Alpha and Omega

--10th Group Special Forces 

You broke my heart
'Cause I couldn't dance
You didn't even want me around
And now I'm back, to let you know
I can really shake 'em down

--Now That I Can Dance, The Contours

 The Last Man always carries an automatic weapon

--The Omega Man (1971)  

__________________

What is the relation between the ostensibly the first example of Special military operations -- the Trojan Wars -- and that fought by the Special Forces today? (David and Goliath might have been an earlier example of Special Ops, but that is for another time, perhaps.)

The Trojan War was fought to capture (liberate?) Helen -- the face that launched a thousand ships. More precisely, to return her favors to a powerful man, after she had been expropriated (chose?) another. Powerful men, like the powerful nations they often preside over, do not like to be embarrassed, so their reaction to slights is often heavy-handed (=war).

That war was long, costly and grueling, and it was decided by the Trojan horse feint; we are still wary over Greeks bearing gifts. The archetypes of this engagement have become common. While the Greeks could kill all of Troy's men and rape and enslave the women, they could not alter Helen's wayward ways; the war may even encouraged them.

In our current wars on terrorism, the United states launched its own 1,000 ships despite the fact that no one could be returned from the initial calamity.  There was no Paris to bear the brunt of our fury, nor a Troy to target. 1,000 ships might be a bit much for one woman, but our accounting is far worse: 5-6,000 soldiers dead; 5,000 so seriously wounded they will require lifetime full attendance; 30,000+ wounded, with hundreds of thousand afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Do any of these facts make the dead of the terrorist attacks of 9-11-01 rest an more easily? Did returning Helen from Troy convert her into a loving wife? The Phony War on Terror (PWOT) has seen the closing of the cirlcle on the concept of Special Ops -- the Omega to Troy's Alpha. What have we learned since the destruction of Troy?

The United States invades countries trying to win hearts and minds, like Paris courting a loosely-moraled queen. We have killed multitudes of Iraqis, Islamic volunteers and similar Afghan stooges, but to what avail? Is the U.S. safer or stronger by the efforts of our Trojan Forces? Is the region from Algeria to Pakistan any more stable or friendly to our interests? Does Helen love us?

5,000 years separate the wars, and we have not come far from the idea of punitive expeditions and vengeful wars. While the predication action for neither war was warfare, they spawned military responses. 

5,000 years ... a teardrop in time. Not long enough to figure out a viable alternative to calling knee-jerk wars in response to offense or crime. We are all still Menelaus, the slighted, wronged man who will never know if his efforts equaled his gain.

Looking Downrange

And though I wear a uniform
I was not born to fight 
--Last Year's Man, Leonard Cohen 
_____________________

[Sometimes a piece gets lost in the queue.  Today's post was a response to a Special Forces Valentine written last summer by Joe Pappalardo in Popular Mechanics (The Future of Special Ops).]

There is much contradiction in this piece, but that does not hamper the article's goal, which is to re-create Top Gun, 2012-style.  Hurt Locker and now Zero-Dark-Thirty shill director Bigelow is doing her part too in creating the mystique, our own Leni Riefenstahl as Naomi Wolf recently noted (RAW's Lisa said it first, but she didn't publish it, so it doesn't count.)

We must must remeber that the Ranger - SF dichotomy has become less distinct as SF's mission becomes more direct action (which was in the past the basic orientation of the regular combat arms branches.) The primary distinction between normal soldiers and the SOF was in their communication style: regular forces communicate with their own, whereas the SOF are trained to talk with a host nation's indigenous assets; this demarcation between conventional and non-conventional soldiers has been dissolving.

Special Forces and Rangers are both Light Infantry, so when and how did Light Infantry Special Operations become nation builders?  Where is the data showing that building foreign armies and police forces produces stable nations?  Army-building does not equate with nation-building: Strong armies and police do not ensure either democracy or stability. If our Special Forces are so special, why are they pulling guard duty like buck Privates in a leg unit? 

A team leader said, "We all have Type-A personalities on this team."  Type-A could just be another way of saying that attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the hallmark of the new SF; this is not necessarily a positive. A Ranger - SF - SOF selection process that selects for Type-A's indicates a break with the historical SF qualities of calm-thinking and logic.

--Not too phallic (fr. The Future of Special Ops)

How do soldiers teach a nation to take of themselves?  If these soldiers are "warrior-politicians", as a team leader is quoted as saying, then why are they not under State Department auspices?  The Department of Defense is not about politics, it is about killing people and breaking things; the SF skill set is more about breaking things than building things (which is why it is under the DoD aegis.)

