Is that even all of them? Why do you guys have so many different types of special forces?
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They do a lot of things, some overlap a bit. There is their “official” duties as noted by others but doesn’t always give real life examples that might help you understand. Over the years they have been in the news for their activities some of which includes:
AFSOC: airforce special ops were some of the first in Afghanistan before ground troop were deployed. They helped the anti Taliban “Northern Alliance” over throw the Taliban. There was a news article quite a while back about the AFSOC interacting with the NA in the beginning. The NA thought these guys were going to bring in massive carpet bombing. AFSOC guys with NA over looking the Taliban positions and equipment basically said “watch”. One by one each vehicle, position etc. got destroyed from the air. AFSOC was there to help direct those smart bombs. The NA was pretty impressed as one by one everything they were observing went “boom” without any massive carpet bombing.
Green Berets: If you hear of U.S. special forces helping train, say the Ukraine military, often it was these guys.
SEALS: Specialize in Navel special ops but that is not all they do. They also have a counter terrorism role and where in Afghanistan which is pretty far from the Navy. These guys are the ones that got bin Ladin in Pakistan, or at least were a big part of that raid. For a while the U.S. went with a tactic of knocking out the Taliban leadership by hunting them down in particular. SEALS were involved with this. Also you may have heard a while ago four pirates off the Somali coast were holding some boat captain hostage on a small pirate boat. The SEALS did four, simultaneous, sniper shots from the deck of a rolling ship killing the four pirates at the same time. Recently it was in the news 2 SEALS were lost recently. They were boarding ships that were smuggling Iranian weapons to Yemen. Seal Team 6 specifically I believe has the counter terrorism role in particular. There are other SEAL teams and I believe they have their own areas of focus.
Of course if there is any naval spec ops happening at sea, it will be these guys.
Delta: This group is a really shadowy group. If there are U.S. special operator’s in Ukraine right now, that would be these guys typically. From what I can tell these guys act much more covertly than the others. So if the U.S. spec ops working without detection in very risky, sensitive, dangerous situations it may be these guys. The U.S. when not a war may want guys in the war zone without “officially” having any troops there. These guys may be giving the U.S. president the real scoop on the ground, or involved in some covert military related activities, but are not actually doing the shooting… at least not at the front line. You may have heard the U.S. provides weapons to Ukraine. Fine, but Ukraine is a war zone and you just can’t FedEx these things there, and Russia would try to destroy these weapons before they even get used. This task is not an easy one although it “sounds” easy since weapons have been going into Ukraine. Quite possibly these guys with the CIA are involved in making that happen. Note it would not just be the U.S. doing this, spec ops from Britain are said to be there etc. and they would work together on behalf of NATO. Some how, some way the U.S. spec ops and intelligence services, along with other NATO countries spec ops, have managed to get a large amount of weapons into Ukraine without them being destroyed at the border.
Army Rangers: In a war, if you need to take an air port in enemy territory to use against the enemy it will be these guys. I believe the long ago U.S. overthrow of Noreiga in Panama involved a lot of Rangers, although not exclusively. That is an “infantry” type operation, and these guys are the specialists at difficult infantry operations.
Marine Raiders: Less familiar with these guys but I believe these are your elite recon guys during war. For example if China suddenly invaded Taiwan, and actually were on the ground in Taiwan, these guys may be the first there to get the status and locations of Chinese forces for when the U.S. comes in with lots of things that go boom and any troops, marines specifically, these guys would help lay out the path to do so.
Various people from these groups may work in a paramilitary fashion if needed. It will surprise people to learn the CIA does not assassinate people. But they are involved in helping making some people dead. The guys who are legally authorized to shoot guns on behalf of the U.S. of A in foreign countries is the military, not the CIA. So what is the CIA to do? Works in a team with spec ops people. The ones pulling the trigger are military, working with the CIA, assuming the U.S. wants someone covertly dead vs. full on military attacks. Even then, the U.S. does not assassinate people. But when you dig into this you see there is a lot of grey with terrorism going on. Killing terrorists is not “assassination”, it is part of the U.S. military operations against an enemy at “war” with us but don’t have their own country. You might think that certainly sounds like assassination but there are very real legal aspects for who the U.S. does a “military” strike against that looks like an assassination. In contrast, say you want some dictator, who the U.S. is not attacking militarily in warfare, dead. Legally the U.S. cannot kill that dictator. Gives you an idea of the distinction. If guns and bombs are being shot between the U.S. and said dictators military, that is different. He was at war with the U.S. so the U.S. can drop a bomb on him legally.
And of course a lot of these spec ops groups work together on teams so it may not be one or the other alone, it may be a mix working together.
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