Is it time for psuedo operations in A-Stan?...

[jmm99]

Here are three more recent, open-source legal articles which cover the non-use of regular uniforms by special ops types:

Legal Lessons Learned, From Afghanistan and Iraq, Volume I, Major Combat Operations (11 September 2001 - 1 May 2003), Center for Law and Military Operations, The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center & School, United States Army, Charlottesville, Virginia (1 Aug 2004), pp.63-69. (Link to .pdf)

This is a very good summary (in the 10 pages out of 454), which presents a somewhat conservative (risk averse) take on the issues of regular force folks posing as irregulars; although it does acknowledge the existence of less risk averse approaches.

W. Hays Parks, Special Forces’ Wear of Non-Standard Uniforms, 4 CHI. J. INT’L. L. 493 (2004) (.pdf).

Major William H. Ferrell, III, No Shirt; No Shoes; No Status: Uniforms, Distinction, and Special Operations in International Armed Conflict, 178 MIL. L. REV. 94, 99 n.17 (2003) (.pdf).

Both law review articles by Marine officers - I will read through these later tonite.

Happy reading & cheers,

Mike

You all are very welcome for the kind words.

PS: AP - pseudo-irregular actions are not simply a matter of leveraging internal factions against their rivals. In fact, faction fighters are probably not the forces you want to use (cf., Dalton Fury and his Afghan "allies"). The HH in Haiti venture was a regular force mission (link in my first post; you'll find all kinds of ancient USMC history on that and similar ops). This type of action has little to do with Nation-Building, other COIN efforts or FID - more with a special kind of HUMINT and DA as Wilf states.