United States Special Operations Command

The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is a Unified Combatant Command with the mission statement

Provide fully capable Special Operations Forces to defend the United States and its interests. Plan and synchronize operations against terrorist networks.

It trains special operations personnel from all the U.S. military services, and either attaches units to geographic Unified Combatant Commands, or, when ordered to do so, may keep operational control of Special Operations units on strategic missions.

Army Component

The existence of Army special operations is a change from the post-Vietnam War days, when a substantial amount of Special Forces was deactivated, and the Army's emphasis put on mechanized warfare. An exception was the creation of the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment in January 1974, and the 2nd Battalion in October. These, however, were seen as elite infantry rather than special operators. During this period, COL Robert Mountel, operations officer of the Special Warfare Center, wrote a study, "The Multi-Purpose Force Study: US Army Special Forces." While this 1976 document has never fully been declassified, one summary paragraph said:

...there is a pervasive lack of understanding, interest and support of unconventional warfare (United States Doctrine and Special Forces as a valid national response option. Based on research conducted for this study, this state of mind is nearly what existed in the mid-1950s. [The role of Special Forces] is seen primarily in guerilla warfare in support of conventional forces.

The Army Special Operations Command is the Army component of this Unified Combatant Command. At Component headquarters, there are command and staff elements, the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School, and various support elements. The major operational subcommands are:

• United States Army Special Forces
• 75th Ranger Regiment
• Ranger School
• 4th Psychological Operations Group
• xxth Civil Affairs Group

Certain Army special operations personnel are assigned to Joint Special Operations Command.

Navy Component

Under the Naval Special Warfare Command headquarters are the overall staff and doctrinal development, schools, the United States Navy SEALs, and various special warfare combat boat and other SEAL delivery units. Certain related functions, such as general Navy divers, are in other commands.

Air Force Component

Air Force Special Operations Command principally provides long-range transport and fire support aircraft, but also has specialists that operate with ground special operations troops. The ground roles include air traffic control for special operations aircraft, as well as meteorological monitoring in remote areas.

Marine Corps Component

See Marine Special Operations Command. This absorbed the special reconnaissance Marine Force Reconnaissance Companies, which had reported to the corps-level Marine Expeditionary Forces (MEF). It also contains units focused on foreign internal defense, which are broadening their capabilities into other special operations missions.

A Marine Special Operations School (MSOS) recruits, qualifies, ad develops Special Operations Forces (MARSOF) and has responsibility for doctrine development in Foreign Internal Defense (FID), Direct Action (DA), and Special Reconnaissance (SR). MARSOC has also been directed to develop a capability in Unconventional Warfare (UW), Counter-Terrorism (CT), and Information Operations (IO). The Marine Special Operations Support Group (MSOSG) provides combat support and combat service support, the to MARSOC Units. The MSOS

Going forward, the base unit of MARSOC will be the 14-man Marine Special Operations Team (MSOT), commanded by a Captain. All MSOTs will have the same organization. MSOTs will be part of a Marine Special Operations Company, commanded by a Major. Each MSOC headquarters will have the same structure. All MSOCs will be elements of an MSOB, commanded by a LtCol. The uniform naming convention gives MARSOC consistent, clearly understood force modules which enable effective resourcing and joint employment.

Joint Special Operations Command

The multiservice Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) focuses on much more secret operations than the rest of USSOCOM. It provides task forces called Special Mission Units (SMU), which often have a Ranger company attached for perimeter security.

When the 1979 Iranian rescue crisis took place, Delta was the unit best qualified for the mission, but the mission was much larger than the tasks for which it was designed. Further, there were no trained special operations aviation or other support assets to deliver it to Iran. An ad hoc force involving all the services was put together in four months, but the operation failed. JSOC was the response to having a permanent force for such missions.

Army Special Operations Detachment Delta

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter sent a letter to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asking if the U.S. had an antiterrorist capability such as the German GSG-9 unit that had conducted a hostage rescue in Mogadishu, Somalia. Edward "Shy" Meyer, then Army Vice Chief of Staff, convinced GEN Bernard Rogers, then Chief of Staff of the Army, to create such a unit; it was an Army, not joint, initiative. Meyer tasked COL Charlie Beckwith to create a "ranger/shooter" type of unit that would be formally called First Special Operations Detachment Delta (Airborne), or commonly Delta Force, the unit was consciously patterned after British Special Air Service, with whom had served an exchange tour. It also reflected Beckwith's experience with MACV-SOG. While SAS has an advisory and guerilla leadership capability, it is not their primary emphasis.

Mountel, however, had developed a more general-purpose, clandestine operations and special reconnaissance subunit, called BLUE LIGHT, within his command, 5th Special Forces Group. Beckwith saw this as competing, and, when Beckwith made Rogers and Carter aware of it, BLUE LIGHT was cancelled. Mountel wrote,

It [Delta] was more a pastiche of techniques and backgrounds — some borrowed from SAS and some borrowed from the Vietnam across-the-border operations — and all blundered into a macho whole that did not square with what I thought I knew about counter-terror operations in the twentieth century.

Detachment, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment

In the Iran rescue mission, the helicopters came from a Marine unit not trained for special operations, which used Navy minesweeping helicopters to avoid the suspicion that Air Force special operations CH-53 PAVE LOW might have attracted. One of the results was to form a permanent Army special operations aviation unit for short to medium range operations, and assign Air Force Special Operations Command assets for the long-range helicopters and fixed-wing JSOC role.

DEVGROUP, Naval Special Operations

Formerly known as SEAL Team 6, this is a direct action, special reconnaissance and counterterrorist unit that adds underwater skills.