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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Navy and Marines are wet soldiers. They fight and surveil and generally do war stuff. Coasties are wet cops. They chase smugglers, they help Fish and Wildlife enforce poaching laws, they enforce maritime traffic law in harbors, and they do search and rescue when people get in trouble at sea (or the Great Lakes!)
Let’s say that two ships are coming into the same port and they run into each other and start sinking, and there’s Navy and Coastie ships in range to rescue people. The Navy can participate in rescuing people, but only the Coasties can decide which ship was at fault and fine or arrest the helmsman.
Sailing has a strong culture of civilian search and rescue because the ocean (or the Great Lakes!) kills people too fast to wait for the pros, so the Coasties end up interacting with civilian vessels a lot in the course of coordinating search and rescue. They’re basically allowed to boss you around in a situation like the shipwreck example above.
…Tldr: The Coast Guard fights a war against idiots in boats.
Coast Guard is water Police. It’s like asking why the Police force exists when we have the Army. We also have border police officers, and army units at the border as well. So there can be some overlap in duties between army and police; and navy and coast guard.
Arrest drug smugglers, rescue stranded civilians, etc. they combine a maritime police and emergency service as well as an armed response unit.
USCG is actively involved in law enforcement including environmental enforcement, regulatory compliance of civilian vessels, the installation, maintenance and repair of aids to navigation and other waterway structures, search and rescue…
“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.
IIRC the coast guard was founded to help protect against piracy. When the U.S. was founded, there was an enormous problem with piracy off her coast and the country was faced with a dilemma: pay off the pirates (which would only mean they’d come back later demanding more money) or fight them.
I could be wrong about this, but I think the chief difference now is that the Navy/Marines are a global force (including ensuring that neutral waters stay neutral), while the Coast Guard is confined to U.S. territorial waters (which includes things like drug interdiction, smuggling, rescues).
A Coast Guard separate from the Navy is not unique to the US. Coast Guard agencies usually have their mandate as maritime law enforcement within the country’s territorial waters. The Navy is responsible for larger scale matters involving other countries.
I was in the Coast Guard and in my time I was first a deckhand on a polar icebreaker that went to the north and south poles and then I was an MST who flew all over the place in Alaska responding to oil spills. The Navy does not do these things.
All of these answers are correct but missing the mark on explaining the “why” just a little bit.
The short answer to your question is the Coast Guard fulfills a law enforcement role and the US military cannot do that due to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
Different sections of law define the US Military and the Coast Guard.
Title 10 outlines the US Military, the structure, missions areas, and what the military can generally do. It is a long and complicated section of law but it does cover what you would expect including some things that you probably wouldn’t expect but makes sense in retrospect…like being able to station the military abroad in a permanent presence. When it comes to things domestically, generally speaking the laws are written so that the US military can support Civil Authorities, but not enforce the laws on behalf of Civil Authorities. So this is why the US military can support the war on drugs with surveillance, transport, training, etc, but not actually carry out the law enforcement activities. The one exception written in law is for when there is an insurrection. Then the federal government may Federalize state militia (National Guard primarily) to enforce federal laws. That is a very broad brush and over simplification but worth understanding. Adjacent law to this is Title 32 which covers the National Guard.
Title 14 Outlines the US Coast Guard. Written into that law are a couple of primary missions that the US Military do not have because of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
1. enforce or assist in the enforcement of all applicable Federal laws on, under, and over the high seas and waters subject to the jurisdiction of the United States;
2. engage in maritime air surveillance or interdiction to enforce or assist in the enforcement of the laws of the United States;
3. administer laws and promulgate and enforce regulations for the promotion of safety of life and property on and under the high seas and waters subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, covering all matters not specifically delegated by law to some other executive department;
Now the fun part. There is a very narrow overlap of Title 10 and the Coast Guard particularly when the Coast Guard is operating as a service in the Navy. This will primarily be the protection of the homeland, and not the enforcement of laws. So the Coast Guard can be used under some title 10 authority for title 10 purposes. It allows some strange things like Coast Guard personnel being used in Navy billets for the Global War on Terror. Saw a number of coasties spend time, typically on Joint Task Force HQ staffs filling multiple roles. Not super common but it did happen.
So the direct answer to your question is….. enforce federal laws.
They allow the US to comply with the posse comitatus act. The military is forbidden from operating within the US.
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