Some special operations units have even higher standards than the general force. Do you have what it takes to join the elite Army Rangers of the 75th Ranger Regiment? You can request assignment to an Army special forces unit when you first enlist. You can also join after you enlist or become an officer.
For years, the command has claimed that divulging the names of these countries would upset foreign allies and endanger US personnel. This year, Special Operations Command has plans to make major inroads into yet another country—the United States. And they have had a reciprocal agreement with us. I have somebody in my headquarters at Tampa.
But that was only the start. US AID is also serving as a facilitator closer to home. Not content with a global presence in the physical world, SOCOM has also taken to cyberspace where it operates the Trans Regional Web Initiative , a network of 10 propaganda websites that are run by various combatant commands and made to look like legitimate news outlets. These shadowy sites—including KhabarSouthAsia.
Just as SOCOM is working to influence audiences abroad, it is also engaged in stringent information control at home—at least when it comes to me.
I asked what exactly was inconsistent. It was, as I stated very plainly in the piece, the assessment given by John Nagl, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former counterinsurgency adviser to now-retired general and former CIA director David Petraeus.
Bockholt offered no further examples of inconsistencies. He did not. I responded that I hold all subjects that I cover to a high standard.
It was—finally—a seemingly simple answer to what seemed like an astonishingly straightforward question asked a more than a month before: What was the total number of countries in which Special Operations forces were deployed in ? Janssen was concise. His answer: How, I wondered, could that be? And if Special Operations forces were deployed in 92 nations during just one week in , according to official statistics provided to the New York Times , how could they have been present in 12 fewer countries for the entire year?
Today, Special Operations Command finds itself at a crossroads. Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch. You can catch his conversation with Bill Moyers about that book by clicking here. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
Mattea Kramer and Miriam Pemberton. For the first time, a female sailor has completed the grueling training course to become a Naval Special Warfare combatant A Tokyo court sentenced U. Once a special operations forces Marine Raider in Afghanistan, year-old veteran Jason Lilley has had to work through feelings Special Operations Forces Center.
Featured Special Operations Articles. In November , the commander of U. Special Operations Command and the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict jointly issued ethics guidance to the special operations community. And last August, Gen. Richard Clarke directed a comprehensive review on special operations culture and ethics, which was released in January.
All of these efforts are steps in the right direction, but none go far enough in addressing the fundamental causes of the problem. The review, for example, found that some ethical problems have resulted from a culture that overemphasizes combat deployments and physical fitness, underemphasizes professional development, and breeds entitlement.
Though these are important findings, the report focuses almost entirely on factors inside the command. A truly comprehensive examination must go further and examine broader external factors as well, such as the reasons for the ever-escalating requirements for special operations forces and how these servicemembers will be affected by the U. Congress should charter a commission to investigate the roles, missions, and challenges facing U.
Such an independent, high-level review is needed to fully examine the problems facing special operations forces, since many of the root causes lie far beyond the remit of special operations leaders. Only Congress is in a position to fully and completely investigate these potentially wide-ranging issues. A far-reaching, outside look is essential to ensure this critical force remains trained, ready, and sustainable to meet U. The commission should address the following first-order questions:.
This effort has already begun , but needs to be accelerated. The secretary of defense needs to continue to remain directly involved in these efforts, since they affect the overall readiness of the force and since the combatant commanders report directly to him.
But this is also an important mission for the chairman of the joint chiefs and the Joint Staff, as the global integrator of the force.
These senior officials should regularly vet all requests for special operations forces, prioritize them ruthlessly, and deny them more frequently. They should also scrutinize the number of day deployments, an artifice that deliberately falls one day short of the threshold that requires the personal approval of the four-star commander of Special Operations Command. Troops deployed for days, rather than days or more, may also avoid being counted against troop caps for any given theater.
Not all special operations communities and units have the same problems and are subject to the same demands. The review conducted by Special Operations Command notably failed to explicitly recognize this.
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