The Marine Corps released its new strategy on Wednesday for the future of its ground units and infantry troops that will heavily incorporate artificial intelligence, but emphasizes that humans will remain in the chain of decision-making. It’s unclear if adversaries will do the same or if it will disadvantage the United States.
The first of five pillars that make up the new Marines’ Ground Combat Element 2040 is called “human-centered warfighting,” and it notes that, “While enabled by advanced technology, this force is fundamentally human-centric, grounded in the willpower, discipline, and adaptability of the individual marine. Technology enhances human judgment but never replaces it.”
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Artificial intelligence allows the military to synthesize intelligence gathered from countless sources in a fraction of the time it would take a human to. Eliminating the human element altogether would further reduce decision-making time, and while the U.S. does not intend to pursue such opportunities, an adversary could gain an advantage over the U.S. if it does not have the same restrictions.
“It’s a landscape that’s defined by rapid technological change and the reemergence, importantly, of peer-level adversaries like China and Russia,” Lieutenant General Jay M. Bargeron, Deputy Commandant for Plans, Policies, and Operations, told reporters on Wednesday. “The future battlefield, and really today’s battlefield, is already characterized by ubiquitous sensing, artificial intelligence, drones, a contested electromagnetic spectrum, and long-range precision fires at echelon, just to name a few. And so, in the future, it’ll be critical that we continue to do as we do today to field a tough, capable, adaptive force that can quickly gain decision advantage and out-cycle our adversaries.”
Bargeron was asked directly if the U.S. could be disadvantaged in a future conflict if an adversary removes human involvement from the kill chain.
“The future is certainly uncertain, and I can’t tell you that there won’t come a time when you know when that might be true. But if I look back at history, every time there’s been a big technological leap, the humans have I guess figured out how to make the best use of that and how to use that technology to gain advantage over, over their adversary, and so I think that as we go forward, that will continue to be the case,” he said. “There will come a time in a conflict I think where the robotics and the fast decision making and all of that capability will fail. It will be denied by some adversary action, as I mentioned before, and so then it will be, what are the humans capable of?”
He acknowledged it would likely provide an adversary “at least a momentary advantage on their part.”
The new strategy has not changed their acquisition objective for Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, of which they hope to have a fleet of 12,500, even as the new variant has faced delays.
On the heels of a visit from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth earlier this week, Oshkosh Defense has committed more than $50 million in private capital to accelerate production of its JLTVs if the Marines choose to give them a contract for more of these vehicles.
Oshkosh had been the Marine Corps sole provider of JLTVs, having produced more than 25,000 of them, but the service ultimately decided in 2023 to give a contract to AM General for the JLTV-A2 variant. House appropriators said in June they’re “seriously concerned” with “significant delays” to the fielding of the JLTV A2. The service released a request for information in May seeking a possible second supplier for JLTVs.
“The Committee remains seriously concerned by significant delays in JLTV A2 production and the resulting delays, specifically in fielding to Marine Expeditionary Units and Marine Littoral Regiments,” the House Appropriations Committee report accompanying the Fiscal 2027 Defense Appropriations Act reads. “Production is more than 20 months behind schedule, with approximately 2,000 vehicles in arrears.”
Oshkosh is offering the Marine Corps the opportunity to purchase more of their JLTVs in the meantime, while they await the JLTV A2 variant. They also preemptively ordered the acquisition of long-lead items, primarily the engines within the vehicles, to reduce the time it would take to produce them if the Marine Corps gives the green light.
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Should the Marines accept the offer and sign a contract, the first delivery would be 10 months later, according to Chief Growth Officer of Oshkosh’s Transport Segment Logan Jones. After that, they would be able to produce 1,200 JLTVs annually.
“We followed up as a part of that [request for information] process just on our own,” Jones told the Washington Examiner. “Nobody asked us to do it, and we provided them with the details of an executable bridge program that allowed the A2 time to catch up its ramp and provide them an insurance program so they don’t have to stop their monetization efforts. And a part of that was we disclosed that we had leaned ahead on material on engines and parts.”
