Customer Reviews

Killer Elite: The Inside Story of America's Most Secret Special Operations Team

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The book, Killer Elite, by Michael Smith is not only a highly interesting expose of an elite American covert military unit, but also provides a thought provoking illustration of how US Foreign Policy objectives are increasingly being met by small teams of operators in the back alleys of the world. The unit is commonly known as the "Activity" and occasional snippets concerning its various missions and techniques have periodically emerged in the mainstream media for the past few decades. Its mission is to support the better-known and more overt Special Operations Forces such as DELTA and the SEALS in conducting their missions. They do this by providing actionable intelligence that they gather via various means such as the handling of agents or through eavesdropping of communication networks. The book further describes how the unit is now evolving into more expanded missions that are similar to the traditional clandestine agent handling performed by the CIA.

The books' beginning reads similar to Steven Emerson's classic, Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era, but springs forward into more current and less known operations. I was surprised at the level of research and the author's contacts with both the US and British Special Operations and Intelligence Communities. It sheds a great deal of light and is an excellent read for anyone interested in Special Operations or Human Intelligence gathering. For those interested in this field, Fishers of Men by Rob Lewis is also an excellent book.

As a writer on intelligence matters, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the worldwide activities of the U.S. military's Special Operations Forces, as seen through the spectrum of the U.S. Army's secretive clandestine intelligence unit formerly known as the "Intelligence Support Activity." Not only is Mr. Smith's book very readible, but it is also very informative and thought provoking about the vitally important role played by the U.S. military in trying to combat the growing number of terrorist and insurgent threats around the world.

Regardless of where you come down on the political spectrum about U.S. foreign and military policy, this serious book is important because it reminds us that U.S. Special Operations Forces have played an important, albeit secretive role in virtually all significant counterterrorist and counterinsurgency operations since the end of World War II, and that their role in the war on terrorism is becoming increasingly important.

Mr. Smith has a well-deserved reputation for being a top-flight military affairs reporter in England, and this book further confirms his standing as one of the best in the field.

Mr. Smith has tackled a difficult, at best, topic to research and write about. I am recommending the book to everyone in Chapter 85, Special Forces Association at our next meeting. As a former Special Forces soldier and graduate of the Army's COTA Course I can relate to many of the operational unit developments Smith covers in, ' Killer Elite ". Having had the pleasure to serve with and /or meet some of the 'characters' mentioned I can attest to the accuracy of the information provided. Mr. Smith, you can be sure I'll be reading your other works.

I bought this book along with several other non-fiction special forces titles and based on the description and reviews I found here I was expecting an exciting read. I couldn't have been more disappointed. My criticisms of this book are myriad, so I'll just start with Smith's style. The writing is extremely heavy on quoted passages that do not flow well from one to the next, making for a very "broken" reading experience. My other MAJOR beef with this book is that as far as content goes it reads more like a social-political primer than a military story. Smith covers all sorts of topics that are covered much better in books by Bowden, Beckwith, and Haney. I got the feeling at every turn that Smith was severely hamstringed by security clearances in his attempt to tell this story, which is too bad because it could have been interesting. Instead it was page upon page of very common knowledge recent history, usually culminating in two or three paragraphs of actual operational detail. Boring. I'd highly recommend you skip this book and instead read some works by the other authors I have mentioned above. This one just lacks anything worthwhile.

I had the good fortune of segueing into Smith's book after reading Dick Couch's "Chosen Soldier: The Making of a Special Forces Warrior". Unknown to me at the time, Couch's book laid some excellent groundwork to provide a better understanding of the men in SOF.

Smith pulls no punches, revealing how SOF was considered by many, especially senior officers in the US Army, a renegade maverick group of fighters/warriors. Yet, clearly, the Special Operations Teams (Special Operations Forces) are critical to successful warfare. That is particularly true in this era of guerilla and insurgent style warfare.

These "behind-the-scenes" stealth warriors are essential and critical to strategic and tactical operations. They are the men in the shadows, often immersing themselves in the most hostile and dangerous elements of warfare.

This work is recommended to all US Military (and Allied) personnel, even if not considering SOF for their own journey. The good news is that in recent years these Teams have received greater respect, stronger support and more funding. Anyone interested in the "guts and grit" required within this less-revealed aspect of Military operations should take the time to read this book. That includes Military and Civilian alike.

