#205: Training For Victory - Did Special Forces Really Win In Iraq & Afghanistan? Retired Colonel Frank Sobchak

How do we define success on the battlefield? While many have labeled America's efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan failures, that narrative ignores some of the most remarkable successes ever achieved by U. S. Army Special Forces https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/special-ops/special-forces. In this episode, Fran Racioppi https://www.linkedin.com/in/francisracioppijr/sat down with retired Green Beret Colonel Frank Sobchak https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-sobchak-phd-a76b1b6/, professor at the U. S. Naval War College https://www.usnwc.edu/ and author of Training for Victory https://www.usni.org/press/books/training-victory, to discuss the principles behind one of Special Forces' most enduring missions: building partner forces capable of securing their own future. Drawing on decades of operational experience and extensive historical research, Frank explains why success is rarely determined by firepower alone, but by trust, relationships, and leaders willing to invest in others. We explore why language, cultural understanding, consistency, and strategic empathy are far more than soft skills - they are combat multipliers that determine whether an advisory mission succeeds or fails. Frank breaks down why partnering alongside allied forces in combat remains the gold standard for developing capable militaries, how advisor continuity builds the trust required for honest conversations, and why empowering local leaders from the very beginning creates lasting success long after American forces have departed. Our conversation also challenges the conventional narrative surrounding Iraq and Afghanistan by highlighting overlooked success stories like the Iraqi Special Operations Forces, an organization built through years of patient advising and partnership. Finally, we examine what Frank calls "Cold War 2.0" and how the changing character of warfare—from drones and artificial intelligence to digital surveillance—only reinforces the enduring importance of the human domain. Highlights: 0:00 Welcome to the Jedburgh Podcast 3:54 The Importance of Language 9:13 Cultural Astuteness in Special Forces 13:26 Training Partner Forces 21:45 Host Nation Perspective 25:00 Advisor to Partner Ratios 30:38 The Importance of Combat Advising 33:22 Defining Combat Effectiveness 36:52 US Maintaining Global Order 41:41 Writing Training for Victory Quotes: “If you don’t speak the language, it really complicates things.” “There were times when I felt like I’m at a disadvantage because I’m speaking through an interpreter.” “You have to understand their perspective.” “It is those personal connections and those relationships that really matter.” “We fought 10 Iraq wars, one year at a time.” “These are risks that commanders and leaders have to look for, identify, recognize, and take action.” “Anytime you’re doing FID or security force assistance and you’re working with partners, it is two steps forward, one step back.” “The host nation actually really did like when the same people came back because that gave them consistency.” “I would put it at a company to an ODA.” “Combat advising still is the gold standard.” “Our profession is all about risk.” “The character of war is changing, but the nature of war is immortal.” “I firmly believe that the world is a far better place with America leading it.” The Jedburgh Podcast is brought to you by OneBrief https://www.onebrief.com/; enabling military leaders to make innovative, informed and deliberate decisions faster than ever before. Superhuman command wins wars. Follow the Jedburgh Podcast https://www.instagram.com/jedburghpodcast/ and the Green Beret Foundation https://www.instagram.com/greenberetfoundation/ on social media. Listen on your favorite podcast platform https://pod.link/1558608802, read on our website https://greenberetfoundation.org/the-jedburgh-podcast/, and watch the full video version on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@jedburghpodcast as we show why America must continue to lead from the front, no matter the challenge.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Fran Racioppi?

  How do we define success on the battlefield? While many have labeled America's efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan as failures, that narrative ignores some of the most remarkable successes ever achieved by US Army Special Forces. In this episode, I sat down with retired Green Beret Colonel Frank Sobchak, professor at the US Naval War College and author of Training for Victory, to discuss the principles behind one of Special Forces' most enduring missions, building partner forces capable of securing their own future. Drawing on decades of operational experience and extensive historical research, Frank explains why success is rarely determined by firepower alone, but by trust, relationships, and leaders willing to invest in others.

• 0:45Fran Racioppi?

  We explore why language, cultural understanding, consistency, and strategic empathy are far more than soft skills. They're combat multipliers that determine whether an advisory mission succeeds or fails. Frank breaks down why partnering alongside allied forces in combat remains the gold standard for developing capable militaries, how advisor continuity builds the trust required for honest conversations, and why empowering local leaders from the very beginning creates lasting successes long after American forces have departed. Our conversation also challenges the conventional narratives surrounding Iraq and Afghanistan by highlighting overlooked success stories like the Iraqi Special Operations Forces, an organization built through years of patient advising and partnership.

• 1:29Fran Racioppi?

  Finally, we examine what Frank calls Cold War 2.0, and how the change in character of warfare, from drones and artificial intelligence to digital surveillance, only reinforces the enduring concept of the human domain. Training for Victory reminds us that while the tools of war will continue to evolve, trust, leadership, and strong alliances will always remain the decisive advantage for Green Berets and US Special Operations. The Jedberg Podcast is brought to you by OneBree, enabling military leaders to make innovative, informed, and deliberate decisions faster than ever before. Superhuman Command wins wars. Special thanks to the Sailing Museum and National Sailing Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, for hosting this conversation.

