Are snipers and recon still valid in infantry battalions?

[Ken White]

LRS Leaders course is RSLC (Recon and Surveillance Leaders Course)...

Mixing close and deep is really unwise, very different skill sets and even mindsets required. I bet they went ahead and said all the NCOs have to be Rangers, too...

and the NATO LRS school is now called something else and run by SOCOM (very hard for non-SOF to get into).

If that is true -- and I find it hard to believe because the School has instructors from the FRG, Netherlands, Italy and UK as well as the US -- and occasionally from other nations for specifc courses as well. I do not find it hard to believe that SOCOM has taken control of the ATRRS space allocations for the course -- though they should not have.

LRS mission is unclear at this point,

That's due to SOCOM grabbing it but not really wanting to do it unless its exotic -- and then they'll tab it to the two ArNG Groups. It is not really a SOCOM mission under most circumstances; only if it's deep strategic recon should it be theirs.

and infantry scouts have always been undertrained and rarley used in the scout role since I joined in the mid 90's.

Yup, like I said, went to hell in the 70s and never recovered. They were pretty good prior to VN.

Due to risk aversion, it's likely to get worse before it gets better. Lacking a major war and a total shake up of the hierarchy, no big changes will occur.