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The Dept of Defense has three Executive Departments: Army, Navy, Air Force. The Marine Corps, a distinct branch of the military forces, comes under the executiv
by gregjor 2y ago
The Dept of Defense has three Executive Departments: Army, Navy, Air Force. The Marine Corps, a distinct branch of the military forces, comes under the executive direction of the Dept. of the Navy. The Coast Guard got moved to Dept. of Homeland Security in 2002, but can transfer to the Dept. of the Navy during times of war.
The Space Force does not have armed forces (yet). Nor do NOAA or the Public Health Service, the other uniformed services under Federal control. I didn't list them because they would probably not get deployed with weapons against American civilians.
The Joint Chiefs Of Staff consists of the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and National Guard. The Coast Guard (since 2002) comes under DHS, which sits on the National Security Council with the Joint Chiefs, but is not administered by the Joint Chiefs/Pentagon except in times of war. So the word "military" in reference to US Federal armed forces can mean several different things.
The FBI and ATF fall under the Dept. of Justice, not technically a military force, but as we saw at Waco (to give the most well-known and large-scale example), the FBI and ATF both have quite a bit of firepower at their disposal and do get deployed against American civilians.
The OP asked about deploying the military but did not define what they meant -- the core armed military forces commanded from the Pentagon (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps)? National Guard? Any other armed Federal forces such as the FBI, ATF, and USCIS? National Park Service officers? Local police agencies commandeered in a crisis as happened Jan 6? I did not attempt to read the OP's mind. I think I clearly expanded on that and offered both a limited definition (the four armed forces that have a named department in the DoD) and the broader list of armed agencies under Federal control, the biggest of which is DHS, which includes the Coast Guard and USCIS, both uniformed and armed forces that may or may not qualify as "military" depending on one's understanding of that term.
You could simply ask what I meant without engaging in ad hominem attacks, calling my comment drivel, or insinuating that I "intentionally denigrated" the Coast Guard when I did no such thing. You could interpret the distinction I made with the Coast Guard as pedantry, irrelevant, disrespectful, or maybe infer than I have some experience with the Coast Guard and wanted to clearly place them in the structure of the US Armed Forces, colloquially called "the military," although the Coast Guard does not define itself as a military force except in times of war. You can refer to the official US Coast Guard web site's About page for their own definition, which places the Coast Guard in the US Armed Forces, but as a protective and rescue service, not a military force that gets deployed against other nations, or US civilians.
Since you attacked me personally I will mention that in my own family I have serving and retired members of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard. That includes parents, grandparents, siblings, and one of my own children.