United States Marine Corps
The Marine Corps is the nation’s combined arms force in readiness, a service inside the Department of the Navy built around naval expeditionary forces for forward presence and crisis response. Force Design has been reorienting it away from sustained land campaigns and toward distributed operations inside contested maritime terrain, which drives most of what it is buying now.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Service (within Dept of Navy) |
| Headquarters | The Pentagon, Arlington, VA |
Mission
Combined arms force-in-readiness providing naval expeditionary forces for forward presence and crisis response.
The controlling statutory basis is 10 U.S.C. § 8063, which requires the Marine Corps, within the Department of the Navy, to be organized to include not less than three combat divisions and three air wings, so the Marine Corps is an armed force inside a military department rather than a military department of its own and the Secretary of the Navy under 10 U.S.C. § 8013 is its civilian head, a placement explained at Title_10_Structure.
Key Subordinate Organizations
- I MEF
- II MEF
- III MEF
- MARSOC
- MCWL
- MCCDC
- TECOM