• 2:13Fran Racioppi?

  Follow the Jedberg Podcast and the Green Beret Foundation on social media. Listen on your favorite podcast platform, read on our website, and watch the full video version on YouTube as we show you why America must continue to lead from the front, no matter the challenge. Frank, welcome to the Jedberg Podcast.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Frank, thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate it.

• 2:34Fran Racioppi?

  Well, we're going to talk about history. We're going to talk about your book, Training for Victory, which was recently released, where you chronicle some very well-known Special Forces' missions over the last couple of decades. But to set the scene, we had to start here and come down to, or up really for me, but down for you to Newport, Rhode Island. So a special place for you, special place for me. We're really honored to be here in the Sailing Museum and the Sailing Hall of Fame, who have very graciously given us their deck today. But I mean, what a cool place. I really appreciate them allowing us the opportunity to sit over here because, I mean, this is where I grew up.

• 3:16Fran Racioppi?

  So I learned how to sail out here in this harbor many, many, I guess, decades ago, but you know, still come here, a lot of my family's still here. And this is one of my favorite places on earth. And you're here now at the Naval War College after your career as a Green Beret and Special Forces. And you are educating the current, I would say, the next generation, but the current generation of leaders serving among our ranks at the War College on what it takes to truly win in combat today. So, great setting, great book. We're going to talk about it all.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Thanks. Yeah, it is an amazing setting. So it's just like, you know, you got to pinch yourself being here.

• 3:55Fran Racioppi?

  And I need one of these yachts. One day, one day, I need a bigger boat. But let's talk about Training for Victory, though. So, and a little bit about yourself. You spent early days of your career in Fifth Special Forces Group, spent time at SOCOM, worked in Legislative Affairs, helped write the history of the Iraq War, which I definitely want to ask you about. And when you look at what it takes to be successful, how Special Operations, primarily Special Forces, Green Berets, task organize themselves in order to be successful on a variety of different combat and non-combat-related activities, you laid out a couple of different principles. Language importance, security force assistance,

• 4:39Fran Racioppi?

  the importance of JSATs or Joint Combined Exercise for Training, what makes advisors effective, and then you define success and combat effectiveness. But I want to start with language. Language, as long as you've been in Special Forces, as long as I was in Special Forces, the guys today and the guys before us all have had the, let's call it, vigorous discussion that never ends about the importance of language. How come for you, language kind of sits at the core of the principles that lead to victory for Special Forces?

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, I mean, I think it's such an important factor because a core component, I think, of Special Operations and particularly Special Forces' identity really comes from language. It comes from being able to work by, with, and through host nation forces. And so if you don't speak the language, it really complicates things. And in particular, I found that in the missions that were within the Southcom AOR, language was absolutely essential. In other places, it became kind of more of a complicated conclusion. And I don't know how detailed you want to go into it, but I'm happy to go as deep as you'd like.

• 5:52Fran Racioppi?

  When I think about language, Special Forces puts a lot of investment into our Green Berets when they're going through the Special Forces qualification course. So depending on what your language is, it's like three months, four months, six months. I mean, I studied Russian. I went to 10th Group, my core language was Russian. Other guys who got Arabic, spent six months in Arabic. And then I went to 10th Group and never spoke Russian one single time because we deployed to, which will bring up a later point and a principle that you have, but we deployed to the Middle East. And there wasn't a whole lot of Russian being spoken in Iraq. And then I went and spent a lot of time in Africa.

• 6:34Fran Racioppi?

  And we don't speak Swahili, or I didn't speak French, and I don't speak Arabic. And so there were times where I felt like I'm at a disadvantage because I'm speaking through an interpreter, or I'm reliant on the person across from me's ability to speak English. So I don't know if I'm getting the full context of the conversation. Now, that being said, was I proficient in Russian enough to gain the full context? If I was having a one-on-one conversation, probably not. Would I have gotten better if I spoke it every day? Yes. But I think when we look at Russian, when we look at language, it is critical because if we don't know what is being interpreted and the context behind it, we miss a lot.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. So I did Arabic. I was 2+3 in Modern Standard Arabic. I went back to Georgetown.

• 7:26Fran Racioppi?

  You're the one.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  I was, yeah.

• 7:28Fran Racioppi?

  The one guy who scored that.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Literally, there were like three of us in 5th Group, like that skill level. Yeah. And then actually, I went back to Georgetown to the School of Foreign Service, Master's Arts of Arab Studies, and we literally had five and a half hours of Arabic a day where we were hazed by the instructor. They would like throw chalk and, you know, erasers at us if we made like grammatical errors. It was an experience. But at the same point, one of the challenges is really kind of what you hit the nail on the head, is that in so many places that we deploy to, either that one country has 60, 70, 100 languages spoken in that one country,

• 8:13Speaker 01

  or across the AOR, for example, Indo-PACOM, there are thousands of languages spoken. And so trying to pick exactly the right language is really difficult, like almost impossible, I would even argue. And so one of the things that I actually kind of concluded through two and a half years of research was if your aim is to build a partner force that is a tactical battalion or below unit that is designed just to fight in insurgencies, really the focus should be more on making sure you have the right advisors and not stressing as much about making sure you have the right exact language.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  And so to a degree, it's speaking a language and not the language. Because speaking a language gives you a lot of the key traits that enables you to be an effective advisor, to be an effective by, with, and through Green Beret.

