War on terror reaffirming role of special operators.

• Author: Book, Elizabeth G.

As the United States continues to pursue the war on terrorism, special operations forces increasingly will be relied upon, for their unique skills in unconventional warfare and urban combat, said the former deputy chief of U.S. Special Operations Command.

"I wouldn't say we won [Afghanistan], but certainly our forces were major contributors, because they were trained to operate in this kind of environment," said retired Army Lt. Gen. William Tangney who was deputy commander of USSOCOM from 2000 until 2002.

If future battles rake place in urban environments, special operations forces will play a key role, Tangney told National Defense.

"Urban warfare rends to become a squad fight versus a company fight, because your lines are broken, communications are very difficult, and it tends to become very non-linear. ... It rends to become very much like the prototype of the modern battlefield, which is non-linear and non-traditional," he said.

"If you look at Afghanistan, [it was] a very non-traditional battlefield. You were able to leverage technology to assist the operator on the ground, to allow that operator to function in very dispersed areas, in relatively small groups."

Special operations forces are organized into "small units, which places them in situations where there's a premium on the ability of the individual soldier, sailor or airman to make sound decisions in a timely fashion in situations of great stress and ambiguity," Tangney said.

"I started off in this business when I came back from my first tour in Vietnam in 1969," Tangney said. Originally commissioned an artilleryman when he graduated from the Citadel, he spent his first tour in Vietnam in the 4th Infantry Division, as a forward observer. Later, he was assigned to the 10th Special Forces group at Fort Devons, Mass.

In 1970, Tangney went back to Vietnam, with the 5th Special Forces group, and worked with MACSOG (Military Assistance Command Studies and Observation Group).

"It was the unconventional warfare organization that conducted cross border operations in Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam. It was a cover organization for cross-border reconnaissance," he said.

Tangney said he has seen many changes in the way special operations have been conducted over the past 35 years. "When I came in, in Vietnam, we were kind of on a high, although we had nothing that really approaches the capability we have today. Then, we had a period of time in the 1970s when that capability was allowed...