Hi Rob and Ski--

Rob certainly has a part of the story but there is more to it.

Part 1: SF, since its founding, has not less than 3 esthos, based on the dominant mission of particular groups. 10th SFG was founded to conduct UW behind Soviet lines in ways similar to the Jedburg and other OSS/SOE teams in WWII. Training partisans was their thing. 5th SFG made its name in Vietnam where it conducted mucho direct action (DA) missions. The high point of its history was the Son Tay Raid - DA all the way. 7th SFG focused largely on LATAM and the FID mission; it was highly successful in El Salvador. All the other groups fall somewhere in between dpending on their peacetime and wartime experience. My sense is that 3rd Group is pretty close to 7th based on discussions with them during Operation Uphold Democracy. In any event, SF reflects many of the divisions within the regular forces on the best way to fight COIN. Obviously, it is far more complex but I really suspect that Group ethos is reflected in the degree to which particular SF Groups are more enemy or population centric in Kilcullen's approach/

Part 2: During Vietnam the JFK Special Warfare Center (JFKSWC) ran a military advisors course called MATA. At the same time, MI had a well received program for Foreign Area Specialists (FAS). General Sam Wilson, an intel guy and SF who commanded JFKSWC noticed that FAS and MATA each had 3 components, two of which were common to both programs - language and in-country training. FAS had a masters degree as its third element while MATA had the advisors course. In Wilson's mind the masters program would be good for advisors and the advisors course would be good for the intel types. So he combined the programs as FAO with the important caveat that either the masters or advisors (now FAO) course could be waived without prejudice. This workded pretty well until 1986 when General Bill Odom (any relation Tom?) made a play to bring FAO under MI. He didn't get it but the enhanced FAO program dropped the FAO course making it practically the same as the old FAS program. The result - along with OPM 21 - was to take the non-SF community out of the advisor business almost completely.

And, then, along came Iraq and Afghanistan....

Cheers

JohnT