The US military is still at war but Washington is not. The resulting tensions are eroding the fundamental compact between America’s warrior and political classes. The recent op-ed by retired Adm. William McRaven, former head of Special Operations Command and the man who led the strike against Osama Bin Laden, might have caused a national furor… Keep reading →

BALLSTON, VA: A soufflé is fluffy but a SOFLE – a brand new military acronym that stands for Special Operations Forces Liaison Element — is sinewy and powerful. Just ask Marine Lt. Col. Andrew Christian, who led the first such unit for the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit during a seven month deployment to the Pacific… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: ISIL has battled its way to the Golan Heights, putting its mad troops opposite battle-hardened Israel. NATO says satellite imagery prove Russian troops and materiel are flowing into Ukraine. The president of Ukraine cancels a trip to Turkey and announces mandatory conscription. “Columns of heavy artillery, huge loads of arms and regular Russian servicemen… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Special operations types — like those who found and killed Osama bin Laden –may stand tall and do amazing things sometimes, but they tend to be fairly plain spoken. You rarely hear them say something is “astounding,” especially a new weapon. For example, one special operator recently awarded the Silver Star said he would… Keep reading →

    U.S. special operations forces face decisions of profound consequence in 2014 after having been empowered by a series of policy directives taken over the past year. One of these directives has been, contrary to the caricature of unilateral commando forces popularized by video games such as Call of Duty, an unequivocal message from… Keep reading →

Less than three weeks from today, a four-star-studded convoy of Obama administration appointees will head west to the modern GOP’s most hallowed ground, the Ronald Reagan Library – and burial site – in Simi Valley, Calif. The one-day conference is a rare attempt to build a national consensus on defense both between the parties and,… Keep reading →

AUSA: The word “cyber” is everywhere these days. It’s an all-purpose adjective slapped onto any concept to attract money and make it sound sexier, from cyberwar to cyberschoolbus to, well, cybersex. (We are not making that last term a link). Cyber and SOF – the Special Operations Forces – are the only parts of the… Keep reading →

US special operators are notoriously low-profile “silent professionals.” But lately the Internet’s been abuzz over Special Operations Command’s effort to build a high-tech suit of bulletproof armor – TALOS, the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit – that the normally understated chief of SOCOM, Adm. William McRaven, actually compared to the metal-clad superhero Iron Man. Make… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Friday’s Navy SEAL raid aimed at capturing the Somali terrorist known as Ikrimah is a glimpse at the future of American warfare, one where a small US combat presence is boosted by widescale support to local forces who bear the brunt of the fighting. The raid itself came like a blitzkrieg from the blue… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The future of Special Operations Forces may look less like Zero Dark Thirty and more like Lawrence of Arabia or Rudyard Kipling’s Kim – with just a dash of 007. It’s a future that builds on the last ten years of raids and advisor missions, then adds solo operators in foreign lands, proxy wars… Keep reading →