Required reading: An important piece by Eric Schmittt, Mark Mazzetti and Thom Shanker in today’s New York Times on the push to give America’s elite Special Operations forces a larger role around the world. “It would…,” the trio write, “allow the Special Operations forces to expand their presence in regions where they have not operated in large numbers for the past decade, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America.”  Pity the New York Times got its numbers wrong on SOCOM’s current reach.  They say 70 nations.  That’s not what SOCOM told me last year.  Try 120, NYT! 

The article dovetails nicely with a piece at Wired’s Danger Room on the rise of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).  In an interview with Marc Ambinder, a former reporter for The Atlantic and National Journal who has dug deep into the murky depths of JSOC and reports that they’ll become something of a global strike force operating from so-called lily pads around the globe.  Look for a big expansion in Afghanistan, Ambinder says.   That’s exactly what I’m reporting today in my own investigation of base-building in Afghanistan. 

Photo: A Special warfare combatant-craft crewmen from Special Boat Team 22.  Navy/Kathryn Whittenberger