Special Forces | Rare U.S. Army Green Beret Film

This is from the early 1960's and Henry Fonda is the moderator.  After you get past the somewhat hokey music and recreations of events, I think this is interesting from a couple of perspectives.  First is that this was a film made not only for the Army but to inform the American people as it says in the opening remarks.  Second, is the description of the global strategic situation at that time.  It is an interesting comparison to the world today.   I use the first 6:25 minutes in my class on unconventional warfare and special operations for policy makers and strategists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFJAQIuHBT0

SPECIAL FORCES | RARE U.S. ARMY GREEN BERET FILM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFJAQIuHBT0

Published on Feb 25, 2014

SPECIAL FORCES - US ARMY DOCUMENTARY - Distinguished motion picture, stage, and television star, Mr. Henry Fonda, is the host-narrator for this issue of THE BIG PICTURE - which turns its attention to the soldiers of the Special Forces. From the rigorous, demanding training at the Special Warfare Center, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to an exciting Special Forces Training Mission high in the Bavarian Alps, THE BIG PICTURE 

The U.S. Army Has Quietly Created a New Commando Division 1st Special Forces Command brings together thousands of Green Berets

At this link to the web site at Ft Benning you can download 14 charts from BG Rogers (the commander of the 1st Special Forces Command) that explain the ground truth to this article.  (note also that nowhere on the charts does he use the term "commando.")

 http://www.benning.army.mil/mcoe/maneuverconference/presentation/pdf/BGRogers.pdf

As you can see what this does is to reorganize the units of US Army Special Operations command in order to provide the Theater Special Operations Commands and the Geographic Combatant Commanders for whom they work with an integrated and holistic approach to employment of Special Warfare Capabilities equal to the level of effort of our Surgical Strike capabilities.  Or another way to describe this is to provide capabilities to operate in the "missing middle" between diplomacy and war.

So on this Thanksgiving Day I am thankful for the rise in stature of our nation's Special Warfare organization and capabilities.

Wish we could get the commando word out of the press and the pundit's vocabulary at least as it applies to Special Forces, Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations which is what this new command consists of.  And the Special Forces (Green berets) have always been "together" assigned to the US Army Special Forces Command.  Now that command has been redesignated as the 1st Special Forces Command

Excerpts:

But from the 1940s into the 1990s, the Special Forces mostly practiced unconventional warfare—indirect action, if you will, and the focus of the new 1st Special Forces Command. In that way, the new HQ brings Special Forces “back to its roots,” said Newson, a SEAL officer who served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen.

This indirect method of warfare is ideal in situations where an American presence could be “too costly or be counter-productive,” Newson explained.

A return to the roots for a vision of the future (that was the title of my first master's thesis in 1995).

We should keep in mind this fact:

Now, the Army’s new Special Forces structure doesn’t actually add manpower. In fact, the Green Berets will actually cut 1,000 people in order to stay within shrinking budgets, an official told War Is Boring.

The U.S. Army Has Quietly Created a New Commando Division

1st Special Forces Command brings together thousands of Green Berets

On Sept. 30, the U.S. Army unceremoniously stood up a new headquarters—

the 1st Special Forces Command—at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The division-level unit 

brings together more than 15,000 

Green Berets and other special troops in a single new organization.

Previously, the Army’s Special Operations Command had directly controlled all of these troops plus 

others on a wide range of missions. The idea behind the new HQ is to assemble a force specifically 

tailored for dealing with what the Pentagon calls “hybrid warfare.”

Simply put, hybrid warfare is a blend of straight-up traditional combat—with infantry, tanks and 

artillery—and secretive insurgency. Probably the biggest practitioner of hybrid warfare is Russia.

Just look at what’s going on in Ukraine, where Russian-supplied separatist insurgents are fighting 

alongside disguised Russian troops in an attempt to seize territory from the government in Kiev and 

bring it under Moscow’s sway.

Among other tasks, the U.S. Army’s new 1st Special Forces Command could help the ground combat 

branch counter hybrid warfare—by sending Green Beret advisers to train, advise and lead native troops 

in embattled countries.

