When I saw recruitment ads as a kid for the US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, I was a bit puzzled. What exactly were Marines? Why would the Navy have its own army?
James C. Bennett’s The Anglosphere Challenge explains that, under our British-inspired system, the army only gets called up in times of war. The navy — including its small corps of marines — might get called on for a show of force at any time.
(By that reasoning, a force like America’s Strategic Air Command, would be, in some sense, naval — ever ready to intervene anywhere in the world — but America’s strategic bombers had always been part of the land-based army, like tanks and artillery, so the new non-Army Air Force became independent — and protective of its turf.)
The Marines never wanted to be an army auxiliary, so they may shrink back down and re-focus on amphibious operations:
Over the years, the marines have acquired more and more autonomy from the navy. When the U.S. Marine Corps was created, over two centuries ago, marines were sailors trained and equipped to fight as infantry, and they were very much part of the navy, and part of ship crews. This changed radically in the late 19th century, when all-metal steam ships replaced wooden sailing ships. The new “iron ships” really didn’t need marines, and there were proposals to eliminate them.
In response, the American marines got organized and made themselves useful in other ways. For example, the marines performed very well as “State Department Troops” in Latin America for half a century (late 19th century to just before World War II), where American troops were frequently used to deal with civil disorder abroad, and nation building. During World War I (1914-18), they provided a brigade for ground combat in Europe, where they demonstrated exceptional combat skills.
During the 1930s, as World War II approached, the U.S. Marine Corps really ran with the ball when the navy realized they would have to use amphibious assaults to take heavily fortified Japanese islands in any future war. Thus, once the U.S. entered World War II, the marines formed their first division size units, and ended the war with six divisions, organized into two corps.
The Marine Corps was no longer just a minor part of the navy, but on its way to being a fourth service. Over the next half century, it basically achieved that goal. But in doing that, the navy lost control of its ground troops. Navy amphibious ships still went to sea, with battalions of marines on board. But because the marines are mainly an infantry force, and the war on terror is basically an infantry scale battle, the marines spent a lot more time working alongside the U.S. Army.
Thus, over the last five years, the new U.S. Navy has built a new ground combat force, staffed by 40,000 sailors. This is NECC (Navy Expeditionary Combat Command), which is capable of operating along the coast and up rivers, as well as further inland. NECC units have served in Iraq, and are ready to deploy anywhere else they are needed. The 1,200 sailors in the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) teams are particularly sought after, because of increased use of roadside bombs and booby traps by the enemy. NECC has also organized three Riverine Squadrons, and these served in Iraq. NECC basically consists of most of the combat support units the navy has traditionally put ashore, plus some coastal and river patrol units that have usually only been organized in wartime.
This new navy organization, and the strategy goes with it, still comes as a surprise to many people, especially many of those in Congress who were asked to pay for it.
This reminds me of the Navy SEALs — who seem like they should belong to a specialized unit within the Marine Corps. Instead we get the US Marine Corps Special Operations Command (MARSOC), which was created a few years ago:
In that time, it has sent some of its 2,400 personnel on over thirty deployments (in South America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Southeast Asia). MARSOC is organized into a headquarters, a two battalion Special Operations Regiment, a Foreign Military Training Unit, and a Marine Special Operations Support Group. There are 3-4 Special Operations companies in each battalion. The marines basically lost two of their four Force Recon companies (one of them a reserve unit) in order to build MARSOC. Meanwhile, more troops have been added to division level reconnaissance units, to take up some of that slack.
The Special Operations companies (with about 120 personnel each) can provide Force Recon capabilities to marine units they are attached to. The two Special Operations Battalions provide a combination of services roughly equal to what the U.S. Army Special Forces and Rangers do, as well as some of the functions of the Force Recon units. Eventually, there are to be nine companies in the two Special Operations Battalion.
All the other services, except the marines, contributed to the formation of SOCOM (Special Operations Command) in the late 1980s. The marines finally got around to working with SOCOM in 2005, when it was agreed that they would create a marine special operations command (MARSOC). The Marine Corps had long resisted such a step, largely because of its belief that marines are inherently superior warriors, capable of highly specialized missions.