The cult of the "operators"

Military topics of public interest come and go. The Anglo-German dreadnaught race saw a public mania for naval armaments, summed up by the slogan "we want eight and we won't wait", and newspapers publishing Royal Navy gunnery results on the front pages.

The latest fad certainly seems to be that of the "operator" - the clandestine commando secret O-G-A soldier who works in the deeper than black field. This glamour also applies to mercenaries and security contractors, to an extent.

To be fair, human interest and a hero cult has always captivated people - it certainly beats reading about the life and times of a cruise missile. The United States has always had a bit of an individualistic cult of pilots, perhaps due to savvy marketing and even Top Gun. In contrast, tankmen working together as a band of brothers seem to have been more popular in the USSR and other eastern bloc nations, a fact that somewhat persists today with Russian youth's great love of World of Tanks(!)

It's moreover a fruit of the shadowy, grinding wars worldwide - when did a carrier last fly off an alpha strike? In fact it could be said that the role of the infantry in doing tasks that require a decidedly human touch - the vast amount of things that fall under "counterinsurgency" - has never been more prominent.

A ring-fenced body of troops also offers plausible deniability for special activities and experimentation.

Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that one needs to be wary of the cult of the operator just like any other.

Firstly, the influence of the operators and their mindsets is certainly useful but cannot be elevated needlessly. Here we run into the age-old problem of endorsement and public relations. The "politicized SEAL" is a new element in American politics, for example. Just to name some recent incidents, much has been made of the Osama operation and the Operation Red Wings debacle, plus corresponding movies.

In a more military, bureaucratic sense, as the SF cadre gets into positions of military leadership they become another entrenched interest who may wish to protect their special prerogative like any other. It's not that commandoes won't be able to command, say, an artillery brigade or vice versa. It's a management theory question - while another set of expertise is welcomed, empire-building can ensue despite the best of intentions.

Leadership should additionally be careful of the mindset that certain missions such as long-range recce is the sole domain of special units. In theory, certain skills identified with "special forces" could and should be distributed more widely among the wider body of conventional troops. The average infantry unit could do a lot more - not all US trainers are special forces. These would include training of local units, for instance, simple hostage rescue and aggressive patrolling and close observation in the face of the enemy. In a wider war, a small cadre of specialists will be very quickly run through, and perhaps a greater dispersion of skill will be of more utility.

An amusing side effect on the overfocus on the prestige of SF is a mushrooming number of all whom are termed "special" -  the term can be quite meaningless, and one would do well to exercise caution. I do agree that by all means dole it out, like the Israel "paratrooper" (a nominal honour to encourage reservist units) and Soviet "Guards" units, but chroniclers and external readers should be wary!

(excellent post on this subject: http://defencewithac.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-devils-advocate-special-forces.html)