Optimizing the Marine Corps for small wars

[William F. Owen]

“Paramount among these demands will be the requirement for Marines to train and mentor the security forces of partner nations in a manner that empowers their governments to secure their own countries,” he said.

Why would that be a Marine mission? It doesn't have anything to do with what Marines do. OK, they may have done it in the past, but isn't the army far better resourced to handle this?

Based on threat assessments projected through 2015, Marines face a spectrum of operations, the report said: stability and support; small wars and counterinsurgency; humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and nation-building; peacekeeping operations; combating terrorism; counterproliferation and nonproliferation; combating drug trafficking and crime; and non-combatant evacuation operations.

So if this was a threat assessment, why are they talking about "types" or "styles" of operation and not talking about the threats? I understand the article is written for folks with no military understanding, but this must be dumbing the idea down to it's bare bones.