K,
You have asked a coupla times, what can we do. I really thought about it and began laying that out today.
I even borrowed a concept LB stated most eloquently this morning to close this one out.
You can read all the editorials I have written about SF and within the past 2 years in the editorial archives section here... veteransofspecialforces.org
So now what can we do. First, we all should assume personal responsibility for our own and our families safety and security.
Then, we should learn enough about the problems to ask legitimate questions designed to motivate those who should be providing our security. If we do not confront our elected officials, demand accountable, demand action, then they think all is OK. Over 90% of Congress are not veterans. They have no clue. We have to force them to learn. They will if pressured sufficiently. So here is today's effort. There will be more. I have several ideas for additional topics. This piece was just posted on the web site. Feel free to copy it whole or in part, sign your own name and send it your congressional reps. That offer goes for anything else on the web site. We want everybody to know what we think about the wars.
It has been 6 and 1/2 years, is now a good time to ask a question?
Although Special Forces was at less than 50% of its previous high strength on 9/11, the Green Beret wearing - US Army Special Forces comprised the only unit in the US arsenal that was fully prepared for Unconventional Warfare (UW) and Counterinsurgency (COIN).
Why, in the years after 9/11 has the US Congress, the US Army, and USSOCOM consistently ignored growing Special Forces to its previous levels?
Why, in the same time period, was the US Army and USSOCOM reducing assets available to USAJFKSWC&S (SWC&S), the school that trains and awards the Special Forces Tab and Green Berets - and this at a time when more Special Forces were sorely needed for our nation's war effort?
The United States taxpayers spent a fortune and 55 years creating a strategic national defense capability known as Special Forces(SF). SF was designed for and built to address UW and COIN. In many of the years prior to 9/11 SF was slowly growing smaller. Who called for and who orchestrated this reduction in a strategic national defense capability?
Why now when we are in the midst of the 7th year of a worldwide UW and COIN problem (our biggest ever) has Special Forces growth remained stunted?
Since 9/11, USSOCOM has been growing like a weed. Why has not even one of the four Special Forces Groups deactivated prior to 9/11, been reactivated for our current conflicts?
In an interview this week, General Petraeus said he is running the war by feel. Why have we not given him four or eight more SF Groups to use as feelers?
Sure, in a reaction to congressional pressure, SF recently got an allocation to grow a little...and by the time it is fully funded (and if it is fully funded) the GWOT will be 12 years old. What will General Petraeus be feeling then?
Why, when we got in trouble with the insurgency, did the US Army outsource and hire the Australian Retired (Reserve) LTC Kilcullen for "expert" COIN advice, when the best COIN experts in the world were already within US Army Special Forces? Does the Army not know that?
Is Kilcullen's "expert" advice the reason FM 3-24 is being rewritten after one year in the field?
Is funding the issue?
Since 9/11 DOD has added approximately 80,000 permanent civilian billets, to attain a current total of near 700,000 civilians. How many of those personnel are living down in the villages and hamlets (like SF ODAs) where counter-insurgencies are won and lost? Who are the artists painting this picture? Who benefits more from the additional DOD civilians - our nation's defense or the latte wagon owners selling coffee in the hallways of the pentagon?
Why is USAJFKSWC&S (SWC&S) no longer listed as a US Army TRADOC Center and school? When has TRADOC and the US Army ever before abandoned an Army Branch and Career Management Field? What did the army and our nation's defense gain by making that cut? Does the Army not know that Special Forces soldiers wear the "US Army" name tag over their hearts?
Why has Congress funded the creation of new units, the building of new schools to train them, the building of new complexes to house the new units, and the forming of new military HQs in various services, in an attempt to create a duplicative and surrogate Special Forces Lite, with reduced capabilities compared to Special Forces and lower training standards than The Special Warfare Center and School that awards the Special Forces Tab and the Green Beret?
Our nation is embroiled in COIN operations word-wide and has been for 6 and 1/2 years and probably will be for another 25-50 years depending on which DOD official you ask. The US Army has 65 - three and four star generals. One of them is a career Special Forces officer. What the hell is going on? How much longer are we going to endure the problems associated with the OJT of our senior military and political leaders before asking our own experts to step up and solve our dilemma?
The main thing we should have learned the last few years is to separate out the short term pessimistic position, we may need to assume temporarily, from the long term optimistic position that should guide our overall thinking.
We should not run our long term foreign policy, nor set our long term military goals around short term assumptions. Nor should we let the people in charge of our short term direct-action needs guide our long term policies.
UW |
