Talk:Special operations

Picture
Perhaps we should get a picture that shows more than the black silhouette of a special operations soldier. Maybe with a battlefield that isn't a beautiful sunset?--Hoyt596 (talk) 20:48, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Special operations forces (SOF) is completely different from special forces. Mainly, this is defined by what region of the world you are in (e.g. in the US, special forces refers to the unit known as the green berets. Special operations Forces refers to all the other units within the US Special Operations Command.  Check the website yourself...www.soc.mil. .  If you merge an article on special forces and special operations forces, it will look ignorant.  (65.222.202.26 (talk) 17:23, 15 May 2009 (UTC))

Special operations is just another name for special forces. I see no difference at all. I don't do this often, so I don't know if this appropriate but: Strong support. Bsimmons666 (talk) 17:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

There is a clear distinction between Special Forces and special operations.Special forces are the elite soldiers who carry out the mission while special operations are missions that are of significant importance. Strong Opposition --Roaring Siren (talk) 10:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed there is a distinction between Special Forces and special operations. As a former member of Naval Special Warfare Group ONE (a Navy SEAL command), I have to point out that as far as the U.S. military is concerned, "Special Operations" denotes a particular military unit: the U.S. Army Special Forces (commonly referred to as "Green Berets"), where as "special operations" denotes military operations of an unconventional nature (such as direct action, special reconnaissance, foreign internal defense and the like. Forces engaged in such mission are special operations forces (SOF).  Commands within the U.S. military concerned with special operations are the Joint Special Operations Command and the U.S. Special Operations Command, among others (it's worth noting that the articles associated with these commands use the term "special operations" in the technical sense I have described. The distinction between "special forces" and "special operations" might not be one that makes a lot of sense to the layman, but I can assure you that there is a discrete between these two terms. The trouble is in their application to U.S. forces. Calling the SEAL Teams a "special forces" unit is inaccurate. Given the international usage of the term, it might work, but at best that would muddy the water when talking about U.S. SOF forces. I'm opposed to simply merging the two articles. Causal01 (talk) 05:06, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Very well then, let's resolve that
 * there is no consensus to merge,
 * that it's been long enough,
 * that there will be no merger at this time, and
 * that involved editors will work to expand these articles whenever they are able.
 * &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   14:16, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Special Ops vs Special ops
Anyone know why Special ops goes to this page, but Special Ops goes to the Special Forces page? ——Digital Jedi Master (talk) 07:32, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

"Special military operation" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Special military operation and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 March 24 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. QueenofBithynia (talk) 21:40, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

"Special military operation" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Special military operation and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 May 14 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Melbguy05 (talk) 12:32, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 31 May 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 03:47, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Special operations → Special Operations – Capitalization of the article's title. The move cannot be done by me as there is already a redirect article of that name&#32;KeepItGoingForward (talk) 03:31, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * This is a contested technical request (permalink). GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 03:45, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Why should it be capitalized? -Kj cheetham (talk) 09:43, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Article is about the concept of special operations and the various special operations forces worldwide. Generic title. Lowercase. Primergrey (talk) 07:25, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Very obviously not a proper name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:04, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Article topic
The topic of the article is special operations. Special operations is a military activity. Your contributions to the article have been on the organisation of the units/forces that conduct special operations and not the military activities. Wikipedia has a dedicated article for the organisation of the units/forces: special forces. You have added units/forces by country. Wikipedia also has a list of the units/forces by country: List of military special forces units.

The content of this article should be similar to other articles on operations such as Infantry tactics, Guerrilla warfare, Counterinsurgency and Psychological warfare. This article previously was an analysis of US special operations.

You placed the US analysis under a new section titled History and added information on Australian, Polish and Japanese units and created a new section titled "Countries and Units with Special Operation Focus" also on units or their organisational structure. This is duplicating content in the special forces article. You copied the Australian and Japanese sections directly from the special forces article. Regards,--Melbguy05 (talk) 04:23, 4 September 2022 (UTC)


 * @Melbguy05 Feel free to add content to the article, I agree much can be improved. KeepItGoingForward (talk) 17:15, 7 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I reverted your edits as they were not on the article's topic. Wikipedia has a dedicated article for special forces units / special operations forces: special forces. There is also a list of units and their commands by country. regards, --Melbguy05 (talk) 21:20, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Melbguy05 The edits fall within the scope of the page. You will notice you deleted many examples of special operations with your mass reversion. Please do not vandalize the page. If you are going to do substantial edits please add content and improve the article. KeepItGoingForward (talk) 04:27, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

There is no vandalism going on here, just a disagreement about what the scope of this article should be. But I have to say that the difference in scope between this article and the Special forces article needs to be made clearer. If this article is about special operations goals and doctrine, then a fair amount of what is currently in the other article could be moved here instead, couldn't it? Such as the other article's early history section, and the first specialized units section, and SAS beliefs, and Australia training "stay behind" units, and so forth. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:08, 8 September 2022 (UTC)


 * @Wasted Time R I agree the scope of the article needs to be more precisely defined, though I believe my edits have been in the spirit of the article, as they deal with specific special operations and units that specialize in special operations. I do also agree that much of what is on the special forces article could be moved to this article or accept there will be some overlap between the articles.
 * Referring to @Melbguy05 large revert as vandalism without a prior consensus for the reversion may be overly strong; however, removing a majority of the article does not improve it, especially when the discussion on the talk page is ongoing. "Improve, Don't Remove" is after all one of the general principles of wiki. @Melbguy05 I see you list yourself as an expert on special operations on the MILHIST member page, so the article could grow with you using your expertise to add content to the article. KeepItGoingForward (talk) 06:21, 24 September 2022 (UTC)