Special Operations and Strategy: From World War II to the War on Terrorism

Fed by layers of official secrecy, personal memoirs of operators, and hundreds of units and campaign histories, the mystique surrounding special operations forces has been enhanced by their success in Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite this wealth of literature special operations forces have been prone to misuse or misapplication: in particular how strategic operations achieve their strategic effects has not been well understood. This book examines how special operations, in conjunction with more conventional military actions, can achieve and sustain strategic effect(s) over time, and argues that the root of their effectiveness lies in understanding the relationship that exists between moral and material attrition at the strategic level through an examination of strategic theory and case studies.

James D. Kiras is assistant professor at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama