ist versus functional specialist, contribute to this and
create confusion for joint force commanders, chiefs of
mission and civilian policy makers alike, as to the exact capabilities they have at their disposal. A superficial understanding of the true capabilities of CA leads
to a perception that CA is only a maneuver enabler
or a post-conflict force used to rebuild a nation and
transition it to civil authority. This perspective can result in a very myopic “project focused” use of CA, as
metrics, such as numbers of projects and dollars spent,
can be easily quantified and tracked. However, as the
final report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq
Reconstruction illustrates, money spent and numbers
of projects do not necessarily translate into effects.11
This confusion has been compounded by a bias towards lethal, or “kinetic”, operations, such as direct
action, within the SOF community. As a decade plus
of combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have
illustrated, neither direct action, nor training indigenous combat forces to a U.S. standard, have been successful in achieving stability. Our ability to influence
populations and counter violent extremist ideology
remains limited. SOF leaders have recognized this and
Army Special Operations Forces doctrine has been
reorganized into two mutually supporting concepts,
Special Warfare and Surgical Strike. Special Warfare
is defined as the execution of activities that involve a
combination of lethal and nonlethal actions taken by
a specially trained and educated force that has a deep
understanding of cultures and foreign language, proficiency in small-unit tactics, and the ability to build
and fight alongside indigenous combat formations in
a permissive, uncertain, or hostile environment. Surgical Strike is defined as “the execution of activities
in a precise manner that employ special operations
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