Avoiding growing Chinese striking power has propelled this move:
According to the Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act, details of “alternative locations for basing” in places such as Alaska, Hawaii, the U.S., Japan and Oceania, among others, should be included in any recommendations or revisions to the planned redistribution of American forces across the Indo-Pacific.
The new assessment of the U.S. military’s force posture in the Pacific follows a call for a review of a plan to relocate Marines to Guam made by outgoing-Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert B. Neller during a May Senate hearing.
During that hearing, Neller expressed concerns about the availability of amphibious ships to move Marines to the fight.
Having Marines stranded on dispersed islands unable to get to the fight is certainly a problem; although one different than being vulnerable to Chinese strikes. Dispersing Marines only addresses the vulnerability problem.
I have two suggestions on moving Marines. Either smaller armed amphibious transports as I described in Proceedings (sorry, membership required); or maybe larger modularized auxiliary cruisers as I suggested for AFRICOM in this Military Review article.
