why did the U.S. Marines (an amphibious force) fight in Afghanistan (a landlocked country)?
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Essentially the USMC are intended to be a rapidly deployable “strike” force that can take a wide variety of objective types. They can operate completely on their own (they have their own Cavalry* (attack helos) that can keep pace with a quick moving ground force, boats, and their own mini Air Force to ensure they have their own air support that doesn’t need to be borrowed from another service branch.
The catch…..they can do this, but only for a limited time. Think 30-90 days before they run out of supplies and will begin to need external support (calm down crayon eaters, this is ELI5).
The difference ….. the Army is intended to be a long hold massive war type force that plans to stay around a long time.
Why the USMC in Afghanistan? They’re that good, and they were available – so why not. Jokes aside, I’m guessing that once they showed up, there was a constant need for them to stick around and do what they do. In hindsight, that thater was such a quagmire they never would’ve run out of stuff to do.
TLDR: They specialize in a wide variety of geographical and operational environments. They have much more flexibility in how they operate by design.
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