Increase ARG/MEU Capacity

The challenge is to increase the ability to respond to crisis given that the Department of Defense's incoming era of fiscal austerity means that the number ol amphibious ships, specifically big-deck LHDs (the platform that forms the nucleus of an ARG/MEU) will remain static and that the Navy and Marine Corps will be unable to grow manpower post-Afghanistan. Crisis response harkens the Marine Corps back to the turn of the 20th century when, due to numerous overseas interventions, Marines were known as the State Departments troops, and also back to the role the Marine "fire brigade'' played in the early stages of the Korean War.