U.S. Military Prepares for Its Largest Mobilization Drills in Decades: A Marine Reserve Standoff

Marine Corps reservists spanning various units within the command might experience heightened focus on skill mastery and preparedness as the Marine Corps Reserve Command gears up for extensive mobilization drills scheduled to start in the coming year.

Speaking at the Modern Day Marine At an exposition held in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Lieutenant Colonel Doug Toulette, who serves as a reserve operations planner, stated that these drills—the first of this magnitude in several decades—will commence at the earliest by the third quarter of fiscal year 2026. The exercises aim to test how effectively the Marine Corps can deploy its chosen reserve unit should there be significant military action requiring such involvement.

Toulotte pointed out that the most recent comprehensive reserve mobilization strategy for the entire Department of Defense was finalized in 1988, while the latest analysis on reserve mobilization dates back to 1947. This leaves both the Department of Defense and individual branches uncertain regarding the practicalities of incorporating large numbers of reservists into regular service roles. Additionally, they remain unclear about how these active-duty units will manage receiving, training, and integrating such personnel effectively.

In comparison to the beginning of the Korean War in 1950, which served as a model success story for large-scale mobilization according to Toulette’s case study, today's Marine Corps consists of roughly 250,000 members across both reserves and active duty roles—slightly more than the approximate 204,000 personnel at that time. However, the current Marine Reserves include only eight infantry battalions, down from 26 during the war period, and possess just one fighter squadron instead of the previous count of 30 squadrons.

To provide this perspective within the framework of Reserve component members learning to operate advanced equipment, the active component will possess the F-35 for 17 years prior to the arrival of the first unit in the Reserve component," Toulotte stated. "Therefore, should we decide now to make such a transition as was done back in 1950, our capability to smoothly incorporate the Reserve component swiftly could potentially face significant challenges in crucial sectors due to the necessity of setting aside dedicated periods exclusively for their training which might disrupt the overall deployment schedule.

Even though smaller-scale mobilization drills have occurred more recently, and the Individual Ready Reserve conducts regular check-ins to assess readiness, Toulette stated that nothing in recent history matches the scale of the exercises currently being planned by the Marine Corps Reserve Command.

“I believe this might be the first occasion since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2003 that we have consciously examined how to expedite the responsiveness of the Reserve component when facing an adversary threat,” he stated to Marine Corps Times.

The specifics of the drills are currently under development; Toulotte mentioned that the initial exercise is expected to be modest in scale. However, these tests aim to assess how swiftly various units can come together along with all the necessary combat equipment required for deployment scenarios.

In comparison to past practices where Reserve component activations for deployments were often scheduled years ahead of time, "these exercises will assess our capability to rapidly assemble those units," he stated.

Personnel alone isn’t enough; often during the past 20 to 25 years, we simply dispatched our staff who then joined the equipment already deployed ahead. This approach may not work anymore. Instead, we’re focusing on figuring out how to transport everyone along with their gear efficiently and move them where the active unit instructs us to go.

Toulotte mentioned that the Marine Reserve is aiming to incorporate the capability to activate as part of readiness assessment within the overall Defense Readiness Reporting System used across the military.

Over a span of 12 years, scarcely anyone has shown interest in the Marine Corps' career break program.

Marines from the Selected Reserve component can anticipate their drill days being more concentrated on training for deployment preparedness and enhancing job skills, according to Toulette.

“How can we exit through the door with maximum speed? This could substantially alter yearly training schedules and focus areas within units,” he stated. “This might bring a new sense of relief for Reservist Marines since it will refocus them on the core combat skills related to their military occupation specialty and unit.”

Toulotte emphasized that the whole Defense Department should conduct comparable readiness assessments to guarantee that activating large numbers of Reserves during emergencies would be effective.

These are individual efforts, but we should consider them as part of a combined approach," Toulette stated. "Without doing so, if we get involved in prolonged, straightforward combat against an adversary making rapid progress toward their goals, our troop deployments could face delays and might fail to stop them from achieving these aims.