Front page of today's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/us/admiral-pushes-for-freer-hand-in-special-forces.html
I think the article was written by someone who didn't take their Ritalin. First they present you with the "gotcha" moment where it sounds like SOCOM will more or less operate as it pleases, which is a bad idea IMO. Later it states that missions can't be launched without the approval of the regional commander and still further into the article it makes it sound like SOCOM would only forward deploy troops and make them available to the regional commander, NOT send them on unilateral missions. Buried in the article it states that these units will still have to filter their missions through the normal chain of command, to include the JCS and SECDEF (which presumably State will be involved in as well). Maybe there's some awesome plan involved, but I wouldn't know it from the article.
Sounds like 1st and 7th SFG's start focusing on their primary AO's and let 3rd, 5th, and others concentrate on Afghanistan.
I'm new to this forum, and certainly young and naive, but it seems as though he's just seeking approval, or rather the authority, to more freely conduct kinetic operations at the discretion of regional commands, especially those which are currently are limited in their abilities to do so, for whatever amount of reasons (i.e. EUCOM, AFRICOM, or more bluntly anyone besides CENTCOM). The reasons aren't appropriate to be discussed here, but IMHO the operational capacity he's asking permission to utilize is necessary if SOCOM is going to execute its mission. Whether or not that mission should be more clearly defined in public is certainly something for debate, maybe that's what the Times should be reporting on, not the organization just trying to do its job.
Not every operation is kinetic. Regional stability has much less to do with people being dead than with other missions.
Noted and corrected, apologies. Anyway, my thoughts were that anything less than kinetic didn't really need to be cleared. I'd think the potential issues with those types of operations would be those mostly relating to interagency coordination and cooperation, but probably more-so the latter. Why they can't reconcile their goals and methods is beyond me...
"Kinetic" Ops get cleared too. No Military Unit just goes out and does "it's own thing", all ops get approved by someone.
Sorry for not clarifying, I was speaking more to operations conducted by State and the IC/SOCOM community that potentially undermine each other, and by cleared I meant on the cabinet level.
Missions can be, have been, and will be conducted without regional commanders or DOS approval or knowledge. If you want great pictures of a US Ambassador having an epileptic fit; have the commander of a ODA that he did not know about, knock on his door looking for refuge....... Then there are other authors Sometime politicians or military leaders are so impressed by their own awesomeness.... that they will write checks with the troops bodies, that they can't cash.... Then you have the Good Idea Fairy. Best action to take when they appear is to shoot on sight..... Pilots... a breed unto their own that have began to inter-breed.... The sky is the only place big enough for their ego's.
