How much more can SOF grow? How much more should it grow? Certainly not much beyond the nearly 5000 operational SF Soldiers and 800 operational SEALS and lesser numbers of Special Mission Units, MARSOC Critical Skills Operators, Special Tactics Teams, Combat Controllers and Pararescuemen, Civil Affairs and PSYOP/MISO Soldiers, Rangers and Special Operations aviators. We should remember that it has teken nearly seven years to increase the size of the Special Forces operational force from 270 Special Forces Operational Detachments-Alpha (ODAs) to 360. A growth of 90 ODAs was directed in the 2006 QDR and will not be complete until 2013. While USSOCOM may be projected to have some 70,000 personnel the operational force is unlikely to grow anymore especially as all the services reduce the number of personnel from which to recruit. The majority of that 70,000 number in USSOCOM must be in enabling and support forces and headquarters but I guess it is fashionable to say that we are going to grow SOF – we should just keep in mind that we have likely reached the limits of growing operational SOF but of course we can always shift enabling and support forces from the services to SOF.
Quote:
"And so that meant continuing to invest, and, in fact, we are growing the special operations forces, actually growing them," Carter said.
V/R
Dave
Dave
Published: 09:46 AM, Sun Dec 09, 2012
Special operations growth expected after Iraq and Afghanistan
Military editor
Special operations forces will be among the growth areas in the military even as funding dwindles, the Pentagon's No. 2 civilian leader says.
President Obama "made sure that we didn't eat our seed corn in a budget reduction," Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter said Nov. 29 at Duke University.
"And so that meant continuing to invest, and, in fact, we are growing the special operations forces, actually growing them," Carter said.
Special operations forces, many of which have their headquarters at Fort Bragg, are trained and organized to work in small groups, often in hostile areas on sensitive missions. Their jobs range from hunting terrorists to training foreign militaries in the local language.
The United States will increase its focus on the Asia-Pacific region, continue its attention on the Middle East and cope with terrorist threats in Africa, he said. Priority will be given to alliances and partnerships and holding military exercises around the world, he said.
Carter made his comments as part of the Von der Heyden Fellows Program Endowment Fund Lecture Series.
The U.S. military faces the twin challenges of the national budget crisis and coming up with a strategy as the Iraq-Afghanistan era comes to an end, he said.
Carter and his boss, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, have been warning for months about the danger of automatic across-the-board cuts that will take effect Jan. 1 unless Congress acts to head them off.
"It's not just the amount of dollars, it's the idiotic way that we are required to take those cuts," Carter said. "And, of course, it's idiotic because the intent of sequester was to use the threat of cuts implemented inflexibly, and really mindlessly, to force Congress to enact a compromise deficit reduction plan. That was its intent. It was never intended to be implemented."
Special operations forces will be a key part of "agile, ready, technologically advanced military" in the era after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.
Fort Bragg is the home of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command and Joint Special Operations Command. The headquarters for the Marine Corps' special operations forces is at Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base at Jacksonville.
(Continued at the link below)
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