Special operations > Related Articles
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Parent topics
- Combat arms [r]: In a land military organization, the functions of infantry, units based on armored fighting vehicles, artillery, air, artillery and missile defense, combat engineers, army cooperation aviation and special operations forces. All combat arms units engage in direct contact with enemy personnel or systems. [e]
Subtopics
Doctrine
- Operational Preparation of the Environment [r]: Clandestine operations of the U.S. Department of Defense that can fall into Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace or Operational Preparation of the Battlespace, but are of sufficient sensitivity that if they were conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Congressional leadership would need to be informed [e]
- Clandestine human-source intelligence and covert action [r]: Intelligence and military special operations functions that either should be completely secret (i.e., clandestine: the existence of which is not known outside the relevant government circles), or simply cannot be linked to the sponsor (i.e., covert: it is known that sabotage is taking place, but its sponsor is unknown). [e]
- Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace [r]: "An analytical methodology employed to reduce uncertainties concerning the enemy, environment, and terrain for all types of operations. Intelligence preparation of the battlespace builds an extensive database for each potential area in which a unit may be required to operate. The database is then analyzed in detail to determine the impact of the enemy, environment, and terrain on operations and presents it in graphic form. Intelligence preparation of the battlespace is a continuing process. Also called IPB." (Joint Chiefs of Staff) [e]
Missions
- Insurgency [r]: A wide range of political and military actions intended to change a government, through means considered illegal by that government. [e]
- Guerilla warfare [r]: A set of strategic, operational, and tactical actions, within a political context, taken against an enemy in territory dominated by that enemy, by irregular troops, often not uniformed [e]
- Counterinsurgency [r]: Theory and practice of defeating insurgency without creating even more local resistance or strategic failures [e]
- Foreign Internal Defense [r]: U.S. special operations doctrine for assisting third-countries in counterinsurgency [e]
- Direct action (military) [r]: Military attacks, usually by special operations forces on land, against specific, well-defined targets, often behind enemy lines. [e]
- Combat search and rescue [r]: The location and rescue of military and civilian personnel in hostile areas, such that a military operation is necessary to retrieve them [e]
- Counterproliferation [r]: The set of activities that detect and monitor the threat of weapons of special concern against one's own nation and one's allies. [e]
- Counterterrorism [r]: A range of activities that prevent attempted terrorism well before an actual act is close to being executed, including killing or capturing terrorists; complements and can include anti-terrorism, or measures taken to minimize the impact of an attempted or completed act; counterterrorism proper is "enemy centric" rather than counterinsurgency, which is "people-centric" [e]
- Information operations [r]: The integrated employment of the core capabilities of electronic warfare, computer network operations, psychological operations, military deception, and operations security. [e]
- Hostage rescue [r]: Add brief definition or description
- Special reconnaissance [r]: Also known as SR, missions deep in denied areas, conducted by special operations personnel. They may be in or out of uniform. While SR units may direct air, missile, or artillery strikes, they strive to stay undetected. [e]
Units
Israel
United Kingdom
- Special Air Service [r]: Elite division of the British Army. [e]
- Special Boat Service [r]: Add brief definition or description
- Special Reconnaissance Regiment [r]: Add brief definition or description
United States
- Joint Special Operations Command [r]: A major subordinate unit of the United States Special Operations Command, which takes on the most sensitive covert military operations, usually working unacknowledged within the geographic area of a Unified Combatant Command [e]
- Army Special Operations Command [r]: A command that trains and prepares U.S. Army special operations personnel, including United States Army Special Forces, and serves as the land forces component of United States Special Operations Command [e]
- 5th Special Forces Group [r]: One of the older United States Army Special Forces groups first serving in Vietnam, the unit now supports United States Central Command in the Middle East, Central Asia and Horn of Africa [e]
- 75th Ranger Regiment [r]: Assigned to the Army Special Operations Command of the United States Special Operations Command, a highly skilled, parachute-qualified light infantry unit that conducts raids in uniform (e.g., seizing airfields or destroying strategic targets), and provides perimeter security during direct action by other special operators [e]
- Advanced Force Operations [r]: Clandestine operations, not primarily for Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace, conducted by special operations personnel prior to major combat, but preparing for combat operations (e.g., target selection, guerilla liaison, setting up evasion and escape networks) [e]
- Delta Force [r]: A generally covert U.S. Army unit in Joint Special Operations Command, specializing in hostage rescue and combat search and rescue, direct action, special reconnaissance, and counterterrorism. [e]
- United States Army Special Forces [r]: United States Army organization originally created to train and lead guerillas, highly qualified to work with other cultures; acquired additional missions including foreign internal defense, direct action (military), special reconnaissance, counterterrorism, etc. [e]
- United States Navy SEAL [r]: [under]sea-air-land special operations organization of the United States Navy, specializing in direct action, special reconnaissance, combat search and rescue and counterterrorism [e]
- Air Force Special Operations Command [r]: The Air Component of United States Special Operations Command; lineage includes Air Commando units in the Vietnam War [e]
- AC-130 [r]: Heavily armed transport aircraft, based on the C-130 Hercules, used to provide air support to special operations forces. [e]
- MH-53 Pave Low [r]: United States Air Force special operations helicopter that can fly at night, at extremely low altiude, and in most weather. Its main missions are delivering and retrieving special operations personnel. [e]
Vietnam
- Lac Luong Dac Biet [r]: Special Forces of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam; a paramilitary organization reporting to the office of President Ngo Dinh Diem before his overthrow, then a combination of a counterpart to United States Army Special Forces and a clandestine human-source intelligence and covert action organization, and eventually a pure counterpart organization. [e]
- Nha Ky Thuat [r]: The most common Vietnamese term for a Republic of Vietnam organization for special operations, clandestine human-source intelligence, and, at one point, paramilitary operations against protesters in the Buddhist crisis of 1963; U.S. counterpart organizations included MACV-SOG and United States Army Special Forces [e]
Other related topics
- Afghanistan War (2001-) [r]: Beginning on October 7, 2001, in response to the 9-11 attacks, military operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda by United States and NATO forces [e]
- Afghanistan War (2001-), major combat phase [r]: During the Afghanistan War (2001-), the period of combat by Afghan ground forces, with U.S. and British air & special operations support, which drove the Taliban and al-Qaeda from their bases, in October through December 2001 [e]
Bot-suggested topics
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- Air campaigns in Cambodia and Laos [r]: U.S. military air operations, both overt and covert, over Cambodia and Laos; some before and most during the 1962-1972 Vietnam War [e]
- Air warfare planning [r]: The set of doctrines and procedures for carrying out all types of air warfare, as an integrated whole [e]
- Dan McNeill [r]: Retired general, U.S. Army, who was the senior U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan; now a military analyst with Human Rights Watch [e]
- David McKiernan [r]: A U.S Army General who was relieved early of command of the International Security Assistance Force, NATO's headquarters in Afghanistan; he commanded the ground forces in the Iraq War and is an armored combat specialist, as opposed to his replacement, GEN Stanley McChrystal, a special operations officer [e]
- Deconfliction [r]: The process of avoiding mutual interference, or destruction, among resources under one's control [e]
- Dell Dailey [r]: Currently Counterterrorism Coordinator for the U.S. Department of State, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general whose career was spent in special operations [e]
- Director of Central Intelligence [r]: Formerly, the U.S. official that headed both the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States intelligence community; the responsibility is now split between the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (currently Leon Panetta) and the Director of National Intelligence (currently Dennis Blair) [e]
- Donald Blackburn [r]: (1916 - 2008) A U.S. Army officer specializing in insurgency, counterinsurgency and special operations before they were recognized as specialties. [e]
- Donald Rumsfeld [r]: U.S. Secretary of Defense in the George W. Bush Administration (2001-2008); was the oldest secretary and earlier the youngest secretary in the Administration (1975-1977); major policymaker after the 9-11 attack; advisor, Project for the New American Century [e]
- Fall of South Vietnam [r]: The result of a series of conventional military actions by the People's Army of Viet Nam, under the direction of the Politburo of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which led to the dissolution of the Republic of Vietnam and the reunification of North and South Vietnam into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam [e]
- Force multiplier [r]: Technology, operating doctrine, or combination of techniques that , "...when added to and employed by a combat force, significantly increases the combat potential of that force and thus enhances the probability of successful mission accomplishment." Joint Chiefs of Staff [e]
- Forward air controller [r]: An individual or team, knowledgeable in both ground and air warfare, who coordinates close air support for a ground unit to which they are responsible [e]
- Fourth Geneva Convention [r]: International agreement specifying the obligations of an Occupying Power towards civilians in an area it controls [e]
- Fratricide (military) [r]: The killing of one's brother, but in a military context, the killing of one's own forces ("friendly fire"). [e]
- French and Indian Wars [r]: Series of North American colonial conflicts involving the British and French, with Native Americans fighting on both sides, fought between 1689-1763. [e]