The article does concede that "SOCOM has become the U.S. government's tool of choice for soft power projection ... by default":

"'Most of our resources, when it comes to these types of efforts, are placed in the Department of Defense,' says Rick Nelson, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who served with Joint Special Operations Command. 'The reality is that the State Department and USAID are not funded at appropriate levels.'"

A typical American bias is seen in the following:

"These "indirect-action" missions include training foreign troops and teaching locals how to establish responsible governments. The strategy also promotes economic development by building bazaars, encouraging farmers to grow extra food crops to sell, and constructing roads. No one makes video games based on indirect-action missions."

But -- what if the locals do not want any of these things? Laying things up for a rainy day fits in with our oft-preached (though seldom practiced) capitalistic ideology, but if you are nomadic, where are you gonna store your surplus?  It is not like there is a storage mall around the corner. (And heaven forfend Storage Wars break out.)

A team member is described tooling around in a "$470,000 mine-resistant, all-terrain vehicle" but by placing SF assets in fun off-road vehicles we have just reinvented the wheel.  Placing SF in such vehicles merely creates a new mechanized unit, albeit one that happens to wear SF - Ranger -Airborne tabs.

Why not use plain old Mechanized Infantry for this function (since this is what they do)? Putting SF  assets into an up-gunned vehicle that is naught but a modern chariot has nothing to do with nation-building.  It is simply a weapons platform, like an Apache helicopter with wheels -- whoopee, we have reinvented the Armor Branch.

The following concept escapes Ranger's comprehension:

"The attacks on Afghans who support the government in Kabul—and the United States—will only grow as 2014 approaches. The police units that spec ops teams train have been the targets of infiltration and murder. 'We talk to guys who are over there now,' Alpha says. 'We're expecting a hard fight.'"

How can SF teams train credible indigenous police forces when nobody on the SF teams has any civilian police force experience? Why do we pretend that Afghan police are anything other than paramilitary assets that have no police function other than that of supporting a corrupt and morally bankrupt puppet regime?  Why are our SF involved in such morally dubious activities?

So basically, the future of SF looks as confused as its recent past has been.  When will we ever learn?

In Lieu of Reason

Don't give me no lectures
'Bout stress and strife
So-ber-i-ety
Just ain't my way of life 
--If You Don't Start Drinking, 
George Thorogood and the Destroyers
____________________

Ranger was troubled by a recent Popular Mechanics piece on the "Future of Special Forces" but couldn't find the right way to address his concerns; he now realizes that is the subtext of the piece which is more significant than the particulars.

Subtext is the basis of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) and present United States' insecurities, whether politico-military, economic or psychological.  All of Gaul is divided into three parts, the greatest of which is the psychological, and the following ideas are brought to bear:


[1] The U.S. loves the underdog

[2] Control of the media is more important than the losses to al-Qaeda terrorism

[3] Terrorists and the Neoconservatives and Teabaggers share the belief that government is just no darn good.  Both wish to monopolize belief systems and worldviews

[4] The Department of Defense, government, FBI, CIA SOCOM and the Homeland Security Administration all want the polity to believe that they are indispensable to our continued existence

[5] Terrorists thrive on inculcating the belief that government is powerless to protect us; this leads to government overreaction, suggesting the the PWOT is about violence when actually it is about control -- control of media and the resulting propaganda which perpetuates the collusion of the institutions which have control as their raison d'etre; a perfect Mobius strip.

[6]  Both terrorists and government interests are battling for our minds and hearts, and a sorrowful heart will accept lunacy as policy, in lieu of reason.

[7] Terrorist, government and religion all seek to castrate the individual will, and teach that through abdication of such may salvation be offered.  "Please be lost, so that we can find you."  Our collective will grows flaccid through fear borne of incessant propaganda.

The message in media like the Popular Mechanics piece and the movie "Act of Valor" is to confirm our infirmity and needful subservience to the institution for our safety, under the bunting of piousness or patriotism.  This requires we believe threats are everywhere and in need of outside neutralization.

The needful analog to the institution's efficacy is the primacy of our own insecurity.

Both the Right and the Left thrive upon this distortion of reality in the name of freedom of liberty and we accept their patronage, while never examining the reality of terrorism, its capability and intent.  Concurrently, we do not examine the capabilities and intents of our own government, also shrouded in secrecy and dogmatic hypocrisy.

Both terrorism and government are based upon paternalism and elitism, and the Special operations Forces are the definition of military elitism.

