Interesting Read
The spec ops stretch
Expansion plans leave many in Army Special Forces uneasy
By Sean D. Naylor
The impending expansion of Army special operations forces laid out in this year's Quadrennial Defense Review is spreading waves of unease throughout the Special Forces community.
The 10,000 soldiers in the Army's five active and two National Guard Special Forces groups make up the largest component of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCom) and are the U.S.' pre-eminent exponents of unconventional warfare (working with guerrilla groups to overthrow an enemy regime) and foreign internal defense (training friendly governments to defend themselves against insurgencies). But many SF officers feel that U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) has left them in the dark about how it plans to deliver on the QDR's promise to expand the number of SF battalions by a third over the next several years. They are deeply concerned that, despite the generals' protestations to the contrary, a rushed expansion of Army special operations forces will result in an SF contingent that, while bigger on paper, will contain half-filled units manned by troops who are less mature, less experienced and less skilled in languages and foreign cultures than SF soldiers traditionally have been.
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/10/2174369
SnT