Sublime

But with MacArthur’s departure as chief of staff, military planners reverted to hemispheric defense. The 1936 War Plan Orange made no mention of a Philippine relief force.29 By 1938, with war in Europe looming, the Army made it explicit. The military would protect the continental United States, Alaska, Oahu, and Panama, “but the defense of the

In contrast, there was an attempt to create an elite unit specialized in counterinsurgency operations in the final phase of the war. In September 1943, the north China special security force was organized with intelligence, counterintelligence, and combat capabilities. It was specifically designed to deal with the Communists, whose influence kept

the job of our conventional land army is to defeat enemy armies—to defeat them and to take and hold ground. When general purpose forces try to assume the mission of SOF on their own, they are usually ineffective. When special operations units try to do the conventional, they are almost always overmatched. Yet special operations teams can often be

Theater special operations forces – A phrase used by U.S. Special Operations Command and others to refer to U.S. special operations forces that were not part of and had no habitual relationship with JSOC. Also

AIR COMMANDOS

Susan Marquis offers the most comprehensive account of this development in Unconventional Warfare: Rebuilding U.S. Special Operations Forces (Marquis 1997).

Since 1945, U.S. armed forces have been deployed abroad for conflicts or potential conflicts 211 times in 67 countries. Call it peacekeeping if you want, or call it imperialism. But clearly this is not a country that has kept its hands to itself.