“This is … a real requirement based on Russia’s hybrid warfare approach, as well as the need for partners 

in places like Libya, Syria and Iraq, where we want to help stabilize the chaos,” Navy captain Robert Newson, 

a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said of the new Army HQ.

(Continued at the link below)

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-army-has-quietly-created-

a-new-commando-division-2b90961b4821

Demand for Delta Force troops, Green Berets, Navy SEALs ‘outpacing capacity’

We need to be very careful here.  The knee jerk reaction to the "stress on the force" will be to cut back deployments.  While that is necessary and fine for some special operations forces (and we should keep in mind that jointness does not equal sameness even within special operations - Delta, Special Forces, SEALs, Rangers, Civil Affairs and PSYOP forces are not interchangeable despite the bean counters who want to count "SOF Teams" ) for those forces that conduct special warfare there is a need to sustain their deployment tempo not only to support persistent engagement but also to sustain regional expertise.  Furthermore, most soldiers who came into Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and PSYOP did so because they want to deploy and work in foreign countries with indigenous forces.  While the force may be tired form Afghanistan and Iraq, that does not mean that forces conducting special warfare do not want to deploy.  While perhaps counterintuitive to some I think we will face a real morale problem among certain forces if their deployments are scaled back too much in response to the cries of the "stress on the force."

V/R
Dave

Demand for Delta Force troops, Green Berets, Navy SEALs ‘outpacing capacity’

Global demand drains readiness even as U.S. wars wind down

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/11/special-ops-forces-wearing-thin-from-high-demand/?page=all#pagebreak

Firing away: Marines have special operations forces in Afghanistan to train and mentor Afghan National Security Forces. A Pentagon budget review notes significant stress on teams of commandos with multiple tough deployments. (U.S. Marine Corps)

By Rowan Scarborough

-

The Washington Times

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

America’s in-demand global force against terrorists is showing signs of stress and appears to be gliding toward a decline in readiness, says a Pentagon budget overview on special operations forces.

With the end of U.S. military operations in the Iraq War, the thought was that fewer deployments would give some relief to special operations forces after a dozen years of overseas fighting.

But the 2015 budget overview says demand for special operations forces is up, not down.

It talks of “significant stress on the force” and notes that the demand for Delta Force troops, Green Berets, Navy SEALs and other commandos is “outpacing capacity” and has “initiated a downward trend in SOF readiness” this year.

Retired Rear Adm. George Worthington, once the Navy’s top SEAL, said the wear and tear on mind and body, much less equipment, is becoming apparent.

“With guys doing multiple deployments, they’re getting a tough nine to 10 deployments over a 12-year period, the impact on families is going to be noticeable,” Adm. Worthington said. “Anything that can cut down and make the deployments less vigorous in terms of operation tempo is going to be a better thing.

“The stress is, at home, you’ve got to get ready to deploy for another nine months,” he said, adding that the war on terrorism has been the SEALs’ busiest era since the Vietnam War.

“This is Vietnam on steroids,” he said. “If there is any fraying, it’s on replaceable operational equipment. But more than that, it’s the operational tempo on the guys. They’re over there for eight or nine months, and then they come back and then they’ve got to go back.”

The Pentagon says special operations units plan to “reduce select capacity to preserve readiness,” but the Defense Department does not spell out which missions will be scaled back.

Adm. William McRaven, a SEAL by training who is chief of U.S. Special Operations Command, told Congress recently that “the force has continued to fray” and “our suicide rate, unfortunately, has grown here over the past three or four years.”

On Tuesday, Adm. McRaven told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee that demand is so heavy he cannot always say yes to global combatant commanders.

“My job as the supporting commander is to provide them forces,” he testified. “Now, there does come a time when I kind of run out of forces and so I’ve got to work with the [geographic combatant commands] and the services to do the best we can.”

The total number of special operations forces was once planned to reach 72,000, but budget constraints have capped the number at 69,700. The Special Operations Command budget for the next year is $7.7 billion, a 10 percent increase.

The command is taking steps to head off a severe readiness dip in its far-flung troops, who over the past dozen years have conducted counterterrorism training and operations in North and East Africa, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Asia. They fought a long war against al Qaeda-sponsored insurgents in Iraq, where commandos perfected the fusion of intelligence collection and direct action to kill scores of terrorist leaders.

