Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [8]
Finally we come to foreign internal defense, or FID. During the Cold War, foreign internal defense was an active SOF mission. In this effort, we sent teams of SOF operators to fledgling democracies, and in some cases friendly dictatorships, to teach them how to protect themselves from Communist-backed insurgencies. With the passing of the Soviet Union, much of our FID work centered on helping foreign governments counter illegal drug production and trafficking. The skill set for unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense is much the same. It depends on whether your client is the government in power, which calls for FID, or those seeking to overthrow a regime in power, which is a UW mission. Both call for the training of others—to be insurgents or guerrillas or to conduct counterguerrilla/counterinsurgent operations. And this brings us to the counterinsurgency struggle we face in Iraq and Afghanistan. Counterinsurgency has its own acronym—COIN. A COIN campaign calls on all four SOF mission disciplines, but it’s primarily a derivative of FID.
Regarding these acronyms—DA, SR, UW, FID, COIN, and others in this book—I understand they can be confusing and arresting for you nonmilitary readers. They are freely used in the lexicon of special operators and special operations, almost like a foreign or secret language. However, I’ll do my best to use them sparingly in this text.
The four major SOF mission areas are conducted and/or supported by all SOF components. The Air Force and Army aviation components and the Navy Special Boat Teams are usually support elements, but they can act alone for certain mission taskings, such as activity that involves teaching flying or small-craft operations to foreign allied forces. On the ground, this work has fallen to the SEALs, the Rangers, and the Special Forces. The SEALs, in addition to their unique role as the SOF maritime component, have become a superb direct-action and special-reconnaissance force. Since 9/11, they’ve ranged well inland in Afghanistan and Iraq. But they have limited language and cross-cultural skills, so their capability and utility in counterinsurgency roles has been limited. The Rangers are simply a highly versatile and capable light-infantry force. The bread and butter of the Rangers are small-unit tactics, and while they are capable of teaching this discipline, they’re primarily fighters, not teachers. They, too, have their limitations in foreign internal defense and unconventional warfare. The Army Special Forces have neither the maritime capability of the SEALs nor the self-contained, light-infantry capability of their Ranger brothers. But they can do everything else—SR, DA, FID, and UW, especially FID and UW, all of which make them a force of choice in a counterinsurgent environment. Why is it that the Special Forces can do it all? Quite simply, it’s because they are teachers. They have to know and practice the full range of SOF disciplines, and they have to have the language and cross-cultural skills to teach them. It’s been said that the Special Forces are the Peace Corps with guns. As we will later see from their origins and their deployment history, this is not far from the truth.
To win in an insurgent environment, you have to win the people. That means you have to be close to them and gain their trust. Only the locals know who’s an insurgent and who’s not. In places like Afghanistan