The Navy SEAL operation that freed two Western hostages in Somalia is representative of the Obama administration\u2019s pledge to build a smaller, more agile military force that can carry out surgical counterterrorist strikes to cripple an enemy.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a strategy much preferred to the land invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan that have cost so much American blood and treasure over the past decade. The contrast to a full-bore invasion is stark: A small, daring team storms a pirate encampment on a near-moonless night, kills nine kidnappers and whisks the hostages to safety.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It all sounds good. \u00a0And so far, it is.<\/p>\n
Special operations forces, trained for such clandestine missions, have become a more prominent tool in the military\u2019s kit since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that led to the ongoing war in Afghanistan. The administration is expected to announce Thursday that it will invest even more heavily in that capability in coming years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Cool, except that creating special operations troops is not just a matter of “Investment”. \u00a0You can’t create them with money. \u00a0You have to start with troops – traditionally people from the infantry and airborne, although they come from all corners of all services today – who learn the basics of being a soldier (or sailor, or airman, or Marine). \u00a0Then, the ones that have the urge to try will audition – and, mostly, fail – less than half of those who try to get into the Rangers succeed; the even-more-selective elite-of-the-elite units like the US Special Forces (“Green Berets”), SEALs and “Detlas” are vastly more selective; from6-12% of those who try out make the cut over a training-and-selection regimen that runs two solid years and change…<\/p>\n
…and starts <\/em>with people who are already proficient at soldiering; you don’t enlist to be a SEAL or a Green Beret or a Delta; you make your bones as a highly-competent infantryman or tanker or gunners mate or helicopter mechanic or paratrooper or Ranger or combat engineer first; to get into “Delta”, one usually starts <\/em>the selection process as a highly-regarded, supremely fit NCO, a fairly senior sergeant with the beginnings of a solid career, before even volunteering for the brutally-exclusive selection process.<\/p>\nAnd in hearing the Obama Administration’s plan, I get the impression He thinks that you create SEALs and Deltas and Green Berets and Pararescue Jumpers by throwing a lot of money at an underemployed Georgetown Public Policy grad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There was good news and rejoicing; the SEALS continued their winning streak, rescuing an American and Danish hostage in Somalia. But buried in the good news is\u00a0a sign of the Obama Administraion’s myopia. The Navy SEAL operation that freed two Western hostages in Somalia is representative of the Obama administration\u2019s pledge to build a smaller, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,131,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-president-obama","category-war-and-peace","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25862"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25870,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25862\/revisions\/25870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}