why did the U.S. Marines (an amphibious force) fight in Afghanistan (a landlocked country)?
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I think to specifically answer the question about Afghanistan, I’d say rapid deployment to follow the approved troop surge in Afghanistan with a job of creating space and a foothold for future operations.
I was in an Amphibious Assault Vehicle company that switched gears hard to deploy to Afghanistan in 2009 (not using any amphibious training). We hiked a ton and practiced a lot of helo insertions. On the initial deployment, I was part of operation Khanjar which was a large multi-battalion/joint-forces helo insertion into taliban controlled zones and secured/setup small forward operating bases in completely non-military occupied lands. These small bases started from nothing and slowly became mini bases that created a large “connect the dots” supply lines along the roads of the Helmand river. Later on, we’d have supply convoys from different branches including British forces using the roads and each base was a checkpoint of sorts that kept the roads secured.
TLDR: Afghanistan needed a flash mob to setup operations further in Taliban controlled areas. The USMC is like a group of people waiting to flash mob when they are told to.
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