What is a logical military argument AGAINST special forces?

Question

I once heard that some in the military don't care for special forces, arguing that they cost an enormous amount of money for a relatively small benefit. I also heard that they tend to rob regular units of their best troops.

I've been reading a series written by a former Navy SEAL and of course the author is gung-ho in favor of special forces. I was curious as to whether or not anyone could give me a serious argument against them, even if it's just playing devil's advocate.

Answer 1

The argument that used to be used the most was,

Untill the mid 1960's to qualify to be in an airborne unit, a soldier had to have the same GT score as an OCS candiate.

So the argument went, that a private in an airborne unit, was capable of being an NCO or Officer in a regular unit.

The argument went, that if you took all those soldiers in airborne units and spread them around the armies regular units.

It would raise the standards of those regular units and give them smarter, better leadership.

Today, the same argument is used by some when talking about special forces.

That if you took those highly qualified NCO's and put them with regular army units, they would raise the standards and give better leadership.

The Iran hostage crisis and desert one, changed alot of minds.

After that, was when the big push came to full intergrate the different spec ops units under a unified command and train together.

And to give spec ops control of the assets they needed to do thier job.

The argument will always be around, it is two sides of the same coin.

1.Your taking highly trained soldiers out of regular units, and giving them additional training to carry out very hard specific task, so there is a higher degree of sucess.

2. But you are taking alot of the most modivated soldiers from regular units, which does have a negative effect on them.

You hear some politicians talking about doubling the size of special forces.

There have been some interesting articles written about the subject.

Most saying that it can not happen.

There just are not enough modivated soldiers, highly skilled, highly fit soldiers to double spec ops, without lowering standards.

An example, the US Navy Seals in 2004, after trying to increase the number of Seals, had a net increase of just one Seal for the year.

That means they trained only more more Seal, than the teams lost do to injury, death or ETS.

The Army now has the 18X enlistment option, to go straight to special forces.

About 680 enlistees have signed up under that option so far.

About 140 of that 680 made it as far as SFAS.

The failure rate for 18X enlistees is three times higher in SFAS than for soldiers coming from the Army.

So far, less than 2% of the 18X enlistees have made it to the start of SFQC.

Figures aren't available on how many of that 2% made it thru SFQC.

Answer 2

I served in the Army for 4 years and I've never heard an argument against Spec Ops groups; at least not among my peers. Sure, we had guys in our unit who were Airborne, Air Assault, and Ranger trained, including our CO. Our First Sergeant was Special Forces trained. The rest of us were just regularly trained troops.

As far as Special Forces groups robbing regular units of their best troops, this is completely false. Special Ops training is voluntary only, so there is no robbing of anyone. Also, many of these guys receive the training but then go back to their regular units afterwords.

Logical military argument against special forces? There is none.

Answer 3

There is no argument against Special Forces. They are a vital and important part of the military and are an enormous benefit. They have played a major role in the fight against terror. They have have accomplished missions that regular infantry units are not trained to perform.

Answer 4

The base behind any argument against Special OPERATIONS troops is jealousy. Spec Ops are outstanding men doing extraordinairy things such as taking Afghanistan in less than two months with less than 200 men on the ground.

They have won many wars we never were in.

Only the Army has Special Forces, which are Special Operations, as are Army Rangers, Navy Seals, AF PJ's, AF CCT's, and most recently Marine Force Recon.

Answer 5

The only people whom are usually against Special Forces are dictators, since the SF soldiers can usually win over the support of the regular soldier and perform a coup. The Soviets claimed to be very against Special Forces with the whole communist equality ideals, but even they had Spetznas (Sp?).

Answer 6

I'm not against sf in any way, but I will play devil's advocate here. Special forces school is the longest in the army and we spend millions of dollars training each soldier, with all of the time and money spent on a sf soldier you could have trained a hundred regular infantry men in their place. Thats all I could come up with.

Answer 7

There is no logical argument against. Every organized military force in history has needed some form of them. In America Historian's usually go back to Major Robert Roger's Ranger's in the French and Indian War. But in reality you could go back to Captain Benjamin Church in King Philip's war in New England and beyond. Miles Standish organized something similar with the Pilgrim's. John Smith at Jamestown. Sir Francis Drake did basically the same thing when he organized raid's from the sea allied with locals opposed to the Spanish in Panama. Morgan's Rifles in the Revolution, a lesser known unit called "Gibson's Lamb's" in the same. John Coffee's mounted rifle's in Andrew Jackson's army. The Texas Ranger's in their early day's. It could be argued that every unit in Nathan Bedford Forrest's Calvary was elite. You could argue that Benjamin Franklin Cheatam's men in the Army of Tennessee formed an elite strike force. Along with Pat Cleburne's. In the Army of Potomac. Well the Iron Brigade come's to mind. They were used up like water at Gettysburg but they did their job. The Irish Brigade as well. Lee had the Stonewall, the Texas, the Rockbridge artillery, the Washington artillery. I am stopping here. There is not an Army throughout history that has not needed elite unit's in one form or another. And not an ordinary commander in history who has not complained he was losing his best troop's to them....

Answer 8

In a war like we are facing in Iraq and Afghanistan, Special forces are a Godsend.

Special forces were the reason why we defeated the taliban so quickly.

well, I'm not giving an argument against them, because I believe in the strongly.

Answer 9

The Military is a place where people live, sleep, shower in very close quarters. When you have 50 guys taking showers the only thing all of them should be thinking of is taking showers. They keep woman and men sleeping and shower separate. So they can with out sexual urges popping up or problems. You add in homosexuals to the mix, would they be able to control their thoughts, desires and urges. That creates a problem for all.

Answer 10

Expensive, not capable of long, sustained combined arms fights like a regular infantry/armored unit, they fight behind enemy lines and are thusly at risk of total annihilation, and they often fail miserably. However, they can be fantastically useful. I don't think any right-minded person would argue that they aren't good, COIN or total war, special forces are very useful.