We have this giant military but yet in some cases there are CIA guys actually involved in combat. I’m not asking about a covert war but in regular wars like the current Afghan war.
Is this because the regular military just refuses to do some things that are against the rules of war?
They generally don’t get involved in regular combat at all.
The CIA does have small paramilitary-type teams of guys with SF-like abilities currently known as the “Special Operations Group.” They are generally used for infiltration and assassination missions that require a much more delicate touch than the military can provide, and which the US Government does not wish to publicly associate themselves by announcing a military operation.
Allegedly 
Aren’t most of the CIA guys who do those special missions ex-military? Are these special missions not part of a war - is that why the government does not want to admit they are involved?
I imagine most of them are. But they’re not really talking.
Well, define “war.”
I realize war is not easily defined.
Right now I would say the US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan are normal wars so I don’t think anything done there would need to be kept secret. (yes, I know Congress did not declare war for those 2 places)
On the other hand if the US would get involved with Iran or North Korea that would not be considered a war but rather a covert operation.
That sounds like as good a definition as any. I don’t think you’re going to get a reliable, detailed answer on the Administration’s policy for this type of thing since they’re not likely to discuss it publicly.
The US has banned assassinations except that policy does not apply during a war. So there would be no need to keep that secret in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The CIA is a military organization specializing in information, essentially.* Of course they would be involved in any sort of military outing. Collecting and managing information is a key element of war.
I disagree with your categorization of the CIA as essentially a military organization. Their direct involvement in combat operations is an extremely tiny part of what they do. The military has its own apparatus for collecting battlefield intelligence; the CIA’s primary mission is collecting and analyzing intelligence data from both the military apparatus and other sources all over the world, including spies and moles in other countries.
Except, of course, operations against the enemy. Folks like to keep those things secret.
Al Qaeda can read the paper, too.
They’re a military organization in three senses:
For all of these reasons, you would expect them to be involved in anything of military or strategic importance to the US.
When I say keep things secret, I obviously mean after the action is done. Of course you keep it secret before you go into combat or kill someone.
Why shouldnt they? All successful countries have intelligence arms that perform military actions.
If youre asking why they use their own teams, well, I imagine its a better way of doing things than borrowing a few random guys from the armed services.
If somethinig can become a military organization by simply making a handful of statements in which the mission of an organization overlaps with that of the military, then the definition of the military becomes unacceptably large. By similar measures, the State Department and NASA could also be called military organizations.
Let’s call a spade a spade, and the CIA is a civilian intelligence agency, not a military one, because the people who work there are civilians. There is still plenty of overlap (such as either the director or deputy director of the CIA has traditionally been a military officer), but that doesn’t change the fact that it is a civilian agency.
NASA is a science organization and the State Department basically (officially?) just deals in shaking hands. How is either of these related to strategic attacks on foreign nations?
In the case of NASA when it was formed there was some debate whether to include it in the military but it was kept as a civilian agency. Of course in the early years they did work with the military by using some of their facilities and people. The reason they have a big center in Huntsville AL was that was the site of the Army’s Redstone arsenal where they did work on rockets .
The State Department negotiates Status of Forces agreements with foreign nations to support the deployment of military personnel, is in charge of overseeing most military-to-military training, equipping, and arms sales, and has its own intelligence agency to boot.
NASA does stuff like this.
I have always wondered about this as well. As I understand it, the CIA’s role is to gather information. It should be the role of the Defense Department to act on it , if necessary – or the role of the State department to use that information in negotiations.
Why do we allow the Central Intelligence Agency to act operationally?
The CIA has been doing more than gather information for a long while. Even when they don’t get involved in actual combat they often supply weapons and training to groups who are doing what the US wants. For example they planned and supported the Bay of Pigs invasion and they armed the Afghans against the Soviets in the 80s.
At this point it might just be a matter of inertia, they have done this stuff for so long nobody wants to tell them to stop.