Barking up the wrong tree...

Submitted by John (United States), Mar 25, 2014 at 11:28

Respectfully, I believe this is a case of fellow conservatives barking up the wrong tree, and misinterpreting what a four-star officer is saying. To be sure, generals and admirals do have a language of their own... strategic level language... we call it generalisms and admiralisms...

However, ADM McRaven was, basically, saying that SOF, in particular Army SF, should be re-focusing on core competencies... and, a significant core function of Army SF is Unconventional Warfare (UW) which involves buiilding surrogate networks for the purpose of subversion, sabotage, covert influence, and other nontraditional tasks.

In short, it is about getting other people to do your dirty work so you can remain unseen. And, that takes TRUST.

And, that has not changed since the OSS days of World War II.

The last thirteen years of GWOT has given the general public the impression that ALL SOF is ALL CT ALL the time. But, SOF, especially Army SF, is sooo much more than just kill or capture.

Psychological Operations, now called Military Information Support Operations, is a key component of SOF. It is not just hearts and minds, it is also messing with the enemies' heads and making them think one thing when the reality is another. Think Normandy vs Port de Calais.

CT has been and still is the domain of only a small segment of the larger SOF community. In particular, Army SOF (the largest in terms of numbers) has the primary function of Unconventional Warfare (UW) which is very different from CT. UW has ALWAYS been the focus of SOF, CT is only a small subset, and, at times, not even a consideration in some UW context.

Read UW = surrogate networks for subversion, sabotage, unassisted recoveries, etc, (also includes Psychological Ops, now renamed as MISO)

Read CT = kill or capture, countering radical influence, denying safe havens, disrupting terror financing.

So, in closing, as a conservative who is gravely concerned about this administration's destructive and reckless behavior, I'd strongly suggest that we keep our attention on longer-term issues like the economy, education, and foreign policy. Chastising a four-star Navy SEAL Admiral for articulating his vision on returning to core competencies is so barking up the wrong tree.

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