- Human-source intelligence [r]: (HUMINT); the practice of acquiring information through interactions with people who can disclose relevant information, including but not limited to espionage, interrogation, debriefing and elicitation [e]
- I Corps tactical zone [r]: The geographic command, under the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam, for the northernmost provinces of South Vietnam. It directly faced North Vietnam across the Demilitarized Zone, as well as having an important boundary with Laos. [e]
- IV Corps tactical zone [r]: The southernmost regional command of the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam, including the Mekong River Delta. [e]
- Imagery intelligence [r]: the practice of taking and interpreting visible and infrared light photographs and video, radar imagery, and other ways to form pictures of subjects of interest [e]
- Infantry [r]: Soldiers that directly confront the enemy, overcoming them with fire and maneuver while on foot or in specialized vehicles [e]
- Intelligence analysis [r]: Techniques, independent of the subject matter, for correlating multiple kinds of information, hypothesizing meaning from the set of data available, and, with incomplete information, validating the hypotheses [e]
- International Security Assistance Force [r]: United Nations authorized, North Atlantic Treaty Organization-commanded military and security force in Afghanistan, in both a combat and training role [e]
- Iraq War, major combat phase [r]: That part of the Iraq War involving the initial invasion by large-scale ground forces [e]
- Iraq War, theater operational planning [r]: Detailed invasion planning for the Iraq War by United States Central Command, once the policy decision had been made to prepare for war [e]
- Iraq War [r]: Invasion of Iraq by a coalition of countries, led by the United States, in 2003, and subsequent occupation [e]
- John Mulholland [r]: Since 2008, a lieutenant general commanding U.S. Army Special Forces; he commanded the 5th Special Forces Group in combat in the Afghanistan War (2001-) and Iraq War [e]
- MACV-SOG [r]: The U.S. organization responsible for covert operations against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, as well as related cross-border operations from South Vietnam into Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War; the abbreviation had an unclassified cover meaning, but was actually the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Special Operations Group [e]
- Measurement and signature intelligence [r]: A variety of intelligence gathering disciplines complementary to the technical "mainstream" of imagery intelligence and signals intelligence. [e]
- Medal of Honor [r]: The highest U.S. military decoration for valor, "above and beyond the call of duty", at the risk of life, in direct combat [e]
- Michael Repass [r]: Commanding general of United States Army Special Forces Command as of 2007 [e]
- Military doctrine [r]: The fundamental principles of a military organization. [e]
- Military strategy [r]: The highest-level national concept of the use of pure military power, inlcluding setting the composition of the military and its deployment; high-level regional objectives in war; military research and setting military production priorities [e]
- Office of Strategic Services [r]: The United States' first unified agency for clandestine intelligence collection, all-source intelligence analysis and covert action [e]
- Operation Just Cause [r]: The name, released to the public, of the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama. [e]
- Operational Preparation of the Battlespace [r]: Non-intelligence activities conducted prior to D-Day, H-Hour, in likely or potential areas of employment, to train and prepare for follow-on military operations (United States Special Operations Command) [e]
- Operational art [r]: A level of military power at which forces in the field, or deployed from the homeland, can determine the place and conditions of battle [e]
- Osama bin Laden [r]: A radical jihadist who founded, with Ayman al-Zawahiri, a group known as al-Qaeda, which is credited with a series of terrorist attacks. [e]
- PRD-13 [r]: A man-portable tactical signals intelligence collection system, originally developed for United States Army Special Forces [e]
- Paratroop [r]: A subset of air assault military forces, which arrive at a tactical objective by deliberately parachuting from aircraft [e]
- Reconnaissance (disambiguation) [r]: Add brief definition or description
- Rotary wing aircraft [r]: Aircraft, especially a helicopter, that is kept partially or completely airborne by airfoils rotating around a vertical axis. [e]
- Saddam Hussein [r]: (1937–2006) Deposed and executed ruler of Iraq. [e]
- Safehouse [r]: A physical or virtual place where the members of a clandestine organization can meet or communicate, with minimal danger of exposure to hostile security personnel. [e]
- Sarajevo [r]: The capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina. [e]
- Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities [r]: In the 1960s and 1970s, an officer who had responsibility for advising the Chairman of he Joint Chiefs of Staff on counterinsurgency and covert operations, the latter including military support to Central Intelligence Agency operations [e]
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- Vietnam, war, and the United States [r]: The interactions of the Vietnam War with United States domestic politics and public opinion, and, in turn, how domestic considerations affected the military situation [e]
- War on terror [r]: A major policy of the George W. Bush Administration, defining global terrorism, as opposed to nation-states as in the Cold War, as the focal point of national security policy [e]
