QRF — Neptunus Lex

By lex, on August 8th, 2011

Special Operators, like the 22 Navy SEALs who died Saturday in the pre-dawn raid on Tangi Valley in Afghanistan, typically do not rely on overwhelming firepower to achieve their objectives. Instead, they rely on the six precepts Admiral Bill McRaven outlined in his excellent book “Special Operations“: Simplicity, security, repetition, surprise, speed and purpose.

The combination of these attributes offer SOF what McRaven calls, “relative superiority”: Highly motivated, lightly armed forces moving with a combination of speed and stealth can catch a more heavily armed force psychologically unprepared for combat, inflicting damage disproportionate to their numbers.

In many, if not most, bug-hunts in the Afghan wilds, high value targets are snatched without even a shot being fired.

But sometimes things go sideways, and you send in the Quick Reaction Force (full link behind WSJ subscription wall):

Credo

"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me."

— John Paul Jones

"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature"

— George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."

— Edmund Burke

"Μολὼν λαβέ"

— Leonidas

"Blogito Ergo Sum"

— Neptunus Lex