Special operations forces killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and tracked down his chief henchman in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi. In October, Delta Force soldiers in Tripoli, Libya, nabbed Abu Anas al Libi, the reputed mastermind of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa.

“This state of readiness is critical to ensure SOF remains the United States on-call and ready force for global engagements,” the Pentagon assessment says. “The SOF continues to experience and project an increase in global demand outpacing capacity.”

One example: SoCom is facing an explosion in the number of countries that want American commandos to train their forces in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. Last year, 63 countries received training from 3,500 personnel. In 2015, the numbers will balloon to 103 countries and 4,500 personnel.

In the secretive world of special operations, the Pentagon offers no details on reduced training or flying hours. But one infamous example of special operations forces being pulled beyond capacity occurred in 2012 in Benghazi, Libya.

(Continued at the link below)

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/11/special-ops-forces-wearing-thin-from-high-demand/?page=all#pagebreak

Budget Uncertainty Could Derail Expansion of US Special Ops Forces

Excerpt;

In a May interview with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, retired Army Lt. Gen. Frank Kearney, SOCOM’s former deputy commander, suggested that SOCOM’s expansion is vulnerable to current budget realities, saying “the force is going to shrink — the general purpose force — therefore, there’s going to be less people to feed the special operations force.”

Kearney also said he worried about the effect on SOCOM if it continues to grow while the services — which provide forces to staff SOCOM — shrink.

“If we go to 72,000,” he asked, “is that sustainable given the service populations?”

Within that 72,000 number how much of the growth is in the big three of SOF: e.g., Special Forces (Green Berets), SEALs, and Rangers? (MARSOC is discussed below.)  I think that there has been no growth in the "operational force" above the numbers of the 2010 QDR (and of course no growth in Special Forces since the 2006 QDR called for growth of 5 additional battalions, the last of which should have become fully mission capable in August of 2013 which illustrates how long it takes to grow the operational force).  I would argue that most of the growth in the 72,000 number is in "enablers" - forces that support SOF but that do not go through any of the SOF training "pipelines" to produce the operational force.  I think we should always be careful when we throw out that 72,000 number.

But LTG Kearney's point is well taken. We are not going to be able to grow the operational force as the services draw down (nor do I think we should grow it).  But those who are "SOF lovers" who think that SOF is a panacea or silver bullet do not, I think, understand the true nature of US SOF in more of bigger is not always better.

V/R
Dave

Budget Uncertainty Could Derail Expansion of US Special Ops Forces

Nov. 4, 2013 - 07:12PM   |  

By PAUL McLEARY and HOPE HODGE SECK   |  

Marine critical skills operations troops train in this undated file photo. Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command will continue to build a force of 844 operators; it now has more than 700. (Marine Corps)

• FILED UNDER

• World News
• Americas

ZOOM

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, center, meets with Maj. Gen. Mark Clark, head of US Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, during a July visit to MARSOC's Stone Bay complex in North Carolina. / US Marine Corps

Ambitious plans to expand the US military’s elite special operations command are in jeopardy as the Pentagon considers whether to freeze force levels amid widespread budget cuts, Defense News has learned.

As the perceived need has grown for such surgical missions around the world, US Special Operations Command was thought to be immune to the current downsizing sweeping the military. Indeed, plans call for SOCOM to expand from 66,000 personnel today to 72,000 by 2017.

However, the US Marine Corps has announced it won’t be allowed to add more than 800 special operations jobs, which officials there had sought to round out its ranks, according to Capt. Adrian Ambe, a spokesman for Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC), headquartered at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Ambe told Marine Corps Times, a sister publication of Defense News, in October that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s office issued guidance last summer freezing all special operations forces at their current manning levels.

Officials at SOCOM said they have not heard of any such directive from Hagel’s office, and policy staffers at the Pentagon said no such orders have been issued.

However, one Pentagon source added that as part of the Future Year Defense Plan for 2015-2019, slowing the planned growth of special operations forces is among the range of options that has been discussed.

The source stressed, however, that no final decision has been made.

A defense official who declined to speak for attribution said: “There are a range of options being considered across the Department of Defense as part of our future years defense planning and the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). As these are both ongoing activities, it would be premature to comment on the details.”

