The US Navy and Marine Corps’ push to expand the amphibious fleet has reignited a fundamental strategic dilemma: whether big-deck amphibious assault ships remain indispensable power-projection assets or high-value liabilities in an era of precision strike.
This month, The War Zone (TWZ) reported that US Navy and Marine Corps leadership has agreed the military needs 40 amphibious warfare vessels — up from the statutory fleet floor of 31 mandated by the US Congress—to reliably maintain three persistently deployed Marine Expeditionary Units (MEU) worldwide, a senior Marine modernization official said.
In a joint review conducted by the Amphibious Force Readiness Board, the services determined that sustaining a continuous 3.0 Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and MEU presence requires 13 large-deck amphibious assault ships and 27 amphibious transport docks.
The requirement marks a notable strategic pivot from former Commandant General David Berger’s Force Design 2030, which explicitly favored smaller, dispersed, and more survivable vessels over concentrated, large-deck assault ships.
US Marine Corps officials plan to reach the 40-ship target through a mix of new construction, including existing multi-ship procurement contracts with shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries, and selective service-life extensions for older amphibious hulls.
However, the expansion proposal faces severe fiscal and legislative headwinds in the US Congress after midterm elections returned Democratic control to both chambers, where incoming House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith signaled plans to scrutinize defense spending above US$1 trillion.
Compounding the legislative challenge, the existing amphibious fleet has a 47% combat surge readiness rate, driven by chronic shipyard maintenance delays, extended operational deployments, and mounting sustainment costs from US military operations against Iran.
This push to acquire additional amphibious assault ships highlights an acute debate between sustaining forward power projection and expeditionary warfare capabilities on one side, and adapting force structure to the evolving nature of maritime warfare on the other.
In a June 2026 Atlantic Council article, Caleb Eames and Amy Cowley stress the importance of amphibious assault ships for the US Navy, noting that more such ships are needed to sustain forward deterrence, respond to international crises within hours, and bridge critical gaps in aircraft carrier coverage.
Eames and Cowley say that embarked Marine Expeditionary Units provide flexible, multidomain capabilities — launching amphibious assaults, seizing terrain, and executing vertical envelopment with F-35B stealth fighters — while sustaining self-sufficient operations ashore for 30 days.
They add that meeting strategic commitments, including concurrent operational demands across the Middle East and the Western Pacific, hinges on maintaining three deployed amphibious ready groups continuously at sea to present adversaries with complex, simultaneous dilemmas in vital littorals.
However, increasing the number of US large amphibious assault ships may conflict with the operational reality of contemporary maritime conflict.
Hew Strachan argues in a July 2024 article for the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) journal that large-scale amphibious assaults aimed at seizing permanent footholds are virtually obsolete in modern conflict due to lethal anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) networks.
Strachan states that advanced sensors, guided missiles, and drones eliminate the operational surprise and sea control that massive Normandy-style invasions require. Consequently, he argues that amphibious forces have shifted from mass concentration to raiding, dispersion, and sabotage.
He points out that rather than deploying massed armadas off hostile shores, modern marines operate as agile, light stand-in forces designed to secure small littoral outposts, execute vertical envelopment, and enable long-range maritime strikes without relying on conventional beach landings.
However, large amphibious assault ships may still play a role within a hybrid fleet structure consisting of manned and unmanned assets. Brian Kerg argues in a July 2026 War on the Rocks article that in future amphibious assaults, traditional large amphibious warfare ships will be phased out of the perilous opening assault phase in favor of cheaper, uncrewed landing craft.
Kerg points out that as precision strike capabilities turn large, expensive vessels into lucrative targets whose destruction could imperil entire campaigns, navies must adapt by deploying robotic landing craft to establish initial beachheads.
He says that in this transformed doctrine, conventional amphibious ships and their embarked human formations are held back from the vulnerable first wave, instead serving in follow-on roles to reinforce, sustain, and exploit lodgments secured by robotic systems.
Another debate surrounding the utility of amphibious assault ships in contemporary power projection and expeditionary operations is whether they can supplement traditional carriers in those roles.
In line with that, the lightning carrier concept transforms big-deck amphibious assault ships into light aircraft carriers by embarking up to 20 F-35B short takeoff and vertical landing stealth fighters.
Capitalizing on aviation-optimized America-class amphibious assault ships — which forgo floodable well decks for expanded hangar, fuel, and munitions capacity — the design allows two full fighter squadrons to deploy together.
Rather than replacing nuclear supercarriers, the platform acts as an agile supplement across the vast Pacific, delivering high-end multidomain strike, intelligence collection, and electronic warfare to contested airspace without relying on dedicated carrier escort wings.
These ships could alleviate a possible US carrier shortage in the Pacific. The US Department of Defense (DoD) 2025 China Military Power Report (CMPR) notes that China may have up to nine carriers in the Pacific by 2035, which could leave the US outnumbered. While the US Navy is mandated to maintain a minimum of 11 carriers, global deployments and maintenance requirements reduce their availability.
The US Navy has three or four carriers deployed at any given time; at the same time, a third of the fleet is undergoing training and held in reserve, while another third is undergoing deep maintenance. Even if the US Navy deploys its carriers in a 60/40 Pacific-Atlantic split, it may have only six or seven carriers in the Pacific at any given time.
However, Talbot Manvel argues in a July 2023 Proceedings article that lightning carriers face severe design, survivability, and sustainment constraints. Manvel says the America-class amphibious assault ships meet Level II survivability standards, not the Level III standard required of carriers. He adds that their open, unarmored internal layouts lack blast shielding and fire curtains, leaving them vulnerable to catastrophic fires.
He also notes that their 45,000-ton hulls restrict flight operations to below 50 percent availability in rough seas like the South China Sea. He adds that their small ordnance magazines, designed for short-term Marine support, quickly exhaust munitions when fielding 20 F-35B stealth fighters, requiring risky, disruptive underway vertical replenishments.
But even with those constraints, lightning carriers could be deployed in permissive environments against irregular or non-peer adversaries, freeing carriers for operations against near-peer adversaries like China.
Ultimately, the amphibious fleet’s future viability will depend on whether naval strategists can move beyond legacy platform-count metrics in the US Congress and instead pioneer integrated, distributed battle networks that redefine how these versatile hulls survive and create dilemmas in twenty-first-century contested waters.
