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December 20, 2002

The U.S. Army Special Forces does not have a monopoly on training foreign troops. Before the Special Forces were formed in the 1950s, the U.S. Marine Corps had been training foreign troops for over half a century. The marines still do it, and not just to train foreign marines. Currently, the Special Forces are overworked, with many engaged in anti-terrorism work as well as  Afghanistan and Iraq. So a current Special Forces training mission in the Caucasus nation of Georgia is being turned over to marines. The Special Forces have just finished training a Georgian anti-terrorist commando battalion. The marines are coming in to train a mountain infantry battalion. Since the 1980s, the marines have shown a keen interest in mountain warfare. This came about during the Cold War, when marine units were assigned to the reinforce Norway. Norway has lots of mountains, and the marines trained there often, learning how to do it from Norwegian mountain infantry.