Next: A discussion of the Popular Mechanics article.

Why SOCOM?

Got brass in pocket
Got bottle I'm gonna use it
Intention I feel inventive
Gonna make you, make you,
make you notice
--Brass in Pocket,
The Pretenders
__________________

Why do we have Special Forces, and why did Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) devolve from this? How did they become 4-Star commands?

Do units that have 68,000 assigned personnel -- along with an unspecified number of civilian personnel -- qualify as “special”? If Special Operations Forces are so special and their missions classified, why do we wear flashy tabs and hats advertising our existence; shouldn’t Special Operations Forces (SOF) be all gash and no flash?

The Unites States Special Forces was modeled upon World War II's Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was modeled upon the British SOE. The OSS was a theatre asset responsive to the orders of the Allied Supreme Commander. Special Forces was just that: They were assigned missions outside of the traditional force structure.

SF worked with the State Department as part of a “Country Team”, in order to ascertain what was needed to benefit the host nation (HN). In addition to direct action, SF performed Foreign Internal Defense (FID), Internal Defense and Development (IDAD), intelligence functions and unconventional and guerrilla warfare.

The Rangers, Devils Brigade, Marine Raiders and Merrill's Marauders consolidated into United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance and the Rangers. Both specialized in direct action (DA), while performing some supporting intelligence roles, as well. Both are built on the British WW II commando model and are military in function, pure and simple.

So, how have the Rangers and USMC Force Recon come to be included under the rubric of SOF, which is other than simple DA? Ditto the SEALs, who morphed from the Navy’s Underwater Demolition Teams (UDTs) of WWII. The fleet simply does not need to send hired killers around the world. How did the killing of Osama bin Laden, for example, benefit the Chief of Naval Operations (other than making of him a Mortuary Officer?)

In Vietnam, SF were trained in and performed all the classic WWII OSS functions. The CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Groups) A-teams did Population and Resource Control (PRC), IDAD and FID. The Mike Force B-teams were DA, with some focus on intel gathering. All worked for the Theatre and Corps Commanders and were responsive to the maneuver commander’s guidance. All followed the chain of command and had a clearly delineated role.

Special programs like Studies and Observations Group (SOG) were DA, strategic intel and worked directly for the Theatre Commander. All used foreign troops under U.S. command, fulfilling the “force multiplier” SF mission.

All was fine until the failure of Desert Storm I, when it was decided that the Army needed an in-house special Air Force responsive to Special Operations’ needs; thus was created the 1^st Provisional SOCOM. (It should be noted that in VN and before, SF had a prototype of SOCOM with the dedicate aviation units which had habitual relations with SF units like The Green Hornets (20th Special Operations Squadron; 20th SOS with SOG).)

The justification for the creation of SOF – SOCOM was the cry from SF commanders that Regular Army pogues did not understand SF capabilities, and therefore misutilized the assets. While that may be so, the current Special Operations empire has not ensured SF is used any better than it was in the bad old days. Instead of keeping SF special, it is now a miasma of cobbled forces and missions.

What does SOCOM do that any regular U.S. Army unit cannot do? The 10^th Mountain, 24^th and 25^th, 4^th and 3^rd Division all fight just as hard as any SOCOM unit. Any unit can be special trained up for purposes in Iraq or Afghanistan. It appears SOCOM has ceased to be a war fighting organization and instead has become a series of small units focused on non-military operations.

It seems the one new thing for SOCOM is to serve at the beck and call of a president who wishes to order assassination strikes and avoid going through the National Command Structure.

In Ranger’s day, the military distrusted SF as being Central Intelligence Agency lackeys . It looks like the hens have come home to roost as SOCOM is now functioning as the military wing of the CIA.

Why I Write

But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much
Does that make me crazy?
Possibly
--Crazy, Gnarls Barkley
_____________________

[Motivated by Sgt. Rabb's post @ Milpub]:

I was a soldier once and now not-so-young, a fact which allows me to connect the dots from present to past. The logic of soldiering has been left deeply ingrained in my thoughts and actions.

Last night was suffused with memories of past screw-ups and negative events that I still cannot justify or accept as being correct. Today's events resurface them, and I am discomfited down to my Ranger lizard brain.

When I was a platoon leader, my assigned strength equaled the 37 men killed in the recent shoot-down of the Chinook in Afghanistan. My platoon was line infantry, not elite in any manner. We did, however, stress one military precept: Dispersion.

