United States Special Operations Forces 9780231545228

Citation preview

UNITED STATES SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES

✪

UNITED STATES SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES

second edition

David Tucker and Christopher J. Lamb

columbia university press new york

Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Copyright © 2007, 2020 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. 978-0-231-18388-8 (cloth: alk. paper) 978-0-231-18389-5 (trade pbk.) 978-0-231-54522-8 (e-book) LCCN: 2019021928

Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America Cover images: (top) © Staff Sgt. Trevor T. McBride / U.S. Air Force via AP (bottom): © Michael Christopher Brown / Magnum Photos Cover design: Lisa Hamm

CONTENTS

Introduction: American Special Operations Forces

1

Part I: The American Experience with Special Operations Forces 1 2

Special Operations Forces and Modern Warfare History

13 61

Part II: Selected Case Studies 3 4 5

Somalia High-Value Target Teams Village Stability Operations

109 148 189

Part III: Special Operations Forces and U.S. National Security Policy 6 7

Special Operations Forces Roles and Missions Special Operations Forces and the Future of Warfare

215 244

Conclusion: The Strategic Utility of American Special Operations Forces

269

Appendix 1: The Evolution of Special Operations Forces Roles and Missions Appendix 2: Bibliographic Essay Notes Selected Bibliography Index

275 285 311 357 363

UNITED STATES SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES

introduction American Special Operations Forces

The capture of Kabul in 2001 and the killing of Osama bin Laden

in 2011 were the bookends of a remarkable decade in the history of America’s special operations forces (SOF). Indeed, these two feats of arms may well take their place among the most famous military actions in history. In the first, army Special Forces (SF) fought alongside and led indigenous forces in a military campaign that forced the Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies to surrender control of Afghanistan. Guiding bombs with lasers and global positioning technology, while sometimes riding on horseback, the campaign combined the most modern technology with the most ancient technique of central Asian warfare. Using an American idiom, President George W. Bush celebrated SF’s success by describing their action in Afghanistan as “the first cavalry charge of the 21st century.”1 In the second, a SOF special mission unit (SMU), a force specially trained in conducting high-risk raids, flew into Pakistan, breached bin Laden’s compound, which was near a Pakistani military facility, killed him, and gathered large amounts of useful intelligence in the form of disc drives and papers before exfiltrating without casualties.2 While remarkable, taking Kabul and killing bin Laden were not all SOF did in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or in other conflicts and missions in the years after 2001. SOF developed to a fine art a form of

2

INTRODUC TION

counterterrorism warfare in Iraq; operated against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS); helped villagers in Afghanistan, the Philippines and elsewhere defend themselves against insurgents and lawless gangs; and conducted countless training missions with foreign military forces around the world, in which they taught not only technical military skills, but also the rudiments of democratic civil-military relations. In carrying out these various activities, SOF used not only violence to achieve American objectives but also medical assistance, small infrastructure projects, and simple personal diplomacy. As SOF’s accomplishments gave them new prominence, their numbers grew as did their responsibilities. In 2000, there were about 29,000 active duty SOF. In 2018, there were 57,000.3 The Special Operations Command (SOCOM), the overall command for SOF, which since its creation in 1987 had struggled sometimes to integrate itself into the overall military effort of the United States, was made the coordinating authority to counter violent extremist organizations,4 until recently perhaps the highest security priority of the United States. The first edition of this book appeared in 2007, as SOF’s ascent to its new prominence and importance was still gathering speed. The second edition appears as questions have arisen about the future role of SOF. The United States and the Department of Defense recently have switched their focus from terrorism and insurgency to great power conflict, spurred by the rise of China and the continued belligerence of Russia. Will SOF maintain the same roles, importance, and relevance in this new security environment? Of the many things that SOF can do, which are most likely to provide the greatest benefit to the United States, now and in the future? Increasingly, questions are also raised about the ethics and professionalism of a force that operates at the very limits of command and control and in circumstances often unique for military forces.5 The purpose of this book is to address such questions about SOF and, above all, the question about SOF’s strategic utility. Chapter 1 offers a series of interviews of SOF personnel. Virtually every issue we subsequently discuss emerges in these interviews. They also provide a helpful introduction to the character of SOF. The final two interviews are new to this edition. In chapter 2, we present a history of U.S. SOF, updated from the first edition. This history provides perspective on SOF and the array of issues and controversies surrounding them. It shows also that SOF’s complex, often problematic relationship with other military forces and

INTRODUC TION

3

political leaders is not simply a contemporary phenomenon. The issues, controversies, and complexity are long-standing; awareness of them is essential background for understanding SOF. Chapter 3, also updated, takes an in-depth look at one particular episode from SOF’s history, its involvement in the effort to capture Mohamed Farrah Aideed, a Somali faction leader. This episode is perhaps the single most revealing case one could study to understand how some SOF operate and the challenges of providing proper command and control of these exceptional forces. In chapter 4, new to this edition, we examine another more recent chapter in SOF history, the development of its ability to find and target individuals of high value. This was the most striking tactical development SOF produced in its operations over the last two decades, but questions remain about its strategic utility. Chapter 5, another new chapter, explores village stability operations (VSO), a term that refers to a village-level kind of warfare SOF have employed since Vietnam, but that found new relevance— and familiar difficulties—in Afghanistan. Chapter 6, revised and updated for this edition, analyzes SOF as the previous chapters have revealed them. The chapter looks at roles and missions, as well as the ways in which SOF are used to accomplish national objectives. The revised and updated chapter 7 examines SOF and the future of warfare and how SOF and their traditional roles and missions might change. The conclusion offers some final thoughts about SOF’s strategic utility based on the history and analysis that precedes it. A brief description of SOF and their various missions will help readers understand the chapters that follow, especially the first. The Department of Defense (DoD) currently defines special operations as “Operations requiring unique modes of employment, tactical techniques, equipment and training often conducted in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments and characterized by one or more of the following: time sensitive, clandestine, low visibility, conducted with and/or through indigenous forces, requiring regional expertise, and/or a high degree of risk.” SOF are the forces “specifically organized, trained, and equipped to conduct and support” such operations.6 SOF constitute approximately 2  percent of the Department of Defense budget and 3 percent of DoD manpower.7 SOCOM describes the typical SOF operator in the following way: “married and has at least two kids; average age is 29-years-old enlisted; 34-years-old officer; has 8 years’ experience in the General Purpose Forces [regular military]; receives cultural and language training; has

4

INTRODUC TION

attended multiple advanced tactical schools; enjoys games which require problem solving like chess; is well educated and likely to have a college degree; is a thinking athlete—water polo, track, wrestling or football.”8 Each of the services has a component that it designates as SOF. SF, or Army Special Forces, are known colloquially as “Green Berets,” for their distinctive headgear. The most important organizational unit in SF is what is known as the Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha or the “A-Team,” a twelve-man unit of officers (a captain and a warrant officer) and senior enlisted personnel. Warrant officers are technical experts, combat leaders, and managers. They are commissioned officers but specialists, and so not on a career path that leads to becoming a general officer, unlike the captains who head the team. The captains, although the highest-ranking soldiers on the teams, are usually the least experienced. Warrant officers are typically seasoned soldiers, as are the other team members. This creates interesting team dynamics.9 The team contains specialists in weapons, engineering, medicine, communications, and intelligence. It is so constructed that it can be divided into two smaller teams, each under the command of one of the team’s officers. Six “A-teams” make a company; three companies, a battalion; three battalions, a group. Each group and its subordinate elements focus on a particular region. Fifth Group, for example, focuses on the Middle East and Central Asia. Other army SOF include civil affairs personnel, who specialize in working with civilian populations and foreign governments; psychological operations forces, who specialize in the dissemination of information in support of SOF and other military units; the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which provides helicopter support to SOF; and the 75th Ranger Regiment, elite light infantry who specialize in raids and airfield seizures. The navy’s SOF are the SEALs (short for Sea-Air-Land), whose progenitors were underwater demolition teams but who now, as their name suggests, operate in a variety of environments. They carried out a significant portion of the special operations in the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns, for example. Like SF, SEALs operate in small teams. Unlike SF, however, SEALs historically focused on small-unit combat operations, rather than working with indigenous personnel, although that changed somewhat during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also part of the force structure of the SEALs are the special boat teams that carry the SEALs to their targets.

INTRODUC TION

5

Air force SOF are the pilots, navigators, and crew who fly air force special operations aircraft and combat controllers and pararescuemen. The combat controllers accompany SOF on their missions and coordinate air support. The pararescuemen, as their name implies, specialize in rescuing downed airmen and SOF. Among lesser-known SOF, combat controllers and pararescuemen are also among its most highly trained. Until recently, the marines resisted establishing separate special forces, although they designated certain elements that received special training as “special operations capable.” However, in 2006, given the demands of the war on terrorism and pressure from civilian leaders in the Pentagon, the marines activated the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) as part of SOCOM. A MARSOC operations team has a structure similar to a SF A-Team, but its operational tasks are more like those of navy SEALs. Recently, MARSOC training has placed greater emphasis on working with indigenous forces. We speak about the various kinds of SOF only insofar as is necessary to discuss the general issues of SOF we focus on, especially the question of SOF’s strategic utility. We also say little about special mission units, a term applied to SOF that specialize in combating terrorism and other secret and often especially demanding missions. These SOF highly value their operational security. What we say about them respects their security but is sufficient to make the points that need to be made. SOCOM, the special operations command, is the overall military structure in charge of SOF. SOCOM is a unique organization because it combines the usual duties of a command (operational authority over military forces) with some responsibilities of a service (recruiting, training, and equipping military personnel). In the past, SOCOM seldom exercised operational authority over SOF. Typically, that was done by special operations commands (SOCs) that work for each of the regional combatant commanders, the four-star generals with responsibility for U.S. military operations in the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa, and North America. Each of the regional combatant commanders has a SOF command element, its so-called “theater SOC” or TSOC. For example, U.S. Central Command, the command with responsibility for the Middle East and Central Asia, has Special Operations Command Central, or SOCCENT.10 SOCOM exercises its service-like responsibilities by working with the service-specific SOF commands. The U.S. Army Special Operations Command has responsibility for Special Forces, the 95th

6

INTRODUC TION

Civil Affairs Brigade, psychological operations forces, the Ranger regiment, and the 160th Aviation Regiment. The U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command is responsible for the SEALs and their supporting boat units. The U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command has responsibility for the air force’s special operations aircraft, combat controllers, and pararescuemen. Together, SOCOM and its subordinate commands take care of SOF-specific training and equipment, while the services provide to SOF what they provide to all personnel under their authority. For example, the air force buys aircraft, which the Special Operations Command then pays to have equipped as needed for special operations. The various organizational and command relationships that govern SOF prepare them to carry out a variety of missions.11 We highlight below several that play a particular role in the chapters that follow:12 Civil affairs: actions to enhance awareness of, and manage the interaction with, the civil component of the operational environment; identify and mitigate underlying causes of instability within civil society; and/or involve the application of functional specialty skills normally the responsibility of civil government. For example, during the 1994 intervention in Haiti, civil affairs teams from the 96th CA Battalion assessed Haiti’s creaking infrastructure, and Company A, 96th CA Battalion restored electricity to Jeremie, Cap Haitien, and other northern cities and towns for the first time in years. Counterinsurgency: Comprehensive civilian and military efforts designed to simultaneously defeat and contain insurgency and address its root causes. Examples discussed in chapters 1, 2, and 5 include SOF operations in Vietnam, El Salvador in the 1980s and early 1990s, and Afghanistan. Counterterrorism: activities and operations taken to neutralize terrorists and their organizations and networks in order to render them incapable of using violence to instill fear and coerce governments or societies. These missions include intelligence operations, attacks against terrorist networks and infrastructures, recovery of sensitive material from terrorist organizations, and non-kinetic activities aimed at the ideologies or motivations that spawn terrorists. Some of these operations are cloaked in secrecy, but others, such as the high value targeting missions discussed

INTRODUC TION

7

in chapter 4, are well-known. A celebrated example is the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Countering weapons of mass destruction: efforts to curtail the conceptualization, development, possession, proliferation, use, and effects of weapons of mass destruction, related expertise, materials, technologies, and means of delivery. An example of a counterproliferation operation would be stopping and searching a ship on the high seas suspected of carrying a weapon of mass destruction or material for such a weapon, such as the 2002 collaborative effort by Spain and the United States to stop, search, and seized a North Korean–flagged vessel off the Horn of Africa that was carrying Scud missiles apparently intended for delivery to Yemen. Direct action: the conduct of short-duration strikes and other small-scale offensive actions conducted as a special operation in hostile, denied, or diplomatically sensitive environments that employ specialized military capabilities to seize, destroy, capture, exploit, recover, or damage designated targets. For example, during the Balkan conflict, a SOF team destroyed a stretch of railroad tracks to prevent Serbian troop movements. Foreign internal defense: participation in any of the programs and activities undertaken by a host nation government to free and protect its society from subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, terrorism, and other threats to its security. For example, following the terrorist attacks on 9/11 SOF advised the Filipino military in their battle with the terrorist organization Abu Sayyaf Group. Special reconnaissance: reconnaissance and surveillance actions conducted as special operations in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments to collect or verify information of strategic or operational significance, employing military capabilities not normally found in conventional forces. For example, in the First Gulf War, Special Forces were inserted behind enemy lines before the initiation of the ground war to analyze terrain and soil conditions along the planned invasion route into Iraq. Navy SEALs also conducted offshore reconnaissance missions as part of a deception strategy to fix Iraqi attention on a potential amphibious invasion by U.S. Marines.

8

INTRODUC TION

Preparation of the environment: an umbrella term for operations and activities conducted by selectively trained special operations forces to develop an environment for potential future special operations. These operations are sensitive and have been controversial at times. Their aim is to collect information and establish contacts that will allow SOF to operate more effectively. Psychological operations: operations to convey selected information to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals in a manner favorable to our objectives. For example, during operations in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime and run al-Qaeda terrorists to ground, psychological operations forces developed leaflets and radio broadcasts to weaken support for the Taliban and al-Qaeda. After the defeat of the Taliban, the objective shifted to building support for the interim Afghan government led by President Hamid Karzai. Unconventional warfare: activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force in a denied area. For example, the press reported in 2018 that Special Forces trained Lithuanian National Defense Volunteer Forces to resist an enemy occupation of their country with guerrilla tactics, the unstated likely candidate for such an occupation force being Russia. It should be apparent from the above description of SOF and the list of their missions that SOF are complex and diverse forces. Part of what we discover in examining their history is how diverse they are, how many different kinds of missions political and military decision-makers have called on them to undertake, how different are the orientations and skills of the different elements of SOF, and how political and bureaucratic pressures have shaped them over the years. Given SOF’s diverse capabilities, there also are a wide range of choices to be made about how SOF are organized and employed to best effect. Which missions should they have, and which should be passed on to general purpose forces? What are new missions that might emerge? The following pages provide the information to answer such questions and argue that some answers are better than others.

INTRODUC TION

9

This book is the result of a collaboration of almost thirty years in multiple operations, policy, and academic environments. When it came to writing, Tucker was the primary author of the introduction and chapters 1, 2, 5 and the conclusion; Lamb was the primary author of chapters 3, 4, 6, 7 and the two appendices. Each read and commented extensively on the other’s work, with Tucker acting as a general editor. The two appendices, it should be said, are intended to assist students of SOF in particular. The first appendix explains the sometimes confusing evolution of official terminology used to describe SOF missions. The second appendix is an annotated bibliographic essay that explains different categories of SOF literature and points readers to some of the better works available for further consideration. Both authors are former employees of the federal government, but the views expressed in this book are those of the authors and are not official policy or positions of the Naval Post Graduate School, National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

✪ 1

Special Operations Forces and Modern Warfare AFGHANISTAN, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER, 2001 A Special Forces captain who was the leader of one of the first “A-Teams” to go into Afghanistan describes his experience.

We were supposed to go into Afghanistan October 20th but there were weather delays. The pilots didn’t think they could get in. So we actually went on November 1st. It was a 6 ½ hour helicopter flight. We landed in the middle of the night, early morning hours November 2. We were supposed to hook up with the Northern Alliance1 commander in the region. He was one of the subordinate commanders in the whole alliance but in charge of this area. Some of his people were supposed to meet us. But nobody really knew the commander. We requested intelligence on him, and they sent us stuff on a guy with a similar name. But the meeting was set up through the Northern Alliance, so we flew in to meet up with his people. We landed at night, and there was snow on the ground, which was cool. You know, we had done all these rehearsals to try and offload quickly because we were bringing in a lot of stuff. We took two bags of medical equipment, five parachute kit bags full of beans, five parachute kit bags full of rice, a couple dozen blankets, wool blankets because it’s freezing, these guys are suffering ’cause they have no food, no blankets, no nothing, and they are trying to fight a war. And we had two kit bags full of medical supplies, like bandages and stuff like that, that we wanted to give them right off the bat to establish that we understand their situation and get them strengthened up a little bit. So we rehearsed getting it off quickly, but with the snow we just took the stuff on the bird

14

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

[helicopter] and threw it on the snow, and because of the slope of the snow it just slid out of the way. We didn’t have to carry it. Really, you could just kind of sling it, and it would slide down the mountain. So we got it off quickly, and the helicopter got out of there, and we took off. We’re through, and we were gone. And then we walked and walked and walked, all night. Well the following morning, we hadn’t been to bed yet, a big defection [ from the Taliban] took place. All these bad guys were marched into a little courtyard. They all bowed and the commander’s men had them under guard. They are drawn down on them [pointing weapons at the defectors] in this little courtyard and the commander brings out a video camera, which shocked the hell out of us. And he starts videotaping this defection, and he is talking to them. They are standing there almost in a file and rank, and he is talking to them, and I can’t understand a word he is saying, and we don’t have any interpreters, and he is talking, but it is obvious that it’s his deal. And everyone paid homage to the commander, the guy we were supposed to work with. They kissed his hand or bowed or whatever, in some way they paid him homage. And then some of them, right there, just picked up guns, right there on the spot. And this was hairy, like, “Holy shit, these guys just bowed 3 seconds ago and now because they promise to behave, they can carry guns?” But these defectors were all Afghans. To the Afghans, this made sense. When they pledged their allegiance to [the commander] they meant it and most of them stayed with us all the way through the fight. This wasn’t like [what happened later] at Mazar-i-Sharif;2 those were foreigners. That turned out to be a perfidious surrender. I was there for the initial surrender [of the al-Qaeda forces involved in the uprising at Mazar-i-Sharif ]. The Northern Alliance commander I was working with, he and I went there [where the defectors were supposed to show up] about two or three in the morning. We got some intel[ligence] that five or six hundred were coming, and we moved first to the eastern edge of Mazar to see what the hell was going on, how they were surrendering or defecting. We knew from intelligence sources that nobody could defect or desert. Anybody that tried was killed, shot in the back dead. And the Taliban knew that Mazar-i-Sharif was the last holdout in the north. We understood it too and knew they couldn’t afford to lose any forces. So, when the commander came in and said, “There’s five or six hundred guys heading this way,” nobody knew at the time exactly what

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

15

they were coming for. The commander and I talked and our attitude was: “Well, there’s no way they could defect or desert.” We know nobody can get out of there, let alone five or six hundred dudes with guns and weapons and trucks. We thought, “Something’s wrong about this,” and so we picked up some guys and we went out there to the east side of town. And then this convoy of five or six hundred guys pulled up and stopped and said, “Send an emissary forward,” saying “We want to defect.” And the commander kicked into the Afghan military culture mode. My team was like, “Hey, we don’t know the composition of the force, but we do know the situation. And therefore, it’s a ruse, at a minimum an opportunity to gather information on surrendering procedures, so they can be used against us in the future.” Well, when the surrender went without a hitch, we said, okay. Well, it had to be [either] legitimate or an intelligence-gathering procedure, ’cause they actually did surrender. Pretty soon, it became clear that it was a ruse. By the time of Mazar-i-Sharif [November 25, 2005] we were working well with the commander, but he was still responding in that Afghan way that didn’t always make sense to us. At the beginning, when we first started, he didn’t understand what we could do. He didn’t understand the technology, what it could do. Neither did the bad guys. The commander realized that the Americans brought a lot of prestige and for that, we were good. And right off the bat, we started bringing in a lot of supplies, both lethal and nonlethal, and it’s getting to be a tough time of the year, so the nonlethal aid was probably just as important as the lethal aid [ammunition, etc.]. So, okay, great, we are very valuable, but in terms of this war-fighting shit, what are these Americans really bringing? My group commander warned me before I went into Afghanistan, they are going to look at you, baby-face captain, as some guy who’s never been in war and you need to be prepared for that. I don’t think he was off base on that. I think the [Northern Alliance] commander kind of looked at it like, “Okay, these guys are bringing me supplies, so I can do my thing.” But then he saw what we could do. We had him look at a target through binoculars. And he says “Good target,” and we say “No, no, keep looking, keep looking,” and all of a sudden he sees this thing just go “Poof!” And he’s like “Wow, you know, these guys, these guys can do some good; they bring a whole new dimension to the battlefield!” He was right. A fortified target up a mountain or something and it would have taken forever to assault that location. But we could take it out like that; never even have to

16

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

walk up that freakin’ hill, let alone get a force large enough to accomplish that kind of assault. And now we can just plink it out of the way. So it worked out. Where we were, it was clear what we had to do, how we had to get to Mazar-i-Sharif. That was the key in the north and it was clear what we had to do to get there. The Taliban had cities that were buffers around Mazar. We were going to systematically erode or exhaust that buffer backwards. So I told the commander there’s a couple of things I need. (I was talking to him through an interpreter. The commander gave us one. The commander had a guy who spoke Russian. We also did the old pointy-talkie thing, and the little phrase books, you know, from DLI [Defense Language Institute].) Anyway, I told him, I need someone who knows the places. I said, “I need to know what I am looking at.” I needed someone who could tell me where the targets are, and we talked about that in a lot of depth. And hopefully, this will be someone who can speak either English or Russian (or actually at times English, Russian, French, or Chinese, because those were the four languages I had on my team, and Arabic. Probably after English, we had more Arabic speakers. But ironically, nobody on the commander’s force spoke Arabic. We didn’t have an interpreter who spoke English at all until the night before we entered Mazar). Then I said, “The last thing I need, I need to be able to get there.” There were mines everywhere. So I needed an escort. And he said, “Okay.” Once we got to those locations, I split the team. Our team’s SOP was—you work this out in training—that I would take the junior weapons NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer), the junior Commo guy, and the senior medic, and the CCT [Combat Controller] with me. But I needed all the Russian speakers with me. That wasn’t exactly standard for us [but] I took all the Russian speakers, ’cause I was going to go talk to the guy that spoke Russian. That is how we split it up, and it worked out well. The AFSOC [Air Force Special Operations Command] combat controller was there too, which was great. Initially, we did not want an AFSOC guy. Traditionally, at least in my experience, and the experience of people I’ve worked with, we look at the AFSOC guys as kids, kind of liabilities. Because they don’t have the maturity, because they come in to AFSOC a lot younger, whether they are PJs [pararescue personnel] or STS [Special Tactics Squadron] or whatever. But this guy was great. He was mature, he was an E-6 [a senior non-commissioned officer], he was 31 years old, he was engaged [with the mission], he was laid back, but he was well trained—he had been around awhile and he fit right in real

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

17

well, and he was in good shape. So, he was really, really an asset. Also, he brought another radio, which is a great radio. And it’s great to have someone there that can talk to the plane, so you don’t have to. Now, he did not understand UW [unconventional warfare] at all. But in fairness to him and to AFSOC, that’s not their job, to understand UW. It’s his job to talk to airplanes. And that was great ‘cause that is what I needed, and when things got a little hairy at times and we had planes stacking up, I felt confident that this guy is going to keep these planes safe; he’s going to keep us safe [ from the bombs of U.S. aircraft] and he’s going to do the job. You couldn’t ask for a better guy to control the air, but he didn’t really understand this situation going on around him. But [even so, with him around] I have got another guy now that can do drop zones, do HLZs [helicopter landing zones], and control drops and whatever I need to do. This guy can handle it, and he was good at what he did. One [element of our split] team stayed, actually, not too far from the commander’s command post and the rest of us went over to the other location. We talked by radio to establish priority targets. We both received information about various target locations and then we would swap the target information. I would say, “Okay, I got targets alpha alpha, zero zero one, through zero zero ten,” and he’s like, “Okay, I got zero zero eleven, through zero zero twenty,” or whatever. Let’s swap this and this. Let’s prioritize these and renumber them, and that’s how we will take them down. The [Afghan] commander didn’t get involved. He didn’t meddle in how we were going to do it. I think it was because of the [technology] gap between us, and it was also respect, [since] it was kind of our show. We corroborated our information, and then our plan was to target the priorities. We set target priorities, to make those missions as valuable as possible. Other teams took different approaches and I can’t speak for their methodologies. But my particular team, we decided our methodology was going to be the way I described. We were not interested in dropping bombs on tanks, unless it’s in an extreme situation. Even in one particular case where [the Taliban and al-Qaeda] fanned out and came after us with some tanks. We were confident that they didn’t know where we were, and they were just kind of stumbling around. So, we asked for planes but we didn’t call “in extremis” because there was no reason to waste the opportunity [on a tank that was not a threat]. [Instead,] I [was] going to take out one of the priority targets. And I think that really caused the rapid collapse. We went after foreign targets first because we recognized that the foreigners had

18

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

all the experience and all the training and all the education. Chechens, IMU [Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan]—yeah, we finally got to take the gloves off against the IMU, the Pakis that had come over and the Saudis. Then after that we targeted Taliban leadership. This is not decapitation; we are not trying to take out one or two dudes and expect the whole thing to fall apart. But so many of the soldiers in Afghanistan were impressed into service and that was a potential recruiting pool for us for a variety of reasons. And if we could set the conditions so that they could have even a minimum opportunity to desert, if not defect, then we thought they would do it. So we targeted the leaders to give the soldiers a chance to leave. Also, we recognized how hitting multiple C2 [command and control] targets disrupted their C2, and since it was a very centralized army, that could be catastrophic for them. Of the enemy’s elements of combat power, we chose to hit leadership with air assets. One time we brought in aircraft to get a leadership target. It was a B-52. It bombed a chunk of land three kilometers long by one kilometer wide and they missed. Didn’t hit a damn thing. We blew up the desert, 27 mark 82’s [an air delivered bomb] and we didn’t blow up a damn thing but dirt. But still it looked impressive because this thing was on top of this mountain, it’s way up above the valley. The whole arc went right up the side of the mountain; didn’t hit a damn thing. But it looked—because this is a huge mountain—it looked spectacular. It was pretty cool, and you know what? Psychologically, it had to say to everybody in the valley, “Holy shit, the rules have just changed.” Another time, we were controlling some B-52s and they dropped. And the guys are waiting and they to talk to the pilots and say “We didn’t see anything,” and suddenly they hear boom, boom, boom from another direction, and they look over there and they are like “Oh my God, you know we just destroyed some part of the village of aq Kopruk. We were supposed to drop the bombs over there, oh my God.” Well, the commander jumps in the air, he throws his arms in the air, he’s like “All right!” He’s happy, and the controller is completely perplexed. He talks to the pilots. “How the hell did you drop those over there?” It turns out they accidentally punched in the wrong grid coordinates. You know, that is easy for them to say at 35,000 feet. For us down here, well, that could be us [getting blown up] or hurting the local population we rely on. It turns out by the grace of God, and nothing less, the bombs just landed on another bunch of bad guys. And the commander knew about that target, too. He loved it. He thought it was

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

19

great. We accidentally hit the wrong target, but it worked. The probability of that . . . [shakes head]. You know, this war was not won by the air force. The Taliban and al-Qaeda were killed by the air force but in a UW situation to drop the bomb—that’s the easy part. The hard part is developing the infrastructure that facilitates knowing where the targets are, so you can bomb them. And that is what won the war. It’s getting the targets and getting which targets, why this target or why that target, and that’s what makes it work. Riding around on horses dropping bombs, I know that’s sexy for the cameras and for the drama. But first of all, we went on horses because that is all we had; we didn’t have any vehicles in the beginning and some of those trails are not passable in vehicles. But basically, if you did a relative combat power analysis between the two sides, the Taliban and al-Qaeda over here and the coalition on the other side, it wasn’t just a lack of mobility assets that the Northern Alliance suffered from. One in three guys might have been armed. And when I say “armed,” I mean like Ahmet shows up at the battlefield and he’s got his AK-47 or he’s got an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade launcher], this is a great one, and his son is right behind him. He carries the RPG round, and his youngest son is behind him waiting to see who dies first because he will pick up what they drop. And that’s kind of how we would go to battle, until we could bring in more lethal aid, ammo, and weapons. We didn’t have any artillery. We had one piece when we got there, and it didn’t work, and my weapons sergeant field-fabricated a firing pin to make it work. I don’t even know what the hell he did, but he got the thing working. But close air support is not very close at this point. I mean, most times [the aircraft] are dropping in excess of 25,000 feet. Our air defense assessment for the area was important to encourage the air force to come down a bit closer because, you know, we missed more often than we hit [when we bombed from high altitude]. The problem with that is you don’t want to hurt any of the population, especially if we knew the population was on our side or could potentially be on our side. But we missed a lot with the JDAMs [Joint Direct Attack Munitions], to the point where we stopped using them. We really wanted to use the laser [laser device used to guide bombs to a target], and once we proved its capabilities, the commander wanted laser too, for the same reasons. I mean, he doesn’t want to hurt the population, either. But with the laser we now have a capability that can kill the bad guys with this air platform at sufficient standoff [so] that

20

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

their otherwise superior combat power cannot kill us. And maybe the playing field was not even level anymore, now the sides were tipped to our advantage, once we began to work and gather information from the population about where things were. But in general, it all worked. Once there was pressure in both valleys [where we and another team were operating], it really gave way. And once [one] valley went, then the [other] valley quickly followed, so they [Taliban/al-Qaeda] couldn’t organize, while we ended up having a meeting between [the Northern Alliance faction leaders]. We got the factions trying to work together for the first time. By the end of November, I’d say after Kunduz [a town in northern Afghanistan] fell, we switched from an unconventional warfare operation to a counterinsurgency operation. And Kunduz marked that tipping point. That’s why humanitarian assistance became very important also, because of the winter months coming on. We had been thinking of [how to fight an unconventional campaign in Afghanistan] for a while. [My team] had deployments to Uzbekistan because we had a few people who spoke Russian on my team. In fiscal year 1998, CENTCOM [Central Command] assumed control of five former republics of the Soviet Union. They had not been formerly a part of the CENTCOM AOR [area of responsibility]. So, I was the first of four people, myself and three others, that were going to the 5th [Special Operations Forces] group, who were all assigned to learn Russian because CENTCOM was going to pick up these five countries. At the end of 2000, a central Asian mission came to our battalion and the commander knew that my team wanted that and knew that we had at least one good Russian speaker and a couple other decent ones. Fifth Group had called SWC [the Special Warfare Center, an army Special Forces organization] and said, “Hey, we need some Russian-speaking guys now. Take X number of our Russian speakers, [plus] X number of our incoming assigned personnel and give them Russian. And make the rest Arabic or whatever.” At that time, actually, everybody was Arabic except for the four of us, so in that class all Arabic and four Russian. That’s kind of how this whole Afghanistan thing gets started, actually, in 2000. Because my team begins to work with the Uzbek army every month from December 2000 to August of 2001, except for, I think, two months. We worked with them in some way or another during that time; I think we had nine different deployments in that time span. We were training them in peace enforcement operations. We were working at platoon level and below. Actually, we did two things.

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

21

We worked with mid-level leadership teaching them how to do orders and planning. So we worked with headquarters staff and commanders, and then we also worked with the platoon and below on patrolling techniques, you know, stuff that they would have to do in peace enforcement operations. And Chapter 7 [the UN regulation governing peace enforcement operations] says you train for peace enforcement like you train for war. So we basically ran through small unit tactics and sniper training. So we got a real good pulse on the situation. Our team room was plastered with information about the Northern Alliance and the Nationalist Islamic Movement.3 Like all SF teams going into a new area, we really began to go over the areas of interest and areas of operations. There was a failed coup in Uzbekistan in August of 1999. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan kidnapped four Americans who were mountain climbing in the summer of 2000. And then we expanded our area of interest for this mission because we thought we should include Afghanistan. I came home early from one of our deployments to Uzbekistan in August [2001] to get married. The team came back from the mission, and we were going to stand down for the month of September and take a break because we had been working so much and deploying so much. I went on my honeymoon, and then, boom—9/11 hit. I come back to my little bungalow—I can afford to stay in it because I got hit by a drunk driver. I chased her car down and I jumped on her car, and she drove me like a quarter of a mile. And then the cops came, and we settled out of court. This was in Atlanta in January of 2001, and I still haven’t fixed my truck—Anyway, so there I am in my bungalow with my wife when 9/11 happened, and I called my company commander as soon as I heard. When I called him, I had a copy of the International Herald Tribune in my hand, and there’s an article that Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated.4 So they begin to earmark teams for a UW mission. There’s this flurry of activity with everybody suddenly wanting an SF guy. I mean, every command wanted an SF liaison, and, you know, 5th group of course being Central Asia and Middle East guys, we also got a war to fight. And we can’t be giving out people to different units. The commanders were just fighting like hell to keep off all these requests after 9/11. My team has so much experience in Central Asia, the commanders are desperately trying to hang on to us for this UW mission. But at the same time, they are trying to balance everyone else’s need for Russian speakers and whatever else they need, and they did a good job.

22

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

Finally, they put us in isolation,5 and that pretty much cordoned us off. At that point nobody knew exactly what we were going to do. I mean, it was intuitive that we were going to Afghanistan. But nobody knew what the mission was. There is a million different things you are taught to do in that kind of situation. I did know that my battalion commander had gone down to Tampa [the Florida location of CENTCOM] to be a part of a planning cell. And the story was, the story I got through the rumor mill in September 2001, was that CENTCOM presented its plan [ for Afghanistan] to the National Command Authority [the president and the secretary of defense]. And [Vice President] Cheney pushes it away and says, “Come back to us with a UW plan.” And CENTCOM went back to SOCCENT and said, “What the hell is UW?” They [SOCCENT] were always understaffed, always under-resourced, nobody ever gave a shit about them, until they needed something that they couldn’t figure out. So SOCCENT turned to 5th group and said, “Hey, send us a UW planning cell,” and that’s why my [battalion] commander went to Tampa and he came back and said to us, “This is going to be a UW gig.” But, you know, isolation was so professionally run, a lot of times we were almost complaining that we weren’t getting enough information to plan with. In hindsight, though, I realize headquarters didn’t have information. The only thing I knew was that we were doing UW and, you know, that was all I needed to know at that point. That means the traditional seven-stage model, and that is pretty clear to everybody in SF. I knew the purpose was to support some larger conventional plan that they couldn’t effect until after the spring thaw. They needed the UW thing to work until the conventional guys could come in and save us all. At the time we were kind of like, “Well, what makes them think this [UW campaign] won’t work so well? ‘Cause we think it’s going to work just fine.”

FORT BRAGG, NORTH CAROLINA 2001–SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, 2005 A Special Forces warrant officer6 describes his efforts to develop some new technology for the war on terrorism.

I was in the same company in Third Group for fourteen years. It was the company that did surveillance and reconnaissance for the battalion.

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

23

When a new company commander came, he asked me to make the company the best surveillance company in the military, to make sure that we had the best equipment, the right equipment to do the job. We looked at the Gulf War. We knew that a lot of the teams doing special reconnaissance got compromised. It turned out to be 70 percent—70 percent of the teams doing SR got compromised! We tried to figure out why it happened. Typically, they were compromised by civilians. The teams had put their hide sites in areas where there were civilians. The reason they did this was that they had to get in real close in order to get the information they needed to complete their missions—because they did not have the right technology, they had to get in real close to their targets and this meant setting up in areas where there were lots of civilians. So we needed better surveillance and reconnaissance technology to allow them to set up at a safe distance from the target. I knew about Predator [a UAV or unmanned aerial vehicle] and I thought that it could be a platform that we could use. I knew about the [surveillance] technology that was available and when I started to work with it and put it together it seemed to me that it could work with Predator. I got some support from my company but when I explained my idea and that the initial cost would be about $50,000, the commander told me that I should take [the idea] to one of the special mission units (SMU),7 since they were the ones that had all the money. So I decided to go to the military labs that were developing the UAV and show them what I had. I put the stuff in my car and just drove there. They were interested in it and worked on it with me. I met people from private industry there, and they wanted to work on it, too. I deployed to Afghanistan in February 2002 with a prototype. I didn’t operate it at first. The [SF] teams used it a couple of times, but they couldn’t get it to work. Finally, I told them that I could get it to work, if I went out with it. So I did, and I was able to get it to work and it provided valuable information. We were able to see problems up ahead and get ready for them. We came across a compound and were able to determine that it was under friendly control before we reached it. We had real time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance information with us in the field. We had audio and visual. Back in the JOC [Joint Operations Center],8 they were seeing what we were seeing, but we were seeing it a few seconds sooner. They couldn’t figure out how we were doing what we were doing. They had the feed from the UAV but didn’t know we had it right with us too.

24

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

They would be getting ready to warn us about something but we would already be reacting to it. When word got around about what we had, it created a lot of interest. The battalion commander was happy because White SOF [regular SF units] had something that Black SOF [special mission units–SMUs] didn’t have. Black SOF wanted it. I returned to the States to continue to develop the technology. I wanted to get something that was handheld and incorporate more systems into the network. I started trying to work on it, but I ran into some problems. I [had] enlisted in the army with a recruitment deal, but the army didn’t keep the promise they made, and it was just a big struggle to get anything done. The [regular] army was just too slow and bureaucratic. A lot of guys just putting in time. I was ready to get out but an old sergeant who had been in SF told me to try that, so I did. It was great. I got to do things, I could get things done, do this, do that. I had a lot of responsibility. But [then] I ran into some problems with this [surveillance] technology [I wanted to keep developing]. They say SOF is the cutting edge, but it is not true. It’s Black SOF that has the money, not the rest of SOF. And my commander was getting in the way. We didn’t get along. I was pushing this hard, doing what I had to do to get it done, and he didn’t like it. He told me I wasn’t working on it anymore because there were other things he wanted me to do, but higher-ranking officers wanted it done, so I got to do it, but [only by] working with private companies. Anyway, I am out of the active component now. I’m in the reserves and still working this with private industry. The technology has continued to develop, and there are now a number of units deployed overseas.

PAKISTAN, NOVEMBER 2001–MARCH 2002; IRAQ, MARCH–APRIL 2003 An air force major who flew special operations missions in Afghanistan and Iraq describes his experiences and reflects on the character of special operations forces.

I was in an AFSOC [Air Force Special Operations Command] headquarters job on 9/11. I think I flew the night before, so I was watching the airplanes hit the buildings at home on TV. I went into work, and obviously everything was kind of paralyzed for a couple of days. I thought, you know, what are we going to do? What’s going on? Everybody was [still]

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

25

getting their wits about them. But AFSOC very quickly put together some forces. Very quickly started doing some forward deployment in anticipation of what was going to come next. In that headquarters job, I was unique. [I was in one of ] only two offices in the headquarters that required that you stay current and qualified in the airplanes. At the same time, in the flying units, we had a manning shortage [of pilots]. [Prior to 9/11], a lot of great people ended up getting out and going to the airlines, so for better or worse—I know it was better for me—my flying skills [which I was able to keep up in my staff job] were more urgently needed than my staff skills in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. I really wanted to go fly. Our first wave of people deployed into Uzbekistan. Our unit was the first airplanes on the ground there, when they finally opened up. [I wasn’t part of that, but] two or three weeks later, we deployed to this exercise in Jordan. They told us to pack for six months because you’re going to roll right from the exercise into something. We had our first group of guys go to Uzbekistan, and I think it was November. Yeah, I think I was home for Thanksgiving, but I was gone for Christmas. Our unit went into Uzbekistan with army helicopters. They’re the ones that showed up and provided the initial combat search and rescue capability that allowed the air campaign to begin. Eventually, our whole joint special operations task force, the gunships9 and everybody got into position. At that time of the year the weather was bad. So, my unit went from Uzbekistan to Jacobabad in Pakistan. It was the first week of December. At that point, [we] were a unit, we had our airplanes. We had air force MH53s [long-range helicopters] there on station to do whatever; you know, all the different missions that came down the pike. Then we also supported the SMUs that were operating further in the country. When I compare [ flying in Afghanistan] to what we did in [Operation] Iraqi Freedom, in Afghanistan flying was more of a SOF war. SOF was more on the point of it. And we did it. It was really gratifying [doing] all the different things that we trained to do. I remember being an instructor at the schoolhouse [pilot training] for three years telling students, “Hey, someday you may have to do this. That’s why I am beating you over the head now. Someday you’re going to have to land in the middle of the night, no lights, somebody’s life’s going to be at stake.” All that stuff happened while we were there. It was the most gratifying flying we’ve ever been able to do as far as the high altitudes and the rugged terrain. Helicopter

26

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

aerial refueling missions were the norm, but we did a lot of other things as well. We did a lot of coalition support, we did a lot of foreign internal defense10 missions, we set up FARP [Forward Area Arming and Refueling Point] sites along the border. We transported the equipment in that allows forward refueling areas in the border area. I mean, obviously it was a very hot pursuit of UBL [Usama bin Laden] at that point. So we were in and out of little airfields along the border. We were in and out all over Afghanistan. We did a lot of direct-action missions. They really stretched our capability, but it was outstanding flying. We could take the helicopters from Pakistan, fly them into Afghanistan for direct-action missions on these compounds. I mean, whatever intelligence [we had] to snatch and grab these guys was very perishable, so we had to plan and execute very quickly. Just the logistics of being able to do that in one period of darkness, as much aerial-refueling as the helicopters needed, was pretty amazing. We [the planes refueling the helicopters] were up [to the tanker aircraft] and down [to the helicopters], yo-yoing all night long, running through the mountains, following the helicopters. These helicopters were in the air for twelve hours sometimes. From the time they cranked up to the time they finally got home, it was over twelve hours. And so they obviously need a lot of fuel. The most complex of these missions involved three of our airplanes supporting eight or nine helicopters. We did five refuelings of the helicopters and we refueled a tanker three times ourselves. So you’re running back and forth [ from the tankers to the helicopters]. I mean [shakes his head] . . . so the logistics, we were able to pull it off. I mean, some of the targets were these mud adobe compounds at eight thousand feet up in the mountains, so the helicopters can’t take in a full load of gas when they inserted the ground teams. They need to refuel every hour or so to keep their options open for emergency exfiltration of the teams. And they were able to grab up some folks. I don’t know how many of them ended up in Guantanamo, but several did. More than several. So, they had some pretty successful direct-action missions. We finally got to do exactly those things that we always saw on paper were our capabilities. We had the SMUs that called on us as needed for their refueling, and it was on one of those missions that I had my fiasco of running an airplane into the side of a mountain. Long painful story there, but when you’re dealing with those SMUs, the compartmentalization was so tight that we didn’t get the information we needed

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

27

[to plan the flight] until after we took off, and there was a disconnect in the information flow so, you know, a little more information would have helped—and so a long painful story. Delays and delays [in the operation] and sunrise coming [ for surprise and security, the direct action operations were supposed to take place at night], having trouble getting fuel. Do we stop or do I take them towards the objective? ’Cause I know the sun’s rising, [so we kept going towards the objective]. And it’s in the middle of an in-flight emergency because the helicopter’s blades chopped off the [refueling] hose. So, we’re dealing with that emergency in the middle of coming down a mountain valley at three in the morning. With the lack of a terrain-following system [on the airplane], you know, I got suckered into a big snowy hillside that looked like a cut in the ridgeline and it ended up being a shadow thrown on the side of the ridgeline. We ended up being about 100 feet short [of clearing the mountain]. Airplane screaming at full power. We had 46,000 pounds of fuel on board and bellied it right into the snow. Nothing blew up; it hit the ground at 80 knots and luckily everybody got out alive. Eight folks. Took us almost two hours to cut one of the loadmasters out of the back. He was messed up pretty bad, but he pulled through. We were lucky for that. I thought that our training was outstanding for the operations we were doing. We had been training to do the proper things, the blacked-out landings, the helicopter refueling, and the formation flying that we did. For a flyer, what you always wanted [was] to get the chance to put your training to use. Afghanistan was all of it. I mean everything, every type of utilization that we could be used for. I think we really used the airplanes well. We really used the capabilities in a real rough area. I mean that is no friendly place for any kind of machinery or anything else so we learned our lessons, high altitude wise. We’ve lost a lot of helicopters. We ended up losing another MC-13011 there, an MC-130H on a take-off mishap. You know, high altitude, seven or eight thousand feet at a little dirt strip somewhere [and the pilot] ended up not having enough power to fly out, and the ground rose to meet him. So we lost a couple C130s. We lost a lot of helicopters due to brown-outs [blowing dust on landing] and high-altitude stuff. It was basically the high-altitude conditions that we were unaccustomed to operating in, really pushing it to the edge of the envelope like that. But as far as the big picture of what we were doing there, it was just fantastic flying and really purpose-built for our capabilities. I mean, there was really nobody else that could do what we were

28

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

doing there. Nobody else could take helicopters and go into these eight thousand foot compounds and have really scary guys jump out right on the porch. I mean there’s no other force in the world that has these refueling capabilities, the night fighting capabilities to be able to do that. Eight thousand feet at 2:30 AM in the morning. Some really scary guys coming out of a helicopter in the middle of nowhere. I mean, we’re hundreds of miles from anywhere. Any road or major city or whatever. So, it was really satisfying to be able to do what we do and provide that kind of capability. It was very soon after 9/11, [and] all of our fangs were still hanging out, knowing that we’re refueling a helicopter that’s got eight guys in it that they just snatched up from a compound. That’s what we’re here to do. You know, getting a little bit of payback. Getting a little bit of personal payback. I missed the initial push to get into Iraq. Again, I had some headquarters stuff to do. I ended up catching up with the unit in March, mid-March, 2003, for Iraqi Freedom. So I was there when we started. You know, in Afghanistan, before the ground operation had been set up, before the big army came in, SOF was basically in charge. We had a pretty free hand to run around. I mean ours were definitely operations within a bigger campaign plan, but at least in Afghanistan, especially for the first month, there was nobody else there, so we were running around all over the place. And then in Iraq, obviously a completely different scheme of maneuver. We were a very small part. I would say we were definitely a subordinate part of the overall campaign plan, as it should have been with the objectives that we had there. We were able to do regime change in Afghanistan with a few hundred guys on the ground but I don’t think that was really a possibility in Iraq. So, we [SOF] had the western desert, to find Scuds, try to make sure they don’t try to get Israel in the war, like we did before [in operation Desert Storm], and then as required the unique capabilities, apply them as required. We didn’t fly nearly as much as in Afghanistan. It just wasn’t as target-rich an environment as that. It just wasn’t a target-rich environment for SOF. At least for our air force portion. I mean, there were teams running around all over the place on the ground, but as far as what I do, what my business was, it wasn’t a huge demand for what we were doing. There was one exception. We did one really high-profile mission. A big helicopter package. Just as the tanks were starting to roll through Kuwait crossing the border, we flew three or four hundred miles deep

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

29

into Iraq and took down one of Saddam’s palaces. Again, we supported the helicopters that went in to put the guys on the ground. They ran around, blew some things up, grabbed some stuff. I mean, I didn’t think they expected to find him there, but I think they got some computers, documents, and whatever. But in a sense it may have been more of a psychological operation than anything else. You know, “We can go anywhere we want, anytime we want, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” It was like fifty miles outside of Baghdad. So, we were pretty far in there. We were able to get a big package of helicopters in and out with no casualties. I mean, we got shot at, but nobody got hit. It was probably by far the most impressive assembly of moving parts that I’d ever seen on a mission. In Afghanistan, we were on our own. I mean as long as we deconflicted with the big blue air force, the bombers, and everybody. We actually talked to them once to say, “Yeah, this is us. Don’t have anybody shoot us down. Leave us alone because we’ve got our mission to do.” The particular mission in Iraq was in a very high-threat area. This mission had been planned for a long time. We were the focus of support for that night. There were over ninety aircraft involved in it, with all the strike aircraft that were supporting us. We had EA-6s up [electronic jamming aircraft], F-15s, F-16s [ fighter aircraft], and A-10s [ground attack aircraft] because, again, when we’re refueling helicopters, I mean, we’re at 110 knots, hanging on the propellers12 at 500 feet above the ground way deep in bad-guy land. You’re very vulnerable. So, we had worked out this system where we had strike aircraft all over us, covering us. A-10s in particular were assigned, maybe eight of them. Two of them would be on top of us doing turns at 1,000 feet while we were going down the refueling track with the helicopters. I could see them the whole time we were in the refueling mode. The A-10s were right on top of us. Two would be right on top of the target area taking out targets. Two or four more would be orbiting above, and then they would rotate through as we [carried out the operation]. So, I think it was impressive, as far as the integration [with conventional forces] we always talk about. Conventional wisdom is that SOF have a problem integrating with other forces. We are often out on our own. I think that [this operation at the beginning of the Iraq War] was a particular demonstration that we’ve come a long way as far as integrating with other forces, at least in the air. Because that was a truly impressive display, and it went almost exactly like we planned it. It was one of the things nobody expected. I mean, it’s the typical thing.

30

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

We know it’s not going to go exactly like we planned but that particular one really did. There [were some] little sticking points here and there— radio frequencies or not being able to talk to somebody when you needed to or whatever—but as far as this gigantic conglomeration of 90 aircraft all within the same area, at the same time, on the same target, all there to support 8 to10 SOF helicopters and to get us in [and out]. I think it was one of those CNN missions. I think they showed clips of it on CNN. But it just so happened to coincide with the night that Jessica Lynch got rescued. So that ended up sucking all the oxygen out of the psychological operations value of it, but it was still a display of incredible capability. I mean, again, there is nobody anywhere that came even close to attempting that type of a mission. You know, if you just take it in the abstract and say “Okay, we’re going to go four hundred miles into an enemy country with helicopters to put guys on the ground, stomp things, break things, let them take what they want, and come back out again, right into the enemy’s capital and come back out.” I mean, that’s really a pretty impressive thing, when you’re looking at it in that way. But Iraqi Freedom went a lot quicker than any of us ever thought it would happen, as far as the regime falling. For me personally, I always was just under a lucky star because in OIF [Operation Iraqi Freedom], just like OEF [Operation Enduring Freedom, i.e., the operation in Afghanistan], I had people all around me getting pulled into all these deployed staff jobs and headquarters jobs, but I managed to get a chance to go fly again with the unit. I was lucky enough to be in one of those two offices that had to stay current and qualified in the airplane and that gave me the chip to play this, “Hey, we’re short on experience, so anybody can sit behind the computer and do schedules or whatever at the headquarters level. But we need guys down flying the planes that know what’s going on.” So I was able to work my way through that. Getting into SOF was a choice. Upon graduating from air force undergraduate pilot training [pilot basic training], I was given the opportunity to pick my assignment off a list, and I chose to come to special operations C-130s. I was just bit by an aviation bug. I wanted to fly. I wanted to fly. And then when there were no fighters available on the list I got to pick from, it was just the hands-on aviation portion of special operations that really attracted me. I mean, being able to take big ugly airplanes and do crazy things with them. That kind of really piqued my interest. You know C-5, C-141, now C-17 [all large transport aircraft], I mean, that’s

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

31

just mostly taking off, putting the gear up, you know, kind of a glorified bus driver. So I really wanted some sort of combat aircraft. There were no fighters available. There were no bombers either. I wanted combat flying, not trash hauling. C-130s had come through this evolution in the air force. Anything with props [propellers], holy crap, nobody wants that. But [the feeling] evolved. When I graduated, C130s in general were very highly regarded because they were pilot flying airplanes and even in the non-special operations versions, you’re still doing tactical airlift, which is going into dirt fields in South America, etc., which is exciting flying. So I think C-130s in general just operate at a level of “stick and rudder” satisfaction that just isn’t around that much anymore in the air force, certainly outside of the fighter world right now. Plus the special operations mystique and everything thrown on top of it, I thought, hey, that’d be great. There was no bad side, no downside to it. But I think primarily it was that attraction to an airplane [that’s doing something] other than flying from point A to point B. Back in 1998 or 1999, all my friends said, “You’re crazy for staying in [the air force]. Everybody’s going to the airlines.” Southwest was hiring. I mean it was literally just walking out the door [leaving the air force] and flying for an airline the next week. There was nothing to getting hired at the airlines at that time. And we just did the whole soul-searching thing. I just sat down with my wife and said, “You know, I’m really not done doing this yet. I really like doing this. It’s fun.” So, we had already made our decision to stay in at least until twenty years [a typical retirement point], maybe until twenty-five years. Airlines will always be there if you want to do that. It turned out that was a very fortuitous decision. [Of course,] it wasn’t until 9/11 came around. In fact, three or four of the people, friends of mine, that I flew with active duty at the schoolhouse [pilot training], were begging their way back into the air force just to get a paycheck. So, I was already a company guy at this point. But when you take a perfectly good airplane, there’s nothing mechanically wrong with it, and just the situation put us in a place where I ended up having to crash land on the side of a mountain in the Hindu Kush mountains [in northeastern Afghanistan]—you know, you are girding yourself for this big investigation, the safety boards and all that goes along with it. And so, our commander came up and just said, “Hey, well, what happened? What’s going on?” And you know some of the guys outside SOF whispered, “You know, maybe you should get a lawyer and maybe you should

32

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

do this and God, maybe, you know,” but then, on the other hand, he is the commander. He wants to talk about what happened. We sat down with six members of the crew (we were short the two guys that were hurt bad enough to where they airlifted them to Germany right off the bat) and told the commander what happened. We went through it very, very detailed, probably took 2 to 2 ½ hours sitting around explaining exactly what we were doing, why we were doing it. And he just shook his head and went “Holy cow, you know, I don’t think there was any negligence involved.” And I’ll never forget it. I didn’t think he meant it, and he said, “Well, as far as I am concerned, as soon as you get your safety interviews over, get back in the airplane.” I thought, “Yeah, right, like the air force is going to let me do that, you know there has got to be something going on here.” So, we did our safety boards (it took like eight to ten days to get the safety people from the States over to where we were), and they talked to our wing commander back in the States and three weeks later, it was, “Here are the keys. Go out and fly.” I mean, we did two sorties, just out and fly a milk run, and then one tactical flight into Afghanistan with an instructor pilot with me. It was a blacked out landing to Kandahar, in the middle of a dust storm and, okay, yeah, everything is still clicking, everything is still working, and I feel great. The same with the other crew members. They were all allowed to fly with an instructor once or twice. And then it was up to us and our commander, our local commanders. Personally to be treated that way, with that much respect and that much trust, was something I did not expect in the wake of that accident. One of SOCOM’s published “SOF Truths” is that “people are more important than hardware,” and our commanders really lived up to that credo in our case. It was in combat, which makes it a different story. It was a very unique set of circumstances that ended up in a national-level mission. I mean, it was an extraordinarily important mission, very last minute again but a very high-value target. But the leadership’s actions, that would only have happened in SOF, that would not have happened in the big blue air force. There would have been too much “Well, yeah, we know, but you know we just got to make sure.” They got thirty to forty-five days to put [the accident report] together and then to staff it and send it around and get it crunched. So, typically, I think it would be a least ninety days to six months before a crew involved in an accident like that would be allowed to fly again. And we were told just straight up “Hey, you guys are way too valuable to be sitting around doing nothing.

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

33

We have looked at it.” Commanders are commanders. They have the authority. That really tweaked my outlook on things, as far as when I am in that position, hopefully, I can repay that favor. But they took a chance. I mean it took brass balls for this 06 [colonel] to say okay, go fly. If I had blown a tire, if I had had any little mechanical problem, not related to anything, if I lost an engine, if say [I had] blown a tire on a runway somewhere, it [would have been] “What in the hell is this guy flying for while he’s in the middle of a safety investigation for destroying an airplane?” Risk aversion is an institutional problem, especially in the higher levels of the military. But at least at that lower level, 06 command level, boy, they were with us 100 percent, and that meant a lot. I mean, that meant a lot. We had already lost a couple of helicopters by that point. And so they had developed kind of an outlook on how they were going to handle these things. And I know there was concern about a backlash or a chilling effect on the combat crews if you have them thinking “you go out and hack the mission, push hard, but boy, if you screw up we are going to pound you.” So I know that was a dynamic that was in play. But for us personally, I mean, I could not have . . . I mean, I was just jaw-dropping happy that, holy crap, they let me fly, and that was all I cared about. That, and that we didn’t kill anybody. I don’t have to live with that for the rest of my life. I was already kind of a “company” guy before. Now I am really a “company” guy, a SOF guy.

MAY 18, 2003–MARCH 2004, PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS IN IRAQ A reserve major who was in charge of psychological operations teams in Iraq describes his activities there and the relationship between psychological operations forces and other elements of the U.S. military.

We went to Iraq in April 2003. Our biggest obstacle was separating [differentiating] ourselves from CA [civil affairs]. In conjunction, [psychological operations and CA] are very powerful. We learned early on that CA developed a huge number of key contacts and key communicators in their areas of operation, whether they rebuilt schools, funded work projects, passed out food, or provided medical care. It was all good will that we could build on with the affected people. Generally, some sheikh, imam, or other local leader would take some amount of credit or pleasure

34

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

in having the CA bunch do their thing for his people. When you combine this with IO [information operations] and PSYOP [psychological operations] messages, then you have a great opportunity to influence a great number of people. But CA is an interesting bunch. They are almost careless about security and tactics. Maybe it was too many trips to the Balkans [a low-threat environment] or not enough combat arms officers or NCOs present on their teams, but many of the CA units presented themselves as great targets to the insurgents. In two instances in two separate units, the CA teams were not allowed to go out or operate without us. In any case, there wasn’t a plan for how we would work. We found ourselves a job working with 2nd Armored Cavalry and then got picked up by 5th Group [5th Special Forces Group]. At first it worked well, and then it didn’t. And when it didn’t, 5th Group ended up treating us worse than the conventional forces. A new commander came in [to the 5th Group] who was more narrow. Our initial commander in 5th Group had utilized PSYOP and CA heavily in Afghanistan to great success. He understood our capabilities and was prepared to use us in Iraq. We had assigned PSYOP teams, TPTs [Tactical PSYOP Teams] to three of the ODAs [Operational Detachments Alpha, the basic twelve-man Special Forces (SF) team] with some real success. Before we could get fully operational, a new commander came in and began shutting everyone down across the board. The CA went away, and we were severely curtailed in our activities. There was a definite impression that if you did not have a long tab [SF tab on your uniform] then you were just part of the “help.” The new commander was just focused on getting HVTs [high-value targets]. But really, SF were not good at that. The SEALs were. That was what they were trained to do. SF wanted to own the battlefield, but it was a detriment to have them going after HVTs because they did not focus on controlling the battlespace. In Vietnam, SF were the biggest proponents of CA and PSYOP, but not in Iraq. We just did intel[ligence] for them because they were too high-speed to bother with that or didn’t have the personnel to do it. We also worked with the marines and the 3rd Infantry Division. We were in Sadr city. We got info[rmation] by trading info[rmation]. We got actionable intel [intelligence that operational forces can act on] by telling people where to turn in unexploded ordnance and things like that. Once the media came in, this no longer worked as well as it used to because there were other sources of information, but until they got

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

35

there we collected a lot. In Fallujah and Ramadi, there was no media, so it worked well there. SF looked at us as info dispensers, not as intel collectors. When we were attached to the 82nd airborne (actually, to an armored brigade that was attached to the 82nd), we had language and country awareness that the conventional forces did not have, so we did intel. According to the Brigade S2 [intelligence officer], we collected 60 percent of their actionable intel. We met with the sheikhs and imams and the police chiefs and fire chiefs and influenced them. We looked for the key leaders, anybody that the masses turn to for guidance. If we influence them, then we influence a larger audience. The 82nd trusted us to do this. We got the 82nd’s troopers to use loudspeakers and pamphlets. It doesn’t take an expert to hand out paper. This is not doctrine, at least not now. But in WWI, everybody handed out leaflets; it wasn’t just a PSYOP mission. Our greatest advantage was to be the liaison with the key leaders. If we don’t do it, then you have some major doing it, who may be a great soldier but doesn’t know about the culture and doesn’t understand about talking to people, getting information and influencing them. This was a significant issue in that many a maneuver or tactical commander wanted to put his own message out to the locals—often in direct competition or opposition to approved PSYOP and IO messages. In the areas where we enjoyed the most success, the local commander worked in conjunction with the PSYOP and CA team to present a seamless message and information campaign—typically letting PSYOP and CA be his voice to the local leadership and residents. We had some language ability, but we had an interpreter with every team. [Each tactical PSYOP team consisted of an E-6, an E-5, an E-4, and an Iraqi interpreter.] So, we would go and see the sheikhs and imams and drink tea and talk, talk about the economy, about politics, about our desires and messages. We didn’t go in Bradleys [armored personnel carriers] and we didn’t wear helmets and body armor in the presence of key leaders. They viewed the protection as an insult to them personally. We didn’t wear it during meetings where we wanted the atmosphere to be nonconfrontational. We worked in conjunction with CA at the tactical level, but there was no cooperation at the [brigade] level [or higher]. The tactical cooperation led to pacification and actionable intel. When we got out [of U.S. military compounds] and found out what was going on, then things went well.

36

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

There was cooperation [between Iraqis and coalition forces]. In some areas, PSYOP teams did not get out of the compound. They got no intel and had no impact on the area. If [some unit did not let] one of our teams out, then we didn’t give them PSYOP teams. I simply did not have enough PSYOP to waste on a commander that did not use them correctly. The [members of the] teams were prior service active duty, so they understood the infantry but [being reservists] they had real-world experience as police, firemen, so they understood what was needed [in Iraq]. My soldiers and NCOs were used to dealing with people, students. This was a huge advantage over the active [duty] PSYOP. So, they [my soldiers and NCOs] could talk to the Iraqis. We also had interpreters living with us. We were the only unit that had interpreters living with the teams. So, we built rapport with the [interpreters] and learned from them. They taught us [Iraqi] customs and courtesies. Being in PSYOP is hard because you can’t measure the effectiveness of what you do. We were sitting around one evening and someone said “Let’s put out an 800 number for reporting IEDs [improvised explosive devices].” We handed out leaflets with the number on it. We had 125 reports leading to defusing IEDs, 125 reports in 60 days. We pushed [gave] leaflets to squad level, so we could get more of them out. The al Anbar fire chief had his people out looking for IEDs and arms caches in cemeteries and mosques. So that worked, and we could see that work. We also wanted to focus on who was making the calls [to the 800 number]. Turned out, it was women in the middle of the day. Concerned housewives. We didn’t build on this enough, but we should have. What the army did not understand was that Iraqis were different. [The army] looked at all Iraqis as the same. We didn’t work with the separate groups or with females to encourage them to do things to protect their families. There was a disconnect between what happened on the ground and what got up to higher command. You can’t just say that democracy is going to happen. [The Iraqis] did not necessarily know what [democracy] meant. So, we started a grassroots democracy effort, but this was three months before the task force level started talking about it. The Sunnis weren’t stupid; they knew they were a minority. So, with them, we talked about equality before the law—not one man, one vote. With the Shia [roughly 60 percent of Iraq’s population], we talked about one man, one vote. Working with the conventional military was not always easy. One commander ordered us to drive up and down the road with [our loud]

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

37

speakers blaring so that we would get shot at and his guys could return fire. That was the last day we worked with him. We weren’t going to be tied to doctrine. In the big army they are tied to doctrine, so they were suspicious of us. We understood that we had to work out of our doctrinal role to be successful. Things that worked in the Balkans or during the First Gulf War were not going to work in Iraq, and the institutional guidelines for PSYOP just plain sucked. “Go hand out leaflets and hope it all works out.” Additionally, we all thought we could do a little more than what was expected of us. I had very intuitive, resourceful, and creative NCOs and soldiers, more so than I ever had on active duty. I knew if I let them get creative, then they would be tremendously successful. I also understood that this creativity would not always be doctrinally or politically accepted by the big army. But 1st ID [infantry division] trusted us because they got results. As long as we didn’t get killed or kill others. This one commander [in the 1st ID] knew about insurgency and understood that SF worked in Vietnam until the big army took over and he told us to go out and do what worked. We had been [in Iraq] seven months. We knew the customs and courtesies, we knew how to get around. We wore sterile uniforms and carried unauthorized weapons. We had much different roles [ from the conventional forces], so by looking different, we reinforced our uniqueness. We did not wear helmets when we talked to Iraqis. That was a sign of respect. Regular commanders had spent careers preparing to fight the Russians on the plains of Europe. They would not admit that they were fighting an insurgency. They were stuck in a thirty-year-old thought pattern. In many cases, PSYOP did not get to do anything interesting. But we could push hard to do things and not be tied down by doctrine. We were reservists, and it couldn’t get worse than being in Iraq. We were away from our families, it was 120 degrees. There is nothing worse you can do to me [to punish me]. I told an O-6 [Colonel] that, and what could he do but stare at me. Active duty PSYOP was not that flexible. If you found a commander that you could work with, you were all right and you could do interesting things. PSYOP is the commander’s voice to the locals. Now you have army IO people running around. Since they were just staff people [did not have command over any forces], they wanted to take over PSYOP and CA, and sitting in HQ [headquarters] they were telling us what to do, but they didn’t know what was going on. They did not know what was coming up

38

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

from the bottom. Maybe they had other intel from the strategic level, but the IO guidance was not good. If we had followed it, we would have failed. Most of the people I was with in Iraq got out [of PSYOP]. It was frustrating the way things were done, and so people got out and are doing other things.

CIVIL AFFAIRS IN NORTHERN IRAQ, MARCH–APRIL 2003 A major in civil affairs describes his experiences working in Northern Iraq.

We started planning to go into northern Iraq in August 2002. Our mission was to support JSOTF-N [Joint Special Operations Task Force–North].13 At that time, the only forces supposed to be going in [to northern Iraq] were conventional forces, the 4th ID [Infantry Division]. They stretched OPSEC [operational security] into planning for phase four.14 This made no sense because in phase four we [U.S. or coalition forces] own the country, so who’s the enemy they are hiding things from? But that’s how they did it. You need to coordinate to get a unified restoration plan, but for OPSEC reasons there was no coordination between the 4th ID and CA [civil affairs]. This issue arose again when the 4th ID was denied entry to Turkey and the 173rd [Infantry Regiment] was called in at the last minute. The CA officer in the 173rd had been difficult to deal with on past peace-time operations. For reasons unknown to us [CA planners] there was no coordination between the 173rd and the JSOTF on CA responsibilities. CA operators went into Iraq with the JSOTF on March 25, 2003, as a planning staff to figure out where we needed to put our teams. But we even had some problems doing that. One of the executive officers [in the JSOTF] wanted the rest of the battalion headquarters company brought in instead of more CA. We only had one team in country and we wanted to get more in. Ultimately, it required the intervention by the deputy commander of 10th group [the SF group in northern Iraq] to get our CA teams on the ground. Most of our work focused on the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan sector until Kirkuk fell on April 10. We arrived in Kirkuk on April 13. During this time, there was a pissing contest between the JSOTF commander and the SETAF [Southern European Task Force] commander that

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

39

originated when combat operations spilled over into stability operations. Essentially, the SETAF commander would not let the commander of the 173rd, an infantry O6 [colonel who worked for the SETAF commander] be subordinated to the JSOTF-N commander, a Special Forces O6. The 173rd assumed control of Kirkuk. Both they and an SF detachment from the JSOTF went into Kirkuk and set up on an airfield. They [the SF detachment] didn’t want CA around because they wanted to hunt HVTs [high-value targets] and they did not want to get involved in a humanitarian operation, so they sent us off somewhere else. They didn’t want us getting in the way. We ended up down the road at the former headquarters of the Iraqi intel[ligence] service. From our perspective, the number one issue was reestablishing security in the city. The looting got so bad in Kirkuk that the 173rd finally ordered all the Kurd forces out. As more CA and PSYOP were flowing in, we had about forty CA men and women at the CA headquarters. To do our job we had to go out and move around at the expense of security at our headquarters, so we got the 173rd to send us a platoon to work as guards. The population was not out gunning for us. Some Iraqis did not like the fact that we were in the former intel HQ. Lots of bad memories. But they quickly realized that the place was under new management and accepted our presence. But looting was always a problem, so we needed security at our headquarters. The culmination of all these factors, I mean, no integrated plan, a combat-centric mentality, no command vision to do the right thing, all come out in this one example of trying to turn the water back on. The 173rd had contracted for water trucks to bring water into Kirkuk, but they looked like fuel trucks and so people were showing up with fuel cans and then putting water in the fuel cans because that’s what they’d brought. The Iraqis did finally figure out that all we were passing out was water and brought the appropriate containers. The root problem was all the city wells required pumps, and there was no electric power. All the power workers were home protecting their houses rather than going to work because of the looters. So we needed security at their homes. But the 173rd did not want to supply the security. They were looking for HVTs and weapons caches. The 173rd commander in charge of Kirkuk didn’t know anything about the infrastructure in Kirkuk and had no plan. We gave the JSOTF a breakdown of all the infrastructure, but whether or not that was forwarded to 173rd I don’t remember. If it was, there is no indication [that] at the time they acted on our findings.

40

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

On April 15, [2003] we, just CA, met with the Northern Iraqi Oil Company vice president and other senior officials because they controlled the power station. They spoke good English, and we explained the situation. We learned that the power station was a pair of state-of-the-art computer-managed GE turbines. Ironically, the morning of the day we showed up at the oil fields, the three control computers were stolen. Just up the street from the power station, the 173rd was protecting the 1950s vintage refinery on the field, but the refinery just makes fuel for running the oil company equipment, not for export. The managers gave us all the detail on the infrastructure and who the authorized employees were to get on the facility. The managers told us that the housing areas were at risk and all their employees were home protecting their houses. They said, “If you provide some security, people will come back to work. Without the computers, we need to get the workers back at work in order to run the turbines manually.” We told the 173rd that we needed security for the housing areas. The 173rd said that the refinery was the priority and that that was what they were going to protect. Finally, the managers got volunteers to come in and get some power going. While we were working out the details for employees to get access, the vice president [of the Northern Iraqi Oil Company] told us that they had explained everything to some lieutenant colonel. Nobody in the 173rd or the JSOTF knew who this officer was. Turned out he was a Corps of Engineers guy working for the 4th ID. He had been the point man for 4th ID’s plan to secure the oil fields under the original [restoration] plan. He had a whole team of petroleum engineers with equipment and everything required to cap wells and assess infrastructural damage, and this was the first time we had heard about it. As far as we knew, since August of 2002, we were supposed to be the lead planners for infrastructure. So, once we made face-to-face contact with each other, I got this lieutenant colonel spun up on the oil field, and we turned it over to him. The 173rd was hunkered down on the Kirkuk airfield, destroying weapons caches, guarding the roads into the city but not doing much else with respect to stabilizing the situation. Maybe they did not have the resources, but the impression they projected was more a lack of desire. A significant limitation to executing any quick solution to the water problem or any other problem is funding for civil affairs. Although the JSOTF commander had some funds for immediate impact projects, larger projects or more expensive small projects required State

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

41

Department funds. Although we met with the State Department DART [Disaster Assistance Response Team] prior to deployment and even notified them that the JSOTF would stage in Romania and not Turkey as originally planned, they still went to Turkey. The DART teams were then stuck in Turkey with the money, and we were in Iraq without cash. When I left Iraq in late April [2003] the DART teams were still stuck in Turkey. I’ll make a final comment on the direct action mentality in SOF. Several of the ODAs in our area were given the task of blowing up caches. There were anti-aircraft positions all around the oil field. One morning while surveying the security fence with the Iraqi oil company guys we hear a huge explosion. We thought it was bad guys, but it was SF. When we talked to them we found out that they were going around Kirkuk destroying military equipment. The possible consequences of spiking guns on an operational oil field never crossed the team leader’s mind. I pointed out that the guns they just blew up were 200 meters from a 1 million cubic foot liquefied natural gas storage tank, but they didn’t get it. They were just following their orders. They got fixated on going after the target, and they forgot about the environment they were operating in. We had one project: to get the water running, and that was what we had to go through to get it done.

WASHINGTON, DC, MARCH, 2017 A Special Forces officer with twenty years of experience in the military, fourteen in SOF, and since retirement, eight years working with SOCOM and other military organizations as a consultant, discusses how SOF have changed since 9/11 and what is critical for the success of the force.

My view of SOF is not just shaped by my active duty job, but by my job today, working with the Special Operations Command and with other components of the military. Any discussion of SOF has to start with where the military, especially the army, is today, in the aftermath of the Iraq war, but also Afghanistan. Iraq had a greater effect on the military. I was reading a book about Churchill the other day. Churchill was asked after the war how he was able to go toe-to-toe with all the high ranking military officers he dealt with and overcome their views. Supposedly,

42

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

he replied first that all of them, he and the officers, had been through World War I together and so they knew that the idea of the infallibility of the military had been refuted. Second, he had long recognized that in the military there was a pervasive subordination of thought to action. I believe that what he meant by that was that in the military system very often people try to second guess what the boss wants to hear and then articulate that. That is still with us today. The military is a bureaucracy, and it is shaped by the dynamics and concerns of bureaucracy. When you are in SOF, in an ODA, that is a performance environment. Everyone on the team knows who can do the most push-ups, who is the fastest runner, who is the best shooter, who is the best communicator. It’s a performance environment in every aspect of its work, and amongst the teams it is a performance environment. But that performance environment exists inside the military bureaucracy. Something we are struggling with now is the over-bureaucratization of the military, where too much is focused on bureaucratic dynamics, risk-averseness, failure to speak truth to power, bureaucratic considerations trumping operational considerations, of a leadership climate not being where it should be. Within that context we have the post-Iraq and post-Afghanistan era. SOF is an institution both between wars and at war at the same time. The conventional military is sorting out what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, learning lessons. This may be changing yet again as we speak, according to the news about the Middle East, with forces going into Syria. But SOF never let up. SOF is pedal to the metal, while the rest of the military is taking stock, reevaluating. That’s the background to where we are or the context for any discussion of SOF. How has SOF changed since I joined? The big turning point was 2001. That was the beginning of a dramatic change—a series of dramatic changes—that occurred at about the midpoint of my career. I can list a few of these. Maybe the biggest innovation was the change in how SF did planning. Before 9/11, you were told what to do. It was top down. You were given a mission. You weren’t told how to do it, you planned the how, but it was really a top-down-directed mission. In Afghanistan, that changed. It was the opposite. Teams went in with little, if any, guidance. Teams went into areas where they were the first western eyes to see what was there, to figure out what was going on, and to interact with certain stakeholders in that area. There was no guidance given. Teams went in, assessed the

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

43

situation, and had to generate their own missions and guidance. This was a recognition by higher commands that they were not quite sure what was required, so SF self-generated their missions through something that came to be called the CONOP process. The CONOP said this is what is going on, this is what we are planning to do, and this is what we are doing to plan for contingencies. That process got refined from that initial design but it revolutionized the way that SOF operated, and it revolutionized how the army at large operates. It was different from anything SOF had done. It was a sea change for SOF and now for the GPF [General Purpose Forces]. Second was a focus on multi-team operations. Prior to 9/11, it was all about individual teams operating on their own with great autonomy. That was the focus; that’s what the training was about, and that’s how we operated. The mainstay of SOF was independent team operations. After 9/11, the need for multi-team operations increased greatly. After 9/11, there was a Special Forces advanced urban combat course, a training program at Fort Bragg, that focused on close urban combat and multi-team operations. I remember a high-ranking noncommissioned officer, someone with a lot of experience on the teams, saying that he was skeptical about the worth of the course but after his deployment to Afghanistan, he said it was exactly what was needed because any kind of direct action, any kind of combat in that environment, was going to be a multi-team effort, and it was done by SOF and not by having the conventional forces come in and do it. Third, there was a change in the role of SOF in intelligence. SOF started to achieve its intelligence potential. This changed overnight after 9/11. The capability was always there, but it was an academic capability you could say before 9/11. Afterwards it was unleashed in Afghanistan. SOF’s ability to develop and leverage contacts in the population made an important contribution and was embraced by other USG departments and organizations. It reached a point of maturity. I remember after the fall of Baghdad, the commander of forces in Iraq said if SOF does nothing else I want you to focus on your ability to develop contacts in the population. After the fall of Baghdad, most of SOF was withdrawn but those who were left spent about 75 percent of their time on this mission. Personally, I think this was a mistake, but it was a recognition of the capability, especially in SF, that SF were a national asset with regard to being able to develop contacts in the local population and thus information

44

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

from the population that others could not get and commanders were quick to recognize this. Connected to this was the development of the Joint Inter-Agency Task Force. Its purpose was to work with the joint force but in particular to get all elements of the joint force working with SOF. Interagency collaboration nodes developed that allowed for full cooperation with all the inter-agency partners on intelligence matters. That was a major area of innovation. The partners had different niche capabilities, and when you brought them all together it was powerful, and then it was connected directly to operational capabilities. We should make sure that we don’t lose this. It was a robust and holistic approach to intelligence challenges. This enabled operations on a twenty-four-hour cycle. No other SOF in the world has this capability. Another area of innovation was C4ISR. Before 9/11, a SF battalion HQ would have some radios and some easels with sheets of paper in a tent. After 9/11, the existing C4I systems in the force were pushed down to the battalion level and lower. Overnight, we had sophisticated communications equipment, deployable local area networks, etc., a range of battle tracking systems. I was learning about this stuff—it was like drinking water through a hose, as they say—en route to Afghanistan. This allowed a sophistication of C2 that was for the better. Some think it contributed to micromanagement by higher levels of command, and I can see that. But in my experience, for the most part, it was positive. But you need commanders who know how to use the tools. Another major innovation was how SOF conducted sustainment. The way we sustained SOF operations and the way the theater did logistics went through a major change. The big army developed a concept called “theater logistics,” where they have a theater logistics command. Commanders lost control of their logistics. General Petreaus, because of his clout, was to some degree able to maintain control of his logistics, but generally theater logistics commands were in charge. This meant that SOF sustainment battalions had to sustain SOF in country. No one else could do it. This took major innovation by SOF logistics to sustain not just of U.S. SOF but allied SOF. Another logistics innovation was the concept of area support. Big army logistics was told to support SOF in their area, even if they were not part of their command. This did a great deal to facilitate SOF operations. If SOF comes in and needs something, conventional logistics was told to provide it.

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

45

This was part of the development of SOF work with conventional forces. This improved after 9/11. Conventional force people complain about SOF coming in, carrying out an operation, pulling out, and leaving the conventional forces to deal with the aftermath. But I had the opposite experience. Suddenly, the 82nd airborne showed up in an area where we were holding down the fort, and then we had to deal with the aftermath when they left. So there are problems between SOF and GPF, but SOF-GPF cooperation is better and an improvement since 9/11. This relationship has gone up or down, ebbed and flowed, both sides have complaints. I’ll leave it at that. Let me talk about SOF’s most important contributions to America’s national security. SOF provides access, influence, and strategic understanding. If you are a GCC [Geographic Combatant Commander] or a JTF commander, especially if you are a GCC, SOF gives you access to people that no one else can provide. They give you influence with people that no one else can provide, and they improve your strategic understanding in your AOR [area of responsibility] that no one else can provide. So at the highest level, it is access, influence, and strategic understanding. Next, I would say, is the contribution that SOF makes as a partner integrator. In the first Iraq war we had coalition support teams with partner forces, using language and cultural awareness, someone who could integrate, doctrine, tactics and communications between the allied force and the U.S. military on short notice. GPF now have this capability, but I think SOF remains the gold standard because SOF have the language skills, regional experience, cultural awareness, and even sometimes prior experience with some of the partner personnel or in the area. They can embed for a long period of time. They aren’t self-sustaining, but an ODA has organic medical and communications capabilities that give it some autonomy and a level of maturity that will allow better integration and allow economy of force operations that no one else can really bring about. SOF can provide tailored solutions to very difficult problems. SOF has lots of capabilities, but it can shape those or organize those to address a particular problem. SOF have an institutional culture that prizes adaptability; it’s a mindset, adaptability over doctrine. Doctrine is the starting point. The point isn’t that doctrine is not important, but the mindset is [to] do what the circumstances require, limited only by what’s ethical and what the national interest requires. You shouldn’t hear a SOF guy say, “That’s not my job.” You can get into trouble with this. If SOF are

46

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

adaptable, if they don’t say, “That’s not my job,” then they could be used in the wrong way. SOF has to be careful about this. Misuse of SOF does not happen as much now. This is a bit before my time, but Nunn-Cohen15 decreased the misutilization of SOF. NunnCohen set up SOF theater commands, so SOF is now in charge of SOF. I think that prior to Nunn-Cohen there was a pattern of misuse of SOF. It was because conventional officers were directing SOF units they didn’t understand. Nunn-Cohen set up a command and control and advisory system that helped SOF get used properly. After Nunn-Cohen, there was less or almost no misuse. You could look at WWII. There were many SOF failures or tragedies. When I was at West Point I was told—and I believe it is true, although I didn’t see it—that an assessment of SOF in WWII concluded that all SOF units or what we call today SOF units, the Rangers and others, were misused. There was pervasive misuse. In the war, only the 6th Ranger battalion that did the Cabanatuan raid and the Alamo scouts were used properly, but all the other SOF units were misused. At Anzio, first Special Forces Battalion led the breakout, went toe-to-toe with a Panzer Division, and was annihilated. The First Special Service Force had to be deactivated because of fatalities in 1944. They were light infantry designed to be used behind the lines, but were used instead as crack assault troops at Monte la Difensa and in the south of France and were attritted into nonexistence. Conventional officers did not understand how to use SOF. But after Nunn-Cohen you have SOF in charge of SOF, so people who know SOF and what it can do are in charge. So, SOF get misused less or at least there is not a pattern of misuse. I don’t believe that everything is perfect in SOF. I think there are shortcomings within SOF that need to be addressed. There are too many incidents in which individuals and teams and units have not done a good enough job in planning and that has led to sub-par performance. But Nunn-Cohen took care of some larger issues. It encouraged proper resourcing, and created educational opportunities for SOF, and created oversight for special missions. These were all things that were positive and successful. As for the future, I think the challenges are non-materiel, non-tangible. From a materiel perspective we are in pretty good shape. The real issues are non-tangible. The challenges are conceptual and cultural.

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

47

Everyone that makes it into SOF has the physical fitness and toughness to serve. Once they are in SOF, we need to do a better job of promoting for smarts. People have to have a career of learning. Leaders have to be able to think through problems and lead others based on that. I worry that we have a culture—the army has a culture—that is an athlete’s culture. An athlete has to know when to act and how, and that’s good, but what is underestimated is the need for ethical problem solvers who can think through problems and then operate in an intractable bureaucracy. I can give you lots of anecdotes about this. The historical anecdotes are corny, but they are important. In Livy’s history, when he is talking about the war against Hannibal, Fabius is counseling a general who has dual command, he has a co-commander, and Fabius tells him, “You are going to spend a lot more time dealing with your co-commander than you are dealing with Hannibal.” And that’s where we are today. We spend more time, more energy battling the bureaucratic fight, this community versus that community, this stakeholder versus that one. It is not so much interservice rivalries—I haven’t seen that much of that—but it’s within SOF and within institutions. These bureaucratic dynamics of this group against that. A lot of it is personalities. Whenever we are dealing with a problem, the first thing people want to do is reorganize, you know, change the wiring diagram. In Iraq, year four or five, we were changing command on the personnel schedule in the U.S., instead of according to the combat calendar, so that in the middle of a tour a commander was leaving his command in Iraq with all his experience because that’s when the bureaucracy back home was used to making the change. They corrected that, but it’s an example of how bureaucratic concerns drive our attention and what we are focused on. What we need to do is focus on the environment—what’s the enemy doing, what are our partners doing, what are we doing. We need to focus on the conditions in the environment and not on our own bureaucracy. Once you focus on the environment, what the dynamics are, then the problems and the solutions become almost self-evident. We need to develop this approach to solving our national security problems and our operational problems in SOF. But we don’t tend to do this. Related to this is that for a long time and maybe still today the SOF voice in campaign plan development and policy has been lacking. It wasn’t there when the country needed it. There were instances where SOF experience could have helped. I don’t blame others for not listening.

