Expanding role under Obama, and now Trump
cial operations teams are chiefly assigned to train and coordinate with local government security forces. They are reportedly embedded with local soldiers on the front lines in only a crucial few countries where terrorist groups operate openly.
“U.S. policy is trying to shift the fighting burden to locals, which means we have to train pro-Western — or at least anti-jihadist — locals to do the fighting and dying,” said Christopher Harmer, an analyst at the nonpartisan Institute for the Study of War.
That means relying on special forces who are “used to working in smaller numbers in austere conditions without a lot of friendly support in close proximity,” he added.
A year ago, for example, about 50 special operators were in northern Syria. Now more than 500 are working with armed groups — some of them opposed to the others — in the multi-sided civil war: Turkish soldiers, Kurdish militias and a coalition of Arab forces in a planned offensive against Raqqah, Islamic State’s self-declared capital in Syria.
In Iraq, special operations forces are working with Iraqi units trying to clear Islamic State from the militant group’s redoubt in Mosul, calling in airstrikes and advising on tactics. Hundreds more play support roles in staging bases.
Special Operations Command was established at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., after the failed attempt to rescue 52 U.S. Embassy staff members held hostage in Iran in 1980. The debacle embarrassed the Pentagon and contributed to President Carter’s loss in the election that year.
The turning point for the command came after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
As the George W. Bush administration prosecuted what it called a global war on terrorism, the command’s experience in clandestine operations and guerrilla warfare helped it track terrorist networks in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa and elsewhere.
Their light but deadly footprint especially appealed to Obama, who was elected after promising to end America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He gradually cut the number of conventional troops in those war zones from 150,000 to 14,000.
But Obama vastly expanded the role of elite units, as well as drone aircraft, in the so-called shadow wars. During his tenure, Special Operations Command saw its budget balloon and its overall strength grow by more than 15,000 people while most of the Pentagon was being trimmed.
Commando teams conducted counter-terrorism missions in at least six countries under Obama. Among them: the CIA-led raid by Navy SEALs that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May 2011.
Trump also has embraced special operations. He is considering sending more forces to Syria and Afghanistan to play a larger role in those wars, officials say, and has given commanders greater authority to launch attacks in Yemen and Somalia without White House approval.
Thomas, the head of Special Operations Command, warns that even the military’s elite forces have their limits in a world racked by terrorism.
“We are not a panacea,” he said. “We are not the ultimate solution to every problem.”