United States Special Operations Forces PDF
Preview United States Special Operations Forces
UNITED STATES SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES SECOND EDITION DAVID TUCKER (cid:2) CHRISTOPHER J. LAMB DAVID TUCKER CHRISTOPHER J. LAMB UNITED STATES SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES ✪ UNITED STATES SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES second edition David Tucker and Christopher J. Lamb columbia university press new york Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Copyright © 2007, 2020 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. 978-0-231-18388-8 (cloth: alk. paper) 978-0-231-18389-5 (trade pbk.) 978-0-231-54522-8 (e-book) LCCN: 2019021928 Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America Cover images: (top) © Staff Sgt. Trevor T. McBride / U.S. Air Force via AP (bottom): © Michael Christopher Brown / Magnum Photos Cover design: Lisa Hamm CONTENTS Introduction: American Special Operations Forces 1 Part I: The American Experience with Special Operations Forces 1 Special Operations Forces and Modern Warfare 13 2 History 61 Part II: Selected Case Studies 3 Somalia 109 4 High-Value Target Teams 148 5 Village Stability Operations 189 Part III: Special Operations Forces and U.S. National Security Policy 6 Special Operations Forces Roles and Missions 215 7 Special Operations Forces and the Future of Warfare 244 Conclusion: The Strategic Utility of American Special Operations Forces 269 Appendix 1: The Evolution of Special Operations Forces Roles and Missions 275 Appendix 2: Bibliographic Essay 285 Notes 311 Selected Bibliography 357 Index 363 UNITED STATES SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES introduction American Special Operations Forces T he capture of Kabul in 2001 and the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 were the bookends of a remarkable decade in the history of America’s special operations forces (SOF). Indeed, these two feats of arms may well take their place among the most famous military actions in history. In the first, army Special Forces (SF) fought alongside and led indigenous forces in a military campaign that forced the Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies to surrender control of Afghanistan. Guiding bombs with lasers and global positioning technology, while sometimes riding on horseback, the campaign combined the most modern technology with the most ancient technique of central Asian warfare. Using an American idiom, President George W. Bush celebrated SF’s success by describing their action in Afghanistan as “the first cavalry charge of the 21st cen- tury.”1 In the second, a SOF special mission unit (SMU), a force specially trained in conducting high-risk raids, flew into Pakistan, breached bin Laden’s compound, which was near a Pakistani military facility, killed him, and gathered large amounts of useful intelligence in the form of disc drives and papers before exfiltrating without casualties.2 While remarkable, taking Kabul and killing bin Laden were not all SOF did in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or in other conflicts and missions in the years after 2001. SOF developed to a fine art a form of
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