I’m not from the US and have no military experience either. So the US has apparently 3 maritime branches in the uniformed services and the Coast Guard is, well guarding the coasts of the US. And the other branches can’t do that?
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“Can’t do that” is the wrong way to think about it. Yeah, there’s no real firm reason why the Navy couldn’t do everything the Coast Guard does.
There’s also no real reason the Air Force *couldn’t* take over everything the Navy+Coast Guard do. And no real reason the Army couldn’t take over everything the USAF+Navy+Coast Guard do. And, at the end, there’s no real reason why the National Park Service couldn’t take over all the responsibilities of the federal government if we really wanted it to. It would probably not be very good at most of those things, but we could do it.
What you’re really asking is “Why do we have different agencies for things instead of the Department of Every Goddam Thing Under the Sun?” And a big answer is that agencies have cultures and biases based on what they do. We could absolutely give the Coast Guard to the Navy, and then it would be just more Navy. It would do Navy things the Navy way and would let the other things the Coast Guard does slide because those things aren’t how you move your career ahead in the Navy.
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