U.S. Special Operations: Personal Opinions

[max161]

"Unconventional Warfare (UW) … remains uniquely Special Forces'. It is the soul of Special Forces: the willingness to accept its isolation and hardships defines the Special Forces soldier. Its training is both the keystone and standard of Special Forces Training: it has long been an article of faith, confirmed in over forty years of worldwide operations, that "If you can do the UW missions, you can do all others." The objective of UW and Special Forces' dedication to it is expressed in Special Forces' motto: De Oppresso Liber (to free the oppressed)."

Robert M. Gates, Remarks at the dedication of the OSS Memorial, Langley, VA, 12 June 1992, quoted in The Special Forces History Society's The Special Forces Regimental History Calendar, 1994, (Fort Bragg, NC: Office of the Command Historian, U.S. Army Special Operations Command).

[Ken White]

"... it has long been an article of faith, confirmed in over forty years of worldwide operations, that "If you can do the UW missions, you can do all others." The objective of UW and Special Forces' dedication to it is expressed in Special Forces' motto: De Oppresso Liber (to free the oppressed)."

and having watched the effort since then with some care as well as having friends and relatives to this day involved in doing both missions, I respectfully disagree to an extent with what the SecDef said in 1992. I wonder if he still feels the same way today...

I'll say again what I said earlier:

""...nor is there any question the Groups have done (both the DA and FID missions) over the years -- and pretty successfully so. That does not change the fact that each mission IDEALLY would have operators that were psychologically and emotionally attuned to that particular mission.

Far more importantly, each type of mission requires extensive training. Attempts to make Teams adept at both will unavoidably and adversely affect capability in both mission sets. Not to mention adverse impacts on operational employment...""

That's the kind of thing SecDefs, even those who were former Intel Analysts and who are cheerleaders sometimes miss. As Bill Moore said, that's been an argument for longer than he's been in the field, I can assure you it went on hot and heavy in 1960-61 in the Team Rooms and all over the Hill but then as now -- can do and should do are different things.

I know it is not an ideal world and mission demands do their thing. I also know the SecDef is right -- it is an article of faith.

The question remains however; should that be so?

[Bill Moore]

Being capable of doing UW means you "should" be capable of executing, coordinating, training, and advising a resistance movement on a wide range of activities ranging from guerrilla tactics (harassment, raids, ambushes, which are not DA) and a host of other activities. At the leadership level, it means the leaders understand what psychological and political warfare is, and how to manage its complexities. That same education and mindset should also enable them to develop well thought out and functional FID/COIN campaign plans, if they could only be put in charge. UW is by far the most complex SOF mission, which means it requires the most training, which in turn means minimizing the distractions (like chasing other missions). It does not mean that SF is ideally organized, trained, or equipped to conduct SR, CT, or CWMD. They can have done all the above, but SF in its normal organizational mode was not the right force to attempt a hostage rescue in Iran in 1980, to do so SF would have had to conduct significant reorganization and training so they could conduct that operation at the skill level required. In effect they would morph into something else that might look like the Rangers. Any unit, even conventional units, can be tasked to do anything, that doesn't mean they should be.

I’ve been invited to view a hostage rescue operation after supper tonight. Army Special Forces troops are well trained and equipped in such regards, but I wonder why any commander would waste area oriented, foreign language qualified, high cost, low density UW and FID specialists on direct action missions except in emergencies.

SF used to do Gabreil demonstrations, which demonstrated a wide range of capabilities to various audiences. Admittedly hostage rescue demonstrations are exciting, especially to those to don't understand special warfare, so had it to the new Gab demonstration.

Maybe when the argument is over with the reality will be that SF does need to focus on DA/CT based on way we conduct war, and the way DoD prioritizes funding, so in the end, maybe the focus on DA isn't wrong? However, our SECDEF is trying to change that mindset in DoD with the focus on IW, which doesn't mean DA/SR/CT etc. are not important, they are more important, but the other skills, legacy SF skills are the grease which will enable them to work in our new security environment. The debate will continue, and the meantime our Soldiers will do the best they can downrange based on the guidance given to them. If there are any problems, they are not on the tip of the spear.