The Marine Corps is on the cusp of its most significant restructuring in decades, a process one defense analyst says may forever alter its character.
It's expected to shrink by tens of thousands of troops, reduce its equipment inventory and alter its approach to shore invasions.
“The bottom line is pretty simple —- the Marine Corps has defined itself as the ones who do forcible entry of shorelines, and now it appears that the Pentagon wants to water that down,” said Loren Thompson of the Washington-based Lexington Institute, a libertarian think tank.