One of the things which always drives me crazy is that ironclad belief that Americans have that they are “the best”, and so are their country, their army and, of course, their special forces. None of that is true, of course, but it especially not true in the real of special operations were the actual record of the US special forces is, at best, very average and, at worst, terrible. I have met a lot of special forces types, I have worked with a Deputy Commander of Delta, I have become a friend of a Colonel of the Spetsnaz Vympel, I have had the chance to spend an entire night with Spetsnaz GRU operators, and I have had an Israeli-American specialist who worked with most of the best known special forces as a teacher during a full semester-long seminar dedicated to the study of military coups and how they are organized and executed. But most of what I heard from them I cannot share.
Today, however, I want to share something different, but not totally irrelevant: a comparison of police/SWAT special forces.
The good news about police/SWAT special forces is that info about them is rarely classified and, to the extend that it is, it is nothing like the crazy high level secrecy surrounding military special forces. So I will make a possibly controversial assumption, but one which makes sense to me: a country with top level police/SWAT special forces is unlikely to have clueless military special forces and vice-versa. True, police operation are very different from military ones, but SWAT units are typically rather “para-militarized” (not English, but you know what I mean) and there is some movement between these units: somebody in US special forces might then join an SWAT team and somebody with strong SWAT experience might end up training military special forces in certain aspects of their work. If anything, the example of the British SAS shows that many such “military” units are also used in police operations (usually under the “anti-terrorist” heading)
Now before I get flamed by those who served in the military, I will immediately concede that the performance of, say, the Tuscon city police SWAT team says very little about the capabilities of the CIA SAD/SOG just as the performance of the OMON of Norilsk says nothing about the capabilities Zaslon SVR, if only because they are vastly different in their purpose and operations. I understand that, but since I have no way of comparing the CIA SAD/SOG and the Zaslon SVR, or Delta to “A” FSB or any other more or less secret units, I will compare the best I can: “special forces” of the mostly police/SWAT types.
For several years now, a competition of such special forces as been organized in Jordan and the 2015 edition has recently concluded. Here is a short report about this competition translated and subtitled by my friend and “brother in arms” Tatzhit Mikhailovich:
Interesting no?
Not only was this year’s winning team was from Russian, but it was a team from Chechnia! Those who paid attention to the video probably noticed that while the operators looked very typically Chechen, their trainers were typically Slavs. Turns out that the trainers are from the FSB special anti-terrorist unit “A”(often, but mistakenly, called “Alpha”). Here is a photo of the Chechen Spetsnaz Team which won the top place:
(Notice the “Putin” Tshirt they are all wearing)
It is also interesting to look at how the other teams performed (see overall scores chart):
At the top we have the Russian Chechens. Followed by the Chinese. The Chinese, by the way, won in 2013 and 2014. Then Jordanians, Lebanese and other Chinese teams. But do you see who is completely missing? Yes, no USA at all. No British either, only the Canadians scored a very decent 8th place.
Now, of course, this proves nothing. There are, in reality, many such special forces competitions organized worldwide. In Russia, for example, it was the Belarussian team which won last year, even though no Belarussian team has made the top 10 in this competition. Maybe they did not even attend?
Maybe the Americans have all their best units busy with real word operations, or maybe they just had no interest in this competition. Or maybe the US just send some third-tier SWAT team from “Goose Crotch, Arkansas”. Who knows?
There was a similar competition near Orlando, FL, recently and there the Russians still came ahead of the USA in most categories, but at least the locals did better. So this is a case by case thing, not a rule.
The only *real* measure of the capabilities of any country’s special forces is real war. Nothing else proves anything.
Still, I wanted to at least illustrate the fact that this constant mantric “USA #1″ is really based only on propaganda (mostly Hollywood movies and electronic games) and nothing else. In real life, be it competitions or history (Desert One, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc.) the USA is not even in the top 10. And the only reason why so many Americans believe in the superiority of their forces is simple crass ignorance. Nothing else.
The Saker
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