Prima Donnas in Kevlar zones. Challenges to the Unconventional Warfare efforts of the U.S. Special F

[rangerrebew]

Prima Donnas in Kevlar zones. Challenges to the Unconventional Warfare efforts of the U.S. Special Forces during Operation Enduring Freedom
Anna M. GielasORCID Icon
Received 02 Feb 2024, Accepted 29 Feb 2024, Published online: 09 Mar 2024
Cite this article https://doi.org/10.1080/09592318.2024.2326600 CrossMark LogoCrossMark
In this article
 
 
ABSTRACT
When Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) commenced in October 2001, the U.S. Special Forces (SF) were the first U.S. military unit on the ground in Afghanistan, utilising their Unconventional Warfare (UW) capabilities. Despite their significant role at the initial stage of the military campaign, SF began to encounter numerous challenges from as early as 2002 and throughout OEF. Based on an analysis of forty-five master’s theses authored by SF officers, this paper discusses the structural-organisational and cultural-conceptual challenges. These obstacles led to the marginalisation of SF’s UW efforts. Scholarship on special operations forces (SOF) often regards the period of the so-called global war on terrorism (GWOT) as U.S. SOF’s golden age focusing predominantly on the activities of SOF units linked to the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command rather than on SF. By examining the challenges faced by SF, this article aims to contribute to a more nuanced discussion of SOF efforts during GWOT.

KEYWORDS: Special forcesunconventional warfareoperation enduring freedomglobal war on terrorismAfghanistanspecial operations forcesGreen Berets
 
After the George W. Bush administration designated the United States (U.S.) Special Operations Command (SOCOM) to plan and synchronise the global war on terrorism (GWOT), U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) became ‘virtually synonymous with the American way of war since 9/11.Footnote1 During the GWOT, SOF experienced substantial growth, doubling in size, tripling their budget and, at times, quadrupling their presence overseas.Footnote2 In 2011, Admiral William McRaven stated that the U.S. was in ‘the golden age of special operations.Footnote3 Adm. (ret.) McRaven’s perspective was shaped by his experiences as the head of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), a component command within SOCOM. JSOC-based units, including 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (Delta Force) and the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU), primarily conducted Direct Action missions, such as kill-or-capture operations, often in collaboration with the Central Intelligence Agency.Footnote4 Having gained substantial military and political influence, alongside significant public interest, JSOC emerged as ‘an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine’.Footnote5

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592318.2024.2326600

[sneakypete]

ANYBODY HAVE ANY  IDEA WHAT THE POINT  WAS THIS YAHOO WAS TRYING  TO MAKE?

[Smokin Joe]

ANYBODY HAVE ANY  IDEA WHAT THE POINT  WAS THIS YAHOO WAS TRYING  TO MAKE?

From the article:

Based on a primary-source corpus of forty-five master’s (MA) theses authored by SF officers, this paper argues that conventional military’s organisational structure and culture significantly limited SF’s UW approach, resulting in isolated and short-lived UW activities. Unconventional warfare, and Indirect Action in general, usually require a sustained and steady commitment that did not materialise during OEF. JSOC units generally did not face the same challenges because they conducted their Direct-Action missions, which usually necessitate rapid and brief operations, largely outside the conventional military’s organisational and cultural architecture. Consequently, the article suggests that when scholars and commentators describe GWOT as a ‘push to super-empower the SOF community’, they primarily refer to JSOC and Direct Action rather than SF and Indirect Action.Footnote13 The paper further argues that, instead of empowering SF, the developments during OEF encroached upon their identity as the UW force within the U.S. military and highlighted broader challenges within SOCOM due to the GWOT

Sounds like to me, the results are in. Let SF operate as SF, without overwhelming them with the regular force stuff, or you limit their effectiveness.

Something that is intuitive to me, because the effective part of conducting unconventional warfare is being...unconventional.

[sneakypete]

From the article:
Sounds like to me, the results are in. Let SF operate as SF, without overwhelming them with the regular force stuff, or you limit their effectiveness.

Something that is intuitive to me, because the effective part of conducting unconventional warfare is being...unconventional.

@Smokin Joe

This is a battle that has  been going on in the army since Day One of SF. The regular army generals see them as shock troops they can send in as an advance assault force,and it freaks them out when a RA officer orders a SF team that is traveling around on some sort of classified mission tells them to run a mission for them first,and an E-6 or E-7 just flat tells them "No."

Joe Walker,who was a E-6 or E-7 the last time I saw him,and probably one of the most famous SF Team leaders had to save a Captains life once when he and his team were waiting at an airfield for a flight,and some asshat RA Captain got pissed because "there were all those native barbarians carrying CAR-15's and he couldn't get one ,so he ordered one of Joe's Yards to give him his. Whereas the yard went into the standard "can't understand English" phrase they use when they just want someone to leave them alone and go away.

So the Captain tried to snatch it out of the yards hands,and things rapidly went downhill from there. Luckily for everyone,Joe can walking back to the staging area at this time and screamed "STOP!"

 His yards stopped,of course,and the Captain stopped in shock to hear enlisted swine giving him orders. Joe make him calm down by telling him to STFU (He probably went into shock then),and finished up by telling him just how close he had came to being killed and that if he knew what was good for him,he would GTF out of the area ASAP.

The yards on our teams were paid mercenaries,not members of any military organization. The ONLY people they took orders from were their American team members.

To say they were faithful to their American leaders is an understatement. When Joe finally left SVN and went off to track down Carlos,the Jackal,Charlie Brown (his number 1  yard) took his wife and child down to the river with him,and killed them and himself with a grenade.

Crap like this is where the term "Arrogant American" came from. Many are so full of themselves that they forget they are there to help the locals,not order them around. Seems like many just can't seem to understand that just because someone doesn't speak English or know how to read and write that an American officer can just lord it over them at will.

It just ain't true.

I HATED the regular army,and LOVED SF.