Even as the Pentagon shrinks the size of the Army and Marine Corps, it will be expanding the use of its Special Operations Forces (SOF) troops. Though the military will be “smaller and leaner,” Panetta says, it will also be “agile, flexible, ready, and more technologically advanced.”
The small teams of SOF forces that targeted Osama bin Laden and rescued an American hostage from Somali pirates will be increasingly operating from what US military officials describe as small “lily pad” bases around the globe.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, cited the new capabilities of SOF forces as some of the US military’s most significant achievements of the past decade.
Even as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan come to an end, “Elsewhere in the world, the gradual drawdown of post-9/11 wars will provide more opportunities for Special Operations Forces to advise and assist partners in other regions,” Panetta told reporters.
By elsewhere in the world, US officials tend to stress places like Yemen, the federal administered tribal areas of Pakistan, and Somalia.
