This is wrong. There are a number of reasons why MARSOC and the MSOR needed to be made. First of all there is a difference between being a quick reactionary force and being special operations. The primary tasking for MARSOC is Foreign Internal Defense. This is essentially what the special forces do in the army and although the linage of marsoc pulls on units whose job it was to train foreign forces without the additional training and organization of a special operations unit deploying them would always be considered second tier to the Armys Special Forces units. Thats where a big part of the cause for marsocs creation lies. Most of the high profile missions are sanctioned out via SOCOM. Up until MARSOC the marines did not have a representative within this area and were therefore kept out of operations where they could contribute. You may say "well they could always contribute." Sure some of them could but the level of training varies greatly between the different marines within the corps. Some are straight out of Geiger well others have HALO training, advanced CQB and advanced language skills. By establishing MARSOC it establishes a certain level of training that gurantees that all CSOs on a mission will be able to operate successfully within a non-conventional environment. Not only that but the motivation for those that are wanting to contribute is tested to the extent that it is known that they are willing to do missions that will put them down range for months on end and that all that fancy training they receive is not wasted on an unmotivated individual.

The fear that many people have is that this takes away from the uniqueness of the marines in that its a cohesive all formed fighting unit. The fact of the matter is that there are two different wars that are being fought. There are the big conventional nation on nation wars that the marines need to be ready for and in which having a big conventional quick reaction force like the marines is necessary. Then there are the wars that we are seeing today which are non-conventional and usually involve being thrown in with a bunch of locals and having to function with them and bring them to your side so that they can eventually stand up on their own and defend their own country. The lessons we learned from iraq and Afghanistan is that if you try to fight an unconventional war with conventional soldiers is that you will win the fight but loose out on the nation building. Is the best thing to change the corps away from their aggressive nature in order to make them better suited for this type of tasking? No, because the marines as a conventional force are Americas pit bull, if you try to change that you put her at risk. Through developing and deploying MARSOC you are saving the Corps from trying to be everything when it can't as well as providing a special operations ability that puts it on par with the other branches of the military.