In my country we only have the air force, army, and navy who cover the air, land, and the sea, respectively. What makes the Marines and Coast Guard different?
(Also, why do the Marines have a reputation for being bloodthirsty crayon chewers? Is that what makes them special?)
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Coast guard is a special type of police force. They have ships and helicopters and big-ish guns to be sure to never be overwhelmed, but they are police. They can arrest civilians.
Army and navy cannot arrest civilians, are not allowed to, because the military is for wars not for police duties, this prevents to slip into a dictatorship where the generals can basically arrest whoever they don’t like. As you can’t stop your army by force, you have to stop them by law.
Marines are the soldiers of a navy. Their duties are to protect navy bases, guard the ships, be the military police on a ship (at least it was centuries ago when it all started). Certain navies, like us one, have a marine corp big enough and with enough land/air vehicle to be able to perform full on invasions. The purpose is to keep the chain of command easy. If the navy attacks a place, the navy doesn’t need to coordinate with the army of it has its own army. Generally, once the navy assaults the coast and takes control of harbors, then the army can step in without much complication, safely land its own troops and vehicles, and take over the fighting tasks. This really saves lives. When you do an action with navy plus army there is a gigantic risk of miscommunication, friendly fire, and inefficient support between troops and ships. By having a single entity running the thing you guarantee the smoothest possible operation.
Extreme examples of marines are the CCCP marines in ww2. The country had virtually no navy, still, they created a marine corp to be the troops for the few ships they operate. So, whatever task required some boats and some soldier, it would be all led by the navy to prevent confusion, using navy ships and navy troops. I say extreme example because the navy was disproportionately fighting land battles over sea battles.
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