Frank Kenneth Sobchak's Books

Training for Victory

U.S. Special Forces Advisory Operations from El Salvador to Afghanistan

By: Frank Kenneth Sobchak

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Training for Victory

U.S. Special Forces Advisory Operations from El Salvador to Afghanistan

By: Frank Kenneth Sobchak

One of the most difficult security challenges of the post–Cold War era has been stabilizing failing states in an era of irregular warfare. A consistent component of the strategy to address this problem has been security force assistance where outside powers train and advise the host nation’s military. Despite billions of dollars spent, the commitment of thousands of advisors, and innumerable casualties, the American efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq failed catastrophically. Nevertheless, among those colossal military disasters were pockets of success. The Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) held back the Islamic State in 2014 long enough to allow American and allied forces to flow back into the country, and many Afghan commando units fought to the bitter end as their country disintegrated around them. What made those units successful while the larger missions ended disastrously? Author Frank K. Sobchak explores security force assistance across five case studies, examining what factors were most critical for U.S. Special Forces units to build capable partners like the ISOF and the commandos. More specifically, the book assesses the impact of five components of Special Forces advisory missions: language training and cultural awareness of the advising force; the partner force-to-advisor ratio; the advisors’ ability to organize host-nation forces; whether advisors are permitted to guide in combat; and the consistency in advisor pairing. Based on the experiences of U.S. Army Special Forces in El Salvador (1981–1991), Colombia (2002–2016), the Philippines (2001–2015), Iraq (2003–2011), and Afghanistan (2007–2021), Sobchak argues that the most crucial factors in producing combat-effective partners are consistency in advisor pairing and maintaining a partner force-to-advisor ratio of twelve special forces soldiers advising a company-sized force or smaller. Intriguingly, and counter to conventional wisdom, at first glance language training and cultural awareness do not seem to be critical factors, as most of the Green Berets that trained units in Iraq and Afghanistan lacked both capabilities. Despite an orthodoxy that argues the opposite, there is little evidence that combat advising is decisive in producing effective partners and there is conflicting evidence that language training and cultural awareness are important. Many of these findings, while focused on Special Forces operations and doctrine, could be used to improve the odds of success for larger security-force assistance missions as well.

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Page Count

352

Publisher

Naval Institute Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1682471365

ISBN 13

9781682471364

Training for Victory

U.S. Special Forces Advisory Operations from El Salvador to Afghanistan

By: Frank Kenneth Sobchak

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Training for Victory

U.S. Special Forces Advisory Operations from El Salvador to Afghanistan

By: Frank Kenneth Sobchak

Average ratings

N/A

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

352

Publisher

Naval Institute Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1682471365

ISBN 13

9781682471364

The Cultural Imaginary of Terrorism in Public Discourse, Literature, and Film

Narrating Terror

By: Michael Frank

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The Cultural Imaginary of Terrorism in Public Discourse, Literature, and Film

Narrating Terror

By: Michael Frank

This study investigates the overlaps between political discourse and literary and cinematic fiction, arguing that both are informed by, and contribute to, the cultural imaginary of terrorism. Whenever mass-mediated acts of terrorism occur, they tend to trigger a proliferation of threat scenarios not only in the realm of literature and film but also in the statements of policymakers, security experts, and journalists. In the process, the discursive boundary between the factual and the speculative can become difficult to discern. To elucidate this phenomenon, this book proposes that terror is a halfway house between the real and the imaginary. For what characterizes terrorism is less the single act of violence than it is the fact that this act is perceived to be the beginning, or part, of a potential series, and that further acts are expected to occur. As turn-of-the-century writers such as Stevenson and Conrad were the first to point out, this gives terror a fantastical dimension, a fact reinforced by the clandestine nature of both terrorist and counter-terrorist operations. Supported by contextual readings of selected texts and films from The Dynamiter and The Secret Agent through late-Victorian science fiction to post-9/11 novels and cinema, this study explores the complex interplay between actual incidents of political violence, the surrounding discourse, and fictional engagement with the issue to show how terrorism becomes an object of fantasy. Drawing on research from a variety of disciplines, The Cultural Imaginary of Terrorism will be a valuable resource for those with interests in the areas of Literature and Film, Terrorism Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Trauma Studies, and Cultural Studies.

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Page Count

336

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1134837364

ISBN 13

9781134837366

Book's by Frank Kenneth Sobchak

Training for Victory

Training for Victory

Training for Victory

Training for Victory

The Cultural Imaginary of Terrorism in Public Discourse, Literature, and Film

The Cultural Imaginary of Terrorism in Public Discourse, Literature, and Film

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