Commandos or communicators? Special operators ponder the right mix of roles and missions.

• Author: Wagner, Breanne
• Position: Special Operations

* FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. -- U.S. Special Operations Command is growing. From 48,000 personnel today, its numbers are expected to increase to 58,000 in the coming years. But how will they be used?

Since the so-caned global war on terrorism began after 9/11, resources, recognition and prestige for the command has risen.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was a big fan. He saw a large role in the new war for special operators, whose commando skills were well suited for kicking down doors and capturing or eliminating terrorists.

But six years into what he dubbed "the long war," Rumsfeld is gone. In his place, is Secretary Robert Gates, an advocate of "soft power."

"Kinetic" or "nonkinetic. "Direct or "indirect." The terms generally divide the skill sets of special operators into two categories. Are these special operators best used as highly trained commandos who swoop in to a remote terrorist safe house and capture a "high value target?" Or should they be fighting to win over the hearts and minds of local populations and training allies' small units to conduct counterterrorism missions?

A consensus is emerging that special operations troops--many of whom in recent years have focused their attention on hunting down terrorists--will be spending increasingly more time training foreign troops to fight insurgencies and helping rebuild war-tom countries, experts said.

"We recognize that there's been a strategic shift away from the direct action, episodic kinds of tactics, which have their place, but frankly, in this particular kind of war ... we take more of a full spectrum approach," said retired Army Lt. Col. Kelly Snapp, now subject matter expert with the Defense Department's irregular warfare support group.

The military has to learn to navigate the enemy's human terrain and understand his strategy and organization rather than just focusing on striking tangible targets, Snapp Said at a Lodestar Group special operations conference here.

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But special operators "may not be doing quite as well as far as overcoming those challenges," he said.

Michael Vickers, the newly appointed assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict, is also an advocate of "indirect" approaches and "unconventional warfare," which is defined in special operations doctrine as the training and advising of surrogate forces to conduct guerilla warfare, subversion, sabotage and intelligence activities.

Vickers, speaking in...