Special forces

• 1. Introduction

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  Special forces are military units built for missions that conventional armies cannot, or will not, undertake. The NATO definition is precise: these are forces using "unconventional techniques and modes of employment," designated, organized, selected, trained, and equipped specifically for special operations. What that dry language conceals is a history stretching back to ancient China, where the strategist Jiang Ziya wrote of recruiting talented and motivated men into specialized elite units capable of commanding heights and making rapid long-distance advances.

  The modern incarnation of that idea exploded during the Second World War, when every major army involved in the fighting created formations devoted to operations behind enemy lines. From the British Commandos training under live ammunition at a Highland depot in Scotland, to the Greek Company of Chosen Immortals fighting in the Western Desert, to the Finnish sissi patrols who were ordered to take their secrets to the grave, the war became a laboratory for unconventional warfare at scale.

  What makes a soldier a special forces soldier? The answer turns out to be more complicated than raw toughness. It involves reconnaissance behind enemy lines, counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, sabotage, and what the doctrine calls foreign internal defense: training the armies of other nations. And the question of how these forces are used, and whether they are overused, runs through the entire modern debate about when governments reach for this tool.

• 2. Ancient Roots

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  Elite Han troops known as jue chang were composed of strong crossbowmen capable of drawing powerful crossbows by the hands-and-feet method, with a recorded draw-weight in excess of 340 kilograms. These soldiers operated heavy weapons that could penetrate armor, making them a physically specialized corps unlike the ordinary infantry around them. The concept of elite units with distinct roles reaches back at least that far in recorded warfare.

  Hamilcar Barca in Sicily in 249 BC maintained specialized troops trained to launch several offensives per day. Late Roman or early Byzantine fleets used small, fast, camouflaged ships crewed by selected men for scouting and commando missions. Muslim forces in the medieval period included naval special operations units: one used camouflaged ships to gather intelligence and launch raids; another was composed of soldiers who could pass for Crusaders, using ruses to board enemy ships and then capture or destroy them.

  In Japan, ninjas served as reconnaissance agents, spies, and assassins, or fought alongside conventional soldiers as bodyguards and fortress guards. During the Napoleonic Wars, rifle regiments and sapper units held specialized roles in reconnaissance and skirmishing, deliberately kept out of the formal battle lines. The thread connecting all of these is the same logic that underpins modern doctrine: when the aim is disruption by hit-and-run and sabotage rather than conventional battle, a small, skilled, unconventionally equipped force can achieve what a large one cannot.

• 3. The Ranger Tradition

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  Captain John Smith first mentioned Rangers in Colonial America in 1622, describing fighters who learned frontier skills from friendly Native Americans and used them to carry out offensive strikes against hostile groups. Colonel Benjamin Church, born around 1639 and died in 1718, captained the first Ranger force in America in 1676, and many colonial officers would later take his ranging philosophies and form their own units.

  Knowlton's Rangers, one of the most notable of these companies, supplied reconnaissance and espionage for George Washington's Continental Army. Daniel Morgan led the Corps of Rangers for the Continental Army. Rogers' Rangers trained on Roger's Island, in what is now Fort Edward, New York, and is regarded as the spiritual home of the United States Special Operations Forces. Robert Rogers codified this approach in 28 Rules of Ranging, considered the first known manual of modern asymmetric warfare tactics used in special operations.

  The British Indian Army built its own parallel tradition. The Corps of Guides was formed in 1846. The Gurkha Scouts followed in the 1890s, first deployed as a detached unit during the 1897-1898 Tirah Campaign. During the Second Boer War between 1899 and 1902, the Lovat Scouts emerged: a Scottish Highland regiment of exceptional woodsmen outfitted in ghillie suits, well practiced in marksmanship and field craft. Formed in 1900 by Lord Lovat, the unit reported early on to an American, Major Frederick Russell Burnham, the Chief of Scouts under Lord Roberts. After that war ended, the Lovat Scouts formally became the British Army's first sniper unit.

