Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert Neller confirmed Wednesday a potential bump in the size of the corps by 12,000, as President-elect Donald Trump pledged in the 2016 campaign.

Neller cautioned that the expansion shouldn’t be undertaken too quickly, saying, “We’ve got a very high-quality force. Whenever you try to grow too fast, it’s very difficult to maintain that level of quality and experience.”

“We will build a Marine Corps based on 36 battalions, which the Heritage Foundation notes is the minimum needed to deal with major contingencies – we have 23 now,” Trump declared in a Sept. 7 campaign speech on national security.

Neller cautioned that such an expansion requires significant logistical effort saying, “It’s not just the Marines. I’ve got to find ‘X’ number more battalion commanders; ‘X’ number more sergeants major and company commanders and [operations officers]; let alone buy the gear and build the barracks.” The current National Defense Authorization Act expands the Marine Corps by only 3,000 troops.

Trump made military readiness a key part of his national security message throughout the 2016 campaign. “History shows that when America is not prepared is when the danger is greatest. We want to deter, avoid and prevent conflict through our unquestioned military strength,” Trump said in his September address.

“The increase in end strength gives us flexibility on the bench as well as a depth that we could surge if things really got bad,” Marine Gen. John Paxton (Ret.) told reporters in May. “Ukraine, before Syria, before South China Sea, before WikiLeaks,” he continued.

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