Special operations can't completely pivot to facing Russia and China to support conventional campaigns:
The commander of the United States Special Operations Command said Tuesday that American commandos will continue to engage violent extremists for the “long haul."
Army Gen. Richard D. Clarke, the commander of SOCOM, said Tuesday during a virtual running of the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference, that countering violent extremist groups was a generational issue and would remain the number one priority for U.S. special operators.
The terrorists are still out there even after two decades of fighting back seriously. That's the bad news.
The good news is that we are past the big ground war phase of destroying states that support the jihadis and then building up local forces to fight the pro-jihadi elements. Iraq and Afghanistan no longer require a score of American combat brigades fighting jihadis while we build up local security forces.
Both Iraq and Afghanistan kill jihadis rather than supporting them. People can't seem to recognize that success. We simply have to provide the support for them to kill our common enemy.
But until our Moslem allies win the Islamic civil war over who defines Islam--Islamist nutballs or normal people willing to just get along with other people (including other Moslems)--we too have to kill jihadis. Both to protect ourselves from attack and to support the good guys in that civil war.
I think we need to reframe the "war on terror" to the "global troubles" to prepare for the long haul.
