Should SOCOM receive more control in waging this asymmetric struggle?

SOCOM already has that authority. But they abused and misused it.

SOCOM's strategic errors probably contributed more to today's battlefield situation and the deteriorating condition of our conventional army than any other single cause. In all fairness I should say the rest of our conventional minded generals contributed too.

After the 5th SFG took down Afghanistan, SOCOM DCG, LTG Dell Dailey stated that will be the last time that SF gets out ahead of SOCOM and the rest of the army. He was ranger whooah jealous. Last year Dailey announced (at Ft Bragg) that SF are the housekeepers for SOCOM. That stung SF soldiers but was more or less brushed off by SF because everyone knew Dailey does not know SF and his loyalty was neither to SF (his subordinates) nor to SOCOM Command (his employer at the time) but to the big-gun conventional army.
PS. LTG Dailey was never SF.

35 years ago, SOCOM's Commanding General Brown served one very short enlisted tour at Ft Bragg with the 7th SF Group, left for OCS and Flight School and never returned to SF.

I implore Congress to look behind the Special Forces Tabs, that you are allowed to see and question, and determine a man's SF qualification by his Special Forces assignments not the mere fact he attended a school several decades ago.

The Army and the nation desperately need experienced Unconventional Warfare expert leadership at the highest levels. We are engaged world-wide in unconventional warfare. our participation in unconventional warfare can be described in two phrases; Unconventional Warfare and Foreign Internal Defense.

We have but one force fully trained with experience in all forms of unconventional warfare. It is the US Army Special Forces. The secret to Special Forces successes is the Operational Detachment "A" (ODA). The Field Manuals call ODAs (or A Teams) force multipliers, but few if any leaders outside SF really understand the enormous synergetic output available from the these small 12 man ODAs.

The President, the Congress, the military, indeed the entire nation are desperately seeking a plan B with potential to win. That plan B is available. It is time to put Special Forces' real talents to work. This will require elevating Special Forces Officers with combat ODA time to positions of leadership at the highest command and planning levels in SOCOM and DOD.

The take-down of the Taliban in Afghanistan used plans written by SF Officers utilizing proven ODA tactics and techniques. It should have been a clear lesson to all in ODA capabilities. Instead it was buried in conventional army jealousy. That has cost America dearly in blood and treasure. It has also cost those we are attempting to liberate from oppression. Properly utilizing Special Forces in other unconventional warfare situations will greatly reduce friendly casualties and collateral damage.

The on-going increases in trained Special Forces warriors will be meaningless to our country's war effort, if they are not properly deployed. A separate Special Forces Command is long overdue and is one change demanded by both the enemy and the friendly situations.

The latest conventional army fad is to attribute our current battlefield dilemma to irregular warfare. Whoever heard of regular warfare? Is it a game they play on Army Ranger and West Point sand tables. This is nothing but an attempt to devise a poor excuse for failures. Special Forces veterans know all war is irregular. As currently used, the label irregular warfare assuages conventional army, failure-based guilt. Conventional officers can now plead that no US Army school taught them a class called irregular warfare.

A proper definition is readily available. The GWOT is unconventional. It meets all the criteria to be so-named. But naming it unconventional would require our conventional army leaders to put their hands in their pockets, lower their heads and admit they are unskilled in unconventional warfare techniques and that is why their tactics are so costly. Our conventional officers did receive a smidgeon of training about Unconventional Warfare so that term cannot be used for their excuses.

We cannot and must not depend on conventional army leadership to devise and implement a winning plan B. The necessary change directives needed to make Special Forces and Unconventional warfare our # 1 unconventional, war fighting priority will have to be initiated at a level higher than Department of the Army.

Mr. President and Congress, are you listening?

submitted by: SF24D
May 23, 2007