We never put all our eggs in one basket. We would never allow one military round to kill or wound more than was militarily acceptable. We maintained dispersion while eating and even in the chow line when we were operational. My tracks (M 106) were never bunched up to allow enemy counter battery to knock out more than one of our guns. Not being bunched up is Rule One of ground combat.

On or about 21/22 Jan 71 there was an action at B53 in the Republic of Vietnam in which another entire helicopter of highly-trained Special Forces and Special Operations Assets men were blown out of the sky. To this day it is my contention that these men were sacrificed because there was not a proper and judicious recon. Helo gunship fire suppression of the area was not employed and the men did not know what enemy they were facing nor their capabilities.

U.S. SOF assets are still making the same senseless mistakes that get good men killed for no measurable reason. What is the benefit of the cost?

Thirty soldiers died at the hands (we are told) of a lucky RPG gunner. But in Special Forces, we are taught there is no such thing as "luck" -- there is only the presence or absence of solid planning and execution. No unit should lose 37 people associated gear from one lucky RPG shot.

Such a loss is criminal negligence on the part of the operational planners and team leaders. No sensible soldier would put all his assets in one bunch, hoping luck would not turn ill; it does not work that way either in gang warfare or combat.

Ranger does not believe the shoot down of the Chinook was an RPG loss. Why does the media not posit the employment of a ground-to-air Redeye or Strella-type missile? If the U.S. uses technology, then why not the Afghanis? Why the fiction that their successes are due to sheer, dumb-ass luck? The Gods of War need not be Christian or Western.

What would it mean if they were as tactical as we?

What is Special Ops? -- Part II

I still act, and look the same
What you see ain't nothin' new
--I Was Country, When Country Wasn't Cool,
George Jones

Stray dogs that live on the highway
walk on three legs
'Cause they learn too slow to get the message
--Ballad for a Soldier, Leon Russel
_________________

In yesterday's What is Special Ops?, Ranger suggested that with the conversion of Special Operation Forces into a dedicated branch of the armed forces, a new monster was created, taking SF into previously unchartered territory for that organization.

Today Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) are paths to the 4-Star billets, and this has compromised the nature of the beast. SOF/SF today is a special branch that cooperates with or facilitates operations that are political in nature, posing high risks but promising career payoffs. The CIA template has been placed over the SOF, therby creating a Special ops Army within the conventional force structure. Since the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a military unit which morphed into the CIA, there has been a schism in the ranks of the National Command Authority. It is undecided whether the SOF is a CIA or a military function.

SF of the RVN variety was formed to alleviate the CIA's weakness is paramilitary operations. When the SF became the CIA's tool, they also became the read-headed stepchild of the Department of Defense. When Delta under Beckwith folded in the Iranian desert, SF was once again carrying the CIA on their military backs. Today in our endless wars, SF is supposedly back in the fold of the DoD; however, the assassination of Osama bin Laden reveals the lie.

The decision should be made to demilitarize the SOF and place them under the CIA, or to militarize the CIA, giving them the military functions of SOF. The SOF must be a tool of the theatre commander and a dedicated asset, or it will remain the plaything of politicos and will not garner the respect of either the military or the intelligence worlds.

The recent postings of Panetta and Petraeus exemplify my assertions. The CIA and the DoD are becoming interchangeable entities, and have cross-fertilized to the point that neither agency has a clearly-defined mission delineating whether they are military or paramilitary. Regardless of the wiring diagrams, these organizations lack cohesive organizational legitimacy due to the haziness of their loyalties.

Stanley McChrystal's career is an example of the problem. In the SF of old, McChrystal would never have achieved a rank above 0-6 (Colonel). He was rude, crude, and a chip off the old Charlie Beckwith block. However, today he achieved promotion beyond anything dreamed of in the old pre-tab SF days. His conduct, as seen in his collusion in the Pat Tillman coverup, places McChrystal firmly in the position of fence-rider -- part military, part CIA.

The SOCOM/JSOC nexus has not defined the parameters of the SOF beast, and the latter will continue to be a loose cannon on the deck of a foundering ship.

Dead Babies Don't Cry

Dead babies can take care of themselves
Dead babies can't take things off the shelf
--Dead Babies, Alice Cooper

We've shot an amazing number of people
and killed a number and, to my knowledge,
none has proven to have been
a real threat to the force
--General Stanley McChrystal

--My father is no different than any powerful man,
any man with power, like a president or senator
--Do you know how naive you sound, Michael?
Presidents and senators don't have men killed.
--Oh. Who's being naive?
--The Godfather (1972)

Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it,
I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines.
There must be ghosts all over the world.
They must be as countless as the grains of the sands,
it seems to me.
And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us.
--Ghosts, Henrik Ibsen
________________

The Special Forces that Ranger served in is as gone as last month's rent.

