Revenge on the CIF - How “The Haters” Cut Special Forces’ Last Link To JSOC
The past, and maybe future, of the Special Forces' in-extremis response team
The aftershocks from the Pentagon’s 2020 decision to cut the five active-duty Special Forces groups’ main link to Joint Special Operations Command continue to reverberate, with the validation exercises for the groups’ rebranded counterterrorism companies’ new mission starting this summer.
Prior to 2020, each group contained a company designed, trained and resourced to act as a back-up to JSOC’s special mission units, which conduct the United States’ most sensitive counterterrorism missions. Originally called the Commander-in-chief’s In-extremis Forces, these companies never took part in the sort of hostage rescue operation that was their raison d’etre. However, they helped evacuate U.S. officials from civil unrest in countries such as Sierra Leone and Tajikistan, conducted countless raids against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and tracked radioactive material during counterproliferation training exercises in Australia.
But the CIFs (pronounced “siffs”) were also a divisive presence in the Special Forces community. “There were a lot of people who thought they were a huge waste of resources,” said retired Col. Mike Kershner, the former deputy commander of Army Special Forces Command.
Imbued with a direct-action ethos that ran counter to the unconventional warfare mindset beloved by many in Special Forces, CIF personnel also came across sometimes as arrogant and all-too-willing to “play the JSOC card” – as one former SF officer said – in order to distance themselves from their peers.
“Probably since the creation of the CIFs there have been the haters that have been trying to shut them down,” said former acting defense secretary and retired Special Forces officer Chris Miller, who in 2020 signed the paperwork to do away with the companies’ links to JSOC. “But,” he added, “they always had their supporters.”