US Navy SEALs during a combat operation. US Navy.↗
Naval Special Warfare Development Group—known publicly as SEAL Team Six—is the most elite tier of American special operations. Its operational history traces the evolution of counterterrorism from Cold War hostage rescue to the targeted killing campaign of the post-9/11 era.
SEAL Team Six was created in October 1980, in the immediate aftermath of Operation Eagle Claw's catastrophic failure in Iran. Its founder, Commander Richard Marcinko, was given a mandate to build a counterterrorism unit capable of what Eagle Claw had attempted and failed—maritime hostage rescue, anti-terrorist operations, and direct action missions requiring the highest available skill level. Marcinko selected personnel with a ruthlessness that made him enemies in the Navy hierarchy and produced an exceptionally capable unit.
'Tier One' in American special operations refers to units whose operations are classified at the highest levels and which operate under special authorities allowing them to conduct missions without the geographic or legal restrictions that govern conventional forces. SEAL Team Six (formally DEVGRU) and its Army counterpart Delta Force (1st SFOD-D) constitute the American Tier One capability. Their missions include direct action against high-value targets, personnel recovery, and other activities requiring specialized skills, superior physical fitness, and complete discretion.
DEVGRU operators served in the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993 as part of Task Force Ranger. The operation's failure accelerated the refinement of command and control arrangements and the relationship between special operations aviation and ground forces. The 160th SOAR ('Night Stalkers') relationship with DEVGRU and Delta became increasingly integrated and formalized in the years after Somalia.
After September 11, 2001, DEVGRU's operational tempo increased dramatically. The unit participated in operations in Afghanistan from the earliest days of the war. Over the subsequent decade, DEVGRU conducted hundreds of classified missions. The Abbottabad raid in May 2011 was the unit's most publicly known operation—and its most consequential, removing the symbolic leader of the organization responsible for the September 11 attacks.
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In May 1942, two SOE-trained paratroopers ambushed the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia in broad daylight in Prague. Reinhard Heydrich died eight days later. What followed was one of the most brutal reprisals of the entire war.
The Office of Strategic Services, founded in 1942, was America's first centralized intelligence agency. In three years of operation it developed the doctrines, methods, and institutional culture that would define American intelligence for the rest of the century.
In April 1943, British intelligence dressed a dead man as a Royal Marine officer, equipped him with false invasion plans, and floated him off the coast of Spain. The Germans believed every word. The deception helped save thousands of Allied lives at Sicily.