The Vietnam era SF fought main force Vietcong, hardcore North Vietnamese Army, and conducted special missions with various programs such as Delta, Omega and Studies and Operations Group (SOG). These programs produced results that were soldierly and based in good faith efforts.

Personally, Ranger was never trained to kick in doors or assassinate. We were not assassins, since that violates the rules of land warfare. There were isolated incidents of killing suspected enemy agents, but this was never officially sanctioned U.S. or SF policy.

The assassinations conducted by Project Phoenix were not a U.S. military mission, although most of their U.S. shooters were U.S. Special Forces soldiers on detached duty. The killings were done by combat-numb SF assets detached to do a mission not military in nature; the program was undeserving of having utilized good SF personnel for a dirty, nasty business. Phoenix was the devil's work and will remain a stain upon our national dignity, both civilian and military.

But it's now 2010 and the SF top dog in Afghanistan has dusted off the Phoenix prototype for Counterinsurgency applications. General McChrystal has done this without asking how the U.S. SF assassins are differentiated from the Nazi SS assassins of WW II. How have McChrystal, our command authorities and the American people enabled the Special Forces to become a criminal organization?

There is no middle ground here: When SF employs assassins they have become criminals and murderers rather than honorable soldiers.

Do our SF soldiers no longer bother to question the legality of their black ops missions? Further, why do we even allow a concept like Black Ops to exist within our military structure? Assassination is one of the key tactics of terror organizations, whether they be state-sponsored or groups like al-Qaeda.

When U.S. SF assassinate, this is an act of state-sponsored terrorism. If it is a crime for al-Qaeda to assassinate, then it is a crime for U.S. SF to assassinate.

When an SF team killed pregnant women while on an assigned mission to kill or capture mid- or low-level Taliban members, they mutilated the bodies in their efforts to dig out their bullets (U.S. Special Forces 'Tried to Cover Up' Botched Khataba Raid"), also a violation of the rules of land warfare and every bit as serious an offense as cutting the ears off dead VC.

My Army became infamous for those actions and as a result for a generation was portrayed as being composed of crazed killers by the entertainment media. Contrast that with today's support for SF assassins because they are "the troops".

These SF assassinations at McChrystal's behest are not military in nature and are a cynical expression of an American military gone wrong. Their morals are gone missing and this is a blight upon all of us.

Even if the mission were to kill every Talib in Afghanistan America still loses, as on a strategic level this removes the regional counterbalance to Iran, concurrently strengthening the warlords of the Northern Alliance. With every assassination, an SF soldiers is doing Iran's dirty work, making the effort doubly perverse.

Assassinations in theatre do not benefit the safety of America, nor do they contribute to the birth of democracy. They constitute meaningless cynical violence.

What attributes are being rewarded in today's tabbed-up, Christian Army? The contradictions are overwhelming.

The SF assassin soldiers will bear a heavy burden. The silence that will surround these men is the absence of a baby's cry in a remote Afghan village, and the silence will condemn their souls. They may never be officially charged for their crimes, but they will always hear that silence, even in their sleep.

Yemen Police

________________

Ever-magnanimous with money (cause we've got the presses!), the U.S. will provide $150 Million to Yemen to fight al-Qaeda. Further, the U.S. Special Forces will continue to "low profile" train the Yemen police and military.

How is this possible, or even desirable? Why is the Department of State not training the police? When did the U.S. SF get in the business of training civilian police? What does SF know about protecting and serving foreign societies? The SF is not a police force, nor were they ever, nor should we want them to be.

Yemen is a good example of why COIN is such a screwed concept. We are militarily training police that in reality are not police, in a country that lacks even a functioning government, which obviously lacks any judicial functions beyond the range of an AK rifle.

We might think a little before opening a new front in a frontless war.

Warrior Critters

__________________

The Special Forces have been labeled as the major cause of civilian deaths in Afghanistan, and this should be no surprise to anyone who understands the topic.

The SF selection process, warrior machismo ethos and now the Ranger bleed-over since the groups' cross-fertilization all conspire to create tabbed-up warrior critters psyched up to kill people, some of whom will be civilians.

The art of discernment is not a Ranger strength. No one should be surprised by this outcome, especially as the entire Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is an exercise at cross-purposes to itself.

I remember the days of a much different Special Forces and mourn its passing.

