According to Admiral Olson's prepared statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 1st of this year, the US Special Operations Command has 60,000 personnel assigned to it.
Take a deep breath. Hold it in and say it out loud.
60,000 persons.
That's bigger than the 82nd Airborne, 101st Airborne, 10th Mountain and 2nd Infantry Divisions combined.
Just something to chew on.
well that number doesnt mean much without context, how many are combat, combat support, or just bloated beauracracy?
ReplyDeletei might look but does it matter? when quoting the numbers in the 82nd they're talking about troops ... not all those troops are trigger pullers.
ReplyDeletewe're talking about an organization that has 60,000 people in it.
the point remains. its gotten too big.
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ReplyDeletewell it might be too big but before talking about where to take the scapal one would need to know what to cut.
ReplyDeletemy point is basically this.
ReplyDeleteSOCOM is no longer doing anything else except raids. thats fine, but if thats what its going to be then all we need is an enlarged US Army Rangers.
SEALs got enlarged, they're talking about enlarging USMC Special Ops, SF got bigger but the point is if its about raids then all we needed to do was add a couple of Ranger Battalions and be done with it.
it would have been cheaper and less disruptive.
if its about doing things outside of raids then why do we need so large a force?
i dont know, thats why i said i dont know what the 60000 billets is, i can definitely see your reasoning and dont object to it, and definitely looking at current and future needs, but i wonder how much this is a power play, i mean does SOCOM want to give up the preeminence they have gained? the war on terror has mostly been their thing, i dont think they will give up the money thats coming into SOCOM.
ReplyDeleteEveryone wants to be special now days. Just like the controversy with Marine Grunts wanting to be the only ones wearing cross rifles. Seems now days everyone wants to be the latest and the the coolest.
ReplyDeleteThey seem to forget that Marines who earned our reputation where just infantry men with outstanding spirit de corps, pride and determination. They didn't need titles nor special pins.
I hope we get a real grunt commandant that would trim the fat off the Corps and put us where we belong. Forward deployed, light and packing a punch. With enough guns, beans and bullets to hold out for a month independently.
At what point do you get so big that you're no longer "special"?
ReplyDeleteAustralian Spec Ops are facing a similar issue. Many of the operational taskings they are undertaking in Afghanistan come within the gambit of conventional infantry missions, however due to a risk adverse Government we're using our Special Forces to conduct these roles, they are massively over-trained, equipped and funded for and we are in fact diluting our all-round special forces capability by employing them so much on one specific role and not employing them in the roles they are intended for and their skillsets are being diluted.
They're awesome at raids now obviously but their special recon role and their other "green" roles are being neglected...
Our infantry meanwhile are largely sitting at home cooling their heels and not being employed in the roles they are trained and equipped for...
A very ordinary situation and ne that doesn't do much for the espirit de corps of our infantry...
BlackCell Gun Crew.
ReplyDeleteWow. absolutely spot on!
Aussie Digger.
this is a conversation many won't want to have. but its something that must be discussed. i think that your statement also covers whats creeping into the way we're doing business.
I think the points you and Aussie Digger raise are valid but it's also true that we can't say that ops in Astan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and <> should all be of the "special ops" model without expecting a big expansion of the Command.
ReplyDeleteTo some extent I think we are seeing the meaning of "spec ops" change. It used to mean highly elite units with very special skills (counter terrorist, HALO/HAHO, etc.). More and more these days it means small units of high quality troops who are used to operating alone, operating with indigenous forces (i.e. using political skills not just military skills), using air power and drones very heavily, and concentrating on taking out a few, high ranking enemies directly rather than defeating armies/troops in the field.
With this "new" definition of spec ops, which one might note is much closer to the original US Special Forces model than it is to SAS / Delta / GSG-9 etc. model, some expansion and dilution is to be expected and necessary though it does have all the issues/drawbacks you guys have pointed out.
i disagree BB1984.
ReplyDeleteguess who's doing the training of foriegn armed forces and training of host nations now. conventional infantry. that used to be a Special Forces mission.
guess who doing calling in air strikes and operating drones. conventional infantry. that was once a Force Recon mission and ANGLICO.
guess whos getting foreign language training. conventional infantry.
Special Operations has narrowed to just being door kickers.
to be quite honest. thats not a unique or even very challenging skill set.
you can take a Marine out of boot camp along with 20 of his buddies and get them quite proficient at doing raids in a couple of weeks if you push hard enough.
special ops is making itself not special anymore.
That's kind of my point: "special" used to mean "better" but more and more it just means "different." I'm not saying that any good infantry unit couldn't learn all these skills but if they learn them all at once they are not practicing being infantry in exactly the same way, as you note, that the focus on raiding may be letting traditional spec ops skills whither. There are only so many things one unit can learn at a time and being good, conventional infantry is damn near a full time job.
ReplyDeleteI think that the problem is that all this "new" work is being focused through traditional spec ops units and this is what sets up the conflict between traditional spec ops elite training and special roles and the need for a lot of people with a "not all that elite but different" skill set. A prime example is the "new spec ops" guys have no need to be jump qualified when that used to be the entry level into elite units.
I'd like to see the US have units like Delta, SEALs, Rangers, etc small, elite and focused on truly special skill sets while expanding and redefining the Special Forces to be a larger unit specifically for these new style wars that is elite in the same sense that any highly focused, but large unit, can be, like European Mountain troops in the old days who had special organization, special equipment, and special training for a specific environment but were not "elite" in any where near the sense of SAS / Delta / Rangers etc.
I disagree with you that you can take any 20 infantry guys and do this on a temporary basis. Just the new style intelligence skills, which will have much more in common with the CIA than with traditional military intelligence, are very difficult to build up and hard to maintain.