In Spring 1996, U.S. Special Operations Command, Europe (SOCEUR), was supporting the NATO Implementation Force in the former Yugoslavia. When the plane carrying the Secretary of Transportation crashed near Dubrovnik, SOCEUR was tasked to employ its unique capabilities in a search and rescue effort. Special operations forces (SOF) helicopters searched by hovering up and down mountainsides in extremely hazardous weather conditions. A joint force comprised of Army Special Forces (SF), Navy Sea, Air, Land teams (SEALs), and both Air Force special tactics personnel and Pave Low helicopters located the downed aircraft. The SOCEUR commander then assumed total responsibility for the mission, organizing British, French, German, Spanish, Croat, and U.S. forces in the grim task of recovering the 35 victims of the crash. With the recovery complete, the SOCEUR commander and his staff started their return trip to Stuttgart. While they were still in the air, a new mission arose. A deteriorating situation called for rapid evacuation of noncombatants from the civil war in Liberia.

The purpose of this study is to examine the nature of the command and control relationship between Special Forces and conventional forces. Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan serves as a case study in practice and doctrinal application. Against the backdrop of World War II, Operations in Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, and Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, this thesis provides an analysis of the complex issues arising from the necessity to fight jointly.

In this book, two national-security experts put the exploits of America’s special operation forces in historical and strategic context. David Tucker and Christopher J. Lamb offer an incisive overview of America’s turbulent experience with special operations. Starting with in-depth interviews with special operators, the authors illustrate the diversity of modern special operations forces and the strategic value of their unique attributes. Despite longstanding and growing public fascination with special operators, these forces and their contribution to national security are poorly understood. With this book, Tucker and Lamb dispel common misconceptions and offer a penetrating analysis of how these unique and valuable forces can be employed to even better effect in the future. The book builds toward a comprehensive assessment of the strategic utility of special operations forces, which it then considers in light of the demands of future warfare. This second edition of United States Special Operations Forces, revised throughout to account for lessons learned in the twelve years since its first publication, includes two new case studies, one on High Value Target Teams and another on Village Stability Operations, and two new appendixes charting the evolution of special operation missions and the best literature on all aspects of U.S. special operation forces.

An analysis of U.S. Special Operations, at the center of America’s twenty-first-century wars This original and accessible book is a comprehensive, authoritative analysis of U.S. Special Operations. U.S. Special Operations Command trains and equips units to undertake select military activities, frequently high-risk missions, often for the purposes of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. Since 9/11, impelled by an attack on U.S. soil, these forces have been a central instrument of America’s military campaign—operating in about one hundred countries on any given day. This fight—neither hot war nor cold peace—was launched and executed as a new type of global war in 2001 and has since splintered into a spectrum of regional conflicts. The result is our nation’s grey wars: hazy and lethal. This contemporary history, incorporating extensive interviews and archival research by security studies expert N. W. Collins, delves deeply into the transformation of these forces since 9/11.