Cross-culture: special forces' skills 'needed more than ever'.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: ANALYSIS - Cover story

Special operations forces have never been in such high demand. Just more than a year ago, the Pentagon approved a major expansion of their ranks and a substantial funding increase.

But experts are questioning whether the Pentagon is making the best use of these highly skilled forces in the nation's war against extremist Islamic groups.

Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld made it one of his top priorities to boost the size and influence of special operations forces. The U.S. Special Operations Command will be growing to more than 54,000 personnel--which is nearly 10,000 more people than it had three years ago--and its budget has soared from $4 billion to nearly $7 billion. Rumsfeld also directed SOCOM to "take the lead" in the war on terrorism.

But it was never clear to anyone in the military's top leadership what exactly it meant for SOCOM to take the lead. The most likely rationale for Rumsfeld's plan was his conviction that, unlike the conventional military services, special operations forces could take care of business quickly and inexpensively--with only 2 percent of the Pentagon's budget.

The problem with Rumsfeld's thinking is that he overemphasized the "direct action" piece of the SOF portfolio, which involves the capture and killing of terrorist operatives. His plan gave short shrift to one of the other major missions of special operators: the training of foreign militaries in critical regions of the world, says Dick Couch, a retired Navy SEAL and author of "Chosen Soldier: The Making of a Special Forces Warrior."

The so-called "foreign internal defense" mission is essential because it builds indigenous forces--in places such as Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East--that, in theory, will fight terrorists and insurgents, and ultimately forward U.S. interests without large military interventions.

Given the current U.S. struggle against extremist Muslim militants, the foreign-internal defense mission arguably can go much further toward winning the war on terrorism than just capturing and killing terrorist suspects, Couch says.

"Special operations forces have tremendous direct-action capability to take out bad guys. Rumsfeld really liked that.... They can jump on a helicopter on a moment's notice and get the job done quickly." But their abilities to work with foreign nations and help them build robust counterterrorist capabilities are key to achieving U.S. goals, he adds. "Rumsfeld seemed to be overly charmed by the...