• 4. World War II and the Modern Template

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  In 1940, Winston Churchill called for "specially trained troops of the hunter class, who can develop a reign of terror down the enemy coast." A staff officer, Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Clarke, had already submitted a similar proposal to General Sir John Dill, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Dill approved it, and on the 23rd of June 1940, the first Commando raid took place.

  By the autumn of 1940, more than 2,000 men had volunteered. In February 1942 a training depot was established at Achnacarry in the Scottish Highlands by Brigadier Charles Haydon and placed under Lieutenant Colonel Charles Vaughan. Volunteers had to complete an 8-mile march from the Spean Bridge railway station to the depot carrying full equipment on arrival. Exercises used live ammunition and explosives. Speed and endurance marches covered nearby mountain ranges, and a zip-line over Loch Arkaig was part of the assault course, all conducted while armed and fully loaded. The depot staff were hand-picked, required to outperform any of the volunteers under their charge.

  The Special Air Service grew from a single unorthodox proposal. Lieutenant David Stirling had volunteered for No. 8 (Guards) Commando in June 1940. After that unit disbanded, Stirling argued that a small team of highly trained soldiers with the advantage of surprise could cause greater damage than an entire platoon. General Claude Auchinleck endorsed the plan. The force began with five officers and 60 other ranks. Training took place at Kabrit camp by the River Nile. In 1942 the SAS attacked Bouerat harbor, destroying petrol tanks and storage facilities with help from the Long Range Desert Group. June 1942 raids at four Crete airfields caused significant damage, and raids at Fuka and Mersa Matruh airfields destroyed 30 aircraft. The units that emerged from Commando service after the war include the Parachute Regiment, the Special Air Service, and the Special Boat Service.

• 5. Allied Variations

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  In August 1942 the Greek government-in-exile formed the Company of Chosen Immortals in Palestine with 200 men, under Cavalry Major Antonios Stefanakis. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel G. Alexandris had suggested building an army unit along the lines of the British SAS immediately after the German occupation of Greece in April-May 1941. The unit moved to the SAS base at Qabrit in Egypt for training, renamed itself the Sacred Band in 1942, and fought alongside the SAS in the Western Desert and the Aegean.

  Poland's contribution was the Cichociemni, whose name translates to "silent and unseen." Trained in Britain along the lines of British Special Forces but with curricula tailored to each soldier's specialization, they were parachuted into occupied Poland to sustain the structures of the Polish state and train members of the Resistance. Their tasks included taking part in the Warsaw Uprising.

  Australia raised independent companies that began training at Wilson's Promontory in Victoria in early 1941 under British instructors. Each company had 17 officers and 256 men, trained as stay-behind forces. By 1942-43 they were fighting guerrilla campaigns in Timor and conducting operations in New Guinea. A total of eight independent companies were raised before they were reorganized in mid-1943. The Z Special Unit's most notable action came with Operation Jaywick, which sank several Japanese ships in Singapore Harbour in 1943. A second raid on Singapore the following year, Operation Rimau, failed.

  Finland's sissi forces operated in small teams far behind enemy lines, conducting intelligence gathering and raids on supply depots. Their operations were classified as secret for political reasons; individual soldiers were required to carry that secrecy to their deaths. One celebrated commander, Lauri Törni, later joined the U.S. Army to train American personnel in special operations.

• 6. Axis Special Forces

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  The Axis powers did not adopt special forces on the same scale as the British. Germany's Brandenburger Regiment was founded as a special forces unit for the Abwehr, used for infiltration and long-distance reconnaissance in the 1939 Fall Weiss campaign and in the Fall Gelb and Barbarossa campaigns of 1940 and 1941. Later in the war, the 502nd SS Jager Battalion, commanded by Otto Skorzeny, disrupted Allied logistics by misdirecting convoys. When a handful of his men were captured by the Americans, a rumor spread that Skorzeny was leading a raid on Paris to kill or capture General Dwight Eisenhower. Though untrue, Eisenhower was confined to his headquarters for several days, and Skorzeny acquired the label "the most dangerous man in Europe."

