That is my snarky answer on a quick break from the ball game tonight. If the host nation does not own its battlespace then their is a military occupation by a foreign force. Think about that from the host nation's perspective and how that usually provides legitimacy in the eyes of the insurgents and the population who does not like foreign intervention, regardless of the foreign force's good intentions.

But on a serious note, until we learn to operate in support of the host nation's internal defense and development programs that are focused on their security forces defeating the security threats and bringing good governance and development to ungoverned or under-governed spaces we are not going to get these types of operations right. Even if we have to "own" battlespace in terms of our own organizations we should not forget that 8 times out of 10 we are going to be operating in a sovereign nation (the 2 out of 10 being Iraq and Afghanistan when we took their sovereignty from them and they were incapable of acting as a sovereign nation)

But to get into the discussion between regular and special operations forces let me offer this perspective. When regular forces organize geographically obviously gaps or seams are created. This is especially true when there are tribal boundaries that are different from the political boundaries that are different from the practical and logical and efficient military boundaries organized along geographic lines to make military operations as effective and efficient as possible.

If there is good coordination and cooperation among regular and special operations forces and if all are in tune with the Joint Force commander's mission and intent, special operations forces with a wider focus that may be less geographic and more politically and tribal focused can be of great value in reducing gaps and seams if there is good and effective information sharing. Everyone has their horror stories about lack of coordination and cooperation and there will always be friction, challenges and of course personalities, but if everyone is on the same page with the Joint Force commander (and if the Reagan principle is in effect - along the lines of "it is amazing what can be accomplished when no one worries about who gets the credit") the coordination and cooperation between regular and special operations forces can achieve effective results. There are a great many vignettes that can be told about that to match all the horror stories.

If you put special operations forces under the regular forces C2 then you are going to have all forces limited to the same geographic areas and everyone will have the same gaps and seams. Furthermore the Joint Force Commander's campaign plan gives the Joint Force Special Operations Component Commander missions with different focus and tasks and purposes than the ground forces. Yes it is hard when there are forces operating in close proximity with regular and special operations forces all conducting complex operations, but great synergy can be achieved if regular and special operations forces understand the different focus of each as directed by the Joint Force Commander and learn to coordinate cooperate, and collaborate and follow the Reagan principle. But when personalities dominate rather than mission focus, we may as well just accept that there will be more friction than necessary and operations will be much less effective (and maybe ineffective) than they should be.

Just my 2 cents. Back to the half time show and then the game.