As Spotlight Fades, What Next for Special Operators?
Under Trump, the Pentagon's ‘service secretary’ in charge of SOF has changed hands eight times between seven people.
By Kevin Baron
Executive Editor
November 19, 2020
As the long campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have drawn down, the most vaunted and revered stars of the show — America’s special operators — have largely faded from the spotlight. Now, they are looking for a new identity and raison d’être in the era of great power competition. They have been hindered, not helped, by the Trump administration’s insistence on appointing a series of obscure and unremarkable placeholders as the Pentagon civilian in charge of special operations forces.
Until last week, I bet, you couldn’t name one of them. It’s no disrespect to them, as much as it is a combination of two factors: one, the big war years have wound down, which is a good thing; and two, it shows how few senior national-security leaders care to serve Donald Trump.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. This job was once held by living legend Michael Vickers, who went on to become defense undersecretary for intelligence and receive the Presidential National Security Medal and the OSS Society’s William J. Donovan Award. But when the 2010s brought a chance to offer greater recognition and status to two groups — the National Guard and special operation forces — the Guard was given a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and SOF was left behind. Some wanted the commander of Special Operations Command, already a four-star billet, elevated to sit with the Joint Chiefs. Others suggested SOCOM be its own service branch, like how the Air Force was forced to branch off a new Space Force. Instead, in 2017 Congress approved a Pentagon request to elevate the top SOF post to be kinda, sorta on par with the Army, Navy and Air Force secretaries.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/11/spotlight-fades-what-next-special-operators/170206/
