maritime expansion. As the Marines are developing new capabilities at the pointy end of the American spear, so to speak, it’s not surprising that USMC strategy is attracting lots of attention from Chinese defense experts. This article summarizes several recent Chinese-language assessments.

The close attention that Beijing is paying to the new USMC strategy became clear about a year ago when the Global Times [环球时报] published an unusual editorial decrying Washington’s new determination to deploy anti-ship missiles proximate to China. Arguing that the new American strategy aims to correct a U.S. Navy prioritization for “open ocean control” rather than “close-quarters engagement in confined waters,” this article concludes that Washington’s effort to “control maritime chokepoints [aims to] curtail the freedom of rivals to operate at sea … [and] introduces new risks … .”

A much more detailed study of the new USMC strategy appeared in early 2025 in the naval magazine Modern Ships [现代舰船]. This Chinese assessment noted with considerable alarm that the USMC was experimenting with unmanned surface vessels capable of firing the stealthy LRASM anti-ship cruise missile and that these units could alternatively serve as forward scouts, fixing targets for long-range U.S. military fires. Still, this analysis underlines some weaknesses of the USMC strategy, including the range limitations of related sensors and drones, and even characterized the air-defense capabilities of the USMC as “precarious.” Another study in this same magazine had earlier drawn attention to the logistics quandaries raised by the new strategy.

A 2026 Chinese analysis in another Chinese navy-affiliated magazine, Shipborne Weapons [舰载武器], offers a sharper critique of the Marines’ new approach, noting that the creation of the Marine Littoral Regiments (MLR) “actually represents campaign preparation by the USMC to militarily intervene in China’s unification.” At the outset, this study notes that many American think tanks raised doubts about the strategy, suggesting that forward bases without sea and air control could prove “untenable.”

There is a recognition in this analysis that the new mobile missile launchers that are being deployed by the USMC are small, light, and thus “not easily discovered by … surveillance.” In the end, this study concludes that the USMC strategy is vulnerable because the “U.S has no way to quickly establish air superiority. This could take weeks or months and would entail massive losses.”

Among the most remarkable pieces written by Chinese experts on the new USMC direction is one that was published in translation recently by the China institute at U.S. Naval War College (NWC). That translation deserves extra attention due to the fact that it was written by senior active-duty Chinese Navy officers and also because it was published originally in a sensitive internal circulation Chinese military journal too.

Though this piece does not touch directly on the sensitive Taiwan issue, and it also explicitly notes the USMC strategy aims at deterrence of Beijing, it nevertheless explains that the new USMC deployments amount to “continuous penetration and encroachment into our near seas” and argues that China must “establish effective countermeasures.” Notably, this high-level rendering links the USMC strategy to China’s improving submarine force in significant detail, observing that forward deployed Marine forces could deploy “hydro-acoustic arrays and other assets to establish barrier zones and monitoring areas to track Chinese submarine operations.” Similar arguments are made that U.S. deployments could degrade Chinese air defenses by employing drone swarms “to overwhelm our radar tracking capacity.”

The Chinese Navy authors caution against applying resource-intensive assets to defeat such American asymmetric tactics. However, the conclusion of the article is rather disturbing since it argues that China must counter this posture by deploying a Chinese “proactive offensive posture, aggressively expand[ing] our operational reach, [and] project[ing] forces forward.” Elaborating, they counsel: “We must maintain and normalize forward-deployed forces, extend[ing] undersea combat capabilities as far forward as feasible.”

This conclusion and other aspects of these Chinese-language analyses raise some rather uncomfortable questions for U.S. defense planners. The final translation done by NWC strongly hints that the Chinese Navy may be adopting a more aggressive approach as a direct reaction to the forward lean in American strategy. This seems to be a very clear manifestation of the so-called ‘security dilemma,’ wherein two powers’ defensive measures develop into a dangerous escalatory spiral. Moreover, there is a clear recognition by Chinese strategists that forward USMC elements could be vulnerable due to logistics challenges and lack of proper air and missile defenses. It would not be the first time that the USMC was deployed haphazardly in East Asia at the cost of many American lives.

Understanding these dynamics, American leaders should recalibrate and opt to rely less on forward defense. Alternatively, the USMC should aim to embrace the strategic depth of the Pacific and its myriad island archipelagos (e.g. the Philippines) in a less costly, less risky, more sustainable, and clearly defensive strategy.

Lyle Goldstein is director of the China Initiative at Brown University’s Watson School and concurrently serves as director of the Asia Program at the think-tank Defense Priorities.