A QDR is undertaken every four years to inform the Pentagon’s decisions about military strategy, and serve as a roadmap for its capabilities and force structure.

Yet faced with the long-term budget cuts known as sequestration, which are eating into all of the services’ personnel accounts, Pentagon and SOCOM officials have stayed largely silent on the impact that those shrinking budgets could have on special operations.

For MARSOC, the freeze will cap end strength at its present authorized size: 2,742 personnel. A Marine spokesman at the Pentagon, Capt. Tyler Balzer, explained that MARSOC will continue to grow until it reaches that number.

Ambe said he did not have a figure for MARSOC’s current size.

Previously, plans called for MARSOC to top out just above 3,600. A year ago, MARSOC rolled out a detailed plan to bulk up its combat service support structure, the enablers who back up critical skills operators by gathering intelligence, for instance, or serving as joint tactical air controllers.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20131104/DEFREG02/311040014/Budget-Uncertainty-Could-Derail-Expansion-US-Special-Ops-Forces?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|World%20News|p

ARMY'S SPECIAL FORCES TRY TO REBUILD IMAGE BY LINKING BRAINS AND BRAWN

I was doing some research and I came across this 1982 New York Times article.  A very interesting perspective and some "deja vu all over again."

V/R

Dave

ARMY'S SPECIAL FORCES TRY TO REBUILD IMAGE BY LINKING BRAINS AND BRAWN

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/21/us/army-s-special-forces-try-to-rebuild-image-by-linking-brains-and-brawn.html?pagewanted=all

By RICHARD HALLORAN, Special to the New York Times

Published: August 21, 1982

FORT BRAGG, N.C.— The Army's ability to fight guerrillas is being rebuilt at the Special Forces center on Smoke Bomb Hill here after an increase in insurgency and terrorism in Asia, Africa and especially Latin America.

Twenty years ago, President Kennedy made respectable what the military calls counterinsurgency, a mixture of political and military tactics to combat guerrillas flitting through the night to strike where least expected.

But a decade of struggle with meager success in the jungles of Vietnam gave counterinsurgency a bad name, and the Army's ability to do battle with insurgents nearly disappeared in the late 1970's.

Today the Special Forces, better known as Green Berets, are rebuilding with an emphasis on training foreign armies to cope with insurgents that threaten their nations. Although the Green Berets are capable of fighting, their primary responsibility is to devise strategies for other governments on how to defeat insurgents.

''We have a very viable mission today,'' said Brig. Gen. Joseph C. Lutz, the commanding officer here. ''We kind of feel we're on the upswing.'' Unit on the Upswing

That upswing is supported by the Reagan Administration, where the policy on unconventional warfare is laid out in the classified fiveyear plan called Defense Guidance. The document says, ''We must revitalize and enhance special operations forces to project United States power where the use of conventional forces would be premature, inappropriate, or infeasible.''

The Special Forces are made up of both experienced leaders and young, perceptive students of unconventional war. A Special Forces research unit has delved into the lessons of Vietnam and other insurgencies of the last 40 years to distill their causes, strategy and tactics and to devise basic principles for fighting them.

In the field, the Green Berets have gained fresh experience by training a battalion of Salvadorans here, a battalion of Liberians in their own country and other foreign armies as members of teams that teach the use of American weapons and equipment.

But that may be as far as their ability goes at this time. Whether the United States itself could mount a serious and effective counterinsurgency mission in, say, El Salvador, is open to question, according to military planners in Washington. 

''Too Much Macho''

The Green Berets are authorized to have 8,600 soldiers but are shy of officers and experienced sergeants. Also, many officers here said, they suffer from a poor image remaining from Vietnam. ''We're seen as either snake-eaters or mafia in uniform,'' said one officer. ''We've had too much macho.''

Moreover, according to officers in Washington, the Army emphasizes preparation for a massed land war in Europe and considers counterinsurgency out of the mainstream. Army officers normally receive little instruction in unconventional operations, and regular Army units get little training in the dispersed, small-unit tactics for fighting guerrillas.

