Why Paramilitary Operations Fail

by Armin Krishnan

1. What Are Paramilitary Operations?

2. A Short History of U.S. Paramilitary Operations
3. Conducting Paramilitary Operations
4. Dilemmas of Secrecy
5. Accountability in Paramilitary Operations
6. Critical Loss of Control
7. War Crimes and Criminal Conduct
8. Endgames and Outcomes
9. The Disposal Problem
10. New Developments

274 pages, Paperback

First published May 16, 2018

Reviews

[Zulfiqar · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The parallels between Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan and Operation Timber Sycamore are striking and history seems to repeat itself. As in Afghanistan the US relied on Saudi money in on regional partners (in this case Jordan and Turkey) to carry out a regime change operation dragged on for many years and that require the inflow of substantial numbers of jihadist foreign fighters to beef up the weekend and greatly disunited Syrian opposition forces. According to UN estimates there were 30,000 foreign fighters from 100 countries in Syria as of 2016. It is hard to find details of Operation Timber Sycamore, Especially as to how many rebel’s were trained and which Syrian groups receives CIA support since the program remains classified. Press reports suggest that about $1 billion were spent over four years to support some 50 rebel groups and 15,000 fighters. Several thousand fighters had reportedly gone through CIA/SOF training programs in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan with minimal vetting. It is also widely reported that many of the CIA supported fighters in groups defected to radical Islamic groups such as Jabhat Al Nusra and later ISIS.” (Krishnan, Armin. “ Why Paramilitary Operations Fail.” Syrian Rebels Pg. 209)