Demand Spikes For U.S. Special Ops

[Team Sergeant]

Washington Examiner
April 30, 2007
Demand Spikes For U.S. Special Ops

By Rowan Scarborough, National Security Correspondent

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military arrived just in time in the North African nation of Algeria.
A battleground for Islamic militants in the 1990s, Algeria suddenly found itself facing a new threat, post Sept. 11: An Algerian-based Islamic terror group known by the French acronym GSPC.

U.S. Marines, and a small element of special operations troops who specialize in intelligence, arrived in Algiers to train government troops in how to track and capture terrorists.

The deployment points out the new demand for U.S. special operation forces, or SOF, not just in Africa, but globally. A number of nations in Asia, the Middle East and Africa want help fighting al Qaeda-type groups. The problem is that U.S. Special Operations Command does not have enough to go around.

“Current demand exceeds the supply,” Adm. Eric T. Olson, SoCom's deputy commander, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. He said his force is “now underrepresented in other parts of the world” and stretched where it is.

The Pentagon's proposed 2008 budget provides money for 6,300 additional special operations troops, bringing the command to 54,000 personnel in a $6.2 billion budget.

Before Sept. 11, 2001, North and West Africa, the Sahara region about the size of the United States, was not a SOF priority. Today, the 3 million square miles of desert and villages has became a major front in the war on al Qaeda.

That's because al Qaeda views the Sahara as prime real estate to set up bases, as it did in Afghanistan in the 1990s. Last year, al Qaeda showed the importance it places in overthrowing secular African governments. It announced a merger with GSPC, which renamed itself al Qaeda in the Meghreb (North Africa) and carried out two deadly bombings in Algiers on April 12. Two sources in the special operations community said teams have gone to Algeria to help the government collect intelligence on al Qaeda.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, special operators — Green Berets, Rangers, SEALs and Delta Force — spend most of their time fighting. But in other corners of the world SOF tries what the military calls an “indirect approach.” Rather than a heavy footprint, small units train local armies.

“We know we cannot kill or talk our way to victory,” Olson said.

http://www.examiner.com/a-702188~Dem...ecial_ops.html

[The Reaper]

Marine FID.

Love to see that.

TR

[echoes]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

In Iraq and Afghanistan, special operators — Green Berets...and Delta Force — spend most of their time fighting. But in other corners of the world SOF tries what the military calls an “indirect approach.” Rather than a heavy footprint, small units train local armies.

Sir,

Word has leaked! SF MEN are the best...so of course we need a few more of them to rid the world of terror!

Holly

[Airbornelawyer]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Marine FID.

Love to see that.

TR

Looks something like this, or at least did once upon a time, ...

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Airbornelawyer

Looks something like this, or at least did once upon a time, ...

Looks like a picture from the Banana Wars in the 1920s. IIRC a Marine Sgt ran one of the Islands for a couple of years with no problems. I think he spoke the local lingua-franca - Ka-gun.

Pete

[Sdiver]

Originally Posted by Airbornelawyer

Looks something like this, or at least did once upon a time, ...

Ooooo......Oooooo......Ooooooo......I know who 2 of those guys are.....Oooooo......Oooooo.....Oooooo.....I know who 2 of those guys are......

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Sdiver

Ooooo......Oooooo......Ooooooo......I know who 2 of those guys are.....Oooooo......Oooooo.....Oooooo.....I know who 2 of those guys are......

Despite what you may have heard, the short one with the big chest is NOT COL Moroney.

Pete, are you taking about Haiti?

I would have expected this one to have been taken in Haiti or Nicaragua.

TR

[Sdiver]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Despite what you may have heard, the short one with the big chest is NOT COL Moroney.

Pete, are you taking about Haiti?

I would have expected this one to have been taken in Haiti or Nicaragua.

TR

It is in Nicaragua, Sir.

2 of the 4 in that pic are members of the Nicaraguan Guardia Nacional.

But those are not the 2, to which I was referring to.

(Nice hint by the way, and I'm not talking about the Nicaragua reference either.)

[The Reaper]

I knew that, Sdiver, but thanks for the education attempt.

They really were Ironmen.

BTW, you do realize that the stocky one was an Army Sergeant before he was a Marine, do you not? He also won the DSC, but that is another story.

TR

[Sdiver]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

They really were Ironmen.

Yes Sir, they sure were.

Originally Posted by The Reaper

BTW, you do realize that the stocky one was an Army Sergeant before he was a Marine, do you not? He also won the DSC, but that is another story.

TR

Yes Sir, I did.

I think, I should say goodnight to these men....where ever they are.

[Pete]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

....are you taking about Haiti?.....

I do believe it was Haiti. Years ago The American Legion Mag. had an article on the Marines and their activities in the region during the 20s.

While "Banana Wars" is a poor discription of the period I think alot of people forget just how active the US Army was in the PI from 1900 to the 1940s, the Marines in the Carribian, the Navy and Marines in the China area.

