Orbital weapons should only really be used as a final solution for several reasons. Irreversible environmental damage, friendly fire, innocent bystanders vaporized etc. If I where president of the UFP I'd be dusting off old earth/terran empire ground tactics, barbaric but effective.

That highlighted bit.

"Federation News: Special Report - 212 Dartarian school children and teachers were killed today when the Federation Starship U.S.S. nOObSlayer fired on the building from orbit. Their Intelligence gathering had suggested that enemy forces were occuping the structure to launch attacks on war relief and aid station. Security forces took control of the site after the bombardment. No enemy casualties were found in the rubble."

That bit is why Air Superiority has only worked in warfare do to a dedicated ground element to make it work. Wars/Skirmishes/Peace Keeping that has been conducted extensively by air sureriority, hasn't worked. Strategies were changed to implement dedicated ground force.

Special operations groups augmented with air superiority, haven't worked. They needed more dedicated ground forces.

This is why wartime tactics have been written to revolve around ground forces, more specifically, the Infantry. Everything is there to support them in war.

You know the actual definition of a marine is a member of a body of soldiers who is trained to serve on both land and sea. So technicaly every person in starfleet is a marine.

That said i dont see why theer wouldnt be specialized general infintry traind in advanced ground combat techniques as well as general medical and engineering knowlage. Such troops would be deployable for relief, aid, and support duties as well as combat.

Actually starfleet officers are closest to naval officers

It is also fiction so there's really no right and wrong. Write your own Starfleet Corps of Marines

(There are already a specialized Corps of Engineers).

A marine IS a naval officer. Thats kinda the point.

A Marine is NOT A naval officer

Aboard a ship the ranking naval officer is in charge

ASHORE the ranks of marines come into play

Marines are not the navy
they are assigned to ships

but a Marine commander is out ranked on a ship by The ranking naval officer (even if he is an ensign)

You are thinking of the United States Marines. Which differes from classical definitions of marines. Since the USMC is its own organization seperate from the navy it's not the same thing.

I was talking about the definition of what a marine is, disambiguated from any current or past orginizations to bear the title.

Seriously a marine force could be anything, no point arguing over the specifics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_(military)

That was the point of my statement(s).

i think it would be neat to have a core of marines. Probably call it somthing else since it wouldn't be dedicated to combat only. But a well trained rapid response force able to adapt to any situation planetside seems right.