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Originally Posted by Patriot
IWe're breaking new ground in OIF regarding conventional force/SF combined ops aren't we?
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Well actually yes and no. The only new ground we have broken is the mind-set of conventional commanders that SF could contribute to a conventionally led operation/and or could take the lead in conventional operations. Let's get a couple of terms straight here also. Combined operations are operations with US and foreign forces. US forces/SF operations are joint and not combined. You also have joint/combined forces reflecting a combination of different US forces and foreign forces. While it may not seem like a big deal, it is as important as differentiating between SOF and SF. If you can get access to some of our doctrinal manuals you will see that there is nothing new here except that SF was allowed to perform the missions espoused by their doctrine and that this doctrine had been blessed and approved by the appropriate service manuals.
What is happening now, however is that SF is being used more to make up for conventional military short comings and are playing more direct roles in door kicking and direct action missions rather than FID/UW. I am not suggesting that SF is not performing doctrinal missions, what I am suggesting is that the conventional forces all think that they can step in and perform doctrinal SF operations and are beginning to label things as "special operations" when they start to cross outside their lanes. This again is not new, it is just a continuation of failing to use the right folks for the right task. It also has to do with the failure of developing and implementing a sound national security strategy based on properly defined national interests with a concomitant development by the DOD of a personnel and force strategy that looks beyond and manages idiotic political agendas in order to manage the current battlefield and shape the battlespace of tomorrow.
The "new" ground that is being broken in the aftermath of OIF is that the military has forgotten that they went through all of this before. There are no lessons learned here, just mistakes revisited. I should rephrase that, there are lessons learned and those have to do with equipment failures, leadership shortcomings, myopic strategies, etc. The new part of all this is that it is a "new" crop of players but the boilerplate remains the same. That old hackneyed phrase about those failing to understand history being destined to repeat it plays into this scenario quite well.