Washington's Infatuation with Special Operations and Air War

     I should qualify the title by modifying it to, " Washington's Civilian Leaders' Infatuation with Special Operations and Air War."  That is not to say that there aren't Generals in the Pentagon who are not in favor of special operations and air war, but the military leadership, unlike the civilians, also recognizes that bombing and special operations alone cannot win wars.  The civilian leaders, on the other hand, seem to think that we can win wars by bombing, the so-called "shock and awe" approach, and using limited, special operations.  In other words, they think we can defeat the enemy such as Al Qaeda and ISIS by carrying out a limited war, a nice clean war with surgical air strikes and precise special operations, all within a specified time period, say a two or three year period.  After that, we announce that the war is over!  Nice and neat.
     Washington's infatuation with special operations is not something new.  In more recent history, during World War Two, it was FDR, our president, who was quite taken by OSS and all the cloak and dagger stuff.  In fact, it was FDR who brought in Bill Donovan, a World War One hero, to create OSS and develop special operations capability which the US did not have at the time.  We were pretty new to all the special operations stuff at the start of the war, but we learned quickly.  Despite FDR's personal interest in special operations, there have always been military leaders, high up the ladder, who opposed anything new.  So, as soon as the war ended, we got rid of all special operations units that we had and OSS was no more.
        Five years later, during Korean War, the army scrambled to raise special operations type units because there were none!  That was one of the chief reason why the Army Special Forces was created in 1952, during Korean War!  However, once the Korean War ended, the Special Forces was shunted aside and was on the verge of being eliminated.  There were many Army Generals who disliked "special" units and wanted to get rid of Special Forces.
     JFK was a great admirer and proponent of special operations, and he in a sense, saved the Special Forces.  When he came into office, one of the first things that he did was officially designate the green beret as the headgear for the Army Special Forces.  He was fascinated by the Special Forces and ordered that it be increased in size.  He felt that special warfare was what was needed in the future "brush fire wars" as the smaller conflicts were called at the time.  Being a Navy veteran, he did not want his old service to be left out so he ordered the creation of the Navy SEALs, something similar to what army had.  The Marines, in the meantime, created the Force Recon, a much smaller version of the WWII Raiders/Para Marines.
     During Vietnam War, the special operations came into its own.  The MAAG-V, the Military Assistance and Advisory Group-Vietnam, created the SOG, the Studies and Observation Group.  Initially it was called Special Operations Group but the name was changed to make it sound more innocuous, since it was a highly classified unit.  SOG was mainly composed of Army Special Forces personnel, but there were also Navy (SEALs) and Marine Corps members as well.  There were also highly classified operations run by Special Forces teams with Mike Forces and other indigenous troops like the PRU. During Vietnam War, these units conducted thousands of classified operations and to their credit, not a single one of the operations was made public, not until all of the missions were declassified some 30 years later! 
     Not quite the same as what is going on today.  Today, it seems, no one can keep a secret and classified operations are made public almost immediately with books, TV shows and movies!  Remember on TV, the scene in which the President, along with all his cabinet members sat glued to a monitor screen transfixed, watching the operation of killing of Bin Laden unfold. Is it surprising then that all of those civilian leaders are so into special operations?  They've been watching special operations on monitors like watching football games! 
     Precisely and quickly carried out, well planned and executed, special operations can seem like a video game, nice and clean, and watching from a distance, on a screen, very appealing especially to those unfamiliar with combat.  When you combine this with aerial bombardment with smart bombs that hit targets precisely and duplicate video games almost exactly, the appeal of this type of approach to warfare is overwhelming.  What the proponents of fighting wars only with special operations and aerial bombardment don't seem to realize is that this approach is limited.  It is conducting a limited war, and limited wars never work!  We tried that in Vietnam and it didn't work.  We were trying that in Afghanistan and it did not work, there is now talk of delaying our pull out from that country and increasing troop strength!
     Don't get me wrong, I am not against special operations or aerial bombardment.  If anything, I am, somewhat partial when it comes to special operations.  However, I also know that you cannot win wars with special operations and bombing only.  Just as at the outset of our war in Afghanistan, the special operations and bombing was able to defeat Taliban forces, conventional troops were still needed to retain all the territory that had been gained.  To do that, you need boots on the ground!  In Vietnam, despite all of the success enjoyed by Special Forces, conventional troops were needed on the ground to keep the territory that had been gained.  Unfortunately, we could not rely on ARVN troops, so US troops were needed.  In Afghanistan, after winning the initial war against Taliban with Special Forces and the Northern Alliance, we could not depend on the Northern Alliance to maintain the territory, they were squabbling amongst each other and graft and corruption began to take over very early, so US troops were needed on the ground.
     Today we have a very large Joint US Special Operations Command that consists of all branches of the service and numbers somewhere around 50,000 strong.  It is the largest special operations force that we have ever had.  But still, as large and well trained as it is, it alone cannot conduct and win wars!  Our Air Force is the best in the world, with the largest and most sophisticated selection of planes and armament, and that does not include the Navy and Marines, as well as Army Aviation!  But they are really of no use if we keep on limiting ourselves by setting artificial restrictions like time tables that we announce ahead of time!  
     The best weapon in war is surprise, and by announcing ahead of time that we will conduct this particular war for a two or three year period, or something like that, we are giving up the biggest advantage even before we start fighting!  It is not a video game that you play for a set time!
     I believe that the biggest problem that we have in Washington today is that we have a bunch of civilians with no military experience or background who make all of the key decisions when it comes to war.  This actually started a while back during Jimmy Carter era when the Iranian Hostage Crises took place in 1979.  Our failed rescue attempt was mainly caused by mechanical failures of aircrafts, but even barring that, those in the military bitterly complained that the whole "Desert One" operation was micromanaged by the "Georgia Mafia" in the White House.  Every move had to be approved by the White House!  Today, it seems that micromanaging of military operations by civilians, White House in particular, seems to be the norm.  Now do you wonder why our war on ISIS has gone nowhere since it started six months ago!