The Future of Special Operations Beyond Kill and Capture Linda Robinson
I’ve selected Linda Robinson’s article from Foreign Affairs (behind a pay wall so included in entirety below) as it gets to a belief I’ve had since 9/11 in that SOCOM must prioritize Special Warfare to the extent they do Surgical Strike. Funding, authorities, and organization must become a priority for the command if they are to continue the momentum of countering threats in a period of fiscal austerity and in regions where we are less likely to conduct direct actions in other nation’s sovereign territory. This will not be easy as it is difficult to ascertain the immediate results of Special Warfare that our populace and government demand, but we can look to Colombia and the Philippines as successful examples of Special Warfare. The relative low cost of Special Warfare … Read entire article »
Filed under: COIN, Defense Policy, FID, Special Forces, UW
10 Books That Are Better Than The Art of War
I’ve chosen this article for a number of reasons. First, I like the recommended reading list. I think it augments the one mentioned that West Point put out, not beats it as suggested in some articles. I like that it focused on Irregular Warfare topics as that is very topical today and also shows that the US has a long association with this type of fighting. While the classics should be studied, I see nothing wrong with branching out for other viewpoints. Again, I think Arguilla’s list is a nice compliment to the classical one put out by West Point. I also like that this list for its brevity. Too often, the Services, educational institutions, and/or various GOs put out lists that would take a lifetime to read. In today’s world … Read entire article »
Filed under: COIN, Defense Policy, FID, Military Education, UW
Casebook on Revolutionary Warfare and Insurgency Volume II: 1962-2009
Received the below from COL (ret) Dave Maxwell. I was able to paste the link into web browser and successfully downloaded the electronic version of “Casebook on Revolutionary Warfare and Insurgency Volume II: 1962-2009″. This is a must for every student of Unconventional Warfare and Irregular Warfare. This is for anyone who is interested in studying as well as operating in the Human Domain (and with an interest in Unconventional Warfare, Irregular Warfare, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency). At this link (to my public dropbox) you can download the casebook (888 pages and about 15-19 MB depending on how it downloads for you) that has been produced in partnership between the US Army Special Operations Command and The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab National Security Analysis Department. This has been a 4 year project … Read entire article »
Filed under: COIN, Defense Policy, FID, Special Forces, UW
Warfare Center Welcomes Special Forces CSM (ret.) William (Billy) Waugh
WarfareCenter.com is honored to have Billy Waugh agree to post some anecdotes of his experiences throughout 50 years of service to this nation. William “Billy” Waugh (born December 1, 1929), is a retired American Special Forces Sergeant Major and Central Intelligence Agency Paramilitary Operations Officer who served more than 50 years between the U.S. Army’s Green Berets and the CIA’s Special Activities Division. He was awarded 8 purple hearts for operations in Vietnam along with a Silver Star and 4 Bronze Stars. Billy is credited with finding and pulling close target reconnaissance on Carlos the Jackal in the Sudan that directly led to his capture. In his 70s, Billy infiltrated into Afghanistan with a Special Forces “A” team to conduct operations soon after 9/11. Billy is a member of the … Read entire article »
Filed under: COIN, FID, Special Forces
Duffy Sends 18 April 2012 – IMPORTANT!!! Read Before Invasion…
I chose Roger Carstens article on considerations before intervening in Syria mainly as it lays out a checklist on requirements prior to any decision to enter the fray. While not necessarily a fan of check lists as each conflict is different, at least Roger lays out a model to consider where I’m not aware of one existing. Dr Rebecca Johnson does lay out nicely the tenets for justifiable war in her draft remarks here http://endeavortopersevere.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/some-thoughts/, but in our ADD world I think Roger’s bumper sticker approach will at least remind folks that there should be at least some sort of guideline before engagement. Every pundit should have these simple rules tacked up on their cubicle, in particularly the UN to temper R2P (responsibility to protect) desire that would have intervention ongoing in … Read entire article »
Filed under: COIN, Defense Policy, FID, Special Forces, UW
Duffy Send – 26 Mar 12: The Best Doctrine Never Read…SOF FID
As Afghanistan winds down (and not fast enough) I look for our OCONUS engagements to return to pre 9/11 models with foreign internal defense (FID) being the dominate engagement method for all of DoD, in particular SOF. It is encouraging that SOF has excellent doctrine on FID, although I really wish people would read it. It was surprising to learn that within the past year USASOC had briefly considered changing the UW definition yet again to include SOF FID somehow. I would have been curious to see how that would have turned out, but fortunately common sense prevailed and Special Warfare was deemed to be the more apt term to describe USASOC activities. Nevermind that the new UW definition barely has the ink dry and that USASOC just spent a year … Read entire article »
Filed under: COIN, Defense Policy, FID, Special Forces, Training
Duffy Sends 14 March 2012 – 100 Ways to Say the Same Thing…
I chose this article from King’s College’s “Kings of War” web site as it describes a huge pet peeve of mine, the neverending creation of terms to describe Irregular Warfare (which is in itself a new term since ’06). This article barely scratches the surface on the plethora of terms used to describe everything related to conflict beyond what DoD and the greater Defense Industrial Complex thinks of as conventional war. Which is ironic since our history shows that the preponderance of our military engagements is anything but “conventional”. While DoD and TRADOC have a long history of coming up with new terms (read OER Support forms are due so need to contribute something), thanks to the explosion of blog sites and think tanks an entire industry has been created from … Read entire article »
Filed under: Afghanistan, COIN, Defense Policy, Special Forces, UW
Duffy Sends 3 Feb 2012 – Putting the Afghans in Charge – Roger Carstens
I chose this article by Roger Carstens today as it gets to the heart of the myriad of challenges facing our BCTs as they transition from direct combat to an advise and assist mission supporting the Afghan gov’t in countering an insurgency. Let’s be clear, this is not the end of combat operations for our forces, if anything, this will compound the challenges facing our troops and leaders as they must adopt more than an Afghan “face” on engagements. It is well beyond time to leave this theater and transitioning to Afghan led and executed operations is the way ahead to get the troops home. As Roger alludes to, this will be a difficult shift for leaders that haven’t been trained or won’t by in to this scheme, instead adopting … Read entire article »
Filed under: Afghanistan, COIN, Defense Policy, Training
Good Initiative…Bad Judgement
“Good Initiative…bad Judgement” This phrase could probably be tattooed on eager privates, second lieutenants and just about all of us on our first graded patrol in Darby phase. It was a semi polite way of saying good job on doing something, but it didn’t work. In the counter insurgency fight, and really with every activity, we have always asked our selves a few questions…what did we plan to do, what did we actually do, did it work? Lately we have broken down these questions into the concepts of “Measures of Performance” and “Measures of Effectiveness”. I like this concept. As discussed in previous posts, COIN has universal principles with local applications which means you aren’t always going to get it right, and a little trial and error is the nature of the game. The secret is to minimize the error part, and that can only come from … Read entire article »
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