48

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

I blame SOF for not communicating well enough. We have SOCOM, SOLIC, TSOCS [Theater Special Operations Commands]—with all of that, the SOF voice isn’t as loud and clear as it should be. Now there is SOF fatigue in many quarters. There is also a desire in the army to go back to core and traditional warfighting. And the last thing the army wants to hear is about SOF and dealing with irregular warfare. SOF itself needs to go back to basics. There is not an operational pause in which to do this. SOF op tempo is high and is probably going to be higher. We need to go back to basic soldier knowledge, basic field craft. Some individuals in SOF don’t really know what it’s like to deploy in a team. I find that hard to believe but there were lots of large deployments, lots of SOF operating together, not in small teams but in multi-team operations, as I mentioned. But we need to get back to the experience of operating as small teams. We need to do both well but we need the small team core SOF experience. Part of going back to basics is going back to our core values. SOF has always had a bit of a countercultural approach. You know, “Big army does it this way but we do things differently. We’re special.” Some degree of that is useful, but sometimes it has gone too far and gone on an unconstructive path. That’s true both before and after 9/11. Ethical and legal standards are non-negotiable. That needs to be communicated across the board. There was a case in the news, an SF captain had killed a detainee because they knew he was Taliban but the detainee system wouldn’t take him, so instead of letting him go, the captain killed him. He was charged, but due to political pressure, all the way up to Congress, he got off. As a SOF guy, I find that unconscionable and reprehensible. I fear for the corrosive effect that compromised and unenforced standards will have. I spent years training forces in El Salvador where there was a long-standing internal conflict with lots of abuses and law breaking. We took great pride in turning around the El Salvadoran Army. The FMLN [Farabundo Martí Liberation Front, a collection of leftist opponents of the government of El Salvador] required that SF MTTs [military training teams] continue in El Salvador because the FMLN knew that as long as SOF were present, the El Salvadoran military would abide by the norms of war, the laws of war. We took great pride in this. When you break those rules, when you compromise your standards, it has a detrimental effect on your unit, your partners, it makes the enemy want to fight harder, it wrecks public support at home and internationally. I hate to think we are now giving up on that and failing to understand that. SOF more than

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

49

any other military component are going to be put in positions that challenge ethical standards, so we have to renew our focus on that. When I went through the training, there was an ethical component and ethical standard in the selection process. It wasn’t maybe that clear at the time to me but it was there, I see now in retrospect. Maybe I am spending too much time on this, but if we don’t get this right, all the other successes will pale in significance over time. There are four things that we need to focus on. Results matter. Excellence matters. Excellence needs to be rewarded. Second, treat everyone with dignity and respect. Third, integrity is nonnegotiable. Finally, the nation’s interests come first. These four things need to be at the core of SOF. Emphasis on results runs counter to bureaucratic concerns. We need to be focused on achieving results in the environment. It’s hard to do this in a bureaucratic environment, with all the bureaucratic concerns. We need to focus on being part of the campaign that achieves the nation’s goals, in carrying out the national strategy, and maybe even helping formulate those goals. At this point, we should be very proud of what has been done at the tactical level. Our ability to influence at the operational and strategic level has to be the next area where SOF focus. That’s going to be up to the leaders of the SOF community, and that’s why we need to promote for smarts. The key to dealing with multiple stakeholders is to nest them and know which one is most important. For SOF, the primary stakeholder isn’t the Army or SOCOM or the military. For SOF, the interests of the nation come first. If we keep that in mind, then we can nest the other stakeholders and try to take care of everybody. You asked about the effect of the counterterrorism mission on SOF. I think you need to understand that DA [direct action] and the indirect approach [working through host nation forces and populations] are both essential and necessary. We developed great capability on both sides. The material investment was heavily on DA. McChrystal [General Stanley McChrystal, commander of JSOC during the Iraq war and forces in Afghanistan] would say DA buys time, but the indirect approach is the only one that achieves sustainable change. We have combined both approaches, and that is very powerful. It is very effective. My opinion is that the conflict we are engaged in is not between ISIL [Islamic State] or AQ [al-Qaeda] and the U.S. It is a series of regional sub-conflicts that have an international aspect. The conflict is in Iraq or Afghanistan, etc. The issue is what will governance be like in these places. It is not like WWII where governance is imposed at the end after victory. The whole

50

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

conflict is about what governance will be in these places. It is not so much us versus them but the actors in the region against each other. We can only get at the governance issue by doing the indirect approach and that’s what SOF need to do. For the most part, that’s what the U.S. is about—enabling government by consent. Post 9/11, we have been trying to do that in tribal societies. In that case, some are going to be in a permanent minority position. So the key question is, what kind of governance can we enable in that situation? A strongman solution is just short term. We have to come up with a solution that is compatible with our fundamental values but it is not going to be exactly as it is in America or Europe because of the tribal dynamic and the sectarian dynamic, but the tribal dynamic is most defining. There is a campaign going on against ISIL in Syria. We often say that the military serves political objectives. But what we are really trying to do in a place like Syria is enable a political state in the environment. We want to enable a political state that serves our interests and our partners’ interests. Until we have that, it is hard to structure a military campaign to accomplish those goals. How do we enable governance in that environment? That’s why we need to understand the environment, and what governance is possible. You could say I was born with the knowledge that I wanted to be in the army and once I was on that path I wanted to be the best I could be at that. I saw SOF as allowing me to be the best and to do things that I would not otherwise be able to do. It was a personal challenge. I knew when I went into SOF that there might be some career drawbacks. When I volunteered for SOF, the argument was that advancement to senior grades would be limited. I think that might have been true, but my interests were in the skills, the personal test. I think those are the reasons that everyone goes into SOF.

WASHINGTON, DC, MARCH, 2017 A senior field grade Special Forces officer, now working on the army staff, reflects on how SOF have changed over the years and what lies ahead.

I pretty much always wanted to be in Special Forces (SF) ever since I was a kid. My dad was a fireman in NYC, at a very busy time. One of his fellow

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

51

firefighters was a Green Beret in Vietnam, and my father always spoke very highly of him. Also, I’m part Irish and there was something about the Green Berets—the John F. Kennedy connection—that resonated very strongly with Irish Americans, at least in New York City. I read the book The Green Berets when I was ten. It was just something I always wanted to do. It was cool, adventurous. You had to learn a foreign language and live in the woods and operate independently. So, from an early age, it was in the back of my head. But you can’t go directly into SF,16 and I took a different path. As the Cold War was winding down, I didn’t think we were going to fight wars in the traditional sense, so if you wanted to see any action, you had to get into the third world, into the periphery, where people were still fighting. So I joined the military police after ROTC and college, with the thought that if you sent in the infantry it was an act of war, but if we sent in the MPs, you were “keeping the peace.” Therefore, the MPs were more likely to get involved in real-world action, even on a daily basis, while the infantry mainly trained for a fight that was unlikely to happen. For me it was a great choice. I was a Spanish speaker, and I went to Panama. While there, I saw what the 7th Special Forces Group was doing, and I thought it was amazing, and I got a chance to work with them during and after the invasion. That set the hook in me. That’s what I wanted to do. From Panama I got deployed straight into Desert Shield, and after returning from the First Gulf War, I waited for the opportunity to attend SF Selection and Assessment. At the time I was in civil affairs, and mainly deployed to Latin America with 7th SFG [Special Forces Group], which further strengthened my will to become SF. Following infantry officer advanced course, I did the qualification course [to become an SF officer] and became a team leader. To me it was a calling, as it is the most esoteric but remarkable field to be in, and I still feel that way. When I saw SF, the level of professionalism and competence, I thought they were superb. And by the way, they had experience—real operational experience, in official and unofficial conflicts—and nobody else did; they were actually doing things. They were going out to “freedom’s frontier,” and they were out there doing real stuff, with little supervision, living on their wits, in their teams, with the team cohesion, which I loved. That’s what I saw. There was some crazy stuff in the culture to deal with, heavy drinking and so forth, but the ideas they were coming up with were very innovative, they were focused on results, things that were totally outside

52

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

the norm, but very effective and that remains attractive to me to this day. Following 9/11, which hit my family and friends very hard, I was convinced SF was the best force for the fight, although SOF had an imperative to evolve even further more rapidly. Special operations forces and SF have changed since I joined. After my time commanding an SF battalion in combat, I went to SWCS [Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg]. I thought my life was over. I was the SF doctrine guy, and I was like, “I didn’t even know that we had doctrine.” But it turned out to be tremendous. I got to see the delta between what was going on in the real world, all the innovative stuff, and what we had written, which was like really straight out of the 1970s and 80s. The most important change was in intelligence. What is the holistic view of SOF intelligence, but especially for SF? Intelligence collection was treated as an esoteric skill or aspect of SF work. All of our people couldn’t get trained in the TTPs [tactics, techniques, and procedures]. So this aspect of SOF had to be expanded and made available to all sorts of people. The teams, the ODAs, had to become amazing collectors, but under Title 10 authorities, not like CIA case officers under Title 50. That was a problem at the time. People said you can’t get there from here, but we were talking about Title 10 authorities, things like force protection. It was, “Every soldier is a sensor.” That’s what people were saying at the time about force protection. That’s under Title 10. But if every soldier is a sensor, then can you imagine what is true of every SF soldier? We can be super sensors, because we network with people all the time, we have the language, the culture. This was something we had to ramp up. Another thing that was becoming important was the use of cyber and electronic devices for things like close target reconnaissance. Traditional special reconnaissance (SR) was becoming absurd. SR didn’t make sense anymore in an age of drones and advanced ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance]. But it could become close target reconnaissance through surrogates, who would get really simple technology. Who was in the meeting? A drone or a satellite can’t see that. No U.S. soldier can go into a meeting with the bad guys but surrogates working with SOF can. This gave a good intelligence capability to warfighters. They were collecting and operating. And this was part of attacking the people who were attacking U.S. forces. Essentially, teams could effectively collect critical information, process it, and then act on it.

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

53

This is connected to the direct-action mission. Some people say there was too much emphasis on this after 9/11 and that SF lost its soul. I don’t think so. Maybe in a few cases, but I don’t think so overall, not from my perspective. The close combat skills that the SMUs [special mission units] had were very valuable, but not everyone had them. One team per SF company (and one specialized company per group) did, but not all teams did. Teams were focused on FID [ foreign internal defense] and specific infiltration skills, scuba, mountain warfare, HALO [high altitudelow opening parachuting]. But that’s not the way the world works. So SF advanced urban combat [training] in the late 1990s was very useful. Every team got to be proficient in close combat skills. But this has to be in the context of the overall SF mission, working with indigenous forces or people, knowing languages. Sometimes, at Fort Bragg, SF were called “schoolteachers in baggy pants.”17 This hurt SF because it was like we weren’t soldiers, special operators, we were just instructors or civil affairs. Nothing wrong with CA. I was one. But SF is more than that. We’re fighters, commandos; even our medics carry guns as combatants, so why not upgrade our [combat] skills? That started in the late 1990s, and it paid big dividends. Direct action is a science now, but UW [unconventional warfare] and FID are an art. I don’t think we lost this art, but we were pulled in different directions. In fact, UW was being ignored in the mid-1990s. The irony was that that’s the foundational mission of SF. That’s who we are. It is demanding, taxing. It leaves plenty of room for individual initiative and creativity. It is the coolest mission out there. But in the 1990s, once you got out of the selection process and on a team you really hardly ever did anything with UW. There was an argument that the mission was dying, that it was simply a relic of the Cold War. I didn’t think that. But just before 9/11, SF started to recapture UW. And after 9/11, it came back with a vengeance. It wasn’t just the “horse soldiers” in Afghanistan in the beginning of the campaign there. By doctrine, after the initial invasion, Afghanistan was not UW because the government of Afghanistan was our ally, it was friendly territory, supposedly.18 In 2007, we were operating in enemy held areas, so it really wasn’t “friendly territory.” So the TTPS we used were often from UW, even when coupled with cavalry tactics over large areas. It was very creative. In 2010, SF doing the Afghan local police program thought of it as a form of UW.19 You couldn’t say that at that time, but that’s what it was. At the strategic level, we haven’t really

54

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

understood the kind of war we are in. But in SF we knew what was going on, and it was like UW. So, the UW mission has worked its way into everything now. There is now a more nuanced feeling about how to do UW and to infuse it into everything else we do, particularly in “gray area” or “gray zone” operations, even when it’s really part of a FID mission. FID and UW support each other. The close target reconnaissance I spoke of is an example. We are working by, with, and through local forces to do something—sabotage and subversion of the enemy, build a friendly network, destroy an enemy network. That’s all based on UW. We never turned our back on FID. We expanded it to what it had been earlier, similar to the days of Vietnam. However, it is important to realize the importance of having real experience—especially combat and operational experience—if you are going to be truly credible in FID. If I go to somewhere and I haven’t been in combat, especially as my country has been at war for years, then my value to the people I am training or advising is greatly diminished. They want to know what’s going on in the real world, in the actual war, and you can’t tell them, “Well, I read this in a book” or “A friend told me.” You don’t have any street credibility if that is all you can say. So a guy from 7th group who has been operating in the Middle East can say, “This is what’s happening in the real world, what we did”—this makes him a better trainer, better at FID. Another thing is having national SOF [Special Mission Units] and theater SOF working together, despite the obvious differences. We have finally come to a workable solution on that. It started with CFSOCC-A [Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command–Afghanistan], now the SOJTF-A [Special Operations Joint Task Force–Afghanistan]. That was the key in Afghanistan, as Iraq was winding down. There was collaboration before, but we set up CFSOCC-A with the idea that it would become a no-kidding SOF headquarters, for the SMUs and for theater SOF, as well as for the allied SOF. When you do that—have a SOF headquarters—you get better command and control, synchronization, coordination. The downside is that if you get a commander who has spent his career in a SMU or the Rangers, he’s not going to necessarily understand how special operations by SF really work because he may really over focus on the direct approach, particularly raids. That’s a real risk. But if his deputy is a SF guy, or if it is the other way around and the commander is an SF guy and the deputy is a Ranger or someone from a SMU, then you can work it out. It’s then a leadership challenge.

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

55

It [CFSOCC—A] also pulled in the allied forces and set up the possibility that it could be a real SOF command. There are ups and downs— nothing’s perfect—but it is much better now. They [national mission and theater SOF] used to be two mutually exclusive worlds. You rarely went from one to the other, back and forth. If you tried, if you wanted to go to a SMU, people, especially senior leaders, considered you a traitor of sorts. I had the opportunity, and it was incredibly positive and enlightening. However, you had this binary system. People were one or the other, but that’s no longer so much the case. Even with the SEALs. They were direct action, but they started doing more SF-like things, and they admitted that they needed some help with that, so SF started working with them and vice-versa. Adm. Olson20 pushed this. That was in about 2010. Another example was Adm. McRaven,21 who always seemed to have an SF aide de camp. He was open-minded about what he knew he didn’t know. He reached out to the SF community, and at first we stiff-armed him. So there were these prejudices between the different SOF communities, which were ridiculous. But over time the better angels of our nature kicked in, and we learned from each other. We had to, because things weren’t going well in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Cooperation between different SOF units] wasn’t perfect; there are always problems. One is the perception that SEALs claim credit for everything. There’s a “glory hound” thing there. You can’t claim to be a “quiet professional” and do things like that. “Quiet professional” is an old SF term from decades ago that USSOCOM took over, but many SEALs are not quiet about what they do. Too often, missions become movies, books, and TV shows, a path to fame. That’s not how SF roll. So there is still some tension there, but that should not distract from the fact that we are now working much better together, particularly national and theater SOF. The national mission SOF need to recognize that the close combat skills of SF teams are much better than they were in the 1990s, no comparison. On the other hand, the SMUs or even the Rangers are now doing things that are more SF-like, and we need to recognize that as a positive. All of that just comes from the territory, from what the environment requires. We do a bit of this, and they do a bit of that, and we work as one big force. I am not Pollyannaish about this, but it is better than it was. SOF is always ready for the broadest range of employment because they are constantly deploying. The very fact of going forward into theater really helps readiness. Lots of people in the Big army don’t see it this way.

56

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

They look at training. That’s readiness. But for SOF, if I am deployed, then I am learning about the people, the conditions, all the local stuff. Teams also train when they are deployed, so they are ready to go. So the sense of readiness is more comprehensive, meaning that SOF are ready for—better prepared for—anything that happens. We are not totally prepared for everything, but when you are out there and things are happening you deal with them, and you are prepared to do that because you are already doing real things in the real world. We are called Special Forces, but what do we really do? We are specialized at being generalists. If you are in the general purposes forces [GPF], a guy in an armored division, you work in the tank, you load it, you drive it around, etc. You are specialized in one, maybe two things. But SF are cross-trained. They need to be able to deal with just about anything that the mission requires. So are SF generalists or specialists? I would say that, paradoxically, SOF are the generalists, even though they are clearly “special.” The armor guy by training and experience doesn’t work with the locals to build a clinic, and set up an intel network, call in an airstrike, fight far from logistics support, all of that in the same mission, but we do. So we are the multi-purpose generalists, useful and comfortable operating across the spectrum, not just a slice of it. Trust me, I don’t want to be called “general forces.” I want to be “special,” and wear the green hat [beret] right, but we offer a broad spectrum capability to the nation that can be deployed quickly, is already deployed in many cases, and a network that is exceptional and has insights on how to do things. And that can’t be replicated easily. Our niche in war and other operations is essentially “special” for a military force. The GPF are usually used as a large force [like brigade combat teams], made up of many people who are specifically trained for specific specialized tasks; they work as large units for “general purposes” in the sense of conventional war or more standard missions. Both are very important and complementary, but as we look to the evolving complex operating environment, we should be clear about who does what, and what makes them successful. People say that GPF are becoming more SOF-like, and there is some truth to that, mainly in that GPF are picking up on innovations coming from SOF. This is a good thing. But if you are going to say that you better understand what the “secret sauce” is, you better understand what makes SOF “SOF.” That’s what the SOF truths or imperatives say,22 what makes SOF what it is. The army has their own version of this, the “warrior

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

57

ethos,”23 like the SOF ethos. Interestingly, the army developed that ethos relatively recently, whereas we have had the SOF version for decades. Closely associated with this is the ability and drive to innovate. You can see this—the rate of innovation that SOF does from being deployed— from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as routine deployments around the world. A great case in point is the counter-IED and counter-network fight. For example, at first U.S. forces didn’t treat roadside bomb attacks as crime scenes. We saw it as a military thing. We would pick up parts, initiators, and things like that and put them in a box. But then SOF started to say, “Why don’t we treat it as a crime scene?” If you want to go after the network, treat the site as a crime scene. So that brought in the forensics business, which we largely got from engaging with law enforcement in the interagency—something SOF does routinely, but conventional forces do not. By 2007, we had forensic exploitation labs in Afghanistan. And that information has to be put back into the intelligence cycle immediately, and very importantly given back to the troops that can use it. In the past, intel was basically one way. You sent information up but very little came back, very little of any real tactical value. What if we could get valuable intel back to people in remote areas or working in some part of the city and not just to people doing the pinpoint targeting, like the SMUs? You could get all these people involved in this as standard operating procedure. Wouldn’t that be great? The SMUs in particular were the ones that developed the model, F3EAD [ find, fix, finish, exploit, analyze, disseminate].24 It quickly spread throughout SOF. So we did sensitive site exploitation. SOF innovated this, and it eventually worked its way into the army’s tactical site exploitation, even doctrinally. Why didn’t the army do this on its own, especially given the presence of army CID [Criminal Investigation Command]? Because CID mainly investigates crime within the force and has a limited tactical role in the field. They are not focused primarily on the enemy, but on military justice within the friendly force. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong; it’s just fact. So this was something that SOF did, and it had a tremendous effect across the force. Another example is tactical mobility. In Afghanistan, we were using ATVs [all-terrain vehicles] early on, motorcycles, even horses. Why? Because the roadside bombs were on the roads! So don’t go on the roads or at least keep the enemy guessing about whether you will be on the road or not. You can fly from one place to another, but that’s expensive, so

58

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

you go off road or have the capability to do that. Just don’t be road bound. So we started experimenting. I say “experimenting,” but it was just doing what you had to do to operate in the environment. We just got hold of things, other ways of moving off road, like a Toyota Hilux or other civilian truck. And then we thought, what would happen if we put a machine gun on it, or a mortar, or launched drones from it? So we started to develop this stuff, stuff that the conventional army would lose its mind over. It got into training circulars and then the 82nd Airborne [also based at Fort Bragg] was talking about air dropping ATVs. Based on the SOF experience, the Asymmetric Warfare Group25 was working on this a couple of years before the 82nd Airborne started talking about it. I don’t know the exact causal chain, but leaders in the 82nd Airborne heard about it and experimented with it. They captured something that SOF had originally developed being out in the field. This is another example of how some of the best innovation comes out of SOF, or out of SOF personnel. That’s what the Asymmetric Warfare Group is, it’s about innovation. It is a mixed SOF-conventional unit, the only one like it; it belongs to the army, but it functions like a SOF unit. Requirements or observations come back from the conventional force and the members of the AWG, many from all over SOF, including retirees [working as contractors], start thinking about them and there is a very healthy back and forth, and they start coming up with ways to deal with the problems. This dynamic will be important because we are going to need it to be able to operate in environments the likes of which we have not seen before. For example, dense urban environments, including megacities. Megacities and dense urban areas are not new, but the numbers are going up dramatically, and the challenges there are extraordinarily complex. You’ve seen those maps of the world that show the areas with electricity and those without, and we [SOF] say we go to operate in the dark areas. That’s true, but SOF can’t ignore the geopolitical hubs of political, economic, social power. We are not yet prepared to operate effectively in these environments. It’s not just urban, close-quarters combat. That’s not enough. Our formations are now adapting. SF groups are developing the unusual skills, more in the human and cyber domain, that we will need in these environments. SOF needs to train on operating in dense urban environments. How do you train for this? What are the materiel requirements? There are lots of very capable SOF who can’t handle urban environments. They are rural guys, great shooters, but they are

S O F A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

59

not comfortable with the urban environment. It’s both the human and physical infrastructure. If we are going to operate in a desert, we train in the desert, and we have people who live there, and we run units through the training in the environment. We need to do this with the urban environment if we are going to operate there. Think about subterranean. No one trains to operate in that environment, not even the engineers, but we need to do that if we are going to operate successfully in dense urban areas. There are high rises, the dense surface, and the subsurface, and we are not prepared for this, especially the subsurface. And the human element is very difficult, like “tribal” areas that vary block to block. Likewise, you set up a roadblock, and you cause problems all over the place. It’s the second- and third-order effects. In SOF, we get a lot of people from the northeast corridor [in the United States], but we are going to need to recruit more from urban areas and train in those environments, and that will help. We were talking about tactical mobility, but what does that mean in an urban area? Maybe we need to be thinking about hovercraft. These already exist. These are like urban ATVs and can be manned or unmanned. You don’t need pilots for these; it’s not like helicopters. You need training, but it’s not like learning to fly a helicopter. Also, it’s not twenty-three people in a vulnerable airframe. It’s twenty-three people on separate devices swarming. The Chinese are already working on this; they are ahead of us. If the army wants someone to work on this and develop this, SOF could do it. Cyber is part of operating in urban areas. You can’t separate urban and cyber. Every urban environment has cyber in it, a huge amount. So this is part of preparing to operate in the urban environment. Does there need to be a SOF cyber command? There is debate about this, but I am coming to think that it is necessary. The development of technology has made the job of the 18 Echo26 easier. No more Morse code. But shouldn’t the Echo become the guy who does everything on the electromagnetic spectrum, all the techie stuff, all that geeky stuff? I think we need to get at this. If you think about this, you see that we might need to recruit and manage our talent differently. Maybe we need to be able to pull people in from the outside, from the civilian world, and put them in SOF, not just SF, but, say, CA and PSYOP. They move into and out of the military. Their skills are honed in the civilian world and then they work with us. You may have to be an 18 Alpha or Bravo,27 but you work in the civilian world

60

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

to get the other skills. We have to be able to pull in people and commission them or make them a Specialist 6, a rank that doesn’t exist anymore. You could say the reserves do this, but not really; it’s not sufficient. This was done in WWII with civil affairs to get those skills in the force. Now we are not prepared for military governance. The CA community does a good job with CA, but they are not truly prepared for military governance. We may need something like the 09 Lima28 program, foreign national interpreters who go through basic training and then that’s their military specialty, interpreting. In this case, it would be people who can actually handle governance, especially at the sub-national level, and understand how to handle the economic, political, and infrastructure aspects. That’s a tremendous capability, essential. So we have to be thinking about how to do this with the other skills we are going to need.

✪ 2

History

Although special operations forces (SOF) as we now know

them came into existence only in the 1980s, the U.S. military has throughout its history developed special or unconventional units—out of necessity and most often reluctantly. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the tree-covered, hilly, and mountainous terrain of eastern North America created the possibility of warfare different from the kind carried on by military forces on the plains of Europe. In addition, the presence of tribal societies between the outposts of two competing nation-states (Great Britain and France) meant that warfare with conventions different from European warfare was likely to flourish. Finally, the political principles of the British—and even more of the Americans— emphasized suspicion of standing professional military forces as a tool of tyrannical rule and upheld the importance of militia and armed citizens. From these varied circumstances and influences emerged mixed units of colonists and friendly indigenous people who fought hostile indigenous peoples during King Philip’s War (1675–1676) and the series of wars stretching from 1689 to 1763. In the final war of this series, known as the French and Indian War (1754–1763), Robert Rogers organized and led a small group of frontiersmen, Rogers’ Rangers, against the French and their indigenous allies. The Rangers, who were paid by the British and supported British operations, worked from a camp near the edges of British settlement, from which they would penetrate deep into enemy territory to scout and harass.1 Rogers also led his Rangers in an attack on the Abenaki Indians at St. Francis, in Canada, an attack that has traditionally received credit for removing the Abenaki as a threat to British settlers.

62

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

Units like Rogers’ Rangers saw less use in the Revolutionary War than they had earlier, but some units, such as the one led by Francis Marion, did use guerrilla tactics to harass the British in the southern theater. Specialized units in the Revolutionary War also included Knowlton’s Rangers and Whitcomb’s Rangers, whose principal function was to gather intelligence by patrolling near enemy positions. More than Rogers’ Rangers had been, these units were integrated into the regular Army they supported. Washington’s Continental Army strove to imitate professional European forces, which had come to include a variety of light forces supporting the more heavily armed regulars who stood in line to receive enemy fire and discharge their own. It was the regular forces, whether light or heavy, that carried the revolutionary cause during the War of Independence, although the myth of irregulars, citizen soldiers, harrying the British remained a powerful prop of American democracy. By the end of the eighteenth century, American military experience included specialized units operating under the direct command of conventional forces or on their own, either in support of conventional forces or, in some cases, as an independent force serving a strategic purpose. The raid on the Abenaki Indians by Rogers’ Rangers is an example of such an independent strategic use of a special unit. However they were used, the specialized units were both volunteer and professional, and on occasion they included mixed units of colonists and indigenous people. These are all characteristics of special operations forces that recur in the American military experience. Also evident by the end of the eighteenth century was another recurring theme: some tension between conventional and unconventional forces. The Continental Army, for example, aspired to European standards in tactics and conduct. Washington concentrated “on opposing regular British and German units in a formal battlefield context.”2 Irregular or militia forces found it difficult to stand in the open and face the fire of British regulars. Other specialized units that operated outside the “formal battlefield context” were suspected of indiscipline.3 The tension between conventional or professional soldiers and irregulars continued into and heightened during the first half of the nineteenth century as part of the Jacksonian revolution in American life. Andrew Jackson, an amateur soldier, came to prominence as the leader of a volunteer militia force that won the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, showing apparently the superiority of hardy, unschooled citizen-soldiers to the professionals of Great Britain, although it was Jackson’s artillery and not

HIS TORY

63

frontiersmen who did most damage to the British.4 Jackson again led companies of volunteers, along with some regulars and Indian allies, in his campaign against the Seminoles (1818). Similar organizations formed to fight Indians as settlement spread west. This was the origin of the Texas Rangers, for example, who later served in the war against Mexico as scouts and guides. The romantic allure of the volunteer irregulars suffered during the Civil War, however, as such units became infamous for the destruction of civilian property and life. The military that emerged from the Civil War was perhaps even more committed to professional standards in operations and conduct than its prewar version had been and looked to European forces, particularly Germany’s, as a model. Unfortunately, for the professionals, the principal task of the post–Civil War military was not to fight the organized professional armed forces of another nation-state but to chase and subdue tribal societies across a vast expanse of territory. The distance between preferred and actual operations led historian Robert Utley to speak of the paradox that “the army’s frontier employment unfitted it for orthodox war at the same time that that its preoccupation with orthodox war unfitted it for its frontier mission.”5 Under the leadership of a succession of Civil War generals, the army never developed any doctrine or specialized units for fighting the American Indians but instead fought a conventional war against them, using its superior resources to wear down the indigenous people. Some generals developed unconventional approaches, but their fates are instructive. George Crook, for example, used mule trains to increase mobility and employed large numbers of friendly American Indians to fight hostile American Indians. In using American Indians in this way, Crook was foreshadowing the Special Forces discipline of unconventional warfare, which works “by, with, or through indigenous or surrogate forces” to achieve U.S. objectives. It was this kind of warfare with which Special Forces achieved success after 2001 in Afghanistan and the Philippines. Crook was also inclined to negotiate as he pursued and fought his American Indian opponents. Crook had some success with these methods, but they were heterodox. Never enamored of Crook’s approach, Philip Sheridan, who had observed the Franco-Prussian war from the German side, relieved Crook of his command following setbacks in his efforts to subdue the Apaches. By the end of the nineteenth century, the American military had become more professional, more committed to the conventions of military

64

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

organization, operations, and conduct characteristic of the premier military forces of the day. Problems revealed by the military’s performance in the Spanish-American War spurred efforts at reform and professionalization. This professionalism allowed little if any room for the volunteer or specialized units that had appeared regularly through the nineteenth century. This pattern continued when the American Indian wars came to an end and the U.S. military found itself involved in a series of colonial police operations or small wars that were, like the American Indian wars, not its preferred kind of fight. As it had during the American Indian wars, the military developed no specialized forces to fight its colonial struggles. Instead, it used the forces that it had, which were designed for conventional or large-scale military engagements. Communications at the time were such, however, that commanding officers in far-flung conflicts were not burdened by overly strict control from central military authority. Commanders had room to exercise initiative. Some adapted tactics to the conflicts they actually faced. For example, Merritt Edson, fighting the original Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the late 1920s, worked with the indigenous Miskito people to improve the operations of his small force. Edson enjoyed greater success than his predecessors or successors, who ignored the indigenous people. In the Philippines, the army succeeded against the insurgency that followed the Spanish-American War, but, again, successful operations depended on the initiative and skills of individual officers and not on the U.S. military as an institution responding to this unconventional threat. As these colonial policing efforts were winding down, the U.S, Marine Corps codified some of the lessons it had learned in its Small Wars Manual, developed in the 1930s and published in 1940, but these colonial policing engagements otherwise left little mark in doctrine and none in military organization. In the midst of these colonial engagements, the U.S. military participated in World War I. This conflict produced a specialized unit, an ancestor of forces now part of current special operations forces (SOF). In order to build and maintain support for the war, Woodrow Wilson established the Committee on Public Information. One journalist working on this committee, Heber Blankenhorn, believed that information or propaganda directed at enemy soldiers might persuade them to surrender and help shorten the war. When the Committee on Public Information refused to take on this task, Blankenhorn contacted a friend in the military and ultimately persuaded the army to set up a psychological subsection in the

HIS TORY

65

military intelligence branch in February 1918. Blankenhorn was put in charge. He and his staff did not deploy to France until July 1918, in part because the military did not see information or propaganda efforts as its responsibility. Support from civilians in the War Department finally got Blankenhorn and his unit to France, where they began dropping leaflets on the enemy. In carrying out this work, the psychological section met with indifference or hostility from military officers, who did not see the value of these efforts or believed that, by consuming precious resources, they detracted from the war effort. Blankenhorn constantly struggled to get planes for leaflet drops, for example. Ironically, none other than Billy Mitchell, after telling Blankenhorn that propaganda had no place in combat operations, threatened Blankenhorn with a court martial if he did not stop trying to get pilots to drop leaflets. Blankenhorn and his staff persisted, however, and some anecdotal evidence suggests that the leaflets helped produce surrenders. One student of Blankenhorn’s exertions argues that the army’s first psychological warrior succeeded despite “the general indifference toward unconventional warfare displayed by combat soldiers and their hesitancy, if not outright refusal, to consider its use in support of operations.”6 When the war ended, the indifference that met Blankenhorn’s efforts was clear, for the War Department immediately disbanded the psychological operations office. This was part of the larger postwar demobilization and a political necessity. Although the Wilson administration had taken various steps to shape public opinion, propaganda fit uneasily with American notions of limited government and freedom of the press. Accepting propaganda grudgingly during wartime, the War Department could not abide it during peacetime. Yet, also at work in the decision to disband the psychological operations office was the sense, expressed by Mitchell, that psychological or propaganda operations were somehow not work worthy of real soldiers. Lingering questions about the effectiveness of psychological operations also contributed to the decision to get rid of them. Finally, the resource issue worked against such operations. Most in the military thought that its limited resources should be spent to support conventional operations. In all these respects—propriety, effectiveness, efficiency, professionalism—Blankenhorn’s efforts produced reactions and criticisms that have continually accompanied special operations and the forces that carry them out, particularly those (civil affairs and psychological operations) that do not use force.7

66

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

By the time the U.S. Marine Corps published its Small Wars Manual, it had decided to bet its institutional life on becoming proficient at opposed amphibious assault, a mission entirely different from small wars. Following World War I, when military planners thought about the possibility of war with Japan, they realized that the navy would have to seize islands to use as naval bases. This gave rise to a new mission for the marines but also to the need for military units that could clear beaches of obstacles placed to impede assaults. The navy therefore established demolition teams, which eventually were called underwater demolition teams (UDTs). Following the assault on Tarawa, where heavy casualties resulted from ignorance of water depth and conditions on the approaches to the beaches, these navy teams also got the mission of hydrographic reconnaissance. The army, too, recognized the need for units to assist in amphibious assaults and trained its own personnel in these new military skills. Early in this effort, there was even a joint Amphibious Scout and Raider School that trained both navy and army personnel. These units assisted in assaults across the Pacific as well as in the Mediterranean and Atlantic theaters, including the Normandy invasion. World War II saw the development of other specialized units. Merritt Edson organized and led a marine raider battalion, one of four that the corps organized during the war. Edson won the Medal of Honor for his defense of a critical ridge overlooking the airfield at Guadalcanal, but this was an entirely conventional military operation. The army revived the Rangers, initially in part to provide a leavening of experienced fighters to the unseasoned recruits that would make up the mass army of World War II. Ultimately, the Rangers did fight as units, distinguishing themselves not only at Pointe du Hoc during the Normandy invasion but in the Mediterranean and Pacific theaters as well. To improve its intelligence in the Pacific, the Sixth Army organized the Alamo Scouts, who conducted reconnaissance of Japanese forces and installations and carried out other activities, such as establishing coast-watcher stations and organizing indigenous forces to fight the Japanese. They also liberated a number of Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and supported the Sixth Ranger Battalion in its successful mission to liberate over five hundred Allied POWs from the Cabanatuan camp in the Philippines. The 5307 Composite Unit (Provisional) (Merrill’s Marauders) operated behind Japanese lines in the China-Burma-India theater, seizing a critical airfield and tying up large numbers of Japanese troops. The First Special Service Force, consisting

HIS TORY

67

of American and Canadian personnel, fought in the Aleutians and in Italy, where it helped lead the breakout from the beach at Anzio and then worked with tanks to clear German positions on the right flank of the drive toward Rome. Through the prompting of a civilian, Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy, the War Department slowly revived psychological operations. In 1940, the army had only one officer with any experience in these activities. When it recalled Blankenhorn to active duty, he found himself involved in the same battles for resources he had fought decades before and the army even more resistant, in his opinion, to psychological operations than it had been in World War I. Initial army efforts in psychological warfare included establishing its first tactical radio teams and the publication of a psychological warfare training manual. World War II called forth three specialized units that had not before appeared in the U.S. military. The army air force (AAF) put together special units, often specifically designed to support land-warfare special units. For example, in 1943, the AAF organized the First Air Commando Group to support the British Army’s Chindit raiders, whose mission was to penetrate into Burma behind Japanese lines as part of the Allied effort to recapture northern Burma and open a supply line to China. To accomplish this important strategic task, the AAF put together a composite force consisting of fighters, bombers, transports, gliders, and the R-4 helicopter, the first production single-rotor helicopter, which made the first casualty evacuations in 1944 during fighting in Burma. On March 5, 1944, the First Air Commando Group carried the Chindit raiders over two hundred miles into enemy territory in the “first night aerial invasion of enemy territory.”8 The First Air Commando continued to support and resupply the raiders during their operations in Burma and evacuated over two thousand soldiers. Despite its effectiveness, the unit received some criticism. A visiting conventional officer “complained that [the Commando Group’s] men were ‘nothing less than a mob’ and that no two men wore the same uniform, while almost all were growing beards.”9 Civil affairs was the second new specialized activity developed to meet the demands of Allied operations in World War II. By the time the war started, the U.S. military had governed territory from the Rhineland through the Caribbean to the Philippines and beyond to China but had never seen such government as an inherent part of military activity. The military focused on the fight, not its aftermath. A focus on the

68

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

requirements of fighting was not the only reason that the Army neglected government in the territories it occupied, however. Just as important was the sense, which it shared with civilians, that military government violated fundamental principles of American political understanding. Americans did not consider it proper for military forces to have political authority. The military never prepared to govern, therefore, since involvement in political matters was both a distraction from its principal task and at least vaguely un-American. The consequence, at least in the case of the military’s government of the Rhineland following World War I, was, in the words of the colonel in charge of this effort, an occupying army that “lacked both training and organization to guide the destinies of the nearly 1,000,000 civilians whom the fortunes of war had placed under its temporary sovereignty.”10 As World War II progressed, it became evident that the need for military government and its complexity would be much greater than in the previous world war. Even before Pearl Harbor, the army had begun to consider the question of military government and to discuss training options. It established a civil affairs school at the University of Virginia in April 1942, but the personnel, operations, and plans divisions in the army staff objected to assigning officers to civil affairs when there was training to do for the expanding army. In the army’s view, civil affairs was not a priority. Officers were eventually assigned, however, although the quality of students remained a concern. The army also worked to identify other officers and civilians who had the special skills that civil affairs called for. The army’s thinking about civil affairs revolved around a simple distinction between short-term and long-term requirements. The army believed that it must have governing authority in the short term, during what it called the period of “military necessity” (“so long as there is a danger of the enemy continuing or resuming the fight”), but that during this time it would need the cooperation of civilian agencies. In the long term, the army believed that it should turn over governing responsibilities to civilians. The army was prompted to publish its views and distribute them to civilian agencies, which it did in September 1942 because these agencies were raising the question of how the United States would govern territories its armed forces occupied. The army’s effort to forestall the civilians ran into the opposition of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Apparently prompted by New Dealers, including Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, who feared that the army was promoting imperialism and employing too

HIS TORY

69

many Republicans at its civil affairs school, the president declared in October 1942 that governing occupied territories was “in most instances a civilian task.”11 The invasion of North Africa, November 8, 1942, led to a test of civilian control of civil affairs in military areas. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had made the State Department preeminent in purely civil matters, but Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower still reported that it felt as if he were spending nine-tenths of his time on political and economic issues. He also thought that the president’s decision had created divided authority. A general sense developed in the government that civil affairs efforts were insufficiently coordinated in North Africa. By November 1943, the president had changed his mind and acknowledged that if civil affairs, particularly the distribution of relief supplies, were to be handled efficiently and effectively, the military would have to do it. Although the military accepted this responsibility, it did so reluctantly and still planned to turn over civil administration to civilians as soon as possible. In principle, this remained the policy of the U.S. government as well. Shortly after V-E day, both the secretary of war and President Harry S. Truman announced that the War Department would transfer responsibility for civil administration to the State Department, but neither it nor any other civilian agency had the resources to take on these responsibilities in Europe, Japan, and several other locations around the world. In early 1946, the State Department insisted that the War Department continue to administer civilian areas.12 During World War II, in addition to these overt special forces, the United States made extensive use of covert special operations for the first time. These were run through the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), established in June 1942, which worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). These special operations included intelligence gathering, black propaganda (information purporting to come from the enemy), and support to resistance groups. (The OSS also included an intelligence analysis office.) As part of its intelligence gathering function, OSS inherited espionage activities from the military. The military also gave it responsibility for psychological warfare, a kind of warfare that, as we have noted, the military did not much care for. Once it transferred that function to OSS, the Army shut down its own psychological warfare staff office, while the JCS forbade OSS from doing psychological warfare in any theater and gave the authority for such warfare to the theater commanders. After

70

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

psychological warfare showed its worth under Eisenhower, who valued it, the army reestablished a central staff office for this activity late in 1943. OSS also provided support to indigenous resistance movements in Axis territory, parachuting its personnel in to occupied areas to help lead guerrilla efforts against the Germans and Japanese. In the European theater, the army air force set up special units to support OSS missions. Aircraft from these units flew at night and at low altitudes and also landed at improvised landing fields in occupied territory. Although Eisenhower valued at least some covert activity, others did not. Both Gen. MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz banned OSS from operating in their theaters, while Latin America was the FBI’s reserve. Information operations in Latin America belonged to a special committee headed by Nelson Rockefeller. OSS also had no role in intelligence operations in the United States. Perhaps the most important restriction placed on OSS came about when the State Department and the military succeeded in getting President Roosevelt to decree that OSS would not have access to the most sensitive intelligence gathered during World War II—the decoded intercepts of Japanese and German communications. The range of special operations carried out by the U.S. military in World War II is striking. They included raids to free prisoners, reconnaissance deep behind enemy lines, strikes at strategic targets, reduction of coastal defenses, work with indigenous forces or partisans who were fighting the Germans or Japanese and sometimes each other, night flight operations, beach reconnaissance and demolition, and espionage in civilian clothing. These varied operations served one of two purposes. They either supported conventional operations (e.g., beach clearance to assist an amphibious assault) or strove to achieve a larger independent strategic effect (e.g., the operations of Merrill’s Marauders in the Burma theater and the work of OSS with partisans in Europe). All of these special operations were done with only rudimentary selection procedures to identify the men and women (in the case of the OSS) who carried them out and with training that was often rudimentary as well. In fact, for many of the raider or ranger units, training consisted of several weeks of intense physical activity that built the endurance and esprit de corps of those who survived it rather than imparted any special skills. Units like these were really elite infantry, taking infantry skills (land navigation, patrolling, marksmanship) to new levels rather than developing and using special skills. The army air force units that supported these special operations

HIS TORY

71

also tended to be elite units, that is, units that carried to a higher degree of proficiency skills that were part of regular air force units. The UDTs and OSS espionage efforts were examples of units that developed skills typically not part of the military. That many of the special units in World War II could be best described as “elite” explains one of the problems that these units encountered. Many in the military disliked elite units. The army faced an enormous task in building a force large enough to fight a two-front, global war. To accomplish this task, the army focused on producing standard units from raw recruits. Those responsible for this training and unit formation saw siphoning off men for special units as a distraction and a waste of resources on units whose missions regular infantry units, they believed, could accomplish. To the degree that the men who went to the special units were the most motivated or aggressive, unit commanders were worried that this would degrade the units they left, a longstanding concern about elite or special units.13 Counteracting these views was the notion, mentioned earlier, that the Ranger units could serve as training units from which soldiers could return to their original units with increased skills and esprit, a function that Ranger training still performs in the U.S. military.14 Also counteracting the dislike of elite units was the recognition by officers, often at higher levels of command, that standard units either could not perform some missions or were less likely to perform them successfully. Developing units for special missions, however, led to another problem: what do you do with the unit when the mission is over? After the First Special Service Force took out batteries that threatened the beaches during the invasion of southern France, the unit guarded the right flank of the invasion force and ultimately ended up guarding rear areas, missions that did not require an elite or special unit. The fate of such units was often worse. Typically, once the units had completed their special mission, conventional commanders put them in the line with regular units, where their lack of firepower put them at a disadvantage. In these cases, the units often suffered heavy casualties. To prevent this, commanders sometimes gave the elite units additional firepower in the form of artillery or coupled them with tank units. This gave the units more firepower but also made them more conventional. Often, to make up for their personnel losses when they were used as regular line units, the elite or special units were given insufficiently trained recruits, which

72

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

rendered the units incapable of performing the elite missions they were originally designed to carry out. In one case (Cisterna, in Italy), the use of Ranger battalions without proper reconnaissance led to the units being surrounded and destroyed by more heavily armed German units. These problems arose, as the SF officer noted in chapter 1, in part because the special or elite units went to war without doctrine explaining what they could and could not do to guide conventional commanders, who thus often misused special units. But it was also the case that the commanders of the units and the men who filled them were eager to fight, and in their eagerness they were not always careful enough about which fights they got in. At various points in the war, either because of the number of casualties suffered or lack of suitable missions, senior officers disbanded special or elite units. Even when special units were used properly, however, their strategic effectiveness was in question. Despite enthusiasm for them among some wartime leaders like Churchill, generally speaking, the record in World War II shows that special operations forces achieved the most when they supported conventional operations, such as amphibious assaults. Independent raiding at the beginning of the war, like sabotage and resistance during it, did little to adversely affect the German position. The forces at play in the war—both military and economic—were so vast that such small or special operations could produce almost no effect. In addition, brutal German retaliation for partisan operations often made them too politically costly to carry on. Exempt perhaps from the general charge of independent ineffectiveness should be resistance intelligence collection and operations (escape and evasion networks) that rescued downed pilots. In the latter case, the reasons for the operations were moral and to improve the morale of a small but highly valued group of military personnel. As for intelligence, it is important in war, not decisive, and the intelligence gathered through special operations was much less important than what was gathered through intercepting and decoding enemy communications. And again, even this intelligence was not decisive.15 As soon as the war ended, the military disbanded all of its special units, except for the UDTs, a small number of which the navy kept in service. President Truman also disbanded the OSS in September 1945, sending its analytical function to the State Department and its clandestine capabilities to the War Department. While the analytical function found a home at State, where it continues to function as the Bureau

HIS TORY

73

of Intelligence and Research, the covert capabilities became orphans, living with uncaring military stepparents. These activities were slighted because in the American tradition they were seen as acceptable, as a perhaps unavoidable necessity, only in wartime and initially the U.S. government thought that the end of World War II had ushered in a period of peace. The assumption of a clear distinction between peace and war was typically American, part of America’s separation or hoped for separation from the realpolitik of Europe, in which war is only the sharpest manifestation of the constant conflict and competition between sovereign states. In addition, the military viewed covert operations as incompatible with military professionalism and overt psychological warfare as less important than real soldier skills, even though Eisenhower had praised the effectiveness of psychological warfare at the war’s end.16 Consequently, the military devoted only limited attention to psychological warfare and surrendered covert operations as soon as it had the chance, much as it had surrendered them to the OSS earlier. In January 1946, President Truman created the Central Intelligence Group (CIG). By the spring of 1946, about six months after having received it from the OSS, the War Department transferred the responsibility for covert activity to the CIG. With the passage of the National Security Act of 1947, this activity went to the new Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The CIG and then the CIA came into existence as a response to events overseas. By 1947, communists had taken over Poland, Hungary, and Romania and were attempting to take over Greece, while continuing pressure on the government of Turkey. In response, President Truman announced in March 1947 what came to be called the Truman Doctrine, which committed the United States to supplying military aid to countries under attack from communists. Other problems had emerged in Europe. The economic and political situation in France and Italy, both with large communist parties, looked bleak. Fears began to mount that the communists might win elections in 1948 (communists were already in the cabinets of both countries; in France, the Minister of Defense was a communist). In response to this threat, in October 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall announced a program of economic aid for Europe that came to be known as the Marshall Plan. In September, the Soviets had established the Communist Information Bureau, or COMINFORM, which included communist parties in both Eastern and Western Europe, launching it with a bellicose speech by the Leningrad party boss.17 Events

74

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

outside Europe, for example, in the Philippines, where a communist insurgency was underway, also caused concern in the U.S. government. One of the first reactions to the emerging Cold War was renewed interest in psychological warfare. About a month after the COMINFORM meeting, the army representative to the State-Army-Navy-Air Force Coordinating Committee (SANACC), a forerunner of the National Security Council, sent a memorandum to committee members approving plans developed by the committee for the establishment during wartime of a National Psychological Warfare Organization. This interest in psychological warfare grew out of the limited activities that the military continued after the war. For example, the various psychological warfare offices overseas turned to the task of informing and shaping opinion in Germany, Austria, Korea, and Japan, printing and distributing newspapers and magazines and running radio stations and movie houses. In the United States, the army formed an experimental “Tactical Information Detachment,” performed some studies of psychological warfare, and did some planning for its use in wartime. In addition to approving a wartime psychological warfare capability, the army representative to the SANACC also argued that the “events of the past few months” suggested the need to consider “as a matter of urgency” the “desirability or necessity” of “deliberate coordinated” psychological warfare in peacetime. The director of Central Intelligence seconded this motion a few days later in his own memorandum to the SANACC. A few days after that, the secretary of the National Security Council forwarded to Secretary of Defense Forrestal “a very persuasive and accurate appraisal of the need for psychological warfare operations to counter Soviet-inspired communist Propaganda, particularly in France and Italy.”18 This renewed interest in psychological warfare, however, ran head on into the effects of demobilization. In a memorandum to the undersecretary of state, the SANACC reported that “the Department of State and the Military Establishment have no funds appropriated for psychological warfare purposes” and that “no psychological warfare specialist reserves exist within the Military Establishment or the Department of State.”19 As the SANACC’s planning effort continued, much of the military’s time and energy for psychological warfare was spent answering two questions. The first was where the truncated psychological warfare capability should reside. Two possibilities existed. It could reside in military

HIS TORY

75

intelligence, where it had been during the war, or in the office responsible for plans and operations, where, as an operational activity, many thought it more properly belonged. It was finally assigned to operations and plans toward the end of 1946, although some associated functions remained with other offices. This question having been answered, the larger question of the role the army should have in psychological warfare opened in 1947 with the appointment of Kenneth C. Royall, a retired World War II general, as the secretary of the army. Royall was skeptical of psychological operations, as were a number of high-ranking officers and civilians. Throughout this period, Royall and other civilian secretaries of the military departments argued that the military should not be involved with psychological warfare during peacetime because it would inappropriately involve the military in political matters, a domain where the military also lacked the necessary subtlety to operate effectively. These civilians also argued that the questionable morality of psychological warfare would adversely affect the image of the military, if its participation in this activity became known.20 Two of Royall’s deputies disagreed with him, however, and worked with like-minded officers, including Lt. Gen. A. C. Wedemeyer, director of the Office of Plans and Operations, where the responsibility for psychological warfare now resided, to give the army a psychological warfare capability. In his memoirs, published in 1958, Wedemeyer argued against slaughtering the enemy, which he called the standard American and British approach, as the only way to fight a war. The failure “to use political, economic, and psychological means in coordination with military operations” had prolonged World War II, he contended, and increased Allied casualties. These views were clearly consistent with Wedemeyer’s earlier action in support of psychological warfare. One of Royall’s deputies, who worked with Wedemeyer, was William H. Draper, another World War II army general, whose responsibilities included the occupied areas, where army psychological operations were continuing. The other official was Gordon Gray, who had only a limited experience in the army during the war. In an effort to change Royall’s mind and preserve the Army’s psychological warfare capability, Draper commissioned a study by a civilian consultant that described what the army was already doing in psychological warfare. This report was passed to Royall. Apparently it helped persuade him that the army should have some capability in this area, for he agreed, in 1949, toward the end of his tenure (April 1949)

76

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

that the army should establish a psychological warfare branch. Royall stipulated, however, that a civilian within the War Department should have ultimate responsibility for this activity. Wedemeyer was not happy with this arrangement, fearing that it would compromise the military chain of command, but he accepted it and psychological warfare found a precarious place in the army.21 Not everyone was happy about the revival of psychological operations, especially in their covert form. Secretary of State Marshall opposed them. His opposition, or at least the State Department’s, appears to have derived from sentiments similar to those then present in the military. Psychological operations, especially covert psychological operations, should they come to light, were incompatible with diplomacy and therefore potentially damaging to the State Department’s efforts. This sentiment continued to characterize the department’s attitude in the post-War world toward psychological operations, espionage, and related activities. The National Security Council (NSC) staff made psychological operations more palatable to the State Department by dividing the government’s information activities in two, calling the overt component that accompanied U.S. foreign policy “foreign information activities” and the covert component “psychological operations.” Consequently, National Security Council document 4 (NSC 4), “Report by the National Security Council on Coordination of Foreign Information Measures,” (December 17, 1947) put the secretary of state in charge of providing policy for and coordinating America’s overseas information efforts. NSC 4-A gave the CIA authority to carry out “covert psychological operations abroad.” The CIA ultimately defined these operations as “all measures of information and persuasion short of physical in which the originating role of the United States Government will always be kept concealed.” NSC 4-A granted this authority to the CIA subject to the approval of “a panel designated by the National Security Council,” which would include representatives from State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the military services. This approval process was to make sure that the CIA carried out covert psychological operations “in a manner consistent with U.S. foreign policy, overt foreign information activities, and diplomatic and military operations and intentions abroad.”22 Based on this division of responsibility and with this oversight and its new resources, the CIA conducted covert operations in support of democratic parties in Italy. In the election of April 1948, the Christian Democrats won 48 percent of the vote, giving

HIS TORY

77

them control of the government. The outcome of the elections established covert operations as an important weapon in the Cold War. As the covert psychological warfare apparatus took shape in the U.S. government, the military was at best a reluctant and hesitant participant in any kind of psychological operations. We have already recounted the army’s institutional indifference. The situation was not much better in the other services. In 1949, only the air force had an office devoted to psychological warfare, which was supposed to develop plans and policies and consider logistical requirements. The navy was in no better shape than the army. The joint staff did establish a component to meet the support requirements it felt would follow from the establishment of a covert capability in the CIA, but it otherwise dealt with psychological warfare issues by creating ad hoc groups. A high-level planning group on the Joint Staff expressed concern about this state of affairs, arguing that the Joint Staff’s ad hoc response had resulted in its interests being inadequately represented in the interagency discussions that led to a peacetime psychological warfare capability. The planning group recognized that part of the problem was a fundamental difference in orientation between State and Defense. Defense believed in long-range planning, while State did not. The State Department felt that “political contingencies were so variable and intangible that long range political plans were impracticable, if not impossible.” This difference led to frustration and misunderstanding on the joint staff that no amount of staff structure would have overcome. But many of the joint staff’s responsibilities could have been handled more effectively with more staff. Proposals to augment staff to meet the full range of requirements associated with psychological warfare ran into objections from the services, however. “A year of wrangling” passed before the joint chiefs approved an organizational design.23 The difficult birth of a peacetime psychological warfare capability is most apparent, however, in the army, where the greatest responsibility lay. Secretary of the army Royall consented to the army having a psychological warfare capability in 1949, but this did not lead immediately to anything. Royall’s successor as secretary of the army was Gordon Gray, one of the subordinates who had worked to change Royall’s views about psychological warfare. Now in a position to support this capability, Gray exerted pressure on the army staff, as did Gray’s successor, Frank Pace. Yet, in the summer of 1950, fifteen months after Royall had first authorized a psychological warfare branch, the army was still trying

78

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

to identify the personnel spaces to fill it. The army had no schooling underway in psychological warfare and only a handful of people qualified to conduct it. Pace’s insistence that the army staff do something, along with the outbreak of the Korean War, finally led the army to create, in January 1951, the office that Royall had originally authorized. It was no longer a branch but a special staff office, the Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare.24 The creation of the psychological warfare office did not resolve the army’s difficult relationship with this unconventional capability. In his meetings with the army’s chief of staff, Secretary Pace continued to insist on the importance of psychological operations, calling them “the cheapest form of warfare.” He inquired directly of Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway in Korea about his ability to conduct such operations. Meanwhile, the general in charge of psychological warfare, Robert McClure, warned his staff at their first meeting of the prejudice that existed in the army against their activity. It was not seen as the work of a true soldier, he told them. Because of this prejudice, officers were reluctant to become involved with psychological warfare. During the war in Korea, McClure repeatedly complained, as Blankenhorn had in the First World War, that the Air Force was not making sufficient aircraft available for leaflet drops. Like Blankenhorn, McClure also had to deal with army officers who did not see the value of psychological warfare. His efforts to assist the Far Eastern Command in establishing its psychological warfare office were blocked by the army staff’s operations office. Some of these difficulties were the result of personality clashes and the aggressiveness with which the new office pursued its responsibilities, but the major problem was the belief throughout the army that psychological operations took more time and money than they were worth. Yet, despite all obstacles, by the early 1950s the army, and the military generally, did have for the first time offices devoted to psychological operations, which had become and remain to this day, through various name changes, permanent features of military organization and operations.25 The Korean War helped revive not only psychological operations but special operations more generally. Both the army and the navy infiltrated Koreans into the north to gather intelligence and disrupt enemy operations. The CIA carried out such operations as well. The air force supported the army by establishing composite wings as it had in World War  II, but, in the event, conventional air force units flying standard

HIS TORY

79

aircraft provided infiltration support. The navy’s UDTs had little to do in the war because, except for the landing at Inchon, amphibious assault was not a significant element in the fighting. The UDTs did help with the infiltration of Koreans into the north and also pioneered a new mission by conducting raids from the sea instead of just reconnoitering beaches and clearing obstacles. The army deployed radio and leaflet teams to conduct psychological operations. Civil affairs had little role to play in the war because the South Korean government continued to function throughout. The army also revived the Rangers, deploying seventeen companies of the elite infantry to the Korean peninsula, where they conducted raids behind enemy lines or reconnaissance missions close to enemy positions. They also functioned as shock troops, assaulting particularly difficult points in the enemy’s line. They suffered high casualty rates in these missions, as they had in World War II. While special operations were part of the Korean War, they were not an important part. To some extent the military appears to have conducted them as a reflex response, as part of the effort to do everything that could be done to win the war but without sufficient attention to the likelihood of success or their place in some overall strategy. For example, during the war it became clear that virtually all of those infiltrated into the north would be killed, captured, or compromised, yet the missions continued. They did produce some intelligence. Special operations led to the discovery of masses of Chinese troops moving into Korea weeks before they attacked, for example, but MacArthur refused to believe what the special units reported. The CIA continued to conduct infiltration operations as well, but the military and the new agency never coordinated their efforts. Lack of coordination remained broadly characteristic of military/CIA relations for years to come. The military also failed to support adequately the special operations it conducted. During the first year of the war, Air Force pilots who flew missions to support these operations did so as an additional duty, flying at night after having flown their usual missions during the day. The navy did not train or equip the UDTs for their new raiding mission. The army did specially train and equip Rangers but then allowed them to be used inappropriately by commanders, who often stuck them in the line to plug a gap or take a difficult enemy position. All in all, special operations achieved little in Korea. The Ranger companies were disbanded in August 1951, although fighting continued for almost two years more. Ranger training continued in the United States, but only

80

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

to help build infantry skills for soldiers in conventional units, the mission the Rangers had begun World War II. Confusion about and lack of support for special operations in Korea reflected confusion in the military generally about what special operations were for and which units should carry out which missions. Were Rangers elite infantry, shock troops to be thrown against difficult enemy positions, or best used for reconnaissance of enemy positions? And if for reconnaissance, was it to be near the front lines or in the enemy’s rear areas? But if they could penetrate rear areas, should they not carry out strategic strikes rather than reconnaissance missions—or could they do both? And what about training and working with indigenous forces in guerrilla warfare operations against the enemy in support of conventional operations, one of the missions carried out by the OSS in World War II? As the war in Korea ground on, officials debated these questions in Washington. Based in part on the experience in Korea, the debate concluded that regular infantry could have done most of what the Rangers did, that working with indigenous forces behind enemy lines was a useful mission (it promised to inflict damage on the enemy but limited the risk to U.S. personnel) but that the Rangers were not the force to carry out that mission (they did not have the language skills to operate deep behind enemy lines). Consequently, the Rangers were disbanded to make room within personnel ceilings for a force that could lead guerrilla operations behind enemy lines. The task of developing this capability fell to Gen. McClure, in charge of psychological warfare in the army. The military placed the guerrilla warfare mission under psychological operations because these operations were understood at the time to include such guerrilla warfare, along with subversion, sabotage, and raids. All of these activities were intended to influence the will of an opponent to fight, as much, if not more than, his ability to fight. McClure in turn called on a veteran of the OSS, Colonel Aaron Bank, to lead the new guerrilla warfare unit. In June 1952, Bank became the first commander of the 10th Special Forces (SF) Group, located at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where it was part of the newly created Psychological Warfare Center. The mission of the 10th Group was to organize and direct guerrilla warfare behind Soviet lines in the event of war in Europe. Its inspiration was the fifteen-man OSS teams possessing a variety of skills that had carried out a similar mission in Nazi-occupied Europe. Staffed by former OSS men and European

HIS TORY

81

émigrés who spoke a variety of languages fluently, the new unit set about developing the skills to support guerrilla warfare. The new CIA was doing the same thing. The agency had inherited the OSS capabilities that the army had spurned and so was in direct competition with the new Special Forces. In principle, conflict might have been avoided. The agency had a covert mission that it conducted in peacetime, while SF prepared for wartime. As a practical matter, however, this distinction made no sense. If the war came, would the agency and SF both conduct guerrilla warfare behind Soviet lines? This threatened redundancy and possibly conflicting operations. Would the CIA prepare covertly the battlefield, so to speak, in peacetime and then turn over its partisans and organization to SF? This suggested a possible loss in efficiency and effectiveness when the guerrilla warfare mission was most important. SF and the CIA did not resolve this conflict; no higher authority intervened. As a consequence, the CIA did not share intelligence with SF. In addition, SF had conflicts with the Air Force, which claimed that its wartime experience supporting special operations gave it a claim on the special warfare mission that SF thought was its own. Finally, as the 1950s progressed, SF distinguished itself from psychological operations, which slowly lost their all-inclusive character. Many in SF favored dissociating themselves from psychological operations because of the stigma these operations carried. The conventional army, whose support SF needed to thrive, disdained psychological warfare as unworthy of a real soldier. SF did not want their own efforts seen in the same light.26 None of those involved in arguments about who should do guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines or how such operations should be conducted paid sufficient attention to what such operations in World War II and Korea revealed about their ineffectiveness and, therefore, their lack of strategic utility. In the 1950s, SF faced an unfriendly environment. With the advent of the Eisenhower administration in 1953, the United States adopted a strategy of massive retaliation. The strategy called for the use of our nuclear arsenal to respond to threats. This was an effort to provide national security without bankrupting the United States, since nuclear weapons were cheaper than standing forces. In this strategy, it made sense to cut resources from conventional forces, particularly the army, and give them to nuclear forces. Such a restricted budget environment was a difficult one for a new force that many army officers did not deem necessary. In part, they did not think it necessary because they considered guerrilla war

82

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

to be a smaller version of conventional war. If it was, then any infantry soldier should be able to take care of it. This undercut support for SF, whose existence hinged on the idea that guerrilla warfare was a special mission, for which special training was necessary. SF did deploy, for example to Laos, to help train indigenous forces. But it remained unappreciated by the army. The army’s first worldwide Combat Arms Conference in 1959 did not discuss special operations or unconventional warfare. When the army created an official pedigree for SF in 1960, it traced its roots to such units as Rogers’ Rangers, the First Special Service Force, and other elite raiding organizations, which had little or no connection to working with indigenous forces, rather than to the OSS, which did. An even more appropriate model perhaps would have been Meriwether Lewis and the small team he led (the Corps of Discovery). Lewis accomplished an extraordinary mission (and acquired much useful intelligence) through superb small team leadership and by working with indigenous people and foreign allies (French trappers). The strategy of massive retaliation made sense only on the assumption that the United States would use its nuclear weapons even when national survival was not at stake and that an opponent could not seriously damage the United States by fighting small wars where the use of nuclear weapons as a response would seem particularly disproportionate. Leaders of the army thought neither of these assumptions valid. Army Chief of Staff Maxwell Taylor put his objections in writing when he left office.27 He argued that the United States would not in fact use its nuclear arsenal when anything less than national survival was at stake, and that the United States therefore needed a military able to respond to a variety of threats. His analysis matched the thinking of the Democratic candidate for president in 1960, John F. Kennedy, who upon assuming office changed America’s defense strategy to “flexible response.” Under this strategy, SF got a prominent role, since the strategy identified Marxist insurgency as a threat to the United States and SF as the force best suited to meet it. This mission was not what the army had created SF to do, of course, but counterinsurgency, as it was called, was a mission that the new administration, from the president down, was willing to support. The level of support the administration gave to the new mission of counterinsurgency showed how seriously the president and his advisers took it. The president spoke about it in public on several occasions, including a speech before a special session of Congress and another at

HIS TORY

83

West Point. The National Security Council issued a series of Action Memoranda on the subject. The administration set up a special high-level cabinet group, and several other lower-level interagency groups, to focus on counterinsurgency. The president met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and sent memoranda to Secretary of Defense McNamara on the subject. The president’s chief advisers also gave speeches and wrote articles on insurgency and counterinsurgency and visited military installations involved in the new mission to underline the importance that the administration attached to it. President Kennedy himself visited SF headquarters at Fort Bragg to review what SF was doing. Altogether, the administration’s guidance to the military on what it wanted it to do in counterinsurgency was both emphatic and detailed. The administration’s efforts had some effect. The army created another SF group, which focused on Vietnam, and a senior staff position to oversee counterinsurgency efforts. It wrote doctrine for counterinsurgency and increased the instruction in counterinsurgency in its schools. The navy changed its UDTs into SEAL (Sea-Air-Land) teams, codifying and supporting the increased missions the UDTs had taken on during the Korean War, and, in response to the administration’s urgings, adding the mission of working with indigenous forces. The Air Force, which throughout the 1950s had provided support to SF and the CIA through several special operations units, responded to the administration’s guidance for an effective counterinsurgency capability by reestablishing the composite air wings it had used in World War II. In the early 1950s, Air Force interest in special operations had appeared to the army to threaten its turf. Similarly, in the early 1960s, the army’s interest in providing air support for SF and other special operations appeared to the air force to threaten its turf. Eventually, a rough compromise was reached in which the army focused on supporting special operations with helicopters, while the Air Force used fixed-winged aircraft. Although the army and the air force eventually reached a workable compromise when it came to counterinsurgency, the military and the administration never did. The Kennedy administration called for the military to consider counterinsurgency, and unconventional warfare generally, to be as important as conventional warfare, and to organize, train, and equip itself accordingly.28 The military never came close to accepting such an equality. Most of the change to accommodate the emphasis on counterinsurgency was superficial. Most army doctrine and practice

84

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

remained unchanged. Senior army leaders disparaged counterinsurgency. As for the navy, the changes it made were a ratification of developments the UDTs had been undergoing (which made them a raiding force as well as reconnaissance force), rather than adaptation to the demands of counterinsurgency. All the services remained focused on a possible big war in Europe against the Soviet Union. The failure of the U.S. military to take counterinsurgency seriously occurred not only at the strategic level, where it was defensible, but in Vietnam itself. Perhaps the best example of what happened to the counterinsurgency effort there is the saga of the Civilian Irregular Defense Groups. As part of efforts underway to increase the security of the South Vietnamese population, an army officer working for the CIA came up with the idea of having U.S. forces train and advise indigenous people living in the highlands of Vietnam. Trained and armed, they could protect their villages from the Vietcong. In the fall of 1961, SF began training and supporting the tribespeople in a program run by the CIA. The units of tribespeople were called Civilian Irregular Defense Groups, or CIDGs. In their support of the CIDG effort, Special Forces aimed at the insurgency’s social-political center of gravity by winning the loyalty of the villagers. For example, they conducted medical assistance in the villages and included in the program other civil affairs activities, work with the United States Agency for International Development, and psychological operations. Working in the CIA program, supported by the agency’s flexible and militarily unorthodox supply system and its money, Special Forces had control of its resources (people, time, money) and the latitude and flexibility to develop its counterinsurgency practices. While not without problems, the program succeeded. After reviewing CIDG activities in Vietnam in early 1963, the Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff for Special Warfare Activities reported that “the CIDG program holds the key to the attainment of the ultimate goal of a free, stable and secure Vietnam. In no other way does it appear possible to win support of the tribal groups, strangle Viet Cong remote area redoubts, and provide a reasonable basis for border patrol.”29 The army soon brought to an end the autonomy of SF in the CIDG program. As more villagers joined and the area under control of the South Vietnamese government increased, the CIA requested more SF. The more SF involvement in CIDG grew, the less the army liked it. The army leadership disliked having U.S. forces involved in operations that

HIS TORY

85

did not fit their strategy of engaging and destroying the enemy. They also disliked the CIDG program allowing military forces to operate outside the control of the regular military command structure. Secretary of Defense McNamara concurred with army leadership and decided to put the program under military control. On July 1, 1963, with the end of the CIA’s logistic responsibility for the program, all control passed to the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). From that time on, the U.S. Army assumed complete responsibility for SF activities in Vietnam.30 Once control of the CIDG program passed to the army, operational control of SF detachments was transferred to MACV, which had little experience in counterinsurgency and used SF and the CIDGs in support of conventional operations and strategy, leaving population protection to the South Vietnamese army. Village defense became less important, for example, as the CIDG training camps turned into bases for offensive strikes against the Vietcong. With the assumption of the South Vietnamese border surveillance and control mission in 1963, the responsibilities of SF shifted further away from pacification and population security operations to missions viewed by the military hierarchy as more appropriate to and reflective of conventional army doctrine. One consequence of this, in a now familiar pattern, was that CIDG units were used, in effect, as regular troops, a role for which they had not been trained.31 To address this problem, the army began organizing the CIDG as a more conventional force. They established a standardized table of organization and equipment for a CIDG light guerrilla company in an attempt to “standardize” indigenous forces for better pursuit of the Vietcong.32 This completed the process of conventionalization, turning the CIDGs from a force focused on the counterinsurgency mission of protecting the population from Viet Cong and North Vietnamese attacks and intimidation to the conventional task of closing with and destroying enemy forces. The indigenous units organized by Special Forces in Vietnam killed a lot of Vietcong, as did the raids and ambushes of navy SEALs. Subordinate as these operations were to the strategy of attrition the U.S. military pursued, that was their purpose. But as with the strategy they served, these “kills” were to no avail. This is the story by and large of all special operations in Vietnam. They were all absorbed into a conventional effort that, for the critical years of the war, followed a strategy of attrition unlikely to produce success. For example, the army organized some Long

86

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) units, eventually brought together as a Ranger regiment, that carried out missions in support of conventional forces similar to missions carried out by scout and raider units in World War II. Civil affairs and PSYOP units also operated largely in support of conventional forces but were not seen as an important component of the military’s activities in Vietnam. The same ineffectiveness characterized the covert operations carried out in Vietnam by the Military Assistance Command Vietnam–Studies and Observation Group (MACV–SOG). The special operations assigned to the group included infiltrating personnel into North Vietnam to collect intelligence and carry out sabotage, attempting to limit the movement of materiel and people on the Ho Chi Minh trail into South Vietnam, and constructing an elaborate effort to deceive the North Vietnamese into thinking there was a resistance movement operating in the North. As in the Korean War, virtually all of the infiltration efforts failed. A principal reason for the failure was that the infiltrators were supplied by South Vietnamese organizations the Vietcong had penetrated. The deception effort did cause the North Vietnamese some concern, as did interdiction efforts along the Ho Chi Minh trail, but neither of these operations affected the ability of the North Vietnamese to pursue their war aims. Despite the undoubted bravery of the men who carried out the covert missions and the tactical innovations they produced, covert special operations in Vietnam were no more successful than their overt counterpart.33 Although the overall strategy in Vietnam was bad, this was not the only reason for the ineffectiveness of special operations there. In response to civilian pressure and a sense among civilians that somehow SOF were a panacea,34 SF grew rapidly from 1961 to 1966, adding three groups and increasing their numbers six fold, from 1,800 to 10,500.35 To allow this growth, the army lowered standards for entry into SF. Rapid expansion diminished quality, and, more important, along with subordination to the conventional military, made SF a conventional force, a force inclined like the conventional military to see its principal role as closing with and destroying the enemy. A senior officer who observed SF in Vietnam in the 1960s reported that some SF officers did not fully understand the difference between the requirements of counterinsurgency (population protection) and unconventional warfare (training indigenous people to attack the enemy).36

HIS TORY

87

In its efforts to recover from Vietnam, the military came to blame the vogue of counterinsurgency for many of its problems there. If only the army had been allowed by the politicians to fight its kind of war, the outcome would have been different. Because counterinsurgency came to stand for civilian interference in the war, and SF and SOF generally were the forces most closely associated with counterinsurgency, they received an inordinate share of the blame from the conventional military for the failure in Vietnam. In the eyes of the conventional military, SOF had received an inordinate share of fame and publicity during the war, which contributed to their postwar neglect.37 The LRRPs virtually disappeared early in the post-Vietnam drawdown and Civil affairs and PSYOP forces were also cut drastically, as were SF themselves, which went from seven groups to three. The number of SEALs was cut in half, while the Air Force put in the reserves or eliminated most of the units that had supported special operations in Vietnam. During the 1970s, the military, in particular the army, was refocusing on the conflict with the Soviet Union, a conflict in which SF and unconventional warfare did not have a big role. In addition, certain activities carried out by SOF in Vietnam strengthened the traditional view that special units tended toward indiscipline or to flout the standards of military professionalism. The work of personnel from special units, particularly the SEALs, in the Phoenix program, an intelligence and targeting effort directed at the Vietcong cadre, which was accused of carrying out assassinations, was one reason for this view. The charge of indiscipline was also given currency by the case of Colonel Robert Rheault, a commander of the Fifth Special Forces Group in Vietnam, who was accused, along with several of his men, of murdering a Vietnamese double agent. For a variety of reasons, then, the 1970s were a period of decline for special operations forces. The low esteem in which the army held SF manifested itself in a plan to revive the Rangers. The Chief of Staff of the army, Creighton Abrams, believed the United States needed a rapid reaction force to meet contingencies around the world. The hijacking of four airplanes to Jordan in 1970 and the attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics by Palestinian terrorists, as well as the worldwide alert of U.S. forces that accompanied the Yom Kippur War in 1973, suggested the need for such a force. Abrams believed that the 82nd Airborne Division, for example, could not mobilize fast enough to serve as a quick reaction force, while

88

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

SF could not mobilize enough people to fill this role. Abrams’s solution was to reconstitute the Rangers. For Abrams, the Rangers also solved two other problems. First, the marines were claiming to be the country’s quick reaction force and the army was in danger of losing that mission unless it developed a new rapid response capability. Second, Abrams, the last commander of American forces in Vietnam, did not like SF. The reconstituted Rangers could take Green Beret missions, which had grown to include such traditional Ranger missions as raids, reconnaissance, and target acquisition, thus justifying further cuts in SF numbers. Discussions among the army’s leadership gave the restored Ranger regiment the traditional Ranger missions of raids and reserved training foreign forces for SF. Civilian pressure had pushed the army to cut Ranger force strength to make way for SF. In the aftermath of the war in Vietnam, the army was now able to cut SF to make room for the Rangers. Shortly after the agreement among army leaders distinguished the roles of Rangers and Special Forces, another debate over roles emerged. The terrorist attacks that persuaded Abrams that the United States needed a quick reaction force convinced Gen. Edward Meyer, then deputy chief of staff for operations, U.S. Army Europe, that the United States needed a force to counter terrorists. Meyer, who was concerned with more than just a force to fight terrorists, believed the whole assortment of unconventional missions needed attention; however, he focused on countering terrorists as the activity most likely to win acceptance in the army.38 Following his tour in Europe, Meyer joined the army staff as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations. In that position, he oversaw the creation of a unit that could carry out an array of special missions, among them rescuing hostages being held by terrorists. Two already-existing units in the army argued that the new unit Meyer wanted was not necessary. The Rangers believed the hostage rescue mission was theirs. Rescuing hostages required raiding techniques, and raiding was what the Rangers did. SF also claimed the mission. SF had conducted a raid at the end of the Vietnam War (Son Tay) to rescue POWs. Although the raid recovered no POWs (they had been moved), it went off flawlessly, showing, in the opinion of SF, they were up to that sort of mission. Ultimately, Meyer and his supporters prevailed. Influenced by the example of the Israeli and German rescues of their citizens at the Entebbe airport in Uganda (1976) and in Mogadishu (1977), respectively, and President Jimmy Carter’s interest in those rescues, the army

HIS TORY

89

agreed to establish the new special mission unit, which it activated in November 1977. The new hostage rescue unit met its first big test in 1980 when it participated in the effort to rescue Americans held hostage by Iranians in Tehran. Although the hostage rescue unit was a permanent unit, the rest of the forces involved in the rescue attempt were brought together from the various services just for this mission. Marine pilots flew navy helicopters and had to coordinate with air force pilots. This ad hoc arrangement was how the U.S. military had always met the need for forces to conduct special operations. This time, the effort ended in disaster. At the rendezvous point inside Iran, Desert One, the commander of the rescue attempt decided to call it off because several helicopters on the mission had suffered mechanical failures, leaving rescuers without sufficient airlift to complete the mission. As the remaining helicopters and aircraft prepared to return to their starting points, a helicopter and aircraft collided, causing an explosion and fire that killed eight. Celebrating a victory over their superpower rival, the Iranians later broadcast pictures of the ruined aircraft and charred remains of the crew members. SOF as we now know them emerged from the ashes of Desert One. The official report on the rescue attempt concluded it had failed not because it was infeasible or too complicated. It pointed instead to such things as the number of helicopters used, aspects of command and control, and concerns for security that prevented a full-scale rehearsal. It also noted the forces used were an ad hoc collection rather than a permanent joint task force. Such a permanent task force would have allowed rescuers to focus on the details of the mission rather than on cobbling their force together and attending to the unavoidable administrative and logistical matters that accompany even an operation of such importance.39 The failed rescue convinced SOF and the U.S. military generally that special operations could no longer be carried out by ad hoc organizations. It also convinced them that special operations had to be joint, that training and operations had to unite SOF from all the services. The commitment to special operations carried out by permanent joint organizations manifested itself first in the establishment of a joint special mission unit dedicated to counterterrorism and eventually in the development of the joint Special Operations Command (SOCOM). The failure of Desert One also prompted the army to attend to its special operations aviation capabilities. The result was the establishment

90

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

of the 160th Aviation Battalion in 1981. The 160th was put together with components from a variety of aviation units and specialized in low-level and nighttime helicopter operations. Since its establishment, it has supported SOF in all their major deployments. In 1990, the army designated the unit the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. The failed rescue mission had a broader effect. It helped defeat President Carter and bring Ronald Reagan to office. The Reagan administration focused again on confrontation with the Soviet Union and on terrorism as one of the principal ways the Soviet Union was attacking the United States and its allies. This focus on the Soviet Union and terrorism helped spur interest in SOF. The Republican platform in 1980, for example, called for their revival. At the same time, outside the administration, the failed rescue effort became one of the principal pieces of evidence used by SOF’s supporters to argue that this component of America’s military forces needed attention. These supporters consisted of former SOF officers serving in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill and several civilian staff members on important Senate and House committees and in the Pentagon. Together they began a campaign to get SOF the resources and organizational structure they felt these forces needed. Ultimately, they persuaded a host of influential senators and members of congress to support SOF reform efforts. This level of support was necessary because although the administration emphasized the importance of terrorism and other unconventional warfare missions (counterinsurgency and support for insurgency chief among them), the Department of Defense continued, in the eyes of the reformers, to neglect SOF. The bureaucratic interests of the Services and the Pentagon trumped the concern expressed in the Republican platform and by some of the Reagan administration’s officials, as they had the efforts of the Kennedy administration. For example, Congress provided money for aircraft to support special operations, but the Air Force reprogrammed it for fighter aircraft. In addition to this neglect, the invasion of Grenada (1983) to rescue medical students and oust a government friendly to Cuba added impetus to the effort to reform SOF. Operations in Grenada revealed deficiencies in SOF equipment, misuse of their capabilities (a longstanding issue), command and control problems, and limits to the military’s ability to operate jointly. In response to pressure from reformers, the Pentagon established the Joint Special Operations Agency in 1984. This did little to satisfy the reformers, however, since the agency did not have direct control of any SOF.