• 9:13Fran Racioppi?

  And how does that tie into the cultural aspect? Because if you don't know or understand, and you don't have to be a three, three.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:23Fran Racioppi?

  But you've got to have some understanding of a language to start understanding their culture. And I think SF does a great job of instilling in special operators, the importance of cultural astuteness, understanding your environment. You know, one of those core principles of SF, understand our operational environment. But as Americans, we're not good historically as understanding that there is the rest of the world out there who does things differently than we do. And just because they don't do it the same way we do, doesn't mean it's worse. It's just different.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Different.

• 10:00Fran Racioppi?

  All right. And it works for them.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:01Fran Racioppi?

  But we have to be very conscious of how other countries do things. So why is that so critical for a special forces operator?

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, so to me, language and culture are intertwined to a degree because they kind of, they form each other. The cultural experience and kind of understanding other cultures allows you to have strategic empathy, to understand kind of like how your partner is thinking, like what are their objectives? What are their goals? And how can you help align those to kind of meet your goals? So I think that cultural awareness is absolutely critical in that. It also enables you to be a better trainer, a better partner. It gives you patience. It gives you the ability to kind of understand how they see things, which when you have that, it kind of unlocks the key to achieving your really objective.

• 10:58Fran Racioppi?

  I remember having, as so many of us did in Iraq and Afghanistan, and wherever you deploy as a special operator, you have opportunities to really sit down and get to know your partner force.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:09Fran Racioppi?

  And I was able, being the detachment commander, to sit down with the battalion commander of the ISOF. And every night, it was every night, you know, I was there in the, we had a standing meeting, eight o'clock. We didn't have an operation, eight o'clock at night. I was in his office and we were there till sometimes it was 30 minutes, other times it was four hours.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:29Fran Racioppi?

  But every night you're there and you learn about them and you learn about their families and you learn about, you know, okay, why do you have this Sunni Shia divide? Why you operate down here in Basra, but you live up in the north? And so you, how does, what's the drive like? What are you enduring? You know, you have four wives, you know, like one's enough. How do you do four? So there's all these things that you learn that I think make you better at your job because of what you see. You have to understand their perspective. And so many times when you're sitting there and you're saying, hey, we've got to go after this target tonight. And they're like, we can't do it before you, as I did a couple of times, threatened to throw them in jail.

• 12:14Fran Racioppi?

  You have to also take a step back and understand, all right, what's going on as to why we can't do this?

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Positively. Yeah. I mean, so multiple like angles from it. So one angle is the cultural awareness, cultural connection. It helps you understand them, but also like the consistency in advisor pairing, like having the same advisors come back to work with the same host nation forces is, just pays tremendous dividends. Because the two kind of really work together to produce better result. In some ways, really what you see is that those interpersonal connections really matter. You know, I think in some ways, Americans, we are very transactional, right? Like we think that you just go forward, you say this, you do this, and it's going to happen. Like you said, that's not how most of the rest of the world works.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  It is those personal connections and those relationships that really matter. And that that cultural awareness helps you really build those personal relationships. So that when push comes to shove and you really need your partner force to go out and fight, because things have hit the fan, well, those personal relations really come to, to pay dividends.

• 13:26Fran Racioppi?

  So you brought up the second key to success that you talk about, which is consistency. So having the same advisors coming in to work with the same partner force. Now, this is a big SOF value proposition.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:39Fran Racioppi?

  So we've been fortunate over the last couple of years to work with the Global Special Operations Foundation and Stu Brayden and his team. And when you look at the, what we've called the global SOF network, you're a young captain on an ODA and you do, and I have friends, guys I worked with in Africa in the Italian special forces. Those guys are colonels now, and we were captains together and we're still on WhatsApp. And we're still talking to each other, seeing each other once a year at, you know, global SOF events. But that global SOF network is critical because you've worked with these guys over and over again. If you go to Iraq, we did rotations back to back with fifth group and you went to the same location. And so you fell back in on the same thing.

• 14:22Fran Racioppi?

  But then I think about my time in the infantry and it was one year. I'm here for one year. And for better or worse, and you know, judgment on leadership of, that I had in the past, but there was an attitude a lot of times of, I just got to get through this year.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:40Fran Racioppi?

  Cause I'm never going to be here again. I'm never going to see these guys again. And I've got to make sure that I bring home as many people as I came here with. And I just got to push the problem somewhere else. And so you, you kind of lose that consistency aspect. And you start questioning, well, why are we actually here? Whereas in our opportunities and guys in seventh group in Colombia who've gone to, you know, Colombia 30 times.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:03Fran Racioppi?

