Don’t Overcommit U.S. Special Operations Forces

Posted: May 9th, 2017

By Brigadier General (ret.) Russell D. Howard

Brigadier General (ret.) Russell D. Howard is the Director of the Monterey Terrorism Research and Education Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Formerly, he was Director of the Jebsen Center for Counterterrorism Studies at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and the founding Director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. His previous positions include Army Chief of Staff Fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University and Commander of the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) Fort Lewis, Washington.

U.S. special operations forces are widely considered to be some of the most highly trained and effective military units in the world and, as a result, they have played a critical role in America’s wars. Nowhere is that truer than in the Middle East and North Africa, where the U.S. military has been in prolonged engagements since 2001. U.S. military commitments in the region have gradually decreased since the George W. Bush Administration but President Barack Obama, and now President Donald Trump, have continued to rely heavily on special operations forces.

The Cipher Brief’s Fritz Lodge spoke with Retired Brigadier General Russell Howard, former Director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Senior Fellow at Joint Special Operations University and former Commander of the 1^st Special Forces Group, about the role that special forces play in the MENA region.

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