HIS TORY

91

The reformers ultimately introduced legislation in both houses of Congress to address the problems they believed existed with the nation’s SOF. After the Senate and House compromised on their separate proposals, the SOF reform legislation became law in 1986 (the 1987 Defense Authorization Bill). The legislation, known as the Nunn-Cohen amendment for Senators Sam Nunn (D–Georgia) and William Cohen (R–Maine), established SOCOM, with a four-star general in charge, bringing SOF from all the services under one command. In addition, it gave the Command its own line in the defense budget and the authority to develop and acquire SOF-specific equipment; stated what missions constituted special operations (direct action, strategic reconnaissance, unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, civil affairs, psychological operations, counterterrorism, humanitarian assistance, theater search and rescue,40 and other activities that the president or secretary of defense might designate); established the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict in the Office of the Secretary of Defense to provide civilian oversight of the Command and its budgeting and acquisition activities; created a low-intensity conflict board in the National Security Council; and required the appointment of an assistant to the president for low-intensity conflict.41 The Reagan administration, bowing to pressure from the Pentagon and reluctant to acquiesce readily in such a sweeping Congressional redesign of the executive branch, opposed the legislation and implemented it slowly. It did set up SOCOM (activated April 1987) but in Tampa, Florida, far from the Pentagon. It delayed nominating an assistant secretary for Special Operations. Congress ultimately had to step in and resolve this problem. Neither the Reagan administration nor its successors ever set up a functioning low-intensity conflict board in the NSC or an adviser to the president for this kind of conflict. Additional legislation was necessary to implement SOCOM’s acquisition of SOF-specific equipment. The administration’s opposition to Congressional plans for SOF and its reluctant implementation of the Nunn-Cohen amendment was based on its judgment that SOF were receiving sufficient support and did not need the special arrangements the law required. In its defense, the administration pointed out that the budget for SOF had increased over threefold between 1981 and 1987, from $441 million to $1.6 billion.42 The reformers responded that most of the increase in SOF resources had gone for capabilities useful in conventional conflicts. While important,

92

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

these were, in the reformers’ minds, not the only or the most important conflicts the United States would face.43 The reformers believed, for example, that unconventional conflict—insurgency, terrorism, guerrilla warfare—would determine the winner of the Cold War. This was the most fundamental disagreement between the administration and the reformers. The administration did not accept the reformers’ argument that unconventional threats were the most important threats the United States faced. Therefore, the administration disagreed with the judgment of Congress that unconventional conflicts and SOF were more important to the national defense than the tanks, aircraft carriers, and fighter jets that the military preferred to buy. As it turned out, the administration was more right than Congress, at least with regard to the issue of the value of SOF in the struggle with the Soviet Union. SOCOM eventually came to include army Special Forces, the 160th Aviation Regiment, the navy SEALs, civil affairs and psychological warfare units, the Rangers, and the Air Force’s special warfare units. (The Marines initially declined to participate, feeling they were already an elite or special force and to designate one such unit from the Corps as special would damage overall esprit de corps. The Marines ultimately set up a Special Operations Command as part of SOCOM in 2006.) Yet, the Command and the other reforms Congress mandated had little effect before the Soviet Union started to implode. Operations to support insurgency against Russian-backed forces in Afghanistan and to counter Marxist insurgencies in Central America contributed to the defeat of the Soviet Union, the former perhaps significantly, but by themselves would not have brought about this defeat. On the other hand, absent American involvement in these unconventional conflicts, it is possible to imagine a combination of Soviet economic and social incompetence, NATO cohesion, Western economic expansion, and technological advances in America’s military capabilities dooming the Soviet Union. The Cold War was won by a system that the reformers believed was incompetent to handle America’s security, not by the innovation they worked so hard to bring about. If they did not help win the Cold War, the reformers’ efforts did have longer-term effects, which was an equal, if not more important reason, for their efforts. Along with other changes, such as SF becoming a branch in the army (1987), the reforms improved the readiness of SOF and its standing in the military. Not long after its activation in

HIS TORY

93

1987, SOCOM and its forces were showcased in several operations. SOF performed well in an extended series of small engagements against Iranian forces attempting to disrupt shipping in the Persian Gulf in late 1987 and 1988, and shortly thereafter, in Operation Just Cause, where they spearheaded efforts to depose Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. SOF secured even more plaudits from the conventional military during the first Gulf War in 1992. Displaying an attitude often found among conventional officers at the time, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Central Command commander, was at first reluctant to use SOF. Pressed to do so by authorities in Washington, Schwarzkopf ultimately employed SOF somewhat conservatively and later conceded that they had performed well in support of conventional force operations. As the 1990s progressed, SOF became involved in a series of contingency operations, from noncombatant evacuations in Africa to providing order in the interior of Haiti, that demonstrated their versatility. In May 1997, the Government Accounting Office found that the regional combatant commanders (the generals, like Schwarzkopf, responsible for specific areas of the globe, such as the Middle East or Africa) and their staffs considered special forces “an essential element for achieving U.S. national security objectives” and the “force of choice for many diverse combat and peacetime missions.”44 These operations called on the full array of SOF’s skills, including civil affairs and psychological operations, and showed the utility of having forces who could work easily with indigenous military personnel. The one setback in this string of operational successes was in Somalia, which we discuss in detail in the next chapter. An increasingly important element in SOF success, and in positive assessment of them by the regional combatant commanders, was the increasing effectiveness of the Theatre Special Operations Commands (TSOCs). Each of the regional commanders had one of these commands (as did the Commander of U.S. forces in Korea, because of the unique circumstances there) led by an experienced SOF officer. The TSOCs “were responsible to [the regional Commanders] for integrating and employing SOF.”45 Not only did the SOC Commanders advise on the proper use of SOF, thus reducing the likelihood of the longstanding problem of misuse, but they also commanded SOF forces during operations. Gen. Henry Shelton, Commander of the Special Operations Command, illustrated their importance to the regional commanders in 1997 by relating the story of the European SOC commander conducting

94

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

search and rescue operations after a plane crash in Croatia involving U.S. government personnel and then, as that operation ended, transitioning into a Joint Task Force Commander to organize and run a noncombatant evacuation operation in Africa. (The European Command then had responsibility for Africa; Africa now has its own regional command and its own regional SOC.) Shelton acknowledged the TSOCs had had “growing pains.” They had been undermanned and staffed by personnel inexperienced in staff work. Consequently, even the Service SOF components (e.g., the U.S. Army Special Operations Command or the Naval Special Warfare Command) had been reluctant to allow the TSOCs to take over missions and have command of forces that had traditionally been service responsibilities. By the late 1990s, Shelton reported, the TSOCs were performing well and were integral to the military’s worldwide operations. In fiscal year 1996, he reported, “an average of 4,627 SOF personnel were deployed in 65 countries each week. The preponderance operated under control of SOCs.” Shelton’s account of the TSOCs in a premier military journal was an announcement that, at least in his view, the TSOCs had matured into effective organizations. The GAO report in 1997, appearing a few months after Shelton’s article, confirmed his judgment. In addition to maturing organizationally in the 1990s, SOF also picked up a new mission, counterproliferation. The Clinton administration came to office convinced that addressing the problem of the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was important. Military analysts also thought this problem significant, as the increased prevalence of WMD would complicate fighting regional wars. Yet, the military generally was slow to accord more importance to counterproliferation. Facing significant cuts in funding and personnel, the military was reluctant to take on a new mission. SOF was not. As the Cold War ended, SOF, like the rest of the military, was searching for relevance. This problem was more acute for SOF than for conventional or general purpose forces because, in a way, SOF could be seen as a luxury. SOF could not do what conventional forces do but, when necessary, conventional forces could be pressed into service to do most of what SOF did. Not being specially trained and equipped, general purpose forces would not do special operations as well as SOF, but in an austere budget environment “not as well” might be thought good enough. SOF were acutely aware of this possibility, as were their supporters, some of whom tried to establish the relevance of SOF to a budget-conscious Congress and peace-minded public

HIS TORY

95

by suggesting that, among other things, SOF might teach languages in inner-city schools. Always aware of the need to show its relevance, SOF responded to the Clinton administration’s lead and embraced countering the proliferation of WMD as a new mission. SOF’s part in this mission fell to the special mission units, which developed techniques for dealing with “loose nukes” and other devices that the United States might need to seize and render safe. As the 1990s progressed and the threat from terrorism receded, counterproliferation became the principal mission of these special units. As they continued to take the most important missions assigned to SOF, and unconventional warfare—SOF working by, with and through indigenous people—faded in importance because of its association with counterinsurgency and the Cold War, the special missions units came to dominate the special operations community. For example, the officers who achieved highest rank in SOF tended to come from the special mission units and the Rangers. In the 1990s, the special mission units also continued the practice of training and consulting with law enforcement special weapons and tactics teams. This practice came under review following the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. The fiery demolition of the  compound in April 1993 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms led to accusations of excessive and inappropriate use of force. The report that some members of SOF units had reviewed the assault plan led SOCOM to restrict consultation and training with law enforcement. These restrictions, however, did not prevent SF from participating in counterdrug operations in the United States later in the 1990s. In these operations, SOF conducted the kind of long-term surveillance of drug routes in remote areas that was part of their strategic reconnaissance mission. SOF also provided another kind of support to law enforcement. In December 1999, the arrest of Ahmed Ressam in Seattle, Washington, led authorities to believe that they had come across a plot to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States to coincide with the millennium celebrations. Short of Arabic speakers, the FBI requested the assistance of SF. Several soldiers who spoke Arabic assisted the FBI with its investigation of Ressam and the larger plot.46 As the 1990s drew to a close, SOF had become more integrated into and accepted by the American military establishment than ever before. This was the result of a deliberate effort by SOF in response to institutional and bureaucratic pressures from within the military. At the

96

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

activation ceremony for SOCOM in 1987, Admiral William Crowe, then the JCS chairman, who had been an opponent of the new command, offered the following advice to the command and its first commander, Gen. James Lindsay: First, break down the wall that has more or less come between special operations forces and the other parts of our military, the wall that some people will try to build higher. Second, educate the rest of the military— spread a recognition and understanding of what you do, why you do it, and how important it is that you do it. Last, integrate your efforts into the full spectrum of our military capabilities.47

Without suggesting whether SOF or conventional forces were responsible, Crowe’s comments indicated the problem that had existed between SOF and the rest of the military. The conventional military had seen SOF as outsiders whose capabilities and even reason for existence were largely unknown. In a 1992 interview, SOCOM’s commander in effect paraphrased Crowe’s remarks, distancing SOF from the idea of “unconventional warfare” because it suggested that SF “were outside the mainstream Army.” Instead, the commander wanted to send the message that the United States had “very capable special operations forces that are partners—work together—with other elements of the armed forces to accomplish the mission.”48 The burden of such remarks is that the principal value of SOF is their ability to support conventional forces and operations. This has been the view traditionally of conventional forces. In wartime, as we have seen, the historical evidence suggests that the forces in play are so large that small specialized forces and the independent operations they undertake, whatever their tactical brilliance, are unlikely to have much strategic effect. Since conventional forces are focused above all on war, they take the demands of war as the measure by which to make all military judgments. They judge, therefore, with support from the historical record, that SOF’s chief value is support for conventional forces. But not all conflicts are wars, and not all wars necessarily engage the United States as fully as World War II or Vietnam, no matter how fully they engage the resources and interests of those directly involved. For example, in El Salvador, a small number of SOF (Congress limited the number to fifty-five) over about a decade (1981–1992) trained and helped professionalize—and

HIS TORY

97

sometimes fought and in one case died alongside—the El Salvadoran military through a bloody and vicious civil war. This independent SOF operation was critical to an outcome favorable to the United States. The success in El Salvador, based on SOF’s ability to work by, with, and through local forces and populations, was repeated in the 1990s in the Balkans, Haiti, Colombia, Liberia, and elsewhere. Like El Salvador, Colombia represented a successful largely low-key commitment over many years. The critical element was the assistance SOF provided in the professionalization of Colombia’s military. This was accomplished not by technical training alone but also by the transfer of principles of conduct over several decades from SOF to their Colombian counterparts, a process dependent on the growing realization by Colombians of what they needed to do to handle the various armed revolutionary forces threatening the country.49 In other operations, for example in Haiti, Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations forces were elements of the U.S. government’s efforts to restore infrastructure and governing institutions and to inform local populations. Not only were these operations based on SOF’s ability to work with foreign forces and populations, they were also examples of its ability to operate independently and produce strategic success. Ironically, as SOF’s unconventional warfare capability (working with locals) and its ability to produce strategic effects independently were called into question in the 1990s, in retrospect we can see that it was SOF’s independent unconventional operations that were producing success. In fairness to those who conduct and favor SOF’s direct-action missions, especially when they are undertaken independent of other forces, one must acknowledge that such missions often occur when other options have been foreclosed and operational and political risk is high. This was clearly so in the case of the Iranian hostage rescue. We discuss in detail other examples: Somalia and Iraq, in chapters 3 and 4, respectively. In such circumstances, failure is not unlikely and carries a big penalty. This is an important respect in which these missions differ from the typical unconventional warfare mission. It also explains why, as the threat from Islamic extremism rose in the later 1990s, SOF were not called on to carry out direct-action missions against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Civilian and military leaders with the ultimate responsibility to approve such missions simply did not think that the potential gain from them justified the risks involved. This assessment rested in part on their understanding of the threat posed by this extremism.50

98

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

The terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, changed that understanding and brought greater prominence to SOF than they had enjoyed since the early 1960s. The Bush administration turned to the CIA and SF because a conventional attack against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan would have taken too long to mount. The agency facilitated contact between SF units and members of the Northern Alliance, a movement resisting Taliban dominance of Afghanistan. The first SF team infiltrated Afghanistan October 19, 2001. Operating in some cases on horseback and always in difficult conditions, SF supplied, directed, and fought alongside the Northern Alliance forces against the Taliban. Using laser designators, SF and air force combat controllers directed navy and air force bombing runs that shattered Taliban resistance. Kabul fell November 14, 2001; by early December, the Taliban had abandoned Kandahar, its home base. Two months after the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban had lost power and al-Qaeda had retreated to caves near the border with Pakistan. Throughout the campaign, air force special operations aircraft supported SF and their indigenous allies. As we saw in one of the interviews in chapter 1, the operation that destroyed the Taliban was a textbook case of SF working with local forces to achieve U.S. objectives. In doing so, SF combined traditional infantry skills, high technology, political guile, and a sensitivity to the preferences and beliefs of their indigenous allies. So spectacular and unexpected was the result—against numerically superior forces—that it raised the question, to which we will return later, of whether the precision and coordination of air strikes enabled by new information technology had not revolutionized warfare and called into question some lessons the history of warfare had taught. Following the rout of the Taliban, SF teams continued to work with indigenous forces and the local population to capture or kill what was left of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The teams trained and led Afghan military forces, providing security to the local population and using the medical and other skills resident on the teams to win the confidence and support of local populations. From this confidence and support given to teams even when they were operating in tribal areas supportive of the Taliban, came information allowing the teams to identify those they needed to kill or capture. In other words, once the Taliban and al-Qaeda were no longer in control of Afghanistan, SOF transitioned from unconventional warfare to counterinsurgency. As the Taliban lost control and became insurgents in a country they had previously controlled, the task became

HIS TORY

99

not organizing and assisting local forces to take on a military force but to assist a new government in resisting insurgents by working with its civilian population. Training of Afghan military and police continued, but the mission or the character of the operation had changed. Fundamental to both the unconventional warfare and counterinsurgency missions, and the reason the transition between them was almost automatic, was SF’s focus on and ability to work with indigenous people. Yet, the counterinsurgency mission, like the unconventional warfare effort that toppled the Taliban, was not part of a larger plan, which became clear as the numbers of conventional forces in Afghanistan grew and they came to dominate the U.S. military presence there. A lieutenant general from a conventional army unit took charge of ground operations in Afghanistan in November 2001, about a month after SF teams first set foot in the country. Conventional army personnel were in Mazar-i-Sharif in early December. Large deployments of conventional army units did not appear in Afghanistan, however, until later. Elements of the 101st Airborne Division, for example, arrived in January 2002. Conventional force deployments continued to grow in the spring and summer. As they did, conflicts with Special Forces came into the open. These received media coverage in September 2002 with reports, reminiscent of the First Air Commando’s experience in World War II, that the Army leadership had told SF personnel in Afghanistan to shave their beards and dress in regular uniforms. One report explained the order as the result of complaints from relief agencies, whose work in Afghanistan was critical to the U.S. government’s objective of getting the country functioning again. The relief workers feared, reportedly, that they might be mistaken for SF and thus be put at risk. While the objection from the relief agencies may have been part of the explanation for the order to look more like regular soldiers, it was also clear that tensions existed between SF and the conventional military. SF felt that the conventional military units did not work enough with the local population and in fact used tactics that did not respect local customs and thus alienated the indigenous population and put at risk the collection of the intelligence necessary to kill or capture Taliban and al-Qaeda. Conventional commanders, for their part, expressed incomprehension at the tactics of the Special Forces. “I don’t know what they are trying to achieve,” one told a reporter. Behind such comments appeared to be the general sense that the SF were not acting as soldiers should. The chief spokesperson

100

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

for coalition forces in Afghanistan, an American army colonel, told a reporter at one point it was better to have larger conventional units operating in Afghanistan because this allows us “to get the use of them we’re supposed to.”51 The result of such attitudes was that post-conflict operations in Afghanistan became increasingly conventional. Instead of working through, by, and with indigenous people to build trust and influence, the principal objective of military operations became the direct pursuit of “high-value targets”—important enemy personnel. In this understanding, intelligence results from such operations through intercepting electronic communications, interrogations and the seizure of documents, or by sweeps through villages or targeted raids where indigenous people are screened and questioned. Often in such operations, intelligence comes from paid informants or agents who can use their role as agents to settle personal or clan scores. While it is true that the direct approach generates intelligence, the question is which approach—the indirect or the direct—is more likely in the long run to produce strategic success. Advocates of the indirect approach note that direct tactics, always disruptive of village life and often insulting to those subject to them even when conducted with the utmost professionalism,52 are unlikely to build support for the central government, even if its forces are involved. Since building such support is the ultimate political and thus strategic objective in these conflicts, this is a grave objection to the direct approach. Advocates of the direct approach argue in turn that one must also consider whether the trends of a conflict afford the time for the indirect approach to work. These issues returned, as we will see, in a compelling way in Iraq. In Afghanistan, by late summer 2002, SF dress and appearance had changed while getting approval for operations had become more difficult. Initially, SF teams had authority to conduct operations in their areas of responsibility, but this was slowly curtailed as conventional forces and approaches became more dominant. In late September, the same colonel who had spoken in favor of larger numbers of conventional forces operating in Afghanistan told reporters that the military focus was not humanitarian operations. “Currently the main mission of the force is to close with and destroy the enemy.”53 The difficulty with this approach is that it is unlikely to work well if the enemy is not an organized military force that can be closed with. Although the Taliban and al-Qaeda had been the military force of the de facto governing power in most of Afghanistan, neither was an organized

HIS TORY

101

military force in the conventional sense. The Taliban could put fighters in the field and to some degree control their movements, but this military force had only a minimal existence as a separate institution. It was a tribal militia rather than a professional military force.54 The numbers in the field and their discipline derived more from tribal connections and traditions than from the rules and incentives of a separate military institution. When American armed forces made it impossible for the Taliban to operate militarily in large numbers, this did not reduce members of the Taliban’s militia to isolated individuals or small groups. They remained members of the tribe or, in the case of at least some of al-Qaeda’s members, under the protection of the tribe with the added shield of a religious sanction that transcended tribe. In defeat as in victory, the Taliban was principally not a military or even a political organization. It relied on preexisting and deeply rooted tribal connections, which, in a tribal society such as Afghanistan, made it a prefabricated political movement. Having thought of the Taliban and al-Qaeda as a military force to be destroyed as it invaded Afghanistan, the U.S. military continued to think of them that way once it had disorganized them. Hence, postconventional conflict operations retained a conventional character. If SF experience in Afghanistan showed the limitations of SOF integration into the American military establishment and some of the historic tensions between SOF and conventional forces, the role of SOF in the Iraq War (beginning April 2003) showed how far SOF had come in its ability to support conventional forces and fit into conventional war plans. In the First Gulf War, Gen. Schwarzkopf had used SOF reluctantly and conservatively. In the second war, SOF was part of the plan from the beginning and given responsibility for the western desert of Iraq, where, operating in small groups on specially designed desert vehicles, they performed reconnaissance missions; hunted for SCUD rockets, the launching of which could have seriously threatened U.S. and allied forces; and took control of an air base. In northern Iraq, SOF directed, supported, and fought with Kurdish forces that drove out the Iraqis and took control of Mosul, the most important city in the north. They also attacked and destroyed the base of Ansar-al-Islam, a terrorist group associated with al-Qaeda. Because Turkey would not allow the Fourth Infantry Division to enter Iraq through Turkish territory, SOF’s ability to lead the fight in the north became the decisive element in victory in that area of operations. In a tacit acknowledgment of the importance of SOF in the fight

102

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

in northern Iraq, for the first time in American military history conventional brigades were placed under the command of a SOF colonel. The operation in northern Iraq was similar to the one involving SF in Afghanistan: SF combined with indigenous forces and precision strikes had defeated a numerically superior and well-equipped foe. These results generated a debate about whether SOF and the U.S. Air Force had created a new way of war that pointed to the future of warfare. Indeed, based on the experience of Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld had argued for a lighter or smaller “footprint” of U.S. forces for the invasion of Iraq, arguing that the quality of U.S. precision could replace some quantity of U.S. forces. Such technologically enabled changes to basic military thinking were part of a supposed revolution in military affairs that many defense intellectuals were speculating about in the 1990s. SF’s operations in Afghanistan and Iraq seemed to some to confirm the speculation. The counterargument was that critical to success in both Afghanistan and Iraq was not so much the quality of U.S. forces as the lack of such quality in our opponents. Surviving on a battlefield filled with precision weapons requires highly developed skills in cover, concealment, and maneuver, for example, which only highly trained and well-led forces are capable of. The Taliban and Iraqi forces that fell before SF, its allies, and precision strikes lacked these qualities. Against better forces, the new approach was likely not to work as well. Evidence for this view was that the Taliban and al-Qaeda, under threat of annihilation, improved their infantry skills, and as they did so became better able to resist SF led operations. If this criticism was true, it meant that the success achieved in Afghanistan and Iraq was not reproducible everywhere. SF operations in those countries would not then have shown the future of warfare and raised SOF’s strategic value. Instead, they had merely confirmed that in some limited circumstances unconventional warfare could support conventional operations (precision strikes) to good effect.55 The debate about the revolution in military affairs and the future of warfare was cut short by the return of an old problem: insurgency, in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem became acute most quickly in the former. The U.S. military was slow to react, in part because its civilian leadership at first refused to acknowledge that the insurgency existed. Counterinsurgency efforts, once allowed, were hampered by an Iraqi government riven by religious and tribal rivalries, deprived of skilled administrators, and overwhelmed by its responsibilities. For its part, the

HIS TORY

103

U.S. military encountered insurgency as if it had never done so before. For the third time since the end of World War II (the 1960s and the 1980s being the first two), it set out to develop doctrine, reinventing the wheel yet again. Defeating the insurgency in Iraq ultimately had a good deal to do not with U.S. doctrine or efforts but with the decision of Iraqi Sunnis to turn on al-Qaeda in Iraq and to work in effect with the Shia dominated government of Iraq to defeat al-Qaeda. A dispute remains about the degree to which this decision made possible the success of the so-called surge or the surge encouraged the decision, but it seems clear that success would not have come without both. Another disputed element in the counterinsurgency effort in Iraq and Afghanistan is the role of manhunting. As the situation in Iraq spiraled out of control and casualties mounted from improvised explosive devices (some “improvised” in Iran based on its and Hezbollah’s experience in Lebanon and fighting Israel), SOF’s special mission units steadily improved their ability to target and then capture or kill those involved in deploying the explosive devices and committing other acts of terror that were the hallmark of the insurgency. Antecedents for what SOF developed in Iraq included operations in the Balkans to capture persons indicted for war crimes (PIFWCs), which was manhunting enabled by intelligence sharing across military and civilian agencies. As we describe in chapter 4, this approach was refined and carried to an extraordinary level of tactical effectiveness in Iraq. Yet even the commander responsible for this achievement came to see that its tactical excellence did not translate into strategic effectiveness.56 SOF became so proficient at carrying out manhunting raids that the Commander of the special mission unit did not consider the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound an extraordinary operation, at least in its strictly military aspects. The killing of bin Laden (May 2011) was beyond any strategic calculus or estimation of costs and benefits. It was an act of primordial and necessary retribution. Any self-respecting nation attacked as the United States was on 9/11 would have felt compelled to kill bin Laden. The United States is fortunate to have had the military forces and the intelligence support that made it possible. As the insurgency gathered pace in Afghanistan in 2006, SOF helped organize and were fully involved in a series of operations to regain control of the countryside, culminating in what came to be called village stability operations (VSO) beginning in 2010. (Chapter 5 offers additional detail

10 4

THE AMERIC AN E XPERIENCE

about and analysis of VSO.) These operations put SF teams in villages to help defend them against the insurgent Taliban and to train villagers to defend themselves. Such operations were a version of the CIDG campaign in Vietnam. As in Vietnam, their Achilles heel was the failures of the central government the U.S. government was supporting and the incomprehension of U.S. conventional commanders. The latter made it more difficult to achieve success, the former to sustain it. U.S. commanders did not always support VSO sufficiently and tried to use SOF for other missions. Because VSO brought money and armed force to local areas, the locations where they were undertaken became part of internal political contests among Afghan politicians rather than decisions made on the basis of strategic requirements.57 Despite continuing differences between them manifest in VSO and other operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, conflicts between SOF and conventional force commanders should not be overemphasized. All believe things are much improved. Improved also as of this writing are relations between the direct and indirect elements of SOF, although effects linger from the days when the Bush administration pushed manhunting and seemed to want all SOF involved. The emphasis on manhunting led to an improvement in the combat skills of SF units, but it also for a time created a relative neglect of indirect or unconventional warfare approaches. So marked was this problem, and so common in the history of SOF, that it led to some proposals for restructuring SOF to give unconventional skills more support and independence.58 Throughout this period and up to the present, SOF, including Civil Affairs and PSYOP units, continued to deploy throughout the world, most often for routine training missions with foreign forces, although army and navy special mission units continue their manhunting and hostage rescues. As the pace of operations continued, SOF, like the rest of the U.S. military, has had to think about and prepare for future conflict. It has also had to deal with social changes and their effects on the military.59 Thinking about the future in light of the past raises a host of questions. What missions should SOF concentrate on? How should they be organized and what are the best command and control arrangements for these forces? How is the changing character of war and conflict affecting SOF? Above all, what is the true strategic value of SOF, how do they best serve America’s interests, and how can this strategic value best be realized? We address these questions in chapters 6 and 7. Before doing

HIS TORY

105

so, however, we examine in detail three case studies: SOF operations in Somalia in 1993, the development of its high value targeting efforts in Iraq, and village stability operations in Afghanistan. These cases show that questions about appropriate missions, organization, command and control, and strategic value arise not only from current operational concerns but also are inherent in SOF.

✪ 3

Somalia

Little more than a year after SOF showed in the Gulf War it

could operate effectively in support of a major military operation, it had a chance to prove it could perform just as well independently as the lead force charged with resolving a significant problem in Somalia. Fractious warlords were preventing the rapid distribution of relief assistance intended to save millions of Somalis from mass starvation. President George W. Bush decided to use military forces to ensure the aid got through to the people who needed it. Soldiers from the Fifth Special Forces Group had been accompanying aid shipments to Somalia, during which they assessed threats and unobtrusively reconnoitered airfields and other infrastructure. When the president ordered the military intervention SOF accompanied the marines and performed admirably in their support. Eventually, U.S. forces passed the mission to a United Nations command. When the situation deteriorated, SOF were sent back to Somalia to take the lead in dealing with the most troublesome warlord, Mohamed Farrah Aideed. The assumption was that if SOF could capture Aideed, the other warlords would fall in line and negotiate a new government with the United Nations. Unfortunately, as mentioned in the previous chapter, the SOF mission was not successful. On October 3, 1993, SOF were pinned down in a protracted engagement with Aideed’s forces after one of their helicopters was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade. After inflicting close to a thousand casualties on the enemy the Rangers and special mission unit members were extracted by tardy UN conventional forces. When the battle was over twenty U.S. and coalition members had lost their lives and eighty-eight were wounded. The United States negotiated for the release

11 0

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

of the lone special operator Aideed had captured and then left Somalia to its fate. The key assumption underlying the SOF snatch operation—that Aideed was the singular problem preventing national reconciliation— was not tested until years later when Aideed died in Somalia’s continuing orgy of factional fighting. The internecine conflict continued despite his absence, but some would say that was because the steadying hand of the United Nations and its forces had long since departed in the wake of the October 3 disaster. Somalia is a worthy case study because it perfectly illustrates how SOF can be misused and why, for a variety of reasons, only some of which SOF control, it can be difficult for SOF to accomplish what policy makers want. Arguably, it is also a seminal case because it indicated changes were necessary if SOF were going to perform independent missions of strategic importance well. However, it is not possible to extract the lessons of Somalia for SOF without first having a solid understanding of what happened and why. The immediate tactical situation as it developed in Somalia is important, but so is the decision-making in Washington and at the United Nations. Ultimately, the use of SOF in Somalia cannot be evaluated without understanding the way national objectives evolved and were (or were not) communicated to SOF commanders in the field.

DEBATE OVER THE SCOPE OF THE SOMALI INTERVENTION OBJECTIVES In 1992, the United States was providing airlift and relief supplies in support of the United Nations assistance effort in Somalia. About two thousand C-130 sorties were made in support of humanitarian relief efforts. The United States also airlifted Pakistani peacekeepers to Somalia, but they were soon pinned down in Mogadishu and unable to ensure safe delivery of humanitarian assistance to those parts of the country most in need. Aid officials estimated that as many as two million Somalis were at risk of starvation. The third week of November 1992, President Bush decided to use U.S. military forces to lead a multinational force to ensure the aid was delivered. Operation Restore Hope began on December 7, pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 794 adopted on December 5, 1992.

SOMALIA

111

President Bush’s decision to intervene in Somalia came at an awkward time. Following the president’s defeat in the November election, the government was in the midst of one of its quadrennial turnovers. No one in the Office of the Secretary of Defense knew precisely why President Bush made the decision to intervene in Somalia, although the dominant motive appeared to be genuine humanitarian concern. He did so after consulting with top advisers at a National Security Council meeting, selecting the most muscular option prepared at an earlier Deputies Committee Meeting. Most accounts indicate there was very little thinking about or analysis of the longer-term implications of intervention. The president’s principal military adviser, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin Powell, expressed concerns about whether conditions in Somalia would permit a smooth handoff to a UN peacekeeping force after a relatively brief deployment of U.S. troops.1 Nevertheless, this was precisely the U.S. plan. At a press conference on December 4, 1992, the secretary of defense said: “We believe it necessary to send in U.S. forces to provide U.S. leadership to get the situation stabilized and return it to a state where the normal UN peacekeeping forces can deal with the circumstances.” U.S. Marines arrived in Somalia on December 7, proceeded by Special Operations Forces and followed by U.S. Army and coalition forces. The total U.S. force reached 29,000, plus some 10,000 coalition forces, and was called The United Task Force or UNITAF. President Bush named Ambassador Robert Oakley, who had previously served as Ambassador to Somalia, as special envoy. He arrived in December to take charge of the political and diplomatic dimensions of the mission. The marines were told to prevent the mass starvation of Somalis through a brief and limited intervention that would quickly transition to UN forces. However, it was apparent early on that the UN defined the problem and the mission more broadly. The United Nations wanted to establish conditions that would preclude another famine in the future and resolve the underlying problems that had led to the civil war. In particular, the UN pushed hard for more aggressive disarmament of all Somalis. As early as November, the U.S. diplomatic mission to the United Nations in New York agreed with the UN position, arguing that the United States had a stake in strengthening UN peacekeeping operations and that it was in the U.S. interest that the UN should succeed in bringing peace to Somalia. In Washington, DC, other officials in the Department of State also agreed with the United Nations about intervention objectives

112

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

in general and disarmament in particular. The point repeatedly made by the Department of State was that ignoring the larger security problem meant that the delivery of aid would only temporarily solve the humanitarian crisis. Officials in the Department of State argued that the United States should address the disarmament issue quickly, decisively, and comprehensively, and that failure to do so could seriously complicate the follow-on UNOSOM II peacekeeping operation, which in turn would jeopardize long-term prospects for Somali peace and reconciliation. Ultimately, the Department of State believed that the United States would be held to account for undertaking an operation that addressed only the symptoms and not the causes of the Somali disaster. Other parts of the Bush Administration resisted the broader mission proposed by the United Nations and Department of State. The Department of Defense succeeded in convincing National Security Council officials that the human tragedy in Somalia did not affect U.S. national security interests. The leadership left in the Department of Defense at the time argued that the U.S. mission was famine relief. Efforts to solve broader problems could be supported, but their resolution was not a prerequisite for taking immediate steps to ensure food distribution and hence they should not be the goal of U.S. intervention in the Somalia crisis. Thus it was argued that U.S. forces should be used to establish security at ports, airfields, and on convoys, but not to establish countrywide security. The limited goal was to provide enough local security to permit the distribution of aid at a level that staved off immediate mass starvation. Defense officials worried that if U.S. and coalition forces attempted to involuntarily disarm the warlords, then there would be protracted resistance, which simply was not in the interest of the United States. From Mogadishu, Ambassador Oakley also weighed in against forcible disarmament as unrealistic and idealistic. The National Security Council in November and December of 1992 sided with the Department of Defense in favor of limited disarmament to ensure a safe environment for U.S. military forces, and not as a more general objective. Thus in mid-December the president as well as the departments of state and defense made it clear publicly that the United States did not view disarmament as an objective in and of itself, but rather as a limited means to accomplish the humanitarian mission. The United Nations remained unhappy with this policy and continued to press the United States to do more. The prerequisite conditions for the

SOMALIA

113

UN accepting a mission turnover from U.S. forces, identified in a report from the secretary general that was required by UN Security Council Resolution 794, one of a series of resolutions on Somalia, amounted to general disarmament of the warlords throughout Somalia, not just in key famine areas. While disarmament was the key UN requirement, the more ambitious goals of UN leadership included seizing large weapons stocked around Galkayo in the north of Somalia, building a police force, and rehabilitating infrastructure. In general, the United Nations wanted to leave behind a new and functioning Somali government. Toward that end, UN leaders resisted creating a follow-on force to take over from the United States until U.S. forces had established nationwide security. UNITAF forces and Ambassador Oakley’s staff worked out a voluntary disarmament plan with the Somali factions and offered it in late February 1993 to the UN for implementation, but the UN preferred instead to continue to pressure the United States to disarm the Somalis. During this time of transition, Congress was confirming Clinton administration officials, who were finding their way to their new positions in the national security bureaucracy. Many were more sympathetic to the UN and Department of State positions on Somalia, including some in the Department of Defense, and policy evolved accordingly. They agreed that Somalia was a test case of whether a multilateral institution in the post–Cold War world could use armed force effectively to bring governance to a war-torn country. The initial Clinton administration national security policy stressed the importance of “aggressive multilateralism,” so it was consistent to argue that it was in the interest of the United States to help ensure that the first attempt at forceful peacemaking by the United Nations was a success. If it was not, the United States would continue to be called upon to shoulder the majority of the burden whenever such problems of general import to the international community arose. Many Clinton appointees supported the broader mandate for the UN intervention in Somalia.2 For example, Ambassador Frank Wisner, a career State Department officer and the undersecretary of defense for policy, the principal policy maker in defense matters beside the secretary of defense, was sympathetic to the State Department’s arguments. Other Pentagon officials looked askance at the nation-building mission of resurrecting Somali political, economic, and security institutions before U.S. forces departed. Gen. Powell testified later that he was not informed of and disagreed with the mission to disarm. Gen. Joseph Hoar, the regional

11 4

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

commander responsible for Somalia, himself a marine, was particularly alert to attempts to saddle the marines with a general disarmament mission, but he had support from the joint staff and some career officials in the Defense Department as well.3 It took time for the Clinton administration to sort out its conflicting views, overcome bureaucratic resistance, and establish its policy. In the meantime, U.S. and coalition forces aggressively enforced their day-today rules about Somalis bearing arms and placing heavy weapons in controlled areas, but they did not go out of their way to track down weapons being hidden by Aideed (or others). As Ambassador Oakley argued, “given the limited  .  .  . mandate, which deliberately excluded general disarmament, there was no perceived need to confront Aideed over the disappearance of weapons as long as they posed no threat to UNITAF forces or humanitarian operations.”4 Despite internal bureaucratic debate and UN foot-dragging, the limited mission viewpoint prevailed. U.S. forces went ahead and prepared to withdraw in the spring of 1993 without having secured a general disarmament of the Somali factions, and this course of action finally prompted the UN to pull together a follow-on force. The United States agreed, however, in keeping with the Clinton administration emphasis on UN success, to remain engaged with the follow-on UN forces and to facilitate their efforts by providing six thousand personnel for logistics assistance and a small quick reaction force in case UN forces ran into trouble they could not handle. In addition, Ambassador Oakley, who had coordinated his political efforts so closely with marine military operations, was replaced by another senior American official, Adm. Jonathan Howe, who was chosen to lead the follow-on UN force (called UNOSOM II, “United Nations Operation in Somalia,” and the successor to UNOSOM I, which ran from April 1992 to March 1993) as the special representative to the secretary general of the United Nations.

POLICY, STRATEGY, AND THE TRANSITION TO UN COMMAND In the first week of February, not long after the new president took office, the Clinton national security team reviewed policy on Somalia, after which they decided to focus on what could be done to prevent Somalia from falling back into anarchy and famine. By March, the new

SOMALIA

115

administration had established a policy of helping ensure the success of the Somali “testbed,” but acknowledged that the Somali people had to seize the historic opportunity offered by the U.S. and UN interventions. If not, more modest goals might be in order, but the minimum goal would be to ensure that Somalia did not return to the anarchy that precluded relief assistance from being distributed. These goals required assisting the UNOSOM II mission. If the UN force was to be successful, it clearly had to be at least as potent a force as the one the marines had assembled. In testimony to Congress on January 29, the senior Pentagon military official in charge of operations promised that the follow-on UNOSOM II mission would, in fact, be structured to have essentially the same capability as the U.S. intervention force it was relieving. Many doubted that the UN force would be effective, however. Even if total planned numbers were similar, its combat capability was seriously doubted, which is why the U.S.-led quick reaction force was left behind. In addition, an internal Pentagon field assessment in late spring noted other critical shortfalls, including the woefully inadequate special operations and particularly psychological operations capability. Under UNITAF, army Special Forces monitored and influenced various warlords around the country, and Psychological Operations forces constantly communicated coalition perspectives to the host population during operations. Both had received high marks from Ambassador Oakley and Lt. Gen. Robert Johnson, the military commander of UNITAF, and many thought their absence in the follow-on UN forces was a crippling defect.5 Despite these concerns, the UNOSOM II mission mandate was significantly broadened in keeping with long-standing UN and Department of State preferences. With enthusiastic U.S. support, the Security Council gave UNOSOM II a much broader mission than UNITAF. UNOSOM II was to establish security, political reconciliation, and economic reconstruction. Emblematic of the Clinton administration position at this juncture was U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright’s March 1993 statement that “we will embark on an unprecedented enterprise aimed at nothing less than the restoration of an entire country as a proud, functioning and viable member of the community of nations.”6 Albright’s enthusiasm may have reflected the predominant attitude among senior administration officials, but many in the Department of Defense were unconvinced. As decisions about how much to assist the

11 6

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

UNOSOM II efforts were debated, it was clear that the fundamental schism over interpretations of U.S. national interest remained. Those who believed that the United States had no national interests that would justify a nation-building effort in Somalia, which they judged to be an enormous undertaking, were unenthusiastic about helping the UN. They further argued that it was not in the UN’s interests either, pointing out that scarce UN peacekeeping assets were stretched thin and that Somalia was one of the few peacekeeping challenges in the world that did not threaten to blow up into a larger regional conflict. Those who argued that both the United States and United Nations had a lot at stake—prestige, credibility, precedent for future crises—wanted both to stay the course and prevail. They pointed out that the Somalia intervention was a Chapter VII peace enforcement precedent7 and that it was in the interest of the United States that the effort be seen as a success, both for what it said about U.S. leadership and because the United States needed a strong UN as a partner in conflict resolution. Clinton administration policy statements attempted to resolve this tension by insisting the Somali people must be responsible for their future and simultaneously noting that they needed help to make the transition to national self-governance. The UN was to bear the burden, but the United States would help initially, and gradually wind down even that modest support. The upshot was that a large proficient U.S. force (essentially the marines, army, and SOF, with numerous small international contributing forces in the form of UNITAF I) completed a limited and manageable mission and then passed on a vastly increased and more difficult set of responsibilities to a much less proficient force (UNOSOM II) in May 1993. In short, insufficient means were employed to secure greatly expanded objectives. American policy and strategy for Somalia was long on hope and short on a sober calculation of requirements.

UNOSOM II IS CHALLENGED With few casualties (eight servicemen through mid-May), the marines had been relatively successful in adopting a posture of impartiality and responding forcefully but fairly to any challenge to their authority and mission. UNOSOM II would not be nearly as successful on any of these

SOMALIA

117

counts. Aideed perceived the UNOSOM II mission as hostile to his interests. Before the UN intervention, Aideed was clearly the strongest warlord. He, his Habr Gidi clan, and his political organization, the Somali National Alliance (SNA), controlled most of Mogadishu and much of southern and central Somalia. Aideed increasingly felt threatened militarily not only by UNOSOM II but also by rival warlords. For example, in late February, Aideed suffered a military setback in Kismayo, a city in southern Somalia. Omar Jess, a local warlord allied with Aideed, was forced out of Kismayo by Hersi Morgan’s forces in a surprise attack under the nose of Belgian and U.S. Army soldiers who were charged with keeping the peace there. An angry Aideed held UNITAF responsible and encouraged large-scale anti-UN demonstrations in Mogadishu that rocked the city for days. Politically, Aideed was threatened by UNOSOM II as well, since it seemed inclined to abandon the top-down political reconstruction begun at a January conference in Addis Ababa, where the power of the warlords was recognized, in favor of bottom-up political reconstruction through elected regional and district councils that would limit the power of the warlords. Ali Mahdi, Aideed’s toughest political competitor, had formed a political alliance of eleven factions that managed to consistently outvote Aideed’s SNA faction at UN-sponsored conferences. In response, Aideed mounted an increasingly hostile public relations campaign against the UNOSOM II forces and mission. The United States encouraged a more aggressive public relations campaign to counter Aideed’s propaganda, but the UN was unable to respond effectively. Over the course of May it was clear to all concerned that the UN was failing to make its case to the Somali people. Whereas the marines and SOF’s Fourth Psychological Operations Group had over 150 personnel working on information dissemination with a Somali-language radio station and daily newspaper, UNOSOM II had fewer than five persons working on information full-time. In addition, and in contrast with UNOSOM II— which gradually decided to ignore Aideed—UNITAF leadership had maintained a constant high-level dialogue with Somali leaders of all factions, including Aideed. In light of the propaganda beating the UN was taking, some felt that Aideed’s radio station had to be silenced one way or another. And, of course, there was the general disarmament mission to attend to as well. Both the need to silence Aideed, since the UN could not compete with his rhetoric, and the need to disarm Aideed, in keeping

118

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

with the broader UN mission, put the UN on a collision course with Aideed’s forces. The collision was not a surprise; indeed it was fully expected and even welcomed. In mid-May it was rumored Aideed might be looking for opportunities to assassinate Americans as a way of expressing his displeasure with political and military trends. At the time, American officials were sanguine about the threats, noting privately “that if Aideed was resorting to threats, their strategy of trying to ‘marginalize’ him was paying off.” One American civilian working for the United Nations concluded, “it shows we’re doing something right.”8 In reality, the United States was suffering from strategic confusion of the first order. Whereas the United States government declined comprehensive disarmament because it would require fighting the warlords, which was deemed inconsistent with U.S. national interests, it approved the comprehensive disarmament mission for far less capable UN forces. UNOSOM II was too weak to complete the mission of general disarmament, a mission that would have required fighting Aideed. The United States did not want its forces to battle Aideed’s, and the terms of reference for the Quick Reaction Force eventually stated that it would be not be used for routine patrolling or other activities required for comprehensive disarmament. However, the Quick Reaction Force was used for these activities anyway, since it was the most (some would say only) capable force available. By extension, it was predictable that the U.S. Quick Reaction Force would end up fighting Aideed as well because other UNOSOM II forces were unable to do so effectively. Thus on both the broader question of how to define the mission and what forces would be necessary to accomplish it, as well as on the narrower question of how the U.S.-manned Quick Reaction Force was to be employed, U.S. policy was inconsistent with operational realities. The United States government inconsistently adopted a policy of preventing U.S. forces from doing comprehensive disarmament when they were most capable of it, and obliging them to do it under UN auspices when they were least capable of it. The use of the Quick Reaction Force for disarmament activities contrary to its terms of reference was an early indicator that U.S. policy was not well aligned with operational reality, one that did not register with authorities in Washington. Aideed, however, quickly sent a signal that could not be ignored.

SOMALIA

119

THE JUNE 5 INSPECTION, AMBUSH, AND AFTERMATH The collision course between the UN and Aideed was predetermined by their conflicting goals, but the UN took the initial action that precipitated a confrontation. In keeping with its mandate to achieve general disarmament, the UN decided to conduct its first weapon storage area inspection and audit on June 5 with a list of weapon sites that belonged exclusively to Aideed and his faction.9 One of those sites included Aideed’s Radio Mogadishu, which Aideed had captured after a bitter struggle with Ali Mahdi’s militia and was using to torment the UN with heavy-handed propaganda. UNOSOM II was determined to enter and search all designated sites to establish its authority to do so, an authority the marines possessed but exercised only with advance approval by Aideed. Thus the June 5 UNOSOM II inspection of five Aideed weapon depots was a notable break from the marines’ recent practice. The last UNITAF site visit had been four months earlier, in February. More to the point, the UNOSOM II inspection was conducted on short notice (less than twenty-four hours) and without Aideed’s agreement. The Aideed representative notified of the inspection was surprised, shaken, and refused to approve the inspection. Perhaps he knew that the site inspection would reveal an Aideed arms build-up, which it reportedly did, showing “three times the number of arms officially listed.”10 In any case, he recommended against the snap inspection and candidly warned the UN personnel “you are starting this war tomorrow.” The UN representatives simply responded that he should contact appropriate SNA personnel (i.e., Aideed’s supporters) to ensure compliance. The UN knew that Aideed had said he was prepared to fire on UNOSOM II forces if they “invaded” his weapons storage areas. Thus the Pakistanis assigned the inspection mission were told they might encounter resistance and were instructed to force their entry if necessary. The Quick Reaction Force was notified to be ready to support the Pakistanis. In short, all concerned were prepared for a showdown, and no one at the UN or U.S. headquarters in Mogadishu was surprised when it came. However, Washington and New York were quite surprised by the result of the military operations, as they would be on multiple occasions in the near future. After the Pakistanis secured the radio compound, several Aideed supporters arrived and began to incite the crowd. They also appeared to be

12 0

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

giving direction to the crowd’s feeling that the Pakistanis were fellow Muslims collaborating in the seizure of the radio station. The situation then deteriorated rapidly. After killing one Somali, the Pakistanis disengaged from the radio station location but quickly came under ferocious attack as they passed other sites, particularly feeding station 20. The fighting quickly escalated, and when the Pakistanis finally reached safety, they had sustained twenty-four dead and fifty-seven injured, with six captured. The events of June 5 were important because they revealed the extent to which Aideed could resist the UN. The UN knew Aideed might resist the inspection, but it miscalculated his ability to orchestrate a violent response. Aideed’s response thus invited the UN and United States to rethink their strategy. They had three options. They could back off and negotiate the best agreement possible with the warlords, Aideed in particular. They could hit back at Aideed to punish him for his provocation, but keep open channels of communication for further negotiation. Finally, they could attempt to make an example out of Aideed and eliminate him from the political landscape. The U.S. government and UN chose this latter option. In Washington, a hastily arranged interagency meeting approved a quick and forceful UN response. It came less than forty-eight hours after the event in the form of a new Security Council Resolution (837), strongly supported by the United States, that authorized punitive action against the SNA. UN forces quickly arranged for military action against SNA sites, destroying known weapon caches, and a little later Howe issued a $25,000 reward for information leading to the capture of Aideed, which was too little to have much effect but enough to infuriate Aideed and solidify the state of conflict between him and the UN. Thus began a series of small raids and ambushes by both sides over the course of the summer that inflicted a growing number of casualties. The significance of Aideed’s violent actions and the UN response was that it locked both parties into a struggle from which it was difficult to retreat. For the UN, the events of June 5 irrevocably marked Aideed as an outlaw. The UNOSOM II warrant for Aideed’s arrest specified three categories of crimes: conspiracy to conduct premeditated attacks against UN forces, endangering civilians and UN personnel through organized incitement of violence, and crimes against humanity. Adm. Howe and the American diplomatic representative in Mogadishu, Ambassador Robert Gosende, used the terrorist/terrorism epithet to characterize Aideed and

SOMALIA

12 1

his activities, perhaps to facilitate their increasingly frequent requests that Washington dispatch SOF to deal with him. The views of Howe and Gosende on the need to deal expeditiously with Aideed understandably hardened as more of their personnel died. Howe insisted on June 12 that he still had plans to extend disarmament to the rest of the country. While he was coy about whether force would be used against other warlords, Turkish Gen. Cevik Bir, the Commander of UNOSOM II, noted that he “would not lose any sleep if another warlord gave us reason to bend his cannons.”11 As late as September 6, in a cable entitled “Taking the Offensive,” Gosende wrote that “any plan for negotiating a ‘truce’ with Aideed’s henchmen should be shelved. We should refuse to deal with perpetrators of terrorist acts.”12 Officials back in Washington, such as Defense Secretary Les Aspin, fully supported the disarmament mission that had brought UNOSOM II into conflict with Aideed, but they were less inclined to brand Aideed a terrorist. Officials in both Washington and New York preferred to simply label Aideed a criminal and fugitive from UN justice. By treating Aideed not as a belligerent but as a criminal, the UN hoped to undermine his legitimacy with Somalis. The problem with this approach was that it precluded negotiations; criminals are apprehended rather than invited to the negotiating table. The problem with refusing to negotiate was that the UN did not have the means to eliminate or apprehend Aideed. Whereas the earlier refusal to aggressively disarm Somalia was a decisive limitation on U.S. support to the UN, the decision to get Aideed following the events of June 5 was the opposite: a major escalation of U.S. commitment to the UN effort. It led to an increasingly active role for the American Quick Reaction Force and eventually to the SOF mission to capture Aideed. As for Aideed and the SNA, simultaneously fighting and talking were standard operating procedure. Aideed kept his lines of communication open. He communicated with major political leaders in the international community. For example, in a letter to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Aideed pleaded his case with a mix of fact and fiction, arguing that “the crisis started in Mogadishu on June 5, 1993 when a contingent of American and Pakistani troops seized Radio Mogadishu. Upon hearing the seizure of the Radio studio, thousands of Somali citizens demonstrated peacefully around the station. The troops opened fire on the crowd killing 3.” While making every attempt to characterize

12 2

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

himself as the injured party, Aideed succeeded through intermediaries in making his positions known to the UN. Aideed made sure that U.S. and UN observers in Mogadishu concluded, based on contacts with his closest advisers, that he wanted to be accommodated. Aideed believed UNOSOM II would back down. Instead, U.S. and UNOSOM II leadership concluded that the UN must not give in to Aideed, for if it failed to enforce order in Somalia the credibility of UN Peacekeeping operations in general would diminish significantly. Consequently, UN forces escalated, attacking more SNA storage sites between 12 and 17 June. To reduce risks of ground forces being ambushed, UN forces relied heavily on SOF AC-130 gunships, which caught Washington’s attention. Subsequently, it became more difficult to obtain approval for using U.S. forces. Moreover, the scale of fighting in the June 17 operations disinclined several national components to challenge Aideed in his stronghold around the “Black Sea” slums and Bakara marketplace. The French, on orders from Paris, redeployed from Mogadishu to Baidoa, Somalia.13 The Moroccan and Pakistani forces were told by their capitals to avoid missions into Aideed’s enclave. Even President Clinton implied de-escalation was needed, declaring that the success of the June 17 operation obviated the need for further operations in Aideed’s sector of the city.14 On July 2, Aideed’s forces killed several Italians in an ambush near a pasta factory, ending Italian support for UNOSOM II combat operations. Despite the operating restrictions placed on national components of the UN coalition forces, Gen. Bir, UNOSOM II’s commander, remained intent on his mission to “retake the streets of Mogadishu with an aggressive presence . . . keep [Aideed’s] militia off balance . . . clear Mogadishu of all unauthorized weapons,” and “arrest Mr. Aideed and investigate his complicity in the events of 5 June 1993.”15 After weeks of trading blows, Aideed’s hit-and-run attacks had sidelined some members of the UN coalition forces but had not dented the resolve of UNOCOM II leaders. However, the defection of coalition partners forced Howe and U.S. Maj. Gen. Thomas Montgomery, the deputy UNOSOM II commander and senior U.S. military officer on the scene, to rely even more on the U.S. Quick Reaction Force. In effect, this transferred the fight from UN to US forces. Further escalation seemed inevitable, which caused some of Aideed’s leading supporters to have second thoughts. They gathered on July 12 at a site known as the Abdi House to reconsider the SNA’s path of confrontation. Intelligence indicated SNA

SOMALIA

12 3

leaders met at the Abdi House regularly to plan attacks on the coalition, which made those meetings an attractive target for UN forces. After weeks of meticulous planning and rehearsals for such a strike, UNOSOM II finally received White House and UN permission to execute the operation. Shortly after 10 a.m. on the July 12, U.S. helicopter gunships from the Quick Reaction Force attacked the house with missiles, 20mm rounds and no warning, killing at least twenty to twenty-five senior clan leaders and wounding perhaps another fifty (the Red Cross and Aideed claimed larger numbers). Four international journalists who arrived to cover the carnage instead became part of it when a frenzied crowd beat them to death. The attack hardened clan attitudes in support of Aideed as much as the June 5 attack on the Pakistanis had hardened the resolve of the UN. Until that time, many Aideed backers had believed that the United Nations, and in particular its secretary general, Boutros BoutrosGhali, had been manipulating the naïve United States into supporting an Egyptian agenda under cover of a humanitarian mission. Years earlier, Boutros Boutros-Ghali had been an Egyptian diplomat promoting assistance to former Somali President Siad Barre in his clan-based civil war (a war Aideed and his clan largely won). The SNA assumed the naïve Americans did not understand Boutros-Ghali’s ulterior motives. However, the July 12 Abdi House ambush wiped away any residual sympathy for American simplicity. Many of those most interested in negotiation were killed, and the rest rallied behind Aideed with greater purpose, fully united in pressing the attack on U.S. forces directly rather than as an incidental result of engaging UN forces. Reportedly, even other clans decided at that point to support Aideed, and they lent their support to Aideed’s forces on October 3.16

SOF AND THE SWING BACK TOWARD THE POLITICAL TRACK Adm. Howe began requesting SOF the day after the June 5 attacks. Believing Aideed to be the main roadblock to progress, it was natural to request forces that were most capable of tracking and capturing or eliminating him. A failed attempt by marine forces to apprehend Aideed on June 23 both alerted Aideed to the threat posed by U.S. forces and seemed to underscore the need for more capable forces. By early July, Ambassador Gosende was also making explicit requests for SOF to capture Aideed

12 4

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

and his senior officials. Gen. Montgomery also advocated using SOF because the Quick Reaction Force was not suited to the task and “a surgical force was needed to avoid excessive violence.”17 Yet decision-makers at higher echelons of command and officials advising them in the bureaucracy remained highly skeptical of such a mission. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict put his objection in writing, not only noting the intelligence on Aideed was insufficient but more fundamentally that it was not in the U.S. interests to get involved in a counterinsurgency campaign against Aideed. In remarks tied to a June 23 supplemental appropriation of $750 million for the Somalia operation, two senators criticized the hunt for Aideed and went on record against it. Gen. Hoar, the commander of Central Command, recommended against it, saying there was only a 50  percent chance they would get the necessary intelligence, and then only a 50 percent chance they would get Aideed. In sum, he considered it a 25 percent chance of success and a high-risk mission in any case. Gen. Powell concurred. When Aideed’s forces killed four U.S. military police with a command-detonated landmine on August 8, the U.S. response was to escalate. On August 10, UN Ambassador Albright promised that U.S. forces would “stay as long as needed to lift the country and its people from the category of a failed state into that of an emerging democracy.” Meanwhile, inside the Defense Department, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Frank Wisner now personally made the case that more casualties would occur until Aideed was dealt with—and that SOF was the best chance for dealing with him. In making this recommendation Wisner chose to override the position adopted by his staff responsible for SOF policy and mission oversight, who argued against it.18 But with casualties mounting, Wisner decided to recommend more emphasis on military options, and SOF in particular. Thus he broke from the positions advocated by career Department of Defense officials and sided with the Department of State, senior NSC staff, and those in the field. Secretary Aspin agreed, and Gen. Powell came on board after consulting with the commander of the Quick Reaction Force and the SOF forces that were to be deployed. A mid-August senior interagency meeting on Somalia concluded with a four-part plan: continuing efforts to apprehend Aideed, pursuing the possibility of forced exile for Aideed, assisting the UN in arresting key Aideed deputies, and pressing the UN for detailed plans

SOMALIA

12 5

for detention and trial of Aideed if captured. With the Department of Defense now on board, all that was required was a presidential decision. When a landmine injured six soldiers on August 22, President Clinton ordered Task Force Ranger to Somalia. The Task Force, consisting of Rangers and special mission unit personnel, arrived on August 26. Aideed welcomed the task force with a mortar attack that wounded personnel. Within days of arriving, the task force struck back, but due to poor intelligence, SOF descended on a UN location and detained UN personnel in a case of mistaken identity. This event only deepened the concern of critics like Gen. Hoar, who continued to lobby against the “Task Force Ranger” mission to get Aideed. His view seemed to be that the Aideed problem could be handled only by a major infusion of ground forces, a level of commitment that exceeded U.S. interests in Somalia.19 The day after Task Force Ranger arrived in Mogadishu, Secretary Aspin gave a major speech on policy in Somalia. It was designed to finally clarify U.S. objectives, but it only succeeded in demonstrating that policy had not yet come to grips with the cost of continued support for the expanded UN mission. Aspin noted that the current crisis was the result of UNOSOM II’s mandate and activities, which undermined Aideed’s position politically and militarily. Like earlier UN officials in Mogadishu, Aspin concluded that the fighting was therefore evidence of success. He went on to identify the real threat to U.S. interests: “The danger now is that unless we return security to south Mogadishu, political chaos will follow the UN withdrawal. . . . The danger is that the situation will return to what existed before the United States sent in the troops.” Meanwhile, CIA and senior military observers were concluding that precisely because the United States and UN were threatening Aideed’s power base, he would fight, and that contending with him would be a drawn-out affair requiring years of patient effort and the continued employment of sizeable military forces. For precisely this reason, and because the deployment of Task Force Ranger constituted further U.S. military escalation, Gen. Hoar sent a message in the first week of September warning that the UN mandate in Somalia was too ambitious. He bluntly stated that the current strategy was inconsistent with the available resources, and he urged Washington to convince the UN to scale back its objectives in Somalia. The message was sobering but did not have an immediate impact on policy.

12 6

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

Following the initial Task Force Ranger raid that went awry, the task force trained but otherwise did not launch any operations for the next six days or so. The intelligence community recognized that real-time intelligence on Aideed’s whereabouts was degrading precipitously. For one thing, their agents were suddenly disappearing. Perhaps in recognition of this, Ambassador Gosende, the senior U.S. diplomatic representative in Somalia, began having second thoughts, which he shared with Washington. He argued that it might just be better to negotiate a solution with Aideed, perhaps convincing him to accept a golden parachute into exile. This was the first crack in the united front from Mogadishu that favored pressing the attack on Aideed, and it suggested the political tide was turning decisively against the SOF mission. The very next day (September 7), Maj. Gen. William Garrison, the commander of the task force, launched an attack against less important SNA targets and succeeded in capturing seventeen suspects, but it was not enough to impress Gosende. A week or so later, he sent a pointed high-priority cable from Mogadishu underscoring his transition from a passionate advocacy of arresting Aideed to an equally heartfelt recommendation to enter into a cease-fire and negotiate with him.20 Meanwhile, Aideed was busy on the political front as well, having launched an appeal to former President Jimmy Carter requesting help in preventing an impending disaster. Aideed claimed the U.S. government and UN were trying to handpick leaders for Somalia against the wishes of the vast majority of the Somali people and that this was the root cause of the conflict between the SNA and the U.S.-led mission in Somalia. On September 13, Carter met with Clinton to discuss Somalia. Carter advised Clinton to abandon the military confrontation in favor of a political solution. Carter had the impression that President Clinton agreed with him. On September 20, Secretary of State Warren Christopher gave UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali an informal memo recommending that the UN shift to a political track and negotiate with Aideed. Boutros-Ghali rejected the recommendation and said it was necessary to continue to hunt Aideed. Whatever his private reservations, President Clinton made it clear he was not ready to break with the UN publicly. When he spoke to the UN General Assembly on September 27, President Clinton expressed concern about Somalia but indicated no change of course was in the offing. However, a New York Times article on September 29 provided details on the difference of opinion between Boutros-Ghali and the United

SOMALIA

12 7

States. Boutros-Ghali continued to insist that the Security Council resolution obliged him to try to bring Aideed to justice, despite the new American strategy, not yet announced publicly, to move away from the goal of capturing him. Thus as September drew to a close, U.S. policy and strategy were seriously conflicted. One the one hand, Task Force Ranger had been dispatched and was actively hunting Aideed. On the other hand, U.S. commitment to the overall mission was declining. A September 14 request from Gen. Montgomery, commander of the Quick Reaction Force, for armor to help UNOSOM II forces deal with Aideed’s roadblocks was denied. Montgomery worried that UN troops with armor would not respond if called upon. Gen. Powell and Secretary Aspin denied the request as incompatible with the desire to gradually reduce the overall U.S. military presence in Somalia.21 According to one account of Aspin’s conversation with Powell about the request for armor, “the secretary told Powell that in terms of overall strategy in Somalia ‘the trend is all going the other way’ and that Congress would be all over the administration if it raised the visibility of its presence there.” Gen. Hoar agreed with Montgomery’s request for additional armor but “added there was a political downside to the proposal. Sending armor would expand the ‘U.S. footprint in Somali,’ elevate ‘Aideed’s stature,’ and increase ‘collateral damage in Somali due to the increased firepower.’ ” As Gen. Hoar noted at the time, given these circumstances, it was incumbent upon the United States to either persuade the UN to scale back its mission consistent with the effects its military forces could deliver, or to significantly increase its commitment and underwrite the UN mission for an indefinite period of time. Congress, increasingly alarmed about the course of events in Somalia, seemed inclined to agree with Gen. Hoar. Each violent encounter with Aideed’s forces provoked congressional calls for a U.S. pullout. However, by late September Democrats were joining the Republican in taking this stance, which boded ill for the Clinton administration’s ability to sustain the mission. Congress then passed a nonbinding resolution requiring the president to seek specific Congressional approval by November 15 to keep any troops in Somalia. Public support was flagging as well. In the last week of September, polls indicated public support for U.S. troops in Somalia was down from 79 to 46 percent, with only 22 percent in favor of trying to disarm warlords.

12 8

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

For all these reasons, a policy reassessment of sorts was underway by late September. Increasingly, there was talk of finding a political solution. Even the Department of State acknowledged the military track was proving ineffective. Department of State position papers at the end of September observed that as the political track built up, the military track should build down. It was suggested the withdrawal of Task Force Ranger could best be covered as a logical part of the first phase of a new political strategy, even though the real reason would be the task force’s lack of effectiveness. Internal Department of Defense strategy papers concurred it was unlikely Aideed would be captured and advised a transition to the political track while keeping up military pressure. The explicit assumption was that in order for Aideed to be pressured into accepting a political solution, the military efforts needed to continue for the time being. The implicit assumption in this dual-track strategy was that the military operations of Task Force Ranger were not particularly high risk, at least politically. No one in Washington seemed to have any appreciation for the likelihood that a major firefight was about to take place that would change the course of the U.S. intervention in Somalia.

The October 3 Firefight: SOF Defeated in Victory While officials in Washington understood that capturing Aideed was increasingly less likely, they did not appreciate the growing risks to Task Force Ranger operations. In the field, however, there was better awareness. The commander of Task Force Ranger, Gen. Garrison, understood his tactical but also his political situation well, both of which were turning against his Ranger and special mission unit operations. Among other things, Aideed’s forces began to demonstrate competence in shooting down helicopters. In response, around the third week of September Garrison began having his forces train for how they would react to a downed helicopter. A bit later, on September 25, Aideed’s forces did shoot down a helicopter over the Black Sea area with a rocket-propelled grenade, killing three Americans. Some considered it a “one in a million shot,” but Garrison’s training decision suggested a different and more accurate appreciation of the risks. It seemed clear Aideed’s forces were increasingly cognizant of Task Force Ranger tactics. Prior to October 3, Task Force Ranger conducted six live missions (three of which were conducted in daylight),22 while

SOMALIA

12 9

another thirty-five or forty were aborted because of insufficient intelligence. The last one, on September 21, had nabbed Osman Ato, a key Aideed subordinate. Garrison tried to mask Task Force Ranger tactics by varying exfiltration platforms and flying false missions over the city to confuse SNA observers, but the basic modus operandi could not be varied greatly. As Garrison said in his after-action report, “timely, accurate and reliable intelligence” was “the key to success,”23 and he knew the intelligence on Aideed was not getting better as time passed.24 Some technical intelligence was available, but human intelligence was critical. It was shockingly inadequate, by some accounts.25 Thus launching the October 3 mission on the basis of information from an Aideed supporter-turned-informant constituted a significant gamble. Much depended upon the untested reliability of a single source whose motives were questionable. On September 30, several days before the October 3 battle with Aideed’s forces, even the popular press was putting these pieces together and reporting on them. The Boston Globe reported that, according to a CIA report and official sources in Mogadishu, UN troops were isolated and facing the risk of a major assault by Aideed forces. It quoted an official who said that “the efficiency of the U.S. Army Ranger . . . teams sent in to track Aideed were decreasing by the day” and said analysts knew Aideed was consolidating his position, able to move with increasing ease, and capable of hitting U.S. helicopters.26 Given the deteriorating conditions, a couple of weeks had elapsed since the last mission. Moreover, Garrison knew that the political winds were blowing against the military option and in favor of negotiations. As he later noted, he knew Gen. Hoar was expressing reservations, as was Ambassador Gosende—previously the most resolute critic of compromising or even negotiating with Aideed. Garrison and Hoar had discussed the risk of going near the Bakara market, and Hoar had ordered Garrison in certain circumstances not to do so. Aideed and his forces were concentrated in the Black Sea/Bakara market area, and it was widely understood that operating there would be an especially high-risk endeavor. Indeed, losing a helicopter in Aideed’s section of Mogadishu was considered a “worst-case scenario” by U.S. forces.27 When Garrison decided to launch the October 3 mission into Aideed’s enclave, he did something he had not done for previous missions. He ordered that the helicopters carrying and supporting the troops on their

13 0

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

raids be armed with rockets. He then went to salute personally each helicopter crew and its other SOF occupants before takeoff. In another first, he ordered the task force to shoot any threatening Somalis rather than giving them a chance to surrender.28 SOF participants later told senior diplomatic leaders on the scene that they knew they were operating “at the edge of the envelope”; i.e., that the operational risks they ran were high and that operating in the vicinity of the Bakara market was particularly dangerous. So by all indications, Gen. Garrison knew the risks he was running. It appears his superiors in Washington did not. As the New York Times reported after the battle, “administration officials were at a loss to explain why a military raid . . . was conducted at the same time that Mr. Christopher was waging a campaign to persuade a reluctant Mr. Boutros-Ghali to pursue a political track aggressively. . . . At the State Department, some senior officials said they were surprised by news of the military operations.”29 The Washington Post reported that internally, the President complained that without a full debate and without him understanding the implications, the United States signed on to a UN agenda that turned out to be a fatal error: pursuing the factional leader Mohammed Farah Aideed. Clinton told lawmakers that changed what he signed on to and was a mistake. He said this even though the United States approved the UN resolution authorizing the hunt for Aideed, which has been conducted almost exclusively with U.S. forces.30

Later, on May 12, 1994, when President Clinton met with families of the soldiers slain in the October 3 fight, the father of a fallen Ranger asked why the raid had taken place if the U.S. government was pursuing a political solution. The president agreed that the raid was incomprehensible. He offered as explanation for the debacle his reluctance to micromanage the military, telling the families that he intentionally remained disengaged from military matters in Somalia. In the aftermath of the October 3 battle, President Clinton, who considered Somalia the low point of his presidency, demanded Secretary Aspin’s resignation. Many blamed Aspin for disapproving Montgomery’s request for armor. Aspin, sitting at the apex of the Department of Defense, had the impression the political track was being pursued or, as discussed above, that “the trend [was] all going the other way;” i.e., against fighting

SOMALIA

13 1

Aideed. He was wrong. Lower-ranking officials soon admitted that even when the administration began to rethink its approach in September, it did not tell the U.S. forces in Somalia to abandon the hunt for Aideed. Orders to try to capture Aideed were not rescinded, “one senior official said, because Washington had not yet given up the idea of capturing him.”31 In short, Clinton’s senior foreign policy advisors were still pursuing a two-track military and political strategy when the October 3 raid took place. While some expressions of shock and ignorance about ongoing military operations in Mogadishu may have been exaggerated, the surest sign that Washington was genuinely surprised by the scale and intensity of combat on October 3 was the inept public affairs response to the battle. For months, senior administration officials had argued against abandoning the UN in Somalia because it was in U.S. interests to ensure the success of the first Chapter VII peace enforcement operation. Yet when President Clinton spoke to the American people, appalled and outraged by photos of desecrated American dead on October 6, he could only observe “it curdles the stomach of every American to see that, because we went there for no purpose other than to keep those people alive. We had no other purpose than a humanitarian mission.”32 The humanitarian mission could not explain fighting Aideed and his forces. It could not answer the question posed by the father of the deceased Ranger who asked, “if it was so important to capture Mohammed Aideed when the Rangers went over there, why was it so unimportant on October 4?”33 With the president of the United States unable or unwilling to offer a broader strategic rationale for the use of force in Mogadishu, there seemed no point in remaining in Somalia and shooting people. At an October 6 NSC meeting, Clinton decided to shift completely to a political track. He gave orders that U.S. forces would no longer pursue Aideed and dispatched Ambassador Oakley and U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni to Somalia to be sure that Aideed and U.S. and UN forces got the new policy guidance. Aideed’s faction agreed to release Warrant Officer Michael Durant, the one American captured on October 3, and a Nigerian prisoner, with no compensation or conditions as part of the new political approach. In an October 7 meeting with congressional leadership the president encountered total opposition to the United States staying in Somalia, but he was able to negotiate a five-month delay in the pullout, during which the Administration would try to strengthen

13 2

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

UNOSOM  II. A week later, in a letter to Congress, President Clinton expanded his rationale for hanging on in Somalia, noting that “having been brutally attacked, were American forces to leave now we would send a message to terrorists and other potential adversaries around the world that they can change our policies by killing our people. It would be open season on Americans.”34 That rationale struck Congress as weak, and it pulled the plug on the operation. With eerie parallels to the Tet offensive in Vietnam, Aideed had secured a strategic political victory with a huge tactical defeat of his forces. Task Force Ranger had inflicted almost a thousand casualties on the SNA on October 3,35 and by some accounts, Aideed’s blood-soaked clan was traumatized at the scale of death and destruction they had suffered without being able to overrun the small American contingent. Some intelligence later suggested that SNA support for Aideed’s policy of confrontation was dealt a lethal blow on October 3. If so, Aideed masked the dissension well by continuing to inflict casualties with mortar attacks three days later and on through the month until the UN declared a ceasefire. Finally, in November, Aideed complied with the cease-fire so the United States could organize its withdrawal without the SNA sustaining further casualties. The United States sent a large joint military task force to ensure that U.S. forces could withdraw safely, but it was not authorized to undertake offensive actions or even to enter the city of Mogadishu for fear of casualties.

LESSONS FOR TODAY: SOMALIA AS A POLITICAL, STRATEGIC, OPERATIONAL, AND TACTICAL FAILURE Like several previous small conflicts, Somalia produced deep policy divisions in Washington and poor results in the field that shook up presidential cabinets and marked a high or low point of a presidential administration.36 Somalia effectively ended the Clinton administration’s policy of “aggressive multilateralism,” terminated Secretary Les Aspin’s short career as secretary of defense, and increased tensions between senior civilian and military leaders.37 Somalia also was a blow to America’s reputation. Just as Aideed bluntly told Ambassador Oakley that American failures in Vietnam and Beirut proved the United States did not have staying power, Osama Bin Laden and others would similarly but erroneously

SOMALIA

133

conclude from Somalia and other events that the United States lacked the will to protect its interests. When the United States performs poorly in smaller conflicts where less than vital interests are at stake, it nevertheless pays a price for failure, inviting miscalculations on the part of its enemies and higher overall costs for ensuring its security. Since the failure in Somalia had significant repercussions, understanding what went wrong and how to prevent it is valuable. Learning from Somalia is also important for the SOF community for two reasons. First, Somalia not only hurt America’s and the Clinton administration’s reputation but also SOF’s reputation. The popular press and pundits have argued Mogadishu was a “military disaster to rank with Desert One or the bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut,”38 comparisons that underscore the extent to which the credibility SOF built up in the first Gulf War was set back by Somalia. The positive SOF achievements in Somalia during UNITAF were all but forgotten. Some thought Somalia lent credence to the old saw that SOF can get you into, but not out of, trouble. SOF skeptics have long argued that SOF cannot secure important national objectives at disproportionately low costs as their proponents advertise and accordingly should not be trusted with independent national-level missions. Rather, SOF should be assigned the more limited role of supporting conventional force operations. To counter such critics, SOF had a significant institutional stake in learning from Somalia. More broadly, since SOF is often assigned missions in stability operations and low-intensity conflicts like Somalia, and indeed are generally seen as uniquely capable of contributing to such endeavors, it is important that SOF understand the requirements for success in these environments. Just as the failure to rescue American hostages in Iran galvanized reform of America’s SOF capability, Somalia should have prompted a similar reassessment of both SOF and America’s approach to special operations. Before considering whether that happened, it helps to review the real lessons of Somalia.

THE WRONG LESSONS The Somalia experience was a notable failure for the United States in two respects. First, to paraphrase what Henry Kissinger once said in the aftermath of an inept handling of a crisis, there is evidence that the

13 4

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

poor performance dismayed our friends and emboldened our adversaries (for example, Osama bin Laden, as mentioned above). In fact, there is evidence that we dismayed our own leadership about SOF and in effect deterred ourselves from using SOF (e.g., against al-Qaeda) when arguably they were the appropriate option.39 Second, we did not learn the right lessons from Somalia, either in the SOF community or in the broader national security community. In fact, many of the more popular lessons articulated about Somalia have been erroneous ones. The most immediate, and to some extent persistent, lesson attributed to Somalia was that it demonstrated how casualty-adverse the American public is. Americans are, comparatively speaking, loath to suffer or to some extent inflict casualties needlessly. However, as the account provided here demonstrates, the Clinton administration was not obliged to abandon Somalia simply because U.S. forces suffered casualties. If the American public understands the rationale for a military operation, it typically supports an operation until success is secured,40 in part to minimize unnecessary casualties by making the military contest as short as possible. This proved to be the case in Somalia, as evidenced by the decisions to authorize increasingly lethal action against Aideed. The public and Congress demanded a withdrawal only when the president was unable to offer any good strategic rationale that would justify continued sacrifices. Another popular, and enduring,41 explanation for failure was lack of commitment. Those who thought UN success was an important U.S. security objective wanted comprehensive disarmament. They lamented that those who argued UN success in Somalia was not a critical U.S. interest ended up thwarting comprehensive disarmament when the marines had a chance to enforce it. They argued that the United States should have disarmed Aideed and the other warlords when it would have been easy to do so. Two objections may be raised to this speculative defense of the broader mission mandate. First, the country was awash in arms and would have required a much larger force than the marines fielded to enforce comprehensive disarmament, something military leaders unanimously agreed upon. Second, it ignores the fact that Aideed (and perhaps other warlords) was prepared to fight to protect his perceived interests. The job could have been done, but at what cost? For many, the costs were easily assessed as too high from the beginning, and in this regard history proved right those who wanted to avoid disarming the Somalis.

SOMALIA

135

Yet another popular lesson from Somalia draws a contrary conclusion about commitment and instead emphasizes the need for an “exit strategy.” This lesson suggests that the United States was mired in Somalia and simply could not extricate itself before disaster struck. This lesson does not accord with the facts. The marines had an exit strategy. They left; it did not matter that the UN threatened not to send a replacement force. The point is that discussion of exit strategies obscures the central issue: U.S. interests and the costs they justify. Since the costs cannot be perfectly known before the operation, they must be assessed as the operation unfolds and resistance and force performance become evident. It is always possible to find a way to minimize damage to prestige or, more happily, to pass a successful operation on to others with greater interests in the outcome. In fact, the State Department was planning its face-saving rationale for a return to negotiations with Aideed when the October 3 fight occurred. Another common lesson attributed to Somalia—related to the previously mentioned argument for overwhelming force—is that the failure was due to civilian meddling in operational military affairs. Some argue that political leaders interfered and precluded the deployment of AC-130s, armor, and other forces that would have made it possible to save the day when SOF were pinned down in extended urban combat in Mogadishu on October 3, 1993. The Task Force arrived in Somalia after AC-130 gunships, which can provide highly precise, close air support for ground forces, had been withdrawn. The gunships require a lot of support personnel and decision-makers wanted to limit the numbers of U.S. personnel in Somalia. A later request for armor was also turned down. However, Gen. Garrison, who personally assured Gen. Montgomery during the battle that the Rangers were not in immediate danger of being overrun,42 and consistent with that view, later claimed he had all the firepower he needed, discounts the significance of the decisions not to send the AC-130s and armor. Similarly, generals Hoar and Montgomery testified to Congress that the additional armor would not have reduced Ranger casualties but might have avoided losses in the Quick Reaction Force. By other assessments, a soldier bled to death who might have been saved had the armored relief force arrived earlier. Given the casualties U.S. forces inflicted and the fact that they were not overrun, Garrison’s belief that lack of more readily available firepower was not a key factor in the firefight seems reasonable.

13 6

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

Even so, the decisions to limit the means available to SOF raise broader questions about the right of senior leaders to impose such limits when approving special operations. In this respect it should be noted that gunships and armor were not the only additional forces requested by commanders in the field. Adm. Howe wanted virtually everything in the U.S. arsenal, including aircraft carriers and field artillery, to throw at Aideed. Both military and civilian officials in the chain of command thought his requests were ridiculous. Gen. Hoar and others argued that such firepower was inappropriate to a counterinsurgency campaign. More ground forces and better intelligence were needed if such a determined effort was judged to be in the nation’s interests. The whole point of deploying SOF was to circumvent the need for such a large force commitment. President Clinton, for his part, used the popular prejudice that elected authorities should stay out of operational military matters when he wanted to obscure his administration’s responsibility for events in Somalia. But, of course, such intervention is necessary. Sensitive special operations require close oversight from national leadership, just as a senate investigation correctly concluded two years after the event. Another erroneous lesson, albeit one that has diminished with time, is the allegation that U.S. forces failed in Somalia because they were under UN command with no one clearly in charge.43 This erroneous assessment has been debunked by a number of sources. Most pertinent for the discussion here, Garrison did not report to Wayne Downing, the commander of USSOCOM. He reported directly to Gen. Hoar, the commander of Central Command, as did Gen. Montgomery, the commander of U.S. Forces, Somalia, which included some SOF elements. Garrison coordinated closely with the Quick Reaction Force, and at no time did the UN control U.S. military forces and employ them in a manner inconsistent with U.S. policy. In fact, France pulled its forces out of the UN chain of command when it discovered that the American Quick Reaction Force would take orders only from American commanders. There may be some truth in the suspicion that some of America’s allies were trading intelligence with Aideed to secure his agreement not to target their forces. If so, it helped Aideed secure his tremendous intelligence advantage, but this kind of treachery was simply part of the operational milieu and not a characteristic of UN command and control, nor a major determinant of the mission’s outcome.

SOMALIA

13 7

Yet another mistaken observation about Somalia is that the command and control of such difficult operations is ultimately a question of leadership. Gen. Johnson and Ambassador Oakley were effective in a complex and shifting environment; Adm. Howe, Ambassador Gosende, Gen. Bir (and other military leaders) were not. While Oakley and Johnson were extraordinary in their rapport and practical wisdom, this explanation for success and failure in Somalia is unfair and misleading. It is unfair because it ignores the fundamental policy and strategy failures that Howe, Gosende, and others in the field had to contend with after Johnson and Oakley left: a U.S. government divided and promoting contradictory policy positions that assigned them a vast mission and insufficient resources for its accomplishment. The broader UN mission would not allow those responsible for its completion the luxury of remaining nonpartisan. To accomplish their broad mandate of comprehensive disarmament and bottom-up political reconstruction, they inevitably had to challenge the warlords. This was so much the case that they interpreted Aideed’s wrath as evidence they were doing their job right. Thus the problem was fundamentally one of policy choices, not personalities. Moreover, the emphasis on individual leaders is misleading. It suggests nothing can be learned or done to improve performance in stability operations other than to stumble upon effective leaders. Despite the number and popularity of these false lessons, there are real lessons that can be learned from Somalia about SOF and one of its most important missions: combating irregular warriors. This kind of warfare requires patience, persistence, discriminate force, popular support, and unity of effort in all levels of both political and military action. SOF should be at the forefront of efforts to identify, retain, and apply lessons on irregular warfare, but in the spring and summer of 1993, Aideed understood low-intensity conflict imperatives better than those he was fighting.

THE RIGHT LESSONS First, Somalia was primarily a policy failure not because the policy was wrong, although it was, but because it was not clarified, communicated, and defended. Oddly, a Republican administration decided to intervene

13 8

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

while claiming no national security interests that would justify risks to military personnel who swear allegiance to the defense of the Constitution rather than a president’s moral sensibilities. The Democratic administration, on the other hand, argued that U.S. interests actually were at stake but tried to please all major parties—the United Nations, departments of State and Defense, and other nations—without reconciling competing policies or being clear-headed about their implications. The administration’s representatives waxed eloquent at the UN about a new, unprecedented undertaking in nation-building but did not acknowledge the costs of such an undertaking. The administration promulgated confused policy guidance, simultaneously insisting that the United States draw down its support and that it not let the UN fail. In essence, policy was torn between those who thought American interests were tied up in the UN’s success in Somalia and those who did not, and the inconsistency was resolved with confused and wishful thinking. Despite every expectation that Aideed would fight for his perceived interests, we hoped he would be less recalcitrant, and then that he would be easily thwarted, and finally that SOF would deal with him quickly. Worst of all, when SOF was not able to capture Aideed and paid a heavy price for trying to do so, the administration could not articulate to the American people a rationale to justify the blood that was shed. The lesson in this policy failure for SOF is that even the United States, temperamentally inclined to persist rather than retreat, must nevertheless balance rising costs against limited objectives. Evaluating policy objectives in light of uncertain but growing costs is difficult and requires a hardheaded assessment of risks and likely chances of success. Only Gen. Hoar was providing such assessments: calls for reevaluation as costs increased and intelligence on Aideed’s whereabouts degraded. Gen. Garrison, the SOF commander, focused more narrowly on the possibility of tactical success, which he knew was declining, irrespective of risks, which he knew were increasing. It is important to note that Garrison’s decision to enter the Bakara market did not violate his guidance nor U.S. policy or strategy, which continued to emphasize military pressure on Aideed while switching to the political track. Nor did Garrison’s decision reflect an exaggerated sense of confidence, as some allege.44 Throughout, Garrison’s estimate of the risks he ran and his force’s capabilities were remarkably accurate. The key point is that Garrison made his decision without sharing his

SOMALIA

139

astute knowledge of risks with political authorities. Contrary to what President Clinton told the families of the deceased soldiers, independent SOF operations require close supervision by senior leaders in Washington, a point made by the senate investigation prompted by the events of October 3. U.S. foreign policy was and will be affected for years as a result of the raid of October 3–4. It is clear that both civilian officials and military leaders should have been carefully and continually re-evaluating the Task Force Ranger mission and tactics after each raid, with an eye toward recommending that the operation be terminated if the risks were deemed to have risen too high.45

This kind of policy and operational coordination in national-level special operations used to be axiomatic in SOF doctrine but was not honored in Somalia. Reportedly, a week before the October 3 fight, Garrison told Washington “if we go into the vicinity of the Bakara market, there’s no question we’ll win the gunfight, but we might lose the war.”46 Garrison’s prophetic estimate of extant risks underscores why his decision to launch a raid into the Bakara market should not have been his alone to make. Good oversight of strategic operations is a shared responsibility. Senior officials in Washington should have been keeping close watch on SOF operations in Mogadishu and ensuring the risks they ran were commensurate with the policy and strategy objectives at stake, but the SOF commander also should have been updating Washington on the growing risks. As noted above, the popular press was reporting on the deteriorating situation and increasing risks to U.S. forces, which alone should have prompted a hard conversation about operational parameters. Special mission units originally complained that the creation of SOCOM would distance them from national leadership with an intervening level of command. In the case of Somalia, however, the SOF commander avoided rather than demanded a tight coordination of operations with policy objectives. As for oversight from Washington, the Deputies Committee ostensibly monitoring Somalia could not keep pace with the rapidly evolving tactical situation.47 Moreover, the two main Pentagon bodies of expertise on SOF—SOCOM and the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity

14 0

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

Conflict—recommended opposite courses of action. SOCOM wanted the mission, while staff in the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict recommended against the mission.48 Relations between the two organizations were so poor that a reasoned debate between them over such courses of action and their merits was not possible. Admittedly, it is hard to say in retrospect whether a frank assessment of the tactical situation from the on-scene SOF commander would have galvanized policy makers to a sober assessment of their chosen course of action or better prepared them to defend it after the October 3 battle. Certainly, Gen. Hoar’s remonstrations were not successful in that regard. Similarly, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy ultimately decided to ignore the advice he received from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict. However, the broader point is that SOF commanders (and policy makers) should have been coordinating national-level SOF missions with national policy on an iterative basis. Doing so is the surest safeguard against a typically heroic tactical effort by SOF ending in a strategic setback. A related point is that SOF operations must be supported with active information campaigns. In the end, the greatest error was simply a failure to comprehend the political importance of a major firefight and being well prepared to defend the results to the public in Somalia, the United States, and elsewhere. Such an information contingency plan might have salvaged the devastating blow SOF inflicted on the SNA forces; its absence relegated SOF’s tactical excellence to a poignant afterthought. SOF leadership not only failed to apprise civilian leadership of the risks SOF were running in Mogadishu but also had no information campaign ready to exploit successes or limit damage as events dictated. Recognizing that tactical operations and their outcome can have political and strategic significance is conventional wisdom among those who study small and irregular wars, and it used to be orthodox thinking in SOF. It also used to be standard thinking in SOF that special operations are defined in part by their psychological impact, which would underscore the requirement to have a PSYOP and public relations plan ready to cover likely outcomes. None of these historic SOF perspectives were on display in the oversight and leadership of Task Force Ranger, and the consequences of the policy failure were magnified as a result.

