US paramilitary programs in comparative perspective: CIA,the US Army Special Forces,and the question of organizational form

Assumed in the long-standing debate over which agency, CIA or the Department of Defense, should conduct US paramilitary operations is the idea that these organizations’ paramilitary programs are fundamentally the same kinds of things. This article questions that assumption by investigating the organizational forms underlying these agencies’ paramilitary programs in four empirical cases drawn from South Vietnam and post-9/11 Afghanistan. A typology is constructed around two identified organizational forms: “franchising” for CIA vs. “company ownership” for the US Army Special Forces. Different paramilitary organizational forms are found to have significant operational implications that should inform the paramilitary transfer debate.     

The Rise of Special Operations Forces: Generalized Specialization,Boundary Spanning and Military Autonomy

The special operations forces (SOF) of the industrial democracies have suddenly and rapidly grown in numbers and resources during the past decades. Most explanations for this growth focus on factors external to the armed forces. We argue that the enlargement of SOF is also the result of internal organizational dynamics. First, we compare SOF to other units and military appendages that have grown over the past 30 years in order to delineate what is unique to their development and the special adaptive potential they bring to the armed forces: generalized specialization, boundary spanning roles, and enlargement of military autonomy. Second, we analyze the actions of internal military entrepreneurs and their organizational mentors to show how they use this adaptive potential to “sell” the use of SOF to key policy-makers and decision-makers.