Marines may have to fight all of America's low-intensity wars

I don't recall any Marines participating in the American Indian Wars and those were definitively all small expeditionary wars. Big Army participated in Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic, and was instrumental in getting Haiti to cave in to U.S. demands without every having to put boots on the ground just to name a few of the more modern banana republics, and they participated in most of the banana wars of the late 19th and early 20th century. Also, all branches of the service instruments of diplomacy for the President.

The author of the article, Gil Barndollar, clearly mistakenly believes that limited and low-intensity conflict equates to expeditionary operations and assumes that just because the Marine Corps' primary mission is expeditionary warfare, that it is the only branch that does it. However, all branches of the military do expeditionary operations, low-intensity warfare, and limited warfare. The Army is actually capable of fielding more forces faster than all of the Marine Expeditionary Units combined for expeditionary type operations, but a large portion of those forces are generally held back as strategic reserves because of that capability.

Marines did not participate in the American indian wars because their primary duty was serving aboard American ships making landings in foreign countries. They are under the Navy Dept. The Marines were formed by an act of congress in 1775 to protect American ships and Sailors from Great Britain and from pirates. The Marine corp can land on any foreign soil to protect American lives and property without declaring an act of war.