SOMALIA

1 41

Somalia was also a strategy failure, one that contains key lessons for SOF. First, and most broadly, insufficient means were employed to secure objectives that were dramatically expanded. The United States wholeheartedly endorsed, and some would say engineered, the broader UN mandate, which would require—if anything—an even more potent force than the marines had on hand. Yet, as one confidential assessment after another concluded, UNOSOM II forces were not up to the task. Second, and more specifically, as it became apparent that snatching Aideed was a long shot, the United States increasingly pursued political options while keeping up military pressure on Aideed. Since Aideed was pursuing the same strategy of talking while fighting, and the marines had similarly combined a judicious use of force with constant communication, in theory Gosende and Garrison should have been able to execute such a strategy, but they were handicapped by two critical limitations of their own making. First, having declared Aideed a criminal, if not a terrorist, no one in Mogadishu (or Washington or New York) was inclined to try to negotiate with him. The use of lethal force against an adversary while trying to negotiate is always a complicated and delicate enterprise. It is an impossible one if either side is unwilling to communicate, which essentially describes the U.S. and UN post-June 5 positions. Second, even when Gosende changed his mind in the fall and concluded that negotiations might be necessary, he did not have the relationship with Garrison that Ambassador Oakley had with his military counterpart, Gen, Johnson. Hence Garrison went his own way and Gosende sent his missives to Washington, which was even further removed from a tactical understanding of the situation and still not of one mind on how to proceed. The senate report correctly concluded “the decision to continue the raids should have been better coordinated within the administration with the concurrent U.S. effort to revitalize the political process to produce a twotrack approach.”49 Again, the lesson for SOF is that they must work with and not around political authorities, participating fully in the development and evolution of plans for strategic special operations. Since good strategy is a product of good analysis of ways, ends, and means, SOF must know its strengths and limitations and communicate them effectively. Special mission units, in particular, are not inclined to recognize limitations, which in part is

1 42

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

what makes them such formidable forces. They are selected, trained, and encouraged to embrace a “never quit” attitude. Again, the senate investigation of the events of October 3 makes a keen observation in this regard: One of the weaknesses of a unit like Task Force Ranger, whose combat capabilities are unparalleled, is the belief by the unit members and its commanders that they can accomplish any mission. Because of the supreme confidence of special operations forces, the chain of command must provide more oversight to this type of unit than to conventional forces.50

The senate’s conclusion underscores the inadequacy of SOF oversight, but the rare public rebuke of a subordinate SOF commander recorded in the senate report underscored oversight of SOF is a shared responsibility between political and military leaders. The commander of SOCOM, Gen. Wayne Downing, testified: “I kept telling General Garrison not to do anything crazy. I told him to wait Aideed out, be careful, this is a tough mission, but we can do it; be patient, be careful, eventually you will get a shot at Aideed.”51 Downing’s comment calls attention to the need for SOF to keep the chain of command informed on risks, but also for the chain of command to carefully consider the most appropriate SOF forces for the mission. A Pentagon quip from this time period said we dispatch special mission units “when we care enough to send the very best.” The real issue is which type of unit, in the range of SOF forces available, is best suited to conduct a mission. It may not always be the special mission unit. For example, it used to be the case that army Special Forces were more inclined toward creative assessment of alternative ways and means and more willing to work in ambiguous situations requiring patience. Whether that remains the case after almost two decade of operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere is an issue taken up later in this book. Somalia was also an operational failure insomuch as the United States did not adopt the type of systematic counterinsurgency campaign that would have been required to root Aideed out of Mogadishu and eliminate him as a force in Somali politics. SOF should have been the lead planners for the concept of operations in Somalia insofar as they are designed to be the nation’s premier experts on irregular warfare. When national authorities opted instead to snatch Aideed, SOF should have been the first in line to explain the importance of tactical surprise. Instead, the United

SOMALIA

1 43

States abandoned the element of surprise, normally a key prerequisite for success in this kind of special operations. SOCOM said shortly after the June 5 attack on the Pakistanis that SOF could nab Aideed. It would have been easier then, certainly, but the United States took a series of steps that substantially increased the operational difficulties for SOF. First, the United States declared Aideed a criminal and put a reward on his head, effectively putting him on his guard. Then the marines tried to capture him and failed, further increasing his alert status. Finally, the United States sent SOF but not before publicly announcing that it was doing so, thus removing any lingering doubts Aideed might have had about the need to take extraordinary security precautions. He did so, ruthlessly eliminating or turning agents reporting to American intelligence officers. After ceding so much to Aideed, it might have been better to allow SOF the latitude of taking him dead or alive. Apparently, SOF had several opportunities to eliminate Aideed at a distance, much as scores of senior SNA leaders at the Abdi house had been eliminated. However, some policy makers and military leaders worried that killing Aideed would make him a martyr and hero (a notion which runs contrary to the conviction that Aideed was the particular problem and not the SNA more generally). As it was, policy and strategy were so confused that the administration never figured out what it would do with Aideed, even if SOF succeeded in capturing him. With operational surprise gone and lethal fire not an option, SOF could only hope for an immediate and short-lived tactical element of surprise. But after Aideed’s forces struck Task Force Ranger with mortars and a plan to track Aideed through a gift given to him by an American agent fell through, Gen. Garrison, with Gen. Hoar’s approval, adopted an operational approach that had the effect of further reducing even a fleeting tactical element of surprise. Using the template that seemed to be working against drug kingpins in Colombia,52 Garrison argued that going after Aideed’s lieutenants would pressure Aideed. Eliminating many of Aideed’s senior advisers in the missile attack on the Abdi House did not pressure Aideed; it reaffirmed the SNA’s political loyalty to Aideed and increased their willingness to attack American targets. As Garrison later said in testimony, he really just wanted to go on the offensive after the mortar attack so his men would not adopt a “bunker mentality.” The senate investigation report condemned this rationale, being particularly critical of the first raid conducted by Task Force Ranger.

14 4

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

“The lack of a valid rationale for launching the raid should have alerted superiors in the chain of command to the need to carefully reevaluate the Task Force’s mission after each operation.”53 In other words, SOF’s concept of operations needed to be reassessed. Ostensibly attacking Aideed’s lieutenants to pressure him into the open while actually just satisfying a broader desire to take the offensive was a flawed approach given Aideed’s intelligence advantages and the uncertain willingness of political authorities to support a more general offensive against the SNA clan. The special mission unit’s desire for action irrespective of the primary goal, as well as its inability to patiently wait for an opportune moment to achieve the main goal, made an already difficult mission harder. The extent to which Somalia represented a tactical failure—by which we mean a failure of the means used to execute the operational concept— for SOF is debatable. Certainly it is true that SOF repeatedly displayed their tactics, techniques, and procedures while pursuing less important targets than Aideed, and in so doing increased the risks of the operations. Somali sources later claimed they were prepared for the October 3 battle in part because they had carefully observed Ranger tactics.54 Agreeing, the senate concluded it should have been obvious the risk of failure was increasing each time SOF displayed their tactics in daylight. JCS Powell testified that the “first raid was an embarrassment,” and after it he laid down the rule that Task Force Ranger had to have good intelligence before conducing a raid. Secretary Aspin, who did not follow events in Somalia all that closely, was coached in preparation for his testimony on Somalia. He was told that the Task Force Ranger missions followed too much of a “cookie cutter” approach. In retrospect, repeatedly displaying such tactics seems ill advised, since the real target was Aideed. However, the questionable practice of repeatedly demonstrating SOF tactics is an observation that may benefit too much from hindsight. Momentary tactical surprise is possible to achieve even when conducting multiple raids. Neither Aspin, Powell, nor even Gen. Hoar—a noted skeptic on the likelihood of success—ever told Garrison to stop the raids. Hoar later testified quite candidly when he noted that he did not give much consideration to high U.S. casualties, and that he “didn’t think in terms of shutting the operation down,” although he later wished he had.55 Aideed had demonstrated his ability to launch and carefully orchestrate larger operations against the Pakistanis, but he had been careful over the course of the summer to target Americans in small attacks, hitting and

SOMALIA

1 45

running quickly. On October 3, Aideed surprised most observers—ironically, with the possible exception of Gen. Garrison—when he was able to marshal a determined and large-scale effort to overrun SOF forces in such a short time. There is some indeterminate level of suspicion that Aideed set a trap for SOF by turning an informant and sacrificing several of his senior supporters,56 but even if he did, SOF’s tactical excellence in turn surprised him as his forces proved incapable of overrunning the small SOF contingent, despite taking grievous losses. In sum, SOF were sent to Somalia to obviate the need for a huge conventional force deployment to deal with Aideed. The value of neutralizing Aideed was not absolute but rather relative to the interests of the United States in Somalia. It was therefore incumbent on those responsible for SOF command and control to ensure that the risks SOF were running in their operations were commensurate with the objectives of senior leaders. As it was, SOF pursued a course of action with much higher risks than senior military and civilian leaders understood or were willing to pay. Leaders in Washington were not aware of the risks that the world’s best forces were running in their repeated attacks on poorly equipped and trained third-world forces, and the SOF commander in the field viewed his objective as an absolute requirement to be achieved regardless of costs. Thus, instead of reducing political pressure for terminating U.S. support for UN operations, SOF operations in Somalia in effect terminated the U.S. intervention and encouraged U.S. adversaries to underestimate American resolve. This turn of events led some to question whether SOF should undertake independent missions of strategic import, such as the attempt to capture Aideed, or whether they should work only in support of conventional forces, as they did in Desert Storm. Indeed, according to one account, the firefight in Mogadishu “confirmed the Joint Chiefs in the view that SOF should never be entrusted with independent operations.”57 Consistently, the Joint Chiefs recommended against such operations numerous times thereafter, even though the SOF community was often told that political authorities were responsible for disapproving SOF operations.58 For some in SOF, the takeaway from the Somalia experience was a sense of betrayal. As has been noted elsewhere, for many of the soldiers “who risked and lost their lives trying to capture [Aideed], the most galling moment—a tough lesson in realpolitik, unbelievable to many—was the sudden rehabilitation” of Aideed, graphically captured in a photo of

146

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

the warlord being guarded by U.S. military personnel as he boarded a U.S. military transport plane two months later to fly to Addis Ababa for negotiations on Somalia’s future.59 This turn of events was interpreted by many who served in Somalia as a treacherous dishonoring of their collective sacrifice to apprehend Aideed. Garrison insisted the October 3 operation was a success because the targets were apprehended. Many who fought that day agreed and wanted to persist and believed they could have prevailed if their government had remained committed to the mission.60 In a narrow sense, the argument has merit. Leaders in the White House and Pentagon should have been committed to supporting and explaining the operations they authorized. Whether that commitment could have been sustained politically after the shock of the October 3 operations and the level of violence they entailed is an open question. Political support for engagement in Somalia had been falling off rapidly. On the other hand, historically presidents are supported when making a case for staying the course with military operations. Once force is engaged, the American public often shows a marked preference for escalation rather than backing down.61 Even after the administration failed to make a strategic case for “aggressive multilateralism” in Somalia, it successfully fended off calls from Congress for immediate withdrawal on the grounds that doing so would damage American credibility. The Clinton administration actually surged a larger force to Somalia as it negotiated with Aideed and received congressional support for doing so. However, other members of the SOF community took away different lessons from the SOF experience in Somalia. One influential SOF flag officer with service there argues that Somalia made it abundantly clear that SOF could not succeed with a go-it-alone approach.62 Among other things, SOF needed more capable organic intelligence support. SOCOM could and would take steps to improve its ability to generate SOF-specific intelligence, which helped, but also would prove insufficient.63 The creation of USSOCOM gave SOF resources and bureaucratic protection, but not the broader, well-oiled national security team approach SOF required to pull off independent, national-level special operations. After terrorists struck the United States on September 11, 2001, the shortcomings of both the U.S. military and the national security system were highlighted. Despite many learning opportunities in the 1990s, the U.S. military as a whole was unprepared for the irregular wars it fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Similarly, despite growing evidence during

SOMALIA

147

the 1990s that the U.S. national security system is unable to keep pace with fast-evolving and complex politico-military matters like Somalia, it remains fundamentally unchanged in how it manages such problems. Not surprisingly, the overall results from such engagements have not been good. SOF, however, proved adaptable after 9/11, at least where hunting high-value targets is concerned. SOF was able to correct some of the shortfalls that handicapped its performance in Somalia and pioneered a new, path-breaking approach to independent, national-level special operations to kill or capture enemies like Aideed, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and Osama bin Laden. In this regard, it can be argued the SOF community learned more from Somalia than the military writ large, or than civilian leaders. The next chapter reviews how that evolution of SOF transpired and why it is significant.

✪ 4

High-Value Target Teams

S

everal weeks after the firefight in Somalia and using the same tactics, SOF scored a manhunting success when the Colombian security forces they were supporting killed drug lord Pablo Escobar. Five years later, SOF apprehended war criminals in the Balkans after the president overrode objections to their use from the secretary of defense, the chairman, joint chiefs of staff, and the director of the CIA.1 Their most significant catch was Radislav Kristic, who was later convicted of genocide by the Hague Tribunal for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim civilians. In both Colombia and the Balkans, SOF operated in more permissive environments than in Somalia. Perhaps for that reason, these SOF achievements went largely unnoticed at the time. It was almost a decade later that a tell-all book advertised SOF’s role in Escobar’s demise, and well after the terror attacks on 9/11 that a four-star general publicly acknowledged SOF manhunting as “one of the great under-recognized success stories of our mission in the Balkans.”2 What seems peculiar to many, particularly in retrospect, is why SOF were not given the most obvious manhunting mission—tracking down terrorists who had declared war on the United States. According to one well-informed source, SOF were never used even once to hunt down terrorists who had taken American lives. Putting the units to their intended use proved impossible—even after al Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, bombed two American embassies in East Africa in 1998, and nearly sank the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. As a result of these and other

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

149

attacks, operations were planned to capture or kill the ultimate perpetrators, Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, but each time the missions were blocked.3

This frank assessment came from Dr. Richard Shultz, who was hired after the terror attacks on 9/11 to study why SOF had been sidelined on counterterrorism, a mission many considered USSOCOM’s raison d’être. Shultz briefed his study to senior Pentagon leaders a few months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He identified “nine mutually reinforcing, self-imposed constraints,” that ensured “all high-level policy discussions, tough new presidential directives, revised contingency plans, and actual dress rehearsals for [SOF] missions would come to nothing.” He argued SOF was “still on the shelf,” and that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had failed in his efforts to give USSOCOM the lead for the war on terror. Shultz’s influential study helped convince Pentagon leaders they would have to remove the constraints and “unleash” SOF against the terrorists. The constraints Shultz identified can be distilled down to three major factors: the assessment that the exogenous risks of SOF independent strategic missions outweigh the potential gains, the belief among senior Pentagon military leaders that SOF could not perform such missions well, and the absence of intelligence that was detailed and timely enough (“actionable intelligence”) to enable the missions. The terror attacks on 9/11 radically altered risk assessments of relative costs and gains from special operations. After 9/11, the threat of terrorists bent on mass casualty attacks was construed as an imminent threat to the American way of life. Among other things, this meant that previous concerns about whether federal law governing intelligence and military activities applied to special operations were swept aside. Instead, national security leaders and executive branch lawyers found ways to allow special operations to be undertaken with the full benefit of Title 10 (military), Title 22 (diplomatic), and Title 50 (intelligence) authorities.4 As for senior military leader concerns about SOF taking a lead in the war on terror, after 9/11 their objections were overruled by the secretary of defense, and over time they gradually warmed to the idea of SOF’s major role (see chapter 2). The final issue was whether SOF could acquire the intelligence needed to operate successfully against elusive terrorists hiding among sympathetic or terrified civilian populations. This was, and always had been, the

15 0

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

most intractable constraint on use of SOF. In all irregular warfare, locating the enemy is the most important task.5 The debate should have been about how best to do this: by protecting and wooing the population they hide among, by coopting members of enemy organizations, by sophisticated technical means, or some combination of these and other means. Prior to 9/11, the attitude of many in SOF was that they could generate their own intelligence—a sentiment often expressed with the assertion, “If you give me the action, I’ll give you the intel.”6 Still, SOF leaders knew they also needed help from the rest of the national security community. According to Hugh Shelton, the former commander of USSOCOM and chairman, joint chiefs of staff, he used all-source data mining concepts he pioneered in Vietnam to improve intelligence for SOF during the 1990s. In October 1999 he tasked Gen. Peter Schoomaker, then commander, USSOCOM, to develop a plan for all-source intelligence integration on terrorist organizations. Schoomaker used the kind of open-source data Shelton wanted exploited but also added other classified government databases in a program called Able Danger. Just several months after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the program was expanded into a dedicated facility called the Special Operations Joint Interagency Collaboration Center. Schoomaker’s successor, Gen. Bryan Douglas “Doug” Brown, further expanded the effort to include the integration of “complex data streams from the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, and National Security Agency,” as well as the national laboratories and the Joint Warfare Analysis Center.7 Thus, prior to 9/11, SOF was not only building intelligence capabilities8 but also reaching out to the U.S. intelligence community in an effort to solve the actionable intelligence problem. Reaching out did not ensure collaboration, however. All parties concerned were inclined to retain their autonomy and protect privileged information. Special mission units had learned from manhunting in the Balkans that “unity of effort with other government agencies, especially the CIA, was a key to success,” and that the best way to formalize such collaboration was to create a joint interagency task force (JIATF). However, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, USSOCOM’s senior leadership vetoed the idea. Similarly, the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community were chary of working too closely with SOF. Among other things, there was the enduring tension between the SOF desire to hit targets as soon as possible and the intelligence community’s desire to protect sources as long as possible.9 Later, however,

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

15 1

other SOF leaders realized they needed a much better interagency team effort at all levels. With Pentagon help, SOF leaders used new interagency constructs to build a world-class capability for finding, capturing, or eliminating high-value human targets. How SOF built these teams and their impact are the subjects of this chapter.

EARLY HIGH-VALUE TARGETING IN AFGHANISTAN U.S. operations in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2003 relied on small interagency teams. Army Special Forces, U.S. Air Force combat controllers, special mission units, and intelligence community personnel formed ad hoc “pilot teams” on the ground to coordinate their efforts. By combining their individual and organizational expertise, including unique capabilities such as access to the intelligence community’s satellite network and American airpower, these ad hoc teams were able to engineer the swift victory over the Taliban.10 At the same time, interagency groups were being enlarged and improved to support these interagency teams in the field. The commander of U.S. Central Command requested permission to form an “interagency coordination cell” in October 2001, and by late November the Joint Interagency Task Force–Counter Terrorism (JIATF– CT) was operating out of Bagram Air Base under the name of Task Force Bowie. The military was joined by the FBI, CIA, Diplomatic Security Service, Customs Service, National Security Agency (NSA), the Defense Intelligence Agency and its Defense Human Intelligence Service, New York’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the Departments of Justice, Treasury, and State, among others.11 These personnel conducted analysis in support of attacks on al-Qaeda networks. This JIATF racked up some notable successes, detaining several senior al-Qaeda leaders as well as creating a border security program for Afghanistan based on biometric identification.12 Other commands were also setting up JIATFs to facilitate their efforts in the war on terror.13 Over the course of 2002 Pentagon leaders created other JIATFs to facilitate SOF high value targeting. They formed the Counterterrorism Campaign Support Group, which “was basically an interagency task force,” to expedite military and interagency decision-making in Washington.14 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was open to the JIATF concept because he had been favorably impressed by JIATF–South

15 2

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

(then JIATF–East), an interagency group that was phenomenally successful at intelligence-operations fusion in counternarcotics.15 Rumsfeld visited the group’s headquarters on several occasions16 and told Gen. Bryan Douglas “Doug” Brown, the commander of USSOCOM from 2003 to 2007, to get down to JIATF–South and examine the organization’s interagency targeting process.17 Brown visited, liked what he saw, and invited JIATF–South to send representatives to USSOCOM to exchange information about technologies and techniques. The commander of SOF special mission units was so impressed by JIATF–South that he visited the command every three months with his staff.18 USSOCOM began enlarging and proliferating interagency groups in Afghanistan. Since other SOF personnel were in short supply, army Rangers (the largest USSOCOM component) were tapped to staff these groups. The Rangers were joined by deployed personnel from the FBI, CIA, NSA, U.S. Agency for International Development, and later the Department of State. Led by Ranger battalion executive officers, these groups assumed regional responsibilities for collecting intelligence, targeting enemies, and distributing funds. They depended on voluntary participation, and their authorities were limited. They had no explicit mandate to utilize personnel or assets from other departments and agencies that were working in their areas.19 Even their relationship with other military forces was tenuous. Conventional forces were not yet interested in collaborating with other agencies, and Special Forces preferred autonomy while working with indigenous forces.20 Additional funding allowed the teams to use some of the intelligence analysts and operators coming to Afghanistan in increasing numbers to create “all-source fusion cells.” These fusion cells, described as “CFTs on steroids,” focused on intelligence integration.21 They provided products not only to the CFTs but also to the larger conventional forces that were deploying into Afghanistan. Conventional forces considered intelligence like any other support function (e.g., engineering and logistics), which is to say, important but supporting and not leading operations. Consequently, they used the intelligence fusion cells as staff support,22 maintaining the traditional bifurcation of intelligence and operations in their command and staff structures. By 2003, the various interagency groups in Afghanistan had demonstrated they could make important contributions, but their value was constrained by several factors. SOF practiced intelligence-operations fusion,

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

153

which allowed teams to exploit intelligence faster, but conventional forces did not. They preferred keeping interagency intelligence fusion cells separated from operations, which created knowledge gaps and delayed operations. In addition, military members of the cross-functional teams often found themselves at cross-purposes with their teammates from the intelligence community. There was the usual conflict over whether to take down targets even if doing so compromised sources, or to give priority to protecting sources and milking them for information.23 Given their focus on the use of force, SOF teams that captured or killed high-value targets were weak in exploitation and analysis. They did not have the means or inclination to collect evidence from the targets and their immediate surroundings that would help reveal the inner workings of enemy networks. The FBI provided training to the military in sensitive site exploitation and even assigned its own agents to work with the military for that purpose, but there were not enough agents to go around. High-value target teams that did not have resident FBI agents approached site exploitation in a haphazard way, “tossing evidence collected from several sites into one sack and then dumping it onto the S2’s [intelligence officer’s] desk and saying ‘Here you go.’  ”24 This reduced the intelligence’s value by displacing and contaminating it. Finally, there was significant friction between the high-value target teams and the rest of the coalition military forces responsible for reestablishing a peaceful environment and functioning government. An officer with experience in both types of units remembered that the highvalue target teams’ focus on taking down terrorist leaders meant that they “broke stuff up and the general purpose forces [conventional forces] had to pick up the pieces.”25 This complicated counterinsurgency efforts and made other military commanders less willing to collaborate with the high-value target teams. The more numerous conventional forces in daily contact with the population were a valuable source of intelligence and operational assistance, but tension between them and SOF impeded such cooperation. In sum, by early 2003 there were still too many fissures between all the actors required for an integrated effort: between special mission units and Special Forces; between SOF and conventional forces, between SOF and diverse intelligence disciplines, and between conventional forces and intelligence fusion cells. The teams were voluntary and irregular organizations. By general consensus, their output was useful but inconsistent

15 4

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

and did not have a major impact. However, any inclination to sort through the experience and improve upon it was lost in the rush to prepare for a different kind of war in Iraq.

HIGH-VALUE TARGETING IN IRAQ, 2003–2007 The interagency task forces pioneered in Afghanistan migrated to Iraq, along with their varying degrees of effectiveness. For example, in November 2004, “JIATF–Former Regime Elements” in Baghdad was charged with identifying former Ba’athist party members who posed a threat to the occupation. Numerous agencies participated (including the FBI, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Defense Human Intelligence Service, and members of foreign intelligence and security services26). However, rapid turnover in leadership, a confused sense of purpose,27 a lack of authority and resources,28 and personality conflicts among the team members ruined its effectiveness. The task force slowly unraveled and proved ineffective.29 Others, like JIATF– West—tasked with dismantling the networks that funneled foreign fighters to Iraq from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa—was a major success. It helped reduce the flow of terrorists entering Iraq and provided actionable intelligence to eliminate those who arrived.30 SOF leaders set out to elevate interagency team performance, and no one more so than Gen. Stanley McChrystal. McChrystal’s predecessor had the traditional understanding of special mission units: they were to be reserved and made ready for national-level missions of critical importance. Despite promoting some early SOF operations in Afghanistan for psychological effect,31 he was careful not to overuse the units in Afghanistan.32 Similarly, in Iraq, after the regime was toppled, he wanted to return most special mission units to the United States to retain their readiness for national-level missions. However, as Iraq slid into chaos, the special mission units were ordered to go after the senior leaders in Saddam Hussein’s regime (the so-called deck of cards mission, albeit 55 rather than 52 targets). Still, the focus was on a discrete set of high-value targets. That changed dramatically—but not immediately—after McChrystal took command in fall 2003. McChrystal, who had experience with interagency groups in Afghanistan,33 became the pivotal figure in pioneering

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

155

new levels of interagency collaboration in Iraq. Special mission units still went after high-value targets, but increasingly McChrystal believed eliminating a few top leaders was not going to make a major difference. He thought going after one individual at a time within the al-Qaeda in Iraq network “was a fool’s mission.”34 Instead, McChrystal lowered his sights and took aim at the middle ranks of the terrorist and insurgent organizations. He decided “to hit those targets faster than they could replace them, to make them worry about our ability to constantly pummel them, and to make younger and less experienced those who replaced them.”35 He was convinced that if we could apply relentless body blows against Al Qaeda in Iraq—a network that preferred spasms of violence followed by periods of calm in which it could marshal resources—then we could stunt its growth and maturation. Under enough pressure, Al Qaeda in Iraq’s members would be consumed with staying alive and thus have no ability to recruit, raise funds, or strategize. Meanwhile, instead of trying solely to decapitate the top echelon of leaders, we would disembowel the organization by targeting its midlevel commanders. . . . By hollowing out its midsection, we believed we could get the organization to collapse in on itself.36

The goal was attrition.37 McChrystal called this approach, “going to war,” and it encountered substantial resistance within his organization. Traditionally, special mission units were considered a “surgical capability,” and many objected to their being used for high-volume attacks on targets of lesser importance. According to McChrystal, “I was told by people, one, that’s not what the CT force is for, and two, you are going to take this wonderful national scalpel and break the blade.”38 The details of how McChrystal persevered and built a new culture and organizational capacity for large-scale manhunting are recounted at length in several sources, including his own biography.39 Here we summarize the effort. McChrystal emphasizes the networked nature of the adversary and the need to move fast to stay ahead of the enemy’s ability to make decisions and act by hitting a target, processing the intelligence and moving to the next targets revealed by the intelligence before they could be warned and moved. Yet, in large part, this has always been the key challenge for authorities combating subversives. The problem was certainly complicated, however, by McChrystal’s determination to find

15 6

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

and snatch enemy cadres on a much larger scale than ever previously attempted—at least by U.S. SOF. The key problem, as always, was locating the adversary. Passing intelligence between organizations and between analysts and operators often resulted in delays and “dropped balls” that let the enemy escape. McChrystal wanted constant, seamless tracking—an “unblinking eye” on the adversary—and immediate action in response to breaking intelligence. The dropped balls, or “blinks,” could occur because of lack of trust, different organizational cultures, technology shortfalls, laborious chains of approval, and simple human failures. McChrystal’s chosen organizational vehicle for solving these problems was an empowered JIATF. He was familiar with them, as was his deputy, Admiral William McRaven, who recommended the construct in 2004 during a SOF commander’s conference.40 Agreeing on the need for a JIATF that would integrate all-source intelligence in the field with SOF units was a conceptual leap forward, but, as noted earlier, not unprecedented for special mission units with experience in the Balkans. The difficult part was making it a high-performance reality. McChrystal knew he could not simply command assets from all the different organizations he needed help from; he had to woo them instead. With characteristic SOF determination and an unusual degree of diplomacy, McChrystal managed to get buy-in from a wide range of department heads. He asked senior officials from other departments and agencies to join his headquarters staff and made a point of demonstrating how much they were valued as members of the team. Eventually, he was able to bring in a senior intelligence official as his deputy for interagency operations. This raised the angst of Pentagon lawyers, who worried about violating the statutory basis of the military chain of command.41 He later obtained an ambassador from the Department of State for the same purposes.42 The ambassador became a liaison to embassies around the globe, smoothing the way for collaboration on the interdiction of terrorists moving to Iraq. Both deputies constantly facilitated support to the high-value target teams, which as McChrystal later noted, could not be done “with quarterly trips, or semiannual trips.”43 Getting department and agency heads to offer support was easier than getting buy-in from the mid-level managers in their organizations.44 Civil service senior executives are the guardians of organizational culture, resources, and independence in departments and agencies, and they had

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

15 7

strong views on what information should be shared and for what purposes. McChrystal noted that initially intelligence agencies would “give you young people who want to deploy  .  .  . but what happens is . . . he can’t call back to talk to the director. He talks pretty far down the chain; it’s natural  .  .  . Plus, he can’t sit at the table with us, at the same level of maturity and experience, and argue with the Commander.” Hence, McChrystal lobbied for higher ranking personnel for his field teams. He was so successful at getting them that a single task force in Iraq had over one hundred embedded interagency members.45 McChrystal also believed selecting appropriate team leaders was critically important. He handpicked the SOF majors and lieutenant colonels—the military’s middle managers—to lead the interagency highvalue target teams based on his assessment of their personalities. All SOF Task Force personnel are extremely task-oriented, but McChrystal was looking for those “triple-A-plus people who could switch to a type-B personality in a heartbeat.”46 It was important that his team leaders be able to discuss and cajole rather than simply demand their preferred solution, while still retaining a strong sense of urgency. Accordingly, McChrystal chose individual team leaders he thought would succeed in building a culture of collaboration. Doing so was important given the team leaders’ limited authority to task other team members. Team leaders could designate tasks for team members to accomplish, but they had no means of compelling them to carry out these tasks. As one member of a high-value target team remembered, “It was ask, not task.”47 Team members often had a different set of orders from their own agency, and some interagency team members were specifically told to listen only to their agency heads.48 Team leaders could (and on occasion did) send home particularly ineffective members, but they did so infrequently for fear of alienating the parent organization.49 Trying to force team members to do what they did not want to do could easily lead to passive-aggressive compliance or open revolt and a precipitous decline in team effectiveness. As teams became more successful, the willingness of members to cooperate increased, but early on the team targeting cycle was often slowed by the need to negotiate with other organizations that had different priorities. To compensate for lack of authority, team leaders tried to forge a strong sense of purpose and build on team successes, which increased enthusiasm and cohesion. The intent was to weaken if not override the parent

15 8

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

organization’s predilection to hoard information. This was the explicit goal established by McChrystal and carefully pursued by his best team leaders. First, however, McChrystal had to change the special mission units’ own culture, which, as noted above, emphasized their exclusivity. McChrystal had to convince his subordinates they could not rely solely on their own capabilities; they needed the cooperation of others. They had to trust others, and to develop that trust they had to become much more transparent. At McChrystal’s direction, SOF commanders of high-value target teams worked to create a culture of openness by sharing their own knowledge and assets. All organizations withheld information on occasion, but SOF Task Force personnel were directed to set the example by being first to give more information. They were told to “share until it hurts.” As one commander explained it: “If you are sharing information to the degree where you think, ‘Holy cow, I am going to go to jail,’ then you are in the right area of sharing.”50 The point was to build trust, and information sharing was the icebreaker. Personal trust was also a factor. SOF Task Force members extended their respect to interagency team members. Over time, shared experience built a reservoir of mutual respect among team members, particularly given the urgency of the deteriorating situation in Iraq and the shared danger and intensity of their common circumstances. McChrystal led by example, personally demonstrating his commitment to a team effort. He made a point of communicating that everyone from every agency was part of the team. He often called out individuals by name in meetings and video teleconferences, which could be held as often as four or five times a week.51 He wanted even the less capable performers from other organizations to feel good about their time on the teams. As McChrystal explained, “You had to employ them so that everybody that went back said, ‘Boy, that was the best experience I ever had. I’m really making a difference.’ Two, you needed to constantly show what they were contributing. . . . organizations are like people, when they are reinforced positively, they tend to repeat the behavior.”52 Public praise within the team was perhaps the most important and certainly the most immediate reward, but as the teams became better established many SOF Task Force leaders made sure they turned out a steady stream of letters of commendation and Department of Defense awards and medals for team members. Successful teams also received unit citations for high performance.

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

159

Team leaders fully exploited their close relationship with Gen. McChrystal and his network of liaisons within other organizations. Access to the most senior decision-makers allowed the interagency teams to bypass multiple layers of mid-level approval and obtain cooperation that otherwise would not have been forthcoming. McChrystal believed that establishing and maintaining the interagency relationships had to be a constant preoccupation: It’s an informal process, based on handshakes, and people change at the senior levels or midgrade levels; the power of those handshakes is not recorded. Therefore, you always run the risk of it degrading over time. We thought about writing memorandums of instruction or memorandums of understanding so that we codified it. My fear was, if we codify it, people are scared to sign contracts, so I felt they would sign a contract [agreeing to] much less than they were willing to actually do.53

The results justified the effort. As one observer noted, McChrystal asked for help politely, but he “came as close to unity of command in the interagency as you can get.”54 McChrystal delegated an unusual amount of authority to the team leaders, encouraging them to take initiative. “As long as it is not immoral or illegal, we’ll do it,” he said, encouraging his leaders to take action rather than wait on approval.55 However, he cautioned them that mistakes would undermine SOF credibility, which, he often told them, “brings us freedom of action.”56 He needed his team leaders to make wise choices about risks. Those who succeeded were given more resources and positions of importance. Those who failed were quietly brought back early and reassigned.57 As the teams became more successful, their operations increased dramatically. McChrystal pushed his teams hard, but he also allowed his teams to cooperate with other SOF units. Previously, only the relatively small special mission unit force conducted high-value targeting raids, but over time the process McChrystal pioneered enabled a much wider swath of SOF force structure to participate. Navy SEALs and Special Forces and particularly Rangers began conducting high-value target raids in cooperation with special mission units or on their own. After the marines joined SOCOM in 2006, they too participated. By 2007, even some army conventional forces participated in high-value targeting raids.58 The result was a

160

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

huge increase in operations and numbers of enemy captured and killed. Between 2004 and 2006, McChrystal’s units alone went from executing 10 to 20 raids a month to doing 300 raids a month, a 1,400 to 2,900 percent increase.59 By the end of 2004, Gen. McChrystal and his interagency high-value target teams were the only U.S. forces in Iraq wholly committed to being on the offensive.60 Over the next two years the teams worked on improving their techniques, particularly the processing of intelligence and the expansion of intelligence assets, from overhead intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets to the number of detainee interrogators.61 By early 2006, the high-value targeting teams were capturing or killing terrorists and insurgents so fast that U.S. leadership believed they were putting the enemy’s clandestine organizations on the defensive and giving population security measures a chance to shift public support to government forces.62 The “speed with which they can turn a piece of information into a target and then engage that target is simply incredible. It has shaped the entire battlefield. It has established the conditions that we now have to conduct these non-kinetic operations to be decisive.”63 The teams were widely considered awe-inspiring, particularly to White House and Department of Defense leaders, which helped cement support for their efforts.64 The teams were tactically successful and highly proficient—albeit increasingly strained and taking serious casualties. Yet, they were not making a strategic difference.65 They would hit a cell, and it would reconstitute. And sometimes there would be inadvertent collateral damage that alienated the local population. The team metrics were all quantitative—number of takedowns—with no qualitative assessment of impact on the terrorists’ operations or counterinsurgency efforts.66 Nevertheless, by late 2006, many in SOF were convinced that the sheer scale of punishment they were inflicting on the enemy was having an effect. Team leaders began telling McChrystal that al-Qaeda in Iraq was, “cracking,” and that it was not operating at the same level of proficiency.” “We can see it,” they said. McChrystal accepted these estimates but noted they were counterintuitive because violence was still escalating. The apparent contradiction might be explained by distinguishing between al-Qaeda, the Sunni insurgency, and the Shiite hit squads. SOF went after all three, but the high-value targeting team assessments referenced al-Qaeda in Iraq. The teams became confident of their ability to drive al-Qaeda out of contested

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

161

areas.67 Adm. McRaven notes that, “we were able to map out different parts of their networks, what they were involved in, who was involved, how they were linked together. With that knowledge we would be able, through raid after raid, to shatter it.”68 Despite success against al-Qaeda, violence increased as more Sunni insurgents took up arms, which suggests something besides high-value targeting was needed. The missing ingredients were found because the following year, in 2007, violence declined sharply. After most informed commentators had given up hope, civilian deaths suddenly dropped 70 percent.69 The following year, violence decreased another 80 percent.70 Since then, there has been a vibrant debate about how to explain the dramatic reversal. Most commentators focus on a combination of factors: new U.S. leadership with a new strategy emphasizing protection of the Iraqi population; the sheer brutality of al-Qaeda, which was often directed at fellow Muslims and alienated Sunni leaders; the five-brigade surge in U.S. forces (and arrival of newly trained Iraqi forces); and U.S. financial support to Sunni tribal leaders who swung their militias in support of U.S. forces.71 Yet many in SOF believe the pounding they gave the terrorist and insurgent organizations explains the success, and particularly the willingness, of the Sunni tribes to cooperate with U.S. forces.72 Many senior military officials and White House sources agreed that McChrystal’s “activities had a far-reaching effect on the violence and were very possibly the biggest factor in reducing it.”73 A recent in-depth study for Joint Special Operations University claims McChrystal’s high value target teams were able to “claw the guts out of Al Qaeda in Iraq.”74 Others attribute McChrystal’s success to advanced technology,75 while others consider technology just a small part of McChrystal’s broader organizational transformation. McChrystal himself is careful about making specific claims to success. He is clear about his intention to eviscerate the enemy organization, and he highlights the astounding effort of his forces. But in his memoirs and later interviews McChrystal does not offer a simple explanation for the decline in violence. He acknowledges the necessary role the high-value target teams played but also points out their negative effects: At the beginning of the war. . . . We would kind of go where we wanted and do what we needed to do, and we thought we were doing God’s work, but in some cases, we would go into an area and hit a target. There might be a firefight or not, but the effect on what they’re trying to do for

162

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

stability in the region could be negative. . . . That got much, much better by 2006 and 2007.76

McChrystal came to understand that the high-value target teams were necessary but not sufficient to produce success. To see why that is the case, and to properly assess the impact of McChrystal’s transformation of high-value targeting, requires a broader appreciation of the other factors that contributed to success in Iraq.

HIGH-VALUE TARGETING AND COUNTERINSURGENCY IN IRAQ The hope for high-value targeting is that it will destroy a subversive organization’s effectiveness, or at least put the organization on the defensive. When McChrystal lowered his sights and targeted the middle ranks of the terrorist and insurgent organizations in Iraq, he aspired to collapse the enemy organizations. Many counterinsurgency experts would say this is impossible, since it is easier to replace middle managers than senior leaders. The alternative to “decapitating” the adversary organization is a long, hard slog to delegitimize the enemy and win popular support through classic counterinsurgency efforts. The special mission units and conventional forces in Iraq initially disagreed on this key issue. Thus the same kind of coordination problems that complicated SOF relations with conventional forces in Afghanistan reappeared in Iraq. SOF task forces went after their targets irrespective of the impact on local communities. Even conducted perfectly, the raids aggravated local citizens who were frightened from their sleep, detained, and, from their point of view, humiliated. Not able or caring to distinguish between types of U.S. forces, the locals took out their ire on the conventional forces in their area. For conventional forces trying to impose order in increasingly violent Iraq, the SOF raids were a double-edged sword. Some conventional commanders decided they did more harm than good and tried to prevent SOF Task Force from operating in their areas. However, over time, SOF and conventional force commanders learned to work well together, which greatly improved prospects for defeating the insurgency. To illustrate how this came about, it helps to briefly review three short vignettes of successful counterinsurgency in Iraq and SOF’s role in supporting those successes.

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

163

Task Force Freedom in Mosul In fall 2004, Task Force Freedom, built around the First Brigade Twentyfifth Infantry Division Stryker Brigade Combat Team led by Col. Robert Brown, was trying to reverse deteriorating security in Mosul, one of Iraq’s largest cities. Insurgents had systemically eliminated the local police force, terrorized the population, and precipitated the Battle of Mosul from November 8–16, 2004, during which they gained control over significant portions of the city.77 Task Force Freedom was in dire need of more manpower to protect a province of some seven million people. By the end of 2004, the brigade was carrying out eighteen attacks a day on insurgents,78 but the insurgents were escalating their efforts as well with an average of more than twenty-one attacks per day.79 In response, Task Force Freedom staff began to work more closely with other military and interagency partners in the area. They reached out to civilian partners, members of the Intelligence Community, Special Forces, and units from General McChrystal’s interagency high-value target teams.80 (McChrystal’s SOF units were generally referred to in theater simply as “The Task Force,” but to avoid confusion with other task forces and Special Forces, we refer to them as the “SOF Task Force.” We refer to SOF Task Force personnel combined with interagency personnel as “high-value target teams”). Task Force Freedom expanded and refined interagency roundtable discussions as a forum for sharing information and ideas. The brigade operations officer, a former Special Forces officer, identified this as a basic but fundamental breakthrough in facilitating cooperation. Previously, “everyone had their own lane, their own target deck, but they weren’t synchronizing their work.”81 Personal friendships between some of the Special Forces, Ranger, and Stryker commanders based on previous shared military experiences also improved communication. As the Task Force Freedom staff increased in size, the task force was able to push out analysts and operations planners to link up with the other organizations in the area. Special Forces and Rangers also put liaison officers in all of the Stryker brigade meetings. Stryker units were given independent areas of operation for which they were responsible, enabling soldiers to become very familiar with a particular area. The brigade also developed and used tactical human intelligence teams that would go on missions to interrogate suspects, thus enabling the

16 4

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

intelligence-operations fusion so familiar to the brigade’s staff officers with special operations experience.82 This increased the number of self-initiated missions and actionable intelligence generated by operations, which in turn led to more missions. The intelligence community was eager to work with Task Force Freedom because it was using intelligence to go on the offensive. The brigade began using unique intelligence assets for massed electronic and human monitoring of the enemy, exploring techniques that would become known as “network targeting.” SOF and conventional forces worked together to put “persistent pressure” on a terrorist network until it would collapse. The terrorist networks inside Mosul were also in the process of being physically isolated from the outside world by means of a long berm around the city and a series of checkpoints that controlled movement into the city.83 By late March 2005, Col. Brown noticed two indications of success. First, calls to the tip hotline on insurgent activity increased tenfold, from forty a month in late 2004 to four hundred a month in early 2005. Second, captured al-Qaeda leaders reported that 80 percent of al-Qaeda’s networks around Mosul had been destroyed.84 Even better, in April, Major General David Rodriguez took command of Task Force Freedom and Multinational Forces–Northwest. Rodriguez, a two-star division commander, brought extra military and civilian assets into play:85 almost two hundred additional staff,86 as well as more “gunslingers” in the form of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment, which in April and May 2005 took control of the area to the north and west of Mosul, extending to the Syrian border. Rodriguez also broke down organizational barriers, cajoling personnel from other departments and agencies and then meeting their personnel to make sure they knew they were important and valued members of Task Force Freedom. Rodriguez’s rule was “no secrets”: all liaison officers saw and participated in staff products, and all Task Force Freedom’s partners participated in decisions on targeting, how best to use intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets and financial and engineering resources, and on which reconstruction projects to support. Task Force Freedom was successful. A RAND Corporation study concludes it “succeeded in protecting the civilian populace more effectively in Mosul than elsewhere in the country—even after the enemy had chosen to make targeting cooperating Iraqi civilians a ‘center of gravity’ in

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

1 65

the conflict.”87 Task Force Freedom’s success was based on organizational improvements that allowed the free flow of information: “What we tried to do was break down the walls, make sure there’s no stovepipe and make sure that everybody has access to things. The intent is . . . from National, down to the foot Soldier on the ground, that these guys have access to the best information and it’s timely, relevant, accurate, and actionable.”88 An in-depth analysis from the Joint Center for Operational Analysis explains: The dynamic that made this all work was the personal involvement of individuals from each agency and their dedication to serving the task force and its mission, rather than their parent organizations. New levels of interagency trust and combat-necessity gave birth to an unprecedented innovation: a national level intelligence team in direct support of a tactical task force.89

Task Force Freedom’s organizational innovations were linked with its population-centric counterinsurgency strategy. Rodriguez considered money a weapon, to be used to win popular support.90 The task force “chipped away at the iceberg” of insurgent sympathizers by offering jobs and sanitation programs to Mosul’s population.91 The task force rebuilt the police force with the help of Department of Justice International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) representatives.92 It constructed a building to serve as an intelligence fusion and operations center for Iraqi police, military, medical, and municipal leaders as well as their American advisers. Conventional forces conducted more detention, interrogation, and intelligence activities. Task Force Freedom also expanded training for Iraqi Security Forces, partnering twenty-one Iraqi battalions with Special Forces A-Teams, mostly from the Arabic language–qualified Fifth Special Forces Group. To get the Special Forces, Rodriguez had to overcome major resistance from USSOCOM, which considered this mission of lesser importance. After Pentagon leaders sided with Rodriguez, Special Forces arrived within five weeks and did great work with the local Iraqi forces. Encouraged by the success in Mosul, interagency intelligence fusion cells began to spread across Iraq93 at multiple echelons, from brigade to theater level.94 The cells provided a place and means for interagency partners to collect and analyze intelligence and to coordinate efforts to eliminate enemy networks.95 Unlike McChrystal’s high-value target teams,

166

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

the fusion cells were detached from operational units. They pushed their actionable intelligence to whatever units in their area proved most willing and able to go on the offensive. Meanwhile, McChrystal’s teams focused on eliminating senior al-Qaeda leaders. Thus coordination between intelligence fusion cells, McChrystal’s high-value target teams, and local conventional commanders still required a conscious, sustained leadership effort.

The Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar As Task Force Freedom began consolidating its gains, Col. H. R. McMaster’s Third Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR) arrived in April, 2005, at Tal Afar, just northwest of Mosul. Like Mosul, Tal Afar had fallen under the sway of insurgent forces.96 The insurgents drew support from kinship networks extending into the neighboring villages as well as from the smuggling networks that connected Tal Afar with Syria—a source of money, guns, and foreign fighters. To isolate Tal Afar from these networks, the Third ACR increased border patrols, began using biometric devices at checkpoints, and also worked with the ICITAP group training the Iraqi border defense forces. Training the Iraqi Customs and Border Patrol was a major challenge since they had been infiltrated by insurgents who aided smugglers and foreign fighters coming to Iraq. Identifying the traitors required a sustained, combined intelligence effort. McMaster also worked closely with SOF in the area who had access to and influence with the local sheikhs. The U.S. forces shared money and intelligence to influence the sheikhs to assist their efforts to stifle infiltration by foreign fighters.97 During the summer of 2005, after months of preparation, the Third ACR’s troops moved into the city supported by U.S. Special Forces, elements of the Iraqi army Third Division and Second Division, Iraqi Special Forces and Iraqi and Mosul police units. The national police force, controlled by militia members, was soon excluded from the operations. Tal Afar was divided between al-Qaeda (with whom the mayor was associated) and Iranian-controlled Shia militias (with whom the police chief was associated). The main focus of the assault was an al-Qaeda safe haven in the east of the city that had large training facilities, significant amounts of equipment, and good satellite uplinks. As al-Qaeda operatives tried to escape, coalition forces removed all residents from the area, wrapped three lines of concertina wire around the al-Qaeda stronghold,

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

167

and jammed their communications. American and Iraqi soldiers then assaulted and reclaimed the district. They left behind in every house letters in Arabic explaining the need for the assault and how to obtain compensation for damage. After operations to retake the city, the coalition immediately began rebuilding the Tal Afar police force. Money had already been secured to pay the police for their first one-and-a-half months in uniform and the day after the assault ground was broken on new police stations. The Third ACR also set up twenty-nine outposts where U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and local police lived and worked together.98 The Third ACR also worked with the nine Special Forces A-Teams in the area to put the Iraqi soldiers through a comprehensive NCO and officer school. Civil Affairs personnel helped reconstitute the city council and strengthen good governance, using regimental funds to rebuild the cities and pay workers. Getting the highly visible traffic cops back on the street and bringing in new teachers to coincide with the opening of new schools were important milestones. Proper coordination with SOF Task Force was important. McMaster, who knew the SOF Task Force commander in Mosul, sent a liaison officer to work with him. In return, they sent a high-value target team to Tal Afar to support the operation for two months and occasionally conducted supporting operations thereafter. The attitude of the SOF Task Force leader determined the extent of communication, however, and the arrival of a new leader could result in less communication and cooperation. During one such dip in cooperation the SOF Task Force unilaterally took out targets “when we had patrol bases nearby and could have just walked to their house.”99 It took an unfortunate incident in which the high-value target team took casualties to impress upon them the need to coordinate with McMaster’s forces. McMaster believed the Third ACR had an effective raiding capability and preferred that the SOF Task Force share intelligence and let the regiment decide how to act upon it. This required “continuous conversations” between both parties. Inside the city it was found that operations worked best when the SOF Task Force and the Third ACR compared intelligence before missions. The Third ACR, with its intimate knowledge of the city’s geography and sociology and the regiment’s many patrol posts, could more easily detain a suspect, interrogate him, and then hand him over to the SOF Task Force. The special capabilities of the SOF Task Force were best used when assaulting remote areas that had good early warning systems, “but it was ultimately their call.”100

168

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

First Brigade Combat Team in Ramadi, Anbar Province McMaster’s approach continued the pattern pioneered in Mosul, but it received far more press attention and became a highly visible model for emulation by other commanders. Col. Sean MacFarland’s pacification of Ramadi would become even more famous. When MacFarland’s First Brigade Combat Team, First Armored Division, arrived in Ramadi, Anbar Province, in June 2006, Ramadi was so dangerous it had been written off by the senior Marine Corps military intelligence officer as a lost cause.101 Ramadi was experiencing three times more attacks each day, per capita, than any other location in Iraq.102 Over the next nine months, however, the reinforced Army–Marine Corps brigade led by MacFarland would turn Anbar Province into one of the greatest success stories of the American occupation. MacFarland “plagiarized shamelessly” from the examples of previously successful commanders.103 He learned the importance of integrating counterterrorism (i.e., high-value target raids) and counterinsurgency (i.e., population security) operations from Col. Michael Shields, whose 172nd Stryker Brigade had replaced the First Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Mosul. He exchanged staff with other U.S. forces in the area to build a common picture of the enemy networks. From McMaster, he took the need to establish combat outposts to protect the population and engage local leaders to win their support. Drawing on his own experience in Bosnia, where he had seen the value of training and equipping locals, he decided to build up the local Iraqi security forces. MacFarland pursued a strategy “centered on attacking Al-Qaeda’s safe havens and establishing a lasting presence there to directly challenge the insurgents’ dominance of the city, disrupting their operations, reducing their numbers, and gaining the confidence of the people.”104 MacFarland’s brigade had less organic intelligence architecture and significantly fewer interagency resources than his predecessors in Mosul and Tal Afar. So he concentrated on engineering the cooperation of the intelligence community, the Special Forces teams in the area, and elements of McChrystal’s Task Force targeting al-Qaeda leadership. Initially, there were coordination problems. For example, SOF Task Force units would slap down large restricted operational zones over the city whenever they conducted a takedown, interfering with MacFarland’s ability to provide fire support to his units. This allowed

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

169

the insurgents to attack MacFarland’s soldiers from the rooftops with relative impunity. However, within a month, cooperation improved. The brigade staff and SOF Task Force personnel exchanged targeting files and prisoners and sat in on one another’s targeting meetings, eventually leading to a “seamless targeting process through liaison officers and the fusion center.” The brigade and the SOF Task Force units were located on the same forward operating base, and MacFarland’s deputy commander and one of his battalion commanders had worked in SOF before, so they “knew the secret handshake.” Gen. McChrystal also came to Ramadi several times to meet with MacFarland in order to find out how he could facilitate high levels of cooperation.105 One result was that McChrystal’s forces reduced the size of their restricted operational zones when conducting raids, which allowed conventional forces to conduct simultaneous operations and receive supporting fires. Although the special operators worried that cooperating with conventional forces would slow down their operations, the opposite happened. Brigade forces “flushed” insurgents “like a nest of quail, and the [SOF Task Force] would be in a good position to pick off their . . . targets.”106 The brigade also benefited from greater cooperation with SOF. After McChrystal’s forces killed or captured high value targets, MacFarland sometimes had an opportunity to “flip” the Sunni tribes to support his troops. His units set up combat outposts in tribal territory to provide security, recruit police and auxiliaries from their ranks, and make friends through shared meals (“goat grabs”) and other efforts to win their respect and cooperation. MacFarland also set up outposts in the city where his soldiers and Iraqi police lived and worked together, maintaining a continuous presence.107 These tactics, combined with improved local intelligence provided by the flipped indigenous population forced high-value targets to move to areas controlled by other tribes. When that happened, the indigenous population in that area would request protection from the Americans, and the cycle began again. These cooperative tactics produced a bellwether moment. Al-Qaeda launched a punitive attack against a tribe that was considering support for the coalition, and indigenous leaders called U.S. forces to ask for support. MacFarland’s men could not reach them in time, but they convinced the SOF Task Force to immediately divert an armed Predator unmanned aerial vehicle to the scene. The Predator caught the al-Qaeda men in their

17 0

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

pickups dragging the bodies of slain indigenous people behind them—a sign of gross disrespect for their Muslim coreligionists. The Predator destroyed the pickups with its Hellfire missiles, and the impressed tribe aligned itself with the coalition. Others soon followed.108 According to MacFarland, this incident and others illustrated the strategic impact of having the SOF Task Force in direct support of conventional forces conducting counterinsurgency operations.109 MacFarland’s success at enlisting the support of local Sunni sheiks in Ramadi, situated in Anbar province, became widely known as the “Anbar Awakening.” The pacification of an area reputed to be implacably hostile sparked a vibrant debate on how MacFarland had succeeded. Some characterized it as a simple case of buying the temporary loyalty of the Iraqi militias, but those involved scoff at this explanation. One officer recalled, “We had to prove to them that we were worthy allies; America’s track record as an ally? Pretty spotty. . . . it took a leap of faith to come out and join the U.S.”110 A standing assumption had been that the presence of U.S. forces stimulated insurgent activity, and therefore U.S. forces should retreat to large bases where they would interact less with the local population. All the successful counterinsurgency commanders did the opposite. They dispersed among the population to displace insurgents and reassure the population they could be protected. Thus, MacFarland reversed existing policy, which told the local population, “You stand up, and we’ll stand down,” and instead told them, “If you stand up, we’ll stand with you.” Instead of communicating an intention to leave Iraq to Iraqis, he expressed commitment to their cause. He promised that his forces would stay until they were “secure from al Qaeda and the Persians [i.e., Iranians].”111 He promised to create a Sunni police militia that would become part of the Iraqi government but stay in Ramadi to protect their homes and families. To do so, he acquired “non-standard funding sources” through interagency contacts. He organized both official police and auxiliary police detachments to protect local areas, running the Iraqi recruits through a one-week training course provided by either Navy SEALs or the brigade’s artillery detachment.112 In what MacFarland later described as “the game changer,” Ramadi’s police force increased from 150 to 4,000 in a matter of months. Consequently, intelligence and counterinsurgency capabilities improved. Eventually, responsibility for security operations began transitioning to the Iraqis.

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

17 1

High-Value Targeting and Counterinsurgency Other U.S. commanders were successful at pacifying areas of Iraq,113 but the previous three vignettes are sufficient to illustrate several points about the role of high-value targeting. First, no matter how proficient the high-value target teams became, they could not prevail on their own. They had to be complemented by effective counterinsurgency operations. As one observer argues, counterinsurgency operations were necessary because “only those operations could establish permanent control over the populous territory and prevent the insurgents from siphoning the population’s resources.”114 Moreover, high-value targeting had to be tailored to support the counterinsurgency effort or it could create as many problems as it solved. High-value targeting and population security should be mutually reinforcing missions. If high-value targeting keeps the enemy on the defensive without producing a lot of popular ire, it gives time and space for population security to work. However, high-value targeting that creates a lot of collateral damage alienates the population and undermines counterinsurgency. Similarly, if population security was done well, then it could produce valuable intelligence that made high-value targeting even more effective. Counterinsurgency done poorly lost the support of the population and ensured high-value targeting operations had to be conducted in hostile areas where the enemy would be warned and supported by the populace, as happened in Mogadishu. Third, both high-value targeting and counterinsurgency required intelligence-driven operations. The conventional forces that successfully established population control could not lash out blindly at insurgents. They first had to generate good intelligence about the local population and enemy organization. In Mosul, Tal Afar, and Ramadi, commanders were successful because their integrated intelligence allowed them to target the insurgents and terrorist networks with sufficient discrimination to put them on the defensive, while population-centric security measures and influence operations pacified the broader population. Detailed accounts of the counterinsurgency efforts in Mosul, Tal Afar, and Ramadi emphasize that commanders there also decentralized authority to launch operations quickly to take advantage of such intelligence.115 The high-value target teams also learned how to do network-based targeting.116 Characterized narrowly, this meant charting the clandestine

17 2

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

terrorist and insurgent cells and their immediate supporters in order to attack them. This approach was formalized as the F3EA concept: find, fix, finish (capture or kill), exploit, and analyze (it would later become F3EAD with the addition of disseminate).117 F3EAD tactics were critically dependent upon interagency collaboration118 and a substantial departure from the army’s more typical D3A (decide, detect, deliver, assess) doctrine, “an artillery, bullets and shrapnel approach.”119 Characterized more broadly, network-based targeting meant using all-source intelligence to provide situational awareness of the local environment, its social networks, key decision-makers, and their motivations. With such knowledge, commanders could influence the population with less lethal measures. In short, both counterinsurgency and high-value targeting required knowledge of the human terrain (both enemy clandestine cells and the local population), which could only be achieved by collaboration and information exchange among disparate U.S. organizations and local sources.120 Operators had to move quickly to take advantage of their integrated intelligence. The high-value target teams fused their improved all-source intelligence with operational capability. Having intelligence and operations working together in a common space and on a sustained basis produced several benefits: persistent surveillance, improved discrimination, and better decision-making. The interagency teams made it possible to eliminate the organizational seams between the different coalition actors in Iraq, placing an “unblinking eye” on high-value targets. Previously, the find and fix efforts would be led by an intelligence organization, the finish performed by a SOF unit, and the exploit and analyze efforts conducted by other organizations or not at all. Passing responsibilities between units and organizations represented an “organizational blink” during which momentum slowed and the target might escape.121 Fusing operations and intelligence gave SOF Task Force the persistent surveillance it needed to eliminate high-value targets like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: The airstrike that killed Zarqawi was only a fraction of the effort to find and accurately target him. The true operational art behind that strike was a multidisciplined intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) endeavor coupled with agile SOF that patiently laid bare the Zarqawi network and resulted in a find-fix-finish operation. It took more than 600  hours of ISR to track and observe the network that yielded the

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

17 3

target.  .  .  . The SOF–ISR combination was effective because it unified operations and airborne collections with all other intelligence disciplines under a single commander.122

Intelligence-operations fusion also routinely provided the high-value target teams with the situational awareness they needed to quickly assess which targets justified the potential for collateral damage and perhaps compromising a source and which did not. This allowed the teams to better discriminate among targets and make better overall decisions on when to engage and when not to engage.123 Another key point is that both the successful counterinsurgency efforts and high-value target teams used the same organizational construct to develop network targeting and intelligence-driven operations: the JIATF. Successful counterinsurgency commanders had to combine resources from multiple departments and agencies, first to integrate allsource intelligence, and secondarily, to influence the population with nonlethal activities. The high-value target teams also had to partner widely with other departments and agencies for their forensic and other skills. Consequently, a common theme among SOF and conventional force commanders with field experience in Iraq was, “We could not have been successful if it had not been for the interagency.”124 Over time, the intelligence fusion cells supporting conventional forces and the high-value target teams were located in proximity to the most active enemy networks. This proximity increased the speed of analysis and the rate of the targeting cycle,125 which facilitated cooperation between the high-value targeting teams and conventional forces conducting counterinsurgency. Thus the SOF-led high value targeting teams were able to take their campaign against the terrorist and insurgent infrastructure to wherever it best assisted the counterinsurgency effort. The interagency high-value target teams could move from pacified locales to the next most dangerous areas, which allowed their important skills to be used where they were most needed. The augmentation of McChrystal’s forces with other SOF units permitted a higher volume of raids. With a larger number of SOF manhunting teams and raids, McChrystal could better support collaboration with conventional forces working to extend population-centric counterinsurgency principles. Depending on the needs of the moment, the teams “ate their way to the top” from the middle ranks, or, if they thought a major terrorist operation was in the works,

174

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

might even attack down the chain toward the foot soldiers to derail the planned event.126 By early 2007, when Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker arrived to take charge of the U.S. effort in Iraq, McChrystal’s high-value target teams were cooperating more closely with counterinsurgency forces.127 As a former executive officer for Multinational North Forces–Iraq noted: “What we learned in 2007–2008 is that it was impossible to destroy a terrorist network . . . with pinpoint strikes. You can never get enough of them. . . . But when you put conventional forces in those areas and you deny the enemy the safe haven that he enjoyed, it forces the terrorists to move and communicate, allowing them to be found.”128 Another officer noted: We have to attack the threat from different lines of operation; the diplomatic, the political, the rule of law, and the security line operation. . . . to truly be effective, we have to synchronize those efforts with the killing. If you don’t set the conditions to prevent the next guy from standing up, next week you’ll be killing a whole different set of individuals but it’ll be the same basic positions.129

Yet another officer offered a gardening metaphor: “It’s okay cutting off the foliage, what’s above the ground, but unless you get at the roots, it’ll just continue growing. . . . that’s why it’s an effort from across all lines of operation, all elements of national power.”130 These sentiments were deeply held convictions not only for some conventional force commanders by 2007–2008, but increasingly for many SOF commanders who learned it was better to not conduct an improperly coordinated operation because it would do more harm than good. Sometimes this meant scaling back their activities so that one religious or tribal group or another would not feel that it was being unfairly targeted, which would lead to wider resistance.131 As security improved during 2007–2008, police and law enforcement tactics came to the fore.132 Evidence had to be collected so that targets could be captured, brought to Iraqi courts, and put into prison. Otherwise, the length of time terrorists were detained was just enough to get them rested and up to speed on the latest tactics from their fellow terrorists in detention before being sent back on the streets again.133 This required a more thorough and sensitive intelligence-gathering effort,

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

175

which further advanced the network-based targeting trend. Intelligence fusion cells began refining the law enforcement–type approach to their work that was used in Mosul in 2005, including specialized software obtained from the law enforcement community that was adapted to analyze insurgent networks.134 The F3EA paradigm changed from find, fix, finish, exploit, and analyze to a more police-like “investigate, arrest, convict, and conduct information operations and statistical tracking of Iraqi officials, witnesses, and conviction rates.”135 As a Brigade Combat Team leader explained, a complete picture was more important than hasty operations: Targeting here in Baghdad is like targeting the mob. There are plenty of guys filling different roles within the networks, and there are always personnel who can step up to fill a vacancy. . . . This operation is all about police/detective work. The BCT [brigade combat team] is not in a rush to force collection and roll-ups. They will continue to track HVIs [highvalue individuals] and “let it sort out while we collect.”136

As predicted in counterinsurgency theory, as security improved, the police and law enforcement agencies began to play a larger role and the interagency teams adjusted accordingly. Intelligence fusion cells increasingly focused on nonlethal targeting. SOF Task Force units that became more willing to share information with conventional commanders and other agencies137 also became more sensitive to the damage their raids could do if they alienated important sections of Iraqi society. Ironically, it was one such operation that brought high-value target teams in Iraq to a halt. On February 11, 2010, a raid directed at a Shia militant group in Maysan province near Iraq’s southeast border with Iran had major political repercussions. The raid killed eight enemy and netted twenty-two detainees. One of those killed, a woman who was armed and resisting reputedly was related to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite. This was hardly the first time a high-value target raid had unanticipated political costs, but it would be the last for quite a while. After that incident, SOF operations throughout the country were suspended until the twenty-two prisoners were turned over to the Iraqi government, after which they were promptly released.138 Maliki further demanded that all SOF raids be personally approved by him. With U.S. forces scheduled to leave Iraq in any case, and most SOF units having

176

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

already transferred to Afghanistan, the event effectively ended SOF’s high-value targeting in Iraq.139

SOF LESSONS LEARNED Within SOF writ large, the lessons identified above were absorbed and promulgated with differing levels of appreciation. In Special Forces, many of these insights were well-recognized and considered part of their institutional history as insurgency experts. In that regard, it’s not surprising that Special Forces officers played key roles in the Mosul, Tal Afar, and Ramadi successes, only some of whom have been publicly recognized.140 However, within the special mission units and among SOF general officers, these lessons were absorbed unevenly and with varying degrees of alacrity. Here we review Gen. McChrystal’s changing appreciation for the proper role of high-value target teams because he was the primary architect and guiding force behind their employment in Iraq and later in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s memoirs and interviews suggest he came to appreciate all the lessons identified above. He began by thinking special mission units could hollow out the middle level of the terrorist organization and cause it to “collapse in on itself,”141 but he came to understand that the high-value target teams would never take down enough enemy combatants to prevail. Visiting MacFarland in Ramadi in June 2006, McChrystal said he “encountered a vision for part of [the SOF Task Force’s] role in the next stage of the Iraq war.” McChrystal accompanied some Rangers on a raid and noticed one detainee had his young son nearby, who seemed about four years old: I watched the boy. He stood quietly, as if confused, then, mimicking his father, the child laid down on the ground. He pressed one cheek flat against the pavement so that his face was turned towards his father and folded his small hands behind his head. As I watched, I felt sick. I could feel in my own limbs and chest the shame and fury that must have been coursing through the father, still lying motionless . . . To be laid on the ground in full view of his son was humiliating. For a proud man, to seemingly fail to protect that son from similar treatment was worse. As I watched, I thought, not for the first time: it would be easy for us to lose.142

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

17 7

McChrystal realized that as good as the Rangers were, they couldn’t change the dynamics in Ramadi simply through raids— which, even when done as professionally as they were on that day, could produce enmity in the population. Absent a campaign to protect the people, we can only hope the residents understood these raids were necessary. But even then, the targeting operations could not address the deeper structural sources of the violence that only a fuller spectrum counterinsurgency effort could.143

A few days later, McChrystal met again with MacFarland. McChrystal’s local commander of a high-value target team, a Navy SEAL, asked MacFarland what the center of gravity in Ramadi was. When MacFarland said it was Sheikh Sattar, who was coming over to the side of the American forces, the Navy SEAL replied, “Right. We’ve got to keep that guy alive.”144 The comment could well serve as an iconic moment for the evolution of SOF Task Force’s role in Iraq. McChrystal and his experienced special mission unit operator, responsible for taking down so many enemy combatants, realized the most important task in Ramadi was keeping an influential former enemy alive. McChrystal described that particular Navy SEAL and his team as being in “the vanguard of a growing trend within our force to be better linked to the battle space owners, and work to incorporate—and sometimes subordinate—his targeting teams to the conventional commanders.”145 It has been suggested McChrystal was responding to pressure from General Casey to do more to assist the conventional forces conducting counterinsurgency.146 However that might be, McChrystal agrees the SOF Task Force “experience across Iraq increasingly resembled what was occurring in Ramadi.”147 He later argued, “our biggest contribution to the fight was the network. I had 76 different liaison officers out at locations . . . creating fusion cells with conventional forces [which] became the most important thing we did. And so, it improved dramatically by 2006, 2007, and 2008, partly because we created that infrastructure. . . .148 Because “simply grinding harder against the dual Sunni and Shia threats would not suffice,”149 McChrystal also supported British SAS Lt. Gen. Graeme Lamb’s efforts to reconcile some former enemies. Lamb arrived in Iraq the same week Sheikh Sattar was announcing the

17 8

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

awakening in Ramadi. According to McChrystal, Lamb’s strategic reconciliation effort would be extremely controversial, especially within [the SOF Task Force]. Many of the hardline leaders Graeme would propose releasing were those my men had spent years of their lives trying to capture, losing limbs and friends in the process. Graeme’s program meant setting them free in the hope that, once convinced, they can be more useful on the outside by altering the calculus of their former comrades in a way that benefited us. It was a tough case to make, and without my support and that of those under me, his project would be stillborn. I agreed on the spot. . . . By that fall of 2006, I felt the dynamics needed to change were we to succeed.150

McChrystal goes on to describe Lamb’s focus on a specific detainee, “the religious emir of Ansar al-Sunnah, a man named Abu Wail.” In a conversation with Lamb the emir said the Americans and British were a force of occupation and not welcome in Iraq, and that guidance from the Koran required him to resist the occupation for years or even generations if it threatened his faith and way of life. But then he added, “We’ve watched you for 3½ years. We’ve discussed this in Syria, and Saudi, and Jordan, and in Iraq. And we have come to the conclusion that you do not threaten our way of life. Al Qaeda does.” McChrystal describes the emir’s change in thinking as a remarkable breakthrough, and he cites other political developments supported by SOF Task Force as well.151 One of McChrystal’s most experienced operators helped explain the need to release men from captivity that SOF Task Force members had sacrificed to apprehend. As McChrystal recalled, his support was “crucial”: He had commanded in the same squadron that had picked up many of the guys now being considered for release, and he could pose the problem to colleagues in stark terms. “I’ve done the math,” John would say, “and it’s going to take us 247 years to kill them all.” Reconciliation was the alternative. While most in the task force quickly grasped the logic, stomachs turned when it came to actually freeing terrorists. John’s history of shared sacrifice gave the project essential credibility.152

McChrystal’s high-value target teams kept the pressure on the enemy and particularly their “irreconcilable” leaders, but it was clear going into

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

17 9

2007 that SOF Task Force was supporting the broader counterinsurgency effort. And as McChrystal explains, they were doing so with increasing appreciation for the political effects of the high-value targeting teams; that is, their second- and third-order effects: Linking our targeting efforts with Graeme’s strategic engagement  .  .  . would further redefine the “precision” we aspire to achieve with our targeting. In this context precision did not mean killing or capturing targeted individuals and leaving the houses or civilians around them unharmed. Rather, these precise actions would need to bring about desirable second and third order effects by moving certain groups thinking or behavior in the right direction.153

Looking back, McChrystal observed: When I was in Iraq I was viewed as the “Terrorist Killer,” the “direct action guy.”. . . . But our real contribution to that war was less that than it was building this network that went through Iraq and connected different forces, not just my own, but also intelligence parts and conventional forces. And that’s at the operational and strategic level. And I became more and more convinced that that was the essential key. It was building a wider network so you could connect more people with more capabilities, with the information needed to make decisions and operate in some kind of concert together.154

These insights help explain why McChrystal was asked to take charge of the theater-wide effort in Afghanistan.

HIGH-VALUE TARGETING AND COUNTERINSURGENCY IN AFGHANISTAN In June 2009, McChrystal was appointed commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and others wanted McChrystal to apply the lessons learned in Iraq to subdue the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Instead of promising to decimate the Taliban so their organization collapsed, McChrystal emphasized highvalue targeting as a means to support the broader counterinsurgency

18 0

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

effort. According to McChrystal, it took a while for this approach to sink in, even for the SOF units he commanded: When I got [to Afghanistan], there were people saying, “OK, we’re going to whack the bad guys at night.” And sure, that’s a component of what you have to do, but my thinking at that point had evolved . . . away from the direct use of military power to it’s about what’s in people’s minds, and who wins is the person who understands the problem quickest, adapts to it, and the people who can learn the fastest.155

McChrystal’s viewpoint was shared by the upper echelons of SOF. Over the next few years senior SOF leaders emphasized the supporting role SOF Task Force played in counterinsurgency. USSOCOM commanders testified to Congress on the importance of targeting enemy leaders to buy time and space for population security and political solutions.156 Pushing McChrystal’s hard-won lessons from Iraq down to all the military forces under his command proved more challenging for several reasons. Most importantly, he was not able to sell the White House on his strategy. McChrystal tried to convince the president that high-value targeting of Taliban cadres only made sense in support of the counterinsurgency effort. He wanted to attack Taliban cadres but discriminately, with attention to their political impact. McChrystal had authorized SOF Task Force operations against Taliban leaders (in addition to al-Qaeda leaders) as early as 2006. By 2008, most of the 550 raids McChrystal’s units conducted in Afghanistan were against Taliban targets.157 In 2009, the year McChrystal took command in Afghanistan, the number of SOF raids diminished slightly to 464, with most being Taliban and not al-Qaeda targets.158 By January 2010, McChrystal and McRaven, who succeeded McChrystal as commander of SOF Task Force, had improved the “jackpot” rate (i.e., successful takedown of the intended target) from 35 percent to 80 percent.159 In other words, they were emphasizing intelligence-driven operations, discrimination, and attention to political effects. But President Barak Obama, like his predecessor, was more impressed by high-value targeting for its own sake. What Obama and his White House advisers wanted, and what McChrystal and Gates resisted, was an increase in high-value targeting without a large increase in conventional forces for counterinsurgency. President Obama directed increased CIA drone attacks against al-Qaeda in Pakistan, but he also directed

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

18 1

McChrystal to “increase the tempo of counterterrorism attacks against the Taliban inside Afghanistan.”160 The president and his national security adviser acquiesced to a short-term surge in U.S. forces—smaller than what McChrystal wanted—but in their view, “no nationwide counterinsurgency in Afghanistan was necessary to protect the United States.”161 By May, Obama and his top White House security advisers believed events were proving them correct. They thought the CIA and SOF Task Force raids they had ordered “were having superb results . . . despite the lack of the troop density [the Pentagon] insisted would be necessary for successful counterterrorism.”162 They believed “intelligence showed that the Taliban leadership [in Pakistan] was feeling the pressure,” and that the high value target teams were “putting the wood to Taliban regulars in Afghanistan.”163 But things were not as rosy as the White House thought. McRaven had put Rangers in charge of SOF Task Force missions in Afghanistan. Wanting to help the conventional forces with counterinsurgency, the Rangers pushed for more night raids against the Taliban. Unfortunately, good intelligence was harder to come by in Afghanistan than Iraq—particularly in the south—and the productivity rate of the raids declined to the point where there was concern that many of the raids were doing more harm than good.164 A raid on February 12, 2010 (a day after the Maysan raid in Iraq), became a notorious case in point. Acting on bad intelligence, Rangers conducted a night raid on a compound in Gardez in Afghanistan’s Paktika province where they killed an American-trained local police detective and six other Afghans, including two pregnant women. After confusing and embarrassing denials, Adm. McRaven admitted “a terrible mistake” had been made and went to the site to apologize personally to the affected families. McChrystal responded to Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s complaints about such night raids by ordering that all such raids include Afghan forces that would take the lead on searches, that female support teams be used for searching females, and that compensation be offered for damages.165 Beyond the differences over the basic strategy, McChrystal discovered the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, did not share his assessment of the situation or what needed to be done. Surprisingly, given his incredible success in forging partnerships with other national security leaders, McChrystal did not enjoy a good working relationship with Eikenberry. Absent the type of smooth relationship that Petraeus

18 2

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

and Crocker had in Iraq, unity of effort in Afghanistan was impossible. Even more alarming, McChrystal discovered the numerous competing military chains of command in Afghanistan resulted in inadvertent civilian fatalities that undermined his counterinsurgency effort: There was an Afghan force that had a Marine Special Operations Command . . . element working with it, which didn’t own the battlespace, but was out there doing its own thing. There was a Special Forces regional taskforce, which was also operating in the area, but was different from the battlespace owner. And then there were the forces that dropped the bomb which killed the civilians. He [McChrystal] found that there were at least five players in the proximity of the incident, but nobody was in charge. The different entities didn’t even have the requirement to keep each other informed of what they were doing.166

Initially, McChrystal’s attitude was, “It’s not optimal, but I’ll make it work.” Later, he came to believe that was a mistake, and that the multiple independent military chains of command were “lunacy.”167 Secretary Gates eventually stepped in and rectified the confused military chain of command in the summer of 2010 by ordering all American forces (including special operations and the Marines) to report to the theater commander.168 Gates’s intervention came too late to help McChrystal. A year into McChrystal’s tenure, a journalist wrote an exposé alleging that anonymous members of McChrystal’s staff had been critical of the president. In June 2010, McChrystal was summoned to the White House, where the president asked for his resignation and replaced him with Gen. Petraeus. The leadership change did not affect the plan to use high-value target teams to complement counterinsurgency. However, it apparently affected how the plan was executed. Gen. Petraeus was responsible for the U.S. Army’s new manual on counterinsurgency and widely lionized for reversing the situation in Iraq. He was well aware of the need to coordinate high-value targeting and population security operations. However, the balance between those two activities and how to orchestrate them is disputed. Contrary to the attitudes prevailing in the White House, most counterinsurgency experts would argue, as McChrystal came to realize, that high-value targeting must be subordinated to the counterinsurgency effort. This is particularly true in Afghanistan, which was more rural than Iraq and had far

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

18 3

fewer cell phones in use, and where identifying insurgents required much more patience. All things equal, that should have meant fewer and more discriminate high-value target raids, as McChrystal had been doing in the last half of 2009 and first part of 2010. The opposite occurred. One of Petraeus’s first acts after reaching Kabul was to expand the Joint Prioritized Effects List (i.e., the preapproved list of targets) and renew the emphasis on high-value targeting.169 SOF Task Force operational tempo skyrocketed to unprecedented levels during the summer of 2010. A little over four thousand raids were conducted over just three months. Compared to the five hundred or so raids conducted per annum the previous two years, this was more than a 3,000 percent increase in optempo, which Petraeus acknowledged. He said SOF was “at the absolutely highest operational tempo,” conducting “an average of more than 40 [raids] a day,” which represented a quadrupling of the approximately ten raids a day conducted at the height of the “surge” in Iraq. Petraeus had earlier argued, “You can’t kill your way out of an insurgency.”170 Yet he also argued for the importance of “killing or capturing the most important ‘irreconcilables,’ ” and maintains that after the surge in Iraq “we sought to pursue key irreconcilables even more aggressively than was the case before the surge.” He claims the optempo for SOF Task Force “increased substantially, as did the tempo of targeted operations by the Iraqi counterterrorist forces that we trained, equipped, advised.”171 In other words, Petraeus’s lesson learned from Iraq was that it was necessary to ramp up high-value target raids to close out the victory. He pursued this pattern in Afghanistan, perhaps because he knew what the president and his advisers wanted and because there was not much time for impressing them with results before they demanded U.S. troop withdrawals begin. However, without the requisite intelligence, the productivity of the raids declined and popular anger over the raids increased.172 It became a major point of contention between the special mission units and the Rangers. Ranger commanders pushed for ever more missions, and the special mission units advocated for more patience. The Rangers, who were in charge, prevailed. The Rangers even conducted operations in the daytime to ensure they would generate more combat. The Rangers brought Afghans along to comply with the rules of engagement, but took the lead and engaged aggressively. Consequently, relations with the local

18 4

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

population worsened, and the raids became even more of a cause célèbre in Afghanistan. The May 2011 SOF Task Force raid that killed Osama bin Laden highlighted what high-value target teams could achieve. However, inside Afghanistan raids were being conducted on an industrial scale with much poorer intelligence and much less discrimination. Over the course of 2011 SOF Task Force conducted 2,824 missions with a 49 percent jackpot rate. Less than even odds of getting the intended target suggests the raids were doing more harm than good. Certainly, Afghan President Karzai thought so. He railed against the raids and called for banning them in his Loya Jirga speech that year. In response, the United States emphasized that “over 85 percent [of night raids] are conducted without a single shot being fired and all night raids are performed with Afghan security forces.”173 Later, in 2012, John Allen, then commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, argued the success rate of night raids was better and civilian casualties were lower than commonly appreciated: This last year we had about 2,200 night operations. Of those 2,200 or so night operations, in 90 percent of them we didn’t fire a shot. On more than 50 percent of them, we got the targeted individual, and in 30 percent more we got the next associate of that individual as well. So 83 percent, roughly, of the night operations we got either the primary target or an associate. In all of those night operations, even with 10 percent where we fired a shot, there was less than 1.5 percent civilian casualties.174

Even so, the popular resentment caused by the raids persisted, and Karzai eventually succeeded in imposing restrictions on them. In April 2012, a memorandum of understanding between the Afghan and U.S. governments required all raids be approved in advance by an Afghan coordination center. At the time, 97 percent of raids were joint operations, but only 40 percent were Afghan-led.175 That changed. With Afghan approval required, Afghan forces began taking the lead. By 2013, only Ranger squad leaders were accompanying the Afghans. Given the Afghan attention to civilian sensitivities, little fighting was taking place during the raids. When Ashraf Ghani replaced Karzai as president, he lifted some of the restrictions imposed on raids,176 but by then U.S. involvement in the raids had fallen precipitously. By 2015, SOF Task Force presence in

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

185

Afghanistan was down to a couple of reduced companies of Rangers conducting, at most, thirty raids a year. High-value targeting on a large scale was possible in Iraq and Afghanistan because they were war zones with a large U.S. conventional force presence. The ability to execute high-volume attacks on targets with minimal planning or delay diminished greatly after the drawdown of U.S. forces and concentration of those remaining in just a handful of bases. Ranger “out stations” that had spread across Afghanistan were closed, and thus their raids had to be conducted over longer distances, which complicated logistics and required detailed planning. The SOF Task Force still conducts high-value targeting—for example in Syria177—but increasingly drones are used to simplify logistics and reduce risks to assault forces.

