General: Special operations deployment tempo “unsustainable”
Mick sends us a link to the Miami Herald which reports that Army General Raymond Thomas, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that special operations soldiers are being used at an “unsustainable” rate;
“We are not a panacea…We are not the ultimate solution to every problem, and you will not hear that coming from us.”
Senators said they were worried about the military’s over-reliance on special forces, who are increasingly being called on for missions outside their usual range.
“Our combatant commanders around the world have developed a seemingly insatiable demand for the unique capabilities of our special operators,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who chairs the Armed Services Committee.
The operational tempo is also wearing on the commanders, who in recent months have been called on to take the lead in anti-terrorism efforts and in monitoring the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said it was a “growing myth” that the U.S. “can use special forces and nothing else to achieve goals.”
Quite a change from the Senate of the recent past when everyone was calling for more special operators. Of course, to save the Special Operations troops for actual special operations, the Congress could allocate more money for training of conventional forces to take over some of the less-than-special operations. But I guess that’s not sexy enough for the politicians.
Category: Army News
First…..to say…”Gee no shit”
Took the words right out of my mouth, ChipNASA… and did anyone in uniform tell the “civilian leadership” in the past?
Command at SWCS will interpret this as a justification to lower the standards and increase class sizes in every MOS
I hope not.
we fight this kinda thing all the time…I was only half kidding when I made the statement
And I was engaging in wishful thinking.
I’ve worked for a state government too long to really expect anything different.
Wishful thinking and a love for the community is why I keep working here.
Reminds me of the ‘Closed for Christmas’ sign on the 1st phase office door when The Geniuses (TM) decided that they would improve graduation %s at BUD/S by proclaiming ‘No more Winter Hell Weeks’.
It has happened before. I know from personal experience and from SF Q Course instructors I talked to regularly.
It’ll happen again, if it ain’t happening already.
We may need to encourage our Representatives and Senators to restore sanity to the use of our special operators.
I think the real problem is the “Special (read “Short Bus) Forces” in Washington and across the river at Fort Fumble
IMO, those two locations are not informally nicknamed “the Open-Air Brothel on the Potomac” and “the Five-Sided Asylum” without some justification.
Congress watches too many movies.
This is what happens when the nation has no ends defined, no intent to accomplish and no strategy in place.
The Pentagram is as culpable as the politickos…
But lest we forget, the SOCOM party line has been “we can do it all” for about 15 years, so part of this is on them as well.
In any case, history shows that we will break it before we take the threat seriously..
Well, the previous Commander In Chief’s lust affair with Special Operations definitely didn’t help.
“Oh look, I sent SEALs over here!” “Oh look, I sent SF there!” “Oh look, I’m sucking a SEALs dick now and Michelle is watching!”
It also makes it easier to send small teams into places and not make it seem like you’re deploying the military far more than your predecessor.
Perhaps fewer commitments? I would think that by now A’stan has been trained as well as it will ever be. The first “trainees” are getting pretty close to retirement.
First time I ever saw an Army General Officer without an ARCOM.
Guess he never got offended by something and ended up pacing the floor./smile
He did that pacing with an Admiral, hence the Joint Commendation Medal instead.
being a honored member of the “Not so special” forces i will attest that they are being used to do everything from killing bad guys ( good) to escorting generals and dignitaries around rear area operations (bad).
They really need to look at us “Not so special ” forces for some of the other things going on in the world. while i am unique in the NsSF brotherhood, actually having 3 MOS’s that mirror something similar to SF ( 68W Medic, 11B Infantry, 1371 Combat engineer) and enough language skills to pick up women in Thai bars or order beer in German, Tagalog and spanish i think with the multitude of Lat move MOS that the last few years have forced on people to be able to reenlist should be put to good use.
think of the mind blowing teams we could put together, like dental tech, electrician and supply clerk or maybe food service cook, never been deployed Drill Instructor and small engine repairer! if they approve texting as a language of its own, every kid 18+ will be qualified to serve on these NsSF teams that was ever forced in to a lat move to sign up for another 2 years of service!
I think people often forget that SOF is special because their main focus is supposed to be other things than door kicking and getting bad guys. That’s something the regular infantry does on a Tuesday. Really doesn’t help that politicians are enamored with SOF, automatically thinking that “special” means “better” rather than “focused.”
There are three basic problems here: The fixation on SOF doing DA, and the ‘low footprint’ approach’ that we seem to think is the only way to fight terrorism. The third is that since Rumsfeld was fired we haven’t had a coherent national security strategy (and his strategy was essentially to ignore Afghanistan while he half-assed Iraq). To clarify, Special Operations Forces (SOF) is the umbrella term that includes Navy, USAF, USMC, and Army special operations forces. The only Special Forces are Army (Green Berets). While not SOF myself, I served at at theater SOC and did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Special Operations Task Forces there. This problem started early on when the focus shifted from Unconventional Warfare (UW) and Foreign Internal Defense (FID) to counter the insurgency to Direct Action (DA) to kill whoever we decided were bad guys at the moment. I was there when this happened, and there is a lot of blame to go around. SF (5th Group) didn’t want to take on the long term mission, and conventional commanders did not understand the nuances and commitment in time and resources of either COIN, UW, or FID. As a result, the guys that specialized in the UW/FID stud (SF primarily) started kicking more doors, and the other skills atrophied. We figured this out eventually, and the Army and Marines started the MiTT teams (I served on one). MiTTs were essentially ersatz SF Operational Detachment Alphas- you took an officer and senior NCO from a maneuver, intel, engineer, communications, and logistics branch, added a medic, trained them at Ft Riley for several months, and sent them to Iraq to train Iraqis. For the last several years we the Army’s had some form of advise and assist brigade- the latest is the SFAB: https://www.army.mil/article/182646/army_creates_security_force_assistance_brigade_and_military_advisor_training_academy_at_fort_benning 3 years into the war I asked a CENTCOM planner why instead of the ground invasion we didn’t just send SOF in to Saddam’s Iraq to train the insurgents to topple the regime- his answer? ‘That would’ve taken too long’. SOF should be on the next ‘terrain feature in time’, shaping… Read more »