What's So Special?
A d0-gooder is an enslaver,for they think they should go and save the world,
or amend situations to which they have no business [amending],
for the situations need to occur in order for
a working or a desire to be fulfilled,
and who are they to say what that is?
--Voyage to the New World, Ramtha
Ignorance is God's prison
--Emptiness, Rumi
________________
In his book Packing Inferno (courtesy friend tw), former Marine Tyler Boudreaux illustrates the folly of imposing "hearts and minds" theory at the hands of Infantry battalions. After a brief moment of falling back into a reverie on how Special Forces was and is the prime Counterinsurgency tool in the Army's kit, Ranger must agree with Boudreaux's assessment.
What makes the SF any sharper of a blade than that of the USMC, and how do their missions differ?
Historically, SF missions have been:
- Internal Defense and Development [IDAD], which has morphed into nation building and Provisional Reconstruction Teams [PRT's]
- Unconventional Warfare/Guerrilla Warfare [UW/GW]
- Strategic Intelligence and Reconnaissance
- Direct Action
While all fit into COIN, they have lost their strategic relevance. Even in the heady early days of the U.S. Afghan invasion, SF did not operate in the traditional UW/GW scenario of the Jedburgh mode. SF did not recruit, train or accompany the Northern Alliance when overthrowing the Taliban. They simply tagged along, presenting feel-good photo-ops. The Northern Alliance did not need anything in the form of training -- all they needed was beans and bullets. It is doubtful they even needed U.S. intel on the Taliban.
The Special Operations Forces haven't exactly formed "A" Camps, CIDG forces, Mobile Guerrilla Forces [Mike Forces], regional forces or any special projects of significance (if so, they are kept hidden.) In the days of super high-resolution, real-time photo intelligence, strategic recon seems OBE.
This leaves Direct Action [D.A.], the ground of all military combat elements, but the least effective employment of SF assets. SF is devolving into mini Ranger Battalions. What is being lost is the thing that distinguishes them -- the finesse and nuance, which earned them the well-deserved title, "Sneaky Petes".
D.A. is why God made Rangers and Marines. When SF and SEALS are used as assault infantry, then a fine tool is being misutilized. Conventional commanders simply don't know how to synergistically employ SF assets as force multipliers [Note: We are not talking SOF assets; we are talking SF and SEAL.]
Rangers, Force Recon Marines and Marines are classic Infantry assault troops of world-class quality. It is doubtful that any foreign military equals their level of expertise. But the point is, D.A. is not a hearts and minds moment. It is closing with and destroying a hostile force, which is not what COIN is all about, as Boudreaux points out. Killing the indig is not nation building.
The book challenges us to consider what actually makes the SF special. It certainly is not the beret, since everyone wears one these days.
Labels: COIN counterinsurgency, direct action, guerrilla warfare, packing inferno, SF, special forces, tyler boudreaux, UW/GW. unconventional warfare
posted by rangeragainstwar at 10:23 PM
13 Comments:
there was a very telling moment in "generation kill" (highly recommended) where brad, the first sgt in the recon batt turns to the embedded reporter and complains about how highly trained, impeccably competant recon soldiers are being used as "truck drivers" in the iraq invasion.
they were not allowed to use their skills to race ahead and scope the ground that the main force would walk upon. and, believe me on this, before a main force arrives on the ground, the only proper intell that a commander can trust is from, american eyes, in american boots, walking on that enemy ground.
satintel, planepics, all that beautiful stuff, realtime feeds from drones, can take on a real beauty when the SOF guys use it to guide their american eyes in american boots.
one of the worst examples of bad use of SOF in iraq was the old thing of sending the snake eaters to drive through towns in their HMV's to "farkle about smartly" and draw fire for the arty boys to shoot at.
american eyes, in american boots, on enemy ground.
that is what we do best.
MB,
Your comments are correct and that's why I always put SEALS in the very same category as SF.NOT SOF.
The Rangers and Force Recon guys can do the Div/corps level work that you describe and SF/SEALS do the Theater level assignations so necessary as force multipliers. UW/GW should remain our domain- let everybody else do the direct action.
jim
Yes, yes, yes, all true, but come on...we're a country of heroes.
We want our heroes to be snake eaters, lone men in a hostile territory, up against all the odds of life, the enemy, and nature. Waiting patiently to take out that very, very bad man who makes us all wonder why very, very bad men seem to attract all those hot body babes?
And yet, our crusty eyed hero can't get to that pedastal all us all want him to occupy if he doesn't have some whoop-ass history, or at the least some media coverage showing him hip shooting in the middle of some Iraqi neighborhood, calling in airstrikes, hotdogging in his pimped hummer with some toons popping out his Americaness, and the all American swagger with his cool looking carbine standing over the dying baddie going, "yeah...now what bitch?"
Because really, when it comes to mythical characters...nothing says "oh dear G-d in heaven" than having your officer staff taking time to remove the civie's toes from their purty mouths to give the orders for the SF boys to go strike a Hollywood pose in Fallujah to reinforce the message that professional soldiers is outdated...it's all about image baby, image for the civie wannabes in the theater seats pretending to be something they're unwilling to sign their names too.
I still wonder why anyone would want to sign up to join the military with the current mentality of the foot fetish Officer corps, and their big toed civie overlords calling the shots on this clusterf**k.