CONCLUSION Having reviewed the history of high-value targeting in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is possible to extract some observations on their impact. With respect to their strategic value, it can be argued that eliminating top enemy leaders is necessary for keeping terrorist and insurgent organizations on the defensive and unable to mount crippling attacks on the U.S. homeland or its forces in theater. Eliminating key leaders like Osama bin Laden also was important for American morale. However, as far as the war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq go, it is clear that high-value targeting had the greatest impact when conducted in support of counterinsurgency operations. High-volume, high-value targeting alone could not secure victory in either theater. The high-value targeting machine built by McChrystal is also significant as an example of what can be accomplished via interagency collaboration. McChrystal’s high-value target teams are one of the few interagency success stories for the post-World War II U.S. national security system178 and a vivid demonstration of what the system can do when empowered by cross-organizational collaboration.179 As widely appreciated as the high-value target teams were, the critical lesson that they had to support the counterinsurgency effort is less widely appreciated, less evenly applied, and less enduring, which helps explain why the overall results in Iraq and Afghanistan were so unsatisfactory.180

18 6

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

High performing organizations must be able to recognize, reward, and replicate success when it is pioneered or stumbled upon. The army as a whole, and the national security system writ large, are not able to do this with respect to interagency collaboration and irregular warfare, both of which run counter to system predilections and arguably American strategic culture. Previous successes like the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support organization in Vietnam (CORDS), no matter how widely documented and appreciated, have been quickly abandoned and never reused. Similarly, the JIATFs used to conduct effective counterinsurgency in Iraq were not recognized and replicated across the theater or in Afghanistan. Some commanders applied counterinsurgency methods with great success, others were inept and counterproductive, and some, like General Ray Odierno, famously had a change of heart and adopted a population-centric approach to counterinsurgency after trying and failing with a combat-centric approach.181 At best, the U.S. military adopted proven counterinsurgency techniques slowly and unevenly, even after extensive experience with what works and what does not.182 Yet SOF leaders like McChrystal and McRaven were able to recognize, reward, and replicate the success of their high-value target teams and institutionalize them as a best practice within SOF. It can be argued that SOF should have made a more concerted “lessons learned” effort to determine why some high-value targeting teams worked better than others.183 Even so, these interagency constructs are now institutionalized, and SOF has an impressive amount of leadership experience on what it takes to make them perform well. Within SOF, the new practices have proven transformative. The special mission units sent to Somalia to snatch Mohamed Farrah Aideed followed a “find, fix, finish” construct. According to one SMU member who served there, they paid the greatest attention to “finishing” the target—meaning, capturing Aideed. The special mission units did not go to Somalia asking, “How will we know where [Aideed] is?”184 They assumed intelligence would tell them, or that their own operations would flush him out. This was in spite of the fact that Somalia was a nonpermissive environment where Aideed had a significant capability to put U.S. forces on the defensive and thwart intelligence collection on his whereabouts. After McChrystal’s transformation of the special mission units, their focus shifted to exploitation and analysis. He built a variety of new organizations at his command, all of which performed intelligence, not

H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

18 7

assault functions. To emphasize this shift, he used to tell subordinates that his superiors could take away operators, but if they took away the analysts he was dead in the water. According to one flag-level leader in SOF, McChrystal brought about a cultural revolution in the special mission units—and perhaps SOF more generally. SOF had gone to Somalia as “the most arrogant, isolated force in the military,” but under McChrystal’s leadership came to realize that “we couldn’t solve the problem ourselves.” Adm. McRaven, who had recommended the JIATF concept to McChrystal and succeeded him as the commander of SOF Task Force, made a point of institutionalizing McChrystal’s changes: “After McChrystal it would’ve been very hard to go back; after McRaven it was impossible.”185 Some long-time observers of SOF may doubt the assertion that it is impossible for SOF to revert to a “go it alone” approach to high-value target missions. Arguably, the Rangers and special mission units are constitutionally inclined to direct action irrespective of available intelligence. Yet one tell-tale indication of the cultural change wrought within the special mission units was their sharp disagreement with the Rangers in Afghanistan about the need for strategic patience. The special mission units, which were not inclined to be patient in Somalia in 1993, were, in 2010 and 2011, counseling other SOF elements in Afghanistan to let intelligence dictate the pace of operations. This might have been due to the desire to avoid unnecessary risks rather than a deep appreciation for the importance of the secondary and tertiary effects of the operations.186 In any case, it is clear that McChrystal dramatically changed special mission units’ understanding of “precision” targeting. Time will tell how deeply McChrystal’s insights have penetrated. Other lessons from the high-value target experience may prove ephemeral in the SOF community. For some years, SOF leaders emphasized that high-value targeting had to support counterinsurgency, and, more broadly, that SOF direct action missions only bought time for the indirect approach—that is, working by, with, and through the host government forces and population—to prevail. However, that legacy seems to be fading along with interest in counterinsurgency and irregular warfare more generally, which is the historic norm for U.S. forces and the U.S. national security system. Among many in the Pentagon and at the national level, the major lesson taken from SOF high-value targeting teams is that they can wreak havoc on enemy cadres.

18 8

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

It should also be noted that the high-value targeting experience skewed the entire SOF community towards direct action at the expense of indirect skills. It also resulted in SOF being used for elite, not special purposes. McChrystal’s teams ended up playing the classic counterinsurgency role of elite forces that combine exquisite intelligence and audacious strike operations to keep insurgents on the defensive and give conventional forces a chance to establish population control. This explains why they were so controversial within SOF. Normally, SOF are reserved for special missions, and special mission units are reserved for missions of independent strategic value. Instead, what McChrystal ended up proving was that with the right all-source intelligence integration and intelligence-operations fusion, a wide variety of SOF forces and even elite conventional forces can successfully conduct high-value targeting. What this means for an understanding of what makes SOF “special” is taken up in chapter six on roles and missions. Before that, we use another case study to take a closer look at how SOF can provide strategic utility through population security.

✪ 5

Village Stability Operations

The purpose of Village Stability Operations is to connect

remote rural areas to a central governing authority. The decision to establish a camp in a certain location is based, therefore, on political, economic, and social factors. What are the major trade routes, lines of communication, the most important market locations, or natural resources? Which tribes or ethnic groups are dominant, or who are the most important strongmen? Where are the enemies’ centers of strength, what sanctuaries do they enjoy? Such considerations make one village or settlement rather than another appear more important. Once the village is chosen, then a scouting party selects a campsite nearby, based on such tactical considerations as defensible terrain, access to the population, water, and the location of key leaders, roads, or perhaps even cultural or religious sites. When the troops arrive at the selected location, their first task is to lay out the camp and fortify its perimeter. Among the troops are soldiers trained in combat engineering who can call on the labor of their comrades to build the fortification they plan. Once the perimeter is fortified, the construction of the camp itself begins. Among the troops are trained medics, who set up an infirmary. Areas are set aside to house the troops, who set up or construct their shelters. They also set up such necessary facilities as latrines and training areas. Once the camp is set up, the soldiers begin the usual military routines of guarding, cleaning, maintaining, and training. It is an advantage that the troops are cross-trained in the various military disciplines and other skills required to carry out their mission, even as they rely on comrades who, through personal inclination, advanced

19 0

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

training, or hard-earned experience are experts in one area or another, such as engineering, weapons, or medical care. Even as the camp is being set up, the troops begin their critical functions: diplomacy to engage key local leaders, patrolling to discourage and counter enemy operations, and policing to help establish and maintain governance. In these tasks, the troops and their commander have the assistance of specialists in politics or civil affairs, whose principal task is to engage not enemy forces but the local population and its leaders. Indeed, although the troops may have an edge in military technology and training, their long-term success depends most not on their military but on their political skills in winning over the population, which requires winning over its key leaders. A principal means for achieving these political objectives is getting the local leadership’s approval for the recruitment and training of indigenous personnel as an auxiliary force. This was the process perfected more than two thousand years ago by Romans gaining control of territory in North Africa (and elsewhere) as they pushed outward the limits of their empire.1 The more than superficial similarities between what the Romans did and what the U.S. military came to call village stability operations (VSO) in Afghanistan is worth noting for two reasons. First, it encourages us to take a long-term perspective, which the U.S. government finds difficult to do, focused as it is on the cutting edge of military technology. For this and other reasons, the U.S. military must relearn the lessons of what it now calls irregular warfare every time it engages in it.2 The persistence of this kind of warfare over millennia suggests that it—and successful ways to conduct it—will remain relevant, whatever is happening in the technological stratosphere. Second, and more important, the Romans controlled more territory with fewer troops than perhaps any empire in history. While the United States does not think in imperial terms, it does on occasion aspire to control territory, even if only temporarily, before returning it to those deemed to be its rightful owners. With control of territory in mind, the Roman example is worth considering, especially since the United States, as did Rome, finds its resources insufficient for the tasks it has set for itself. As we will see, the differences between the Roman and American approach turn out to be most telling with regard to the strategic effectiveness of village stability operations. Assessing the strategic effectiveness of VSO is part of assessing the strategic effectiveness of special operations forces (SOF). These village

V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

19 1

operations were a version of, in a way of combination of, foreign internal defense and counterinsurgency, two basic SOF missions, which we have discussed in the introduction and in chapters one and two. This is why SOF, especially Army Special Forces (SF), was instrumental in developing VSO as a specific sort of operation in Afghanistan. VSO grew from the basic SF approach of working with indigenous military forces and populations. To assess VSO, and through them an aspect of SOF’s strategic contribution, we need to examine these operations in more detail.

WHAT ARE VILLAGE STABILITY OPERATIONS? In a strict sense, the term “village stability operations” refers to activities beginning in 2010 undertaken in Afghanistan to retake control of rural areas from the Taliban.3 SOF, with the support of Afghan militias, had routed the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. The Taliban recovered over the next few years, as U.S. attention shifted to Iraq, military operations in Afghanistan remained focused on killing the enemy, and governance from Kabul, the capital, foundered. Using Pakistan as a sanctuary, and tribal connections in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Taliban was able to reassert control in some areas of Afghanistan, especially in the south, where its tribal connections were strongest. The purpose of VSO was “to foster an enduring stability for the people of Afghanistan” by encouraging “security, governance and development to undermine insurgent influence and control.” VSO were “intended to stabilize a village and link it to healthy formal governance” because “the lack of government presence in many rural areas of Afghanistan makes them susceptible to control by the Taliban.”4 (About 75 percent of Afghans live in rural areas.) VSO sought to counter the Taliban by focusing not primarily on killing them but depriving them of support from the local population. To achieve this end, VSO eventually became a four-phase operation: shape, build, hold, and transition (or in another account, shape, build, hold, expand and transition).5 In the first phase, Afghan government and U.S. military officials would meet with local leaders, usually elders, who had requested assistance with village security to determine their village’s suitability for the program. If the village was accepted into the program, then SOF would move into the village or

19 2

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

nearby and begin the second stage, build. In this phase, in cooperation with the village leaders, SOF recruited locals into a force known as the Afghan Local Police (ALP). ALP were intended to be a small defensive force focused on and trained and equipped only for village security. In addition, to win the support of the local population and its leaders, SOF would conduct civil affairs projects, building roads and bridges, opening a clinic, or a school, repairing mosques, and so on. Best practice in this phase was to involve locals and Afghan officials—district or province officials and police—where this could be done. These activities continued in the third phase, as SOF and its local allies held the area from the Taliban, allowing the continued training of local Afghan security forces and the improvement of governance, understood as connecting the village to the national government through Afghan institutions, such as the national police and the programs run by the national government through province and district officials that affected village life. It also meant helping the village shura or council have more control over its local area and more connection with district and province authorities. Civil affairs projects showed good will but were also part of an effort to promote development, understood to mean improvements to foster the local economy and connect it to regional or even national markets, as well as other related efforts, such as improving education, particularly education of women. Once the local security force matured and was considered able to operate on its own, SOF would begin the transition to full Afghan control of the village. As this occurred, SOF would prepare to move to another village to start the process over again. When Army Special Forces (SF) and Navy SEALs arrived at a village to establish an outpost they often brought with them the full range of SOF capabilities, especially civil affairs specialists and sometimes a soldier or two trained in information operations. Among those also deployed in VSO were combat air controllers whose job was to communicate with air support. Coordinating and directing this support was critical in allowing the relatively small VSO detachments to fend off larger-scale Taliban attacks and survive to carry on their mission. The SEAL units also included additional attached personnel, such as explosive ordnance, construction, and communication specialists, since these capabilities are not “built into” a SEAL platoon or squad as they are in a SF Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA). (The use of attached specialists was also the case when marine and regular infantry units participated in VSO.) All  VSO had support

V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

193

from the military’s remarkable logistics components, which supplied the troops with all sorts of things—including refrigerators, large-screen TVs, and beer—even in remote locations. Shortly after the program began, the U.S. military developed what it called cultural support teams. These teams consisted of female U.S. military personnel who dealt with Afghan women. Other government agencies also pitched in, including the Central Intelligence Agency, which apparently did not supply personnel to village-level units, but did supply intelligence and appears, from some accounts, to have had personnel in the field and not just in Kabul. (The CIA station chief in Afghanistan was also said to have supported the early stages of what became VSO.6) Since 2002, the U.S. Agency for International Development has been supporting projects throughout Afghanistan to improve governance and foster development.7 Finally, as VSO developed, they generated their own hierarchy of command and support elements stretching back to the highest headquarters in the country. The staff from these elements assisted with advice—on occasion with key leader engagements at the village level—but worked above the village level with corresponding district or province officials. While accurate, this account of the template phases of VSO and the typical personnel involved in a village operation is general and schematic. It does not convey the variety and differences from village to village that actually took place. The SOF teams involved had different personalities, as did the various Afghan officials and local leaders they dealt with. While all SOF did well at the technical military task of training ALP, they did not all do equally well with the political task of engaging local officials. Even some SF teams did not succeed at the political work of VSO, although they seem to have done better generally than SEALs, who were neither selected nor trained for the kind of political work involved in VSO.8 From place to place, local terrain and politics varied, as did the character and capabilities of the Taliban. Although engaging and killing the Taliban was not the primary objective of VSO, in some locations not much more than that seems to have happened. Some operations built steadily toward their designated ALP end strength, while others struggled with recruitment. One report has claimed that in the early stages of the VSO effort 60 percent of VSOs experienced difficulty recruiting for the ALP because of intimidation by insurgents.9 No summary, therefore, can do justice to the village-level struggle or to the skills of those who dealt with its bewildering mix of ancient prejudices, modern technology, and contemporary

19 4

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

Afghan politics. (We will consider the latter aspect of these operations more fully when we discuss their effectiveness.) For understanding SOF, especially the question of their strategic utility, a general understanding of these operations is sufficient, however. VSO in the strict sense was the last of a series of initiatives to provide security to the countryside and extend the writ of the government in Kabul down to the village level. Effective central government was something that had not previously existed in Afghan history, at least to the degree and in the way that American officials came to think was necessary to prevent Afghanistan reverting to a Taliban sanctuary. Looking at the development of these programs provides an overview of how they worked—or failed to—and what VSO eventually became. The table below charts this development.10 As the graph indicates, security was the primary objective for all of the predecessors to VSO. One way to understand the graph, in fact, is as a series of efforts to figure out how to achieve that fundamental objective. The Afghan Security Force (ASF), set up in 2003, was a “regularization” of the irregular forces that fought with SF when they first entered Afghanistan. Its principal purpose was to provide security to SF as they hunted Taliban and al-Qaeda. The assumption behind this initial effort was not so much that killing these enemies would itself provide security but that beating them down was the prerequisite for anything else that might be done. The ASF were recruited and run by

TA B L E 5 .1

VILLAGE STABILITY OPERATIONS IMPLEMENTED IN AFGHANISTAN Program/Year

Security

Governance

Development

Orientation

Security Force 2003

Yes

No

No

Top-down

National Auxiliary Police 2006

Yes

No

No

Top-down

Public Protection Program 2008–09

Yes

No

No

Top-down

Local Defense Initiative 2009

Yes

No

Some

Mostly top-down

Village Stability Operations 2010

Yes

Yes

Yes

Top-down/ bottom-up

V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

195

U.S military forces with minimum input from either the government of Afghanistan or village leaders. They were not village based, even as they operated in and around villages. They were not concerned with governance or development. These characteristics followed from the ASF mission as a support and security force for what was a conventional military operation—searching for and destroying enemy forces. The limitations of this use of Afghan forces became apparent after it helped achieve the U.S. objective. Yet, as noted, the Taliban staged a comeback beginning in 2006. The immediate response to the Taliban resurgence was to set up the Afghan National Auxiliary Police in 2006. This was a force organized by the Afghan Ministry of Interior, whose recruits received ineffective vetting, little training, and did not necessarily serve in their home areas. It did not prove effective and was abandoned. In 2008–09, with encouragement and support from the United States, the government of Afghanistan launched the Public Protection Program. This program offered more training than the auxiliary police effort had. Its personnel also served in their home villages or areas. Its initial focus was to try to help secure the Ring Road, the major transportation artery in Afghanistan, especially the stretch between Kabul, the capital, and Kandahar, the major city in southern Afghanistan. At the same time, it was meant to be a kind of early warning effort that would alert better armed and trained Afghan forces to the presence of Taliban in an area. SF “partnered very closely with each AP3 team.”11 Although locally based, the Public Protection force was not focused on village protection as such. Although village councils or shuras helped select and vet recruits for the Public Protection teams, the teams did not attend to governance or development. They were from the beginning more an infrastructure protection than a village security force. The Afghan government intended them to replace the various guards and security contractors that nongovernmental agencies used, for example, although this did not occur completely. As efforts to combat the insurgency and achieve rural security sputtered, SOF continued to work with Afghan forces and the Afghan population at the village level. Indeed, what came to be called VSO had occurred piecemeal and through SF improvising since at least 2003 on its basic skills of working with indigenous forces/personnel,12 an effort cut short by the shift of emphasis to Iraq. Some elements of the Afghan government had also organized some effective village-level security efforts over

19 6

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

the years.13 In 2009, SF renewed the emphasis on village security with what came to be called the Local Defense Initiative or the Community Defense Initiative (LDI or CDI).14 This effort differed from its predecessors in selecting villages that had requested assistance from the government or had shown a history of resisting the Taliban. (Some analysts have considered this “bottom up” aspect as a lesson learned in Iraq in the Sons of Iraq movement or Sunni Awakening against al-Qaeda.15) In addition to looking for already existing Afghan initiatives, LDI also included some development efforts, “such as seed and fertilizer distribution, retaining wall, road, and culvert construction.”16 Although LDI suffered from inadequate resourcing and, as a largely U.S. initiative, inadequate Afghan government involvement, it was thought by both Afghan and American officials to be a model worth formalizing and more adequately supporting. The result was VSO, which were based on a set of principles and best practices gathered from previous experience in Afghanistan. VSO sought village commitment through constructive engagement with shuras and village elders, rather than finding it where it could, as LDI had. VSO continued the practice of having the elders vet recruits and kept the recruits focused on village security. Better resourced than its predecessors, VSO initiated more development than they had. Finally, through the participation of government officials in deliberations of the shuras, and getting the shuras to vet local recruits for the ALP, VSO sought to improve governance. These principles and best practices were not always followed. A principal reason for this was the 2010 decision that coalition forces would begin their drawdown in 2014. This meant that from the beginning emphasis was placed on recruiting and training the ALP, rather than on the more comprehensive goals of VSO. In the rush to increase the size of the ALP, sometimes preexisting militias with connections to warlords were simply absorbed into the ALP. This broke the connection to the village shura, undermined the legitimacy of the ALP, and led to abuses by some members of the ALP. In other cases, with security foremost in mind, ALP units were set up at key terrain points without the approval of local village leaders. Perhaps because they were poorly trained or led, ALP also tended to engage in static defense such as checkpoints, rather than the active patrolling and engaging with the local population that SF had encouraged in CDI/LDI. Some ALP units were also used away from their local base, for example, to provide security on the ring road.

V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

19 7

Such practices not only reduced village security—the original point of the ALP—but also made the isolated ALP units more vulnerable to attack.17 The process of VSO development sketched here was necessary because conventional forces took control of military operations in Afghanistan and because the war in Iraq drained resources and attention away from Afghanistan. Control by conventional military forces meant the emphasis became killing enemy forces, rather than winning the allegiance of the Afghan people to their new government. The evidence suggests that absent conventional force command and the Iraq war, some form of village stability operations would have developed in Afghanistan sooner than they did. VSO were, in fact, not some remarkable innovation in irregular warfare but a rather straightforward variant of traditional counterinsurgency doctrine and tactics, that is, military operations aimed at controlling not territory but the people who reside in it. As such, they have ancient antecedents, as we have suggested, but also modern ones. What SOF did in Afghanistan is similar to what some SF and some marine units had done in Vietnam and what some marine and army units had done in Central America, the Caribbean, and the Philippines at the end of the nineteenth century and during the first decades of the twentieth.18 Training indigenous troops, including making them aware of the civil dimensions of their role, and gaining popular support to make this training possible and effective, is a standard SF mission, one adaptable to a variety of circumstances. It was largely through SF initiative, backed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who took command of coalition forces in 2009, that VSO took shape.19

WHY ARE VSO NECESSARY? The fact that killing Taliban or driving them into Pakistan did not secure the Afghan countryside shows that VSO were necessary, but it does not explain why. Explaining why requires understanding the difference between conventional military operations and those like VSO. As we have implied above, both conventional and VSO operations aim at controlling territory. The difference between them arises from the different way they accomplish this common objective. Conventional operations do it by establishing a decisive monopoly of force over a given territory, either defensively by preventing some other force from asserting that

19 8

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

control or offensively by replacing a force asserting that control. Nonconventional operations also control territory, either offensively by asserting control over a population (insurgency) or defensively by preventing control of a population (counterinsurgency). What control over people or territory amounts to in a given situation will vary, of course. In a liberal democracy, control over territory and people will mean something different from what it means in an authoritarian state. It is also true there are people who do not have a national territory (e.g., the Kurds), so exercising some control over them does not lead to control of territory in the same way that it does in most cases. Finally, a government may assert control over territory in the sense that other governments or states do not question its territorial authority and no military threatens its monopoly of force, yet it does not fully control the population or all of the population. This was the case on the Western plains of the United States for decades in the nineteenth century and currently in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Acknowledging these variations and exceptions, the distinctions just made between conventional and nonconventional operations hold generally. Furthermore, the choice between these approaches is neither arbitrary nor discretionary, but depends on circumstances. To understand these different ways of controlling territory, it perhaps helps to start by considering conventional operations—for example, the reconquest of Europe during World War II. The Allies landed at Normandy and fought their way east toward Berlin, while the Russians headed west to the same objective. Army fought army. Although civilians were killed, killing or controlling them was not the primary military and political objective. Capturing Berlin was the key. Berlin was decisive because it was the seat of the German government. As such, it was the center of political, legal, economic, and religious power and authority. From Berlin radiated the reciprocal lines of administrative control and political allegiance, developed over centuries, that penetrated all levels of German society and touched every single German. Capturing the capital meant capturing and controlling the administrative power of the state and thus controlling both people and territory. In Germany, as in Japan, the existing administrative lines of authority and power survived the war. Purged of relatively few of those (functionaries and bureaucrats) who administered this power and authority before the war, they continued to operate under the new rulers, as they did when the Americans, British, and French returned control to the Germans.

V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

19 9

The control exercised through Berlin reflected some characteristics common to all government and some that were peculiar to Europe. All government rests on an implicit contract between the government and the governed. In its simplest terms, government provides security for persons and property, and the governed pay for it. Thus, especially once agriculture developed, administrative systems of property accounting and taxation, as well as rules governing property transactions and commerce more generally, were among the first and remain among the most important of the powers of government over society and the individuals who compose it. Along with these rules came the necessity of interpreting them in ambiguous cases, and thus some judicial function, and the means to enforce judicial decisions, and thus some coercive or military capacity. The military capacity was also necessary, of course, to protect people and property from outsiders who wished to harm the first in order to take the second. The need for such protection and the ability to put it into the field and sustain it grew as the wealth that accumulated under conditions of internal security and administrative order increased. Considered functionally, religion has been part of the implicit contract binding government and the people almost from the beginning of human social organization. Religion allows people otherwise unrelated to share commitments that satisfy the deepest longings and needs that humans have. It thus fosters the unity necessary for political existence beyond the narrow limits of even extended families. As administrative, religious, and legal requirements grew and became institutionalized, a class or group of experts—scribes, priests, judges—developed specializing in administrative, religious, and legal tasks. These were the ancient ancestors of those we now call bureaucrats. Finally, governments or states had to develop some way to train or educate their priests and bureaucrats. Educational systems thus taught information technologies, such as writing and mathematics, necessary for governance and its related commercial and religious activities, but only to a small number of scribes and priests. Arising from and supporting the basic contract of security for resources that arose out of the development of agriculture, an array of administrative powers allow governments to control people and territory. In Western Europe first and in a few other places since, the contract between the governed and their governors was altered by adding the idea that government should provide not just security but protection of individual freedoms or rights. Thus administrative systems of law came over time

200

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

to penetrate beyond merchants or the propertied to all levels of society, and government came to include a distinction between the police, a less lethal force with domestic responsibilities, and the military, a more lethal force with principally foreign ones. Recognizing the rights or freedom of citizens meant distinguishing civilians from military personnel and making the latter subservient to the former. In terms of administrative power, the acceptance of rights was an important development, since people are more willing to pay—and at higher rates—for security and protection of rights, than for security alone. This explains the apparent paradox of eighteenth-century Britain having both the strongest tradition of legal freedoms for subjects and the most intrusive and effective excise tax system in Europe, a key factor in its rise to global power.20 Finally, since humans are born members of a family but not citizens except in some merely formal or legal sense, when humans were thought to have rights, some more or less universal system of education was necessary beyond the family to internalize and preserve the legal formality of rights-based citizenship and give it some meaning. State educational systems reaching and altering the thinking of all, not just scribes, priests, and judges, came into existence. Taken together, these various developments, and the commercial activities and economic development made possible by them, increasingly made capital cities the key points to which human and material resources flowed and from which all the various kinds of power and authority radiated out to touch every individual, in a reciprocal and reinforcing exchange of resources for security, and sometimes for rights. The general rule of government and the governed just described is subject to variation, of course, variations that affect a strategy for taking control of territory. The two principal variables are the location of administrative power and authority, and the degree to which it penetrates society, which means how directly and thoroughly it touches individuals. With regard to location, in some cases formal federal systems may divide various aspects of governing power and authority among different cities or regions, such as provinces or states. Separate from or in addition to formal divisions of power and authority, informal ones may develop as well. The capital city may not be most important economically (Washington, DC, versus New York or Los Angeles), for example. Or religious authority may be located someplace separate from political and economic authority, as in Iran, where religious authority resides in Qom, and political authority in Tehran. Furthermore, in Western Europe and the United States, the

V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

201

separation of church and state may leave religious power and authority widely diffused. The more varied and dispersed the centers of power and authority, the more complicated may be the task of establishing control over territory. Similarly, habits of thought, social structure, technological developments, political institutions, religious organizations—all individually or in various combinations may affect the degree to which any kind of centralized power and authority may arise and penetrate society, touching families and individuals.21 A tradition of individual rights or freedoms, as in liberal democracies, can prevent or limit the reach of administrative power wherever it is located or no matter how centralized it is. Yet at the same time, an emphasis on individualism can limit the authority of family, clan, tribe, and religion, directly exposing individuals to state or governmental power. In Nicaragua, in the 1920s, the marines encountered a society structured around large landowning families, whose heads were patrons with many clients, including all those people who worked on their estates. The power of these local landowners limited the reach of central authority in Managua, just as the power of English barons once limited the power of the English king.22 As in Iraq, tribes and clans may be strong enough to limit the power of the central government and require it to deal with them in addition to or instead of directly with families and individuals. As for technology, writing and calculating were the original information technologies developed in coordination with state power. “Statistics” originally meant numerical information useful for the administration of the state.23 In some places, the state may collect and retain this numerical information on individuals, but also employ people with the technical training to manipulate it and thus, at least potentially, increase the state’s control over individuals. In some places, conceptions of individual rights limit not so much the penetration of this advanced statistical capability, which still touches free individuals comprehensively, but the state’s use of it, except for prescribed and limited purposes. These variations lead to an array of arrangements that European and American military and civilian officials confronted as they spread their control over territory around the world beginning in the early sixteenth century. This created problems that had to be solved, if they were, by adaptation, since Europeans (and Americans later) brought with them military and governing styles peculiar to their historical experience. Historically, military forces in Europe developed in parallel with the states they served. As cities and especially capital cities became centers

202

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

of wealth, power, and authority, the focus of the military art increasingly became the capturing or defending of those cities. This did not mean the attacker had to lay siege to a capital. If the military force intended to defend the capital could be defeated elsewhere, at or near the frontier for example, then the rulers could seek peace to prevent the destruction of their capital. Indeed, if the attacker wanted the wealth, power, and authority of the capital city, then he had an incentive not to lay siege to it or destroy it, or for that matter its farmland and farmers and its other resources. In any event, as capital cities became centers of administrative control and wealth, military forces in Europe came to focus on engaging with and destroying other military forces as the prelude to asserting political authority over another state’s territory. As military forces took on this task and decreased their role in internal security, they separated themselves from civilian populations by their dress or uniforms and often physically by relocating to frontiers. This was true not only in Europe but elsewhere—in India, for example—where governing and social structures created centers of wealth, power, and authority and the British conquest could occur through military means developed in Europe. In any case where centers of wealth and power were not established, where social structures, institutions, and traditions dispersed power across the people or left it with leading individuals, the conventions of the European military art did not apply. This was the case in the eighteenth-century Scottish highlands, as it was in the forests of eastern North America at that time; the tribal areas of the United States, Afghanistan, and what is now Pakistan in the nineteenth century; or the rural areas of Nicaragua in the early twentieth century. In these cases, Europeans and Americans who wished to control territory could not succeed by controlling a capital city, since the capitals, if they existed, did not exercise sufficient administrative or political control over their territories to make this possible. Seizing the capital, if there was one, did not put into the hands of the conqueror lines of power and authority that would allow him to control either the population or territory. In such places, Europeans and Americans typically did not confront organized, regular military forces separate from the people, forces that obeyed the conventions of Euro-American military art. They encountered instead tribal forces or bands of retainers, sometimes even bands of nomads or seminomadic peoples whose military skills and weapons were often those used in the daily life of hunting or raiding.

V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

203

Whether in Roman North Africa or the nineteenth-century American west, nomads posed the most limited threat but were also the most difficult to deal with, and for the same reason. Having only limited and movable wealth, nomads cannot produce military power that amounts to more than a nuisance threat—and often only in the remote border areas of more economically and politically developed states. But having only limited and movable wealth means nomads can avoid the set-piece battles favored by conventional military forces. Nomads have no reason to stand and fight, since they have no immovable concentrations of wealth, material or spiritual, to defend. They must be chased, and with their superior knowledge of the land and a way of life adapted to living off it, they can be difficult to capture. In the case of the American Indians on the American plains, it was more the destruction by commercial hunters of the buffalo, on which the Indian way of life depended, than the military successes of the fabled cavalry that led to their defeat. The Apaches were among the last indigenous people to lose their independence because they were among the least encumbered by things. Villages may be immovable concentrations of wealth, of course, but clan and tribal networks and areas where the government’s writ does not run means that tribal militias have resources in reserve and places to hide from the superior power of conventional military forces. If tribal fighters leave their villages rather than mass and try to stand against regular forces, they create a vulnerability, however. They leave their women, children, and old exposed, as well as their crops and other resources. In the absence of effective centralized control, would-be conquerors had to act directly on a population in order to control the territory it inhabited. To do so, over the centuries, military forces used a set of related tactics. First, the benefits conquerors brought—security from bandits, help fighting traditional enemies, better economic prospects, bribes for leaders—might persuade some to cooperate. Those who did not and resisted were pursued with aggressive patrolling intended to intimidate, exhaust (agrarian peoples have to attend to planting and harvesting and are pushed toward starvation fairly easily), and kill. Chasing irregular forces was grueling, frustrating work, even with motorized vehicles and air transport and resupply. Hence, regular forces sometimes used a second tactic, burning crops and villages and even killing those exposed by the flight of their fighting men. Killing noncombatants and burning villages were considered exemplary atrocities, brutal acts intended by their

204

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

example to make further brutal acts unnecessary.24 The Romans used these tactics to conquer the Gauls. Europeans and Americans used them as well. They proved fairly successful until, beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century, Europeans and Americans came to think of them as immoral. Through their representative systems of government, they put pressure on their leaders not to use them.25 This did not put an end to atrocities, exemplary or otherwise, but decreased their number and raised the political cost of those that occurred. To address the political cost of traditional tactics so their governments could continue to control territories that lacked centralized mechanisms of control, European and American military forces not only sought ways to limit the use of force against noncombatants, but put greater emphasis on providing benefits to noncombatants or addressing their grievances through their military forces and the indigenous forces they trained and worked with.26 The purpose of this approach was to limit opposition in the first place and, if opposition nevertheless occurred, to address it by winning the support of the people—their hearts and minds, in the famous phrase.27 Again, this support was necessary to control territory in the absence of centralized administrative and political control. When successful, this approach of winning popular support curtailed the resources that went to the resistance and increased the intelligence that came to the government, a great advantage given the resistance’s need to hide from the government’s superior force. This approach, especially when combined with sound diplomacy, lowered not only moral costs but all costs, which is what made it appealing to the Romans, who were not burdened by the moral concerns that later shaped European and American operations. VSO, and foreign internal defense and counterinsurgency more generally, were thus a new name for a set of tactics made necessary decades before U.S. operations in Afghanistan by the kind of circumstances American forces encountered there and the moral concerns of Americans back home. (News of American Indian massacres in the American West caused moral outrage in the East and calls for new ways of dealing with American Indians.) The American approach in Afghanistan displayed its own particular character, however, as well as a common problem. The particular character came from the longstanding American emphasis on development. Building roads; improving access to potable water, irrigation projects, and medical care; and other such measures builds support

V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

205

for the military forces and government that carry them out. They are the government-provided benefits beyond security that are part of the contract between the governed and the government. Accepting these benefits binds people to the government, encouraging their allegiance, and thus helps establish the government’s power and authority over people and over the territory they inhabit. Americans, however, also see these measures as useful for, and intend that they contribute to, “development.” What development means is best conveyed perhaps in the words of the U.S. government agency responsible for promoting it around the world, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID): USAID carries out U.S. foreign policy by promoting broad-scale human progress at the same time it expands stable, free societies, creates markets and trade partners for the United States, and fosters good will abroad. USAID transforms. It transforms families, communities, and countries—so they can thrive and prosper.  .  .  . USAID demonstrates America’s good will around the world; increases global stability by addressing the root causes of violence; opens new markets and generates opportunity for trade; creates innovative solutions for once unsolvable development challenges; saves lives; and advances democracy, governance, and peace.28

These brief passages are important because they provide as much of a theoretical grounding for the larger purposes and reasonableness of VSO as one finds in U.S. government accounts. According to USAID, development is progress, and progress means change intended to culminate in free societies, free markets, and peace. Peace or stability come about as progress eradicates the root causes of violence, which USAID appears to think are lack of freedom (individual freedom?) and poverty. Given the distance between the conditions that USAID encounters in a place like Afghanistan and the end it strives for, it is easy to see why the agency claims it transforms. It would have to. In offering this justification for the security-governance-development trinity, USAID presents a much simplified version of a theory—modernization theory—once popular in academia. Through the academics who entered government service in the Kennedy administration, this theory shaped the American approach to countering insurgency and instability in what came to be called “the developing world.” Modernization theory as applied to U.S.

206

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

government activities abroad, held that the transition from traditional to modern forms of social, economic, and political organization were inevitable, more or less, and that the transition had to be managed, so that it would not be hijacked by communists. The hijackers are no longer communists, but Islamists. The theory has not changed, however, even as the enemies it identifies have.29 The distinctively American insistence on making development or progress an objective of a military operation like VSO highlights the  problem all modern militaries encounter when attempting to control populations without strong attachments to central authorities. For reasons we have explained, Euro-American forces are optimized not to promote development, but rather to combat other regular military forces. They must change and adapt to do anything other than close with and engage an enemy force. Adapting to fighting irregular forces and developing what came to be called population-centric operations is not an easy thing for them to do.30 They have especially found it difficult if geopolitical circumstances present them with a major power competitor, such as the Soviet Union was for the United States during the Cold War. In this case, tradition combines with geopolitical necessity to encourage neglect of irregular warfare or counterinsurgency. Specialized units such as SF were intended to deal with civilians and irregular forces, but they operate within a military establishment that was not. Nor is there any necessary connection between an irrigation project or a medical clinic intended to win local support and the broader objective promoting national development, let alone “broad-scale human progress.” Winning local support by providing security and other benefits is a direct bargain or exchange, while development and progress are complex and not fully understood human endeavors that appear to require certain material conditions and, above all, attitudes that are not, the evidence suggests, evenly distributed among the world’s peoples. With these considerations in mind, we may turn to the question of whether VSO and other such operations work.

DO VSO WORK? We should consider the question of whether VSO work by considering them generally and then with regard to Afghanistan. VSO and similar operations aim to increase security, governance, and development,

V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

207

with the ultimate aim of extending the control of a central government throughout its territory. The evidence suggests that VSO may increase security and improve governance. The combination of limited but aggressive use of force against opposing irregular forces and public works that address the needs and grievances of a local population can reduce violence by enemy forces against villagers, their leaders or elders, and government officials. As the enemy’s ability to coerce and benefit villagers declines, its political organization as an alternative to the government loses sway. Into this opening, political activity compatible with central government authority can emerge. The evidence for these claims is both anecdotal and analytical. The anecdotes abound in the literature on VSO and similar operations. But since these stories come from those engaged in the operations or from sympathetic journalists, they may be doubted. The analytical evidence is useful, therefore, even though to turn the raw data into methodical results requires assumptions and simplifications that themselves may be questioned. One analytical study published in 2016 used statistical techniques to analyze data from the war in Vietnam. The analysts concluded that “bombing increased Viet Cong military and political activity, weakened local government administration, and lowered non-communist civic engagement. Consistent with this, evidence suggests that the Army’s reliance on overwhelming firepower led to worse outcomes than the [Marine Corp’s] more hearts and minds oriented approach.” The army’s conventional firepower approach “increased insurgent attacks and worsened attitudes towards the U.S. and South Vietnamese government.”31 It doesn’t require an extraordinary amount of cross-cultural understanding or empathy to understand why these results stand to reason. As the Romans discovered, after their immediate security is provided for, people will respond more favorably to opportunity and rewards than mere punishment. With regard to Afghanistan, a study of development efforts published in 2012 found that they made “non-combatants more inclined to view government actors as working in their best interest, which in turn seem[ed] to make them less likely to support the insurgency.”32 The study noted, however, that the security and governance effects of a “hearts and minds” approach did not occur in areas that had high levels of violence to begin with. In those cases, development efforts could improve economic conditions and perceptions of well-being, even if they did not improve security and governance. This study might be seen as validating the threefold

208

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

objective of VSO—improving security, governance, and development— because economic improvement alone does not necessarily reduce the power of the insurgents. This may be because the insurgents and their power benefit from increased economic activity as much as the rest of the local population does, enough to offset whatever enhancement to government authority the development projects provide. Thus, improving security and governance are essential to accomplish the objective of establishing “healthy formal governance” in rural areas. On second thought, however, the results of the study on development projects in Afghanistan raise an interesting question. If development, both real and perceived, can occur in the absence of security and healthy governance, can security and governance occur in the absence of development? If so, it would suggest the foundational idea in the U.S. government’s approach to counterinsurgency is mistaken: poverty and lack of material progress are not the “root causes” of political violence. In the study of development in Afghanistan, increased economic well-being did not reduce violence or improve governance. The Afghanistan study is just one study, of course, but its broader implication fits with other research that has found little or no connection between poverty or unemployment and political violence.33 This suggests in turn that VSO work not because they transform the motivations of insurgents—the root causes of their participation in violent politics—but because they affect the calculations of non-insurgents. It suggests further that those calculations may turn on security above all, since the provision of security is, as we have noted, the most fundamental manifestation of governance. Development projects promote security, then, not because they transform root causes of violence that lead people to become insurgents, but because they buy support from the local population that might otherwise go to the insurgents.34 The research, such as the 2012 study mentioned above, suggests, however, that the contribution of development projects to security may not be very great. Development may occur without a corresponding increase in security and “healthy” governance. Above all, security requires not development but military forces that can effectively fight insurgents. This conclusion comports with the anecdotal accounts of VSO and other such operations. They almost invariably contain an account of a pitched battle against insurgents who attack U.S. and host nation forces to show that they can be overrun and thus cannot be counted on for security. When the outcome of the battle proves the insurgents wrong, the tide of public opinion turns against them.

V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

209

In addition to showing that both regular and irregular warfare may have “decisive battles,” the analysis so far highlights the importance of training host nation forces for the task of providing security. “Security” implies long-term protection from the insurgents. If U.S. forces are not going to provide it, local forces must. The ability of SOF or government forces to provide security depends not on their fighting capacity alone, however, but on the support they receive from their respective governments. For one thing, U.S. deployments and local village forces tend to be small. Because they are also often isolated, the insurgents can mass against them. Fire support and reinforcements, and the ability to call for and direct such support, are essential to withstand attack by larger insurgent units. Beyond this, local counterinsurgent forces like the ALP must be trained, equipped, resupplied, and paid. Although these requirements are not great for a village defense force, they must still be met. All of this assumes competent, proficient governmental support networks. Without them, security and therefore governance cannot be sustained. The absence of such networks is the fatal flaw of VSO and other counterinsurgency operations. “Support networks” necessary to combat insurgents are another name for the administrative capacities stretching from governmental centers throughout a territory, which allow a government to control both its people and its territory. These networks are a synonym for governance. They are also the basis for the fundamental paradox of VSO and counterinsurgency: if such capacities, or “healthy formal governance” existed, no insurgency would be able to grow; that an insurgency exists requiring U.S. government intervention indicates that the capacity to counter the insurgency does not exist. Can governance be created where it does not exist? Certainly, since government is not coeval with human existence, it has always had to develop where it did not exist before. Yet, the likelihood that it can be created by external advice and aid is not great in many, perhaps most, cases. Governance as an exchange of resources for security tends to mean that what is most important for the governors is benefiting from the control of those resources—what Americans call corruption. The kind of accountable, competent administration that could support village forces is one that will also limit corruption. Those who benefit from corruption have no reason to encourage such administration. Indeed, efforts to bring about “healthy formal governance” may make U.S. officials seem a greater threat to the governors than the insurgents. Another important limitation on the ability of U.S.

210

SELEC TED C A SE S TUDIES

officials to encourage competent administration is that they are outsiders and know less about host government operations, and the host nation’s people and politics, than the hosts do.35 For these reasons, whatever success VSO may have when Americans are involved is not likely to endure. This appears to be the result in Afghanistan.36

CONCLUSION When the Romans came, they saw and conquered. They also intended to stay. They became the governance and provided the security. They did not need, therefore, to transform or change the attitudes of the people they conquered or their governors. This lack of interest in transformation is evident in the fact that the Romans did not require the conquered to give up their gods, but rather incorporated them into the Roman pantheon. As long as the locals accepted the emperor’s rule and his divinity and paid their taxes, they were free to continue as before. The British system of imperial rule was famously indirect, leaving local chiefs in charge with a British adviser alongside, the equally famous political officer.37 The British, like the Romans, therefore, did not insist on a change of gods, although Anglican missionaries worked in British colonies. Despite indirect rule, the British retained ultimate authority. One reason the British enjoyed more success historically in what came to be called counterinsurgency is that they were more often than other counterinsurgents operating in places where they were in effect the host government and thus could avoid the problems created by the ignorance of local circumstances and the conflict of interests between Americans and indigenous governors that have hampered U.S. efforts. Not having the advantage of rule and more inclined to see themselves as revolutionary modernizers, Americans have been inclined to think, even if they did not realize it, that a change of attitudes as well as practices through an entire population was necessary for the success of VSO. In this, they differed from the Romans. The Romans intended to stay and thus required no change of attitudes among those they incorporated into their empire, while Americans do not intend to stay and thus do require such a change in order to incorporate people into the mutually beneficial liberal empire they aspire to create. The historical evidence suggests, however, that no military force, no matter how focused on the population or assisted with

V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

2 11

development projects, can produce this change—at least not within timelines that are politically supportable. Therefore, no matter how valiantly and skillfully conducted, the strategic or long-term effectiveness of VSO and operations like them will always be in doubt. Saying that the long-term effectiveness of VSO are in doubt is not to say they are necessarily without strategic utility. In El Salvador, for example, as we noted in chapter 2, a relatively constrained commitment of SOF over a decade or more contributed to an outcome favorable to the United States. SOF increased the effectiveness of Salvadoran forces—and thus security—sufficiently to prevent the insurgents winning. The United States never succeeded in reforming the character of governance in El Salvador, however, nor did it manage much development. El Salvador’s ruling elites remained committed to their traditional way of managing Salvadoran life. Yet, improvements to Salvadoran military effectiveness, and to some degree the military’s conduct toward the civilian population, were enough to extend the conflict until the geopolitical situation changed. The end of the Cold War led to the collapse of the insurgents’ external support and their ability to carry on the fight.38 For the small commitments of forces, and the stakes involved, this was a good outcome for the United States. As an outcome brought about by SOF, it is an important element in assessing their strategic utility.

✪ 6

Special Operations Forces Roles and Missions

Previous chapters discussed a range of special operations forces

(SOF) missions and how perceptions of their strategic value have changed. Today, SOF’s value is much better appreciated than before the terror attacks of 9/11. The question debated now is not whether SOF have strategic merit, but what SOF missions make the greatest contribution. In the decade following the 9/11 terror attacks, SOF leaders told Congress that manhunting merely kept the enemy on the defensive, buying time for stability operations to make a decisive impact. However, SOF village stability operations (VSOs) have been phased out, while SOF manhunting continues, and some argue the United States relies so heavily on these operations that they have become a substitute for strategy.1 Thus, how SOF can best make a contribution to U.S. security strategy remains a contested issue. As the historical review of SOF in chapter 2 illustrated, such debate about SOF strategic contributions is a recurring theme but not often a prominent one. SOF operations are so captivating that they tend to overshadow discussion of SOF’s broader strategic value.2 Also, there is a long-standing tendency to dismiss debate about SOF strategic utility in favor of simply emphasizing SOF’s inherent flexibility, which allows SOF to perform diverse missions. This is still the case. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of Joint Special Operations Command, used to tell his SOF subordinates “we do windows,” meaning it was important to be flexible and accommodating in order to build partnerships.3 More recently, one SOF general officer answered a query about SOF’s strategic role by saying, “we solve problems.” He noted that this is, in fact, how SOF personnel are selected. Those responsible for managing SOF accession look

216

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

for one thing: “the person who will solve the problem; who won’t quit no matter what until the problem is solved.”4 It is hard to imagine a broader depiction of a military role than “solving problems.” Despite this enduring tendency to downplay the importance of a well-defined strategic concept for SOF, more attention has been paid to the subject over the past decade than previously. SOF’s rising prominence in U.S. defense planning and operations has prompted some defense officials, think tanks, and national security commentators to examine the purpose and scope of SOF operations, or in Pentagon parlance, their “roles and missions.” The Department of Defense defines military roles as the broad and enduring purposes for which Congress established the services and Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and missions as the more specific tasks assigned to the combatant commanders, which would include the commander of SOCOM.5 There is no clear-cut agreement on more substantive definitions. However, for our purposes it is sufficient to think of a military role as a broad strategic purpose, and a military mission as the application of that role in specific circumstances. For example, preserving freedom of navigation is a strategic role for the U.S. Navy, and undersea warfare is a mission that supports that role. In the case of SOF, one might argue their strategic role is to attack adversaries and targets not vulnerable to conventional forces, and unconventional warfare is a mission supporting that role. The military pays attention to roles and missions because doing so clarifies the purpose and value of military units, and thus how they should be trained, equipped, and employed. A well-defined role, or purpose, is essential for overall direction of the forces: The fundamental element of a military service is its purpose or role in implementing national policy. The statement of this role may be called the strategic concept of the service. Basically, this concept is a description of how, when, and where the military service expects to protect the nation against some threat to its security. If a military service does not possess such a concept, it becomes purposeless, it wallows about amid a variety of conflicting and confusing goals, and ultimately it suffers both moral and physical degeneration.6

A well-defined role, or strategic concept, for SOF would explain SOF’s value to the nation in terms of the missions they should be prepared

SOF ROLES AND MISSIONS

2 17

to conduct. Without such a strategic concept and clearly derivative missions, SOF is more likely to be ill-prepared and used ineffectively. Another reason military forces need clearly defined roles and missions is to justify the political and material resources they need to function well. Political leaders allocate resources to military forces in part based on an understanding of their strategic value. For example, in the 1960s the United States adopted a mutual assured destruction strategy that diminished the value of air and missile defenses, and resources for those forces were severely cut. Currently, SOF are highly valued, so obtaining resources has not been a problem. In times past, when their perceived value was low, SOF were starved for resources. It is not inconceivable that this could happen again as technology and military developments change over time. But for now, the greater danger to SOF is misuse and overuse from confused roles and missions. Absent clear understanding of what makes SOF special, and thus what missions require their special attributes, the danger is that SOF will be seen and used in an undiscriminating manner. This is by far the greater concern today. Despite a large increase in SOF force structure (some say more than a doubling7) SOF are widely acknowledged to be overused, exhausted, and by some official estimates, “burned out” and manifesting a range of problems.8 However, most observers seem to think the problem is more a question of unrelenting demand (too many threats and targets) rather than indiscriminate use of the necessarily small supply of special operators—a supposition that deserves close scrutiny. A coherent strategic concept for military forces that would guide their preparation and employment can be promulgated through policy, strategy, and doctrine; arise from tradition, experience, and other influences; be derived from broader theory; or usually, some combination thereof. For example, the navies of many nations derived their strategic concept from Alfred Thayer Mahan’s theory of naval purpose and supremacy articulated in his 1890 publication, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History: 1660–1783. Similarly, after World War II, strategic concepts for U.S. nuclear forces were extrapolated from broader expositions of deterrence theory and associated policy, strategy, and doctrine. In the case of SOF, there is a debate over the desirability of a general theory of special operations from which a strategic concept for U.S. SOF could be derived. SOCOM has not articulated a strategic concept for SOF. On the whole, it is fair to say that the SOF community remains suspicious of theoretical distinctions and more impressed by the value

2 18

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

of maximum flexibility. Thus SOF remain defined by the missions they conduct and vulnerable to misapplication or being asked to do too much. One skeptic on the value of SOF theory nonetheless provides a helpful summary of the five functions that a theory of special operations, like all military theory, should fulfill: 1) defining SOF, what the forces are and are not; 2) categorizing SOF, or specifying roles and missions; 3) explaining “the scope and limitations of special operations” relative to other options; 4) connecting SOF and special operations to other fields of study to provide context and meaning; and 5) anticipating the future of special operations to “guide organizing, training, and equipping in times of great change and uncertainty.”9 This book does not offer a full-blown general theory of special operations across history, but it does make arguments about the strategic utility of U.S. SOF that address these five major functions. In this chapter, we define, categorize, and explain SOF. In the following chapter, we elaborate on this foundation and anticipate ways to increase the future strategic utility of SOF. In the next chapter on future warfare, as well as the book’s conclusion, we relate SOF to other fields of study; for example, when we consider SOF in the context of the new defense strategy, and limitations on the strategic use of SOF imposed by U.S. culture, popular opinion, and the current U.S. national security system. Although we use historical examples from other nations to illustrate certain SOF attributes, we are interested in U.S. SOF rather than special operations in general. Therefore, we examine their strategic value in relation to three U.S.-centric factors: the intrinsic and distinguishing capabilities of U.S. SOF; the nature of the most important security challenges facing the United States; and the military requirements that emanate from the U.S. strategy for dealing with its primary security challenges. In conducting this examination, we note that U.S. SOF historically have been used to create political and physical effects in environments that are physically and/or conceptually removed from conventional force operations with their organic mass and firepower. SOF have performed this role primarily by serving as the nation’s key long-range penetration and strike forces and as politically astute forces influencing foreign forces, officials, and populations. These roles have sometimes been performed directly and sometimes indirectly; sometimes as the lead American military effort and sometimes in support of a broader military campaign. We make an argument about the relative strategic value of these alternative

SOF ROLES AND MISSIONS

2 19

role configurations, which can then be compared to how SOCOM has defined SOF missions and actually employed SOF over time. After that, it is possible to make an argument about whether altering course could yield greater strategic utility from SOF in light of emerging security challenges and strategies. The first step is considering what makes SOF special, which helps explain how they can be used for strategic effect.

WHAT MAKES SOF SPECIAL? Although SOF characteristics evolve somewhat over time, certain core attributes of American SOF are enduring and shape the ways SOF can be employed to address security threats. The most basic distinguishing characteristic of SOF is that they are special rather than just elite. The process of selecting who will serve in most SOF units is rigorous. Many who volunteer do not make it. In this regard, SOF are elite. But careful selection also applies for those who wish to join certain ceremonial units, so being elite is not the same as being special. The distinction between elite and special units depends on the purpose for which the units are created, prepared, and employed. Elite units are used for the same purpose as general-purpose forces, but they receive special designation, training, and resources so they can perform at a higher level. Thus, the distinguishing characteristic of elite units is that they perform traditional tasks with greater proficiency. Some air squadrons have developed reputations as elite units because of their competence. Another common example of elite forces is shock troops, which storm a particularly challenging position as a prelude to assault by less capable forces. Such units are elite but not “special.” SOF are not only elite but special because they conduct missions that conventional forces cannot perform, or at least not at acceptable levels of risk and costs. Defining SOF in contradistinction to conventional forces this way means they are different in kind and not just degree. They have special purposes and special capabilities that transcend conventional-force operations. It is not always easy to distinguish special from elite units. Some of their individual attributes may differ by degrees rather than with a sharp qualitative distinction, but the overall result is a qualitatively different capability, as two quick examples from World War  II illustrate.

220

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

In 1942, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle led a bombing raid on Japan that damaged oil stores, factory areas, and military installations. His B-25s took off from the aircraft carrier Hornet, hit Japan, and then attempted to reach Chinese airfields, although many had to ditch at sea or crash-land for lack of fuel. The raid boosted American morale after the shock of Pearl Harbor and caused the Japanese to transfer some fighter units back to the home islands. Was the Doolittle raid a bombing mission like any other albeit with a higher degree of difficulty in support of broader military operations by forcing Japan to provide air cover for the home islands, or an independent special operation designed to signal political resolve and bolster the morale of the American body politic? The Doolittle crews received special training, and their planes were modified for carrier and long-range operations And there were political motives for the risky operation. It seems to qualify as a special operation, but the categorization is not self-evident and could be debated. Another case from World War II is the air missions Paul Gunn pioneered for use against the Japanese in Southeast Asia. Gunn was a maverick pilot with a penchant for innovation who operated on the edge, bent or broke innumerable rules, and cared only about results. He routinely flew long-distance missions through Japanese-controlled territory that others refused, relying on nap-of-the-earth flying, small camouflaged airfields, and his own extraordinary flying and navigational skills. He also reengineered light and medium bombers for devastating strafing against Japanese shipping and ground forces. The origins of Air Force special operations are typically traced to squadrons supplying behind-theline forces in France and Burma, but arguably Gunn’s activities better anticipated today’s SOF aviation units that use special tactics and modified equipment to conduct long-range reconnaissance, infiltration and exfiltration, and precision strikes.10 Like Doolittle’s raid, Gunn’s missions could not have been performed by conventional forces with any hope of success at acceptable levels of risk and cost. Another factor that makes it difficult to distinguish between elite and special units is that over time the units can be used for different purposes. As chapter 2 relates, army Rangers on occasion were used as elite shock troops in World War II to support specific general-purpose force operations; for example, to secure high-value targets in support of the D-Day landings in World War II. In the French and Indian War, however, Rangers launched independent missions, such as the raid that destroyed

SOF ROLES AND MISSIONS

221

the Abenaki Indians as a threat to the colonies. More recently, as related in chapter 3, Rangers were used to assist with an independent operation to capture a warlord in Somalia. The case can be made that special as well as elite skills were required for those independent Ranger missions and that sending conventional forces instead of the Rangers would have entailed a much higher possibility of failure. The fact that it can be hard to distinguish special from elite units and their operations does not negate the value of doing so. It remains true that the more a unit’s purpose and required skills deviate from traditional military missions, the more appropriate it is to designate the unit and its activities as special. Distinguishing units and their missions as special is important. Failure to do so increases the risk that they will be used inappropriately on elite but not special operations, as many would argue is the case when SOF are used to carry out recovery operations of downed pilots. Making the distinction between special and elite forces correctly increases the chances that the requirements for special missions will be well understood and that SOF will be well prepared for them. What are the mission characteristics and force attributes that distinguish SOF as special? At one time Pentagon policy emphasized that all SOF missions take place in “hostile, denied, and politically sensitive areas,” and that “a simple way to remember the difference between SOF and conventional forces is that SOF’s unique training, capabilities, and skills” allow them to operate successfully in such an environment.11 Currently the same point can be reasoned from U.S. Army doctrine for special operations. The army defines a denied area as “an area that is operationally unsuitable for conventional forces due to political, tactical, environmental, or geographical reasons,” but “a primary area for special operations forces.”12 Thus the army not only distinguishes SOF by their ability to operate in denied environments but also does so in contradistinction to conventional forces. Historical examples can be used to illustrate the enduring importance of SOF’s challenging—and different—operating environment and associated attributes. One of the most notable cases is the Dutch-origin Boer “commandos” who fought against British rule in South Africa. Commando is a Dutch term meaning, “a command.” The Boers used unconventional strike tactics that took advantage of their scouting and tracking skills to achieve surprise, and of new technology (e.g., smokeless powder, and the greater range of their Mauser rifles). When the British responded to early defeats

222

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

by pouring in half a million troops, the Boers improvised with guerrilla tactics made possible by their knowledge of the land and popular support (including from a substantial number of black Africans). They were only ground down when the British responded with blockhouses to protect railroads, concentration camps to separate the fighters from their popular support, and mounted rapid response units to counteract Boer mobility.13 The Boer special operations were conceptually and physically removed from large conventional-force operations (i.e., they took place in hostile, denied, and politically sensitive areas), and they benefited from and were distinguished by unconventional small unit capabilities and local political, cultural, and linguistic skills that allowed them to operate successfully in their difficult environment. Thus, SOF are fundamentally distinguished from conventional forces by their operating environment’s unique characteristics and the capabilities required for successfully operating in such environments. Whereas the services are distinguished from one another primarily by their physical environment (land, air, sea, amphibious, or littoral environments), SOF are distinguished from the services by their conceptual and sometimes physical distance from conventional forces and/or their proximity to indigenous forces and populations. When SOF operate behind enemy lines, in close contact with indigenous forces and populations, or under special political constraints, such as the need to eliminate any collateral casualties in a close-quarters combat, they are either physically and/or conceptually removed from conventional-force operations and their organic mass and firepower. SOF’s unique operating environment imposes five requirements on SOF that require “special” attributes. First, SOF must possess political sophistication. Special operations are often conducted in a politically sensitive context that constrains virtually every aspect of the operation. Local mores may dictate methods, and political considerations may require clandestine, covert, or low-visibility techniques, as well as oversight at the national level. SOF must be prepared to work closely with political authorities and capable of using good judgment in a fast-evolving and politically sensitive environment.14 Second, SOF must have an uncommon will to succeed. Special operations often are conducted under extreme duress or conditions that challenge patience and endurance and that therefore require an uncommon commitment to persevere. “Challenge accepted” is a common refrain in the SOF community. Accordingly, SOCOM emphasizes that it takes

SOF ROLES AND MISSIONS

223

special individuals to succeed in special operations—individuals who are determined to persist in the face of adversity and without support. It is sometimes argued that the British and other nations stress the human element of SOF while the United States stresses technology, but that is not consistent with SOCOM’s policy and doctrine. SOCOM underscores the point that its philosophical approach is to “equip the warrior, not man the equipment.”15 Third, SOF must use unorthodox approaches. Special operations require creative approaches to problem-solving that may defy American norms and military doctrine but should never violate fundamental American values. (See the penultimate interview in chapter 1.) For example, in contrast to conventional-force operations, surprise achieved by speed, stealth, audacity, and deception is far more important than mass in special operations. Similarly, creative approaches to working with indigenous populations and forces are a norm for some SOF units, whereas conventional forces generally try to minimize such contact. Some techniques and procedures pioneered by SOF may be passed along to conventional forces once they are perfected, but others require so much training and different technology that they can never be employed efficiently or effectively by larger conventional forces. Fourth, unorthodox approaches require unconventional equipment and training. What is defined as “unconventional” changes Night-vision devices and deep-precision strike capabilities pioneered by SOF are no longer considered unconventional and now are practiced by general-purpose forces. However, SOF continue to develop capabilities that are unconventional in comparison to existing conventional capabilities in order to help achieve surprise or overcome unanticipated obstacles in rapidly evolving circumstances. Thus, constant improvements in equipment and training help SOF transcend conventional operations. Fifth, SOF have special intelligence requirements. There are two reasons for this: special operations either take advantage of indigenous forces or else they exploit enemy weaknesses that are not readily apparent. SOF need fine-grained intelligence to attack a difficult target with precision, as well as current information on foreign political relationships to work effectively through indigenous forces and populations. All SOF missions—whether civil affairs, hostage rescue, counterinsurgency training, unconventional warfare, etc.—require forces with these five attributes so they can successfully operate in “hostile, denied,

224

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

and politically sensitive areas” as defined above. Historically, SOF use these attributes in pursuit of one of two broad purposes: Special operations forces have a dual heritage. They are one of the nation’s key penetration and strike forces, able to respond to specialized contingencies across the conflict spectrum with stealth, speed, and precision. They are also warrior-diplomats capable of influencing, advising, training, and conducting operations with foreign forces, officials, and populations.16

As described in chapter 2, the United States has repeatedly created special military units to serve these two broad roles, the first being uniquely difficult strike missions beyond the reach of conventional or even elite forces, and the second being missions to partner with, and thus influence, foreign forces and populations for mutually beneficial outcomes. The army recently published doctrine acknowledging these dual roles but calling them “surgical strike and special warfare.” SOCOM, however, remains wary of the distinction.17 Other nations have used special units for other purposes; for example, to guard important objects, locations, and people; and, more generally, as a praetorian guard to protect the ruling regime. For a variety of political, social and historical reasons, the United States—and Western governments in general—have not made such activities a primary SOF role. SOF’s superlative small-unit penetration and strike skills have often been referred to as SOF’s commando skills, and SOF’s political, cultural, and linguistic skills as SOF’s “warrior-diplomat,” or “cross-cultural” skills.18 Within the U.S. military, one or both of these sets of SOF attributes are sometimes undervalued or denied to be special. For example, in 1962 President Kennedy fired Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Decker for asserting “any good soldier can handle guerrillas,” a comment that seemed to deny the importance of SOF’s cross-cultural skills. Others have insisted that any good infantry soldier can assault a difficult objective, an assertion that denies the need for special commando skills.19 To some extent, these views persist. The advisory mission to foreign forces fighting irregular adversaries that SOF specializes in has been assigned to army training brigades on the presumption that they can train and advise as well as SOF. Many confuse training foreign forces with advising them. Lower-level training of foreign forces can be

SOF ROLES AND MISSIONS

225

accomplished without significant cross-cultural skills; advising them or even helping lead them on missions of mutual importance to achieve security objectives consistent with U.S. interests and values requires the superb warrior-diplomat skills SOF aspire to have.20 Similarly, the rapid migration of manhunting missions from Special Mission Units to other SOF units and even to some elite conventional forces suggests to some that they can be handled by elite units (see chapter 4). The common night raid in Iraq that was hastily planned and executed arguably did not require the same special skill levels as the most difficult direct action missions. In Iraq, U.S. forces had overwhelming conventional force superiority and controlled the terrain, and many of the non-SMU units performing the missions had “on the job” training that elevated their skills before they took the lead on such raids. Despite these advantages, there was still increased risk of failure during such high-volume raiding when conventional forces conducted them. When national leaders wanted to insert forces deep into Pakistan to go after Osama Bin Laden, an isolated target of critical importance, they sent units from among SOF’s most capable SMUs. Although both SOF’s commando and warrior-diplomat roles and associated skills can be mimicked by elite units performing similar tasks under less stressful conditions with higher risk, the roles are generally well-recognized now by defense leaders as demanding highly specialized skills. To illustrate why these SOF roles must be considered in the context of specific threats and strategies, we can place special operations on a theoretical spectrum of warfare. At one end of the spectrum is war by attrition, where the objective is simply to grind down enemy forces until they collapse; at the other end is war by relational maneuver, where the objective is to use some element of superiority to exploit a perceived enemy weakness, whether it be physical, psychological, technical, or organizational. Attrition warfare is high cost and low risk, especially for the side with greater resources. War by relational maneuver is relatively low cost but high risk. It offers the possibility of obtaining disproportionate results for the resources committed, and thus the possibility of victory for the materially weaker side, but it also includes the possibility of complete and rapid failure. Edward Luttwak categorizes special operations (i.e., commando operations) at the extreme end of the relational maneuver spectrum since they are conducted by small forces who seek to exploit specific enemy weaknesses at risk of catastrophic failure.21

226

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

He also notes they require “accuracy in identifying enemy weaknesses, as well as speed and precision in acting against them . . .”22 The warriordiplomat dimension of SOF also requires accurate assessments of enemy weaknesses, but sometimes patience and perseverance rather than speed and precision in acting against these weaknesses.23 Thinking of special operations in contrast to “attrition” warfare illuminates SOF’s strategic value but also their high risk. “High risk” should not be interpreted exclusively as physical danger. SOF “commando” operations that are time-sensitive and rely on surprise, security, and audacity to achieve success fit this characterization of risk. However, SOF training missions, civil affairs, and psychological operations that take advantage of SOF warrior-diplomat skills can take place in a relatively benign environment, such as a foreign government’s ministry or training site. These missions nevertheless can have substantial political costs if mishandled. For this reason, SOF missions are better understood as “high risk” in the sense that tactical mission failure can have strategic consequences. In this respect, SOF missions are high risk in general, but they are a lower risk when conducted by SOF instead of conventional forces. SOF’s commando skills make them an attractive option for targets that must be neutralized using human judgment at the scene (for example, a booby-trapped weapon of mass destruction), or which must be neutralized without collateral damage to adjacent noncombatants (as is typically the case with terrorists and insurgents). In certain circumstances, this discriminating capability makes all the difference. SOF also can use nonlethal force to track and capture human targets, or to retrieve vital information or resources that would simply be missed or destroyed by long-range weapons or conventional forces. SOF can use human judgment and persistent surveillance at the scene to discover what is hidden in plain sight: that is, to discriminate between real targets and fake ones that deceive nonhuman sensors. Collaboration with indigenous forces and/or psychological and political isolation of the enemy, sometimes as a prelude to and sometimes as a substitute for physical attack, also is a SOF strength. For example, a small number of U.S. SOF reportedly were able to help Colombian authorities eliminate drug lord Pablo Escobar.24 The cost of leading and advising foreign forces is relatively small. More important, working through indigenous forces may be the only means of solving a problem such as insurgency or terrorism. SOF can obtain intelligence about insurgents,

SOF ROLES AND MISSIONS

227

terrorists or other adversaries by steeping themselves in local knowledge provided and shared by indigenous forces that have come to trust and respect them. When SOF succeed, they often produce strategic effects at low political cost, which is always useful and sometimes imperative, as is generally the case in irregular warfare. Some have also noted a strategic value in SOF operations that boost public morale, or reassure the public that action is being taken, which can reduce political pressure to take less prudent courses of action.25 SOF can also display military competence in a way that humiliates the enemy and emboldens one’s own forces (e.g., the Doolittle Raid), and their low profile and tactics can minimize chances of unwanted escalation of a conflict. In other words, SOF theoretically can provide disproportionate value by controlling military and political costs, both domestic and international, through small-unit activities that produce discriminate effects in ways that conventional forces cannot. Yet, as Luttwak argues is the case with relational maneuver in general, special operations can also fail catastrophically if the enemy’s weaknesses are assessed incorrectly. Commando raids that do not achieve surprise, psychological operations that inflame rather than win over public opinion, and training missions that appear to sanction repugnant behavior by the indigenous forces being trained and led by SOF are all examples of possible SOF failures. SOF failures often entail greater political than military costs, especially for countries with large, competent militaries that can compensate for small unit military failures more easily. The potential consequences of SOF failure explain why those who prefer the lower risk inherent in attrition warfare dislike SOF as a matter of principle, and why any leaders employing SOF must carefully assess the threat they are dealing with and the best means of employing SOF in a strategy to counter that threat. The Boers are again useful for illustrating this point that SOF’s strategic value is not just a function of their distinguishing skills but also a question of the strategic problem and the strategy employed to address it. As described above, the Boers switched from small-unit strike operations to guerrilla operations as the British increased their forces in South Africa. The strategic value of special operations for the Boers was not just a function of their intrinsic attributes; it evolved along with their security challenge and chosen strategy. With respect to the role of SOF within a preferred strategy, SOF skill sets must be considered, as well as the

228

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

advantages and disadvantages of employing SOF directly or indirectly, and as a lead rather than supporting effort.

SOF’S DIRECT AND INDIRECT ROLES SOF can operate with the intent to directly neutralize enemy targets or with the intent to indirectly defeat an adversary through their influence on indigenous forces and populations. Because this distinction between a “direct” and an “indirect” role for SOF has generated a lot of commentary and confusion,26 we need to briefly explain why we continue to use it. On the whole, we believe the advantages of categorization significantly outweigh the disadvantages and, moreover, are necessary to illuminate critical points relevant to an examination of SOF’s strategic value, which is our primary goal in this book. Often the confusion arises with respect to whether the direct/indirect distinction is being applied to SOF’s purpose, approach, skills, or units.27 We focus on purpose, because all things being equal, the purpose ought to drive the approach, and the approach the skills, and the skills the units chosen for the mission (see chart below). If the purpose is for SOF to defeat the enemy by bringing force to bear against his leaders or forces, we consider that to be SOF’s direct role. If the purpose is to reduce adversary sources of support until the adversary is rendered ineffective, we consider that SOF’s indirect role. Once the purpose of employing SOF is clear, it is easier to see that some missions tend to align better with SOF’s direct or indirect roles because of the nature of the threats addressed and the preferred U.S. strategies. For example, when terrorists strike the United States the tendency is to respond directly with SOF counterterrorism missions. SOF could respond indirectly by using psychological operations to reduce support for terrorists or by training a foreign force in counterterrorism in order to buttress host government support for U.S. counterterror policy. However, the United States tends to respond to direct attacks in kind. On the other hand, when friendly governments are under attack by insurgents, the U.S. government often prefers to use SOF indirectly, working to reduce popular support for the insurgents through the foreign internal defense mission. SOF theoretically could conduct foreign internal defense directly by attacking insurgent leaders and forces, as

SOF ROLES AND MISSIONS

229

was done in the Vietnam conflict. However, the United States tends to respond indirectly to foreign internal defense threats, believing it is more important to undermine support for insurgents than to risk inflaming public opinion by eliminating insurgents directly with insufficient discrimination. In support of this indirect SOF purpose, the SOF missions are often conducted indirectly, meaning SOF strengthen the ability of the host nation forces to do the mission rather than have SOF do it themselves. The reason SOF conduct these missions indirectly through host-nation forces is because host-nation forces know the language, culture, population, and political circumstances better than conventional forces and ultimately are a more politically acceptable means of accomplishing the mission. Generalizing in this manner it is possible to categorize currently recognized SOF missions as more direct or indirect, as shown in table 6.1. The categorization of SOF missions as generally aligned with a direct or indirect purpose, and thus corresponding direct or indirect missions, is not perfect. It is easy to imagine exceptions. For example, as SOCOM has acknowledged, unconventional warfare can be “predominantly conducted by, with, or through indigenous or surrogate forces” (emphasis ours), which tacitly acknowledges that U.S. forces could themselves carry out guerrilla warfare. Similarly, SOF can pursue counterterrorism indirectly by training and supervising foreign forces rather than conducting the missions themselves. However, we believe the categorization of SOF missions as predominantly direct or indirect is useful because the United States tends to align SOF direct mission purposes with direct means and

TA B L E 6 .1

MISSIONS TYPICALLY PERFORMED DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY Direct

Indirect

Counterterrorism

Unconventional Warfare

Counterproliferation

Psychological Operations

Direct Action

Foreign Internal Defense

Strategic Reconnaissance

Civil Affairs

Hostage Rescue

Counterinsurgency

Security Force Assistance

Humanitarian Assistance

230

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

SOF indirect mission purposes with indirect means. Even when both SOF direct and indirect missions are combined, typically one must take priority over the other and guide its application. Also, the distinction between the two types of missions underscores the diverse commando and warrior-diplomat skills that SOF must have in order to perform well, and the fact that SOF must specialize between the two to some extent. Both points can be illustrated with German use of SOF in World War II. The Germans emphasized SOF unconventional small unit strike capabilities and in-depth political, cultural and linguistic skills differently depending on the missions their SOF had to carry out. Brandenburger units (so called because they trained south of Berlin in the state of Brandenburg) were formed in 1939 as part of the German military intelligence branch under the command of Adm. Wilhelm Canaris. They were an all-volunteer force of men whose salient, indispensable skill was the ability to speak a foreign language fluently. Most of these men had lived abroad for extended periods. With these foundational skills they were then taught to operate in enemy territory for extended periods. They learned how to move quietly through forests, survive without supplies, produce explosives, and kill silently. The most important part of their training, however, prepared them to pose as soldiers of the enemy army, to capture bridges and other important infrastructure, and to confuse the enemy. Germany also had units that conducted special operations of short duration that emphasized speed and surprise without reliance on linguistic and cultural knowledge. The German air force had paratroopers who from time to time were trained for a specific operation, such as the well-known raid on the Belgian fortress of Eben Emael in 1940. The Germans also used a special air unit (the Kampfgeschwader 200) to recover agents behind enemy lines, support encircled German units and anti-Soviet insurgents in Ukraine, and bomb high-value bridges and other installations with guided planes filled with explosives. The German navy developed special “K units” in 1943 that used small submarines and boats to attack the Allied fleet in places like Normandy and Italy. These forces received training in close combat, survival, naval engineering, foreign languages, and navigation.28 Like the Germans, the British and French used special units during their post–World War II colonial wars that excelled in both direct and indirect approaches. Thus, SOF missions tend to align with the direct and indirect purposes and approaches. This helps indicate which missions require a

SOF ROLES AND MISSIONS

231

greater degree of specialization in SOF’s commando or warrior-diplomat skill sets. When SOF operate directly against enemy targets they tend to use their commando capabilities more, and when they operate indirectly through their influence on indigenous forces and populations they tend to rely more heavily on their political, cultural, and linguistic skills. There is a necessary trade-off to some extent between the two skill sets, both of which are demanding. For example, a classified Special Forces unit in West Berlin during the Cold War that concentrated on its language, cross-cultural, and other indirect skills inevitably experienced a degradation in its commando skills.29 SOF require both skill sets, but some SOF units must weight their training and equipment toward one or the other. When should SOF be used directly or indirectly? Again, it depends on the nature of the security problem and the strategy devised in response, but some general observations are possible. Almost by definition, using SOF directly provides more control over outcomes. If split-second timing and complex collaboration with other U.S. forces is required, commanders generally will not want to rely on SOF’s ability to work with foreign forces who are less familiar with U.S. tactics and techniques but instead will want U.S. SOF to accomplish the mission directly. When SOF directly undertake a mission it is more likely that it will be wellcoordinated with other U.S. military operations and activities, carried out with high competence and full commitment, and completed consistent with U.S. objectives and values. In fact, some SOF missions cannot be worked through foreign forces with an acceptable chance of success. For example, the 2011 SOF direct action mission to kill terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden theoretically could have been approached indirectly by having SOF train and advise Pakistani forces for the mission, but risks of failure would have been high. Even highly competent foreign special operations forces may fail when the plan is compromised because other host government officials do not support their objectives. This likely would have been the case with Bin Laden, which is why the mission, which took place on Pakistani soil, was kept secret from Pakistani authorities.30 Executing the mission indirectly might have made sense if the political import of having allied forces conduct the mission was more important to the United States than the likelihood of successfully neutralizing the target. As discussed above, that is not often the case with direct action missions, but it is possible to imagine such circumstances. For example, if hostages being rescued are not U.S. citizens, and their

232

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

government insists on having its forces take the lead, it could make sense for SOF to simply train and advise the forces rather than actually conduct the mission themselves. Employing SOF directly means that the success or failure of the effort will redound primarily to the credit or discredit of the United States. Whether this is advantageous or not depends on the situation. Sometimes it is possible and preferable for U.S. SOF to conduct the mission but give others the credit for the results. There are also advantages and disadvantages to SOF’s indirect role and missions. The obvious advantage to working for political effect through foreign forces and populations is that it reduces the commitment and profile of the United States. Sometimes the sheer scale of the problem precludes a direct approach. When there are not enough SOF or other U.S. forces to meet mission requirements, then SOF must work indirectly through advice and training to foreign forces. For example, the six-year SOF mission to indirectly defeat Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army by advising and collaborating with the Ugandan military could have been conducted directly by U.S. SOF alone, but it would have entailed a much larger U.S. commitment and greater political costs. The indirect approach also has the advantage of a lower profile, such as when a small number of U.S. SOF advised government forces in El Salvador on how to defeat Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas, and again, more recently, when U.S. SOF have advised Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State forces in Syria. In some cases, a government will only allow the United States to take an indirect approach, as is the case with U.S. SOF advising Philippine forces combating Muslim terrorists. Sometimes, SOF work through foreign forces and populations simply because this is the best or only way to accomplish U.S. objectives, especially in the cases of insurgency or terrorism. SOF can obtain intelligence about insurgents, terrorists, or other adversaries by steeping themselves in local knowledge provided and shared by indigenous forces. Trying to solve the problem directly with larger U.S. forces can engender disproportionate resentment and resistance from foreign populations that is counterproductive for overall objectives. For this reason, some argue that certain security problems, like insurgency, require a light footprint from external forces and thus the indirect approach. Recognizing this, the Department of Defense has requested and Congress has granted SOF special authorities to facilitate SOF working with foreign forces.31

SOF ROLES AND MISSIONS

2 33

Solving a problem indirectly usually means objectives are achieved more slowly, with less certainty, and sometimes with questionable methods. For example, one SOF task force advised and trained Philippine forces on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism for fourteen years.32 Also, some forces trained by SOF have been accused of torture or other behaviors at odds with U.S. values and objectives.33 On occasion, even U.S. SOF have been tainted by such allegations. Working through other forces invariably means ceding a degree of control over behavior. In the case of the Kurdish Peshmerga in northern Iraq, Special Forces and other U.S. government representatives had to work hard to keep the Peshmerga from irritating the government of Turkey by pursuing their objective of an independent Kurdistan. SOF can use persuasion to guide indigenous forces, making it clear that continued U.S. support requires limits on their behavior, but working through third parties invariably is tricky business, and SOF must often settle for less than optimum outcomes and iron control over tactics in exchange for lower overall costs to the United States. This is why SOF’s indirect role and indirect missions put a premium on SOF’s political skills.

SOF INDEPENDENT AND SUPPORTING ROLES Whether SOF are asked to directly neutralize enemy targets or achieve political-military objectives indirectly, they can do so as the main effort, supported by conventional forces, or as a supporting element for conventional forces. Some would say VSO began with SOF in the lead and then ended with SOF being used to support broader conventional force operations. Different circumstances and strategy choices determine whether SOF are employed in a supporting role to facilitate conventional-force operations, or whether they are asked to take the lead in generating the strategic effects. When Congress created SOCOM, it wanted standing special operations forces that were prepared to conduct independent missions (terrorism, nation-building, and training friendly foreign forces): The Congress finds that . . . the special operations forces of the Armed Forces provide the United States with immediate and primary capability to respond to terrorism; and the special operations forces are the military mainstay of the United States for the purposes of nation-building and

234

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

training friendly foreign forces in order to preclude deployment or combat involving the conventional or strategic forces of the United States.”34

Congress also explicitly allowed the Commander of SOCOM to exercise command of a selected special operations mission if directed to do so by the president or secretary of defense, which at the time ran contrary to the normal practice of having regional combatant commanders direct any forces operating within their geographic spheres of responsibility. Allowing the commander of SOCOM to command a special operation is tantamount to saying the operation is a strategic event that transcends geographic considerations and/or one that requires wide-ranging and often cross-regional special-operations expertise. Congress wanted SOF to be able to take the lead in countering such threats. We refer to missions where SOF take the lead as the primary force as independent SOF operations. Independent SOF operations may receive some support from conventional forces, but the entire effort is organized according to SOF principles and preferences. In that sense, SOF operate independently and unconstrained by conventional force approaches and requirements. Well-known examples would be rescuing hostages from terrorists or partnering with host nation forces to undermine popular support for insurgents. In contrast, when SOF are in a supporting role to conventional forces, their special missions are executed so as to facilitate the achievement of conventional-force objectives. A hypothetical example might be the employment of SOF to destroy an adversary’s capabilities for weapons of mass destruction in the event of war. A historical example would be the U.S. Navy’s use of underwater demolition teams in World War II to survey beaches and mine underwater obstacles. These special missions were undertaken explicitly to assist the assault on the beach by general-purpose forces. SOF principles and practices were of secondary importance. Some SOF missions assigned by Congress, including Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations, support conventional military operations quite prominently. This fact, along with historical accounts of congressional motivations, indicate that Congress was not trying to limit SOF to independent operations of strategic significance and that it understood SOF would be asked to support conventional forces.35 Thus, in the United States at least, both congressional intent and historical precedents illustrate that special operations may be conducted directly or indirectly, and in support of conventional forces or as part of

SOF ROLES AND MISSIONS

2 35

TA B L E 6 .2

INDEPENDENT AND SUPPORTING ROLES: HISTORICAL EXAMPLES Independent Role

Supporting Role

Direct Missions

Killing Osama Bin Laden (2011); seizing rogue oil tanker controlled by Libyan militia (2014)

Attacks on Iraqi border posts and towers to open Operation Iraqi Freedom; seizing air fields (2003)

Indirect Missions

Training and advising foreign forces fighting ISIS in Syria (ongoing)

Leading Kurdish tribesmen in Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003)

an independent strategic effort where SOF conduct the mission with or without conventional force support. Table 6.2 illustrates the point with historical examples. The effort to kill Bin Laden was a direct-action mission that SOF undertook independently of, but with support from, other military forces to achieve a strategic objective. The attack on the Iraqi radar at the beginning of the Gulf War was a direct-action mission that supported a conventional military operation. Training Salvadoran forces to improve their ability at counterinsurgency was an indirect way of getting at our enemies and was done independently of other U.S. military forces. SOF worked indirectly with and through Kurdish forces in support of the broader conventional military effort in Iraq.

