Marc Ambinder at politico.com offers a piece on Admiral McRaven and Iraq.
Attempting to confront the sudden ripening threat of a transnational terrorist haven in Iraq, President Obama has once again turning to his most blunt instrument, the special operations forces commanded by Adm. William H. McRaven, to restore order.
Three hundred special operators will deploy, bringing with them efficient, advanced insurgent tracking technology and tactics that McRaven’s forces use in more than 70 countries today. Don’t let the “training” description of the mission fool you. These forces are intelligence enablers. They are, in the parlance of the military, effects multipliers.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-last-american-hero-108096.html#.U6dLjIlOWM9
I can imagine a future in which small special ops forces are the limits of boots-on-the-ground warfare, while air-power and sea-power provide support and supplemental/tactical strikes. If we only had a visionary CIC to map out and deploy such a far-reaching strategy. The current CIC is "embracing" these strategies only as a way of avoiding making larger, far-range decisions. That, for whatever it is worth, is my cynical observation.
ReplyDelete