Sublime

John Piedmont’s Det One: U.S. Marine Corps U.S. Special Operations Command Detachment, 2003–2006

At the war’s outset in April 1917, Fox Conner had been an undistinguished major, in one of the least glamorous bureaus of the War Department, whose primary battles had been against health problems. Nineteen months later, he wore a general’s star and sat in the inner circle that surrounded America’s most powerful soldier since Ulysses S. Grant. At

NEXT STEPS FOR TRANSFORMING SOF In this chapter, we have argued that emerging information age technologies reinforce rather than challenge the conclusion that independent SOF operations, and particularly indirect missions, provide greater strategic value for the United States than support to conventional forces, and especially SOF direct action

All of these special operators made critical use of modern inventions such as the airplane and radio. But they were also inspired by the timeless lessons of history. SOE’s first leaders, the army officers J. C. F. Holland and Colin Gubbins, had fought against the IRA. In addition, Holland had served with the Arab irregulars in World War I and had

Almost a decade later Charlie Beckwith offered up his Delta Force: The Army’s Elite Counterterrorist Unit (Beckworth 2000).

FOUR REVOLUTIONS

THE NEW SALES DRIVER A. Select targets. B. Create and deploy weapons. C. Plan and execute the attack.

advised many officers that the right amount of involvement—the proper position for them—was somewhere in the middle, generally with the bulk of their force: not so far forward that they get sucked into every room clearance, but not so far back that they don’t know what is going on up front.