  You know, will tell you the same thing. But how do you as a Green Beret and a special forces team maintain that consistency? And why is it so important to be able to go back and work with the same people over and over again?

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's so critical for multiple reasons. So from one angle, it is those interpersonal connections. It's that when push comes to shove and you have, for example, Lieutenant Ali is working with Kataab Hezbollah or working with Jash Almetti. And you have to go to the battalion commander and say, hey, maybe Lieutenant Ali doesn't need to be on this operation today. And those are hard decisions that that leader has got to make to kind of like break his sovereignty, to accept that their sovereignty is going to be violated. And if you don't have those interpersonal connections kind of already built, it makes those decisions a lot harder.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Similarly, like having discussions about like all the really tough issues that we have to deal with. Corruption, graft, insurgents infiltrating the organization. You just walk in on day one and you haven't, you know, smoked Chisha and you haven't built those relationships. It makes those conversations really difficult to have. So it kind of greases the skids on allowing you to have difficult conversations. It also enables you to prevent kind of what you're talking about with the conventional force is, you know, there was a saying, we fought the Iraq war, 10 Iraq wars, one year at a time.

• 16:40Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  And rather than kind of have Groundhog Day where you show up every year, you redo the same exact thing again, and then you just wait for the next unit to rotate out. And then you again, wash and repeat. Kind of special ingredient of SOF and in a lot of it, it requires leadership. Okay. It requires the leadership to recognize the value of consistency because it didn't happen in every single case study. It requires the leadership to recognize it so that forces end up going back to the same units with the same people, kind of the same faces in the same places. And that allows you to kind of pick up where you left off rather than starting anew.

• 17:25Fran Racioppi?

  So two things, I think that are build upon what you're saying. So number one, when you have, is there a negative to going back to the same area with the same partner force? Because you can become jaded.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 17:43Fran Racioppi?

  And think that I can't make a difference here. Like I can't work with this guy.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:47Fran Racioppi?

  So what's the negative of going back?

• 17:49Speaker 01

  So the negatives are, and what I'm more qualified at is risks. Okay. And these are risks that to me, commanders, leaders have to recognize or they have to look for, identify, recognize and take action. The risks are one, like you said, you have individuals that either get jaded or they kind of end up going native, so to speak. They kind of fall in love with their partners and the way they do business. And then they kind of focus more on the partner's objectives rather than American objectives. So that's, that's one risk. A second risk, this is complicated, but it gets to what is the objective, right? What is the overall objective and what is most important? And that is obtaining the objective.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  The second risk is burnout. If you do return the same individuals to the same location and you're not spreading the wealth to other groups, well, often you may end up burning out those individuals in that group. And that has follow on impacts actually on obviously promotion, retention, all sorts of personnel issues. But I would posit, in my opinion, if leadership is properly watching that, identifying the, when risks turn into problems and then acting, it can be managed effectively.

• 19:10Fran Racioppi?

  So we tend to prop up special forces in all of our conversations. But I'd say at an operational level, not just a strategic level, but at an operational level, there were times where SOF didn't do this well.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 19:23Fran Racioppi?

  If we go back to Iraq and you've studied it, you've broken it down, you've understood what worked and what didn't. One of the challenges that we had at that tactical level between like 10th and fifth group was that 10th group would come in and we had to focus, you know, build networks of influence, combat the Iranian threat, you know, like we need to go out there and we need to work through the Iraqi partners. Fifth group would come in and we got to bang targets.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:50Fran Racioppi?

  And so you go there for six months and you spend two weeks going, these guys are all jacked up. Why did they do this? And then you spend six, seven months putting in what you want. They come in, they smile, tell you, you're all jacked up. They were doing it right. And then seven months later, you have the same conversation with the same dude. And so you ended up with the same people. And so from a tactical level, you're like, okay, I got the same team. We're going to the same place with the same partner force, you know, we all feel good about it. But then at the higher level, you're being given different guidance on what they want the tactical elements to do.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  That's a kind of an eternal challenge is the kind of tribes within clans, within SOF and within special forces, you know, each one of the groups really has its own identity and kind of way of doing business. I mean, there's the joke of fifth group being the fifth Ranger Regiment being more conventional than the other groups. So absolutely, it is a challenge and it is a, I think at the tactical level, it ends up, it does create problems. But I think at the operational level, it is, anytime you're doing FID or Security Force assistance and you're, you know, working with partners, it is a two

• 21:04Speaker 01

  steps forward, one step back, kind of constant, very slow, frustrating, difficult process that I think a lot of times at the tactical level, particularly, I'll say this, my experience too, is you do something for two years or three years, you, sometimes you, you get lost in just the minutia and you aren't able to step back and kind of see the forest of the trees and the actual progress that has really occurred over time. Yeah. And so there is, there's no question that frustration and that tack left, tack right, you know, between different groups, but I think still results in a better process.

• 21:45Fran Racioppi?

