Black Ops

September 20, 2010
Geraghty, an expert in the evolution of war tactics, explores the building blocks that propelled the creation of special forces wings within the American, English, and Israeli military. Geraghty begins with an examination of tactics used in two conflicts: Vietnam and Afghanistan. Initially viewed as primitive by the Americans, the Vietnamese soldiers had success because of their knowledge of the jungle terrain and their experience with militaristic infiltration of towns and villages. Geraghty then turns his attention to military veterans like Green Beret captain Charlie Beckwith, whose idea to create "a force of doers" came to him after he took part in a British SAS operation in 1962 (exhaustively detailed in Beckwith's own book, Delta Force, as well as many others). In Geraghty's comprehensive view, the evolution of secretive military might was a movement from fringe to standard operating procedure. He touches on everything from the Bay of Pigs to the Afghan drug trade, and details operations both successful and failed (some famously), but ultimately covers familiar ground. Photos.