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Reviews
The Definitive History of America’s Top Warriors
Relentless Strike: The Secret History
of Joint Special Operations Command.
Sean Naylor. St. Martin’s Press.
560 pages. $29.99.
By Col. Steven P. Bucci
U.S. Army retired
For anyone who wants to understand
how Joint Special Operations Command
came into being and how the force
does its job, this is the book to read. Several
years in the making, the research is
exhaustive and accurate, the writing topnotch,
and the story compelling.
I discussed the book with author Sean
Naylor, a former Army Times reporter
who’s now with Foreign Policy. He said
he initially wanted to write only about
the command’s post-9/11 exploits but
quickly realized he could not do the subject
justice without first laying some historical
groundwork. To Naylor’s credit,
this was a wise decision that adds greatly
to the value of the book for historical researchers,
and to the ability of the layman
to understand the gravity of the
unit’s progress and accomplishments.
In the first seven chapters comprising
Part I, Naylor looks at the precipitating
events leading to the formation of Joint
Special Operations Command (JSOC),
and the numerous early alerts for counterterrorism
missions that never got the
“go” command. It is finally during the
Panama invasion in 1989, led by Gen.
Carl Stiner, that JSOC hits its first real
strides. Following rapidly with the First
Gulf War, Somalia and the Balkans, the
breadth of the command’s mission set
continues to grow. Having witnessed all
of these events from the “white special
operations forces” side of the fence, I
found this a fascinating read, and this
was just the beginning. Part I’s title,
“The Ferrari in the Garage,” is apt, as
this wonderful asset was underutilized.
Part II, “A New Era Dawns,” begins
the chronicle of the real growth of
JSOC’s capability and reputation with
its wider government customers. The
exceptionally difficult and classified
missions that the organization began to
take on were remarkable. The chapter
“Rumsfeld Falls for JSOC” was especially
interesting to me, as I accompanied
the former secretary of defense on his
trip to Fort Bragg, N.C., and most of the
JSOC briefs he received. JSOC was responding
to the needs of the nation, and
this shows how they were doing it.
The seven chapters in “Building the
Machine,” Part III, will likely draw lots
of attention. This section maps the command’s
exploits in Iraq, and fills in the
gaps between a great many legends with
facts. Naylor really did his homework
here. The remarkable heroes that most
people think of when they hear “JSOC”
come of age.
The fourth and final section, “A
Global Campaign,” allows readers to
see what JSOC has become and what it
is truly capable of doing for America. It
also shows why our enemies are in no
hurry to face JSOC, no matter how
much bravado they may spout. The mystique
of America’s elite has been solidified,
and the mystique is real.
Naylor has done exhaustive research.
He spent time with the men and women
of JSOC, and it shows. He is a reporter
who understands the military but is still
able to remain objective. He remains respectful
but applies a penetrating eye. In
short, he gets it right. His prose is lively
and enjoyable.
When the book was first released,
there was one point of controversy that I
personally addressed with Naylor. He attributes
a set of actions to a particular
JSOC operator. That individual says he
declined to speak with Naylor, who got
the information from a different JSOC
member, and that the information is incorrect.
Naylor told me the individual
was given a chance to give him the information
or tell him the information was
incorrect, but declined. So Naylor went
with the source he had.
I also looked into the individual’s assertion
that Naylor had “outed” him as a
JSOC member and found the individual
prominently makes the JSOC connection
himself on a personal website.
Final assessment of Relentless Strike is
that this will be the definitive book on
JSOC for the foreseeable future. It deserves
a spot in any professional library
worth the name, and goes a long way in
filling in the blanks many have in understanding
a unit that has sacrificed more
than most. They are the quiet professionals.
Even with this infusion of illuminated
information, they remain so.
Col. Steven P. Bucci, USA Ret., is the director
of the Allison Center for Foreign and National
Security Policy Studies at the Heritage
Foundation. He is also a senior fellow
at the foundation for all issues involving
homeland security and defense. He served
as military assistant to Secretary of Defense
Donald H. Rumsfeld, and deputy assistant
secretary of defense, homeland defense, and
defense support to civil authorities.
February 2016 ■ ARMY 65