How about the forgotten US troops in Russia during the Great War? Out of sight, out of mind.

So much US History out there and what do our kids get? MUSH.

Pete

[Monsoon65]

Originally Posted by Pete

I do believe it was Haiti. Years ago The American Legion Mag. had an article on the Marines and their activities in the region during the 20s.

While "Banana Wars" is a poor discription of the period I think alot of people forget just how active the US Army was in the PI from 1900 to the 1940s, the Marines in the Carribian, the Navy and Marines in the China area.

How about the forgotten US troops in Russia during the Great War? Out of sight, out of mind.

So much US History out there and what do our kids get? MUSH.

Pete

Wasn't the US 4th ID in China prior to WW2? I know the Marines were there, the "China Marines".

A good book about the US in Russia after WW1 is "Quartered in Hell: The Story of the American North Russian Expeditionary Force 1918-1919" by Dennis Gordon and Hayes Otoupalik. Really good book with first hand accounts from guys that were there. I was surprised how many won the DSC fighting in Russia.

Here's an Amazon link for anyone that wants it:

http://www.amazon.com/Quartered-Hell...7964506&sr=8-1

($70.00 to $128 is a bit salty. I know I didn't pay anywhere that much for my copy in the 1980's)

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Pete

I do believe it was Haiti. Years ago The American Legion Mag. had an article on the Marines and their activities in the region during the 20s.

While "Banana Wars" is a poor discription of the period I think alot of people forget just how active the US Army was in the PI from 1900 to the 1940s, the Marines in the Carribian, the Navy and Marines in the China area.

How about the forgotten US troops in Russia during the Great War? Out of sight, out of mind.

So much US History out there and what do our kids get? MUSH.

Pete

27th Infantry Regiment "Wolfhounds" fought there, they had a "Siberia" battle streamer on their guidon, IIRC.

TR

[Airbornelawyer]

In a way, World War II really skewered the perspective of both the Army and the Marine Corps. Both became focused on the big battalions and the Entscheidungsschlacht, the battle of decision.

The Clausewitzian approach was normative in the German Idealist sense - it tried to describe war not necessarily as it was, but how it should be, a rational choice made when all other options are exhausted and pursued in such a way as to ensure the quickest and most decisive outcome. Nice theory, but human endeavors rarely conform to neat theoretical frameworks. World War II, in that sense, was really an aberration as wars go. Most wars do not involve the total mobilization of one's resources and fighting major battles until the enemy's decisive defeat.

Yet even World War II included many battles and campaigns outside of this normative framework - the partisan and guerrilla warfare in the various occupied countries from France to the Philippines for example.

Unfortunately, it seemed like the services came out of that war focused on forcing every square peg of future conflict into the round hole of the World War II model. They promptly forgot the lessons of earlier conflicts or the "side" theaters of WW2. Only a select few stayed open to the alternative approaches - OSS and Philippine guerrilla vets like Wendell Fertig, Aaron Bank and Jack Singlaub for example.

When preparing for war in Central Europe against Soviet tank armies, the lessons of World War II seemed applicable. In other theaters, not so much. Thus General Westmoreland's failure to bring the VC and NVA into a nice clean Clausewitzian battle of decision.

The Marines with the CAP program in Vietnam did try to relearn some of their pre-WW2 experience with counterinsurgency, and had some success, just like Army Special Forces and some other units did with their counterinsurgency operations. But most soldiers and Marines in Vietnam were in infantry divisions, not CAPs or A-teams. And most of the guys who got the stars on their shoulders commanded rifle platoons and companies and infantry and tank battalions.

Going further back, the big wars of the 19th century were with Mexico and Spain and between the States. But these wars were mainly fought by volunteers. The defining experience for the regular Army in the 19th century was the Indian Wars. And the dawn of the 20th century saw the Army engaged in counterinsurgency campaigns in Cuba and the Philippines, and along the Mexican border, and the Marines engaged in Mexico and the Caribbean. World War I interrupted that, but the fights in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Haiti continued in the 20s and 30s.

When we think of U.S. military history, we usually think of the big wars, and the periods of peace in between. But really the big wars are often just an interruption (and sometimes an escalation) of the small wars that are going on almost continuously behind the scenes. They aren't as popular - too many shades of gray - and they aren't necessarily the wars we want to fight, just the ones we have too.

[Airbornelawyer]

By the way, the troops of the Polar Bear Expedition in North Russia were from the 85th Division, mostly the 339th Infantry, along with the 21e Battalion de Marche, French Colonial Infantry, and the British 236th Brigade.

The main units in the Siberia expedition were the 27th and 31st Infantry Regiments. Soldiers of the 27th earned 6 DSCs, those of the 31st earned 17. Three went to members of the Replacement Battalion, one to a medical officer, and two to staff officers (one of those staff officers, Robert Eichelberger, would earn a second DSC in World War II in Papua New Guinea). The 27th and 31st both have the "Siberia 1918" and "Siberia 1919" streamers.