THE STRATEGIC VALUE OF SOF’S SUPPORTING ROLE In general, when SOF perform independently they provide greater strategic value since they provide the primary effort. In a supporting role, SOF make a strategic contribution only to the extent that the conventional-force operations depend upon SOF for success. If the overall conventional-force campaign plan is critically dependent upon SOF’s contribution, then SOF’s strategic value would be almost as high as when they perform independently, but this is almost never the case. Seldom does it make sense for a world-class military power like the United States to build a war strategy around higher risk special operations. Not surprisingly, military leaders prefer strategies built around lower risk

236

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

conventional-force strategies. They also generally prefer that SOF support conventional-force operations with their direct-action skills, which seem more immediately relevant to conventional warfare since they involve destroying priority targets. Because SOF direct action has more in common with conventional-force operations, it provides less strategic value by comparison. SOF direct action that only augments the conventional-force plan of attack rather than critically enabling it makes a tactical rather than strategic contribution. For example, SOF might be asked to help improve the odds of success against a difficult command and control site by infiltrating behind enemy lines to pinpoint targets for bombing by aircraft. Since aircraft could attack the target without SOF, SOF improve but do not critically enable the conventional-force scheme of attack. A plan of attack that is critically dependent upon a SOF contribution (think “the Trojan Horse,”) would make a greater contribution, but such attacks are not the norm for superior conventional forces that need not accept the higher risks inherent in such SOF-centric conventional warfighting strategies. Thus, typically, SOF direct-action missions in support of larger conventional-force operations only hasten victory or retard defeat, which is pretty much the historical norm in the modern era for special operations. Moreover, what SOF direct action can accomplish better than conventional forces is changing as conventional forces expand their ability to identify and destroy targets quickly, accurately, and at ever-greater distances. As the ability of conventional forces to see targets and strike quickly, deeply, and with precision increases, the number of instances where commanders will need SOF direct-action missions decreases. This general trend is manifest in U.S. counterterrorism efforts, where SOF missions have decreased in favor of using armed drones to eliminate terrorists. It does not make sense to risk SOF when a missile can accomplish the same task unless the situation requires human on-the-scene judgment to obtain the desired effect, which is something other than the mere destruction of the target. It is either a different effect altogether, such as the propagation or retrieval of information, or an extremely discriminate effect that larger munitions cannot produce, such as targeting specific individuals or information nodes critical to command and control of enemy forces while leaving others intact or not apparently compromised. The strategic value of SOF direct-action missions in support of conventional-force operations also must be assessed in light of their costs,

SOF ROLES AND MISSIONS

237

which sometimes are high. After the end of the Cold War, both conventional-force commanders and SOF leaders often defaulted to specialoperation plans with large elements of conventional-force support to reduce SOF risks as much as possible.36 For example, SOF-led force packages in Operation Iraqi Freedom were often large, especially when including forces that were put on standby to rescue SOF should they need assistance. While allocating large supporting-force packages to SOF may make sense in light of the commander’s overall objectives, it diminishes the strategic value of SOF direct-action contributions by raising their costs relative to the value of their contributions. SOF direct-action missions take on relatively greater strategic significance in small contingencies or irregular warfare. First of all, SOF are the force of choice when the requirements for on-scene human judgment and exceedingly discriminate firepower are manifest, as is the case when operating against terrorists and other irregular enemies hidden among the general population. SOF direct action also offers the possibility of eliminating a charismatic or powerful leader, which sometimes is a key factor in defeating irregular warfare threats. Examples would include SOF attempts to neutralize Manuel Noriega in Panama and Mohamed Farrah Aideed in Somalia. It is difficult to deal a decisive blow even against such lesser opponents, and much more difficult to do so against more formidable opponents. A world power such as the United States certainly would not want to rely exclusively on SOF’s ability to decapitate enemy leadership. It would be preferable to take a shot at a leader when possible and continue with the main military effort regardless, as happened at the opening of the 2003 war in Iraq when an effort was mounted to eliminate Saddam Hussein. SOF’s indirect-action missions, which rely on cultural and political skills, arguably can make comparatively greater contributions to the success of conventional-force operations than SOF direct-action skills. Conventional forces cannot easily substitute for SOF cultural and political skills. These skills take years to develop, and conventional forces, which must commit ever more training time to mastering their own increasingly complex operations, do not have time to acquire such skills. Nor are their personnel selected with such skills in mind. Thus, all other factors weighed equally, SOF indirect-action missions make a comparatively larger strategic contribution in SOF’s supporting role to conventional-force operations because they differ the most from

238

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

conventional-force operations and are more difficult to substitute for if not provided by SOF. It also is true that some SOF indirect missions make sense only when they are conducted in support of conventional-force operations. Unconventional warfare against highly authoritarian regimes is a case in point. For example, it is often observed that OSS Jedburgh teams accomplished the most at the least cost with missions conducted immediately in advance of the D-Day operations. In fact, some military scholars disparage allied unconventional warfare in World War II as otherwise counterproductive. John Keegan argues unconventional warfare had little effect in France and that it did positive harm in the Balkans at terrible cost.37 He notes the Nazis’ ruthless tactics allowed them to use no more than a single division in France for counterinsurgency work. In the Balkans, Keegan argues Churchill supported Tito’s communist guerrillas because they were willing to initiate hostilities, but that produced few results other than horrendous civilian casualties. Similarly, as discussed in chapter 2, unconventional warfare in the Korean War accomplished little, but wasted a lot of precious manpower38 after the conventional conflict ground down to a rough geographic stalemate and North Korean internal security forces could concentrate on eliminating infiltrators. Some would point to the Special Forces experience in Afghanistan as a successful independent case of unconventional warfare. Special Forces leading and advising Afghan indigenous people did successfully depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, but their effort was not traditional, behind-the-lines unconventional warfare. They worked superbly, but with standing forces in the field who were not vanquished or reduced to guerrilla operations and against adversaries who did not control the theater of operations or the terrain from which SOF operated. History suggests that unconventional warfare against established and ruthless regimes works best in close cooperation with large conventional forces that can keep the enemy’s security forces too busy to track down the unconventional units. The limited utility of unconventional warfare absent a complementary conventional-force effort reflects some hard political realities that inform U.S. strategy. No U.S. forces, including SOF, will employ or allow those they work with to kill innocents wantonly to generate terror, while the governments we employ unconventional war against are often the types that will terrorize their own citizens in order to eliminate a small

SOF ROLES AND MISSIONS

2 39

SOF-backed group of insurgents. For this reason, SOF generally conduct unconventional warfare at a disadvantage. The unconventional-warfare mission can take the strategic lead against incompetent adversaries, or those restrained from brutal and indiscriminate behavior, or from a protected sanctuary, but otherwise it ought to be conducted as support for larger conventional-force operations. Among other things, this suggests the ongoing Special Forces’ debate about their origins, missions, and competencies perhaps should emphasize the political more than the covert dimension of their antecedent unconventional warfare missions in World War II. Some stress the origins of Special Forces in the behindthe-lines covert operations mounted by the OSS Operation Jedburgh teams during World War II, while others stress the origins of Special Forces in World II political and psychological operations (see chapter 2). Historical research suggests the former have been failures—even catastrophically so—while the latter pay greater dividends.39

THE STRATEGIC VALUE OF SOF’S INDEPENDENT ROLE When do independent SOF operations make strategic sense? Some notable examinations of strategic special operations argue that political leaders are too easily beguiled by the opportunity independent special operations offer to solve a strategic problem at low cost. One such study even concludes that strategic special operations should be considered a “last resort  .  .  . when no other option is at hand.”40 The debate has shifted over the past decade as SOF have demonstrated great proficiency in direct action against high value targets. Some commentators remain concerned that politically costly collateral damage from such missions is underestimated, but the trend has been to use SOF more extensively as a result of their apparent success. The issue of who assumes the risk, or rather, at what level of the U.S. government decisions are made about the risk of independent special operations is still a concern, however. By some accounts the Trump administration relaxed oversight by delegating most such decisions to geographic combatant commanders, and as a result SOF was allowed to rapidly exhaust existing target portfolios. Some believe this assisted SOF progress, particularly in fighting ISIS in Syria, while others worry it leads to greater than necessary collateral damage and more adversaries.

24 0

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

While it is true that political leaders can underestimate potential risks in using SOF, it is easy to overstate this point. Particularly in high profile cases, the evidence suggests senior leaders understand the risk and when they approve the operations, do so as the best among a poor set of alternatives. For example, that seemed to be the case with the Obama administration’s decision to launch SOF against Osama Bin Laden’s hideout, and to approve the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips, who was taken hostage by Somali pirates in 2014. Those two high-risk missions led to success, whereas the 2014 attempted rescue of American photojournalist Luke Somers, held hostage by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, ended tragically with the death of Somers and another hostage. Rather than concluding independent SOF direct-action missions should be considered a first or last resort, it makes more sense to simply observe that their risks should be soberly assessed in light of other alternatives and the interests at stake. This is particularly true now that senior leaders must consider the incalculably high threat represented by small groups of terrorists employing weapons of mass destruction. Independent SOF direct-action missions that allow on-scene human judgment to be applied on how best to neutralize such threats often will compare favorably with other alternatives. If some sort of military action seems unavoidable because the cost of taking no such action is prohibitively high, then the risk of independent special operations will be deemed less than that of larger conventional-force operations. Even a failed directaction mission may convey some political advantages. The failed special operation to free prisoners in North Vietnam signaled U.S. capabilities to the enemy—and by some accounts led to improvements in their conditions. And the failed attempt to locate Iraqi missiles that could strike Israel in the first Gulf War helped reassure Israel that all necessary action was being taken to protect their interests, which served the strategic purpose of keeping Israel out of the war (for these and other historical examples, see chapter 2). Independent SOF missions that take an indirect approach typically have a lower profile and represent a lesser commitment of prestige and political support. They make strategic sense in limited contingencies against irregular forces. SOF have the skills necessary to discriminate between combatants and noncombatants and to mobilize the indigenous support that is essential for isolating the irregular forces, politically and tactically. In contrast, conventional forces typically prefer to focus

SOF ROLES AND MISSIONS

2 41

on directly eliminating the insurgents or terrorists rather than indirectly gaining long-term political support from the population. Such a direct approach cannot produce the necessary intelligence to enable attacks on the insurgents or terrorists, and it cannot by itself reduce the number of irregular-force supporters. If an insurgency has grown to the point where SOF working with local forces cannot contain it, then SOF may require the support and close collaboration of conventional forces. The French discovered as much in their counterinsurgency efforts in Algeria in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as did the United States with respect to its experience in Vietnam. To summarize the argument so far, SOF’s strategic value is in part a function of their commando and warrior-diplomat roles and associated missions and skills, which they may employ directly or indirectly, independently or in support of conventional-force operations. When SOF should be assigned independent or supporting roles, and whether they should use their direct or indirect approaches, depends on the nature of the security problem and the U.S. strategy for dealing with it. For the United States, we can say the relative strategic value of direct action in support of conventional-force operations has declined as conventional-force precision strike capabilities have improved, while the value of SOF indirect-action missions in support of conventional-force operations persists and perhaps has grown when the threat is irregular warfare. The strategic value of independent SOF operations remains highly situation-dependent, but generally has increased along with the stakes involved in combating terrorism and irregular warfare. These observations suggest that a strategic concept for SOF should put relatively more emphasis on independent SOF missions rather than support to conventional-force operations, which to a large extent has happened with respect to SOF’s commando role and associated direct action missions (see Appendix I: Evolution of SOF Missions). The Pentagon has made SOCOM the designated coordinating authority for countering violent extremist organizations. Similarly, the Department of Defense transferred the lead for countering weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from U.S. Strategic Command to SOCOM, making it the coordinating authority for that mission. SOCOM now has lead responsibility for synchronizing the entire WMD effort for the Department of Defense, and in some instances, for the U.S. government. Counterterrorism and counter proliferation, it should be noted, fit well with SOF’s direct-action missions.

2 42

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

SOF’s indirect-action missions have changed little despite some extensive debate on the matter and the addition of new, lesser-included missions such as security force assistance. Changes in indirect mission areas have been less substantive than political: terminological adjustments to signal SOCOM is “on board” with Department of Defense leader priorities without committing SOCOM to major changes in doctrine, training or equipment (again, see Appendix I). Thus, it remains the case that SOCOM prioritizes SOF’s commando role over its warrior diplomat role, which is a long-standing concern.

RECONSIDERING SOF’S STRATEGIC VALUE In the first edition of this book we argued that the problem of balancing the strategic value of SOF’s direct and indirect missions and forces perhaps could be solved by command and organizational changes at SOCOM. Since then, SOCOM leaders have often professed support for SOF indirect mission and forces, even though they no longer use the term “indirect.” Some would even argue that SOF is proving itself capable of indirect approaches in the Baltics and Syria. Others would argue that SOF, and especially Special Forces, have yet to recover their indirect focus and proficiencies. What seems clear to us a decade later, and especially after the extensive U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that regardless of SOCOM priorities, the Department of Defense and the national security system more generally are not optimized to manage, and perhaps are not capable of managing, an indirect approach to national security problems. To the extent this is true it helps explain SOF’s enduring focus on direct action but also presents problems for SOF. A decade ago, misconstruing SOF’s primary strategic role as support to general-purpose forces remained a major limitation on maximizing SOF strategic value. Today, however, it is much less of a problem, as evidenced by SOCOM’s being given responsibility for several independent SOF strategic missions, such as countering violent extremism and WMD. However, these missions keep SOCOM’s focus on direct action, which reinforces the tendency to neglect SOF’s indirect missions and increases the likelihood that SOF will lose their unconventional mentality over time. Recently, SOCOM acknowledged this was an issue, observing that, “the focus

SOF ROLES AND MISSIONS

2 43

across the SOF enterprise was on maintaining high levels of direct action proficiency,” and that consequently SOF “had lost the spirit of creativity and innovation that had made them ‘special’ in the past.”41 However, so long as operations designed to influence political outcomes through use of indigenous populations and resources are less valued, the SOF units that contribute most in this area, such as the army’s Special Forces, civil affairs, and psychological operations forces, most likely will continue to receive less attention and resources from SOCOM leadership.42 This is a problem, because as we argue in the following chapter, unconventional challenges are not diminishing nor are they becoming increasingly vulnerable to SOF direct action.

✪ 7

Special Operations Forces and the Future of Warfare

P

reparing SOF for the future requires an assessment of how changes in the security environment affect SOF. In the previous chapter, we argued that independent SOF operations, and particularly indirect missions, provide greater strategic value than support to conventional forces, and especially direct action support to conventional forces. However, these conclusions need to be evaluated in light of the changing security environment, which could evolve in ways that accentuate some threats and opportunities more than others and thus afford greater strategic significance to some SOF roles and missions than others. Such an assessment is particularly important given the widespread debate among defense theorists about the extent and import of changes in the security environment. In the 1990s, the dispute revolved around a supposed “revolution in military affairs” characterized by a reconnaissancestrike complex enabled by precision weapons and persistent ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) technologies. In the 2000s, the argument broadened to consider whether additional new technologies and globalization were generating a “transformation” of military affairs. When the United States became involved in lengthy stabilization operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, much of the discussion turned to whether military transformation applied to irregular warfare, or only to large-scale joint combat operations. More recently, defense leaders have stressed the need for U.S. forces to transform to contend with hybrid and multi-domain warfare that require orchestrating diverse instruments of national power and relatively new areas such as space and cyber capabilities. Generally speaking, most experts believe vast improvements in information technology and associated breakthroughs in advanced materials,

F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

2 45

robotics, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing, etc., are fundamentally altering social, economic, political, and military relationships, just as the agrarian and industrial revolutions did in previous ages. It is widely assumed that the nation that best exploits these information-age technologies and “transforms” its military capabilities will be rewarded with unprecedented military advantages. One widespread concern is that while the United States grappled with insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq, other countries like Russia and China increased their attention to and investments in information age technologies in order to catch up, and in some cases surpass, the United States. Our concern in this chapter, however, is whether and to what extent a transformation of military affairs might affect SOF. Will some or all of SOF’s current missions be passed on to or shared with transformed conventional military forces? If transformed military forces are able to perform some of SOF’s current missions, will SOF’s strategic role change? What, then, would the strategic problems we are likely to encounter in the future require of SOF, and how should SOF prepare for the future? Answering such questions requires sorting out elements of continuity and change in military affairs generally and then applying those findings to SOF in light of SOF’s essential attributes. We begin by noting that information-age military transformation need not affect SOF to the same extent as conventional forces. Transformation theorists believe that smaller, information-dominant forces can readily defeat larger, less sophisticated forces. The assertion is that information technology enables highly precise targeting and a comprehensive view of the battlefield, which allows conventional forces to substitute information for larger forces or more firepower. This sounds like conventional forces moving in the direction of SOF, which have always relied less heavily on mass and more on special information. Thus, in theory, SOF would seem to derive comparatively less advantage from exploiting new information sources than conventional forces might. Beyond that, the type of information generated and used by transformed forces must be considered. Terrorists and insurgents are resilient in the face of superior conventional forces precisely because they make targeting difficult by hiding in small numbers among the general population, so it is not immediately apparent that these targets would be vulnerable to transformed conventional forces. Since SOF skills, including intelligence collection, are especially well-suited for such threats, it could

246

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

be argued that the future for SOF is more attention to the same problems they have historically encountered, irrespective of information-age transformation trends. In fact, that is what we argue in this chapter— conventional forces will undergo a fundamental transformation that will not affect SOF the same way or to the same extent.

TRANSFORMATION AND SOF Assessing the impact of military transformation on SOF first requires a better understanding of transformation. The literature on the subject is extensive, but a brief overview will suffice for our current purpose.1 The transformation concept in the United States evolved from debate among defense analysts on the military impact of revolutionary technologies and from studies on the implications of the American victory in the 1991 Gulf War. In 1993, defense policy analyst Andrew F. Krepinevich suggested that the nature of the United States victory presaged a military revolution. He defined a military revolution as taking place “when the application of new technologies into a significant number of military systems combines with innovative operational concepts and organizational adaptation in a way that fundamentally alters the character and conduct of conflict.” This results in “a dramatic increase—often an order of magnitude or greater—in combat potential and military effectiveness.”2 The relative balance between these three elements—new technology, concepts, and organizations—and whether each was directly manifest varied. For example, the Napoleonic revolution featured the mass mobilization of society for war but arguably was made possible by industrial-age technologies that freed up large quantities of manpower for combat arms. Transformation in the twentieth century resulted in panzer divisions, naval airpower and carrier battle groups, long-range strategic bombers, nuclear-powered submarines, and intercontinental ballistic missiles. In the twenty-first century, Krepinevich speculated that information technologies would permit military organizations to detect, identify, track, and engage large numbers of targets with a higher degree of precision and lethality—over a far greater area, in a far shorter period of time— than was previously possible.3 The first Gulf War provided early evidence of this emerging revolution when U.S. forces proved able to blind Iraqi forces and then destroy them at will with precise fires.

F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

247

After the terror attacks on 9/11 and U.S. challenges in Afghanistan and Iraq, many defense theorists argued that transformed forces would “not render guerrilla tactics, terrorism, or weapons of mass destruction obsolete.” Instead, the reverse might be true: “where unconventional bypasses to conventional military power exist, any country confronting the United States will seek them out.”4 In fact, some argued that U.S. conventional military advantages already were so significant that adversaries were developing weapons of mass destruction and irregular warfare as means to counter those advantages.5 Security experts also worried about adversaries investing in inexpensive high and low technology options to exploit discrete U.S. conventional force vulnerabilities, such as cheap mines, missiles, and computer network attack capabilities. Collectively, these means of countering America’s growing superiority in large-scale conventional warfare were called “asymmetric warfare.” Asymmetric warfare captured the attention of defense reformers, who reasoned that transformed forces would have to be able to deal effectively with adversaries who employed asymmetric approaches. Thus transformation, which began with a focus on the opportunity for conventional forces to exploit the information revolution, soon encompassed the goal of countering asymmetric warfare capabilities as well.6 Concerns that adversaries increasingly would use irregular warfare in order to counter overwhelming post–Cold War American conventional force superiority were spectacularly reinforced on September 11, 2001. The attacks on September 11 made clear that some terrorists would not be constrained by fear of provoking a devastating response to mass casualty events. On the contrary, the terrorists made it clear they wanted to provoke a massive U.S. response that their previous attacks had failed to stimulate. The attacks also seemed to demonstrate that terrorists could use access to global information sources to help plan and carry out their attacks. The general diffusion of knowledge, enabled in part by global commerce and information flow, suggested terrorists were increasingly able to create their own weapons of mass destruction if they were unable to steal or buy them. Thus, 9/11 demonstrated that at least in the case of al-Qaeda, the transnational nature, ability, and demonstrated intent of the terrorists to produce mass casualties made them a direct threat to the American way of life. Suddenly, the price to be paid for a steep learning curve on irregular warfare—a price the United States has paid repeatedly over the course of its history—was prohibitively high.7 The

248

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

difficulty U.S. forces had prevailing over insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, or more generally, eliminating terrorist organizations responsible for mass casualty attacks around the world, just reinforced the need to address asymmetric threats. These two aspects of transformation—the opportunity to exploit information-age technology and the imperative to counter asymmetric warfare—represent two primary issues for the future of SOF. First, like all military forces, there is the question of how SOF can best exploit the information revolution (and the new technologies it enables), and whether doing so will open up new mission opportunities for SOF or merely improve their prospects for successfully conducting their historic missions. Second, given SOF’s enduring focus on unconventional warfare, there is the question of whether SOF already are optimized for asymmetric warfare, or whether SOF could be “transformed” for a major improvement in this mission set. If conventional-force transformation stimulates adversaries to counter American superiority by asymmetric means, then SOF’s traditional focus on unconventional threats should grow in importance. Yet SOF must still consider how to respond. SOF could just grow a larger number of the same forces and capabilities, or it might be necessary to make changes that would significantly improve their capabilities against unconventional forces. We consider SOF’s future in light of these two transformation issues— information-age warfare and asymmetric threats—beginning with the impact of information-age technologies and concepts.

SOF AS A MODEL FOR INFORMATION-AGE FORCES Advances in military technology can affect the scope and significance of special operations. For example, Colin Gray notes the impact that advances in air mobility and the invention of plastic explosives had on special operations in World War II. The mobility to operate deep behind enemy lines and cause considerable damage with lightweight high explosives opened up a much broader range of targets for special operators.8 Mobility and explosives have advanced since World War II, and additional “breakthrough” technologies—for example, in nanoenergetics, which are expected in generate a quantum leap in high explosives9—are anticipated. Even today, stealthy, long-range means of inserting SOF into

F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

249

enemy territory and powerful lightweight explosives mean there are few targets beyond the range of SOF. Even so, perusing transformation literature for insights on the impact of information-age technologies on SOF’s future is not very fruitful. Most discussions of SOF and emerging technologies usually emphasize the way SOF use new, commercial “off-the-shelf” technologies to facilitate their operations and otherwise leverage capabilities brought on line by the military services. Moreover, SOF are more likely to be described as a model for information-age forces rather than as a major beneficiary of information-age technology. It has long been assumed that SOF already possess many of the characteristics that transformed conventional military forces need. For example, coping with uncertainty means transformed American forces would have to be flexible enough to contend with the greater degree of variability inherent in a more complex security environment. Among other things, U.S. forces must be prepared to work with “coalitions of the willing” as circumstances permit, as well as be prepared for irregular threats, not just large-scale conventional force on force engagements. SOF are a good hedge against such kinds of uncertainty because their skills allow them to work well with impromptu allies and also to counter unconventional threats. U.S. forces also have to be globally responsive to threats. The terror attacks on 9/11 that struck the U.S. were “headquartered” in Afghanistan, a place the U.S. military never envisioned fighting. Today, there is literally no place on the face of the globe, including the north and south poles, that the U.S. military can afford to overlook. Moreover, the ability of the United States to wield power globally is increasingly dependent on its ability to control what often are referred to as the twenty-first century commons: space, air, sea, and cyberspace. U.S. forces must be able to plan and execute operations transregionally, on short notice over vast distances, and en route to their engagements, mixing diverse forces from regional and functional commands (e.g., for transportation, strategic forces, or SOF). SOCOM already is able to rapidly undertake operations on a transregional basis, with a global perspective, and supported by very little established infrastructure, so they already possess those global force attributes that defense planners argue transformed conventional forces need. Another aspect of transformed U.S. forces many defense analysts agree upon is the need for institutionalized adaptation.10 U.S. forces

250

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

need to be capable of adaptive contingency planning that is nimble in the face of rapidly changing planning assumptions. They need to rapidly integrate improved intelligence from diverse classified and unclassified sources in order to modify planning appropriately. U.S. forces also must expect that their technological advantages might be relatively fleeting. They need to overcome adaptive adversaries by constantly experimenting with new concepts, and by integrating commercially available technology on an iterative basis in order to field new capabilities more rapidly. SOCOM already has its own acquisition authority to permit rapid integration of technology, and SOF recruit and train personnel to think in a flexible and adaptive manner. So again, SOF typically is often considered a model rather than a target for these kinds of defense reforms. Defense theorists also value other intrinsic SOF attributes highly, for reasons well explained by this excerpt from a landmark Pentagon publication on transformation: In moving to the information age, the nation is entering an era where advantages are conferred on the small, the fast and the many. These capabilities in turn will be paid for by the ponderous and the massive. Size shrinks because of the “demassification” of warfare that comes about by substituting information for tonnage. The Air Force says that a target once requiring 1,000 bombs to destroy now requires only one. That magnitude of change is owed almost entirely to information technology and processes. A second key metric is increased speed, resulting not just from the decreased mass to be moved, but also from organizations streamlined to benefit from their superior information position. The result is a highly responsive, dispersed force with lower costs per unit of combat power. That is, increased combat power is vested in yet smaller units. One result of this is the need for new joint organizations and processes in small units, which were once considered the exclusive domain of the military services.11

Transformation theorists believe that small, agile, quickly deployable and networked forces will outperform the larger traditional military units that emphasize communicating up the chain of command at the expense of sharing information among distributed units. The possibility of rapidly sharing information about enemy and friendly activities, and the reality that fast, highly accurate, longer-range missiles can be launched from

F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

251

land, sea, or air—and hit targets in any of those domains—means that collaboration in both offense and defense among all tactical units, regardless of military service, is essential. Transformation advocates therefore argue that “jointness,” or collaboration between the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, is not only essential for managing the overall warfighting effort well, but also at the small-unit level. Over the past decade or two SOF have pioneered new levels of joint integration at the small-unit level, so this is yet another respect in which they are viewed as a model for conventional-force transformation. There are so many SOF-like attributes associated with transformation that for a while defense experts explained transformation in part by noting that it meant conventional forces would become more “SOF-like.” Numerous well-respected defense experts, and internal and external Pentagon studies, used SOF as a model for conventional forces to emulate. The prestigious Defense Science Board, for example, recommended making more traditional army units “SOF-like,” with the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions among the most likely candidates.12 SOF also were regularly included in lists of “transformational” assets.13 Commingling SOF with transformation is so common that one distinguished Army War College analyst felt compelled to write a justification for the continued existence of conventional army forces. Reacting in particular to commentary extolling SOF’s excellent performance in routing the Taliban, he felt the need to make the point that “even if one posits a much larger role for SOF in future counter-terror warfare, this is still a long way from a sound case for a SOF-predominant military in 2020.”14 Given all the attention and respect accorded SOF, and the widespread assumption that they are a model for future transformed U.S. forces, it is not surprising that a SOCOM commander in 2014 exclaimed “we are in the golden age of special operations.”15 Fiscal austerity further reinforced the tendency to rely heavily on SOF. After a decade of expensive counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, the United States scaled back its presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and took a spending holiday that sharply curtailed defense budgets for a number of years. As the Pentagon regrouped, defense leaders were content to rely on SOF to continue the effort against global terrorism. The Pentagon gave SOF the lead for the two key asymmetric threats—weapons of mass destruction and terrorism16—and turned its attention to potential “nearpeer” competitors like Russia and China, which many defense experts

252

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

worry are now exceeding U.S. capabilities in areas such as long-range missiles, hypersonic weapons, cyber capabilities, and the ability to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum. With defense leaders paying more attention to these high-end threats, SOF are less frequently mentioned as exemplars of future war. But the widespread assumption remains that SOF are ahead of the curve on transformation, and that conventional forces have much more to gain from exploiting information-age technology. Another reason SOF were not considered likely to be affected as much by transformation as other forces is their traditional emphasis on human skills. The first SOF “truth” propounded by SOCOM is that humans are more important than hardware. The “central defining quality of SOF has always been its distinctive personnel.”17 Among those factors SOF can control, the quality of SOF personnel—not technology—is a more critical prerequisite for success. So while SOF can and do exploit information-age technology to improve their mobility and lethality, they derive greater comparative advantage from their personnel and the skills and methods they can employ. All that said, the extent to which SOF maintain advantages over conventional forces when it comes to information age transformation is likely to decrease as conventional forces absorb information-age technology and operating methods. As noted in chapter 6, as the range, speed, and accuracy of modern munitions increase, situations that require a SOF direct-action solution decrease. All other factors being equal, the time and risk involved in inserting SOF to destroy targets is far greater in most cases than using precision munitions. SOF can still assist the accuracy of many munitions by using laser-designators to illuminate the targets, but there are now multiple means of hitting targets with a formidable array of all-weather, radar- and satellite-guided munitions. The same point applies to strategic reconnaissance. As networks of sensors increasingly are able to provide highly detailed, real-time surveillance of targets, the need to risk SOF personnel for reconnaissance diminishes. Currently, SOF direct action still maintains some comparative advantages over conventional munitions. Because of their ability to tightly link reconnaissance of a target with the ability to strike the target, and because of their small size and rapid decision-making processes, SOF integrate intelligence and direct-action capabilities more rapidly than conventional forces, which enables greater discrimination and a faster response time to fleeting targets. As one SOF officer has noted (see chapter 1), SOF

F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

2 53

intelligence generated through contacts with indigenous forces and populace is sometimes critically important for discriminate and timely targeting. However, even these advantages are diminishing as new sources of intelligence and rapid-response, standoff attack capabilities mature. Some new missiles can be reprogrammed in flight to acquire new targets, and other missiles are launched directly from surveillance platforms. For these weapon systems the determining factors in response time for a strike are the time it takes to integrate and confirm the intelligence that positively identifies the fleeting target, and the time it takes to get authority to release the weapons. In some cases, SOF’s ability to distinguish targets rapidly with human judgment gives SOF an advantage in rapid target confirmation, and SOF’s distributed command and control arrangements may give SOF some advantage in weapon-release authority, depending on rules of engagement. However, conventional forces can be expected to close these gaps in the future. In fact, the debate today over targeting enemy leaders with drones or SOF largely revolves around the issue of whether there is a substantial intelligence advantage to retrieving the target alive.18 In the majority of cases, the answer has been no, and drone strikes have displaced SOF direct action missions as a preferred means of dealing with enemy leaders.19 Over time, information-age transformation likely will further decrease the range of cases where SOF direct action makes sense to those where the need to exercise human judgment in close proximity to the target is the paramount consideration. Examples might include deciding how to defeat automated defense systems, disarm a weapon of mass destruction, eliminate targets without unacceptable loss of innocent life, retrieve human targets for interrogation, discriminate between fake and real targets, or insert malicious code into computer systems. Transformed conventional forces may constrain SOF operations in another respect as well. SOF’s special attention to operational security means that their behind-the-lines activities are compartmentalized and not made known to conventional-force commanders. SOF want to see the battlefield in a transparent and timely fashion, but they are reluctant to let other friendly forces see their activities in real time for fear this information may be made known to the enemy. This may have to change. Improved surveillance assets have begun identifying SOF operations behind enemy lines. If SOF are not plugged into friendly information

254

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

networks and identified as friendly forces, then they cannot be distinguished easily from the enemy and may be vulnerable to attack from increasingly lethal friendly units that do not recognize them as U.S. forces. For their safety, if not for greater effectiveness, SOF eventually will have to plug in to network-centric warfare when they support conventionalforce operations, or else develop new procedures to safeguard their activities from risk of friendly fire. What SOF must do, then, is exploit technology that enables innovation in military competencies that cannot be provided by conventional forces. For example, William McRaven notes in his treatment of specialoperations theory that technology can help overcome obstacles that otherwise would reduce the simplicity and rapid execution of a direct-action plan. He notes that past innovations in manned torpedoes, modified destroyers, shaped charges, and silenced weapons contributed to success in this regard.20 Future technological developments will likely improve the mobility and lethality of SOF in ways that may facilitate innovative and elegant direct-action solutions. Information networks can help SOF identify and navigate to targets, and computer network attack tools can permit SOF to enter and damage enemy information networks that are not susceptible to conventional weapons. SOCOM rightly is intent on exploiting global information networks to better locate and track individual targets and also to improve SOF command and control. The range and resolution of modern surveillance systems is such that they now are capable of picking up individual human beings, and SOF must exploit this capability. SOF can look for emerging strategic demands that cannot be filled by conventional forces, but their surest guide for innovative use of technology is to focus on SOF’s historic roles. They should seek the means to improve their ability to counter unconventional threats, hold targets at risk that are not vulnerable to conventional forces, and reduce popular support for enemies. In order to make such innovation possible for special operations, Congress gave SOCOM broad budgeting and acquisition authority. SOCOM uses that authority to field small advanced-technology systems in as little as seven days and most often in less than six months. SOF can use this special authority to explore new and innovative ways to accomplish a mission so that their approaches are less easily countered. This is particularly important given that some degradation in SOF comparative advantages over time is inevitable.

F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

2 55

As SOF pioneer new tactics and technology, some older SOF methods are absorbed by conventional forces. For example, SOF were instrumental in developing secure-burst and tactical satellite communications, night-vision equipment and tactics, extreme cold weather clothing and equipment, laser designator guidance equipment, and fast rope insertion techniques that are now standard practice for other military units. Once these techniques become standard practice even in conventional forces, the opportunity for SOF to use them to help surprise an adversary will be diminished. It is possible that some current SOF missions ought to pass to conventional forces in their entirety once conventional forces master the essential technologies and techniques that enable the mission. For example, the requirements for most combat search and rescue missions, or the close air support provided by SOF’s AC-130 gunships, arguably are already well within the capabilities of conventional forces if they want to acquire them. Because modernizing conventional forces can slowly encroach on many SOF advantages over time, SOF’s strategic value in comparison with conventional forces will decline if SOF are not able to consistently reinforce their core advantages through adaptation. Whether and to what extent this is true for SOF missions against unconventional threats is the subject of the next section.

ASYMMETRIC WARFARE AS A FOCUS FOR FUTURE SOF CAPABILITIES One surprising development during the 2000s was the willingness of SOF leadership to share traditional SOF missions with conventional military forces. Gen. Peter Schoomaker, a former commander of SOCOM, testified to Congress that “there are a lot of tactics, techniques, procedures [and] technologies . . . that will make the conventional force capable of doing many of the kinds of things SOF typically do.”21 The assistant secretary of defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (himself a former special operator) noted that he and SOCOM’s commander were looking at “ways to share certain SOF tasks with conventional forces that have similar capabilities.” They both thought “core tasks such as direct action and special reconnaissance can be performed by regular units that have the specialized training.”22 Other influential sources, such as the Defense Science Board, were interested in having conventional forces also take on some of SOF’s indirect-action missions;

256

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

namely collaboration with indigenous forces.23 All these experts apparently agreed that “U.S. conventional forces should continue to develop SOF-like capabilities, allowing SOF to hand off missions more seamlessly or yield missions completely to conventional forces.”24 The interest in sharing SOF missions with conventional forces was surprising given SOF leadership’s historic insistence on the special qualities of SOF that enable these missions. The desire to share SOF missions with conventional forces coincides with and is best explained by the spike in demand for SOF following the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. SOF were quickly pressed into service around the globe at unprecedented levels of activity. At the same time, demand for people with SOF experience in private-sector security services soared, and SOCOM found it increasingly difficult to retain personnel.25 SOF, already accustomed to sudden and long deployments away from friends and family, were being used virtually nonstop. Since it takes time to grow new SOF force structure, it seemed wise to reduce pressure on current SOF forces by passing their missions to conventional forces wherever possible. In some cases, even SOF’s willingness to experiment with new technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) was encouraged by the demands of the war on terrorism. Arguably, UAVs can provide surveillance without the fatigue associated with human operations.26 Sharing SOF missions with conventional forces raised an obvious question for the future of SOF. If conventional forces can become more like SOF and conduct SOF missions against terrorists and insurgents, is SOF’s strategic relevance in these mission areas gradually declining? Are SOF destined to abandon unconventional warfare and concentrate on other niche missions like counterproliferation? First of all, the point must be made that the wholesale shuffling of SOF missions to conventional forces has not really happened so far. Instead of passing missions in toto to conventional forces, SOF discriminated qualitatively between missions on a case-by-case basis, trying to take those it considered most difficult and leaving the less demanding ones for conventional forces. Thus, neither new technology nor the immediate pressures of the war on terrorism have led to new apportionment of missions between SOF and conventional forces, but rather to a somewhat confusing case-by-case division of labor. This arrangement, however pragmatic in the short term, was rather odd in the abstract. It blurred the line between special and elite discussed

F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

257

in chapter 6 and undermined the notion that special operations missions required “special” capabilities that could not easily be generated with just an additional dollop of training for conventional forces. In sharing missions so willingly, SOCOM seemed to be violating its four SOF “truths,” all of which underscore that SOF characteristics and capabilities distinguish them from conventional forces in ways that cannot be quickly changed (i.e., “Humans are more important than hardware, SOF cannot be mass produced, quality is better than quantity, and competent SOF cannot be created after emergencies occur”).27 These truths essentially assert that SOF missions cannot be passed to conventional forces without increased risks of failure. Either the missions being passed to conventional forces were not truly special operations, or else we do not really need special operators to combat terrorists and insurgents. In short, mixing the missions of SOF with those of conventional forces has introduced a degree of confusion about what distinguishes SOF from conventional forces—a problem both for the conduct of the war on terror and for the future of SOF. In the war on terror the Pentagon and SOCOM relieved Special Forces of their counterinsurgency and counterterrorist training missions in some key states contending with terrorism to reduce stress on overextended SOF. Training of the Georgian military was passed from Special Forces to the Marine Corps, and conventional army units replaced Special Forces in Afghanistan as soon as they could establish a physical presence on the ground. As conventional forces took on these chores, the army announced an initiative to create “regionally aligned brigades” that could train and assist foreign forces,28 and more recently, decided to create new Security Force Assistance Brigades that are permanently assigned the mission of training and advising foreign forces, and which recruit, select and train their personnel for that mission.29 This trend is a problem in two respects. First, as noted in the previous chapter on roles and missions, assuming conventional forces can take on SOF’s foreign internal defense mission of partnering with indigenous forces underestimates the skills required for success.30 Training foreign forces in basic skills is not the same as working with them to achieve security objectives shared by foreign governments and ours in ways that are consistent with U.S. interests and values, something that requires deep cross-cultural and political skills that are not easily acquired. As we argued in chapter 5 on village stability operations (VSOs), the rush

258

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

to expand these operations led to poorer performance. Elements of SOF without training, experience, or cultures conducive to working with indigenous forces were pressed into service and then conventional forces as well. Even some Special Forces showed more interest in manhunting than in working closely with indigenous forces for local population security. Shortcuts that violated Special Forces best practices alienated local leaders and forces and thus compromised results. The other problem with transferring SOF partnering missions with indigenous forces is that it reinforces a SOCOM predilection to place undue emphasis on direct action at the expense of indirect approaches. Indeed, a widespread concern in the war on terror has been the tendency of SOCOM, and the Department of Defense as a whole, to emphasize kill/ capture missions at the expense of partnering with indigenous forces. One internal Pentagon study by a former Special Forces officer makes the case that a strategic opportunity in Afghanistan to deal al-Qaeda and the Taliban a more devastating blow was missed because U.S. forces relied too long on the bombing campaign and did not follow up with an aggressive counterinsurgency campaign.31 When conventional forces arrived, their commanders’ heavy-handed focus on attrition of enemy guerrillas squandered a lot of the good will built up by SOF. A similar argument about undervaluing SOF’s indirect approach can be made about the war in Iraq, once the center of gravity in the war on terror. Given that Saddam demonstrated he was prepared for unconventional warfare throughout the conflict, and that his irregular forces were his most determined fighting units, it would have been prudent to be prepared for unconventional warfare after conventional-force operations wound down. SOF’s approach would have been to screen local leaders and their followers and then use indigenous forces to establish local security as soon as possible. In fact, the army’s Special Forces took this approach.32 They even managed to organize some indigenous forces during the brief war, albeit with mixed results.33 However, when policy makers decided to disband civil servants and the Iraqi security forces as a whole, they dumped a large number of intelligent, trained, and disgruntled personnel into the ranks of the suddenly unemployed, and the insurgency quickly became much more virulent. The United States responded by ramping up kill/capture operations, but as we argued in chapter 4 on high-value targeting, such direct action missions—while tactically quite successful—were not able to make a strategic difference until they began

F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

2 59

cooperating with counterinsurgency efforts and paying attention to their second- and third-order political effects. Other examples of insufficient Pentagon and SOCOM appreciation of indirect missions are the late deployment of psychological operations forces to Operation Iraqi Freedom and the historic lack of interest at SOCOM in improving the performance of civil-affairs and psychological-operations forces. SOF resource limitations may require SOF to collaborate with conventional forces in fighting insurgents and terrorists, but SOF should retain the lead in the collaborative relationship and control when and where conventional forces are used in support. This is because SOF’s intrinsic attributes—to the extent they have and safeguard them—give them a much better understanding of how to defeat irregular forces. To the extent we expect irregular warfare to be used by our adversaries in the future, and there is nearly unanimous agreement that this is the case, then preparing for SOF’s future requires that every effort be made to reinforce rather than obscure the attributes that make SOF so valuable against asymmetric threats and to improve SOF’s performance in this area. After the terror attacks on 9/11, some argued that SOF did not need improvement against asymmetric threats so much as they needed political support to do the job for which they are already well prepared. All that was required was to let SOF “off the leash,” liberating them from a set of artificial political and leadership constraints that had unnecessarily hindered their ability to take down terrorist organizations.34 For example, in retrospect it is easy to argue that SOF’s highly discriminate and proportional use of force should have made SOF an attractive option for targeting Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Clinton administration worried that cruise missiles might hurt innocent civilians or miss altogether, thus humiliating the United States when the results could not be hidden or ignored. SOCOM could have been asked to put a small SOF team on the ground to positively identify bin Laden and then guide in or actually deliver lethal strikes against him without collateral damage. However, concern about the large force package recommended by senior military leaders (in particular, by Gen. H. Hugh Shelton, a former commander of SOCOM) and their judgment that prospects of success for SOF would be poor swayed Clinton officials against putting men on the ground.35 Similarly, in the case of combating insurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq, SOF again should have been an attractive option. By organizing,

260

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

training, and leading indigenous forces against the insurgents, SOF could have kept the costs to the United States relatively low. In cases where more U.S. forces were obviously needed—and there were cases in both Afghanistan and Iraq—SOF would still have been a good choice for overall command of the counterinsurgency campaigns. Instead, conventional forces took the lead, and their learning curve was steep given their traditional focus on using fire and maneuver to defeat large enemy regular forces.36 When the United States eventually embraced VSOs after ten years of war in Afghanistan, public and presidential patience was wearing thin, and the effort was rushed and haphazard with SOF not in the lead. The argument that already potent SOF go unused because of political and military leadership concerns about the risk of independent special operations has largely been overcome, at least where direct action is concerned. However, there is still some strategic confusion in the SOF community itself about the value of SOF in the war on terror and SOF’s appropriate division of labor with conventional forces. As noted, SOCOM leadership is ready to support conventional forces even when the enemy is an unconventional one, and to use SOF’s direct approach when the indirect approach is more likely to yield better results. Some even argue that after so many years of emphasis on manhunting, SOF need to rebuild their indirect mission capacity in Special Forces.37 Thus to prepare SOF for a future that requires SOF strategic leadership countering terrorism and WMD requires reforms that address the internal SOCOM propensity to favor direct action and support to conventional forces over indirect action as an independent strategic contribution.

TRANSFORMING SOF FOR THE FUTURE OF ASYMMETRIC WARFARE Contrary to the view that SOF do not require reform, we believe that SOF, like all military forces, must transform consistent with the strategic environment and their strategic purposes, and broadly in ways that will affect their organization, concepts of employment, and tactical capabilities enabled by advanced technology. Conceptually, the point of departure for SOF transformation is the realization that, unlike conventional forces, the driving factor for SOF is not the availability of information-age technology so much as the nature of asymmetric threats facing the

F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

261

United States. Improving SOF’s ability to counter unconventional threats requires attention to precisely those factors that are overlooked when people conclude conventional forces can conduct special operations; namely SOF’s enduring strategic role and those attributes that most distinguish SOF from conventional forces. As argued in the previous chapter, SOF’s primary strategic value is not their ability to support conventional forces in major combat operations but their ability to produce strategic effects through the highly discriminate and proportional use of force that avoids politically unacceptable collateral damage or escalation in ways that conventional forces cannot duplicate. It is SOF’s ability to use human judgment to render effects other than mere destruction that explain, for example, why SOF will always be called on for some types of direct action. SOCOM is adept at culling leading-edge technology to hone the direct-action capabilities of its special mission units, which is where SOCOM largely has focused its attention over the past decade. These investments are warranted so long as they help SOF produce more discriminate and proportional effects. In other words, we should ask whether they improve SOF’s ability to make quick political and technically competent decisions at the scene and to operate with lower visibility and political repercussions than missile strikes or airborne intelligence collection. To the extent the investments simply reinforce SOF’s ability to acquire, get to, and destroy a target, the investments should be examined closely for their advantages over conventional options, given that advanced information-age technology most likely will allow conventional forces to make inroads on SOF direct action missions. These observations underscore the need for SOF transformation and point to the area where transformation is most needed: leadership and organization, with organization defined broadly to include not only structure but also the underlying theory of performance and its supporting culture. First, SOF must pay more attention to command and control, and in particular, to working closely with political leadership to minimize the perceived and actual risks of special operations. SOF leadership seems conflicted on this point. On the one hand, some SOF policy and doctrine publications stress the requirement for political sensitivity and accountability. Typically, Army Special Forces leaders and doctrine are more likely to stress the importance of recognizing the political and psychological implications of special operations, which is not surprising

262

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

given the history of Special Forces and Psychological Operations. In contrast, Navy SOF, in the past exclusively focused on direct action, used to pay less attention to the issue of political accountability.38 Whether this remains the case is disputed. For one example, the MARSOC element of SOCOM has been cited for its willingness to embrace indirect missions and work with indigenous forces.39 Often, the principle of political awareness is overridden by a stronger, more visceral conviction that the further SOF is distanced from political authority, the better it can accomplish its missions. In a widely acclaimed account of U.S. military activities in the war on terrorism that is popular in SOF circles, a journalist reached the conclusion that the “smaller the tactical unit, the more forward deployed it is, and the more autonomy it enjoys from the chain of command, the more that can be accomplished.”40 Ironically, this sentiment is still alive and well in Special Forces, which historically have emphasized political awareness, whereas leadership in SMUs have come to appreciate the need to collaborate with civilian authorities in order to get approval for direct action missions.41 It is true that Washington bureaucracy is hidebound and incapable of rapid, well-informed decision-making, but SOF will not benefit by distancing itself from collaboration with political authorities. On the contrary, as the chapters on Somalia and HVTs demonstrate, SOF’s ability to perform a strategic role for the United States can be seriously diminished when special operations are not aligned with national objectives and profoundly advanced when they are. The army special mission unit that predated the creation of SOCOM objected to SOCOM on the grounds that the command would distance SOF strategic direct-action forces from national decisionmakers, and that has been the case. For example, by one account the Pentagon at one point promoted a counterterrorism plan that would allow Special Operations forces to enter foreign countries without concurrence from U.S. ambassadors, a move resisted by the Department of State and CIA, who want to make sure that the operations do not conflict with other U.S. government programs and policy priorities.42 SOCOM also intervened to make sure a small body of functional expertise in psychological operations designed to increase collaboration between policy officials in Washington and those developing themes, messages, and products for PSYOP forces would be located in Tampa, Florida, and far from the policy officials and sources of such functional expertise.43One must hope that the lessons learned by

F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

263

SMUs about collaboration with civilian authorities at the national level has permeated the larger SOCOM enterprise, including USASOC. Otherwise, efforts to distance SOF from accountability to and close coordination with political authority will ultimately reduce the strategic value of SOF. If special operations are conducted in a manner inconsistent with the U.S. political system’s demand for requisite levels of discrimination, proportionality, and propriety, they will gradually be reduced to less significant operational and tactical applications, not to mention calls for congressional intervention to ensure oversight and accountability.44 SOF understand their strategic role in principle. They often observe that special operations require command and control different from other forces: that is, oversight at the national level and sharp sensitivity to political implications and local mores. However, in practice, the elements of SOCOM that should work most closely with civilian authorities on indirect missions—Special Forces—grew increasingly comfortable with detachment from Washington decisionmakers, something that must change if SOF are to fulfill their strategic potential in the future and maximize SOF effectiveness against asymmetric threats. If SOCOM wants greater connectivity with national decisionmakers and technical expertise otherwise not available, information-age technology can help. Improvements in global communications increase the ability of SOF to reach back for both political and technical expertise, making the risk of certain special operations more manageable. Just as more reliable radios improved command and control of dispersed SOF in World War II, modern computer and satellite communications make it possible for SOF to call on expertise from forward locations. A common example is that SOF could tap into relevant experts on call to assist them in neutralizing a captured weapon of mass destruction. Improved communications also increase the value of SOF strategic reconnaissance as they allow SOF-generated intelligence (properly sanitized) to be immediately fed into the global network supporting senior decisionmakers. Organizational reforms could improve SOF’s ability to take advantage of such innovations by reinforcing a culture of innovation. As noted in the previous chapter, SOCOM leaders have recently expressed concern about SOF losing the spirit of creativity and innovation that made them “special.”45 In reemphasizing and reinforcing SOF’s heritage of innovation, there are some issues that should be addressed. Innovation first requires an understanding of SOF’s strategic value in order to identify

26 4

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

areas where experimentation would be profitable. In this regard, confusion about the strategic relevance of SOF, and in particular SOCOM’s predisposition to focus on marginal improvements in direct-action capability, presents two possible problems for a healthy SOF experimentation program. First, concentrating on marginal improvements in direct action could simply reinforce SOF strengths in areas of declining advantage. To the extent SOF try to innovate in ways that reduce risks of failure in direct action,46 they need to think broadly about what defines successful direct action. To offer strategic value, SOF direct action must produce more discriminate and proportionate effects than possible for conventional forces. Surveillance innovations to increase confidence that SOF were tracking the right target would help, as would computer network attack options that could help secure the element of surprise and lower the visibility of U.S. special operations. By contrast, greater investments in lighter-weight munitions could probably be left for conventional forces to experiment with, as such munitions would do relatively little to improve SOF’s comparative strategic utility. Second, a SOF experimentation program concentrated almost exclusively on direct-action missions could retard innovation in other areas. Although specifics are classified, there is a general recognition that special mission units dedicated to direct action receive a disproportionate slice of the SOCOM budget, leaving few resources for other members of the SOF community to exploit for innovation. It is possible to envision technologies that could improve SOF’s indirect approach. Computerassisted translation devices are mentioned frequently. Surreptitious means of tagging a target could be provided to indigenous personnel supporting SOF who have a better chance of getting access to the target, and this would reduce risk to indigenous personnel and increase their willingness to cooperate with SOF. Secure cell phones, or even some forms of access to the Internet, might be used for rapid, safe communication with indigenous forces. Self-organizing sensor nets could be deployed by SOF and monitored to limit the mobility of insurgents. Numerous means are available to improve the performance of PSYOP should these forces be assigned a higher priority for SOCOM resources.47 Many SOF programs are classified, so it is difficult to assess the extent to which SOCOM emphasizes direct action at the expense of indirect action missions. However, this understandable penchant for secrecy

F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

2 65

points to another problem with SOF experimentation and innovation. To ensure innovative research and experimentation is not misdirected into areas of low marginal return, SOF requires both a solid strategic concept to inform the design of the experiments and the willingness to solicit independent, empirical assessments of SOF performance tests and experiments. Without honest feedback on performance, it is not possible to identify problems or the value of postulated improvements. In the past, the SOF community has not been open to such costbenefit analysis. The secret world of special operations and the importance SOF place on operational security can engender an insular culture not readily amenable to empirical studies of performance. Even parts of the SOF community dedicated to open communication, such as psychological operations, have proven resistant to dispassionate debate about means to improve performance. This tendency must be overcome if SOF is to increase its adaptability, and evidence suggests that over the past decade SOCOM has made substantial efforts to engage outside sources that could help clinically evaluate SOF performance.48 Finally, another issue for SOF in this regard is a cultural bias toward action. While the relatively small size of the SOF community facilitates word-of-mouth transfer of knowledge, SOF’s natural focus on action can lead the community to undervalue the importance of learning. Thus, not all of the laudable innovations pioneered at the small-team level are captured and extended more broadly through the SOF community.49

NEXT STEPS FOR TRANSFORMING SOF In this chapter, we have argued that emerging information age technologies reinforce rather than challenge the conclusion that independent SOF operations, and particularly indirect missions, provide greater strategic value for the United States than support to conventional forces, and especially SOF direct action support to conventional forces. In essence, the Pentagon now agrees with this assessment, as the assignment of countering terrorism and weapons of mass destruction missions indicate. Although there is still debate over the proper balance of SOF direct and indirect means to manage these strategic challenges, SOCOM is now acknowledged as uniquely responsible for these missions.50 Thus, SOCOM now has a well-defined strategic role to keep SOF focused on

266

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

what is most important, which is to counter the two most successful asymmetric threats to U.S. conventional force dominance: terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and particularly the former using the latter. The question of SOF’s role in countering insurgents and other irregular forces is less clear, but perhaps enhanced, given that the Pentagon is once again encouraging the military services to emphasize large, peer-competitor conventional military threats. What remains to be seen is whether SOCOM will be up to the task of managing such asymmetric challenges.51 To succeed, SOCOM will need to perform its indirect missions as well or better than it has its directaction missions over the past decade. To realize its full potential as the primary strategic option for countering asymmetric warfare, SOF require some conceptual and organizational changes.52 In particular, SOF need an organizational predisposition to emphasize independent SOF missions and greater appreciation for SOF’s indirect approach through indigenous forces rather than through SOF’s direct-action missions. If SOCOM wanted to improve its ability to influence political outcomes through indigenous forces and populations, it would need to experiment with new concepts of operation and potentially new structures and capabilities. For example, it might be necessary to recruit and select Special Forces differently. USASOC might need to recruit older, more experienced personnel with deployment or even combat experience and at least one foreign language capability. It might need to select those who score higher on DoD’s general aptitude tests and who demonstrate greater political acumen, or even partner with civilians who are temporarily attached to teams, as the last interviewee in chapter 1 suggested. Special Forces might need tailored instruction in irregular warfare that illuminates why the Pentagon does not embrace such missions and why the national security system as a whole finds them problematic but often necessary.53 In some cases, these types of reform would simply be returning to past practices, but in other respects new initiatives might be required. For example, the structure of future Special Forces operational detachment “Alpha,” (ODA, or “A-team”) also might require adjustments (again, see the last interviewee in chapter 1). The ODA’s second in command might be required to do a stint in an embassy or in other departments and agencies and otherwise have expertise in the range of capabilities resident in other parts of the national security system and how to tap

F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

267

them for the ODA’s benefit. The ODA weapons specialist might need to emphasize the special skills and tactics required for effective close fire support from air force and other U.S. standoff precision weapons, including drone strikes. If, as some suppose, future warfare will require fighting for information dominance, it might be wise to expand the communications specialist skill set into an “information warfare” specialist proficient in obtaining and integrating electronic warfare, psychological operations, operations security, deception, and computer network operations for the ODA.54 These and other modifications to ODA structure and skills are often suggested, and some are more consequential than others. What is important is to experiment with these and other potential modifications to determine which suite of capabilities best improve performance for irregular warfare. The same can be said for how the ODA’s interact with other SOF elements, such as Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations, both of which should also benefit from experimentation programs. This is especially true for Psychological Operations forces, which have a tremendously difficult mission but have never had the benefit of the resources and rigor SOCOM routinely applies to other SOF elements. Transforming SOF for significantly better performance against asymmetric threats would help resolve a historic, long-standing but now acute strategic problem for the United States: how to improve large-scale conventional force capabilities in the face of Russian and Chinese advances, prevent terrorist use of WMD against American citizens, and do so without adding large amounts to the nation’s increasing debt burden. In the past it has often been argued that a military force cannot afford to be proficient in both conventional and unconventional warfare.55 However, this argument is now moot given the Pentagon decision to both transform its conventional forces and remain vigilant against terrorist use of WMD by assigning SOCOM dual responsibility for countering weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. The only remaining issue is how well SOCOM can perform both lead roles. Certainly it is better positioned today to do so than it was on the eve of the terror attacks on 9/11. Yet persistent confusion over the inherent differences between SOF and conventional forces, and the erroneous belief that conventional forces can perform SOF missions at minimal risk, can lead to an inappropriate division of labor between conventional forces and SOF and a misallocation of scarce resources. The army can

268

N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y P O L I C Y

and should improve its ability to perform against asymmetric threats, but it needs to make the investments carefully in areas that allow light forces to support SOF in irregular warfare when necessary. Increasing the size of the army’s Foreign Area Officer cadre, improving light infantry training and doctrine, investing in greater force protection and social intelligence capabilities and other relatively inexpensive niche capabilities optimized for asymmetric warfare make sense for the army. Trying to disseminate language training and cultural awareness or other SOF capabilities more broadly throughout the army, or create new brigades to conduct what historically have been SOF missions, makes much less sense.56 Competency in these areas requires a great deal of time, effort, and special personnel. SOF-like language and cultural competency are beyond the reach of the conventional forces, which must be expert in large conventional force-on-force engagements. A large, inefficient, and poorly focused attempt to improve the performance of conventional forces against asymmetric threats would reduce the resources available for conventional-force transformation against high-end threats and increase the risk that such countries as China will more effectively exploit information-age technologies for their large conventional forces. To the extent SOCOM can transform itself organizationally and conceptually to better fulfill SOF’s strategic purpose as the lead military forces capable of combating weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and other forms of irregular warfare, the military services will be free to concentrate on regaining the large, across-the-board advantages over potential peer competitors that the United States used to have.

✪ Conclusion The Strategic Utility of American Special Operations Forces

We wrote this book to explain the core attributes and capabilities

of special operations forces (SOF), how to employ them well, and how to better prepare them for future challenges. Describing what SOF are like and showing them in action through case studies helps identify the critical characteristics that distinguish SOF from conventional and even other elite forces. SOF can modify or improve on these characteristics in order to better meet future security challenges, but it cannot abandon them in the main without ceasing to be SOF. Readers unfamiliar with special operations forces (SOF) when beginning this book may test the extent to which the book succeeded in explaining key SOF attributes and issues by revisiting the first chapter. What at first reading was simply an introduction to SOF and what they do may now be read with greater appreciation for the distinctive characteristics of SOF and the implications these have for how SOF might be best employed. With respect to their employment, it should now be clear that SOF are useful in a variety of ways. So various is their usefulness that one SOF officer interviewed for chapter 1 argued facetiously that SOF, and not conventional forces, should be called general purpose forces. Chapter  2 demonstrated that SOF have been repeatedly raised up in response to the demands of the security environment, until finally Congress required that standing SOF forces be maintained so they would be available and prepared when contingencies arose that demanded their abilities. However, as chapter 3 on Somalia illustrated, it is possible to employ SOF to poor effect. Indeed, SOF are so useful, and in such a variety of circumstances, that their flexibility and reputation can actually increase the likelihood of their misuse by leaders unaware of

270

CO N C L U S I O N

their limitations and requirements for success. To use SOF well, their enabling and limiting characteristics must be understood, and the most appropriate SOF units must be used to tackle the most pressing security problems in the context of a sensible strategy. Only in this way can SOF provide maximum strategic value to the nation. What makes SOF special is now generally agreed upon at the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and reflected in its policy and doctrine. However, as we discussed in chapter 6, the command’s leadership does not equally support all SOF’s unique capabilities. SOCOM favors SOF’s direct-action missions over their indirect-action missions. Also, while SOCOM’s leaders acknowledge that a unifying attribute of SOF missions is the difficult and politically sensitive environments SOF operate in, the leaders pay more attention to the operational than the political challenges. Hence SOF missions sometimes take place without appropriate oversight from political authorities, as happened in Somalia and as reflected in SOCOM’s refusal to allow psychological operations forces to commingle with policy authorities in the Washington area. In the past, SOCOM’s leadership also has agreed with the conventional force bias against independent SOF operations for independent strategic effect, as illustrated by SOCOM’s lethargic response to the secretary of defense’s decision to assign SOCOM the lead in the War on Terrorism.1 SOCOM’s slow response was first reported just after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and it continued. Even after being officially assigned the mission in 2004, concerns that SOCOM was still not providing strategic direction for the War on Terrorism persisted. Over time, however, SOCOM adapted to the changed security environment and its new prominence, given the strategic emphasis on terrorism and insurgency, even as it kept its own focus on its direct capabilities to support the national strategy. SOCOM now embraces its role as the coordinating authority to counter violent extremist organizations and insists that “Countering VEO’s remains [SOCOM’s] highest warfighting priority.”2 As SOCOM prioritizes countering violent extremists, it finds itself in a new strategic environment in which the Pentagon as a whole is giving priority to such peer competitors as China and Russia. This suggests that in the event of war, SOF’s most important role would be seen as supporting conventional forces, since they would have the primary responsibility for countering peer competitors. In peacetime, however, there is

CO N C L U S I O N

271

greater scope for SOF’s independent and indirect capabilities to support the national strategy, even if that strategy is focused on peer competitors. Much of that competition will take place, as it did during the Cold War, in areas peripheral to the main points of engagement as the antagonists seek small strategic advantages. These are exactly the circumstances that justify the long-term investment of time and resources required for SOF’s indirect approach to succeed. It remains to be seen whether, in the new strategic environment, SOCOM champions independent indirect SOF missions, such as foreign internal defense. At the same time, SOCOM’s lead role in countering violent extremists and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) will continue, even if they are no longer accorded the highest priority for the U.S. government. SOF will need to maintain its focus on these problems even though conventional forces are refocusing on peer competitors. Indeed, as the last chapter noted, if SOF can effectively manage these problems, and irregular warfare more generally, it would allow conventional forces to focus on peer competitors. Dealing with irregular warfare will highlight the importance of SOF’s independent role. Dealing specifically with violent extremists and WMD will keep SOF’s direct action capabilities relevant as well. Even considering the recent priority given to peer competitors, we would argue that SOF’s independent role will provide the greatest strategic utility in the future, both with respect to SOF direct and indirect missions. SOF independent missions require close oversight by and support from political leaders, as demonstrated in chapter 3 and as observed by the United States Senate in its superb report on Task Force Ranger in Somalia. SOF must perform within the bounds of U.S. strategy, culture, and ethics, which requires difficult judgment at times. SOF independent operations for strategic effect carry risks, but the risks must be considered relative to the threat and U.S. objectives. Both the threat and the objectives may change quickly. Insulating SOF from political authorities or filtering SOF command and control through a hierarchy of conventional-force commanders does not make sense when SOF are given the strategic lead for operations. Recognizing this, Congress allowed for the possibility of SOCOM’s command and control of strategic special operations. Such operations should not be undertaken without direct oversight from political authorities who are familiar with SOF and the operation in question.

272

CO N C L U S I O N

Unfortunately, the U.S. national security system has demonstrated an enduring problem with providing such oversight. The policy chaos demonstrated in chapter 3 is symptomatic of Washington decision-making. Rigidly stove-piped bureaucracies, unable to collaborate quickly on defense or national security matters as critical issues develop, are the norm. SOF has no authoritative source for strategic oversight of its strategic missions on a recurring basis. The secretary of defense and president are too busy to fulfill this function.3 Strategically useful independent SOF missions, especially indirect missions, thus will be more difficult to achieve absent a reform of the larger national security bureaucracy. One key reform needed to enable effective oversight of SOF missions, or really any complex and dynamic security effort, is collaborative and empowered interagency (i.e., cross-functional) teams at both the National Security Council staff and Department of Defense levels. Cross-functional teams have already been pioneered the CIA, National Security Agency and Department of Defense, but not yet used at the White House, or interagency, level.4 The success of SOF’s independent missions would be more likely, in other words, if we had a strategically functioning national security bureaucracy rather than the independent cabinet-level fiefdoms that currently prevail and constantly thwart attempts to integrate all instruments of national power toward common purposes. Even a reformed national security bureaucracy, however, would not fix the relative neglect by SOCOM of SOF’s indirect capabilities—at least in the short term. In the first edition of this book, we suggested a reorganization of SOF to address that problem. For reasons both good and bad, nothing like that was likely to occur. National security reform, and in particular the advent of empowered interagency teams under the supervision of the National Security Council staff, is also unlikely.5 However, if enacted, such reform would make possible integrated strategy and oversight of sensitive SOF missions and thus would make their success more likely. The track record of such teams is that they focus singularly on the requirements for success and not institutional prerogatives. For example, they would have been much more likely to demand classic counterinsurgency strategy and capabilities in Afghanistan and Iraq early on rather than the greatly delayed but effectual tribe and village-level stabilization efforts that were tried too late, as is the historic pattern of the U.S. military coming to grips with irregular warfare.6

CO N C L U S I O N

273

Twelve years after the first edition of this book the problems of strategic direction and political control, as well as the neglect of indirect capabilities remain, even as SOCOM and SOF have developed through almost constant warfighting into more capable organizations than they were. This book was rewritten to make the case again for the extraordinary capabilities of SOF and to help those so inclined to think through how to use them for the greatest strategic advantage to the United States.

Appendix 1 The Evolution of Special Operations Forces Roles and Missions

SOF missions, which SOCOM now calls “activities,” have not changed 1

dramatically since they were defined by Congress. In the decade following SOCOM’s creation the Command made some minor terminological adjustments to the list of congressionally assigned missions.2 For example, what Congress called Strategic Reconnaissance, SOCOM christened Special Reconnaissance to distinguish the way SOF collects information from the use of strategic assets such as satellites. SOCOM also designated Humanitarian Assistance and Combat Search and Rescue as collateral missions to deemphasize their importance. Other so-called “collateral missions,” such as humanitarian demining and security assistance were added and dropped by SOCOM over the years but were always considered peripheral to SOF’s core missions. In fact, after 9/11, stretched thin by the war on terrorism and needing to jettison less critical missions to other forces, SOF leaders stopped making reference to any SOF collateral missions (anti-terrorism, peacekeeping, search and rescue) and chose to emphasize SOF’s “core tasks.” However, the danger of SOF being dragged into tangential activities remains for several reasons. SOF traditionally argue they benefit from training in a wide variety of environments, usually foreign, but not exclusively so. SOF have trained with U.S. domestic law enforcement authorities and for other purposes in domestic settings.3 Therefore, asking SOF to take up domestic responsibilities might not seem a great distraction from their principal duties. Also, with the rising threats to homeland security, calls for SOF to become more involved in domestic missions have increased. Even before the terrorist attacks of September  11, arrangements were being made to permit SOF to support domestic law

2 76

THE E VOLUTION OF ROLES AND MISSIONS

enforcement on a case-by-case basis; e.g., in support of security for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. More recently, SOF have recently assumed greater responsibility for managing weapons of mass destruction threats on U.S. soil, a point discussed below. In addition, several activities that once were considered lesser-included cases or just less important have now been added as “core activities” (See table A.1). For example, historically, hostage rescue was subsumed under direct action, and humanitarian assistance was considered a collateral effort. Similarly, foreign internal defense was long considered a broad enough term to cover counterinsurgency, a term that was avoided after Vietnam. With the resurrection of counterinsurgency as a valued mission in the 2000s, SOCOM now seems to distinguish between it and foreign internal defense by how advanced the challenge to government authority is. On its website, USSOCOM defines counterinsurgency as the “blend of civilian and military efforts designed to end insurgent violence and facilitate a return to peaceful political processes,” and foreign internal defense more generally as “activities that support a host nation’s internal defense and development strategy and program designed to protect against subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, terrorism, and other threats to their internal security, and stability, and legitimacy.” These definitions imply internal defense is a prophylactic activity whereas counterinsurgency is an active and intense effort to engage well-established insurgents and the sources of their popular support. In short, they are different stages of the same thing. A more consequential addition to SOCOM’s list of activities is “preparation of the environment.” Preparation of the environment is an “umbrella term for actions taken by or in support of SOF to develop an environment for current or future operations and activities.” The term apparently covers low-profile activities that permit SOF to assess the need for further engagement in circumstances “where the presence of conventional U.S. forces is not warranted.”4 This activity set, mentioned in joint doctrine for SOF and by SOCOM briefly and inconsistently, raises the question of the division of labor between SOF and U.S. intelligence services, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). There is longstanding debate over the division of labor between the CIA and SOF that remains ongoing but less contentious in recent years.

TA B L E A . 1

EVOLUTION OF SOF ACTIVITIES, 2008 TO 2018 2008

2009

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2018

Prominent, Enduring Activities Civil Affairs

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Countering WMD [newer]

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Counterterrorism

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź*

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Direct Action

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Foreign Internal Defense

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

PSYOP/Military Information Support Ops

Ź**

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Strategic Reconnaissance

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Unconventional Warfare

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Counterinsurgency [newer]

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Security Force Assistance [newer]

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Hostage Rescue and Recovery

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

Humanitarian Assistance

Ź

Ź

Ź

Ź

***

***

Emerging Activities

Activities No Longer Highlighted Activities Specified by President/SecDef

Ź

Ź Ź

Countering WMD (Interdiction Ops) Information Operations

Ź**

Ź

Ź

Preparation of Environment

Ź

SOF Combat Support

Ź

SOF Combat Service Support

Ź

Stability (Ops)

Ź

Support to Major Combat Ops/Campaigns

Ź

Synchronizing Global War on Terror

***

Ź

Note: 2010 omitted from table because SOCOM data not comparable. * In late 2011 and 2012, SOCOM distinguished SOF operations (shaded boxes) from SOF activities (unshaded boxes). ** In 2008 SOCOM combined Information Operations and PSYOP. *** SOCOM’s webpage identifies the same activities on its “Core Activities” and “What USSOCOM does” page, but adds “preparation of the environment” on the latter and in its 2018 Fact Book description of “what SOCOM does.”

278

THE E VOLUTION OF ROLES AND MISSIONS

SOF unconventional-warfare missions in particular have always included limited human intelligence activities and paramilitary operations. For example, PSYOP forces in Iraq carried out intelligence or information-gathering missions in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. In Vietnam, SOF conducted human-intelligence operations, although these had little success because of weak counterintelligence capability. Adversaries penetrated the indigenous intelligence agencies SOF worked with and compromised SOF’s human agents. SOF participation in paramilitary activities has a better record, but only because SOF personnel were loaned to the CIA, which was more supportive of their unconventional activities and better equipped to support them. Historically, there have been three primary concerns with SOF participation in human intelligence and paramilitary operations: competence, cost, and oversight. Just as conventional forces cannot concentrate on SOF skills without reducing their competency in large-scale fire and maneuver operations, SOF cannot expand into covert intelligence tradecraft without risking a reduction in some of their special skills. Cost is another issue. Infrastructure for covert activities is expensive. As various commissions and panels have noted, the way to avoid duplicating expensive infrastructure is to have SOF and the CIA collaborate well when circumstances demand it. In the past, it proved impossible to overcome clashing organizational equities, but spurred on by the events of 9/11 and willing leadership, the CIA and DoD reportedly have taken their collaboration to unprecedented heights, particularly on human intelligence.5 Also, creating the Defense Clandestine Service that provides SOF with specialized human intelligence support reduced concerns about SOF competence in managing human intelligence. The remaining issue is oversight. The Defense Clandestine Service is limited by law to clandestine activities,6 but some argue that SOF human intelligence, and especially paramilitary activities, blur the line between CIA covert and DoD clandestine operations so much that effective oversight is lost.7 SOF operations that are not technically defined as covert may, some argue, escape the close scrutiny such operations need. Concerns notwithstanding, SOF interest and activities in these areas are not likely to diminish. The success of intelligence-driven operations by SOF are well-recognized and continue to drive the perceived need for “preparation of the environment” activities: that is, collecting and integrating all forms of intelligence to support SOF, including human intelligence.8

THE E VOLUTION OF ROLES AND MISSIONS

279

The remarkable degree of interagency collaboration SOF forged among U.S. departments and agencies in combating terrorism, and particularly with the intelligence community,9 encouraged SOCOM to begin pursuing a like degree of international collaboration that also fits within the definition of SOF “preparation of the environment” activities. SOCOM built what it calls a “global SOF network,”10 that enables SOCOM to better counter the terrorist, or “violent extremist” threat, which has expanded across national borders and regions. A decade ago the approximately 13,000 SOF deployed on missions around the globe were concentrated in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, however, the 7,300 SOF personnel deployed overseas are operating in 92 different countries, with only about half serving in the Middle East and South Asia.11 SOCOM testimony to Congress and international press reports indicate international cooperation has paid off already on some issues. For example, almost twenty countries are collaborating with SOCOM “to disrupt trans-regional terrorist networks and their ability to develop and field foreign fighters.” SOCOM organized the international effort to share intelligence that is then used to track and intercept foreign fighters that flocked to Syria to support the Islamic State.12 Because SOCOM has built successful partnerships, both within the U.S. government and among like-minded nations, the Pentagon has made SOCOM the designated coordinating authority for countering violent extremist organizations.13 In contrast to countering violent extremism, SOCOM interest in another new mission area—information operations—appears to have flagged. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wanted robust capabilities to conduct information operations, which were supposed to “disrupt an adversary’s unity of command, misdirect his plans, and ultimately control the adversary’s communications and networks” while protecting eponymous U.S. systems. A theoretical example of how SOF might participate in such operations would be having SOF units behind enemy lines insert false information into a computer network to deceive enemy commanders. Rumsfeld’s plan for achieving these capabilities was promulgated in 2003 as the “Information Operations Roadmap,” which required a sophisticated mix of electronic warfare, computer network operations, psychological operations, military deception, and operations security.14 The argument was that all these component elements of information operations should be developed and employed as mutually reinforcing capabilities to achieve the greatest effects.

280

THE E VOLUTION OF ROLES AND MISSIONS

SOF are inherently attuned to the importance of psychological operations, military deception, and operations security. They are familiar with some electronic warfare techniques as well. The relatively new dimension of information operations for SOF was computer network operations. SOF must protect their computer network links for obvious reasons, and they increasingly may use computer network attack to help conduct SOF missions such as counter-proliferation, combating terrorism, or unconventional warfare. In this respect, the SOCOM Commander has recently emphasized the need to integrate cyber capabilities in everything SOF does, particularly computer network attack.15 However, after Rumsfeld’s departure, Department of Defense interest in information operations dissipated, and it was left to individual components to improve their information capabilities as they saw fit. With conventional forces being slow to embrace information operations, opportunities for SOF to affect enemy information systems and decision-making was limited. By 2013, SOCOM dropped information operations as a SOF core activity.16 SOCOM has acquired some new technical capabilities for information capabilities, but as best can be determined these capabilities remain largely aspirational.17 For the time being, SOCOM leaders continue to look to other parts of the defense establishment and interagency bodies to take the lead on improving overall U.S. information operation capabilities.18 Countering weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was on the list of SOF missions for most of the 1990s and considered the premier mission for special mission units,19 mostly to acknowledge the stakes involved and the special technical skills that would be needed if SOF direct action missions were authorized against adversaries with WMD. A theoretical example of SOF countering WMD then would have been dispatching SOF to recover and neutralize a weapon of mass destruction stolen by terrorists or some nongovernmental group. Such missions require intelligence on the location of the weapons of mass destruction and on the intentions of those possessing the weapons. These types of missions also require SOF personnel to obtain specialized knowledge on how to handle or render weapons of mass destruction safe without collateral damage. Asking SOF to counter WMD leverages improvements in SOF’s counterterrorism capabilities; particularly its superlative direct action skills in getting to and taking control of hard and fleeting targets and its relatively recent interagency collaboration skills. However, the mission also

THE E VOLUTION OF ROLES AND MISSIONS

281

required SOCOM to invest in some new, arcane skills associated with WMD. In that regard, it is probably the most substantive new mission SOCOM has ever been assigned. Recently, however, the scale and significance of SOCOM’s countering WMD mission has grown further. At the direction of the president, the Department of Defense transferred the lead for countering WMD from U.S. Strategic Command to SOCOM, making it the coordinating authority for counter WMD.20 SOCOM thus went from having the lead for countering terrorist use of WMD and a supporting role for broader counter-WMD planning and operations, to having the lead responsibility for synchronizing the entire counter-WMD effort for the Department of Defense and, in some instances, for the U.S. government. The SOCOM Commander has told Congress that taking this responsibility means SOCOM will not only establish intelligence priorities, monitor global operations and conduct assessments for the Department of Defense but also integrate regional, interagency, and international efforts.21 This overview understates the extent to which SOCOM’s mission has been broadened. As one commentator puts it, the range of SOCOM’s countering WMD duties now encompass events like the Fukishima nuclear disaster, the Ebola public health emergency, and the Syria chemical weapons destruction and loose nukes problem “in a single command that is already engaged with a global counterterrorism campaign.”22 Given the sweeping nature of the mission, SOCOM has made a concerted effort to partner with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and other organizations that have a detailed knowledge of WMD. Counterterrorism, counter proliferation, and to a lesser extent, information operations, all fit well with SOF’s direct-action missions. In that regard, SOCOM’s growing interest and duties in these mission areas are not surprising. By comparison, the scope of SOF’s indirect-action missions has changed little despite some extensive debate on the matter and the addition of new, lesser-included missions such as security force assistance. Security force assistance, like counterinsurgency, could be subsumed under foreign internal defense. SOCOM defines the mission broadly as “activities based on organizing, training, equipping, rebuilding, and advising various components of Foreign Security Forces.” Because the definition includes the verb “advising,” security force assistance goes beyond merely teaching host nation recruits basic military skills. It is in “advising” that SOF’s language and cultural skills come

282

THE E VOLUTION OF ROLES AND MISSIONS

to the fore. However, the definition misses the key point that training and advising foreign forces for counterinsurgency is very different from training them for conventional force operations. In any case, the prevalence of this activity set over the past decade in both Afghanistan and Iraq has led SOCOM to emphasize it as a separate activity even though it is not clear the mission requires new skill sets different from those required by foreign internal defense. To the extent it inclines SOF to take on training and advising of conventional forces engaged in conventional defense, it would be a distraction that could mislead SOF about where it can make the greatest contributions. Much of the debate about SOF and indirect missions overlaps with a long-standing debate within Special Forces about the value of unconventional warfare. After the fall of the Soviet Union, some thought there was little future to unconventional warfare. Others argued the mission should evolve.23 For example, SOF could train small friendly governments in how to prepare and execute a popular defense movement, including preplanning activities to ensure unity of effort, popular support, will to resist, leadership, intelligence, propaganda, and outside assistance. Recently, interest in this approach has spiked because of concern about Russian aggression against its smaller neighbors, particularly in the Baltic region.24 The deterrence value of such planning and training could be significant, as the Swiss experience attests.25 All the bedrock unconventional-warfare skills would be relevant for such a mission: training, language, cross-cultural communication, and guerrilla-warfare tactics. Because history seems to demonstrate that unconventional warfare rarely works except in close proximity to large conventional-force operations, some argue that SOF doctrine should be changed to reflect this fact. Finally, others have argued that unconventional warfare is entirely situation dependent, and must be defined broadly so that it can be applied as circumstances warrant. Given these and other conflicting views, and the attendant confusion about what unconventional warfare really is, USASOC mounted a major effort to authoritatively resolve the issue in 2009. The result was a narrow definition of unconventional warfare as support to “a resistance movement or insurgency” fighting a government or occupying power.26 Since “support” covers a broad range of activities, it is not clear that the definition will incline SOF, and particularly Special Forces, to emphasize some skills over others—for example, covert rather than political and psychological skills—but that is a possibility.27

THE E VOLUTION OF ROLES AND MISSIONS

283

Similarly, the scope and definition of other SOF indirect-action missions like psychological operations and civil affairs have not changed much either. SOCOM did change psychological operations to “military information support operations” (known by the acronym, MISO, not to be confused with a Japanese soup), believing the term was more felicitous. SOCOM thought the name change would be beneficial for the PSYOP image, but recently concluded it produced confusion and lower morale. SOCOM then decided to change the name of its units back to psychological operations, but retained the term MISO to refer to their activities.28 Within the psychological operations community, there is a persistent desire to expand beyond tactical psychological operations to much more robust theater and even “strategic” psychological operations,29 but these aspirations have not materialized. Policy makers do not want psychological operations employed strategically, that is, broadly across regions and against friendly and neutral populations. They prefer to leave that mission to public diplomacy and public affairs professionals. As for more robust theater psychological operations capable of disseminating themes and messages to large target audiences across a military theater of operations, SOCOM has not supported the reforms necessary to enable a major expansion of capabilities in this area30 despite periodic indications that the Pentagon is interested in more robust PSYOP capabilities.31 A less noticed but potentially more significant change recently has been propounded for civil affairs. The commander, United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), told Congress in spring 2018, that civil affairs included “civil reconnaissance, mapping of human terrain,” and “governance and counter governance activities.”32 The “counter governance” concept is not yet codified in joint or Army doctrine, but advocates have suggested using civil affairs personnel in unconventional warfare, as has been proposed in the case of a Russian occupation of a Baltic nation or, as some say, is taking place in Syria. Civil affairs personnel would support Special Forces by “identifying and validating new or existing civil networks or functioning as civil advisors to the shadow government” aligned with insurgent forces.33 If this mission were taken seriously, it would demand a dramatic increase in civil affairs skills, and especially clandestine and covert skills. With the exception of the “counter governance” mission for civil affairs—which has yet to materialize—and newly broadened missions

284

THE E VOLUTION OF ROLES AND MISSIONS

such as countering weapons of mass destruction, most of the changes described above are less substantive than political. In most cases, adjustments to lists of SOF activities are a response to new Department of Defense strategy and policy guidance and terminology.34 They reassure senior defense leaders that SOCOM is “on board” with their priorities without committing SOCOM to major changes in doctrine, training or equipment. Some changes also reflect SOCOM’s efforts to manage increasing demand for SOF without alienating interagency partners. SOF are heavily engaged and the pace of their operations are debilitating. SOCOM leaders generally are not looking for more to do, but rather to safeguard the integrity of the force and its capabilities. By referring to SOF activities in general rather than SOF primary and collateral missions, SOCOM can avoid controversies about priorities or suggesting to interagency and foreign partners that it does not values some operations as highly as they do.35

Appendix 2 Bibliographic Essay

Popular interest in SOF has been high at least since World War II,

but the number of books and articles on SOF skyrocketed after the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. Thousands of English-language books on special operations have been published, most produced since 2001. The overwhelming majority of books are battle memoirs and other historical accounts of SOF in action. Like the old Zulu proverb that says “I cannot hear what you say for the thunder of what you are,” most people are fascinated by the sheer drama of what SOF do. Until recently, academic and policy analyses on SOF were rare. However, over the past decade a body of literature has emerged describing how SOF are raised, trained, and equipped, and debating SOF policy, doctrine, and employment issues. There is also an increasingly wide range of works on foreign as well as U.S. SOF. Here we offer only a small sampling of some of the best works available on the topic of U.S. SOF, with a focus on recent decades. For a more comprehensive review of literature covering SOF in different nations, past and present, we recommend readers consult the Oxford Bibliographies article “Special Operations Forces” from Oxford University Press.1

GENERAL OVERVIEWS OF U.S. SOF The recent U.S. Special Operations Command Fact Book (U.S. Special Operations Command 2018) is a cursory but matter-of-fact and authoritative introduction to U.S. SOF commands, organization, equipment, and ethos. Mark Moyar’s account of American SOF from World War II

286

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

to the present (Moyar 2017) is well researched. More importantly, Moyar does not shy away from problems with misuse and overuse of SOF, or the inept handling of political relationships by SOF. His concluding review of enduring SOF issues is wider ranging than it is in-depth, but still valuable.

HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS OF U.S. SOF FROM THE COLD WAR UNTIL 9/11 Douglas Waller’s account of U.S. SOF after the Cold War, The Commandos (Waller 1994), outlines the intense training of some of the United States’s special mission units and follows them into battle in the only major conventional conflict of the 1990s, the First Gulf War. He also introduces readers to the tensions between general-purpose forces and SOF that contributed to the reluctance of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf to employ SOF. Picking up the story, Mark Bowden chronicled special mission units in Somalia and Colombia during the early 1990s. Black Hawk Down (Bowden 1999) is an account of the failed mission in Somalia that became a landmark in the history of U.S. SOF. There are more critical treatments of this iconic moment for SOF, but Bowden provides unparalleled appreciation for SOF travails in the most intense urban combat of the 1990s. His next book, Killing Pablo (Bowden 2001) investigated Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar and his ruthless Medellin cartel and introduced readers to a little-known SOF mission area and post–Cold War opponent. This book well illustrated the challenges of working with indigenous security forces to achieve objectives that are overlapping but not identical.

U.S. SOF POST-9/11, IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN Charles Briscoe and his coauthors (Briscoe 2003) produced an early, official account of U.S. Army Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan: Weapon of Choice. It only covers SOF operations in Operation Enduring Freedom through May 15, 2002, and provides almost no commentary or analysis, but it is an excellent basic historical source for the early SOF operations in Afghanistan. Another good account of U.S. SOF in

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

287

Afghanistan is provided by Doug Stanton. His Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of U.S. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan (Stanton 2009), a detailed account of the early days of SOF operations in Afghanistan following the terror attacks on 9/11, concentrates on Special Forces and the climactic battle for Mazar-i-Sharif, but it includes other SOF and incidents. Sean Naylor’s Not a Good Day to Die (Naylor 2005) recounts the courage and organizational mishaps by SOF and coalition conventional forces in the one of the largest military operations in the post-9/11 era, Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, which took place in March 2002. Linda Robinson’s One Hundred Victories (Robinson 2014) covers SOF operations in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013, documenting renewed emphasis on the “by, with, and through” approach. Robinson, then a well-connected reporter, explains the struggle to create a unified special operations command in Afghanistan, revealing differences among SOF commanders. Daniel Green’s In the Warlords’ Shadow (Green 2017) amplifies many of the points made by Robinson. The book is a detailed explanation of how SOF-led village stability operations successfully pacified one Afghan province. It is often likened to Bing West’s classic Vietnam treatise, The Village. Green rediscovers enduring truths about irregular warfare, including the central importance of local perceptions and relationships. Briscoe and another team of coauthors followed up their earlier work on SOF in Afghanistan with another official army publication several years later (Briscoe 2006) on SOF in Iraq. All Roads Lead to Baghdad recounts in detail the planning, staging, and execution of SOF operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom, again concentrating on army SOF but mentioning the roles played by other SOF. Like its predecessor, it benefits from access to classified documents and is replete with firsthand detailed accounts from SOF in the field. It also has hundreds of color illustrations.

