Having been around at the conception as it were and having seen Barbwire Bob scuttling around the halls of Congress, I'm very much aware of the law that created USSOCOM -- and the fact that it was deliberately delayed so it could develop some bypasses to the six months prior Goldwater Nichols Act.

Few points on the Law. The SecDef has the authority to move units in and out of SOCOM. Law also says that unless the Prez or secDef directs otherwise, all SO activities will conducted under command of -- not coordination with -- the Geographic Commander. Note that the list of activities at the bottom of the post of Max 161are not a list of Special Operations but a list of activiteis that can relate to Special operations.

That's a long way of saying that Special operations are what ever the President and /or the Sec Def say they are. Or, in many cases whatever SOCOM wants to say they are and the GPF allows them to get away with.

As far as I know, the PREVIOUS SecDef gave SOCOM an exception to being under CoCom command and I guess that's still in force. whether that's wise or not is very much TBD.

I watched the migration of many GPF 'mission sets' into the SOF arena during the 80s and 90s as the US Army lost its focus and adopted a training system that robbed commanders of time and choices. I have watched -- and cheered -- as the GPF has regained those minor skills in the last few years. We're supposed to be in this together...

Surferbeetle says:
Like most things it can be boiled down to the people who are involved.
True. Today, many SOF missions are a result of that deteriorating number of mission capabilities of the GPF, a quest for dollars back in the 80s and 90s and some good -- and bad -- decisions. All people products...
SOF is people who are intuitively inquisitive about other cultures and languages, who intuitively understand that there is one than one path to accomplishing the mission, and who are able to use whatever skill set they have to advance the cause.
True for CA and most SF, less true for all PsyOps and the DA types (JSOC, SEALs). All are needed but they do different things and the DA guys do not need the in-depth culture and language bit; though the other attributes apply.

I'll note that all those attributes exist in the GPF as well -- they're just under trained and under used. That is due to the fact that the Army for 25 plus years denied those things were important - all of todays Generals grew up in that time period. IOW, it's a situation that need not exist and should cahnge for the good of all.
There are of course GPF who meet these criteria and from a management standpoint a SOF identifier, and some sort of vetting by training would be beneficial for when GPF forces have to cover down on SOF missions.
Condescend often?

How about forgetting management and concentrating on mission accomplishment, not 'vetting' but just training people properly for the jobs they may have to do simply because the numbers will always -- write that down, always -- in any MAJOR operation entail the GPF doing, as they have done and are doing today, some full spectrum missions. Not SO missions, just full spectrum of warfare missions.
From my viewpoint DA is more a 'super-set' of GPF skills, but this defintion does not mesh with the legislation (j)(1).
DA is an infantry skill . Application of DA is an Infantry job, period. Application of DA for some missions can be Special Operations depending on several parameters -- but most in most wars, most such operations will not be SO due to the quantity. Nor should they be. Special can lose its meaning if one is not careful...

Boot said:
So there is precedent for this. It seems to me that there is resistance from sectors of SOF, in having GPF carry out some of these missions. I say take the lead like the SECDEF has directed, and help the GPF who will be assignned to this, screen, train etc...bring their standards up. I think they will find that some organizations are a lot better than they think and it wouldn't be that big of a leap to do this.
Absolutely correct.

Calling basic military missions 'Special operations' when they are essentially basic everyday warfighting tasks pose the risk to the SO community of making them not special...

We will ignore what Boot says at some cost to the Nation and to people in ALL the Armed Forces.