The author takes you into the world of Special Operations Forces, including some of their deployments throughout Iran, Latin America, Afghanistan and Iraq; he exposes what an active role groups like the "Activity", Delta Force etc, played in those missions. Even though it gives you information about these missions, the author didn't go deep enough into the boots on the ground personal experience and fire fights details.

But having just said that, this book was so informative about the over all missions, and the infrastructure of the special operation world, their strategists, leadership, tactics, and the elements that form it. For example, the group called "Activity", was described by the author as an elite group that combines intelligence gathering and special operation forces all in one, kind of like training CIA officers to fight like Delta Force.

As well, as it gives you an inside look of their clashes with high ranking military officers that didn't fully see them as an effective or necessary force, and some government representatives that see them as a kind of trigger happy group, not easily manageable and hard to predictive in a conflict, with the potential of getting them in trouble, particularly after the Mogadishu experience.

Special Operations Forces are now finally getting the recognition and the support that they deserve, with the help of people like Donald Rumsfeld that is restructuring the military into a new fighting force where Special Forces are playing a mayor role.

The name of the book is a little misleading, because you learn how they don't necessarily go out to get a kill in every mission, and many times it's more about collecting intelligence on a particular target so they can direct the right force to neutralize it.

Even though the missions weren't detailed enough for my enjoyment, I'm glad I read it because it gave me a better understanding of the shadowy work and world of the elite Special Forces.

While being both entertaining and informative, the book is severely lacking. Filled with interesting tales, the book never really capitalizes on the term "killer elite". It is more of a story centered on those that gather intel rather than those charged with exploiting it. I would reccomend the new Robert Pelton book in place of this one.

I found this book to be a great read. To me this book went into great detail about the "behind the scenes" aspects. From reading many other books related to the Global War Terrorism, mainly dealing with the special forces aspect, I was able to "tie all of their stories together". This book fills in many blanks in military operations in the Tier 1 arena, as well as exposing you to a small group of absolute professionals. This book also holds nothing back in revealing how unglamorous and non-Hollywood Special Forces and the military in general are. I highly recomend this book to anyone interested in this little known area of the Department of Defense.

Killer Elite is an eyeopener to those accustomed to images of warfare based on the orderly models of the past, i.e. planning, staging, task force formation, and so on. This evolution began with the formation of a small group of military officers and enlisted men who groped their way towards a successful operational model. Against enormous opposition from military commanders, including Gen. Arnold Schwarzkopf, who succeeded in keeping them out of the first Gulf War with Iraq this group survived to become the leading edge of modern warfare which relies more on stealth and secrecy than it does on large scale military operations. Their involvement in the killing of Colombian druglord Pablo Escobar as well as in the capture of war criminals from Kosovo demonstrates not only their flexibility but also the changing definition of war itself. Using a style of operations referred to as "Taking down the mountain" these forces etched away at Escobar's support structure by aiding in the detention and/or assassination of vital contacts for him and in the process forced him to take increasingly greater risks in order to avoid capture. Eventually Escober was "without a friend" and died in a shootout with these Killer Elites operating alongside regular Colombian military forces. Today these killer elites already have "boots on the ground" in virtually all expected future military targeted enemy territories, leading the way by gathering intelligence far in advance of any actual operation by maintaining a low profile and gathering vital intelligence. Their boldness in performing these advanced operations is both dangerous and exciting. For example, in the second Iraq war they were on the ground months before the actual military assault began and were instrumental not only in tapping into fiber optic telephone lines to provide vital intelligence advantages to operational military commanders but also in destroying key infrastructure components which served to deny operational readiness for Iraqi forces once the war began. Killer Elites is a well constructed story of how this group came into creation despite constant sabotaging by senior military commanders and how they became what the title of this book suggests, true "killer elites".

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This book on the ISA had some new info, but mostly material I have read in other places. A pretty good book overall. I found some chronological mistakes, but I find more and more that this is commonplace in these kinds of books that must expound on historical events; so much for the editor doing his job. I liked it and would recommend it to others who want to know how the U S Govt is handling the more touchy military ops. These (ISA) are the guys you never read or hear about unless someone writes about them. This is the book for that.