美国海军近期因过度关注中东而忽视亚太地区而饱受诟病。但美国海军陆战队的情况则截然不同。2019年，海军陆战队公布了一项新战略，该战略依靠分散部署的陆战队部队，在群岛作战中运用无人机和反舰导弹，以遏制中国的海上扩张。可以说，海军陆战队正在美国军事力量的最前端发展新的能力，因此，其战略吸引中国国防专家的广泛关注也就不足为奇了。本文总结了近期几篇中文评估报告。

大约一年前，《环球时报》发表了一篇不同寻常的社论，谴责华盛顿决心在中国附近部署反舰导弹，这凸显了北京对美国海军陆战队新战略的密切关注。该社论认为，美国的新战略旨在纠正美国海军以往优先考虑“远洋控制”而非“近距离水域作战”的做法，并得出结论：华盛顿控制海上咽喉要道的举措“旨在限制竞争对手的海上行动自由……并带来新的风险……”。

2025年初，海军杂志《现代舰船》发表了一篇更为详尽的关于美国海军陆战队新战略的研究报告。这份中国评估报告颇为担忧地指出，美国海军陆战队正在试验能够发射隐形LRASM反舰巡航导弹的无人水面舰艇，这些舰艇还可以作为前沿侦察舰，为美军远程火力提供目标指示。然而，该分析也强调了美国海军陆战队战略的一些弱点，包括相关传感器和无人机的射程限制，甚至将美国海军陆战队的防空能力描述为“岌岌可危”。此前，该杂志的另一篇研究报告也曾指出新战略带来的后勤难题。

2026年，另一份中国海军相关杂志《舰载武器》刊登了一篇中国分析文章，对海军陆战队的新策略提出了更为尖锐的批评。该文章指出，海军陆战队近海团（MLR）的组建“实际上是美国海军陆战队为军事干预中国统一而进行的行动准备”。文章开篇便指出，许多美国智库对这一战略提出了质疑，认为缺乏海空控制的前沿基地可能“难以为继”。

分析指出，美国海军陆战队部署的新型移动导弹发射器体积小、重量轻，因此“不易被……监视发现”。最终，该研究得出结论，美国海军陆战队的战略存在漏洞，因为“美国没有办法迅速取得空中优势。这可能需要数周甚至数月的时间，并且会造成巨大损失。”

中国专家撰写的关于美国海军陆战队新方向的文章中，最引人注目的一篇是近期由美国海军战争学院中国研究所翻译发表的。这篇译文尤其值得关注，因为它出自中国海军现役高级军官之手，而且最初发表于一份对中国军事界极为敏感的内部刊物上。

尽管这篇文章并未直接涉及敏感的台湾问题，并且明确指出美国海军陆战队的战略旨在威慑北京，但它仍然解释说，美国海军陆战队的最新部署相当于“持续渗透和侵占我们的近海”，并认为中国必须“建立有效的反制措施”。值得注意的是，这篇高层次分析详细地将美国海军陆战队的战略与中国不断增强的潜艇力量联系起来，指出前沿部署的海军陆战队可以部署“水声阵列和其他装备，以建立屏障区和监测区域，追踪中国潜艇的行动”。文章还提出了类似的论点，即美国的部署可以通过使用无人机群“压制我们的雷达跟踪能力”，从而削弱中国的防空能力。

中国海军的作者警告说，不应动用资源密集型力量来对抗美国这种非对称战术。然而，文章的结论却令人不安，因为它认为中国必须通过部署“积极主动的进攻态势，大力拓展作战范围，并将兵力向前投送”来应对这种局面。他们进一步阐述道：“我们必须维持并规范前沿部署兵力，尽可能地将水下作战能力向前延伸。”

这一结论以及这些中文分析的其他方面，给美国国防规划者带来了一些相当棘手的问题。美国海军战争中心（NWC）的最终译文强烈暗示，中国海军可能正在采取更为激进的策略，以直接回应美国战略的向前推进。这似乎非常清晰地体现了所谓的“安全困境”，即两个大国的防御措施演变成危险的升级螺旋。此外，中国战略家们也清楚地认识到，由于后勤挑战以及缺乏有效的防空和导弹防御系统，美国海军陆战队的前沿部署可能十分脆弱。这并非美国海军陆战队首次在东亚仓促部署，并为此付出大量美军士兵的生命代价。

了解这些动态后，美国领导人应该重新调整战略，减少对前沿防御的依赖。或者，美国海军陆战队应该寻求利用太平洋及其众多岛屿群（例如菲律宾）的战略纵深，采取成本更低、风险更小、更可持续且更明确的防御战略。

莱尔·戈德斯坦是布朗大学沃森公共政策学院中国倡议项目的负责人，同时也是智库“国防优先事项”亚洲项目的负责人。