  What about from the perspective of the host nation? So on the other side of that coin, you have,

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:52Fran Racioppi?

  You have a, let's call it an ISOF battalion who has a battalion commander who's been there for three years and their company commanders have been there, you know, for years and years on end and they're watching us come through, you know, every six months, every seven months. What's their perspective and are they in any way like, I just got to get through the next six months and reset, like what's their mindset?

• 22:16Speaker 01

  So it really depends. And I was really fortunate in that I had a bunch of host nation forces, some from the ISOF, some from the Afghan Commandos and quite a few Colombians talked to me about like their experiences. And so I'll give you like both the positive and the negatives. The positives is they actually really did like when the same people came back. These guys are here. I know how that, who it is. I know how they think. I know what they're going to be focused on. I know how they're going to like do business. They were super frustrated when they had occasions where there was massive changeover. And we did this at times in Colombia and in Afghanistan. And there were occasions where

• 22:59Speaker 01

  host nation guys told me like, man, it was so frustrating because we would have a different team or company come in every six months and it was like Groundhog Day. Like we would start over with the same training, get issued the same equipment every six months. And we were like, can we do something new? Please. So they were frustrated when there was not consistency. The other frustration from host nation forces would come at times when we would rotate different commanders through. And some commanders are, have a better strategic and operational perspective and others are more focused tactically. And some, quite frankly, will

• 23:42Speaker 01

  just change things just to change things because they're, they want to do things differently because they're the commander, right? And this was a real frustration from a lot of the host nation forces in Afghanistan where it appeared, in their words, US SOF focused changed every two years, which surprisingly coincides with.

• 24:05Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. Your time as a commander.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Change of command, right? Where it would shift from, for example, the Commandos to then, oh, no, no, we're not going to do the Commandos anymore. We're going to focus on the ANA special forces two years later. No, that's, that was old stuff. Now we're going to focus on the, the village stability concept, right? And then, and on and on and on. And so there was definitely situationally dependent, depending on the case study. Some missions, there was much more consistency, even though you would have that left tack, right tack. Some missions were better than others. Your mileage may vary, right?

• 24:48Fran Racioppi?

  Yeah. Doctrine says that advisor to partner force ratio is 12 men, the ODA can advise a 400-ish person battalion.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:03Fran Racioppi?

  The third key to success that you lay out in the book is the partner force to advisor ratio. Now I'll give you the thesis question. What is the proper advisor to partner force ratio?

• 25:20Speaker 01

  So if I was king per day, I would probably put it at a company to an ODA. Absolutely. Can an ODA can, key word. Can an ODA train a battalion effectively? Yeah, sure. Potentially. Like anything can happen, right? But if you want to kind of more guarantee your chances of success and you want to ensure a higher ratio of achieving your tactical, operational and strategic objectives, that ratio is a much smaller ratio than, than we, we would like. And it goes to like what we're taught, whether it be Ranger School, Basic Force,

• 26:03Speaker 01

  whatever, it's being a control, right? 12 people, even if you're looking at three to five people each, that's 70 people, right? A hundred people, that's about a company, right? Can they do a battalion? Yeah. But in four of the five cases where we were actually effective, it was closer to a company.

• 26:23Fran Racioppi?

  When faced with a challenge, Green Berets adapt, overcome, and keep moving forward. Now's your chance to stand with them. Join the 1952 Society with a monthly gift of just $19.52 to provide critical medical devices for wounded, ill, and injured Green Berets. Your support fuels their recovery, helping them return to duty or continue serving their communities. A Green Berets mission never stops. Neither should our support. Join the 1952 Society today and stand with those who stand for us.

• 26:55Fran Racioppi?

  As Green Berets, special operators, highly successful people, it doesn't matter what you do.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  For sure. Yeah.

• 27:03Fran Racioppi?

  You want to see what I call in my leadership courses, efficacy.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:09Fran Racioppi?

  You want to see results.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:10Fran Racioppi?

  You want to know you wake up every day, I do the thing, and at the end of the day, the thing's moved forward.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  You move the football, the field down the field.

• 27:18Fran Racioppi?

  The fourth key to success you put in here is the ability to affect change.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:23Fran Racioppi?

  There's a lot of frustrating days in all partner force operations where you go back to your room at the end of the day and you think very long and hard about, did I move the needle today? Or did I face this level of resistance from my partner force that either have to find a way to circumnavigate or we're just not going to get there. Why is the ability to affect change so important to driving success?

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, that was one of the hardest ones, right? Like there are days that you do go back that you kind of feel like, you know, line is trying to kick the football, right? Where the football gets moved on, you end up crashing down. And there are tactically days where the football has literally moved backwards, right? So two, multiple components to it. One is, is it's really important to take kind of more of an operational, long-term, even years-long focus. And that's one of the reasons why I think there's value in returning people to the same mission a lot, because it does give them that broader focus, right? Cause looking day to day, man, you're going to have days where the football went backwards.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  To achieve efficacy, to move the ball down the field the most, you actually have the most chance in my research, if you make changes early on, early on in the mission, kind of the advisory mission for, it's almost like there's a honeymoon period, right? Like early on, when a mission is stood up, when a new unit is organized, whether it be the ISOF, the Commandos, the Berries in El Salvador, the Light Reaction Regiment in the Philippines, oftentimes early in the mission, the host nation forces are much more willing to kind of cede sovereignty. To allow us to kind of like pick and choose.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  And the most important thing you can do early is to pick good host nation leaders. Because man, that pays dividends like nothing else.

