On the broadly irrelevant side; the then 77th and 1st SFGs did the Laos mssions, the 5th was pretty well restricted to SVN (and NVN, the edges of Cambodia and Laos only for some of the projects). Their direct action folks were by design the Mike Forces, not the CIDG who were pretty much local patrollers and defenders. While broadly irrelevant, I mention all that because those CIDG and other elements that got more involved in the direct action missions did so mostly because of their commanders at the time, not due to any Army policy. However, the fact that the Groups have distinct personalities is definitely correct and those personalities are as much or more due to the Commanders ideas and goals as they are to history.

Kicking in doors is more fun than local patrolling and training people. That's still true. So is the fact that a commanders personality and desires can influence missions.

The capability to train most infantrymen to do direct action missions well certainly exists and is proven -- but then consider that if the lowly grunt can do this, particularly on "high value" targets, it may adversely affect someone's budget and missions. The relevance of all that is that the roles and missions argument is not at all simple and the parameters change constantly...

Strategic vision and the power to provide definitive guidance and force compliance is the issue. The existence of USSOCOM, for all the good it does, effectively and very severely complicates that roles and missions effort. Unity of command, like initiative is a tenet of US doctrine. Both get squashed pretty heavily and routinely.

While I personally agree that internal defense and indigenous force training is a proper SF mission, it carries little glory, attracts little money and just isn't fun...

Tacitus has a point in that good working relationships with indigenous folks is not everyone's cup of tea; some people do it far more effectively than others and immigrants are a good pick. Not a little of the early success of SF was due to all the Lodge Act enlistees -- and Officers -- that populated the Groups in the early days.

Having said all that, I doubt you'll be able to get SF involved at this time in any serious way and I strongly doubt either the Army leadership or, more importantly, Congress, will buy the Advisory Corps idea, good as it is, for the Active Army -- the USAR is perhaps a possilbility.

Agree that the USAR Training Divisions as currently constructed and trained are not a good choice, the skills don't transfer well. There is the potential of restructuring and retraining one or more of them to do the Nagl suggested Advisory mission -- and the rank structure won't interfere with DOPMA and HRCs grand designs.

Too much rank in too small a package and the Congroids will ask "what if there's not another Iraq or 'Stan?" 'Course, I could be wrong, have been before -- I'd have sworn the Army would see the handwriting on the wall in the 70s and work hard at counterinsurgency...

In any event, it seems the realistic near term approach is to better train Joe and his leaders and prepare them to do the job on an ad-hoc basis. They really seem to be doing it reasonably well.