THEORY, POLICY, AND STRATEGY FOR U.S. SOF The sheer drama of what SOF do can distract from clinical assessments of the broader policy and strategy issues associated with special operations. This is unfortunate and even dangerous insofar as it complicates

288

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

sober judgment on the merits of any given SOF mission. Policy reviews of SOF are more common since 9/11, but it is still difficult to find works that examine SOF from a theoretical or strategic perspective. The SOF community recognizes that theory on special operations is underdeveloped, and it has sponsored studies to remedy this deficiency. Peter McCabe and Paul Lieber’s edited volume, Special Operations Theory (McCabe 2017) is the third of three Joint Special Operations University publications on SOF theory. It offers a good introduction to the American literature on SOF theory and the state of the debate, which it described as “embryonic.” Roger Beaumont’s classic exposition, Military Elites (Beaumont 1976) must be counted among the small number of useful works on SOF from a theoretical point of view. His sometimes cynical discussion of the organizational and cultural assumptions and risks attendant to elite forces in the modern era does not distinguish between elite and special operations forces, but many of his observations have enduring relevance for SOF. Another pre-9/11 review of SOF from a broad strategic vantage point that merits review is Perilous Options: Special Operations as an Instrument of U.S. Foreign Policy (Vandenbroucke 1993). Vandenbroucke examines four cases, two of which might not classify as special operations properly understood, and concludes that such operations are fraught with risk, including poor intelligence, interagency and inter-service tensions, wishful decision-making, and micromanagement. His book is one of the most frequently cited works in SOF literature. Yet another popular and accessible pre-9/11 review of SOF strategic merits is Colin Gray’s article, “Handful of Heroes on Desperate Ventures: When Do Special Operations Succeed?” (Gray 1999). Gray’s article is a more accessible version of an unpublished paper he did for the Pentagon in the early 1990s. Gray’s view contrasts nicely with Vandenbroucke’s skepticism, providing an optimistic portrayal of SOF’s strategic value and making the case that they offer a disproportionate return on military investment. Richard Shultz conducted one of the most important policy and strategy reviews of SOF for Pentagon leaders right after 9/11, which he published in unclassified form much later (Shultz 2004). The resultant article, “Showstoppers: Nine Reasons Why We Never Sent Our Special Operations Forces After al Qaeda Before 9/11,” was an enumeration of reasons why U.S. leaders often chose not to approve SOF missions against terrorists prior to the 9/11 attacks. Shultz’s work was influential

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

289

in shaping Pentagon leader attitudes toward SOF in the “War on Terror,” and by some accounts became a veritable action agenda for “unleashing” SOF to go after terrorists. Later, after several years of rapid SOF growth and heavy employment, Malcolm Brailey examined the argument that SOF capabilities had grown to the point that they constituted a viable alternative to conventional forces for some contingencies (Brailey 2005). His excellent command of the literature for and against this proposition make his work noteworthy. James D. Kiras, a student of Colin Gray’s, challenged Gray’s generally optimistic treatment of SOF strategic utility using two case studies of raids from World War II in Special Operations and Strategy (Kiras 2006). More generally, Kiras disputes theories suggesting a successful strike against a center of gravity can make a critical difference and, by extension, that SOF can easily be a quick fix to any strategic problem. More recently, Linda Robinson and her coauthors produced a study to advise army SOF leaders on how to make a better case for strategic utility to policy makers by working within the system and reaching out to all interested parties (Robinson 2018). The study, Improving the Understanding of Special Operations: A Case History Analysis, is a lengthy RAND Corporation product with thirteen case studies from World War II until the present. It draws upon much literature and interview material and provides useful summaries of major SOF policy developments.

ROLES, MISSIONS, AND DOCTRINE FOR U.S. SOF SOF roles, missions, and doctrine ultimately reflect the nature of a nation’s political system, its social norms, the role it assigns to its military forces more generally, and prevailing leadership thinking, so works at this level invariably reflect national perspectives. For example, SOF can be used in defensive roles and missions to guard important objects, locations, and people—and even as a praetorian guard to protect a ruling regime. However, in the United States SOF typically take the tactical initiative and forces that routinely are assigned protective duties are usually considered elite rather than special. Within the U.S. tradition, however, there is plenty of room for debate over SOF roles and missions. A good place to start is with older Special Forces doctrine (U.S. Department of the Army 1990). This version of the Special Forces field manual makes

290

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

critical observations about the political dimension of special operations and the indirect application of SOF that are not as salient in later doctrinal publications. An even older 1963 version, FM 31-22, is still valuable for its depiction of how Special Forces should combine with civil affairs, psychological warfare, and other elements in a “Special Action Force” to assist indigenous forces with counterinsurgency and internal defense. Another 1990s product that stimulated significant debate about SOF roles and missions came from the Pentagon office charged with oversight of SOF (Lamb 1995). This controversial article kicked off a debate on the distinction between SOF’s unconventional-warrior and commando roles, making the argument they should receive equal emphasis by the special operations community. That same year William McRaven, who eventually rose to command USSOCOM, published his landmark study on SOF direct-action missions (McRaven 1995). McRaven turned his master’s thesis into one of the best theoretical treatments available on how SOF direct action can exploit enemy weaknesses. He distinguishes between catching the enemy unprepared, which is not likely, and catching him off guard, which is possible. Several years later, Thomas Adams’s US Special Operations Forces in Action examined SOF roles and missions (Adams 1998), paying particular attention to how doctrine evolved over time. Adams made a strong case for the value of Special Forces’ traditional approach, which is working through indigenous forces and populations. It values psychological operations and other elements of SOF not well understood or respected by the larger SOF and conventional military establishment. This same theme was taken up by Hy Rothstein in Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare, a superb work documenting missed opportunities in Afghanistan. Rothstein argues the original focus on killing terrorist leaders and destroying Taliban forces in 2002 needed to shift to counterinsurgency after the Taliban collapse but failed to do so because conventional forces and headquarters pushed aside Army Special Forces. After more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Army’s Center for Army Lessons Learned devoted a major publication to the debate over whether SOF have emphasized their direct approach at the expense of a more profitable indirect approach (Solon 2011). The series of articles are most informative. Much later, Charles Cleveland, a former commander of USASOC, along with coauthors, returned to the question of SOF doctrine and why it is needed (Cleveland 2016). Cleveland et al.

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

291

explain the need for SOF doctrine and the U.S. Army’s first attempt at a comprehensive Army Special Operations doctrine more than ten years after SOF became heavily engaged in multiple theaters in response to the 9/11 terror attacks. Cleveland also combined with then Commander, USSOCOM, Joseph L. Votel and others to make an argument in favor of “small-footprint, low-visibility operations often of a covert or clandestine nature” that offer strategic options between large combat operations and precision strikes. The article is representative of many publications in the special operations community that emphasize the need to rebuild Jedburgh-like “warrior-diplomat” capabilities in SOF and particularly Special Forces. Austin Long’s article in same journal where Cleveland argues for greater attention to doctrine stands in stark contrast to the generally optimistic bent of most literature on SOF roles and missions (Long 2016). Long considers the missions SOF cannot do or should not be asked to do—both for SOF’s direct and indirect approach—with commensurate recommendations for policy makers.

ORGANIZATION AND CAPABILITIES FOR U.S. SOF After many years of asking the Department of Defense to pay more attention to special operations, Congress intervened to create an organization to develop, support, and employ SOF. Susan Marquis offers the most comprehensive account of this development in Unconventional Warfare: Rebuilding U.S. Special Operations Forces (Marquis 1997). Her history is widely considered the authoritative work on the creation of the U.S. Special Operations Command. She covers the political and military proponents and opponents of the command, their arguments, and the rich debate over what forces should be included in the command. An indispensable addition to Marquis’s work is James R. Locher’s article, “Congress to the Rescue: Statutory Creation of USSOCOM” (Locher 2012). Locher was the leading Senate staffer working Pentagon reform issues, including the creation of USSOCOM, and his insider account of what leading members of Congress were thinking on this topic adds new insights not found elsewhere. Congress subsequently has remained engaged in the long and ongoing debate over how best to organize, train, and equip SOF in light of

292

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

security challenges and evolving technology. Congressmen are kept well informed on evolving USSOCOM issues by Andrew Feickert, the SOF expert for Congressional Research Service (Feickert 2018). Feickert puts out regular updates for Congress on outstanding SOF issues of all types, but particularly organizational, capability, and employment issues. Perusing past issues of Feickert’s work reveals how areas of concern have evolved over time. Civil affairs and psychological operations are often overlooked in discussions of SOF organization and capabilities. In fact, it is difficult to find any good literature on civil affairs. One classic in-depth study remains pertinent: Patrick Carlton and Carnes Lord, Civil Affairs: Perspectives and Prospects (Carlton and Lord 1993). Even though dated and hard to find, this study examines civil affairs with the benefit of historical perspective and 145 interviews with civil affairs professionals, and offers insights on civil affairs policy, planning, command and control, programs, and operations still relevant today. There is more literature on psychological operations than civil affairs, but the genre remains underrepresented. Lamb’s Review of Psychological Operations Lessons Learned from Recent Operational Experience was done at the behest of senior Pentagon leaders concerned about PSYOP capabilities (Lamb 2005). Lamb led a team of researchers who assessed psychological operations capabilities and employment practices in Afghanistan and Iraq, finding some notable inadequacies. One persistent SOF organization and capability issue that has received substantial attention over the years, and particularly after 9/11, is the possibility of SOF integration with the CIA. Kathryn Stone examines this issue in “All Necessary Means”: Employing CIA Operatives in a Warfighting Role Alongside Special Operations Forces (Stone 2003). Stone reviews CIA and SOF legal authorities, the advantages and disadvantages of integrating their efforts, and the consequences of such integration. It is indicative of some of the excellent research available from military professional educational institutions on critical, current SOF organizational and employment issues.

EMPLOYMENT OF U.S. SOF Actual or perceived SOF failures can stimulate investigations of their employment practices in hopes of improving future performance.

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

2 93

Senators John Warner and Carl Levin provide a timeless example of such an investigation in their “Review of the Circumstances Surrounding the Ranger Raid on October 3–4, 1993 in Mogadishu, Somalia” (Warner and Levin 1995). The Senate’s official investigation is one of the best available analyses of special mission unit employment challenges ever produced. It identifies the strengths and weaknesses of special mission units, explaining why they require close oversight from national leadership. Another superb study of a special operation gone wrong is Mark G. Davis’s “Operation Anaconda: Command and Confusion in Joint Warfare” (Davis 2004). This clearheaded examination of Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan explains how a sudden shift in 2002 from geographically dispersed SOF forces using decentralized planning practices to large conventional ground forces that relied on a detailed, centralized, functional planning model generated major coordination problems among U.S. forces. It is a model for military case studies of SOF employment. Cora Goldstein offers a helpful assessment of U.S. psychological operations in “A Strategic Failure: American Information Control Policy in Occupied Iraq” (Goldstein 2008). She compares the employment of psychological operations in Iraq with U.S. information control efforts in postwar Germany, arguing that a major contributor to the insurgency in Iraq was the failure of U.S. policy makers to implement a coherent information strategy. If failure stimulates investigation, notable SOF successes also can spark efforts to explain their high performance in hopes of enabling emulation. A good example is Linda Robinson and coauthors’ examination of the widely perceived success of SOF indirect efforts in the Philippines. U.S. Special Operations Forces in the Philippines, 2001–2014 (Robinson 2016) is a RAND study that uses numerous in-depth interviews with U.S. and Philippine military officers to identify factors conducive to success in indirect SOF operations against insurgents. Another constant in literature on SOF employment is concern about their use under ambiguous authorities, which some argue makes oversight difficult and use of questionable tactics inevitable. Jennifer Kibbe’s “The Rise of the Shadow Warriors” is a case in point (Kibbe 2004). Kibbe raises typical concerns about the adequacy of oversight for SOF employed on secret missions in countries with which the United States is not at war. She raises the question of whether the lack of adequate oversight encourages collateral casualties and higher political costs, especially

294

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

given how heavily U.S. leaders have come to rely on SOF since the terror attacks on 9/11. Anna Simons and David Tucker take on another enduring SOF employment issue: when and how they should cooperate with general purpose forces (Simons and Tucker 2003). These authors question whether the conventional force commanders who dominate the U.S. military understand how to use SOF to their full potential, even when the mission at hand—counterterrorism—historically is understood to be a core SOF mission. Such concerns have dogged SOF-general purpose force relations since the rise of SOF in the modern era. While most agree that much progress has been made in this respect, especially since 2001, the issues Simons and Tucker raise persist.

REFERENCE SOURCES ON U.S. SOF Good reference works on U.S. SOF are scarce. None available are generally acclaimed as authoritative and current. The best available work in that regard is the fourth edition of USSOCOM’s Special Operations Forces Reference Manual (2015). This reference work is based on official doctrine and joint-service publications. It provides general information on tasks, organization, units, schools, and equipment for all American SOF. Other SOF reference works are available but typically dated. Given the often secretive nature of what SOF do and how quickly their missions evolve, it is often better to search for information about them on websites. Websites are constantly changing and thus difficult to evaluate, but as of this printing, two that merit attention are the Small Wars Journal website, www.smallwarsjournal.com, and SOFREP News website, www .sofrep.com. The Small Wars Journal website serves as clearinghouse for papers, commentary, and news related to special operations and low-intensity conflict. The lack of peer review results in articles of uneven quality. Yet there are enough valuable articles to justify searching the site’s archives and reading the commentary on articles. The SOFREP News website produces daily reports, articles, and commentary on a wide range of SOF issues and forces from personnel who are former members of U.S. SOF units. It provides well-informed news and analysis related to SOF; unfortunately, most of it is now behind a paywall.

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

2 95

BATTLE BIOGRAPHIES AND MEMOIRS FROM U.S. SOF SOF first-person accounts dominate the literature, and vary widely in quality. They run counter to SOF’s long-standing reputation as “quiet professionals,” but can reveal aspects of SOF culture not readily gleaned from other histories. Here we can only offer a too-short list of works reputed to be some of the more accurate and well-written battle memoirs that cover a range of different types of U.S. SOF units. One World War II memoir too good to ignore is R.  W.  Volckmann’s We Remained (Volckmann 1954). Volckmann led U.S. forces in the Japanese-occupied Philippines, widely consider to be progenitors of U.S. Special Forces. His classic account of unconventional warfare concludes with a useful discussion of the relationships among intelligence, psychological operations, and guerilla warfare. Another classic SOF memoir is John K. Singlaub’s Hazardous Duty (Singlaub 1991). Singlaub, an icon of American SOF prior to the creation of SOCOM, recounts his experiences in special operations from World War II to operations in Latin America in the 1970s. His career was notable for achieving a high rank (major general) and his unlikely career path through diverse special operations. A vivid personal account of SOF operations in Somalia in 1993 is offered up by Michael Durant: In the Company of Heroes (Durant 2003). Durant was taken captive by Somali militia following the events detailed in Bowden’s Black Hawk Down. His widely read narrative is an insider’s view of that event as well as his experiences in U.S. special operations in Korea, Panama, and the Gulf War. A similarly poignant personnel account of SOF operations gone awry is Marcus Luttrell’s Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 (Luttrell 2007). Luttrell provides an intense personal account of one of the most controversial and tragic SEAL operations in recent history, which took place in Afghanistan after the special reconnaissance mission he was on was compromised. Eric Blehm’s Fearless is another riveting SEAL memoir from Afghanistan (Blehm 2012), one of the few that leaves readers thinking more about the man than about his missions. A broader account of SOF operations in Afghanistan is offered by Dalton Fury, Kill Bin Laden (Fury 2008). The author recounts how SOF pursued Bin Laden following 9/11, and, in particular, in the remote Tora Bora region of eastern Afghanistan. He is candid about challenges to unity of effort, not only between SOF and general-purpose forces but also

296

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

within the ranks of SOF. Rusty Bradley’s Lions of Kandahar covers some of the same ground but from the perspective of Special Forces rather than SMUs (Bradley 2011). Bradley, a Special Forces officer, provides a first-person account of his unit’s role in a single operation in Afghanistan that became a badly managed missed opportunity. His account highlights the importance of working well with allied Afghans without preaching directly on the subject. It is impossible to ignore Robert O’Neill’s The Operator: Firing the Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior (O’Neill 2017). This memoir is an engaging, candid, witty, intensely personal account of life in the SEALs and special mission units. It reveals tensions over the relative notoriety of team members after high-profile missions and insights on motivations for taking risks beyond the desire to protect teammates. A popular set of battle memoirs from Rangers is available in Marty Skovlund and coauthors’ Violence of Action: The Untold Stories of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the War on Terror (Skovlund 2014). The book is a series of first-person vignettes that lacks context and continuity. However, it makes up for these deficiencies with raw authenticity, illuminating depictions of Ranger culture and ethos, and illuminating insights on how much the Ranger mission has evolved since 9/11. The most important SOF memoir to emerge since 9/11 is Stanley McChrystal’s My Share of the Task (McChrystal 2013). It is a veritable goldmine of insights on SOF of all stripes, but particularly SMUs, the U.S. military more generally, and the unparalleled leadership required to transform a world-class organization in time of war. It will not appeal as much to those seeking the drama of firsthand accounts of SOF operations, but it is a must read for anyone interested in understanding SOF on a deeper level. It is destined to be a classic on the level of Volckmann and Singlaub. Comparing it with those two earlier works clearly demonstrates just how far U.S. SOF have come over the past several decades.

U.S. JOURNALS ON SOF One of the best ways to get to know U.S. SOF are through their professional journals. The dean of such publications is Special Warfare, the official quarterly publication of the U.S. Army Kennedy Special Warfare School. It is a good source for ongoing debates on established SOF

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

297

doctrine and emerging concepts, publishing articles from SOF operators, policy specialists, and researchers. For the SEALS, there is The Blast, a quarterly journal copublished by the Naval Special Warfare Foundation and UDT-SEAL Association that chronicles historic Navy special warfare operations, and Ethos, the official magazine of the Navy Special Warfare Command. Ethos does not include in-depth analysis of policy issues related to SOF, but it does provides a window into ongoing initiatives related to navy special operations and SEAL-related news updates. The Air Commando Journal, published by the Air Commando Association, provides a venue for discussion of the history, technology, and individuals that have contributed to the development of air force special operations. It is both highly accessible and well regarded by the members of the air force SOF community. Finally, and most recently, the community has added the Special Operations Journal. This official publication of the Special Operations Research Association is hosted by the Joint Special Operations University at USSOCOM. In existence since 2015, it is the only SOF-centric peer-reviewed journal.

AIR COMMANDOS There is not a lot of literature on Air Force SOF, and what is available often fails to adequately describe the range of units, which includes not only pilots and crews but also combat controllers, pararescuemen, weather technicians (often lumped together as special tactics units), and combat aviation advisers. There are exceptions, such as Fred Pushies’s U.S. Air Force Special Ops, which offers a solid overview of U.S. Air Force SOF organizational structure, aircraft, equipment, and training regimens (Pushies 2000). Moreover, a set of good publications, taken as a whole, provides a relatively comprehensive account of how Air Force SOF have evolved and grown—beginning with John Bruning’s Indestructible (Bruning 2017). Indestructible is a superb World War II biography of Paul Gunn, a maverick pilot who operated on the edge, cared only about results, detested bureaucracy, and pioneered missions now routinely expected of air commandos. Gunn routinely flew long-distance into Japanese-controlled territory, relying on nap-of-the-earth flying, small camouflaged airfields, and his own extraordinary flying and navigational skills. As a “special projects officer” he pioneered low-level ship attack by reengineering aircraft

298

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

(progenitors of AC-130 gunships) over the objections of the military bureaucracy. Although the air commando origins are typically traced to squadrons supplying operations behind the lines in France and Burma, Bruning’s biography makes a strong case for Gunn being the father of air force special operations. Warren Trest’s Air Commando One: Heinie Aderholt and America’s Secret Air Wars, is a solid history of U.S. Air Force commando operations in Vietnam, largely viewed through the colorful career of Heine Aderholt. Trest explains how irregular warfare in Vietnam required the air force to innovate with early Air Commando operations. John T. Carney and Benjamin F. Schemmer carry the narrative forward with No Room for Error: The Covert Operations of America’s Special Tactics Units from Iran to Afghanistan (Carney, 2002). This insider’s account offers personal perspective on how modern air force special tactics units began and evolved up until the terror attacks on 9/11. The authors explain how time and again the inability of military services to cooperate handicapped SOF operations, and how these historic failures and interservice rivalries ultimately set the stage for the institutionalization of these forces. Deadly Blue: Battle Stories of the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (Pushies 2009), takes up where Carney and Schemmer left off, arguing that the institutionalization of Air Commando capabilities in the U.S. Special Operations Command finally allowed air force SOF to establish itself to good effect as an integrated component of the SOF team. This book, a collection of mission vignettes from Afghanistan and Iraq based on interviews, offers readers a good overview of the full range of air force SOF missions performed today. Michael Hirsh offers a detailed examination of pararescuemen, one of the least well-known elements of air force SOF, with None Braver: U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen in the War on Terrorism (Hirsh 2003). Hirsh covers pararescuemen as they performed their missions in Afghanistan immediately following the terror attacks on 9/11. Steve Call performs a similar service for tactical air controllers in Danger Close: Tactical Air Controllers in Afghanistan and Iraq (Call 2007). The author’s expert understanding of the broader close air support mission and how dangerous, complex, and controversial it is provides helpful insights on why air force special tactics airmen are essential SOF elements. Call’s work also makes clear just how difficult close coordination between SOF air and ground components can be, and why.

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

299

CIVIL AFFAIRS Typically, civil affairs are underappreciated, even among SOF. Their heyday was World War II, when the need to work closely with civil authorities in occupied territory was compellingly demonstrated. A classic depiction of civil affairs and their importance is John Hersey’s Pulitzer Prize– winning novel, A Bell for Adano (Hersey 1944). It depicts the difficulties a civil affairs officer during World War II experiences getting his superior to understand the importance of his work, much less develop a sympathetic approach to the indigenous population. Hersey highlights how other military forces and leaders often misunderstand and poorly appreciate civil affairs, thereby communicating truths not so easily grasped in drier historical accounts. Harry Coles and Albert Weinberg’s Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors (Coles and Weinberg 2005) is an often-reprinted documentary history of U.S. civil affairs. Like Hersey, the authors concentrate on the European theater of World War II and illustrate fundamental civil affairs issues, demonstrating why and how the military must assist civilian authorities in the aftermath of occupation by foreign forces. The themes from Hersey and Coles and Weinberg replay time and again in subsequent U.S. conflicts. A notable example is documented in Richard Shultz’s study of Operation Just Cause in Panama in 1989: In the Aftermath of War (Shultz 1993). It is the best-researched and most compelling critique of the failure to conduct postwar planning for the U.S. intervention. Shultz demonstrates how civil affairs were shunted aside during planning for the military operations and what that oversight cost. In the process, he again demonstrates why civil affairs are a critical force and mission area. Rob Schultheis and Alan King do the same for more recent U.S. operations in Iraq in their books, respectively Waging Peace: A Special Operations Team’s Battle to Rebuild Iraq (Schultheis 2005) and Twice Armed: An American Soldier’s Battle for Hearts and Minds in Iraq (King, 2006). Both works illustrate the value of civil affairs in counterinsurgency—even high-intensity counterinsurgency—in ways that should not surprise other SOF components but often seem to. Schultheis, an embedded journalist, uses a mix of daily diary notes and running commentary to sketch a close-up view of a civil affairs team in action in Iraq. King, a civil affairs battalion commander, provides a personal account of his work in Iraq and argues for staying the course, but with more cultural

300

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

sensitivity and attention to the Iraqi populace. In the process, he makes perhaps the best case possible for why civil affairs deserve to be categorized as special operations. Several turgid but authoritative publications from the Department of Defense document modern civil affairs operations in detail. The proceedings from a John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center symposium on Civil Affairs in the Persian Gulf War offer a detailed account of U.S. civil affairs after that conflict that constitute the best available overview of modern civil affairs planning and operations (John F. Kennedy Warfare Center 1991). The U.S. Department of the Army’s doctrinal publication on civil affairs is a more up-to-date and comprehensive overview of civil affairs issues, but also is more abstract and less appealing (U.S. Department of the Army 2011). This authoritative and acronym-laden explanation for the full range of civil affairs activities is a must-read for serious students of civil affairs.

MARINE SOF In 2006, the marines formed the Marine Special Operations Command (MARSOC) as a component of the U.S. Special Operations Command. Prior to that, the marines maintained reconnaissance and raiding units with special training (typically referred to as Force Recon), and designated other units as “special operations capable.” But given their relatively recent redefinition as SOF, there is more material on the history of Marine Force Recon units than there is on MARSOC. John Piedmont’s Det One: U.S. Marine Corps U.S. Special Operations Command Detachment, 2003–2006 is a good overview of the marine approach to special operations up until their decision to join the U.S. Special Operations Command (Piedmont 2010). Fred Pushies’s formulaic overview of MARSOC since then is one of the few solid books available on the newly formed marine SOF units (Pushies 2011). Pushies uses his standard format of a historical review followed by a cursory explanation of training and weapons. Dick Couch offers another of his superb SOF selection and training books with his account of MARSOC’s approach to those issues: Always Faithful, Always Forward: The Forging of a Special Operations Marine (Couch 2015). Couch, a former SEAL, provides the most detailed account of MARSOC’s history and training available. He also explains

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

301

why he believes MARSOC is skilled at foreign internal defense, a mission he argues SOF will need to focus on in the future.

PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS FORCES Literature devoted exclusively to psychological operations forces, or military information support operations (MISO) forces, as USSOCOM called them for a period of time, is hard to find. More common are works that address the broader topic of government use of persuasive communication—for example, works on information operations, propaganda, or strategic communications—or narrower, overlapping topics like deception in altered documents and communications. Like civil affairs literature, some of the best sources date from World War II. Paul Linebarger’s Psychological Warfare is the acknowledged best source on World War II psychological operations (Linebarger 2010). This World War II–era book, updated in the 1950s, is an analytic classic. It defines and illustrates types of propaganda and psychological warfare, describes the organization and processes for planning and conducting psychological operations, and surveys the emerging field of psychological operations in the Cold War. Stanley Sandler’s “Cease Resistance: It’s Good for You” is the authoritative history of tactical Army psychological operations, primarily from the two world wars until the end of the First Gulf War (Sandler 1996). It is poorly illustrated but impressively documented. Another impressive account of PSYOP in the First Gulf War is Seeds of Victory: Psychological Warfare and Propaganda, by Richard Johnson (Johnson 1997). This comprehensive account of psychological operations in the First Gulf War covers all forms of politico-military communication, not shying away from examples of deception and misinformation by both sides. It includes many illustrations and helpful translations of numerous leaflets, cartoons, and other materials, as well as an overview of psychological operations principles, with historical examples. Another dated but excellent introduction to psychological operations is Frank Goldstein and Benjamin F. Findley’s Psychological Operations: Principles and Case Studies (Goldstein 1996). It is an unusually coherent introduction to the nature, policy, operations, and tactics of psychological operations for an edited volume. It offers previously published works on how psychological operations efforts can help the military achieve their

302

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

objectives at various levels of conflict. Following the terror attacks on 9/11, there were numerous reports from think tanks on the technical aspects of psychological operations and how to assess their efficacy. Arturo Munoz’s RAND Corporation study is one of the better ones for readers looking for a net assessment of performance: U.S. Military Information Operations in Afghanistan: Effectiveness of Psychological Operations, 2001–2010 (Munoz 2012). His study, one of many from RAND on information operations and psychological operations, summarizes and explains the declining efficacy of such efforts in Afghanistan. In addition to historical materials and references, several websites offer more current information on psychological operations. The Psywar website, www.psywar.org, is well maintained and offers a wide range of historical and current materials on psychological operations and “military information support operations,” including official publications, articles, and references. The Psywarrior website [www.psywarrior.com], which is maintained part-time by a former field officer in psychological operations forces, is notable for its extensive set of hyperlinks to good sources on all matters involving psychological operations, including histories, professional associations, a good bibliography and a recommended reading list.

RANGERS The Rangers and their precursors include some of America’s most storied military units. Like many irregular forces, they specialized in raiding: difficult, often long-range direct action missions. Given such a colorful history, it is not surprising that there is an abundance of literature on the Rangers and their operations. Like most SOF literature, the tendency is to focus on operations, but there also are some good overviews of selection and training. David Hogan offers an historical overview of army Ranger tensions from World War II up and through the early 1990s: Raiders or Elite Infantry? The Changing Role of the U.S. Army Rangers from Dieppe to Grenada (Hogan 1992). As the title implies, Hogan takes a critical look at the evolving role played by the Rangers. His operational history considers the Ranger’s confused relationship with the conventional Army and other SOF, takes a hard look at the value of Ranger operations, and delivers summary commentary about the motives of civilian and military leaders and their public image.

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

303

Dick Couch again offers the best inside account of how the Rangers instill their ethos and conduct training: Sua Sponte: The Forging of a Modern American Ranger (Couch 2012). Couch describes Ranger assessment criteria and major training phases in prose enlivened with interviews with current Rangers. He does a good job of explaining how the post-Vietnam Rangers have become a schoolhouse for army leadership, so that many army generals now earn the Ranger tab. Indeed, qualifying for the Rangers is now a preferred path to senior army leadership positions. In this regard, Couch’s work is a necessary update to Hogan’s. More recently, Dominic Caraccilo has produced an authoritative account of the origins of the modern Ranger regiment and how the Rangers have come to fit well within the U.S. Special Operations Command: Forging a Special Operations Force: The US Army Rangers (Caraccilo 2015). Caraccilo’s work is the definitive account of establishing the modern 75th Ranger Regiment. It also provides a history of Rangers in combat and notes how the Regiment has changed to accommodate new roles and missions since 9/11. Another work that is popular within the Ranger ranks is Ross Hall’s The Ranger Book: A History, 1634–2006 (Hall 2007). This self-published book by a reporter is written in a colloquial style, and it is comprehensive, covering the history of American Ranger units from 1634 to 2006. More than eighty personal interviews with Rangers lend depth and authenticity to Hall’s encyclopedic treatment of all things “Ranger.”

SEALS (SEA, AIR, LAND) The navy SEALs are arguably the best known U.S. SOF today. There is a prodigious amount of popular literature on their operations. Kelly Orr’s Brave Men . . . Dark Waters: The Untold Story of the Navy SEALs is one of the best of many historical accounts available before the literature available about SEALs exploded after 9/11 (Orr 1992). His widely admired account only covers SEAL operations up through the First Gulf War, but is well researched and does not shy away from some of the more controversial episodes in SEAL history. Kevin Dockery uses numerous oral interviews to update SEAL history past 9/11 in Navy SEALs: A Complete History from World War II to the Present (Dockery 2004). This omnibus edition combines three volumes of navy SEAL oral histories drawn from 1941 to 2002. The author worked with the UDT/SEAL Museum Association

304

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

to present hundreds of interviews conducted by the museum (UDTs— WWII underwater demolition teams being a precursors to the SEALs). In terms of sheer volume of primary sources and scope, Dockery’s book represents an unparalleled accounting of UDT/SEAL history. SEALs: The US Navy’s Elite Fighting Force by Mir Bahmanyar and Christopher Osman is one of the better books covering SEAL operations from the creation of the U.S. Special Operations Command to the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. A collaborative effort between a SEAL and a former Ranger, it offers numerous but brief vignettes of actual SEAL operations that communicate authenticity. Dick Couch’s The Sheriff of Ramadi: Navy SEALs and the Winning of Al-Anbar, is a much more detailed account of one major operation (Couch 2008). Although it is a “SEAL-centric” account of how U.S. forces turned around an almost hopeless security situation in Ramadi, Iraq, it is notable as a source of insight on conventional forces and SOF cooperation in what some SOF refer to as “combat FID,” or foreign internal defense. Couch also offers—per usual—the best overview of SEAL selection and training practices. Couch is disproportionately represented in our bibliography, but for good reason. His works are authoritative, well written, current, insightful, and based on complete access to the community. His first book on SEAL selection and training practices was The Warrior Elite: The Forging of SEAL Class 228 (Couch 2001). As a former SEAL, Couch obtained the access needed to provide the most revealing account available of the SEAL selection process by following one class through its ordeal in “Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL” (or BUD/S) training, a class that included Marcus Luttrell, who would later become the author of Lone Survivor (see above). Several years later, Couch published The Finishing School: Earning the Navy SEAL Trident (Couch 2004), which nicely complements his earlier account by providing an excellent description of basic and advanced SEAL individual and unit training.

SPECIAL FORCES There is an abundance of good introductions to the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, popularly known as the Green Berets in recognition of their distinctive headgear. Aaron Banks explains the origins of Special Forces in World War II experiences in From OSS to Green Berets: The Birth of

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

305

Special Forces (Banks 1986). Banks provides a first-person account of his World War II and early Special Forces experience that links the origins of the Green Berets to the OSS and its Jedburgh teams. Alfred Paddock explains how and why the Army institutionalized these forces after World War II with his book, U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Origins (Paddock 2002). In what is still the best single account of how the U.S. Army decided to organize for unconventional warfare in the years following World War II, Paddock reveals how the origins of Special Forces and psychological operations are intertwined, with Special Forces initially the junior partner. In the 1960s and 1970s, Special Forces demonstrated their worth—particularly in Vietnam—but went against the flow and were controversial among army leaders for their relationships with the CIA and their unorthodox methods. Charles Simpson offers an insider’s view of the Special Forces in Vietnam with Inside the Green Berets: The First Thirty Years—a History of the U.S. Army Special Forces (Simpson 1983). He concentrates on operations in Southeast Asia but covers other little-known examples of Special Forces interacting with foreign forces. Written during a period of uncertainty about the future of Special Forces, Simpson forgoes battle narrative in favor of sage commentary on what is and is not a proper Special Forces mission. Shelby Stanton’s Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975 does not benefit from recently opened classified files on SOF in Vietnam, but he uses original sources to good effect, providing a well-researched and detailed (names, dates, places) battlefield history of Special Forces that puts their efforts in a broader political and military context (Stanton 1985). More recent accounts of Special Forces during the Cold War (and in Vietnam) benefit from declassified units, materials, and official histories. Two notable works in this regard are Thomas Ahern’s CIA and Rural Pacification in South Vietnam and James Stejskal’s Special Forces Berlin: Clandestine Cold War Operations of the US Army’s Elite, 1956–1990 (Ahern 2001; Stejskal, 2017). Ahern’s work is a publication of the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence. It is an exhaustive official history from the CIA that has much to say about Special Forces. Given the often uneasy relationship between Special Forces and the CIA, it provides a unique and surprisingly sympathetic perspective on Special Forces and the refusal of the institutional army to use and support them well. It can be found online at http://today.ttu.edu/images/2009/03/03-cia-and-rural-pacification.pdf.

306

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

Special Forces Berlin was written by a former member of a little known and recently declassified Special Forces unit stationed in West Berlin during the Cold War. Stejskal describes the unit and its activities well, and the book made a splash in the Special Forces community. Many point to Stejskal’s unit, with its mix of clandestine tradecraft; area and language expertise; and mature, well-trained soldiers as the Special Forces ideal. Linda Robinson’s Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces covers more recent ground (Robinson 2004). Robinson chronicles Special Forces from the end of the Cold War to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, providing a readable and approving take on how these forces approach unconventional operations, including their distinctive ethos. Her last chapter illuminates the debate between “direct” and “indirect” SOF approaches, capturing the Special Forces perspective well by drawing upon insights from Maj. General Geoffrey Lambert. More recent and detailed accounts of Special Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq that merit attention are Ronald Fry’s Hammerhead Six: How Green Berets Waged an Unconventional War Against the Taliban to Win in Afghanistan’s Deadly Pech Valley and Ann Tyson’s American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Gant (Fry 2017; Tyson, 2015). Together these two books provide deep insights on how some Special Forces developed exceptional relationships with indigenous communities in Afghanistan, making a major impact on local security but having a limited impact on overall U.S. counterinsurgency strategy. Fry’s Special Forces memoir makes clear why working “by, with, and through” indigenous groups is so difficult but also so critical for success. His unit operated seven years earlier and about twenty-five miles due north of where Special Forces Maj. Jim Gant found success with similar methods. Tyson, who went on to marry the subject of her book, recounts Maj. Gant’s rise to favor after great success working with indigenous forces and promoting his “one tribe at a time” strategy for Afghanistan, which captured the attention of senior leaders. Tyson also charts Gant’s demise from substance abuse, fraternization, and combat stress, thus highlighting the challenge of fighting alongside illiberal allies in complex conflicts. Two other books that should be considered indispensable reading on Special Forces are Anna Simons’s The Company They Keep: Life Inside the U.S. Army Special Forces (Simons 1998), and Dick Couch’s Chosen Soldier: The Making of a Special Forces Warrior (Couch 2007). Simons, who

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

307

married a Special Forces soldier, explores Special Forces team culture with a level of detail unprecedented in SOF literature. Her anthropological study is sometimes ribald but always illuminating, even if dated. It is one of the most unique books available on SOF, and still a must read for “outsiders” hoping to understand life as a Green Beret. Couch again provides arguably the best and most current review of Special Forces selection and training practices, using the approach he perfected with the SEALs. His book is a sympathetic but detached day-to-day observer’s intimate account of all phases of Special Forces selection and training. In the last chapter, he interviews Green Berets in the field to get their take on operations in Iraq.

U.S. SPECIAL MISSION UNITS The literature on classified U.S. SOF is less voluminous than that which is available on SEALs and Special Forces. Often called special mission units (SMUs), these units are a subject of prime interest, but it is difficult to obtain good and current information on them. Exposés in the press that shed light on their activities are controversial, both for what they get right and for what they get wrong, as well as for violating classification restrictions and the SOF “quiet professionals” dictum. A number of available autobiographical works shed light on SMUs, most of which say something about unit selection criteria and the authors’ knowledge of that process and offer vignettes from operational experience. Some journalistic exposés on classified units also provided interesting accounts of past missions for public consumption. We review these books in roughly chronological order by the periods they cover rather than publication date. Richard Marcinko’s Rogue Warrior is most notable for its controversial author, who helped pioneer SOF special mission units and then was one of the first to also write about them (Marcinko 1992). Almost a decade later Charlie Beckwith offered up his Delta Force: The Army’s Elite Counterterrorist Unit (Beckworth 2000). Like Marcinko, Beckwith recounts his lead role in setting up a SOF special mission unit in response to terrorism. A little later, Eric Haney published Inside Delta Force: The Story of America’s Elite Counterterrorism Unit (Haney 2002), which provides a first-person account of the selection criteria and training requirements

308

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

for a U.S. Army special mission unit, concentrating on his experiences during the 1980s. Complementing these accounts is David Martin and John Walcott’s Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of America’s War Against Terrorism (Martin and Walcott 1988). It is a mildly skeptical look at SOF’s war against terrorism during the 1980s by journalists who seem to appreciate the men and their missions but question the policy and strategy decisions that sent them into action. A surprising number of officials and SOF members agreed to by-name attribution in this work. Jerry Boykin’s memoir, Never Surrender: A Soldier’s Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom, is notable because he rose higher in the Pentagon’s policy apparatus than most SOF officers and thus offers insights on the political aspects of managing SOF from Washington, DC (Boykin 2008). Boykin’s career intersected with many of the most important SOF operations, including the 1993 Operation Gothic Serpent in Somalia. Also, he is frank about his Christian faith, which in his case, became a major political issue late in his career when he served in the Pentagon during the War on Terror. Pete Blaber’s book, The Mission, the Men, and Me: Lessons from a Former Delta Force Commander, came out the same year as Boykin’s memoir (Blaber 2008). Blaber shares five key command lessons from his experiences in SOF, with illustrations from a variety of operations, including the climactic hunt for Bin Laden in Tora Bora. The book is distinguished by its candor in discussing intra-SOF and interagency coordination issues. Another journalistic exposé on special mission units was published in 2012: Marc Ambinder and D. B. Grady’s The Command: Deep Inside the President’s Secret Army (Ambinder and Grady, 2012). This account of alleged U.S. SOF operations reveals much, and like all such exposés, leaves readers wondering how much is accurate. Sean Naylor’s Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command is another case in point (Naylor 2016). Naylor has written extensively on SOF in the past and is considered widely knowledgeable on the topic. This work is highly regarded by SOF professionals even if they don’t approve of the details being offered up to the public and refuse to cite or mention it. There are other accounts of special mission units, and even some that focus on less well-known special mission units. Fred Pushies’s Night Stalkers: 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, is a case in point. Pushies’s short, coffee-table overview provides a brief, accurate,

B I B L I O G R A P H I C E S S AY

309

well-illustrated introduction to the unit’s training, equipment, and organization, mixed with general history and mission vignettes, all based on good contacts in the SOF community. While it is possible to go broader and deeper into the literature on special mission units, as a collection the above references will give readers a well-rounded view of the units, their culture, and what they do.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION: AMERICAN SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES

1. “Remarks by the President at the Citadel,” Charleston, South Carolina, December 11, 2001, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/sept11/president_115.asp. 2. See “Bin Laden’s Bookshelf,” Office of the Director of National Intelligence, https://www.dni.gov/index.php/features/bin-laden-s-bookshelf?start=1, accessed April 24, 2019. 3. Department of Defense, United States Special Operations Forces, Posture Statement, 2000, 41, https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did-1481; Statement of General Raymond A. Thomas III, Commander, United States Special Operations Command, Before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, February 15, 2018, 4. General Accountability Office, “Special Operations Forces: Opportunities Exist to Improve Transparency of Funding and Assess Potential to Lessen Some Deployments,” GAO-15-571, July 2015 reports that “authorized special operations military positions increased from about 42,800 in fiscal year (FY) 2001 to about 62,800 in FY 2014, which includes combat and support personnel” not just active duty personnel. 4. Statement of General Raymond A. Thomas, 5. 5. Sean D. Naylor, “Special Operations Boom Years May Be Coming to a Close,” Yahoo News, September 13, 2018, https://www.yahoo.com/news/special -operations-boom-years-may-coming-close-090019994.html 6. DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, September 2018, 214, http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/dictionary.pdf?ver -2018-09-28-100314-687. 7. Statement of General Raymond A. Thomas, 5. 8. United States Special Operations Command Fact Book, (Tampa, FL: U.S. Special Operations Command 2018), 58. 9. Anna Simons, The Company They Keep (New York: Free Press, 1997), discusses this issue.

3 12

1. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

10. In addition to the Special Operation Commands, which are part of the regional commands, there is a separate Special Operations Command in Korea, SOCKOR. 11. The list of representative missions is taken from U.S. Special Operations Command Fact Book, 2018, 14, excluding Foreign Humanitarian Assistance, Hostage Rescue and Recovery, and Security Force Assistance, all of which are explained in chapter 6. We use the term Psychological Operations instead of Military Information Support Operations for reasons also explained in chapter 6. For further information, see appendix 1, “The Evolution of Special Operation Forces Roles and Missions.” 12. The following mission descriptions are adapted from the DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, September 2018, http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36 /Documents/Doctrine/pubs/dictionary.pdf?ver-2018-09-28-100314-687

1. SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES AND MODERN WARFARE

1. The Northern Alliance was a largely Tajik organization opposed to the Taliban’s control of Afghanistan. It was widely considered the only effective military force in Afghanistan resisting the Taliban. In fall 2001, it was operating in the north central area of Afghanistan. 2. Mazar-i-Sharif is a town in northern Afghanistan where prisoners with hidden weapons attacked guards and killed an American, Johnny Michael Spann. 3. Abdul Rashid Dostum’s National Islamic Movement, a part of the Northern Alliance, controlled several north central provinces of Afghanistan in fall 2001. 4. Massoud was the leader of the Northern Alliance. The U.S. government had contact with Massoud during the 1990s and considered him the best leader with whom to work against the Taliban. For details of the U.S. government’s efforts to work with Massoud, see Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin, 2004). 5. Before deploying, SF teams isolate themselves to plan and prepare for the upcoming mission. 6. Warrant officers are commissioned officers who specialize in technical fields. 7. The DOD Dictionary of Military Terms defines “special mission unit” as a “generic term to represent a group of operations and support personnel from designated organizations that is task-organized to perform highly classified activities.” http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/data/s/04972.html, accessed August 9, 2006.

1. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

3 13

8. A joint operations center is a facility containing personnel from different services that controls and manages operations. 9. AC-130 aircraft with side-mounted guns, including a 40-mm Bofors cannon, a 105-mm Howitzer cannon, and a 25-mm gun. 10. U.S. military forces assisting the civilian and military agencies of another government in defending that government and its people from subversion, lawlessness, and insurgency. 11. The C-130 is a propeller transport aircraft. Air force special operations forces fly modified versions of this aircraft, for example, the MC-130 Combat Talon. 12. At that slow a speed, airplanes tend to stall and fall from the sky. They therefore are said to hang in the sky on their propellers. 13. A joint special operations task force is a military organization composed of special operations units from more than one service, for example, army Special Forces and navy SEALs. It may also have some conventional units assigned. 14. The military conceives of conventional operations unfolding in four phases. Phase four, or transition, is the process of restoring civilian control through reorganizing government and restoring basic services. Assisting with this transition is a principal task of civil affairs units. 15. An amendment to the 1987 Defense Authorization Act, sponsored by Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) and Senator William Cohen (R-ME), that created the Special Operations Command, the assistant secretary of defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, and a funding line in the defense budget to support SOF, among other things. 16. This is the rule. Occasionally, when there has been high demand for SOF, direct accession has been allowed. Generally, these programs have adversely affected SOF quality. 17. This was a sarcastic play on “devils in baggy pants,” which is what paratroopers were called in World War II. Fort Bragg is the home base of the 82nd Airborne division. 18. Because U.S. forces were in Afghanistan to support a friendly government battling hostile internal forces, SF operations in Afghanistan should have been foreign internal defense. Since some SF operations took place in areas where the local population, through consent or intimidation, did not support the government, SF operations were more like unconventional warfare. SF were working with locals to undermine de facto control of certain areas by forces hostile to the government centered in Kabul. 19. As chapter 5 explains, this effort with the Afghan police eventually grew into what became known as village stability operations.

314

1. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S A N D M O D E R N WA R FA R E

20. Adm. Eric T. Olson, Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command 2007–11. 21. Adm. William H. McRaven, Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, 2011–14. 22. The SOF truths: Humans are more important than hardware. Quality is better than quantity. Special Operations Forces cannot be mass produced. Competent special operations forces cannot be created after emergencies occur. Most special operations require non-SOF assistance. https://www.soc .mil/USASOCHQ/SOFTruths.html, accessed May 15, 2109. 23. The Warrior Ethos: I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade. https:// www.army.mil/values/warrior.html, accessed April 24, 2019. 24. See chapter 4. 25. An army unit established in 2006 to counter asymmetric or unconventional threats. 26. Special Forces communication sergeant on an A-Team. 27. Special Forces officer or enlisted weapons specialist, respectively. 28. Army designation for a translator or interpreter.

2. HISTORY

1. Rangers and the kind of warfare they conducted are a principal concern of John Grenier, The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607–1814 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). For an analysis of colonial warfare that connects it to contemporary conflict, see David Tucker, Revolution and Resistance: Moral Revolution, Military Might, and the End of Empire (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). 2. Second Continental Light Dragoons, “Ranger Tactics,” http://www.dragoons .info/our_past/ranger-tactics/, accessed May 15, 2019. 3. Grenier, The First Way of War, 87, 91, 113, 131, 161, 196. 4. Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 17. 5. Robert M. Utley, “The Contribution of the Frontier to the American Military Tradition,” in The American Military on the Frontier: The Proceedings of the 7th Military History Symposium, United States Air Force Academy, 30 September–1 October 1976, ed. James P. Tate (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History and United States Air Force Academy, 1978), 7. 6. Clayton D. Laurie, “ ‘ The Chanting of Crusaders’: Captain Heber Blankenhorn and AEF Combat Propaganda in World War I,” Journal of Military History 59 (July 1995): 475, 479, 481; Stanley Sandler, “Cease Resistance: It’s Good for You!” A History of U.S. Army Combat Psychological Operations (n.p.: United

2. HIS TORY

3 15

States Army Special Operations Command, Directorate of History and Museums, 1999), 21. 7. For a few years, psychological operations were called military information support operations. For the name change and the return to psychological operations, see Maj. David Cowan, U.S. Army and Maj. Chaveso Cook, U.S. Army, “What’s in a Name? Psychological Operations Versus Military Information Support Operations and an Analysis of Organizational Change,” Military Review, March 6, 2018, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals /Military-Review/Online-Exclusive/2018-OLE/Mar/PSYOP/#bio. 8. Colonel Michael E. Haas, USAF, (retired), Apollo’s Warriors: United States Air Force Special Operations During the Cold War (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1997), 8. 9. William T. Y’Blood, “Any Place, Any Time, Anywhere: The 1st Air Commando Group in World War II,” Air Power History 48 (Summer, 2001): 11. 10. Col. Irwin L. Hunt, Officer in Charge of Civil Affairs, Third Army and American Forces in Germany, Report, American Military Government of Occupied Germany, 1918–1920, March 4, 1920, quoted in Harry L. Coles and Albert K. Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1964; reprint, Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2005), 6–7. 11. Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs, 24, 19, 20, 28, 22. 12. In addition to Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs, this discussion of civil affairs draws on Earl F. Ziemke, “Civil Affairs Reaches Thirty,” Military Affairs 36 (December 1972): 130–133. 13. Grenier, The First Way of War, 141. 14. “CS and CSS Soldiers May Attend Ranger School,” Army Logistician 37 (July/August 2005): 45. 15. For evidence and analysis supporting the claims in this paragraph, see David Tucker, The End of Intelligence: Espionage and State Power in the Information Age (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014), 122–25. On the limitations of sabotage in general and in World War II, see David Tucker, Illuminating the Dark Arts of War: Terrorism, Sabotage, and Subversion in Homeland Security and the New Conflict (New York: Continuum, 2012), 135–70. 16. Letter, Gen. of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, Headquarters, U.S. Forces, European Theater, Office of the Commanding General, quoted in Alfred H. Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Origins, rev. ed. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), 20. 17. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities, Foreign and Military Intelligence, 94th Congress, Second Session, 1976 S. Rept. 94–755, Book IV, p. 26; Andrei Zhdanov, “Report on the International Situation to the Cominform,” September 22, 1947,

316

2. HIS TORY

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/04/documents/cominform .html, accessed July 30, 2003. 18. Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS), http://www .state.gov/www/about_state/history/frus.html, documents 243, 244, 245. 19. E. Lilly, “Short History of the Psychological Strategy Board,” December 21, 1951, National Security Council Staff Papers, NSC Secretariat Series, Box 6, Dwight Eisenhower Library, 36–37; Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, 56; FRUS, “Memorandum for the Secretary of the State-Army-Navy-Air Force Coordinating Committee to the Under Secretary of State,” document 242. 20. FRUS, Document 283, 291; Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, 43–45, 48. 21. Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, 57–60, 64; Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer Reports! (New York: Henry Holt, 1958), 91, 95. 22. FRUS, documents 253, “Psychological Operations,” December 9, 1947; FRUS document 256, “Coordination of Foreign Information Measures (NSC 4) Psychological Operations (NSC 4-A),” December 17, 1947; and “Report to National Security Council on Coordination of Foreign Information Matters,” December 15, 1947; FRUS 269, March 29, 1948; Senate Report, 1976, 28; Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Statesman (New York: Viking, 1987), 152, 192–196. 23. Lilly, “Short History of the Psychological Strategy Board,” 62–64, 75–76, 78–79. 24. Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, 61, 63, 91–94; Lilly, “Short History of the Psychological Strategy Board,” 86. 25. Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, 97, 94 (cf. p. 147), 100–101, 118, 102– 103, 107. 26. Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, 131; Thomas K. Adams, US Special Operations Forces in Action: The Challenge of Unconventional Warfare (London: Frank Cass, 1998), 57–58. 27. Gen. Maxwell Taylor, The Uncertain Trumpet (New York: Harper and Row, 1960). 28. National Security Action Memorandum 124 “Establishment of the Special Group (Counter-Insurgency),” https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives /JFKNSF/333/JFKNSF-333-016, accessed July 19, 2019. 29. Shelby L. Stanton, Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975 (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1985), 38–39; Letter, DA Office of the Chief of Staff, Subj: Special Warfare Field Visit to Vietnam and Okinawa, 13–30 Jan 63, dated 30 Jan 63, 3, quoted in “Outline History of the 5th SF Group (Airborne), Participation in the CIDG Program, 1961–1970,” 11, http:// www.ehistory.com/vietnam/pdf/sfcidg.pdf, accessed October 1, 2002. See also Adams, US Special Operations Forces in Action, 85; Andrew Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986),

2. HIS TORY

317

70–71; Col. Francis J. Kelly, Vietnam Studies: U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971 (Washington, DC, Department of the Army, 1973), 4, 19–44. 30. Gen. William B. Rosson (retired), “Four Periods of American Involvement in Vietnam: Development and Implementation of Policy, Strategy and Programs, Described and Analyzed on the Basis of Service Experience at Progressively Senior levels,” (PhD diss., Oxford University, 1979), 149–151. 31. Kelly, Vietnam Studies, 49. 32. Kelly, Vietnam Studies, 34; 46–48; Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam, 73–75. 33. Richard H. Shultz Jr., The Secret War Against Hanoi: The Untold Story of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam (New York: Perennial, 2000); Kenneth Conboy and Dale Andrade, Spies and Commandos: How America Lost the Secret War in Vietnam (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2000). 34. Joe Wagner, “Army Special Forces: Step Child or Child Prodigy?” Armed Forces Management 12 (May 1966): 55. 35. David W. Hogan, Raiders or Elite Infantry? The Changing Role of the U.S. Army Rangers from Dieppe to Grenada (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992), 160. 36. Rosson, “Four Periods of American Involvement in Vietnam,” 124. 37. Hogan, Raiders or Elite Infantry?, 160. 38. J. W. Partin, “Interview with General E. C. Meyer,” Arlington, Virginia, July 14, 1988, 2 (typescript in possession of the author). 39. Special Operations Review Group, Rescue Mission Report (Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1980), 60, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB /NSAEBB63/doc8.pdf. 40. See chapter 6 and appendix 1. 41. Susan Marquis, Unconventional Warfare: Rebuilding U.S. Special Operations Forces (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press, 1997), 144–146. 42. Statement of the Honorable Richard L. Armitage, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, in “To Combat Terrorism and Other Forms of Unconventional Warfare,” a Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Sea Power and Force Projection of the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, 99th Congress, Second Session, on S. 2453, “To Enhance the Capabilities of the United States to Combat Terrorism and Other Forms of Unconventional Warfare,” August 5, 1986, 18; Interview with David S. C. Chu, October 30, 2000, Assistant Secretary for Program Analysis and Evaluation, 1988 to 1992; Henry L. T. Koren Jr., “Congress Wades Into Special Operations,” Parameters (December 1988): 71. 43. Armitage, “To Combat Terrorism and Other Forms of Unconventional Warfare,” 39–40. 44. Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Military Readiness, Committee on National Security, House of Representatives, “Special Operations,

318

2. HIS TORY

Opportunities to Preclude Misuse,” Government Accounting Office, GAO /NSIAD-97-85, May 1997. 45. Henry H. Shelton, “Coming of Age: Theatre Special Operations Commands,” Joint Forces Quarterly 14 (Winter 1996–97): 51–52. 46. Linda Robinson, Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004), 130–134. 47. Quoted in United States Special Operations Command History, 15th Anniversary (n.p., 2002), 6. 48. Quoted in Adams, US Special Operations Forces in Action, 10–11. 49. Mark Moyar, Oppose Any Foe: The Rise of America’s Special Operations Forces (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 217. 50. On this issue, see Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin 2004), 497–502, 570. 51. Matthew Rosenberg, “Effort in Afghanistan Gets More Conventional,” Philadelphia Enquirer, September 15, 2002; James Brooke, “Pentagon Tells Troops in Afghanistan: Shape Up and Dress Right,” New York Times, September 12, 2002. 52. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, My Share of the Task: A Memoir (New York: Portfolio, 2013), 240. 53. “Afghan About Face,” Washington Post, October 1, 2002. 54. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 100. 55. Richard B. Andres, Craig Wills, and Thomas E. Griffith Jr., “Winning with Allies: The Strategic Value of the Afghan Model” International Security 30, no. 3 (Winter 2005/6): 124–60; Stephen Biddle, “Allies, Airpower, and Modern Warfare: The Afghan Model in Afghanistan and Iraq,” International Security 30, no. 3 (Winter 2005/6): 164–67. 56. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 181, 202, 236, 259, 310, 350. 57. Linda Robinson, One Hundred Victories: Special Ops and the Future of American Warfare (New York: Public Affairs, 2013). 58. David Tucker and Christopher Lamb, “Restructuring Special Operations Forces for Emerging Threats,” Strategic Forum, No. 219, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, January 2006. 59. Meghann Myers, “A Female Soldier Has Made It Through the Army’s Special Forces Selection,” Army Times, November 14, 2018, https://www.armytimes .com/news/your-army/2018/11/14/a-female-soldier-has-made-it-through-the -armys-special-forces-selection/. The Army allowed women in SF in 2016. Passing the Assessment and Selection Course means a soldier may attend the SF Qualification course to earn the Green Beret.

3. S O M A L I A

3 19

3. SOMALIA

1. Walter S. Poole, The Effort to Save Somalia, August 1992–March 1994 (Washington, DC: Joint History Office, Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2005), 19. 2. It even has been asserted that U.S. officials, mainly in the Pentagon, wrote UN resolutions on Somalia, promoting nation building. The drafting, however, took place privately at the U.S. mission to the United Nations (Ambassador Albright) and the NSC, where Ambassador Albright and Tony Lake were champions of assertive multilateralism. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin admitted later, however, that the Pentagon had approved the resolutions. See Walter Clarke and Jeffrey Herbst, “Somalia and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention,” Foreign Affairs 75 (March/April 1996): 73. 3. “Great care was taken to develop an approved, well-defined mission with attainable, measurable objectives prior to the operation commencing. Disarmament was excluded from the mission because it was neither realistically achievable nor a prerequisite for the core mission of providing a secure environment for relief operations. Selective ‘disarming as necessary’ became an implied task which led to the cantonment of heavy weapons and gave UNITAF the ability to conduct weapon sweeps.” Joseph P. Hoar, “A CINC’s Perspective,” Joint Forces Quarterly 2 (Autumn 1993): 58. 4. Robert B. Oakley, “An Envoy’s Perspective,” Joint Forces Quarterly 2 (Autumn 1993): 48. 5. A briefing provided by LTG Robert Johnson in the Pentagon in 1993 underscored his appreciation of SOF and their value in Somalia. A conversation between Ambassador Oakley and author in the summer of 2005 confirmed he had the same opinion. Ambassador Robert Oakley read this chapter and made numerous helpful recommendations. 6. Ambassador Albright made the statement on March 26, 1993. She is quoted to this effect in John R. Bolton, “Wrong Turn in Somalia,” Foreign Affairs 73 (January/February 1994): 62. 7. “Chapter VII” refers to the seventh chapter of the UN charter, which authorizes the use of force in response to “threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression.” 8. Keith B. Richburg, “Aideed Exploited U.N.’s Failure to Prepare,” Washington Post, December 5, 1993. 9. Most of the details here concerning the conflict between Aideed and the UN on June 5 comes from Tom Farer’s “Report of an Inquiry, Conducted Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 837, Into the 5 June 1993 Attack on UN Forces in Somalia.”

320

3. S O M A L I A

10. Richburg, “Aideed Exploited,” Washington Post, December 5, 1993. 11. “Hope Behind the Horror,” Economist, June 19, 1993, 41. 12. Barton Gellman, “The Words Behind a Deadly Decision: Secret Cables Reveal Maneuvering Over Request for Armor in Somalia,” Washington Post, October 31, 1993. 13. Poole, The Effort to Save Somalia, 44. 14. Robert F. Baumann, “My Clan Against the World”: US and Coalition Forces in Somalia, 1992–1994 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004), 112–113. 15. Baumann, “My Clan Against the World,” 115–16. 16. Poole, The Effort to Save Somalia, 44; Scott Peterson, Me Against My Brother: At War in Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda (Hoboken, NJ: Taylor and Francis, 2014), 141–143. 17. Poole, The Effort to Save Somalia, 45. 18. Brigadier General Wesley Taylor, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Missions in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict), advised against the mission in a memorandum to the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy) on July 27, 1993, and in an earlier position paper of June 15, 1993. 19. “Rejecting ‘facile solutions like get Aideed and all will be well,’ Hoar concluded, ‘If the only solution for Mogadishu is a large-scale infusion of troops and if the only country available to make this commitment is the U.S., then it’s time to reassess.” Gellman, “The Words Behind a Deadly Decision.” 20. State Dept sources said the cable was not ignored, but that “the new policy . . . was not worked out fully until after the October 3 firefight.” Keith B. Richburg, “U.S. Envoy to Somalia Urged Policy Shift Before 18 GIs Died,” Washington Post, November 11, 1993. 21. The following quotations are from Gellman, “The Words Behind a Deadly Decision.” 22. For a description of the raids and their results, see Clayton K. S. Chun, Gothic Serpent: Black Hawk Down, Mogadishu 1993 (Long Island City, NY: Osprey, 2012), 28–30. 23. Peterson, Me Against My Brother, 105. 24. See the discussion in Michael Smith, Killer Elite: The Inside Story of America’s Most Secret Forces Unit (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006), 182–183. 25. A key U.S. intelligence asset shot and killed himself after drinking and playing Russian roulette with Somali informants, which did not promote confidence in the U.S. intelligence operations in country. William Boykin, who served in a prominent position on Garrison’s staff, also notes that from the beginning intelligence on Aideed was sketchy, in part because Aideed was

3. S O M A L I A

321

ruthlessly eliminating suspected informants. Boykin also recounts that Task Force Ranger questioned the reliability of the informant who supplied the information for the October 3 operation. After the event, in a handwritten letter to President Clinton, Garrison said the intelligence for the operation was sufficient, and that seems true insofar as high-ranking targets were on the scene and taken captive. However, due to the rapidity of the SNA response, some sources are suspicious that the events might have been orchestrated by Aideed. Also, one of the two main targets in the October 3 operation, Omar Salad, did not maintain a low profile. He made a public speech to a crowd near the Coca-Cola bottling plant that morning and then returned to the building in the Bakara market area that the Rangers raided. Compare Poole, The Effort to Save Somalia, 48; Peterson, Me Against My Brother, 105–115, 139; Lawrence E. Casper, Falcon Brigade: Combat and Command in Somalia and Haiti (London: Lynne Rienner, 2001), 33; Baumann, “My Clan Against the World,” 141–142; William G. Boykin and Lynn Vincent, Never Surrender: A Soldier’s Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom (New York: FaithWords, 2014), 255, 259–263; and Chun, Gothic Serpent, 32–34. On the death of the intelligence professional, see Moyer, Oppose Any Foe, 200; Chun, Gothic Serpent, 27; and Smith, Killer Elite, 178–179. 26. Paul Quinn-Judge, “UN Position in Somalia Called Dire,” Boston Globe, September 30, 1993. 27. Casper, Falcon Brigade, 25. 28. Mark Bowden, Blackhawk Down: A Story of Modern War (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1999); Michael J. Durant and Steven Hartov, In the Company of Heroes (New York: Putnam, 2003), 11. 29. Elaine Sciolino, “Puzzle in Somalia: The U.S. Goal,” New York Times, October 5, 1993. 30. Ann Devroy, “Collapse of U.S. Collective Action May Force Second Look at Bosnia,” Washington Post, October 8, 1993. 31. Michael R. Gordon with John H. Cushman, “Mission in Somalia; After Supporting Hunt for Aideed, U.S. Is Blaming U.N. for Losses,” New York Times, October 18, 1993. 32. “President Responds to Recent Violence Against U.S. Forces,” Washington Times, October 7, 1993. 33. Peterson, Me Against My Brother, 161. 34. President William Clinton, “Message to the Congress Transmitting a Report on Somalia October 13th, 1993,” available at: https://www.govinfo.gov /content/pkg/WCPD-1993-10-18/html/WCPD-1993-10-18-Pg2065.htm, accessed May 9, 2019. 35. Estimates of Somali casualties vary greatly, generally ranging from 500 to 1,500.

322

3. S O M A L I A

36. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance resigned in protest over the decision to attempt the Iranian Hostage rescue, a low point for President Carter. Before that, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger was fired over the handling of the Mayaguez crisis, which, ironically, was seen as a high point in the Ford administration. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara resigned over Vietnam. On Schlesinger’s demise, see Christopher J. Lamb, The Mayaguez Crisis, Mission Command, and Civil-Military Relations (Joint History and Research Office, Joint Staff, 2018), 6, 150, 157, and 166; and Christopher J. Lamb, Belief Systems and Decision Making in the Mayaguez Crisis (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1989), 209–212. 37. Robert G. Patman, Strategic Shortfall: The Somalia Syndrome and the March to 9/11 (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International, 2010), 79–90. 38. Newsweek cited by Andrew J. Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History (New York: Random House, 2017), 156. 39. See discussion on “the Somalia Syndrome” in Richard H. Shultz, “Showstoppers: Nine Reasons Why We Never Sent Our Special Operations Forces After al Qaeda Before 9/11,” Weekly Standard, January 26, 2001, 28. 40. Eric V. Larson and Bogdan Savych, American Public Support for U.S. Military Operations from Mogadishu to Baghdad (Santa Monica, CA.: RAND, 2005) provides a good discussion of this point. 41. See Gary J. Ohls, Somalia . . . from the Sea (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2009), 196. 42. United States Forces, Somalia After Action Report and Historical Overview: The United States Army in Somalia, 1992–1994 (Washington, DC: United States Army, Center of Military History, 2003), 12. 43. This charge is made by, among others, General Hugh Shelton, the former commander of USSOCOM and then-serving Chairman, Joint Chiefs of staff. Shelton argues the quick reaction force was not on alert; that it had not been notified by Garrison of the operation, and that they were “spread all over the city, drinking tea or whatever they were doing.” He concludes the catastrophe was the result of “not having one individual in charge. The chain of command during that operation was horrendous  .  .  . and there were no clear lines of responsibility.” The detailed account by the commander of the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) contingent on duty that day, Lt. Col. Michael Whetstone, contradicts these assertions, making it clear the QRF was notified of the SOF operation and on alert, and that Garrison coordinated closely with its commanders. Whetstone acknowledges concerns that the QRF would itself get ambushed, but believes the primary reason Garrison delayed sending the QRF relief force to the rescue was because SOF “were still expecting to extricate themselves from the unfolding mess because in their hearts they believed they could.” Michael Whetstone, Madness in Mogadishu: Commanding the 10th Mountain

3. S O M A L I A

32 3

Division’s Quick Reaction Company During Black Hawk Down (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 2015), 126–128; Henry H. Shelton, Ronald Levinson, and Malcolm McConnell, Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior (New York: Macmillan, 2010), 218–219. 44. Baumann notes that “to at least a few observers in the conventional forces, TF Ranger behaved with a swagger that was irksome at best and reckless at worst.” Baumann, “My Clan Against the World,” 144. See also the discussion in Poole, The Effort to Save Somalia, 55, 84n40. 45. Report from Senators John Warner and Carl Levin, “Review of the Circumstances Surrounding the Ranger Raid on October 3–4, 1993 in Mogadishu, Somalia,” September 29, 1995, 50. Hereafter cited as Senate Report. 46. Mark Moyar, Oppose Any Foe: The Rise of America’s Special Operations Forces (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 193. 47. For an in-depth assessment of how national security system limitations affected operations in Somalia, see Christopher Lamb with Nicholas Moon, “Somalia: Did Leaders or the System Fail?” in Case Studies, vol. 1 (Arlington, VA: Project on National Security Reform, 2008). 48. On SOCOM’s position, see Gen. Powell’s testimony, Senate Report, 26. For the position of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict), see note 13. On the office of the Assistant Secretary position, see note 12. 49. Senate Report, 50. 50. Senate Report, 49–50. 51. Senate Report, 39. 52. Smith, Killer Elite, 169, 177–179. 53. Senate Report, 51. 54. Peterson, Me Against My Brother, 139–140. 55. Senate Report, for Aspin comments, 41; for Hoar comments 39–40. 56. See the discussion in note 25, this chapter. 57. Shultz, “Showstoppers,” 28. 58. Shultz, “Showstoppers,” 28. 59. Peterson, Me Against My Brother, 151. 60. See Matt Eversmann and Dan Schilling, The Battle of Mogadishu (Novato, CA: Presidio, 2004), 204–207; Boykin, Never Surrender, 290. 61. Michael Alvis quotes a 1994 RAND study that found mounting casualties in Korea and Vietnam inclined “a growing number of Americans [to favor] escalation of the conflicts to bring them back to a quick—and victorious— end,” a pattern he argues was repeated in the Persian Gulf War. More recently, scholarship has argued leadership is a much more important independent variable for public support than casualties. Richard Lacquement, for example, summarizes numerous other studies in making the case that “even when

324

3. S O M A L I A

support for a military operation wanes over time there is no compelling evidence that the public expects either immediate withdrawal or escalation simply in response to casualties.” Instead, “the public weighs the costs and benefits of the use of force, and the interests involved.” Lacquement also finds that when risk of casualties is relatively low, public willingness to escalate in situations of even marginal importance increases, citing Kosovo operations as an example. See Benjamin C. Schwartz, Casualties, Public Opinion, and U.S. Military Intervention: Implications for U.S. Regional Deterrence Strategies (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1994), ix, quoted in Micahel W. Alvis, “Understanding the Role of Casualties,” Landpower Essay Series, Association of the U.S. Army, January 1999, 3; and Richard Lacquement, “The Casualty-Aversion Myth,” Naval War College Review 57, no. 2 (Winter 2004). 62. SOF leaders do not ascribe specific lessons learned to Somalia, but some have gone on record about the experience. Some, including Lt. Gen. Francis Beaudette, head of U.S. Army Special Operations Command, emphasize tactical lessons such as the “criticality of being comprehensively ready,” and “realistic training and repetition to the point of mastery.” Gen. Stanley McChrystal extracted a broader lesson about preparing the force to “win,” writing that “Mogadishu carried a whiff of failure, a reminder that despite the progress we’ve made sense Eagle lcaw 13 years earlier, the possibility of death and defeat was always at hand. That reality focused and drove us as we labored to develop a force that would win.” Some civilian defense experts, such as Andrew Bascevich, claim nothing has been learned from Somalia and that the only—and obvious—lesson to be learned from the experience is that fighting irregular forces in congested urban environments is “futile.” Todd Smith, “The Battle of Mogadishu 25 Years Later: How the Fateful Fight Changed Combat Operations,” Army Times Online, October 3, 2018, https://www.armytimes .com/news/your-army/2018/10/02/the-battle-of-mogadishu-25-years-later -how-the-fateful-fight-changed-combat-operations/; and Stanley A. McChrystal, My Share of the Task: A Memoir, updated ed. (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2014), 60; Andrew J. Bacevich, “The Forgotten Lessons of Black Hawk Down,” New York Times, October 4, 2018. 63. SOF efforts to improve intelligence capability are reviewed in the next chapter. For SOF lessons from Somalia on inadequate intelligence, see the discussion in Smith, Killer Elite, 186.

4. HIGH-VALUE TARGET TEAMS

This chapter draws upon previous research on SOF high-value targeting teams coauthored by one of the authors, but it omits the organizational analysis of those teams in that publication. See Christopher Lamb and Evan Munsing,

4 . H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

32 5

“Secret Weapon: High-value Target Teams as an Organizational Innovation,” Strategic Perspectives 4, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University (March 2011). 1. Julian Borger, The Butcher’s Trail: How the Search for Balkan War Criminals Became the World’s Most Successful Manhunt (New York: Other Press, 2016), 8. 2. Cited in Michael Smith, Killer Elite: The Inside Story of America’s Most Secret Forces Unit (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006), 200. 3. Richard Shultz, “Showstoppers: Nine Reasons Why We Never Sent Our Special Operations Forces After al Qaeda Before 9/11,” Weekly Standard, January 26, 2004. 4. Dana Priest and William M. Arkin. Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State (New York: Little, Brown, 2013), 235–36; Smith, Killer Elite, 232–234. 5. David Tucker, The End of Intelligence: Espionage and State Power in the Information Age (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014), 127–160, especially 128–135. 6. Smith, Killer Elite, 207. 7. Henry H. Shelton, Ronald Levinson, and Malcolm McConnell. Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior (New York: Macmillan, 2010), 282–283. 8. See Smith, Killer Elite, 260–63. Among other things, 700 intelligence specialists were added to assist SOF teams with planning and preparing operations, “both at special operations command in Tampa, and in the five theater commands covering the different parts of the world, in order to provide the actionable intelligence the special operations forces needed to do their job.” 9. Doyle interview. 10. Peter Blaber, The Men, the Mission, and Me: Lessons from a Former Delta Force Commander (New York: Berkley Caliber, 2008), 230. 11. Matthew F. Bogdanos, “Joint Interagency Cooperation: The First Step,” Joint Force Quarterly 37 (2d Quarter 2005): 11; Smith, Killer Elite, 223. 12. Bogdanos, “Joint Interagency Cooperation: The First Step,” 11. 13. At about the same time, John Sylvester and David Petraeus, the commander and deputy for operations of stabilization forces in Bosnia, also created a joint interagency task force (JIATF) to track terrorist funding that drew together military and Embassy personnel as well as the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and international law enforcement, intelligence, and operational partners. Jeanne Hull, “ ‘We’re All Smarter Than Any One of Us’: The Role of Inter-Agency Intelligence Organizations in Combating Armed Groups,” Journal of International and Public Affairs (2008): 37–38.

326

4 . H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

14. Naylor describes the effort mounted in the Pentagon well, including the fact that Stanley McChrystal played a significant role in getting the Counterterrorism Campaign Support Group approved. McChrystal went on to play the critical role in transforming SOF’s high value targeting capabilities. 15. Evan Munsing and Christopher Lamb, “Joint Interagency Task ForceSouth: The Best Known, Least Understood Interagency Success,” Strategic Perspectives 5, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University (June 2011). 16. Author interview with Interviewee 15, who preferred to remain anonymous, on August 13, 2010. 17. Author interview with Adm. Dennis Sirois, Director of JIATF–East from 2002 to 2004, June 8, 2009. Rumsfeld returned at least once more to JIATF South in 2005 while secretary of defense. Capt. Marc Luoma, USN (retired), J2 from May 2003 to June 2007, e-mail communication with author, November 15, 2010. 18. Interview with Capt. Marc Luoma, USN (Ret.), J2 from May 2003 to June 2007, June 15, 2010. 19. Interview with Lt. Col. David Scott Doyle, army Ranger with experience in cross-functional teams and fusion cells in Afghanistan and Iraq, October 19, 2009. 20. Doyle interview. 21. Work interview. 22. Doyle interview. Other disciplines, like information operations, also habitually segregated intelligence and operations to their disadvantage from the SOF perspective. Interview with SOF intelligence officer who also served on a JIATF, February 19, 2010. 23. Doyle interview. 24. Interview with FBI supervisory special agent with multiple deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, October 28, 2009. Military sources (such as LTC David Scott Doyle) agreed with this characterization. 25. See Christopher J. Lamb and Martin Cinnamond, Unity of Effort: Key to Success in Afghanistan, Strategic Forum 248 (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, October 2009), www.ndu.edu/inss/docUploaded /SF248_Lamb.pdf. 26. Hull, “ ‘We’re All Smarter Than Any One of Us,’ ” 42. 27. Interview with counterterrorism expert who served on three interagency task forces, April 6, 2010. 28. Hull, “ ‘We’re All Smarter Than Any One of Us’ ” 42. 29. Interview with SOF Task Force intelligence officer who also served on a JIATF, February 19, 2010. 30. Collocation with one such team made this easier. Interview with Tres Hurst, former Special Forces officer with multiple deployments as an interagency team leader, November 13, 2009.

4 . H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

32 7

31. These large-scale raids for psychological effect were controversial inside the Special mission units. Smith, Killer Elite, 218–220. 32. Dana Priest and William M. Arkin. Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State (New York: Little, Brown, 2013), 237. 33. Interview with Tres Hurst, former Special Forces officer with multiple deployments as an interagency team leader, November 13, 2009. 34. Richard H. Shultz, Military Innovation in War: It Takes a Learning Organization: A Case Study of Task Force 714 in Iraq, JSOU Report 16-6 (Tampa, FL Joint Special Operations University, 2016), 66. 35. Shultz, Military Innovation in War, 66. It has been suggested that the mid-level managers eliminated might be replaced by those younger and less experienced, but also more aggressive. The research on this is not well established. See Andrew Cockburn, Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins (New York: Picador, 2016), 204. Cockburn references analysis that purportedly demonstrates “that dead or captured Taliban commanders were quickly replaced, almost invariably by someone more aggressive.” 36. Stanley A. McChrystal, My Share of the Task: A Memoir (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2014), 162. 37. Shultz, Military Innovation in War, 67. 38. Shultz, Military Innovation in War, 8. 39. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 2014. See also Lamb and Munsing, “Secret Weapon; and Shultz, Military Innovation in War; and Dana Priest and Priest and Arkin, Top Secret America. 40. Shultz, Military Innovation in War, 26; Chris Fussell and C. W. Goodyear, One Mission: How Leaders Build a Team of Teams (New York: Penguin, 2017), 83. 41. Boykin interview. 42. Former task force member interview. 43. Interview with SOF flag officer, January 14, 2009. 44. Based on discussions with JCOA staff and review of documents. 45. Interview with SOF flag officer, JCOA, February 23, 2009. 46. Hurst interview. 47. Special Forces and Task Force Freedom operations officer interview. 48. FBI supervisory special agent interview; Boykin interview. 49. SOF Task Force intelligence officer interview. 50. Former task force member interview. 51. Interview with senior Special Forces officer with service in Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force–Arabian Peninsula, March 16, 2010. 52. Interview with SOF flag officer, January 14, 2009. 53. Interview with SOF flag officer, JCOA, January 14, 2009. 54. Senior Special Forces officer interview. 55. Mark Moyar, Oppose Any Foe: The Rise of America’s Special Operations Forces (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 278.

328

4 . H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

56. Moyar, Oppose Any Foe, 278. 57. SOF Task Force intelligence officer interview. 58. A good source for gaining an appreciation of the extent to which Rangers conducted high value target raids on their own is Marty Skovlund, Charles Faint, Leo Jenkins, and Mat Best. Violence of Action: The Untold Stories of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the War on Terror (Colorado Springs, Blackside Concepts, 2014), 117–18, 121–22, 128, 193, 286–87, and 368. For the use of 82nd Airborne Division units to do high value targeting, see Michael R Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama (New York: Vintage, 2013), 335–336. 59. Moyar, Oppose Any Foe, 279. 60. This point was made by several sources, including MAJ James Work, e-mail to authors, April 12, 2010. 61. For some of the extraordinary steps USSOCOM took to get additional ISR and interrogators, see McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 157, 177–79. 62. Bob Woodward, “Why Did the Violence Plummet? It Wasn’t Just the Surge,” Washington Post, September 8, 2008. 63. Senior intelligence officer responsible for Iraq, 2008; JCOA meeting notes, author visit, December 8–9, 2010. 64. Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006– 2008 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008), 380. The JCOA is another major source, albeit one within the government, attesting to the value of these teams. JCOA hosted one of the authors and provided access to its rich set of analyses and primary sources on Iraq in general and Task Force Freedom in particular. 65. Former task force member interview; Doyle interview. 66. Former task force member interview. 67. Shultz, Military Innovation in War, 67. 68. Cited in Shultz, Military Innovation in War, 68. 69. LTG Raymond Odierno, “The Surge in Iraq: One Year Later,” lecture at the Heritage Foundation, March 13, 2008, www.heritage.org/Research/Lecture /The-Surge-in-Iraq-One-Year-Later. 70. Scott Simon, “Evaluating the Surge in Iraq,” transcript of interview with Stephen Biddle, National Public Radio, September 13, 2008, www.npr.org /templates/story/story.php?storyId=94591166. 71. Thomas Ricks, The Gamble (New York: Penguin Press, 2009), stresses that changes in U.S. leadership and strategy led to success in Iraq. David Kilcullen, author of The Accidental Guerrilla (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), suggests that the support of the Iraqi population and tribes turned around Iraq. Stephen Biddle emphasized “local, voluntary decisions to stop fighting” in his testimony to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, http://www

4 . H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

32 9

.cfr.org/publication/15925/prepared_testimony_before_the_senate_committee _on_foreign_relations.html?breadcrumb=%2Fbios%2F2603%2Fstephen _biddle. In “The Anbar Awakening: An Alliance of Incentives,” Washington Quarterly (January 2009), John McCary argues Iraqi tribal leaders decided to cooperate with the American military out of fear that their positions were being undermined by violence. Others suggest that the United States “bought” stability by paying Iraqi indigenous people; see, for example, Shane Bauer, “The Sheikh Down,” Mother Jones (September 2009), http://motherjones.com /politics/2009/09/sheik-down?page-2. Still others argue for a combination of factors; see, for example, Dylan Matthews and Ezra Klein, “How Important Was the Surge?” American Prospect, July 28, 2008, www.prospect.org/cs /articles?article-how_important_was_the_surge. 72. See for example, Robert O’Neill, The Operator: Firing the Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior (New York: Scribner, 2017), 182. 73. Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006– 2008 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 380. 74. Shultz, Military Innovation in War, 1. 75. Moyar, Oppose Any Foe, 276–77. 76. Interview with Gen. Stanley McChrystal by Joseph Collins, Frank Hoffman, Nathan White, April 2, 2015. 77. Thanassis Cambanis, “U.S., Iraqi Troops Fight to Retake Control in Mosul,” Boston Globe, November 17, 2004, www.boston.com/news/world /articles/2004/11/17/us_iraqi_troops_fight_to_retake_control_in_mosul. 78. Department of Defense, Special Defense Department Operational Update Briefing on Operations in Northwest Iraq, September 14, 2005, http:// www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid-2109. 79. Robert Hulslander, “The Operations of Task Force Freedom in Mosul, Iraq: A Best Practice in Joint Operations,” JCOA Journal 9, no. 3 (September 2007): 18–19. 80. Interview with Special Forces and Task Force Freedom operations officer, December 10, 2009. 81. Special Forces and Task Force Freedom operations officer interview. 82. Special Forces and Task Force Freedom operations officer, e-mail to authors, 10 April 2010. 83. Col. Robert Brown, video teleconference from Mosul to the 3/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team Lessons Learned Conference, March 23, 2005. 84. Division commanders had more ISR and mobility assets, which were in short supply for conventional units (unlike the SOF Task Force). Also, conventional forces typically could only muster interagency representation at the division level. Interview with army officer who served in the 10th Mountain

33 0

4 . H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

Division in Afghanistan and was the operations officer for a Ranger CFT in Afghanistan and Iraq, October 26, 2009. 85. Special Forces and Task Force Freedom operations officer interview. 86. Daniel Gonzales et al., Networked Forces in Stability Operations: 101st Airborne Division, 3/2 and 1/25 Stryker Bridages in Northern Iraq (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2007), 113. 87. JCOA, interview with Task Force Freedom G2, May 14, 2005, in “A Comprehensive Approach: Iraq Case Study,” PowerPoint presentation, slide AN 3f. 88. Hulslander, “The Operations of Task Force Freedom in Mosul,” 19. 89. Special Forces and Task Force Freedom operations officer interview. 90. Special Forces and Task Force Freedom operations officer interview. 91. ICITAP partners American law enforcement officials with host countries to professionalize local law enforcement institutions and build the rule of law. This emphasizes protecting human rights, fighting corruption, and eliminating transnational crime and terrorism. ICITAP partners with the Departments of State and Defense, U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Special Forces and Task Force Freedom operations officer interview. 92. JCOA, “A Comprehensive Approach: Iraq Case Study,” slide AN 2d. 93. Lawrence Lewis, “High Value Individual Targeting and ISR in a Counterinsurgency: Operation Iraqi Freedom,” JCOA, “A Comprehensive Approach: Iraq Case Study,” 2. 94. Doyle interview. 95. George Packer, “The Lesson of Tal Afar,” New Yorker, April 20, 2006, http:// www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/04/10/060410fa_fact2?currentPage-all. 96. Former Special Forces officer and Task Force Freedom Operations Officer, e-mail to the authors, 14 April 2010. 97. Ricks, The Gamble, 60–61. 98. Interview with Brigadier Gen. H. R. McMaster, 26 May 2010. 99. Interview with Brigadier Gen. H. R. McMaster, 26 May 2010. 100. Ricks, The Gamble, 59. 101. Neil McChrystal and Sean MacFarland, “Anbar Awakens: The Tipping Point,” Military Review (March–April 2008): 42. 102. Interview with Brigadier Gen. Sean MacFarland, March 9, 2010. 103. McChrystal and MacFarland, “Anbar Awakens,” 43. 104. Interview with a flag officer who served as a field grade officer in Ramadi in 2006, March 9, 2010. 105. MacFarland interview. 106. Ricks, The Gamble, 65. 107. Neil McChrystal and Sean MacFarland, “Anbar Awakens,” 50. 108. MacFarland interview; Ricks, The Gamble, 69ff.