• 29:27Fran Racioppi?

  Well, soft truth, number one, people are more important than hardware. We absolutely have people in place and any, anything that we do, whether it's in soft business, partner nation advisory. How do you not get frustrated though? Because you know, we're all human.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:42Fran Racioppi?

  Recruited, assessed and selected to get shit done.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  AAA personalities.

• 29:48Fran Racioppi?

  And how are you, you're coming back every day and you're just like, it's not happening. It's not happening. How do we find that resilience and where have you seen where it's gone wrong? Where you've, and you've, we've all seen it. You've seen team leaders and team sergeants who are jaded. They've given up, you know, they've had enough. And then you've seen others where, where you just got to get up and you got to go back at it.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, I mean, that is really one of, I think, the hardest things of our craft. Because in some ways, most of our missions, they're not years long. They're like decades long missions, right? Like if you really want to have an impact and then, you know, you're going, in some ways, you're almost changing culture, right? That doesn't happen overnight. And so to be successful, I think one of the things that is most important is really to just have the long-term focus, right? And like, accept that there are days that you aren't going to move the ball down the field. There will be days that it will move backwards, but try to focus more on, okay, what have we done since the beginning of this time we've been here?

• 30:53Speaker 01

  What have we been since the beginning of this unit was stood up? How is this unit doing now? Because it's, it's really hard to really have that longer-term vision, particularly oftentimes how we do assignments.

• 31:09Fran Racioppi?

  The last one of these keys to success is you got to advise in combat.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:13Fran Racioppi?

  And we've been there on both ends of this, where we've been in the trucks in the stack behind it with our partner force. And we've been there where we had to watch them go out the door.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:27Fran Racioppi?

  And wait for them to come back. A lot of it had to do with authorities, kind of the directive out of policy decisions. But why does that move the needle? Standing there, you know, at the back of the stack with your partner force, fully combined on those combat operations.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  So combat advising still is the gold standard, right? And it is for a couple of reasons. Like one is that you see how your partner is doing, right? If you, you know, kind of wave and say, hey, have fun storming the castle, right? And they go off and they come back, their reporting may or may not be accurate. So you may not know really how they're performing. Second is that it does give you that ability to make corrections kind of on the spot. Like, okay, hey, no, go left instead of right. No, number two man is not doing this right. He went the wrong way. Those kinds of corrections, I think, hit harder when they're in the heat of the moment rather than kind of afterwards.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Now, on the flip side, some of the missions that were actually the most successful, like for example, Colombia, we were not allowed to advise in combat. And in many ways, the, there were extensive like barriers put for us to even be getting close to the battlefield. So it's a weird dichotomy because if you have other factors that I think kind of align well, you can get by without advising the combat. But regardless, it is still absolutely the gold standard.

• 33:01Fran Racioppi?

  Do you think we lose credibility in the eyes of our partner force though, when we can't go with them? Cause I'm sure they're at some level, they're astute to the policy decisions, but at the tactical level, like.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, one of the advisors in Elsalbutter described it as trying to coach an NBA game from the locker room, right? And if the coach isn't out there on the field, sharing the same risks and dangers as the players, as the host nation forces, that has an impact on their willingness to take risks. And, you know, I mean, our profession is, is all about risks, determining what will work, given the risk association. So, boy, I mean, it unquestionably, the host nation will, there'll be a different, it's a different game if you're not allowed to go into combat with them.

• 33:51Fran Racioppi?

  Combat effectiveness is what you're trying to achieve.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:57Fran Racioppi?

  Why do we deploy special forces teams all over the world? At the end of the day, it's to build partner force capability to build, to ensure combat effectiveness. I would say as we evaluate past conflicts, as you have, that's probably the metric you're looking at, you know?

• 34:13Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 34:14Fran Racioppi?

  Did we achieve strategically the aims we set out to do if those strategic aims were even defined? Number one. And number two, the method by which we achieved those strategic results has to come down to some level of combat effectiveness. And you've named five of those that you've evaluated in the book and you've gone through these case studies as self-sufficiency, night fighting, multi-day operations, cohesion, and then ultimately battlefield success. How do you define combat effectiveness in today's world too?

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, I mean, to me, it's the partner force has to have all those ingredients. You know, they have to be able to fight at night. If you can't fight at night, you're ceding half of combat operations to the enemy and really more than half. Second, you have to be able to conduct ops for 72 hours. To me, that is the ability to do logistics. That is to do combat resupply. It is also to be able to take casualties and to have the cohesion to still function despite those casualties. It is performance in battle. Are you able to defeat your enemy? Because even if you're meeting all the other characteristics, if you can't beat the enemy,

• 35:31Speaker 01

  you're going to lose strategically. And then lastly is the ultimate goal is you want to work yourself out of a job. You want that your partner force is able to conduct operations unilaterally.

