>>23497962
>units of smaller numbered but highly trained units have been the deciding factors for entire wars.
No, you are thinking of individual battles (tactical level), rather than entire wars (strategic level), which is what the essay is talking about. Let me quote further from the second line.

>What makes the current obsession with special operations even more concerning is that it overlooks the lessons learned from past conflicts where reliance on elite units led to tactical success but strategic failure.
>In Vietnam, the U.S. deployed special operations to disrupt Viet Cong logistics and leadership, but these successes did not translate into strategic victory because the broader political and social dynamics were neglected.
>Similarly, in Afghanistan and Iraq, daring raids and targeted strikes took out countless high-value targets, but they failed to stabilize the countries or build sustainable governance structures.
In other words, it doesn't matter how many Charlie MACV-SOG killed that week, or the bomb tonnage dropped in the Tora Bora cave complex. The wars were already lost.