Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
There are better ways to have handled each of those. The problem was not that the money to develop and train forces capable of strategic raids had not been available, it was that the political and military will to employ the tactic in pursuit of strategy was lacking. Thus we had to employ an Armor and Euro centric force in South Asia and the Middle East -- just as we had earlier committed similar forces (and operational methods) to North Asia and Southeast Asia. We appear to be on the way to rebuilding that same force...

Would have been and would in future be far cheaper and more effective to employ such raids rather than getting tied up in lengthy, expensive in all terms and essentially marginally productive COIN efforts that in the end offer little if any change to either the nations involved or the strategic balance...

If you have a lot of money, you buy a lot of tools, supplies and such -- often more than you need. If you don't have that much money, you tend to buy smarter and buy only what you need. That lack of excess also causes you to work smarter.
So what you are saying here is that the problem is a force structure and not a force size issue. I can agree with that, but at the same time I just don't see a way that a small elite force could pull off missions of the type of Afghanistan or Iraq.

If, rather than invading Iraq, we had just sent in 10,000 (arbitrarily chosen number) SF soldiers, and they had fomented rebellion amongst hoi polloi, then we certainly would have destabilized Iraq, but I am not sure that the same 10,000 would have been able to stabilize it again.

I am willing to be convinced, but breaking things is easy; building things is hard, and it is in the building that the world gets shaped.