• 35:47Fran Racioppi?

  I had a chance to sit down with General Greg Anderson, who's the commander of 18th Airborne Corps. The episode released today as we sit here. And one of the questions that I asked him that I want to ask you is, is it harder to be combat effective in today's technological environment and operating environment of large-scale combat operations than it has been in the past?

• 36:13Speaker 01

  So I would argue primarily yes. I mean, there is a little bit of yes and no, right? The basics and the fundamentals are still there, but we're certainly in an era where the warfare is changing and your organizations don't have the technical know-how to employ small UAS drones to operate in an environment where your digital exhaust of any sort makes you a target. It is a different environment than I would argue even five years ago. But at the same point, the fundamentals are still critical, right?

• 36:58Speaker 01

  The still, the physical fitness matters, cohesion matters, training matters more than anything, and then being properly equipped is also critical. So it's a mixed bag and I'm sorry to give you a little bit of a, you know, waffle answer, but the character of war is certainly changing, but the nature of war is immortal.

• 37:23Fran Racioppi?

  Do we get to a point, because the world order is being challenged?

• 37:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:29Fran Racioppi?

  You know, I mean, we're 82 years past D-Day now, you know, this week, but that world order has been in place now for eight decades that was set. You know, America has had supremacy. We've been challenged over the years, but relatively we've been able to maintain that. When we look at the elements of national power.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:51Fran Racioppi?

  Time, diplomatic, informational, military and economic levers that countries pull to affect national power and then by and large, global power. You know, we're seeing those challenges being put upon us by everyone. We tend to focus on the military aspect, but it's there in every realm from our adversaries across the world. Where, what does America have to do to maintain that global order? Because, and certainly I'm biased, but the, we all probably.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:26Fran Racioppi?

  But the world looks different if America is not the lone global superpower. So what do we have to do to combat this global world order? Because we're not seeing a de-escalation.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  No.

• 38:40Fran Racioppi?

  We are certainly seeing an escalation.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  So first off, you know, I'm biased like you. I firmly believe that the world is a far better place with America leading it. That said, we are in the middle, in my opinion, of a Cold War 2.0. And the global order that we set up, that we planned, we organized, and then we gave blood and treasure to achieve is being directly challenged by a series of rivals. Almost like if, you know, all the Bond villains kind of got together in one movie and then kind of went after the hero. That's where we're at right now. We have, you know, the combination of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, all sorts of other actors

• 39:28Speaker 01

  that are trying to threaten our leadership. So what we need to do to me, in my personal opinion, is maintain all of those elements of national power. Because they're really all intertwined. If America is not strong economically, the economic advantages that we gain to all the other elements of national power, it's almost like there's a synergy, right? Like, the economic strength gives us the ability, for example, to build a larger fleet. It gives us technological advantages over our foes.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  It gives us informational advantage because as the technological leader of the world, people look up to us. So in some ways, being the world's sole superpower is expensive. It is hard and it requires blood and treasure, but it is well worth committing to it because the world looks at like a very terrible and dangerous place without it, us in the leadership.

• 40:33Fran Racioppi?

  What's our adversary's goal, though? Like, how does China define success, right? If Xi Jinping is looking 50, 75 years down the road, like, is he sitting in the White House? Like, what is their goal?

• 40:50Speaker 01

  So in personal opinion, I don't think their goal is to, you know, take over the United States, kind of a Red Dawn, one or two, you know, movie. And number one is way better.

• 41:00Fran Racioppi?

  Way, way better. I've seen them both.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't see number two. I don't see that as really their goal. What I really, I think their goal would be is the United States is

• 41:13Speaker 01

  broken economically, militarily, diplomatically, that we are looked at as kind of a second-rate power. And that they have assumed our role as the world's superpower, that they're looked to for technological innovation, economic power, cultural might. You know, I mean, you go to Paris and all of the movie posters are American movies. Hollywood, the power of information, the power of the American dream. You know, something that my, my family personally benefited from. I think they want to replace us in all of those across the board.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  And that rather than having conquered us, because man, that would be really hard.

• 41:59Fran Racioppi?

  That's not gonna happen.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  Not gonna happen.

• 42:01Fran Racioppi?

  You know, the whole, the Chinese, you know, North Korean armies over here. We still got more guns than you probably in the homes of this state alone.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're more better armed than Yemen, right? Like, okay, like, no, no one is taking over the United States because Red Dawn will play out for real. That's not possible. And I think they recognize that and they recognize the cost that that would take. So consequently, they want to bump us out of the first seat and they want to put us down to seat six or seven, where we don't really matter that much anymore.

• 42:34Fran Racioppi?

