"First, any SOF is only as good as its equipment. This is true of the armed forces as a whole, but is particularly applicable to the SOF. An army division, for instance, may ‘manage’ a situation by weight of sheer numbers and tight command in a given geographical area. The SOF cannot. An SOF unit can hardly do deep penetration operations if it doesn’t have the platform to get there. It cannot even do a short strike if it doesn’t have the necessary high-end weapons to strafe a terrorist hideout. Second, an SOF operation is only as good as the intelligence available. The tragedy of the Jaffna University helidrop in October 1987, when a covert operation to get the LTTE leadership failed miserably due to defective intelligence, comes to mind."
