[madconservative]

I do realize the nuance when dealing with counterinsurgency. But the army asked the “interlopers” to come there, and gave them the use of the Nightstalkers for air. The inter-branch political crap is exactly the problem in this situation. My point is that your assertion overstated your case. SOCOM was not founded, and has never been dedicated solely to counterinsurgency efforts (for which it has almost exclusively failed). This is admittedly the domain of the Green Berets. But the Green Berets are not a kinetic force. Need to take an airfield? Don’t call them. Need to perform amphibious assault? Look elsewhere. Need to train indigenous forces? Bingo. But that is not the whole of special operations.

I love the army. All of the military in my family has been Army. I was in Army ROTC prior to deciding not to join the military. But the Army’s tactics are not exactly working in spades.

[Steel Wolf]

SOCOM was not founded, and has never been dedicated solely to counterinsurgency efforts (for which it has almost exclusively failed).

I don't know if you mean that counterinsurgency efforts generally fail, or that SOCOM generally fails at them, but neither is the case. In Iraq, COIN is a catch-phrase that gets a lot of lip service, but is not really put into practice. There's too much top pressure to get results fast, and very few advocates of doing it right. Green Berets in Iraq are used more for direct action mission than they are getting into communities and training new troops, and the higher teir SOF is exclusively playing whack-a-mole.

Before Iraq, I spent a good deal of time in the southern Philippines, which was a great counterinsurgency success in breaking support for the Abu Sayyaf Group within the local communities themselves. There's great FID and COIN successes all over the world, keeping the lid on simmering problems. There won't be a similar level of success in Iraq and Afghanistan precisely because it's the Big Army running the show, not SOCOM. Big Army is too traditional, clumsy, politicized, and heavy handed to do it right.