Modern armies are planned and structured to fight massive World War
II-type operations involving the large-scale movements of tanks and
machinery across continents. In fact they are rarely called upon to
participate in such conflicts. It is far more common for them to
find themselves involved in lower-level, ill-defined, politically
charged, messy situations known collectively as "unconventional
warfare," typified by the 1990s conflicts in Somalia, Haiti,
Rwanda, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
Thomas Adams argues that, for the most part, the conventional
war-fighting forces of the USA are not the best military forces to
deal with such situations, where there is a lack of a
clearly-defined enemy and a need for persuasion, negotiation and
even community leadership alongside elements who are willing to
resort to deadly force. The appropriate components of the US
miltary to deal with this, in his view, are the Special Operations
Forces (SOF). He discusses the composition of the SOF and their
varying roles, discussing their evoluation, strengths and
weaknesses, and gives a history of US involvement in
non-conventional warfare from the American revolution to the 1990s.
He argues that the US Department of Defense still sees military
conflict in the form of conventional warfare, with its emphasis on
high-technology combat. The very existence of high-technology
systems, however, makes conventional warfare less likely, with the
result that the US Army may become vulnerable to "low-tech"
offensives, and already there has been an increase in
"unconventional" conflicts since the demise of the Soviet
Union.
Adams proposes a change in strategic thinking together with
investment in training and ausable military doctrine to guide
develoment. A shift in expectations is required, with a greater
willingness to accept lengthy commitments and incremental progress.
General
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