Marines want 31 amphibious ships. The Pentagon disagrees. Now what? (Defense News)

Marines want 31 amphibious ships. The Pentagon disagrees. Now what? – By Megan Eckstein (Defense News) / May 2, 2023

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of Americans trapped in war-torn Sudan last month needed a way out of the country, but the U.S. Marine Corps, the go-to service for such rescues, couldn’t help.

Typically, this kind of mission would be standard for the Navy and Marine Corps’ amphibious ready group and Marine expeditionary unit, made up of 2,300 Marines aboard three ships who are trained to fight their way into and evacuate citizens from dangerous locations.

Instead, as violence surged, the Pentagon relied on drones to monitor a 500-mile escape route from the capital of Khartoum to the Red Sea city of Port Sudan. For the Americans who fled to the coast, the Pentagon sent an auxiliary transport ship to shuttle them to safety in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

It was a complicated and risky self-evacuation.

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