United States Army Special Forces: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 20:54, 22 May 2008
United States Army Special Forces are both units and a military specialty designation in the United States Army. For many countries, "special forces" is a generic term. For the United States, it refers to specific units, and thus the more general term is special operations forces. In the U.S., Special Forces are trained and have their "home" in the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). In some cases, USSOCOM has operational control, but Special Forces (and other special operations forces) are usually attached to geographically Unified Combatant Commands.
Special Forces have a core set of seven missions, and may carry out other related duties.
| Primary mission | Secondary mission |
|---|---|
| unconventional warfare (United States doctrine) | Combat search and rescue (CSAR) |
| Foreign internal defense(FID) | security assistance |
| Special reconnaissance (SR) | Peacekeeping |
| direct action (DA) | humanitarian assistance |
| counter-terrorism (CT) | humanitarian demining |
| Counterproliferation (CP) | Counter-drug operations |
| psychological operations (United States) (PsyOps) | -- |
| information operations (IO) | -- |
USSOCOM units or other U.S. government activities may be the specialists in these secondary areas[1]
History
Personnel selection and training
Unit organization
Missions
Unconventional warfare
The United States defines UW as guerilla warfare conducted or supported by United States Army Special Forces (SF) and other units in the United States Special Operations Command. Guerilla warfare is one aspect of the broader term insurgency. The United States definition of UW is:
"Military and paramilitary operations, normally of long duration, predominantly conducted by indigenous or surrogate forces who are organized, trained, equipped, supported, and directed in varying degrees by an external source. It includes guerrilla warfare and other direct offensive, low visibility, covert, or clandestine operations, as well as the indirect activities of subversion, sabotage, intelligence gathering, and escape and evasion"[2]
References
- ↑ Joint Chiefs of Staff (17 December 2003), Joint Publication 3-05: Doctrine for Joint Special Operations. Retrieved on 2008-04-27
- ↑ US Department of Defense (12 July 2007), Joint Publication 1-02: Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms