What’s Wrong With SOCOM? | Small Wars Journal

Very interesting article - and a very harsh critique. Disagree on the JSOC controlling aspect - but some parts in this - and the comments are pretty interesting to see written. "The SOCOM headquarters itself, the center of the bureaucracy, is plagued by internal rivalries, deep-seated civilian bureaucrats and personalities, and miles of red tape. U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), the largest subordinate within SOCOM, is largely a non-player within the command, its top-ranking officers rarely making it past colonel and not having commanded SOCOM since 1997 (excepting GEN Brown in 2004 whose “special” bona fides were with Special Operations Aviation, which is known more as a JSOC type unit as opposed to a USASOC unit). Marine Special Operations (MARSOC), a unit forced onto SOCOM (or vice versa, depending on whom you ask), struggles to find relevancy and with the “special” moniker itself. The SEALs, originally set up for short-duration, ship-to-ship and close-to-shore interdiction missions, has lobbied just like the rest of SOCOM for more missions. They have found much success of late in land-locked Afghanistan, as Army SOF elements pushed for the higher profile Iraq mission and the powers that be decided the SEALs needed to do something. Finally, most Air Force Special Operations are special in name only, as most of their personnel rotate back and forth within the U.S. Air Force and are only special while in SOCOM because of the airframes and missions they fly and support."