What makes special forces special

Times:

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“The better connected and faster we are at processing information the more we are able to achieve what we called ‘information dominance’ — identify targets, go after those targets rapidly, exploit the information that we have from that and quickly cross reference that information to continue that process,” General McChrystal told The Times in a recent interview.

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The Americans were impressed by the ability of the SAS to get up close to a target before striking — a technique known as “close target recce”. Members of the team would apparently dye their skin brown and hair black, don fake gold watches and wear Iraqi clothes to look like locals, and approach a target.

This is just a couple of things that make the the British SAS special. One is gathering intelligence on an adversary and the other is attacking and neutralizing that adversary. You need the first to make the second most effective. The data base on the enemy movement is key.