  We have to be students of history. I think it's ingrained in you, not only in, as a Green Beret and a special operator, but you know, as a leader in the military, you know, I think if, you've got to be a student of history. You've got to understand what works, what hasn't. Why did you choose now to, to write this book and choose these five historical examples of what victory looks like? And why is it important for the community at this point in time to truly understand those operations? What worked, what didn't, and more importantly, apply them?

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think the, the principal reason why I wrote the book and why I did the research was, if you think about the Iraq and Afghan wars and you think about the effort to build a partner force, like, the conventional wisdom, the first thing you think of when you think about it is kind of, it's like Churchillian, right? It's like, this is a colossal epic military disaster, right? That is like the conventional wisdom. We spent 65 billion building partners in Afghanistan. They evaporated almost overnight. We spent 35 billion building partners in Iraq. They were barely able to hold off ISIS. The challenge with that narrative is that it misses a really critical nuance.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  And it really misses the nuance of what our community, the SOF community in particular, the Green Beret Special Forces accomplished and accomplished through doing our core missions. And that is of working by, with, and through host nation forces to build combat effective partners. And in both cases, despite the larger macro view, when you look at the nuance and you look at specifically the partners that we built, we Special Forces built, we had successful partners. In Iraq, the ISOF literally fought Daesh or ISIS every step of the way. In Mosul, the unit took 40% casualties, which, you know, doctrinally, that unit should be combat ineffective,

• 44:39Speaker 01

  yet it still kept fighting. Despite all the frustrations, despite all the glitches and challenges that we experienced, building it over years, when push came to shove, that unit fought Daesh and it fought well. And it was the head of every offensive when we worked with partners to recapture, to push them back. That is that nuance that I think is critical to capture and to look at. What was the special ingredient or ingredients? What did we do to make them successful? In Afghanistan, elements of the commandos were literally fighting around the edges of Hamen Karzai International Airport as their country is disintegrating around them. You know, what did we do that helped build that?

• 45:25Fran Racioppi?

  It matters. Yeah, history matters. It does. Also, those operations matter. So I encourage our entire audience to pick up Training for Victory. You know, take the time to go through those historical examples. It's going to bring back, as it did for me, a lot of good and painful memories of what worked and what didn't. And, and makes you think about, you know, how you might do it differently. And I think there's a lot of folks out there who, you know, are, will find themselves essentially portrayed having lived so many of the examples that you use. We mentioned we're here in Newport. You got a big week coming up as you're going to hop on the boat and you're going to sail down over to Bermuda and the Newport Bermuda Race.

• 46:06Fran Racioppi?

  I always wanted to do it and so I'm going to put it out here now that I think that you should lead, and I'll help you, a Green Beret crew. And I will get the Green Beret Foundation to sponsor this. But a Green Beret crew in the next couple of years on your boat. And let's get in this race and take it down to Bermuda.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  I would love to do that. I, how this actually all started, doing the Newport Caribbean Race, this is my, our second race, was it, like you, is a bucket list thing for me that I really wanted to do. I grew up sailing, you know, grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Dad's sailboat is right behind our house. And so I went to a friend of mine, Patrick Powers, another 10th Group guy, who was, he is an awesome sailing racer, like, far better than, than I will ever be. He's also the CEO of Gold Star Sailing, who takes Gold Star kids and teaches them to sail as a means to kind of cope and develop strength.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  He put together a team two years ago that was just phenomenal. And we actually ended up winning the Finistere Division, which is the cruising division, kind of like the cruising racing division. As I joke, it's the round nose boats as opposed to the pointy nose boats. And so I would absolutely love to put together a team of Green Berets. That would be fricking awesome.

• 47:32Fran Racioppi?

  All right, we said it on camera, so now we got to make it happen. I know people will hold this to it.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 47:37Fran Racioppi?

  Fran, appreciate you taking the time to sit down with us. Beautiful day. Again, special thanks to the Sailing Museum here in Newport, Rhode Island. You're pretty much, you're, your place of work and home now, my home. Always an honor to come here and experience this great place. And thank you for sharing your perspective. Thank you for putting this book together for the rest of us to learn from. Because if America is going to maintain their position atop the global world order, then we got to learn from the past. And so thank you for doing that and we'll see you on the water.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me on. Thank you.

• 48:10Fran Racioppi?

  Thank you.

• 48:13Fran Racioppi?

  American Jed Burks went on to form the foundation of the United States Special Forces and the Special Activities Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Thanks for listening to the Jed Burke Podcast, an official program of the Green Beret Foundation. I'm your creator and host, Fran Richopkin. Join us next week for a new episode on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check us out on YouTube for full episodes, highlights, and other long and short form content. If you like what you heard, give us a like and leave a review. Follow the Jed Burke Podcast and the Green Beret Foundation on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, X or Threads. Send your comments and inquiries to Fran at jedburkpodcast.com. As former members of Special Operations Forces, the Jed Burke Media Channel and the Green Beret Foundation remain committed to supporting all generations of US Army Special Forces and their families.

• 48:57Fran Racioppi?

  Thanks for joining us on this episode. How you prepare today determines success tomorrow.