  Italy's Decima Flottiglia MAS was responsible for sinking and damaging considerable British tonnage in the Mediterranean. The A.D.R.A., also known as the Arditi Distruttori Regia Aeronautica, conducted raids on Allied airbases and railways in North Africa in 1943. In one mission they destroyed 25 B-17 Flying Fortress bombers.

  Japan deployed army paratroops in combat for the first time during the Battle of Palembang on Sumatra, on the 14th of February 1942. The operation involved 425 men of the 1st Parachute Raiding Regiment seizing Palembang airfield, while the 2nd Parachute Raiding Regiment seized the town and its oil refinery. Japanese paratroops ultimately suffered a disproportionately high casualty rate, and the cost of training these specialists was high enough to limit their use to the most critical operations. By the Philippines campaign, many of the surviving paratroop personnel were no longer parachute-trained and relied on aircraft simply for transport.

• 7. United States Forces in WWII

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  The United States formed the Office of Strategic Services during World War II under William J. Donovan, a Medal of Honor recipient. Responsible for both intelligence and special forces missions, the OSS was the direct predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA's Special Activities Division descends from that wartime organization.

  On the 16th of February 1942, the U.S. Marine Corps activated a battalion with the specific purpose of securing beachheads and conducting other special operations. The battalion became known as the Marine Raiders, a name that came from Admiral Chester Nimitz's request for "raiders" in the Pacific theater.

  The 1st Special Service Force, a joint American and Canadian unit, was originally designed as a sabotage ski brigade for operations in Norway. It became known as the Devil's Brigade, and German soldiers referred to it as "The Black Devils." The unit was eventually dispatched to the occupied Aleutian Islands, Italy, and Southern France. In 1983, nearly 40 years after the end of the war, the U.S. Army created the Special Forces Tab, and it was decided that personnel with at least 120 days of wartime service prior to 1955 in certain units, including the Devil's Brigade, the Alamo Scouts, and the OSS Operational Groups, would receive the Tab retroactively.

  Merrill's Marauders were modeled on the Chindits and operated in Burma. The Alamo Scouts were formed in late November 1943 under Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, commanding general of the Sixth U.S. Army, to conduct reconnaissance and raider work in the Southwest Pacific Theater.

• 8. The Contemporary Role

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  Operation Prime Chance, stemming from Resolution 598, was the first deployment of U.S. Special Operations Command troops, a product of the Reagan administration under Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Admiral William H. McRaven, the ninth commanding officer of USSOCOM from 2011 to 2014, described two distinct approaches in a 2012 posture statement to the Senate Committee on Armed Services: a direct approach built on small-unit precision and networked intelligence, and an indirect approach that includes training host nation forces and engaging key populations.

  In both Kosovo and Afghanistan, special forces coordinated activities between local guerrilla fighters and air power. Guerrilla fighters would engage enemy soldiers and cause them to move, at which point they could be targeted from the air. The operations that followed over the decades span an almost bewildering list of conflicts: the Laotian Civil War, the Falklands War, the Iranian Embassy siege in London, the Air France Flight 8969 response in Marseille, the Moscow theater hostage crisis, the Japanese Embassy hostage crisis in Lima, the raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, and the Barisha Raid in Syria in 2019.

  Governments have increasingly found that objectives can sometimes be better achieved by a small team of anonymous specialists than a larger, more politically visible conventional deployment. As gender restrictions have been removed in parts of the world, women have begun applying for special forces selections. In 2014, the Norwegian Special Operation Forces established Jegertroppen, an all-female unit whose name translates to Hunter Troop, marking a concrete change in who these forces are composed of.