The changeing and evolving roll of Special Forces.

[SpiritInterface]

I have been reading some history books on war and have come to the conclusion that sadly modern U.S. Spec ops/ Spec Forces are becoming homogenized and generic, that the specializations of scope and objectives are gone. Gone are the mission specializations, gone is the Green Berets being force multipliers, SEALs being pathfinders/ beach prep/ special target demo, Rangers being pathfinders/ landing zone founding, Marine Force Recon being scouting/ intel gathering/ FAC/spotting, Delta being hostage rescue/ counter terrorist.

Every Special Forces unit is trained for small unit strike ops, but gone are mission focus and special purpose. For the most part now a days CentCom can grab any team from any service for any mission and it wouldn't matter. The only U.S. Spec ops Units that I know of that still retain their original focus are the U.S. Army's 160th SOAR, U.S. Air Forces Combat FACs, and the U.S. Marine's Force Recon, and of those Force Recon isn't part of Spec Ops Central Command and the 160th is too specialized.

[Jefffar]

There are a few good reasons for this.

First is economy. Special Forces are expensive, but you don't usually use a lot of them at once. If you have a Unit Trained for Mission A and a Unit Trained for Mission B but you never need to do A and B at the same time, then a single unit trained for A and B is much cheaper to have and just as useful.

Second is availability. Say you need a hostage rescue done and the only special forces unit in theatre only knows how to perform counter-insurgency warfare. Do you wait an extra few days to get the hostage rescue team in place or do you try to use the counter insurgency team do do something they might not know how to do? If you have a team trained in both hostage rescue and counter insurgency warfare, you'll always have someone available to do the job.

Third, it's very difficult to train a special forces operator, as a result, only a small number of soldiers can qualify for the role. However, those that can qualify, are so gifted that training them in only a small spectrum of warfare is a vast under-utilization of their talents. It's better to keep training them in more and more skills.

[slade the sniper]

Well...there are lot of reasons for this, as Jeffar explained, but here are a few more:

1. Lack of understanding how SOF is integrated into a greater military campaign: SOF provide necessary and essential capabilities across the spectrum of conflict, but they are not the end all, be all of military capabilities…it is like making a sandwich with only bread and ketchup…it is technically still a sandwich, just a crappy one.

2. Never say “No”: Military units are not known for turning down missions. The entire idea is to accomplish difficult tasks. Even if the mission is stupid, suicidal or doomed to be an operational or strategic failure (even if a tactical success), good units will not turn it down or say no…this mindset is endemic in the military.

3. Public/Political sentiment: SOF are "better" than "normal soldiers," thus they can do "anything," with "less risk" and fewer "boots on the ground."

4. Risk Aversion: If "normal" military personnel die, it is a "horrible tragedy," but if SOF die, then they died bravely, but they were volunteers and true patriots, etc. etc. Thus, there is less political risk.

5. Money: More SOF = more money because they are the soup de jour for defense spending, like ballistic missiles (in the 50's), heavy forces (in the 60's), naval power (in the 70's), air power (in the 80's and 90's), SOF (2000's) and now cyber (current til 2020). In order to justify your budget, you have to be better than your rivals, thus each SOF component can do everything, and better than the other guy...it is like advertising.

6. Current Western Military Thought: The idea that you can degrade, disrupt and neutralize targets is just as good as destroying them, but can be done cheaper with less effort and risk. Unfortunately, as we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan...conducting a conflict with lots of money, but too few soldiers (regardless of quality) does not equal success (as defined by the military, political leadership and the public).

7. Cost: Although SOF cost an incredible amount each, along with their kit, all the support troops, etc., they are still remarkably cheap when compared to other types of forces such as heavy forces (armored and mech forces), airborne brigades, fighter squadrons, bombers, guided missile cruisers, etc.

All of the above factors, combined with those given by Jeffar lead to:

Increased demand for SOF (in lieu of other assets which, depending on the operational requirements, may be far more suitable to achieve the effect desired), which leads to:

Mission creep, as units compete for funding/recognition/deployment time/relevance which leads to:

Unit expansion, which leads to:

Larger SOF units that require more assets, which leads to:

Less specialization, which leads to:

Less capability to conduct their core missions as defined by their doctrinal roles.


Finally, a small gripe:

Spoiler:

I know what you are meaning, but... Special Forces (SF) refers to an organization (US Army Special Forces), Special Operations Forces refers to specifically organized, trained, and equipped to conduct and support special operations (whatever the definition of Special Operations happens to be for the country in question...). Thus only the United States has SF, but almost every country has SOF. Special Forces are SOF, but SOF is not Special Forces.

-STS

[slade the sniper]

The above issues are military specific, but there are much deeper political and sociological factors at work (in Western democracies, at least) that could easily be a Master's thesis or three...which could be expanded upon to create several PhD dissertations.

If you are interested there are a lot of open source documents which discuss this exact topic, although you will find that they all have an agenda...

-STS

[SpiritInterface]

You all have valid points but other nations have specialized Special ops units. The one I really love is the Chinese Segway Assault Team, I also find India's 'Special Frontier Force' remarkable. In the U.S. only USMC Force Recon is not part of SOCOM.

What my main concern is that we are turning our Special ops units into Jack of all trades and Masters of none, and that when we need an Arctic SpecOps team everyone will be trained for Desert or Mountain warfare.

Slade I understand your gripe and apologize. In the international community SF and SOF are synonymous, to them the U.S. Army Special Forces are "Green Berets" or 75th Rangers.

[slade the sniper]

Well, funnily enough...not everything is special.

In the US, there are very clear "special operations" along with associated units that are responsible for undertaking those operations....

Here is the current expanded Special Operations definition:
Special Operations: Special operations require unique modes of employment, tactics, techniques, procedures, and equipment. They are often conducted in hostile, denied, or politically and/or diplomatically sensitive environments, and are characterized by one or more of the following: time-sensitivity, clandestine or covert nature, low visibility, work with or through indigenous forces, greater requirements for regional orientation and cultural expertise, and a higher degree of risk. Special operations provide joint force commanders (JFCs) and chiefs of mission with discrete, precise, and scalable options that can be synchronized with activities of other interagency partners to achieve United States Government (USG) objectives.

Thus, if a mission does not “require unique modes of employment, tactics, techniques, procedures, and equipment” or is not “are characterized by one or more of the following: time-sensitivity, clandestine or covert nature, low visibility, work with or through indigenous forces, greater requirements for regional orientation and cultural expertise, and a higher degree of risk,” then it really isn’t a special operation and can/should be undertaken by general purpose forces. As for “risk,” I would take that meaning political risk, since an 18 year old 11B cruising in Fallujah in ‘04 for a year was at just as much risk as a 35 year old 18B doing a tour in Afghanistan in the same time frame…

Additionally, there are defined activities that SOF are specially trained, equipped and supported to undertake…so, again, if isn’t one of the defined activities, then general purpose forces are probably capable of conducting the operation.

Here's a good article on why SOF should not be considered a sole executor of a mission set: http://warontherocks.com/2013/08/unconventional-warfare-does-not-belong-to-special-forces/

-STS