The Marine Corps' mission used to be to come in from the sea, kick the door in, and hold some ground or a port until the Seabees got an O Club built so the Army or Navy could relieve them, in theory not to exceed 30 days which is the initial loadout carried by an MEU.
I know I'm being facetious, but Marines have been used lately just like sustainable light fighters, of which I think the Army has several divisions. "Lately" meaning since about the Korean War with a few exceptions.
I totally empathize with Rangers and Snake Eaters on their misuse.
BTW, Force Recon does strategic recon and Division Recon does tactical recon. At least that's the way it's supposed to work.
An MEU will carry TAD elements from both.
Gordon,
To the best of my knowledge the only light division in the Army is the 10th Mountain.
The Marines should always operate within range of naval gunfire.
jim
A most sensible post that's very hard to argue with, Ranger. Of course SF should be doing its thing. Now all you have to do is convince those boys at Small Wars Journal and Abu Muqawama. Good luck. They like their new role in taking a gun to a knife fight and they're not going to give up their "strategic corporals" any time soon.
You know what we liked most about clandestine intelligence work? No matter how they tried, various and sundry generals and other important people could not find a way to supervise us directly. They had to (shudder) live with the knowledge that alien, junior life forms were actually doing the job they were hired to do without benefit of their superior knowledge and wisdom. They also weren't allowed to divert us to other work. SF used to be the same way.
Intel has gone the same way as SF. Welcome to the brave new world.
actually sheerakhan, the regulars i encountered hated seeing the snake eaters, we were expected to turn up filthy, strut around arrogantly on their bases, drink their clubs dry, raid their pharmacy and ammo stores, smile grimly and somewhat dangerously if questioned about the whys and wherefores our our next mission and then, poof! off we went.
the guys who hated seeing us more than anybody else were the submariners. the mere sight of us onboard told them that they were going to be involved in some hairy assed shit, plus we took over their exercise facilities and stuff.
the snake eaters, far from being heroes to the regulars, were those guys whose presence mostly meant more fucking trouble, and often more fucking risk.
the guys at the firebases hated seeing it when we'd didi out of the boonies in a most rickytick fashion because that meant that a bunch of pissed off pajama trotters were right behind us. they would have been content to drink their warm ass beer and smoke their dope in peace while dreaming about what suzy and jody were doing back home.
a lot of the resentment and fear the regulars had was shit we stirred up our own selves. soft hats, tiger stripe cammies, and a general demeanor that said the whole goddamned war was started for our amusement and shit
The Army has three LIDs, and unofficially two more light infantry brigades: the 10th ID (LT) at Ft. Drum NY (misnamed "Mountain", as if FDNY has any topography bigger than a hillock), two of the 4 brigades in the 25th ID at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii are either airborne/light or straight-leg (essentially light), the 101st ID (LT) (AASLT) at Ft. Campbell, KY, and the 82nd ID (LT) (ABN) at Ft. Bragg, NC.
While technically the latter two are light for specialized missions, they still pretty much deploy with the L-series MTO&E. They're light infantry.
As far as the SF role goes, the sad part of the SF story IMO has always been the difference between the ideal and the reality. The IDEA of the SF was the Jedburghs - teams of trainers/leaders who would raise, train, organize and lead a guerilla war against the evil bad guys (you fill in the blank - they were Commies back in the 50's and 60's...). The realiy is that the SF guys usually ended up training people who worked for caudillos and thugs in the daytime and moonlighted as death squads at night. The only real guerilla army our SF guys ever raised ws in the mountains of VN, and we left them behind to get hosed when we grabbed a hat.
Sad. But, then, for a country founded by rebels, we've spent most of the 20th Century running around stomping on other people's rebellions...
Sorry, MB, I didn't mean to imply the Vietnam era, but rather the sense of how they're being employed now.
However, as I understand the Vietnam era...there were a lot of...um..."silo" mentalities...not sure if that came across right or not, but that is what I called it when my friend would talk about his time in Vietnam.
Publius,
Today at breakfast I talked to 4 young USMCR infantrymen that are from the local tank Bn. that has converted into a ANTI-TERRORISM BN.When we discussed the topic it seems that a anti-T Bn. is simply a Infy Bn, but it sure sounds good.
We have frequent discussions-read arguments- because I refuse to participate in the blogs that you mention. My complaint is that these heroes have O3 views of life and have no idea of EAC/Theater realities. When i hear them on Dianne Rhiems I want to scream.
I can't convince them nor do i want to- i'd be thrilled if they prove my ideas wrong.
jim
FDC, THANKS,you're the official RAW TO&E guru. Really.
When I say the 10th is light I just assume all know that Airborne units like the 82nd are light.
The Jeds were the early heroes and template for SF. Singlaub was a good example-a WW2 Jed and later Chief SOG.
These guys were force multipliers and insured that G opns were in compliance with Theater Army objectives and time schedules. This is the strenght of special ops and was heavily weighed by British philosophy. The Brits set the standard by incorporating all special type missions synergisticly into the theater oplan. These guys were Direct Action but usually allowed the Gs operational control. Interestingly a lot of the Gs were communist but that didn't seem to matter.
jim
"The Marines should always operate within range of naval gunfire."
Well, Jim, that would be the end of them. There's not much left these days that qualifies as 'naval gunfire', in the old 5 to 16" meaning of the term. Unless you count a ma deuce on a PBR.
Oh, wait, do Tomahawk missiles count? Shit, Marines could invade Kansas! Hmmmm... (wink)
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