President Donald Trump has made much fanfare over reversing course on his predecessor's policies and priorities. From health care to climate change, the president has relished taking the inverse of former President Barack Obama's positions. But this has not proved to be the case with respect to national security. When it comes to national security, Trump's policies have represented more of a change in style than a complete course correction.
That trend is not good news for America's special operations forces. While America's special operators reached new heights under Obama over the last eight years, they were also chosen for a host of missions that could just as well have been performed by conventional forces. Meanwhile, the force that receives just 1.8 percent of the Pentagon's budget continued to expand the scope and scale of its operations, taking even more resources and attention away from the already neglected disciplines of civil affairs, military information support operations and regional expertise.
In a recent hearing, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict Theresa Whelan reaffirmed that special operators are the "vanguard" of the military. Sure enough, special operations forces are at the forefront of just about everything these days.
Last week, for example, when the Free Syrian Army and Kurdish forces launched a siege upon Raqqa, the Syrian city that for years has served as the de facto capital of the Islamic State group, American special operations forces were close at hand to advise and assist. Trump's deployment of Marines to Syria to provide artillery support was a good first step, but special operations forces still make up the bulk of America's presence there. Moreover, a decade of repeated deployments has diminished readiness: Special operations forces command is repeatedly forced to "mortgage the future" in order to bear the lion's share of the burden for today's wars.
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