Political constraints may be greater than military weaknesses. President Reagan and Congress may be reluctant to deploy the Green Berets in any sizable force for fear the move will be considered a prelude to the commitment of regular divisions, as in Vietnam, according to senior officers in Washington.

At bottom, Americans may not have the patience for fighting a guerrilla war. Military strategists from Sun Tzu in China, 2,500 years ago, to Vo Nguyen Giap in Vietnam in this century have proclaimed that insurgencies will almost always be protracted before they are successful. 

No 'Stomach for Long Wars'

''But Americans like neat, quick solutions and don't have much stomach for long, drawn-out wars,'' said an officer here. Douglas S. Blaufarb, a specialist in guerrilla war who is retired from the Central Intelligence Agency, may have put it best in his book ''The Counterinsurgency Era'' when he said that effective counterinsurgency ''is a complex and difficult manuever for which the United States has shown no talent.''

Even so, the Reagan Administration has begun to revive the Army's ability in counterinsurgency. Administration officials in Washington said that the Special Forces would be enlarged in the next few years, although by how much and in what units has not been decided. They said that more money would be spent on sophisticated but compact communications equipment, on air transport for infiltration, and especially on training, not only here but with similar units in the Navy and Air Force.

The Green Berets are also working on their image. ''One of my goals is to improve our image by our behavior,'' said General Lutz, a muscular, articulate man with a master's degree in human relations. ''We are demonstrating to the Army and the other services that we are, in fact, mature professional soldiers.'' 

Tactics

Maj. Thomas J. Kuster Jr. of the Bronx speaks fluent Spanish, has served with Special Forces in Panama and can quote from such insurgent strategists as the famous Ernesto (Che) Guevara of Cuba and the little-known Carlos Marighella of Brazil.

Major Kuster is among a dozen specialists inhabiting small offices on the sixth floor of the Institute for Military Assistance here, where they have scrutinized the guerrilla operations of the Vietcong of Vietnam, the Maquis of France in World War II, the Irgun in Israel, the Hukbakhalahaps of the Philippines, the Chinese in Malaysia, Fidel Castro in Cuba and guerrillas he has backed elsewhere in Latin America, and the ''wars of national liberation'' supported by the Soviet Union in Africa.

At their disposal is a flow of intelligence reports, analyses written by civilian specialists on guerrilla warfare and a library stocked with treatises on insurgency. Ho Chi Minh's thoughts are expressed in the book ''On Revolution'' and Che Guevara's in his ''Episodes of the Revolutionary War.''

From those sources, the analysts in camouflaged jungle uniforms have concluded that in countering an insurgency strategy and tactics must be fitted to the circumstances. ''There is no immediate, automatic response where you just plug in and go,'' Major Kuster said. 

Will of the Government

Before the United States offers to help counter an insurgency, General Lutz said, it is vital to determine the will of the government under attack. ''If that country doesn't have the will and wherewithal to meet the insurgency,'' he said, ''the United States cannot do it.''

Close behind that, Major Kuster said, is the need to catch the insurgency as early as possible. Then the insurgency must been seen in all of its political, economic, social and military parts. General Lutz quoted Mao Tse Tung: ''You must take care of the people.'' Major Kuster added: ''We just can't say, 'That man has military problems so he needs military help.' ''

To assess an insurgency and devise a counter, the Green Berets have adapted a five-phase scheme worked out by Brian Jenkins of the Rand Corporation in California, an authority on terrorism and insurgency. Unless the insurgency is stopped at one stage, this plan holds, it moves on to another and can then be beaten only with a greater, most costly effort.

In the first phase, insurgents often seek publicity, for example, by blowing up power stations or assassinating politicians. Stopping that is primarily a job for the police, but political aims of the insurgents must be battled with psychological and civic programs. 

Road Checks and Curfews

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/21/us/army-s-special-forces-try-to-rebuild-image-by-linking-brains-and-brawn.html?pagewanted=all

Special operations growth expected after Iraq and Afghanistan

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

Published: 09:46 AM, Sun Dec 09, 2012

Special operations growth expected after Iraq and Afghanistan

http://fayobserver.com/articles/2012/12/09/1221933?sac=fo.military

By Henry Cuningham

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)

http://fayobserver.com/articles/2012/12/09/1221933?sac=fo.military