To be expected, I'm afraid...

Submitted by Mike (United States), Mar 24, 2014 at 18:51

Daniel,

Your experiences and the "turgid language" you encountered are an unfortunate by-product of a decade-plus of special operations primacy. When your value is "self-evident" and the mere mention of terrorism followed by a side-long glance at your Congressman results in a never-ending flow of money and support, intellectually rigourous strategic analysis bceomes unnecessary. When success is assessed by the number of terrorists killed or captured or other measures of performance such as numbers of operations conducted or countries "engaged," and no one questions the validity of those assessments, who needs true measures of effectiveness? Furthermore, strategy is subordinated to operations and doing is valued more than thinking. While this prejudice towards action may appeal to those people enamored with a few high-profile special operations missions, it doesn't justify an open Congressional checkbook particularly when everyone else's budget is decreasing...unless it can be tied to a greater US strategy. Therein lies the rub.

The development of sound special operations strategy and the underlying intellectual culture that supported it during the special operations lean years (the majority of the last 70+ years) have atrophied from lack of use. While you certainly can't create special operators overnight it takes even longer to cultivate strong (and critical) thinkers. The result is turgid language and a whole lot of models and diagrams that say both everything and nothing. The time when lots of action and hollow pieces of art and prose sufficed for strategy are over (see the latest Congresional push-back on SOCOM budget initiatives). It's time to think hard about what USSOCOM and the high-profile operations we've happily supported contribute to a long-term US foreign policy and military strategy. I think that's partly what this Operating Concept was intended to address. Unfortunately, SOCOM doesn't quite understand what they ARE trying to say or even who they are talking to (which probably doesn't matter anyway since no one would take the time away from the world-of-action to read anyway).

(BTW, I think you might find the same lack of intellectual rigor and solid strategic thought within our diplomatic corps, as well. When foreign policy is simple (It's great to be a hegemon!), why think too hard?)

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