The old rule of thumb was that Rangers would work 15 kliks to the enemy's front lines, and SF would operate in and occupy terrain as far as 450 kliks to the front of FLOT. This concept has obviously been overcome by events since the U.S. military is no longer capable of fighting actual military scenarios.

I continue to emphasize, Rangers ≠ SF and SF ≠ Rangers. When the lines blurred regarding assigned missions, unit focus suffered. SF was always a combat multiplier and Rangers were direct action assault troops, sort of like Marines once they moved inland from the beach head.

What's Special Here?

fr. The Salute (Fall 2009)
______________

More from the propaganda bulletin The Salute ("an authorized publication for members of the U.S. Army"). Their creed -- "I was a soldier, I am a soldier, I will always be a soldier" -- already has two out of three wrong.

I am no longer a soldier, nor will I always be one. The days that were given will suffice for a lifetime, so why does the Army propagandize us after retirement?

Page One topic: "Special Forces to Expand":

"Soldiers wearing the Green Beret are more than just unconventional fighters. they perform special reconnaissance missions, conduct direct action operations, defend the infrastructure of friendly countries and fight terrorism."

Yes, recon is an SF mission as it is direct action, but what does that mean? Look at the above photo -- the Special Forces are indistinguishable from PV1 Rifleman of the Infantry. Do we train SF to perform such basic functions? How is this implementing SF as force multipliers, which is their true asset to the Army?

When did Special Forces become responsible to defend the infrastructure of friendly countries? In fact, one should define just what constitutes a friendly country. In fact, friendly countries should defend their own infrastructures. My SF/Army should defend our infrastructures, or is that too much to ask? Or, by virtue of our presence, is it all ours?

In a complete non sequitur, the article continues, "Units such as the 75th Rangers trace their heritage back to ranger units that fought the Indians and French prior to the American Revolution." Has everyone, even Army propagandists, syncretised the Special Forces and the Rangers? They are not the same thing.

Defiance

Terror, Pavel Constantin (Romania)

To have humility is to experience reality,
not in relation to ourselves, but in its sacred independence.
It is to see, judge, and act from the point of rest in ourselves.
Then, how much disappears, and all that remains falls into place
--Dag Hammarskjold, former UN Secretary-General

I am open to the guidance of synchronicity,
and do not let expectations hinder my path
--Dalai Lama
_______________

Ranger's recent convergence: Viewing the movie "Defiance" and reading a feel-good book about how to become a Green Beret.

The book is total ooh-rah regarding the selection, training and employment of the Bad Boyz in the making. The plot can be summarized thusly: A bunch of high school football players can't make college ranks, so the beefy boys join the Rangers and later go over to Special Forces.

Defiance, based upon a true story, depicts a classic Unconventional Warfare/Guerrilla Warfare scenario. This is exactly what the 1950's-70's era SF types were trained for and were expected to perform if the U.S. entered into a general war with the Soviets. In effect, SF would continue where the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) left off in 1945.

SF would function as force multipliers training and equipping guerrillas and insurgent forces deep in enemy territory. In the 1980's, Special Operations Command Europe had objectives 450 klicks forward of the FLOT. Unfortunately also in the 80's, SF emphasis was shifting to Direct Action. The edges of SF were starting to get squishy.

In the 1970 version of SFOC, the officer students were trained in Internal Defense and Development (IDAD) and Population and Resource Control (PRC). However, our graduation exercise was a definitive application of all training to converge exactly upon the UW/GW mission of SF. We were expected to infiltrate, link up, train, equip and lead UW/GW fighters arrayed against Soviet forces.

In the Republic of Vietnam, this is exactly what the CIDG and Mike Force troopers did for a living. They executed a UW/GW against the North Vietnamese Army.

All SF and Ranger ooh-rah books proudly boast of the physical requirements for these units, but nowhere do they discuss the mental and I.Q. requirements. What stood SF out from the rest of the Army was our intelligence.

SF NCO's were smart and were partially selected for their brainpower. Smarts were a more important determinant of success than brawn. That is said with the tacit understanding that all of us performed at Airborne levels of physical proficiency before going over to SF.

When the U.S. fights a general war, SF/UW/GW skills will be essential at Theatre Army levels. Concernedly, the force capabilities will be lost due to the atrophy of these synergistic skill sets.

The definition of SF and Special Operations Forces needs to be reified to address real threats to America, threats that go beyond turning SF assets into soldiers who make explosive, door-kicking entries.

There is nothing special about that.

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.