Tag: SOF

Synopsis:

The proposal for a Strategic Services Command (STRATSERCOM) was the brainchild of E.C. Meyer in the 1980s following the Desert One debacle in Iran. The proposal sought to create an independent Special Operations Forces (SOF) full four-star unified command with a re-development of the Tier system. At the time the proposal was informally rejected, but later many of the recommendations would be adopted as law by the United States Congress in the 1990s – thereby granting exceptional autonomy to the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM).

Excerpts:

“The budget for special operations grew dramatically. In 1981, the Army special operations budget was $32 million. By 1983 it had risen to $440 million and by 1988, the total SOF budget was approximately $2.5 billion (though it represented only 1 percent of the total Department of Defense budget).

“The original concept was that each of the two Ranger battalions would rotate as a Tier One unit under the Army Component Commander as it assumed the six-week alert posture for Commanding General JSOC. The remaining battalion would be retained in Tier Two status.

“What General Meyer proposed was a unique concept with dramatic implications for DOD organizations. The rejection of the proposition by those required to change was completely consistent with DOD’s history, particularly its reaction towards special operations issues… STRATSERCOM was a child of his own vision of the world, a world that would require a form of support that the DOD was not capable of providing without a STRATSERCOM type of headquarters. He translated his vision into a deceptively simple graph that became the heart of the STRATSERCOM rationale.

“…objections that were raised were very general in nature. The consistent thread was concern that the force would be employed in a CINCs theater without prior coordination and would not work through the existing CINC structure. All agreed that the problems of low intensity combat in general and counter-terrorism specifically had to be addressed. USEUCOM endorsed the concept provided that deployed forces would report to him when in theater. No other CINC formally responded.

“Service staffs had expressed great concern over the force assignment issue. The Service Chiefs viewed the ‘assignment’ of forces to STRATSERCOM as a dangerous precedent, the Navy in particular. Service staffs informally recommended non-concurrence based on the possibility that future CINCs could demand the same command arrangements with concomitant loss of service control of component forces.

*All excerpts have been taken from Phoenix Rising: From the Ashes of Desert One to the Rebirth of U.S. Special Operations, Casemate Publishers.