Posted on Jul 8, 2017
A Cultural Failure: U.S. Special Operations in the Philippines and the Rise of the Islamic State
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"SOCOM needs to change its organizational structure and culture to bring ends and means into strategic alignment. The ratio of Special Forces to non-Special Forces soldiers within the Army’s Special Operations Command should not stay as high as it is. If they are to be successful, Military Information Support Operations and Civil Affairs need more manpower and funding. An increased budget should not just be used for more operations, but also to increase the quality of training incoming Military Information Support Operations and Civil Affairs soldiers receive (especially when it comes to measuring and reporting on program measures of effectiveness). With a greater number of non-Special Forces officers and senior NCOs, leadership and staff positions throughout Special Operations Command should be more evenly distributed between the various special operations branches. It is not necessary for a Military Information Support Operations officer to be a Special Forces company commander or vice-versa, but deployed special operations team leaders through commanders of Theater Special Operations Commands should not remain almost exclusively Special Forces, SEAL, and MARSOC. Before filling leadership and staff roles within Special Operations Command, all officers and senior-NCOs should be required to complete a course or training to help them more fully understand the utility of the other special operations branches. Though this should already be the case in theory, rare is the Green Beret or SEAL who fully understands or appreciates information operations."
A Cultural Failure: U.S. Special Operations in the Philippines and the Rise of the Islamic State
Posted from warontherocks.com
37A: Psychological Operations
ISIS
Terrorism
Doctrine
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 3
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Interesting article indeed! As an Army MISO Officer I totally understands the author's point; I lived it!
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I was at Fort Bragg at my civil Affairs School in the summer of 2006 when the divorce between USACAPOC and USARC split Army civil affairs between Special Operations and Army Reserve command. I guess we were lucky that my Battalion had the availability of Select people to still go through air assault and Ranger school aside from the required Airborne School. Not sure what other opportunities we had available because I joined them right when this split happened.
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That is an interesting perspective LTC Eric Udouj.
FYI my old friend and USMA classmate Raymond Thomas is Commander of SOCOM now.
Civil Affairs has been special operations and not been special operations over time.
I fundamentally disagree with the premise of the article "SOCOM needs to change its organizational structure and culture to bring ends and means into strategic alignment. The ratio of Special Forces to non-Special Forces soldiers within the Army’s Special Operations Command should not stay as high as it is."
The majority of military officers have two specialties from senior O-3 on up - basic branch and functional area.
FYI my old friend and USMA classmate Raymond Thomas is Commander of SOCOM now.
Civil Affairs has been special operations and not been special operations over time.
I fundamentally disagree with the premise of the article "SOCOM needs to change its organizational structure and culture to bring ends and means into strategic alignment. The ratio of Special Forces to non-Special Forces soldiers within the Army’s Special Operations Command should not stay as high as it is."
The majority of military officers have two specialties from senior O-3 on up - basic branch and functional area.
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LTC Eric Udouj
It is a different world these days. In the past - the support structure to support SOF could be agreed on within a theater and support done that way. But such is not the case now.. not at all. If you do not have it internal - you go through the request for forces system. If it is not CENTCOM AOR... good luck. So that has changed SOCOM to where it has to have a higher ratio of non-SOF to SOF.
And then there is PSYOP... which 70% is not in SOF and not available to SOF and the ridiculousness of the entire thing - more a petty GO forces battle than one that looks at out nation. It has not worked - has allowed enemies to best us - and has to end. Maybe all PSYOP and IO should go under STRATCOM and just resolve it that way... or maybe all go under SOCOM which owns PSYOP doctrine. Does not matter who has Humpty Dumpty when he is put together - but without him together - neither of the pieces will be able to succeed in mid or long term.
And then there is PSYOP... which 70% is not in SOF and not available to SOF and the ridiculousness of the entire thing - more a petty GO forces battle than one that looks at out nation. It has not worked - has allowed enemies to best us - and has to end. Maybe all PSYOP and IO should go under STRATCOM and just resolve it that way... or maybe all go under SOCOM which owns PSYOP doctrine. Does not matter who has Humpty Dumpty when he is put together - but without him together - neither of the pieces will be able to succeed in mid or long term.
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