Principles of organization and use of special forces on a world scale

Abstract

Many sovereign States, in addition to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU), count with the service of FORCE Sized military troops to carry out operations that demand greater speed, accuracy and secrecy, either in their own territory or beyond their boundaries, if they are in their political or economic interest, because diplomacy is not always able to achieve the institutional objectives effectively. These military actions are executed by the most diverse types of special forces – whose modi operandi will depend basically on the doctrines of operational employment that guide them – and aim, among other interests, to neutralize a great list of threats, ranging from domestic insurgent movements, such as in the end of Soviet Union, to transnational terrorist groups, as seen since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. With tactical, strategic, human, and material characteristics distinct from conventional military operations, the special operations conducted by the Armed Forces start to figure as one of the most sensitive problems in contemporary international relations. Understanding political and spatial implications of this theme grows in importance since it is feasible to verify other geopolitical manifestations, as the fragmentation of classical principle of sovereignty; and its link with another political phenomenon, the war.