Killer Elite: Completely Revised and Updated: The Inside Story of America's Most Secret Special Operations Team

This book is worth the read if you want a glimpse into certain secret agencies and units operating within the government. The pathfinders into the elite forces we have today. Edition 1 apparently had classified information that was later stripped.

Killer Elite is an interesting and relevant review of the secretive human and signals intelligence capability of U.S. Special Operations Forces known as "The Activity," among other names. The writing integrates well other works about military special operations and civilian intelligence operations, and it explains the importance of a dedicated intelligence unit to prepare the battlespace for special operators. It traces the intelligence needs of U.S. Special Forces back to their modern formation in the 1960s through the present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it explains how the Activity was created to attempt to meet those needs. The British special forces author manages to include some relevant examples of British ties, similarities in practices, etc. His sources include informal interviews presumably in the form of personal communications, summaries of apparently classified documents, and public sources such as legislative and judicial inquiries.Coverage is by necessity somewhat superficial, and more analysis of any recent failures would be interesting. Successes of the "knob turner" signals intelligence operators and human intelligence spy handlers present a somewhat rosy picture of what can happen when SO forces finally get their hands on capabilities that were formerly jealously guarded by CIA, DIA, regular military intelligence, NSA. The apparent contributions by the NSA in back-end processing of field-gathered signals intelligence by The Activity may be somewhat shortchanged. Yet at the same time, having SO folks and their electronic intelligence equipment in direct proximity to their quarry is something the NSA probably would never have been able to do themselves. Some of the electronic signals were probably too weak for NSA to intercept from their satellites or ground-based remote listening stations for example. As with human intelligence from the spies cultivated by the Activity handlers, signals intelligence was also pointedly for the direct benefit of and use by Special Operations.References to spy tradecraft, operator selection processes and training, and other background issues are cursory at times, so some prior knowledge of the more basic aspects of intelligence and military special operations may be useful. Eric Haney's Delta Force gives a very good overview of both. Robert Baer, Gary Schroen, Gary Berntsen and others also write about some of these areas. Baer gives a good description of the CIA's "The Farm" training school and his running of agents in the field. Haney gives a good description of CIA tradecraft exercises. Other sources describe Special Forces training and field operations. Pretty much all of that is assumed to be background knowledge here.Overall Killer Elite is a good, integrative overview of U.S. special operations' own intelligence capabilities, for which this is an unofficial history. It meaningfully exposes us to this hitherto unknown area, while including references to other known aspects of special operations and intelligence without exploring the latter in much detail.Regarding other comments about writing style and excitement, I found the style acceptable if slightly dry and the accounts of successful and productive missions facilitated by actionable intelligence obtained by the Activity to be satisfying in the sense of important and difficult jobs well-done. I also found the descriptions of internal political strife between the Pentagon, special operations, Donald Rumsfeld, etc., to be a highly relevant confirmation.Given that this work is the product of military people and in particular a European, a sense of civilian oversight or public accountability is understandibly somewhat lacking except in a few extreme cases. In European states with long-held permanent military establishments, these concerns likely generate little cultural traction. However given American laws and ideals of the citizen soldier and civilian authority over the military, it ought to be given more coverage. Those concerns have been somewhat swept under the carpet in the name of the "War on Terror," but to do so is to ignore an important aspect of American history and tradition. Killer Elite is not meant to be a broader cultural commentary, yet may be lacking some important context as a result.

Killer Elite is an eyeopener to those accustomed to images of warfare based on the orderly models of the past, i.e. planning, staging, task force formation, and so on. This evolution began with the formation of a small group of military officers and enlisted men who groped their way towards a successful operational model. Against enormous opposition from military commanders, including Gen. Arnold Schwarzkopf, who succeeded in keeping them out of the first Gulf War with Iraq this group survived to become the leading edge of modern warfare which relies more on stealth and secrecy than it does on large scale military operations. Their involvement in the killing of Colombian druglord Pablo Escobar as well as in the capture of war criminals from Kosovo demonstrates not only their flexibility but also the changing definition of war itself. Using a style of operations referred to as "Taking down the mountain" these forces etched away at Escobar's support structure by aiding in the detention and/or assassination of vital contacts for him and in the process forced him to take increasingly greater risks in order to avoid capture. Eventually Escober was "without a friend" and died in a shootout with these Killer Elites operating alongside regular Colombian military forces. Today these killer elites already have "boots on the ground" in virtually all expected future military targeted enemy territories, leading the way by gathering intelligence far in advance of any actual operation by maintaining a low profile and gathering vital intelligence. Their boldness in performing these advanced operations is both dangerous and exciting. For example, in the second Iraq war they were on the ground months before the actual military assault began and were instrumental not only in tapping into fiber optic telephone lines to provide vital intelligence advantages to operational military commanders but also in destroying key infrastructure components which served to deny operational readiness for Iraqi forces once the war began. Killer Elites is a well constructed story of how this group came into creation despite constant sabotaging by senior military commanders and how they became what the title of this book suggests, true "killer elites".================================End=======================================