4 . H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

33 1

109. Flag officer interview. 110. MacFarland interview. 111. E-mail from senior Special Forces officer, April 13, 2010. 112. Notable examples include Lt. Col. Dale Alford in Qaim, Iraq, in 2005, and army Col. Michael M. Kershaw in Mahmoudiya, or the “Triangle of Death” in 2007. On Alford, see William Knarr, “Al Sahawa—the Awakening, Volume III-A: Al Anbar Province, Western Euphrates River Valley, Area of Operations Denver—Al Qaim,” Institute for Defense Analyses, November 2015; on Kershaw, see Dale Andradé, Surging South of Baghdad: The 3d Infantry Division and Task Force Marne in Iraq, 2007–2008. (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 2010). 113. Moyar, Oppose Any Foe, 279–80. 114. See the more detailed accounts in Lamb and Musing, “Secret Weapon.” 115. The phrase “network-based targeting” is used in multiple sources, including “A Comprehensive Approach: Iraq Case Study.” 116. “A Comprehensive Approach: Iraq Case Study.” 117. And trust in particular. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 153–54. 118. Work, e-mail. 119. This point has been made with respect to Iraq and, more recently, Afghanistan. See, respectively, Richard H. Shultz Jr. and Roy Godson, “Intelligence Dominance: A Better Way Forward in Iraq,” Weekly Standard, July 31, 2006; and Michael T. Flynn, Matt Pottinger, and Paul D. Batchelor, “Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan,” Center for a New American Security, January 2010, www.cnas.org/files/documents /press/AfghanIntel_Flynn_Jan2010_code507_voices.pdf. 120. Michael Flynn, Rich Jergens, and Thomas Cantrell, “Employing ISR: SOF Best Practices,” Joint Force Quarterly 50 (3rd Quarter 2008): 60. 121. Flynn, Jergens, and Cantrell, “Employing ISR,” 56. 122. General Boykin made this point in our interview and elsewhere: “We’re trying to operationalize intelligence . . . to achieve the kind of synergy where our analysts are driving our collections. We caught Saddam Hussein because we had analysts putting a puzzle together where they were literally turning to operators across the room and saying, ‘Here’s what I need you to get.’ The operator would then get the imagery or capture an individual and interrogate him and then feed that information directly back to the analysts, who would put that into the puzzle and say: ‘OK, the next thing I need is the following.’ ” McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 261. 123. Based on discussions with JCOA staff and review of documents, December 8, 2009. 124. Eric Hillard, “The Brain That Harnesses the Brawn of the War in Iraq,” Pacific Air Forces website, December 7, 2006, no longer available.

33 2

4 . H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

125. Senior Special Forces officer interview. 126. Linda Robinson, Tell Me How This Ends (New York: PublicAffairs, 2008), 106. 127. JCOA, The Comprehensive Approach, 5. 128. JCOA, The Comprehensive Approach, 9. 129. This quotation is from an interview with MNF-I Deputy CJ5, October 30, 2008, recorded in briefing slides entitled, “A Comprehensive Approach: Iraq Case Study,” (slide AN1a3), produced by the Joint Staff’s Joint Center for Operational Analysis, which hosted the author in Norfolk, Virginia and provided these materials to him on December 8, 2009. 130. For example, see Robinson, Tell Me How This Ends, 22. 131. For example, Operation Seventh Veil was initiated by the 2nd Brigade Combat Team in 2007 to investigate corrupt Iraqi soldiers and civil servants in northwest Baghdad. By properly investigating criminal allegations, the 2nd BCT increased Iraqi government accountability and gained valuable intelligence on illegal militias and weapons trafficking as well as other criminal activities by Iraqi officials. “Operation Seventh Veil: Malign Officials and the Rule of Law,” Best Practices in Counterinsurgency Case Study #1, Institute for the Study of War, April 1, 2010. 132. Senior Special Forces officer interview. 133. Daniel Gonzales et al., Networked Forces in Stability Operations: 101st Airborne Division, 3/2 and 1/25 Stryker Bridages in Norther Iraq (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2007), xxxi. 134. JCOA, The Comprehensive Approach: An Iraq Case Study, 9. 135. Ibid. 136. Work, e-mail. 137. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 621–622. 138. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 620. 139. For example, Special Forces Capt. Travis Patriquin’s role in Ramadi has been well documented. See William Doyle, A Soldier’s Dream: Captain Travis Patriquin and the Awakening of Iraq (New York: New American Library, 2012); and Jim Michaels, A Chance in Hell: The Men Who Triumphed Over Iraq’s Deadliest City and Turned the Tide of War (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2011). For McMaster’s use of Special Forces in Tal Afar, see Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame. For how marine Lt. Col. Dale Alfrod’s work in Qaim, Iraq, benefited from Special Forces Capt. Jim Calvert and other ODA commanders, see William Knarr, “Al Sahawa—the Awakening, Volume III-A: Al Anbar Province, Western Euphrates River Valley, Area of Operations Denver—Al Qaim,” Institute for Defense Analyses, November 2015. Knarr also has a monograph of these Special Forces work done in Western Iraq near Qaim: William Knarr, The 2005 Iraqi Sunni Awakening: The Role of the Desert Protectors Program, JSOU Press Report 15–4 (Tampa, FL: Joint Special Operations University, 2015). See also

4 . H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

333

the account of marine Gen. James Mattis’s appreciation for the work of Special Forces Maj. Adam Such in Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame. For the work of Special Forces Maj. Jim Gavrilis in Ar Rutbah, see Mark Moyar, A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010). More generally, Bing West illuminates the roles played by former Special Forces officers Keith Mines and Kalev Sepp in Francis J. West, The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq (New York: Random House, 2009). 140. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 162. 141. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 240. 142. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 240. 143. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 242. 144. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 240–242. 145. Mark Urban, Task Force Black: The Explosive True Story of the Sas and the Secret War in Iraq (London: Abacus, 2011), 80. 146. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 242. 147. Interview with Gen. Stanley McChrystal by Joseph Collins, Frank Hoffman, Nathan White, April 2, 2015. 148. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 243. 149. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 246. 150. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 248, 261. 151. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 259. 152. McChrystal, My Share of the Task, 246. 153. Interview with Gen. Stanley McChrystal by Joseph Collins, Frank Hoffman, and Nathan White, April 2, 2015. 154. McChrystal also explained his thinking about Afghanistan in light of what he experienced in Iraq: “I’d been in that fight [i.e., Iraq] for so long, and we didn’t start to get it right until we changed the way we did it and thought more broadly. . . . So when I went into Afghanistan, I was thinking . . . of it as a strategic problem, and there were certainly people saying, ‘Nah, we just need to kill this many Taliban a month,’ or you know, whatever, not inside the military necessarily. And I was already convinced that wouldn’t work.” Interview with Gen. Stanley McChrystal by Joseph Collins, Frank Hoffman, and Nathan White, April 2, 2015. 155. See, for example, Adm. Olson testimony in Hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities: Hearing to Receive Testimony on U.S. Special Operations Command in Review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2010 and the Future Years Defense Program, June 18, 2009; and Adm. McRaven testimony in Hearing of the House Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities: The Future of U.S. Special Operations Forces: Ten Years After 9/11 and Twenty-Five Years After Goldwater-Nichols, September 22, 2011. 156. Priest and Arkin, Top Secret America, 251. 157. Priest and Arkin, Top Secret America, 251.

33 4

4 . H I G H - VA L U E TA R G E T T E A M S

158. Bob Woodward, Obama’s Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 315. 159. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 315. 160. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 317. 161. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 355. 162. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 357. 163. This was a standing concern. See Christopher Lamb and Martin Cinnamond, “Unity of Effort: Key to Success in Afghanistan,” Strategic Forum, No. 248, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University (October 2009). 164. “McChrystal Bans Night Raids Without Afghan Troops,” Reuters, March 5, 2010. 165. McChrystal, interview. 166. Interview with Gen. Stanley McChrystal by Joseph Collins, Frank Hoffman, and Nathan White, April 2, 2015. 167. Lute, interview. 168. Cockburn, Kill Chain. 169. Many senior leaders came to believe this basic counterinsurgency tenet in the latter days of the George W. Bush administration. See Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen on this point, CNN, Wed., September 10, 2008; http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/10/mullen.afghanistan/. See also Christian Brose, “The Making of George W. Obama,” Foreign Policy, October 1, 2009, http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/01/the-making-of-george-w-obama/. For Petraus quote, see Babak Dehghanpisheh, “How The Iraq War Changes U.S. Officers,” Newsweek, March 15, 2008, http://www.newsweek.com/how-iraq-war -changes-us-officers-83711. 170. David Petraeus, “How We Won in Iraq,” Foreign Policy, October 29, 2013. 171. For an examination of how intelligence could err, see Cockburn’s discussion of how one SOF strike killed the wrong man, Zabet Amanullah, and not Mohammed Amin, a senior official of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Cockburn, Kill Chain, 190–204. 172. Mandy Clark and Fazul Rahim, “Karzai Boldly Bans Right Raids, Home Searches,” CBS News, November 16, 2011. 173. Cited in Tom Ricks, “Quote of the Day: General Allen on the Success of Night Ops in Afghanistan,” Foreign Policy, March, 23, 2012, http:// foreignpolicy.com/2012/03/23/quote-of-the-day-general-allen-on-the-success -of-night-ops-in-afghanistan/. 174. Emma Graham-Harrison. “Afghanistan Takes Control of Night Raids from U.S,” Guardian, April 8, 2012. 175. Rod Nordlan and Taimoor Shah,“Afghanistan Quietly Lifts Ban on Nighttime Raids.” New York Times, November 23, 2014

5. V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

335

176. Eric Schmitt, “Commando Raids on ISIS Yield Vital Data in Shadowy War,” New York Times, June 25, 2017. 177. See the discussion of interagency teams in the Project on National Security Report, Forging a New Shield (Washington, DC: PNSR, 2008). 178. For McChrystal’s discussion of the broader applicability of the high-value target team experience, see Stanley A. McChrystal, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2015). 179. For more on how high-value targeting fit within the broader scope of national decision making on the Afghanistan and Iraq interventions, see Christopher J. Lamb with Megan Franco, “National-Level Coordination and Implementation: How System Attributes Trumped Leadership,” in Lessons Encountered: Learning from the Long War, ed. Richard D. Hooker Jr. and Joseph J. Collins (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2014). 180. Doyle McManus, “A Smaller, Smarter Military: The Best-Equipped Army in the World Can Still Lose a War if It Doesn’t Understand the People It’s Fighting,” Los Angeles Times, April 22, 2012. 181. See Scott R. Mitchell’s revealing article, “Observations of a Strategic Corporal,” Military Review (July/August 2012). The issue of whether commanders embraced counterinsurgency doctrine is reviewed at greater length in Christopher J. Lamb, James Douglas Orton, Michael Davies, and Ted Pikulsky, Human Terrain Teams: An Organizational Innovation for Sociocultural Knowledge in Irregular Warfare (Washington, DC: Institute for World Politics Press, 2013). 182. For a review and comparison of the CIA Lessons Learned Center and the Joint Center for Operational Analysis studies on high value target teams, see Lamb and Munsing, “Secret Weapon,” 35–36. 183. The author is indebted to a SOF flag officer for this and other insights in this and the next paragraph. Interview with SOF general officer, April 7, 2017. 184. Ibid. 185. See, for example, O’Neill, The, 182. O’Neill objects to conducting operations without requisite intelligence to justify them because they could lead to the loss of an entire helicopter full of men when all that was at stake was the possibility of nabbing a relatively junior insurgent.

5. VILLAGE STABILITY OPERATIONS

1. D. J. Mattingly, “War and Peace in Roman North Africa: Observations and Models of State-Tribe Interaction,” in War in the Tribal Zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare, ed. R. Brian Ferguson and Neil L. Whitehead (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1992), 31–60; Brent D. Shaw, “Fear and Loathing: The Nomad Menace and Roman Africa,” in Roman Africa,

33 6

5. V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

ed. C. Wells (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1982), 29–50; Joseph Vogt, Hildegard Temporini, Wolfgang Hasse, and R. Rebuffat, “Au-delà des camps romains d’Afrique mineure: renseigenment, contrôle, penetration,” Augstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt 2 (1982): 474–513. 2. For a brief account, see David Tucker, Revolution and Resistance: Moral Revolution, Military Might, and the End of Empire (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), 107–114. As this account notes, civilian officials have been as responsible as military officers for America’s need to relearn how to deal with irregular warfare. 3. This account of VSO is based on Linda Robinson, One Hundred Victories: Special Operations and the Future of American Warfare (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013); Ronald Fry, Hammerhead Six: How Green Berets Waged an Unconventional War Against the Taliban to Win in Afghanistan’s Deadly Pech Valley (New York: Hachette, 2017); and Daniel R. Green, In the Warlords’ Shadow: Special Operations Forces, the Afghans, and Their Fight Against the Taliban (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2017); Col. Ty Connett and Col. Bob Cassidy, “Village Stability Operations: More Than Village Defense,” Special Warfare 24, no. 3 (July–September 2011): 22–27; and CWO-3 Stephen N. Rust, “The Nuts and Bolts of Village Stability Operations,” Special Warfare 24, no. 3 (July– September 2011): 28–31; Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Stabilization: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan (Arlington, VA: SIGAR, 2018). 4. Connett and Cassidy, “Village Stability Operations,” 24; Rust, “The Nuts and Bolts of Stability Operations,” 28. 5. Connett and Cassidy, “Village Stability Operations,” 24. 6. SIGAR, Stabilization, 110. 7. https://www.usaid.gov/afghanistan/democracy-governance, accessed April 24, 2019. 8. SIGAR, Stabilization, 116–17. 9. Mark Moyar, Village Stability Operations and the Afghan Local Police (Tampa, FL: Joint Special Operations University, 2014), 23. 10. The chart is based on Lisa Saum-Manning, “VSO/ALP: Comparing Past and Current Challenges to Afghan Local Defense,” RAND Working Paper WR-936 (December 2012), 12. 11. Catherine Dale, “War in Afghanistan: Strategy, Operations, and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, March 9, 2011, 48. 12. Fry, Hammerhead Six, recounts one effort that occurred from fall 2003 through spring 2004. 13. Dale, “War in Afghanistan,” 48–49. 14. SIGAR, Stabilization, 109–10. 15. Saum-Manning, “VSO/ALP,” 4.

5. V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

33 7

16. Saum-Manning, “VSO/ALP,” 7. 17. SIGAR, Stabilization, 111, 112, 114, 115, 120. 18. Bing West, The Village (1972; New York: Pocket Books, 2000); United States Marine Corps, The Small Wars Manual (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1940); Brian McCallister Linn, The U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippines War, 1899–1902 (Chapel Hill, NC: North Carolina University Press, 1989). 19. SIGAR, Stabilization, 109–10. 20. John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 1688–1783 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988). 21. Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2011), is a recent effort to chart the development of the various political arrangements under which humans live their lives. Fukuyama explains how Europe and America moved from tribalism to individualism, with governments having direct power over individuals, but individuals nevertheless maintaining their freedom. 22. On Nicaragua, see David Brooks, “Marines, Miskitos, and the Hunt for Sandino,” Journal of Latin American Studies 21, no. 2 (May 1989): 311–42. 23. For more on information technology and state power, see David Tucker, The End of Intelligence: Espionage and State Power in the Information Age (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014). 24. Consider C. E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1896; reprint, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 41; Robert M. Utley, “The Contribution of the Frontier to the American Military Tradition,” in The American Military on the Frontier, the Proceedings of the 7th Military History Symposium, United States Air Force Academy, 30 September–1 October, 1976, ed. James P. Tate (Honolulu, HI: University Press of the Pacific, 1978), 11. 25. Tucker, Revolution and Resistance, 49–58. 26. Maj. B. C. Dening, “Modern Problems of Guerrilla Warfare,” Army Quarterly and Defense Journal 13 (1926): 347–354. Dening’s article is one of a number published in British military journals in the 1920s reflecting on the changed circumstances of imperial policing. Dening acknowledged the need to address grievances. 27. Interestingly, John Adams used the phrase (“minds and hearts”) to describe what made the American Revolution possible. John Adams to Hezekiah Niles, February 13, 1818, https://founders.archives.gov/documents /Adams/99-02-02-6854. 28. Words from the U.S. Agency for International Development website in 2010, when Village Stability Operations were ongoing. https://blog.usaid

33 8

5. V I L L A G E S TA B I L I T Y O P E R AT I O N S

.gov/?s=broad-scale+human+progress+, accessed May 15, 2019. See also https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do, accessed May 15, 2019 29. As USAID claims (https://www.usaid.gov/who-we-are/usaid-history), the United States pioneered the idea of progress as a foreign policy goal, although this idea is a variant of the moral justification for empire as a civilizing force that both Europeans and Americans embraced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For the role of modernization theory in the early 1960s and after, see Tucker, Revolution and Resistance, 109–115, and the sources cited there. The U.S. remains perhaps more committed to this view of foreign policy than any other nation, although its Anglo roots are evident in the British equivalent of USAID, https://www.gov.uk/government /organisations/department-for-international-development/about#who-we-are, accessed April 24, 2019. 30. David Tucker, Confronting the Unconventional: Innovation and Transformation in Military Affairs (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2006); Austin Long, The Soul of Armies: Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Military Culture in the US and UK (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016). 31. Melissa Dell and Pablo Querubin, “Nation Building Through Foreign Intervention: Evidence from Discontinuities in Military Strategies,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 22395 (July 2016): 26 and abstract, http://www.nber.org/papers/w22395. Dell and Querubin cite a number of other analytical studies that bear on the issue they analyze. 32. Andrew Beath, Fotini Christia, and Ruben Enikolopov, “Winning Hearts and Minds Through Development? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan,” Policy Research Working Paper 6129, World Bank (July 2012), 22, http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/455111467989984735/pdf/WPS6129 .pdf. 33. Eli Berman, Michael Callen, Joseph H. Felter, and Jacob N. Shapiro, “Do Working Men Rebel? Insurgency and Unemployment in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 55, no. 4 (2011): 496–528; Alan Kreuger, What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018). 34. Beath, Christia, and Enikolopov, “Winning Hearts and Minds through Development?,” 22, notes that development reduces violence only in the long term, which suggests that it works by decreasing the number of insurgent personnel rather than increasing the information of the counterinsurgents. 35. For an elaboration of some of the arguments in this paragraph, along with three brief supporting case studies, see Stephen Biddle, Julia Macdonald, and Ryan Baker, “Small Footprint, Small Payoff: The Military Effectiveness of Security Force Assistance,” Journal of Strategic Studies 41, no. 1–2 (April 2017): 89–142, doi:10.1080/01402390.2017.1307745.

6. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S R O L E S A N D M I S S I O N S

339

36. Craig Nelson, “U.S. Report Points to Setbacks in Afghanistan,” Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2018. 37. Michael Crowder, “Indirect Rule—French and British Style,” Africa 34, no. 3 (July 1964): 197–205. 38. Biddle, Macdonald, and Baker, “Small Footprint, Small Payoff,” 109–12.

6. SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES ROLES AND MISSIONS

1. Walter Haynes, “Elusive Victories: How Counterterrorism Campaigns Can Link Back Up with Strategy,” War on the Rocks, October 13, 2016, https://warontherocks.com/2016/10/elusive-victories-how-counterterrorism -campaigns-can-link-back-up-with-strategy/. 2. Colin S. Gray, “Handfuls of Heroes on Desperate Ventures: When Do Special Operations Succeed?” Parameters 29 (Spring 1999): 2–24. 3. “The CT force commander . . . famously and routinely stated, ‘We’ll do windows if that is what it takes to maintain our freedom of action.’ ” A SOF commander, cited in William B. Ostlund, “Irregular Warfare: Counterterrorism Forces in Support of Counterinsurgency Operations,” Land Warfare Papers, No. 91, Institute of Land Warfare, Association of the United States Army, (September 2012): 5. The same point about “willing to do windows” was made by a SOF general officer in an interview with the author. Interview with SOF general officer, Friday, April 7, 2017. 4. Interview with SOF general officer, April 7, 2017. 5. It is difficult to find a compelling definition of service roles, which must be constructed from multiple authoritative sources, including Joint Pub 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, and DoD Directive 5100.01, Functions of the Department of Defense and Its Major Components. See also John Collins, “Roles and Functions of U.S. Combat Forces: Past, Present, and Prospects,” CRS Report for Congress, no. 93–72S (January 1993); John Collins, “Military Roles and Missions: A Framework for Review,” CRS Report for Congress, no. 95–517S (May 1995); and Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Report on Roles, Missions and Functions of the Armed Forces of the United States, February 1993. Congress limits the ability of the president and secretary of defense to alter the enduring purposes of the services in Title 10, Section 125 unless war is deemed imminent. That said, the secretary of defense can assign primary and collateral functions to amplify statutory roles and missions identified by Congress. We are indebted to Jim Kurtz of the Institute for Defense Analyses for the congressional limitations on amending enduring service purposes as codified in Title 10. 6. Samuel Huntington, “National Policy and Transoceanic Navy,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (May 1954): 483; quoted in “Strategic Employment of

340

6. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S R O L E S A N D M I S S I O N S

Special Operations Forces and Requirements for Success, Phase II,” National Institute for Public Policy, Contract Number MDA 903-91-C-0030 (December 1992), a study conducted for the Office of the Assistant Secretary (Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict), 1. 7. For example, the Congressional Research Service states SOF more than doubled from around 33,000 personnel in 2001 to about 70,000 personnel as of early 2018. Andrew Feickert, “U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, April 20, 2018, 7. However, the SOF Posture Statement 2000 says SOF’s authorized end strength for 2001 was 29,164 active duty personnel, and recent congressional testimony indicates there are 56,177 active duty SOF personnel in 2018, an increase of 27,013, or a 92 percent increase, slightly less than a doubling. 8. Feickert, “U.S. Special Operations Forces,” notes official concerns about “unsustainable” optempo, and the estimate of one retired USSOCOM general officer who said, “We are not frayed at the edges—we’re ripped at the damn seams. We’ve burned through this force.” Substance abuse, divorce and other family problems, suicides within SOF ranks and families, and “increased incidences of battlefield mistakes” have all been attributed to overuse of SOF. 9. Kiras does an admirable job of summarizing the debate and its major participants. James D. Kiras, “A Theory of Special Operations: ‘These Ideas Are Dangerous,’ ” Special Operations Journal 1, no. 2 (2015): 75–88. Kiras draws upon Howard Winton in discussing the functions of a military theory: Howard Winton, “An Imperfect Jewel: Military Theory and the Military Profession,” Journal of Strategic Studies 34, no. 6 (2011): 853–877. 10. For the traditional take on air force special operations, see Herbert A. Mason, Randy G. Bergeron, and James A. Renfrow, Operation Thursday: Birth of the Air Commandos (Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2007). For Paul “Pappy” Gunn’s operations, see John R. Bruning, Indestructible: One Man’s Rescue Mission That Changed the Course of WWII (New York: Hachette, 2017). 11. United States Special Operations Command, Special Operations Forces Posture Statement, 2003–2004, 33. Currently USSOCOM posture statements tend to emphasize the highly dynamic and competitive nature of the international security environment in general. See General Raymond A. Thomas III, U.S. Army Commander United States Special Operations Command, Statement Before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, February 15, 2018. This testimony is posted on USSOCOM’s website as the command’s 2018 posture statement. 12. Department of the Army, ADRP 1–02, Terms and Military Symbols (Washington, DC.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2016), 1–28. In contrast, the Department of Defense defines a denied area more broadly as one in which “friendly

6. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S R O L E S A N D M I S S I O N S

3 41

forces cannot expect to operate successfully within existing operational constraints and force.” DOD, Joint Publication 3-05, Special Operations, July 16, 2014, GL-7. 13. James F. Dunnigan, The Perfect Soldier (New York: Citadel Press, 2003). 14. Centre for Conflict Studies Univeristy of New Brunswick, “Special Operations: Military Lessons from Six Selected Case Studies,” Contract FO 1600-80DO299 with JFK School, Fort Bragg (Fall 1982): 261, 264. 15. J. Paul de B. Taillon, The Evolution of Special Forces in Counterterrorism: The British and American Experiences (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001). 16. Department of Defense, Annual Report to President and Congress, 1998, chap. 4, “Special Operations Forces,” available at http://www.defenselink.mil /execsec/adr98/chap4.html, accessed February 10, 2005; emphasis added. For useful discussion of SOF’s dual heritage and the origins of the terms, direct and indirect (and a preference for the term, “warrior-diplomat” as opposed to “unconventional warrior”), which are traced to USSOCOM Commander, Wayne Downing, see then-Major Kenneth E. Tovo, “Special Forces’ Mission Focus for the Future,” School of Advanced Military Studies, United States Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2–4; 52n13. For a useful and more recent take on the subject that uses the Army’s doctrinal terms, “surgical strike” and “special warfare,” see David S. Maxwell, “Thoughts on the Future of Special Operations,” Small Wars Journal (November 2013), http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/thoughts-on-the-future-of-special -operations, accessed June 11, 2018. 17. Army Doctrine Reference Publication (ADRP) 3-05, Special Operations, Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington, DC, January 29, 2018. Surgical strike and special warfare are referred to as core competencies. The distinction was originally made in the previous version of the doctrine, published in August 2012. 18. Linda Robinson, Masters of Chaos (New York: Perseus, 2004), 365, attributed to Major General Geoffrey Lambert. 19. Thomas K. Adams, U.S. Special Forces in Action: The Challenge of Unconventional Warfare (London: Frank Cass, 1998). 20. For more detail on this point and its import for collaboration with other U.S. government agencies, see Christopher J. Lamb, “Global SOF and Interagency Collaboration,” Journal of Strategic Security, no. 2 (2014): 8–20. 21. Edward Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 113–116. Guerrillas and terrorists also employ a relational maneuver response to superior military strength, and also are critically reliant on accurate assessments of enemy weaknesses for success. However, the weakness they are trying to exploit—at least initially—is the self-restraint of regular forces constrained from destroying them with indiscriminate firepower for fear of causing excessive civilian casualties.

3 42

6. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S R O L E S A N D M I S S I O N S

22. Edward Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 153. 23. For a good theoretical treatment of how commando missions exploit enemy weakness, see McRaven, Spec Ops. McRaven distinguishes between catching the enemy unprepared (not likely), and catching him off guard (quite possible). He notes surprise is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for success and chides special ops tacticians who focus unduly on surprise. 24. Mark Bowden, Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001). 25. It could be argued that the deployment of Special Forces to Afghanistan after the terror attacks on 9/11 achieved this purpose, at least until the decision was made to bring in larger conventional forces. Colin Gray, “Strategic Employment of Special Operations Forces and Requirements for Success, Phase II,” National Institute for Public Policy, Contract Number MDA 903-91-C-0030 (December 1992), a study conducted for the Office of the Assistant Secretary (Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict). 26. Since the first edition of this book the SOF community has debated the value of the direct/indirect distinction extensively. Many, focusing on the confusion engendered by exceptions rather than the value of insights gleamed from generalization, find the distinction unhelpful and procrustean. Because of such criticisms, SOCOM leaders have largely stopped using the distinction in their public documents and testimony to Congress, something we consider a step back from more intensive management of SOF for greatest strategic effect. In our view, the criticisms have merit, but not enough to negate the general value of the direct/indirect categorization, which illuminates much more than it obscures. It is true that SOF can be used for both direct and indirect purposes, even if one or the other tends to predominate. It also is true that SOF can execute all assigned missions themselves or through other forces, even if some missions are more commonly conducted directly or indirectly. Similarly, any SOF missions may require a mix of direct and indirect skills and SOF forces that are more specialized in one than the other. However, it also is true that the purpose for which SOF are employed ought to drive the approach they use, which in turn indicates the mix of skills most needed, and thus the best units for performing the mission. Losing sight of this can prove disastrous: we believe this was the case in Somalia, and some would argue this has been the case in Afghanistan. Thus we find the direct/indirect distinction holds true in the main and is useful for describing and explaining SOF skills, forces, and missions, and more importantly, for assessing their strategic value and preparing and employing them appropriately. For more on the direct/indirect distinction, see Lamb, “Global SOF and Interagency Collaboration”; and Christopher J. Lamb, “The Future of U.S. Special Operations Forces,” Prepared Statement

6. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S R O L E S A N D M I S S I O N S

3 43

Before the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, House Armed Services Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, July 11, 2012. 27. For example, Malvesti argues the categorization of SOF missions as direct or indirect “conflates SOF missions with the methods used to accomplish them” and reinforces a tendency to associate some activities with certain SOF units and not others, all of which sows confusion. These concerns are valid but overstated. No categorization is perfect, but abandoning all categorization is also problematic. On the whole, we believe the advantages of categorization significantly outweigh the disadvantages and, moreover, are necessary to illuminate critical points relevant to an examination of SOF’s strategic value, which is our primary purpose in this book. Michele Malvesti, “Time for Action: Redefining SOF Missions and Activities,” Working Paper, Center for a New American Security (December 2009): 3. 28. James Lukas, Kommando: German Special Forces of World War II (New York: St. Martin’s, 1985). 29. James Stejskal, Special Forces Berlin: Clandestine Cold War Operations of the US Army’s Elite, 1956–1990 (Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2017), 205–206. 30. Steve Coll, Directorate S: The CIA and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan (New York: Allen Lane, 2018), 541. 31. Section 1208 of the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2005 (Public Law 108–375; 118 Slat. 2086), first gave DoD authority to fund foreign forces, irregular forces, groups, or individuals facilitating or acting in support of SOF operations. The provision was extended repeatedly (under different numbered sections of the NDAA) with varying amounts of funding increasing until it was made a permanent authority in the Fiscal Year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. Sometimes such funding has been set aside for specific purposes, such as SOF support for foreign forces fighting Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa and for others fighting ISIS in Syria. Section 1202 of FY2018 NDAA provides up to $10M per year through 2020 for foreign forces, irregular forces, groups, or individuals engaged in supporting or facilitating ongoing or future authorized irregular warfare operations by SOF. Statement of General Raymond A. Thomas III, U.S. Army, Commander, United States Special Operations Command, Before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats And Capabilities, February 15, 2018. 32. Linda Robinson, Patrick B. Johnston, and Gillian S. Oak, U.S. Special Operations Forces in the Philippines, 2001–2014 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2016) 33. See, for example, Paul McLeary, “Pentagon Investigating if U.S. Troops Knew of Torture at Cameroonian Base,” Foreign Policy, July 27, 2017, https:// foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/27/pentagon-investigating-if-u-s-troops-knew-of -torture-at-cameroonian-base/.

344

6. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S R O L E S A N D M I S S I O N S

34. John M. Collins, Special Operations Forces: An Assessment (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1994). Collins quotes Section 1453, Department of Defense Authorization Act, 1986 (P.L. 99–145; 99 Stat. 760), July 29, 1985. 35. Susan Marquis, Unconventional Warfare: Rebuilding U.S. Special Operations Forces (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1997) an otherwise authoritative account of the creation of SOCOM, says little about congressional intent in this regard; see 146. However, an unpublished paper by James K. Bruton, which benefits from interviews with major participants, is more helpful. It includes the results of interviews with Noel Koch, who underscored that Congress really just wanted better commandos, and had no intention of precisely defining SOF’s strategic role. James K. Bruton, “U.S. Special Operations Command: Does the Current Organization Fulfill the Original Intent?,” unpublished paper for Strategic Studies Research Seminar, John Hopkins University, November 30, 1994, 28. 36. Richard H. Shultz, “Showstoppers: Nine Reasons Why We Never Sent Our Special Operations Forces After al Qaeda Before 9/11,” Weekly Standard, January 26, 2004, 32. 37. Keegan argues that Churchill’s desire to “set Europe ablaze” with SOF was based on a misapplication of lessons from the Boer War in South Africa. The Boers employed special-operations tactics against the British, but both sides retained a civilized ethos, which included a refusal to directly harm prisoners or civilians. The Nazis had no such compunctions. Concerning the Balkans, Keegan believes that the Chetnik leader Draza Mihailovic actually had the correct strategy. Mihailovic wanted to lay the groundwork for a general uprising but conserve his strength until allied conventional forces were in close proximity. John Keegan, Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to al-Qaeda (New York: Knopf, 2003), 343. 38. Michael E. Hass, In the Devil’s Shadow: U.N. Special Operations During the Korean War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000), 204. 39. For a historically well-informed and empirical argument on this topic and its implications for Special Forces, see Fletcher Schoen, “An Uncertain Heritage: The Sources of Organizational and Motivational Bias in Special Forces Unconventional Warfare Doctrine?” (M thesis, Georgetown University, May 2019). For a review of the evolution of the debate over unconventional warfare, see Col. David M. Witty, “The Great UW Debate,” Special Warfare (March–April 2010). On Special Forces’ origins, see Alfred H. Paddock Jr., “Robert Alexis McClure: Forgotten Father of Army Special Warfare,” Special Warfare 12, no. 4 (Fall 1999): 2–9. 40. Lucien S. Vandenbroucke, Perilous Options: Special Operations as an Instrument of U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 181.

7. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S A N D T H E F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

3 45

Also Eliot A. Cohen, Commandos and Politicians: Elite Military Units in Modern Democracies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978). 41. These points are made by the SOCOM commander in a foreword to a 2016 SOCOM white paper. To compensate, SOCOM has embraced “design thinking” in its planning processes. See Charles N. Black, Richard D. Newton, Mary Ann Nobles, and David Charles Ellis, “U.S. Special Operations Command’s Future, by Design,” Joint Force Quarterly 90 (July 2018): 43. 42. Adams, U.S. Special Forces in Action, is a good but dated source for these arguments. However, the same sentiments have often been expressed in the pages of Special Warfare, the JFK Special Warfare Center and School magazine. See Col. Gary M. Jones and Maj. Christopher Tone, “Unconventional Warfare: Core Purpose of Special Forces,” Special Warfare 12 (Summer 1999): 4–15; Col. Michael R. Kershner, “Unconventional Warfare: The Most Misunderstood Form of Military Operations” Special Warfare 14 (Winter 2001): 2–7; Capt. Robert |Lee Wilson, “Unconventional Warfare: SF’s Past, Present, and Future,” Special Warfare 14 (Winter 2001): 24–27; Maj. Mike Skinner, “The Renaissance of Unconventional Warfare as an SF Mission.” Special Warfare 15 (Winter 2002): 16–22. See also de B. Taillon, The Evolution of Special Forces in Counter-Terrorism, for a historic overview of the tension between the Special Forces and the “Ranger” approach to special operations.

7. SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES AND THE FUTURE OF WARFARE

1. Some good overviews include Lawrence Freedman, The Future of War: A History (New York: PublicAffairs, 2017); Michael E. O’Hanlon (The Future of Land Warfare (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2015); and Keith L. Shimko, The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 2. Andrew Krepinevich, “Cavalry to Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolutions,” National Interest 37 (Fall 1994): 1. 3. Krepinevich, “Cavalry to Computer,” 8. 4. Elliot Cohen, “A Revolution in Warfare,” Foreign Affairs 75 (March/April 1996): 51. 5. David Tucker and Christopher Lamb, “Peacetime Engagements,” in America’s Armed Forces: A Handbook of Current and Future Capabilities, ed. Sam Sarkesian (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996), 298. See also Keith D. Dickson, “The New Asymmetry: Unconventional Warfare and Army Special Forces,” Special Warfare (Fall 2001): 14. 6. Vice Adm. (retired) Arthur Cebrowski, “New Rules for a New Era,” Transformation Trends, October 21, 2002, http://www.oft.osd.mil/library/library_files

346

7. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S A N D T H E F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

/trends_163_transformation_trends_21_october_issue.pdf., accessed October 26, 2005. 7. The late Arthur Cebrowski, the leading transformation advocate and theorist in the Bush administration’s Pentagon, captured this dimension of transformation succinctly and related it to new strategic principles that he argued should guide defense strategy and planning: “In this age of strategic uncertainty, risk is managed by increasing the breadth of capabilities, no matter the imperfections, even at the expense of highly effective capabilities bought in quantity. . . . The real issue is not how much is enough, but do we have the breath of capabilities necessary to address strategic gaps. The importance of this metric was dramatically demonstrated on September 11, 2001.” Cebrowski, “New Rules for a New Era.” 8. Colin Gray, “Strategic Employment of Special Operations Forces and Requirements for Success, Phase II,” National Institute for Public Policy, Contract Number MDA 903-91-C-0030 (December 1992), a study conducted for the Office of the Assistant Secretary (Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict). 9. T. X. Hammes, “Technologies Converge and Power Diffuses: The Evolution of Small, Smart, and Cheap Weapons,” Policy Analysis, No. 786, CATO Institute, January 27, 2016. 10. Kevin M. Woods and Thomas C. Greenwood, “Multidomain Battle: Time for a Campaign of Joint Experimentation,” Joint Force Quarterly 88 (1st Quarter, January 2018): 14–21; and Dakota Wood, “Rebuilding America’s Military: Thinking About the Future,” Heritage Foundation, July 24, 2018. 11. Cebrowski, “New Rules for a New Era.” 12. For example, Eliot Cohen has argued that “the combination of precision weapons, Special Operations forces, and sophisticated intelligence-gathering systems indicates the beginning of a desperately needed “transformation” of the American military.” Eliot Cohen, “What’s in a Name: World War IV,” Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2001. 13. “JFCOM Examines How to Make Conventional Troops More ‘SOFLike,’ ” Inside the Pentagon, September 4, 2003; and “Rumsfeld’s Pick for Army Chief Seen as Step Toward Big Changes,” Inside the Army, June 16, 2003. 14. Stephen Biddle, “Special Forces and the Future of Warfare: Will SOF Predominate in 2020?” Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, May 24, 2004. 15. Dan Lamothe, “Retiring Top Navy SEAL: ‘We Are in the Golden Age of Special Operations,” Washington Post, August 29, 2014, cited in Bernd Horn, “Operationalizing SOF Theory: A Function of Understanding SOF Power,” in Peter McCabe and Paul Lieber, Special Operations Theory, JSOU Report 17-6, 73n35. 16. In testimony to Congress, the SOCOM commander noted that his command received the lead roles in countering terrorism and weapons of mass

7. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S A N D T H E F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

347

destruction “to leverage our global perspective on problems.” For countering terrorism, SOCOM is expected to “provide a coherent global framework for action and synthesize the perspectives and inputs” of the Geographic Combatant Commanders.” For countering WMD, SOCOM is responsible for “maintaining the DoD CWMD Campaign, establishing intelligence priorities, monitoring global operations and conducting assessments.” Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, U.S. Army, Commander, United States Special Operations Command, Prepared Statement, “Three Decades Later: A Review and Assessment of Our Special Operations Forces 30 Years After the Creation of the U.S. Special Operations Command,” Hearing Before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats And Capabilities, May 2, 2017: 36. See also the previous chapter. 17. SOCOM, 2005 Annual Report. 18. In a pro/con debate over drone attacks Audrey Cronin argues against drones in part because it is beneficial to capture the enemy alive and interrogate them. See Daniel Byman, “Why Drones Work: The Case for Washington’s Weapon of Choice.” Foreign Affairs 92, no. 4 (2013): 32–43; and Audrey K. Cronin, “Why Drones Fail: When Tactics Drive Strategy,” Foreign Affairs 92, no. 4 (2013): 44–54. 19. Whereas President George W. Bush authorized fewer than fifty drone strikes during his tenure, President Barak Obama signed off on more than four hundred during his first administration. Lethal drone attacks are so commonplace now that SOF elements involved with the strikes are sometimes jokingly referred to as “missile command” by other SOF units. Byman, “Why Drones Work 32. 20. William H. McRaven, Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare Theory and Practice, (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1995), 13ff, 381–82, 389. 21. “Should Army Special Forces Take Leading Role in Postwar Iraq?” Inside the Army, August 25, 2003. 22. Thomas W. O’Connell, assistant secretary of defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, “Ensuring SOF’s Training, Equipment, and Leadership,” Special Operations Technology 2 (May 2004): 34–36. 23. “Rumsfeld’s Pick for Army Chief.” 24. David Litt, “Special Ops Forces Are ‘Tool of Choice,’ ” National Defense (February 2003): 20. David Litt is a U.S. ambassador who served as a political adviser to the commander, SOCOM. 25. Megan Scully and Gina Cavallaro, “Special Forces Brain Drain,” Defense News, May 3, 2004; and Richard Lardner, “Senior Soldiers in Special Ops Being Lured Off,” Tampa Tribune, March 21, 2005. 26. “Special Operations Clamors for Better ISR,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, February 23, 2004. 27. SOCOM, 2005 Annual Report, http://www.socom.mil/Docs/2005_Annual _Report.pdf, p. 27, accessed October 27, 2005.

348

7. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S A N D T H E F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

28. Carlo Munoz, “Army Builds First of New Brigades to Train Foreign Militaries,” Breaking Defense, October 17, 2011, https://breakingdefense.com/2011/10 /army-builds-first-of-new-brigades-to-train-foreign-militaries/. 29. U.S. Army Public Affairs, “Army Creates Security Force Assistance Brigade and Military Advisor Training Academy at Fort Benning,” February 17, 2017, https://www.army.mil/article/182646/army_creates_security_force_assistance _brigade_and_military_advisor_training_academy_at_fort_benning; and Jay Price, “New Army Assistance Brigades Will Help Train Troops In Friendly Nations,” North Carolina Public Radio, February 20, 2018, http://www.wunc .org/post/new-army-assistance-brigades-will-help-train-troops-friendly -nations#stream/0. 30. Christopher J. Lamb, “Global SOF and Interagency Collaboration,” Journal of Strategic Security 2 (2014): 8–20. 31. Hy S. Rothstein, Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006). 32. James A. Gavrilis, “The Mayor of Ar Rutbah,” Foreign Policy 151 (November/December 2005): 28–36. 33. Linda Robinson, Masters of Chaos (New York: Perseus, 2004), 245ff. 34. Richard H. Shultz, “Showstoppers: Nine Reasons Why We Never Sent Our Special Operations Forces After al Qaeda Before 9/11,” Weekly Standard, January 26, 2001. 35. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin, 2004), 422, 497–529. 36. By late 2003, there was open public debate on this subject. See “Should Army Special Forces Take Leading Role in Postwar Iraq?” 37. See Christopher J. Lamb, “The Future of U.S. Special Operations Forces,” Statement Before the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, House Armed Services Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, July 11, 2012. 38. Daniel R. Green, In the Warlords’ Shadow: Special Operations Forces, the Afghans, and Their Fight Against the Taliban (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2017), 115–116. 39. One astute observer of SOF training asserts that MARSOC puts disproportionate emphasis on the indirect approach. A civilian SOCOM official who previously served in SOF SMUs told the author the same thing and that their indirect capabilities were becoming leading edge within SOCOM. See Dick Couch, Always Faithful, Always Forward: The Forging of a Special Operations Marine (New York,: Berkley Caliber, 2015), xxv–xxvi, 55–56, and 297–99. 40. Robert D. Kaplan, “War on Terrorism: Indian Country,” Wall Street Journal, September 21, 2004. 41. Interview with SOF general officer, April 7, 2017.

7. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S A N D T H E F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

349

42. Ann Scott Tyson and Dana Priest, “Pentagon Seeking Leeway Overseas: Operations Could Bypass Envoys,” Washington Post, February 24, 2005. SOCOM’s commander has denied this report. See Linda Robinson, “Men on a Mission: U.S. Special Forces Are Retooling for the War on Terror,” U.S. News and World Report, September 11, 2006. 43. Christopher Lamb, Review of Psychological Operations Lessons Learned from Recent Operational Experience (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2005). The three firms SOCOM later contracted with for functional expertise in persuasive communications were all located in Washington, DC. David Pugliese, “Special Ops Hires Firms to Improve US Image,” Federal Times, September 5, 2005. 44. Jennifer D. Kibbe, “The Rise of the Shadow Warriors,” Foreign Affairs 83 (March/April 2004): 102–115. 45. Charles N. Black, Richard D. Newton, Mary Ann Nobles, and David Charles Ellis, “U.S. Special Operations Command’s Future, by Design,” Joint Force Quarterly 90 (July 2018): 43. 46. SOF leadership emphasizes transforming SOF capabilities to conduct small surgical operations with minimal risk to the employed force. Thomas W. O’Connell, “Ensuring SOF’s Training, Equipment and Leadership,” 33. 47. Christopher Lamb, Review of Psychological Operations, 1. 48. The author is aware of such programs at National Defense University and elsewhere, although by some accounts access and impartial analysis remains a difficult issue. 49. These observations are based on author discussions with members of the SOF community and reactions from the community to studies conducted by the authors. 50. The unclassified summary of the 2018 defense strategy does not mention SOCOM, but the person who managed the production of the strategy for Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Dr. Frank Hoffman, defends it against charges that it is singularly focused on high-intensity conventional warfighting by noting the resources and missions assigned to SOCOM. Conversations with Dr. Hoffman, a colleague of the author in the Institute for National Strategic Studies. See also Frank Hoffman, “Sharpening Our Military Edge: The NDS and the Full Continuum of Conflict,” Small Wars Journal (June 2018), http:// smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/sharpening-our-military-edge-nds-and-full -continuum-conflict. 51. There is a rich literature on this topic. For the author’s take on the subject, see Christopher J. Lamb, James Douglas Orton, Michael Davies, and Ted Pikulsky, Human Terrain Teams: An Organizational Innovation for Sociocultural Knowledge in Irregular Warfare (Washington, DC: Institute for World Politics Press, 2013), 6–13; and Christopher J. Lamb, “Increasing the

35 0

7. S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S A N D T H E F U T U R E O F WA R FA R E

Effectiveness of Military Operations.” Prepared Statement of Christopher J. Lamb before the Senate Armed Services Committee, United States Senate, December 10, 2015. 52. Others have also concluded SOF require organizational changes to improve performance. Philip L. Mahla and Christopher N. Riga, “An Operational Concept for the Transformation of SOF into a Fifth Service” (Master’s thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, June 2003); also Robinson, Masters of Chaos, 361. 53. This assertion is justified by the Pentagon’s consistent record of fierce resistance to fielding any capabilities tailored for irregular warfare, including mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles and long-loitering, light-attack aircraft for close combat support. See Christopher J. Lamb, Matthew Schmidt, and Berit Fitzsimmons, “MRAPs, Irregular Warfare, and Pentagon Reform,” Occasional Paper, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University (June 2009); and Christopher J. Lamb, “Acquisition Reform: The Case of MRAPs.” Prepared Statement of Christopher J. Lamb before the House Armed Services Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, June 24, 2014. 54. One of the authors is generally favorable to the notion that the future American way of war requires “fighting first for information superiority,” while the other is not. In any case, properly managed, an effective Special Forces experimentation program should be able to determine the best way for ODAs to exploit information age technologies. See Christopher J. Lamb, “Information Operations as a Core Competency,” Joint Force Quarterly, Issue 36 December 2004); and David Tucker, The End of Intelligence: Espionage and State Power in the Information Age (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014). 55. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld addressed this issue not long after the terror attacks on 9/11, arguing “Some believe that with the United States in the midst of a dangerous war on terrorism, now is not the time to transform our armed forces. I believe that the opposite is true. Now is precisely the time to make changes. The war on terrorism is a transformational event that cries out for us to rethink our activities, and to put that new thinking into action.” Department of Defense, Transformation Planning Guidance, foreword, http://www.oft.osd.mil/library/library_files/document_129_Transformation _Planning_Guidance_April_2003_1.pdf., accessed October 27, 2005. 56. The Security Force Assistance Brigades were discussed above. In 2005, however, Pentagon officials considered requiring all junior officers to complete a foreign language course and eventually having all general officer and flag officer candidates be bilingual. See “QDR Will Put ‘Major Emphasis’ on Shoring Up Foreign Language Capabilities, DOD Official Says,” Inside Defense .com Defense Alert, October 27, 2005.

CO N C L U S I O N

35 1

CONCLUSION

1. Bradley Graham, “Shortfalls of Special Operations Command Are Cited,” Washington Post, November 17, 2005. 2. Statement of Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, Commander, United States Special Operations Command, Before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, February 15, 2018, 6. 3. Presidents delegate management to a subordinate group rather than manage the issue directly, which by law means the subordinate running the group cannot authoritatively direct the behaviors of the departments and agencies. Only once in history has a president managed a national security problem personally through the National Security Council. That was during the Mayaguez Crisis in 1975, and as recent scholarship reveals, even then President Gerald Ford was not able to keep abreast of events well enough to know precisely what his secretaries of state and defense were doing. Christopher J. Lamb, The Mayaguez Crisis, Mission Command, and Civil-Military Relations (Washington, DC: Joint History and Research Office, Joint Staff, 2018), 144– 150, 165–168, 197–203. 4. Christopher J. Lamb, “National Security Reform,” in Charting a Course: Strategic Choices for a New Administration, ed. Richard Hooker (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2016). 5. For an explanation of the political and institutional forces arrayed against reform, see Christopher J. Lamb and Joseph Bond, “National Security Reform and the 2016 Election,” Strategic Forum 293 (March 2016). 6. For more on this argument and references to case studies of such successful teams, see Christopher J. Lamb, “Increasing the Effectiveness of Military Operations.” Prepared Statement Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, United States Senate, December 10, 2015.

APPENDIX 1. THE EVOLUTION OF SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES MISSIONS

1. Since the first edition of this book the Department of Defense has begun referring to SOF activities rather than missions. Joint doctrine argues that one reason for doing so is that SOF “missions may include more than one core activity.” However, this is true of all military operations. Depending on circumstances, all military operations can combine a variety of missions performed by diverse units to achieve desired effects. Mission categories are archetypes meant to guide training and doctrine; not bins for classifying actual historical military operations as one thing or another. It has also been pointed out that the term activities allows for the participation of non-military

35 2

A P P E N D I X 1. T H E E V O L U T I O N O F S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S M I S S I O N S

personnel, whereas operations suggests to some the opposite. Given that SOF increasingly work with interagency partners, some believe the broader term activities is more appropriate. DOD, Joint Publication 3-05, Special Operations, July 16, 2014, II-3. 2. We prefer “mission” to “activity” because its meaning is better recognized in the military lexicon, whereas “activity” is more generic and its meaning is not well recognized. “Mission,” in the sense we are using it, is defined by the Department of Defense as a broad depiction of what forces do: “the task, together with the purpose, that clearly indicates the action to be taken and the reason therefore.” By comparison, designating SOF operations as “activities” is vague. Thus, we continue to use the better-established terms, “roles and missions” in this chapter unless specifically discussing SOCOM’s current labeling of categories of SOF operations. As an aside, we note that the current SOCOM Commander used “mission” in the sense we do, and activity in a broader, nondescript manner, during his recent testimony to Congress, saying, “SOF also executes a variety of critical missions in support of activities to counter every threat facing our Nation.” Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, U.S. Army, Commander, United States Special Operations Command, Before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats And Capabilities, February 15, 2018. 3. GlobalSecurity.org website. According to the website, the Clinton administration’s Presidential Decision Directive 25 exempted the Joint Special Operations Command from the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, 18USC Sec.1385, PL86–70, Sec. 17[d], which makes it illegal for military and law enforcement to exercise jointly. The site claims that SOCOM units and the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team routinely train together now. 4. USSOCOM Publication 1, Doctrine for Special Operations, August 5, 2011, 26–27; and DOD, Joint Publication 3-05, Special Operations, July 16, 2014, II-4. 5. This observation is based on interviews with senior leaders in both the CIA and DoD. Maj. David P. Oakley, “Partners or Competitors? The Evolution Of The DoD/CIA Relationship Since Desert Storm and Its Prospects for the Future,” School of Advanced Military Studies, United States Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2013; Greg Miller, “DIA Sending Hundreds of More Spies Overseas.” Washington Post, December 1, 2012, http:// articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-01/world/35585098_1_defense-clandestine -service-cia-spy-agency, accessedJanuary 7, 2013. 6. Eric Schmitt, “Defense Department Plans New Intelligence Gathering Service,” New York Times, April 23, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/24 /world/asia/defense-department-plans-new-spy-service.html, cited in Jim Garrett, “Presidential Findings, Covert Operations, and Clandestine Operations:

A P P E N D I X 1. T H E E V O L U T I O N O F S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S M I S S I O N S

353

Understanding the Secretive World of Intelligence Operations,” American Military University, unpublished paper, November 2, 2014. 7. Jennifer Kibbe, “Covert Action, Pentagon Style,” in The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, ed. Loch K. Johnson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), chap. 35. 8. The SOCOM commander has stated publicly that “In fiscal year 2017, we collected 127 terabytes of data in captured enemy material alone,” and “Every year the number increases exponentially.” Jim Hodges, “USSOCOM Commander Seeks Real-Time Data Fusion,” Trajectory Magazine, April 24, 2018. 9. This assessment is relative to pre-9/11 levels of interagency collaboration. There are still tensions between the two communities, but overall it is generally agreed that cooperation has never been better. For example, see David Ignatius, “Obama’s Tenure Ends with a Turf War Over Killing Terrorists,” Washington Post, December 8, 2016; and Sean D. Naylor, “The Pentagon Ups the Ante in Syria Fight,” Foreign Policy, March 30, 2016. 10. Adm. William H. McRaven, comments at the twenty-fifth Annual Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC) Symposium, 10–12 February, 2014. 11. Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Eric Schmitt, “Pentagon May Cut Commando Forces in Africa in Shift to New Threats,” New York Times, June 4, 2018, https:// www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/world/africa/commandos-africa-pivot-major -powers.html. 12. See the discussion of Operation Gallant Phoenix in Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, U.S. Army, Commander, United States Special Operations Command, Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, May 4, 2017; David Martin, “German Intelligence Part of Secret Anti-terror Unit Targeting Returning IS fighters,” Deutsche Welle, March 2, 2018, http://www.dw.com/en/german -intelligence-part-of-secret-anti-terror-unit-targeting-returning-is-fighters -report/a-42441378; Jens Franssen, “Belgium Assisting US-led Secret Operation to Kill IS Foreign Fighters,” Flanders News, June 20, 2018, http://deredactie .be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.3159233; and W. J. Hennigan, “Vast New Intelligence Haul Fuels Next Phase of Fight Against Islamic State,” Los Angeles Times, September  8, 2017, http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-isis-intel -20170908-story.html. 13. Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, U.S. Army, Commander, United States Special Operations Command, Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, May 4, 2017. 14. For an explanation of the thinking behind the Information Operations Roadmap, see Christopher J. Lamb, “Information Operations as a Core Competency,” Joint Force Quarterly 36 (2005): 88–96.

35 4

A P P E N D I X 1. T H E E V O L U T I O N O F S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S M I S S I O N S

15. Jim Garamone, “U.S. Commanders Must Embrace Cyber, Special Ops Chief Says,” DoD News, Defense Media Activity, December 13, 2017, https:// www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1396033/us-commanders-must -embrace-cyber-special-ops-chief-says/. 16. However, in the 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 SOCOM Fact Books, descriptions of Special Forces assert they perform information operations. In the 2016 Fact Book, AFSOC is described as performing information operations as well. 17. Todd South, “Special Ops: Cyber Skills a Must,” Defense News, October 9, 2017. It should be noted that in 2017 USASOC established a tactical cyber training course at its center of excellence. 18. See, for example, Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, U.S. Army, Commander, United States Special Operations Command, Statement Before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats And Capabilities, February 15, 2018: 10–11; Gen. Joseph L. Votel, U.S. Army, Commander, United States Special Operations Command, Statement Before The House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee On Emerging Threats And Capabilities, March 18, 2015, 5. 19. SOCOM considered the counterproliferation mission “the premier mission” up until the terror attacks on 9/11. 20. SOCOM’s commander told Congress it was a “presidential decision.” Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, U.S. Army, Commander, United States Special Operations Command, Testimony on “Three Decades Later: A Review and Assessment of our Special Operations Forces 30 Years After the Creation of the U.S. Special Operations Command,” Hearing before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats And Capabilities, May 2, 2017, 17. See also Dan Lamothe, “Special Operations Command Takes a Lead Role in Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Washington Post, December 23, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/12/23 /special-operations-command-takes-a-new-lead-role-countering-weapons-of-mass -destruction/. 21. Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, U.S. Army, Commander, United States Special Operations Command, Statement Before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats And Capabilities, February 15, 2018, 2. 22. Daniel M. Gerstein, “SOCOM Will Soon Lead the Pentagon’s Anti-WMD Efforts. Here’s What It Still Needs.” Defense One, February 10, 2017, https:// www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/02/socom-will-soon-lead-pentagons-anti -wmd-efforts-heres-what-it-still-needs/135331/. 23. For example, Robert Kelly, “US Army Special Forces Unconventional Warfare Doctrine: Engine of Change or Relic of the Past,” Research Paper, Naval War College, January 7, 2000.

A P P E N D I X 1. T H E E V O L U T I O N O F S P E C I A L O P E R AT I O N S F O R C E S M I S S I O N S

355

24. Jen Judson, “Countering ‘Little Green Men’: Pentagon Special Ops Studies Russia ‘Gray Zone’ Conflict,” Defense News, May 15, 2017; and John Vandiver, “U.S. Special Ops to Get a Boost for Baltic Mission,” Stars and Stripes, March 14, 2018. 25. For example, Kelly, “US Army Special Forces Unconventional Warfare Doctrine.” 26. Col. David M. Witty, “The Great UW Debate,” Special Warfare (March– April 2010). 27. It should be noted, however, that USASOC’s webpage includes a segment on the World War II OSS that includes examples of OSS propaganda and political operations as well as clandestine and covert behind the lines operations. 28. In the author’s opinion, the name change was a mistake that unfortunately came about after “a decade long lobbying effort from some PSYOP practitioners who are confused about the purpose of their own operations.” See Christopher Lamb, “Confused Chickens Come Home to Roost,” INSS Dynamic Dialogue, July 19, 2010, https://inssblog.wordpress.com/tag/pentagon/. For an example of how the name change may have affected SOCOM’s appreciation (or lack of it) for psychological preparation of the operating environment, see Will Irwin, “A Comprehensive and Proactive Approach to Unconventional Warfare,” Occasional Paper, JSOU Press, May 2016, 7–8. For a contrary view on the name change, see Christopher Paul, “Psychological Operations by Another Name Are Sweeter,” RAND Blog, July 29, 2010, https://www.rand.org /blog/2010/07/psychological-operations-by-another-name-are-sweeter.html. On the return to PSYOP, see Meghann Myers, “The Army’s Psychological Operations Community Is Getting Its Name Back,” Army Times, November 6, 2017. 29. For a recent example, see Richard B. Davenport, “The Need for an Innovative Joint Psychological Warfare Force Structure,” Joint Force Quarterly 88 (1st Quarter 2018): 64–69. 30. As a result of a 2006 decision, most of the PSYOP and Civil Affairs units, which are in the reserves, were separated from USASOC and placed under the army’s Forces Command where their focus would be more on support to conventional force operations than irregular warfare. As for small active duty component under USASOC, it has had trouble producing desired effects in Afghanistan and Iraq. See Arturo Munoz and Erin Dick, “Information Operations: The Imperative of Doctrine Harmonization and Measures of Effectiveness,” Perspectives, RAND (2015); Arturo Munoz, U.S. Military Information Operations in Afghanistan: Effectiveness of Psychological Operations, 2001–2010 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2012); and Christopher J. Lamb, “Review of Psychological Operations Lessons Learned from Recent Operational Experience,” Occasional Paper, National Defense University Press, September 2005.

35 6

A P P E N D I X 1. T H E E V O L U T I O N O F S O F M I S S I O N S

31. For example, in advance of operations to retake Mosul, Iraq, from the Islamic State, the Joint Staff sponsored wargames in late 2015 and early 2016 to explore ways that psychological operations could make a primary contribution to victory. Patrick Tucker, “How Special Operators Trained for Psychological Warfare Before the Mosul Fight,” Defense One, November 14, 2016, https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/11/how-special-operators -trained-Psychological-warfare-mosul-fight/133166/. 32. Lt. Gen. Kenneth Tovo, U.S. Army, Commander, United States Army Special Operations Command, Statement Before the Senate Armed Services Committee Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, April 11, 2018. 33. Robert Schafer, “Civil Affairs in Denied Areas: The Challenges to Developing Networks That Support Shadow Governments,” Small Wars Journal (July 2016), http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/civil-affairs-in-denied-areas -the-challenges-to-developing-networks-that-support-shadow-g-0. See also Steve Lewis, “Good Governance and the Counterstate: Consolidating Unconventional Gains,” in 2017–2018 Civil Affairs Issue Papers: Civil Affairs, a Force for Consolidating Gains, ed. Christopher Holshek, vol. 4 (Carlisle, PA: The Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, Army War College, 2018). 34. For example, Department of Defense Directive 5100, Functions of the Department of Defense and Its Major Components, revised on December 21, 2010, https://fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/d5100_01.pdf. 35. For this reason, SOCOM now avoids references to “collateral” rather than core activities. The SOCOM Fact Books from 2009 to 2011 distinguished between core and collateral activities, but thereafter the collateral designation was dropped.

APPENDIX 2. BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY

1. Christopher J. Lamb and Fletcher Schoen, “Special Operations Forces,” in Oxford Bibliographies in Military History, ed. Dennis Showalter. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view /document/obo-9780199791279/obo-9780199791279-0131.xml.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, Thomas K. US Special Operations Forces in Action: The Challenge of Unconventional Warfare. London: Frank Cass, 1998. Ahern, Thomas L. CIA and Rural Pacification in South Vietnam (U). Langley, VA: Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA, 2001. Bahmanyar, Mir, with Christopher Osman. SEALs: The US Navy’s Elite Fighting Force. Oxford: Osprey, 2008. Bank, Aaron. From OSS to Green Berets: The Birth of Special Forces. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986. Beaumont, Roger A. Military Elites. London: Hale, 1976. Beckwith, Charlie A., and Donald Knox. Delta Force: The Army’s Elite Counterterrorist Unit. New York: Avon, 2000. Blaber, Pete. The Mission, the Men, and Me: Lessons from a Former Delta Force Commander. New York: Berkley Caliber, 2008. Blehm, Eric. Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team Six Operator Adam Brown. Colorado Springs: WaterBrook, 2012. Bowden, Mark. Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 1999. Bowden, Mark. Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 2001. Boykin, Jerry. Never Surrender: A Soldier’s Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom. New York: Faith Words, 2008. Bradley, Rusty, and Kevin Maurer. Lions of Kandahar: The Story of a Fight Against All Odds. New York: Bantam, 2011. Brailey, Malcolm. The Transformation of Special Operations Forces in Contemporary Conflict: Strategy, Missions, Organisation, and Tactics. Duntroon, Australia: Land Warfare Studies Centre, 2005. Briscoe, Charles H., Richard L. Kiper, James A. Schroder, and Kalev I. Sepp. Weapon of Choice: U.S. Army Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 2003.

35 8

SELEC TED BIBLIOGR APHY

Briscoe, Charles H., Kenneth Finlayson, Robert W. Jones Jr., et al. All Roads Lead to Baghdad: Army Special Operations Forces in Iraq. Fort Bragg, NC: USASOC History Office, 2006. Bruning, John R. Indestructible: One Man’s Rescue Mission That Changed the Course of WWII. New York: Hachette, 2017. Call, Steve. Danger Close: Tactical Air Controllers in Afghanistan and Iraq. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007. Caraccilo, Dominic J. Forging a Special Operations Force: The US Army Rangers. Solihul, UK: Helion, 2015. Carlton, Patrick W., and Carnes Lord. Civil Affairs: Perspectives and Prospects. Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 1993. Carney, John T., and Benjamin F. Schemmer. No Room for Error: The Covert Operations of America’s Special Tactics Units from Iran to Afghanistan. New York: Ballantine, 2002. Cleveland, Charles T., James B. Linder, and Ronald Dempsey. “Special Operations Doctrine: Is It Needed?” PRISM 6, no. 3 (December 2016): 5–19. Coles, Harry L., and Albert K. Weinberg. Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors. Washington, DC:, Center of Military History, United States Army, 1964. Reprint, Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2005. Couch, Dick. The Warrior Elite: The Forging of SEAL Class 228. New York: Crown, 2001. Couch, Dick. The Finishing School: Earning the Navy SEAL Trident. New York: Three Rivers, 2004. Couch, Dick. Chosen Soldier: The Making of a Special Forces Warrior. New York: Crown, 2007. Couch, Dick. The Sheriff of Ramadi: Navy SEALs and the Winning of Al-Anbar. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008. Couch, Dick. Sua Sponte: The Forging of a Modern American Ranger. New York: Berkley, 2012. Couch, Dick. Always Faithful, Always Forward: The Forging of a Special Operations Marine. New York: Berkley Caliber, 2015. Davis, Mark G. Operation Anaconda: Command and Confusion in Joint Warfare. Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University, 2004. Dockery, Kevin. Navy SEALs: A Complete History from World War II to the Present. New York: Berkley Books, 2004. Durant, Michael J., and Steven Hartov. In the Company of Heroes. New York: Putnam, 2003. Feickert, Andrew. U.S. “U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, April 20, 2018.

SELEC TED BIBLIOGR APHY

359

Fry, Ronald. Hammerhead Six: How Green Berets Waged an Unconventional War Against the Taliban to Win in Afghanistan’s Deadly Pech Valley. New York: Hachette, 2017. Fury, Dalton. Kill Bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander’s Account of the Hunt for the World’s Most Wanted Man. New York: St. Martin’s, 2008. Goldstein, Cora. “A Strategic Failure: American Information Control Policy in Occupied Iraq.” Military Review 88, no. 2 (2008): 58–62. Goldstein, Frank L., and Benjamin F. Findley, eds. Psychological Operations: Principles and Case Studies. Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1996. Gray, Colin. “Handful of Heroes on Desperate Ventures: When Do Special Operations Succeed?” Parameters 29, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 2–24. Green, Daniel R. In the Warlords’ Shadow: Special Operations Forces, the Afghans, and Their Fight Against the Taliban. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2017. Hall, Ross. The Ranger Book: A History, 1634–2006. n.p.: BookSurge, 2007. Haney, Eric L. Inside Delta Force: The Story of America’s Elite Counterterrorism Unit. New York: Delacorte, 2002. Hersey, John. A Bell for Adano. New York: Knopf, 1944. Hirsh, Michael. None Braver: U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen in the War on Terrorism. New York: New American Library, 2003. Hogan, David W., Jr. Raiders or Elite Infantry? The Changing Role of the US Army Rangers from Dieppe to Grenada. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1992. John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School and Civil Affairs Association. Civil Affairs in the Persian Gulf War, a Symposium: Proceedings. Fort Bragg, NC: US Army JFK Special Warfare Center and School, 1991. Johnson, Richard D. Seeds of Victory: Psychological Warfare and Propaganda. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Military/Aviation History, 1997. Kibbe, Jennifer D. “The Rise of the Shadow Warriors.” Foreign Affairs 83, no. 2 (2004): 102–115. King, R. Alan. Twice Armed: An American Soldier’s Battle for Hearts and Minds in Iraq. St. Paul, MN: Zenith, 2006. Kiras, James D. Special Operations and Strategy: From World War II to the War on Terrorism. London: Routledge, 2006. Lamb, Christopher J. “Perspectives on Emerging SOF Roles and Missions.” Special Warfare 8, no. 3 (July 1995): 2–9. Lamb, Christopher J. Review of Psychological Operations Lessons Learned from Recent Operational Experience. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2005. Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony. Psychological Warfare. Landisville, PA: Coachwhip, 2010.

360

SELEC TED BIBLIOGR APHY

Locher, James R. “Congress to the Rescue: Statutory Creation of USSOCOM.” Air Commando Journal 1, no. 3 (Spring 2012): 33–39. Long, Austin. “The Limits of Special Operations Forces.” PRISM 6, no. 3 (2016): 35–47. Luttrell, Marcus, with Patrick Robinson. Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10. New York: Little, Brown, 2007. Marcinko, Richard. Rogue Warrior. New York: Pocket Books, 1992. Marquis, Susan L. Unconventional Warfare: Rebuilding U.S. Special Operations Forces. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1997. Martin, David C., and John Walcott. Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of America’s War Against Terrorism. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. McCabe, Peter, and Paul Lieber, eds. Special Operations Theory. Hurlburt Field, FL: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2017. McChrystal, Stanley A. My Share of the Task: A Memoir. London: Penguin, 2013. McRaven, William H. Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare: Theory and Practice. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1995. Moyar, Mark. Oppose Any Foe: The Rise of America’s Special Operations Forces. New York: Basic Books, 2017. Munoz, Arturo. U.S. Military Information Operations in Afghanistan: Effectiveness of Psychological Operations, 2001–2010. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2012. Naylor, Sean. Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda. New York: Berkley, 2005. Naylor, Sean. Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command. New York: St. Martin’s, 2016. O’Neill, Robert. The Operator: Firing the Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior. New York: Scribner, 2017. Orr, Kelly. Brave Men  .  .  . Dark Waters: The Untold Story of the Navy SEALs. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1992. Paddock, Alfred H. U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Origins. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Piedmont, John P. Det One: U.S. Marine Corps U.S. Special Operations Command Detachment, 2003–2006. Washington, DC: History Division, U.S. Marine Corps, 2010. Pushies, Fred J. U.S. Air Force Special Ops. Osceola, WI: MBI, 2000. Pushies, Fred J. Night Stalkers: 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne). St. Paul, MN: Zenith, 2005. Pushies, Fred J. Deadly Blue: Battle Stories of the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command. New York: American Management Association, 2009. Pushies, Fred J. MARSOC: U.S. Marine Corps Special Operations Command. Minneapolis, MN: Zenith, 2011.

SELEC TED BIBLIOGR APHY

361

Robinson, Linda. Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces. New York: PublicAffairs, 2004. Robinson, Linda. One Hundred Victories: Special Ops and the Future of American Warfare. New York: PublicAffairs, 2014. Robinson, Linda, Patrick B. Johnston, and Gillian S. Oak. U.S. Special Operations Forces in the Philippines, 2001–2014. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2016. Robinson, Linda, Austin Long, Kimberly Jackson, and Rebeca Orrie. Improving the Understanding of Special Operations: A Case History Analysis. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2018. Rothstein, Hy S. Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. Sandler, Stanley. “Cease Resistance: It’s Good for You”: A History of U.S. Army Combat Psychological Operations. MacDill AFB, FL: US Army Special Operations Command, Directorate of History and Museums, 1996. Schultheis, Rob. Waging Peace: A Special Operations Team’s Battle to Rebuild Iraq. New York: Gotham, 2005. Simons, Anna. The Company They Keep: Life Inside the U.S. Army Special Forces. New York: Avon, 1998. Simons, Anna, and David Tucker. “United States Special Operations Forces and the War on Terrorism.” Small Wars & Insurgencies 14, no. 1 (2003): 77–91. Simpson, Charles M. Inside the Green Berets: The First Thirty Years—a History of the U.S. Army Special Forces. London: Arms and Armour, 1983. Singlaub, John K., with Malcolm McConnell. Hazardous Duty: An American Soldier in the Twentieth Century. New York: Summit, 1991. Shultz, Richard H., Jr. In the Aftermath of War: US Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause. Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1993. Shultz, Richard, Jr. “Showstoppers: Nine Reasons Why We Never Sent Our Special Operations Forces After al Qaeda Before 9/11.” Weekly Standard, January 26, 2004, 25–33. Skovlund, Marty, Charles Faint, Leo Jenkins, and Mat Best. Violence of Action: The Untold Stories of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the War on Terror. Colorado Springs: Blackside Concepts, 2014. Solon, Jenny, ed. “Special Issue: Irregular Warfare: A SOF Perspective.” Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) Special Operations Newsletter (2011): 11–34. Special Operations Forces Reference Manual. 4th ed. MacDill AFB, FL: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2015. Stanton, Doug. Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of U.S. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan. New York: Scribner, 2009. Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1985.

3 62

SELEC TED BIBLIOGR APHY

Stejskal, James. Special Forces Berlin: Clandestine Cold War Operations of the US Army’s Elite, 1956–1990. Philadelphia: Casemate, 2017. Stone, Kathryn. “All Necessary Means”: Employing CIA Operatives in a Warfighting Role Alongside Special Operations Forces. Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College, 2003. Trest, Warren A. Air Commando One: Heinie Aderholt and America’s Secret Air Wars. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2000. Tyson, Ann. American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Gant. New York: William Morrow, 2015. U.S. Department of the Army. Doctrine for Special Forces Operations. Field Manual 31-20. Ft. Bragg, NC: John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, 1990. U.S. Department of the Army. Civil Affairs Operations. Field Manual 3-05.40. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Army, 2011. U.S. Special Operations Command. U.S. Special Operations Command Fact Book 2018. Tampa, FL: U.S. Special Operations Command, 2018. Vandenbroucke, Lucien S. Perilous Options: Special Operations as an Instrument of U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Volckmann, R. W. We Remained. New York: Norton, 1954. Votel, Joseph L., Charles T. Cleveland, Charles T. Connett, and Will Irwin. “Unconventional Warfare in the Gray Zone.” Joint Force Quarterly 80 (1st Quarter 2016): 101–109. Waller, Douglas C. The Commandos: The Inside Story of America’s Secret Soldiers. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Warner, John W., and Carl Levin. “Review of the Circumstances Surrounding the Ranger Raid on October 3–4, 1993, in Mogadishu, Somalia.” Washington, DC: United States Senate, Committee on Armed Services, 1995.

INDEX

Afghanistan, 1, 13–22, 25–27, 98–100 Aideed, Mohammed Farrah, 3, 109, 110, 114; and UNOSOM II, 117–120, 126, 145–46 Alamo Scouts, 66 Albright, Madeleine, 115, 124 Anbar Awakening, 170 Army Special Forces, 4, 51; and flexible response, 82; involvement of in CIDG, 84–85; structure of, 4 Aspin, Les, 121, 125, 130 Asymmetric Warfare Group, 58 A-Team. See operational detachment-Alpha Bank, Aaron, 80 B-52, 18 bin Laden, Osama, 1, 103; death of, 184 Bir, Cevik, 121, 122 Black SOF. See special mission unit Blankenhorn, Heber, 64, 67 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, 123, 126 Brown, Robert, 163, 164 Bush, George H. W., 109, 110 Bush, George W., 1 Cabanatuan raid, 46 casualty aversion, 134, 323n61 Central Intelligence Agency, 73, 76, 79; conflict of with SOF, 81; and village stability operations, 193

C4ISR. See command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance Christopher, Warren, 126 CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency CIDG. See Civilian Irregular Defense Groups civil affairs, 4, 6, 33–34, 38–41, 60, 67–69, Civilian Irregular Defense Groups, 84–85 Clinton, William, 125, 126, 130–132, 136 combat controllers, 5 Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command-Afghanistan. See Special Operations Joint Task Force-Afghanistan command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, 44 C-130, 31, 110 CONOP. See concept of operations concept of operations, 43 countering weapons of mass destruction, 7, 94–95, 241; and special mission units, 95 counterinsurgency, 6, 82–86; difference of from other military operations, 197–204; law enforcement in, 174–75; role of high value targeting in, 171; in Iraq, 163–70; opposition of military to, 83–84; in Vietnam 84–85

364

INDE X

counterproliferation. See countering weapons of mass destruction counterterrorism, 2, 6–7; as SOCOM’s highest priority, 270. See also highvalue target teams covert operations, 69, 76–77; definition of, 76; in Vietnam, 86 Crook, George, 63 cross-functional teams, 272 Crowe, William, 96 cultural support teams, 193 development, emphasis on, 204–5 direct action, 7, 41, 49, 53, 187 Department of Defense, policy of, in Somalia, 112, 115–16 Department of State, policy of, in Somalia, 111–112, 115 Desert One, 89 Downing, Wayne, 142 Draper, William H., 75 Edson, Merritt, 64 Eikenberry, Karl, 181 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 69, 70, 73 FID. See foreign internal defense find, fix, finish, exploit, analyze, disseminate (F3EAD), 172 First Air Commando Group, 67 First Special Service Force, 66–67 flexible response, 82 foreign internal defense, 7, 54 F3EAD. See find, fix, finish, exploit, analyze, disseminate fusion cells, 165–66 Garrison, William, 126, 129, 138, 139, 141, 143 general purpose forces, 56. See also special operations forces Gray, Gordon, 75, 77 Green Berets. See Army Special Forces Gosende, Robert, 120–21, 123, 126, 141 GPF. See general purpose forces guerrilla warfare. See unconventional warfare

high-value target teams: effect of on SOF, 187–88; intelligence in, 186–87; negative effects of, 161–62, 181–82; origin of, 151–54; strategic effectiveness of, 160–61, 174, 185. See also, McChrystal, Stanley Hoar, Joseph P., 124, 125, 129, 136, 138 Howe, Jonathan, 114, 121, 123 ICITAP. See International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program insurgency, 102–03 intelligence, 43–4, 52, 57 International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program, 165, 166, 330n92 Iraq, 1, 28–29, 33–38, 38–41, 101–2 ISIS. See Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ISIL. See Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, 2, 50 Jackson, Andrew, 62–63 JIATF. See Joint Interagency Task Force JOC. See Joint Operations Center Joint Interagency Task Force, 44, 150, 151–52; JIATF-Former Regime Elements, 154; role of Federal Bureau of Investigation in, 153; role of in counterinsurgency, 173; importance of trust in, 158 Joint Operations Center, 23 Joint Special Operations Agency, 90 Kabul, 1, 195 Kennedy, John F., 51, 82 Knowlton’s Rangers, 62 Krepinevich, Andrew, 246 Lamb, Graeme, 177–78 Laden, Osama bin. See bin Laden, Osama leadership targeting, 18. See also high value target teams MACV-SOG. See Military Assistance Command Vietnam-Special Operations Group

INDE X

Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, 5, 92 marines. See United States Marine Corps Marshall, George C., 73, 76 MARSOC. See Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command massive retaliation, 81, 82 Mazar-i-Sharif, 14–15, 312n2 McChrystal, Stanley, 49, 154, 155–62, 215; and lessons learned in Iraq, 176–79, 333n155 McCloy, John, 67 McClure, Robert, 78 McFarland, Sean, 168 McMaster, H. R., 166 McRaven, William, 55, 156, 181, 254 Merrill’s Marauders, 66 Meyer, Edward, 88 Military Assistance Command Vietnam– Studies and Observations Group, 86 military police, 51 modernization theory, 205–6 Monte la Difensa, 46 Montgomery, Thomas, 122, 124 National Security Act (1947), 73 national SOF. See special mission unit 9/11, 21, 24, 28, 52, 98, 270 Northern Alliance, 13–14, 21, 312n1 Nunn-Cohen amendment, 46, 91, 313n15 Oakley, Robert, 111, 114 Obama, Barack, 180 Office of Strategic Services, 69, 72–73 Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, 91; and Somalia, 124, 139–40, Olson, Eric T., 55 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, 4; origin of, 89–90 Operational Detachment–Alpha, 4, 42 Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). See Afghanistan Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). See Iraq Operation Restore Hope, 110

3 65

Osama bin Laden. See bin Laden, Osama OSS. See Office of Strategic Services pararescuemen, 4 Petraeus, David, 44, 182–83 Powell, Colin, 111, 113, 124 Predator, 23 preparation of the environment, 8 psychological operations, 8, 33–38, 64–65, 67, 74–77, 315n7; prejudice against, 78 psychological operations forces, 4 psychological warfare. See psychological operations PSYOP. See psychological operations Ramadi, Iraq, 168–170 Rangers, 4, 66, 80, 87–88, 220–21; in Afghanistan, 152, 181, 183, 187; in Iraq, 159, 163, 176; in Korea, 79; in Somalia, 109; in World War II, 46 revolution in military affairs, 244–45, 246–48 Rheault, Robert, 87 Rodriguez, David, 164 Rogers, Robert, 61 Rogers’ Rangers, 61, 62, 82 roles and missions, definition of, 216, 352nn1–2; direct and indirect 228–33, 342–43nn26–27; independent and supporting, 233–35; need for 216–17 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 65 Royall, Kenneth C., 75–76, 77 Schwarzkopf, Norman, 93 Schoomaker, Peter, 255 SEALS, 4, 55, 83 sensitive site exploitation, 57 75th Ranger Regiment. See rangers SF. See Army Special Forces Shelton, Henry, 93–94, 259, 322n43 Shultz, Richard, 149 Small Wars Manual, 64 SMU. See special mission unit SOCOM. See Special Operations Command SOF. See Special Operations Forces

366

INDE X

Somalia: policy and strategy conflict, 127; policy-operation coordination failure, 139 Somali National Alliance, 117 special boat teams, 4 special mission unit, 1, 5, 23, 54–55; and antagonism with other SOF, 55; character of, 141–42; and manhunting, 103; origin of 88–89. See also, high value target teams special operations, 62; in Korean War, 78–80; strategic utility of, 81, 227; risk of, 226 Special Operations Command, 5, 267–68, 270 Special Operations Forces, 1, 2; and bureaucracy, 47; changes to, 42–45, 55; Congressional creation of, 233–34; constraints on operations of, 149–150, 260; definition of, 3; description of individual member of, 3–4; difference of from elite forces, 219–21; direct and indirect use of, 231–33; in El Salvador, 96–97; employment of, 269; ethics and professionalism of, 2, 48–49, 87; future of, 46–50, 58–60; and general-purpose forces, 29, 33–38, 45, 56, 62, 88, 93, 96, 99–100, 153, 222, 255–57; German use of, in World War II, 230; in Haiti, 97; historical use of, 218; and innovation, 57–60, 254–59, 263–64; integration of, 54–55; intelligence requirements of, 149–50; and law enforcement, 95; logistics, 44; numbers of, 2; mission characteristics of, 221–22; misuse of, 46, 72; and national security, 45; overuse of, 217; and political authority, 262–63, 271–72; questions about, 2; recruitment of, 59–60; reform of, 260–61, 266–67, 272; revival of, 90; and revolution in military affairs, 102; roles and missions, 80, 87–88, 94; SOF truths, 32, 252; special requirements of, 222–23; in Somalia, 115; strategic

utility of, 72, 81, 227, 236–37, 241, 242–43, 271; and technology, 255; and urban warfare, 58–59; in Vietnam, 86; post-Vietnam, 87–89; as warriordiplomats, 224 Special Operations Joint Task Force– Afghanistan, 54 special reconnaissance, 7, 23, 52 SR. See special reconnaissance Tal Afar, Iraq, 166–67 Taliban, 1 Task Force Freedom, 164–65 Task Force Ranger, 125, 128, 271; intelligence support for, 320n25; lessons learned, 324n62; tactics of 129, 144; weakness of, 142 Taylor, Maxwell, 82 10th Special Forces Group, 80–81 Theater Special Operations Command, 5, 93–94 Truman, Harry, 69, 72, 73 TSOC. See Theater Special Operations Command UBL. See bin Laden, Osama unconventional warfare, 8, 19–20, 22, 53–54, 80–81; indifference of Army to, 81; limitations of, 239 underwater demolition teams, 66 UNITAF. See United Task Force United Nations Operation in Somalia, 114; criticism of SOF in, 133; intelligence, 126, 129, 136; lack of information campaign during, 149; operational failure of, 142–143; policy of, 111, 112–13, 115, 120, 122; policy of United States toward, 116, 118, 120, 121, 124, 127, 137; role of Quick Reaction Force in, 122–23; policyoperations coordination during, 139; Senate investigation of, 139, 141, 143– 44; strategic failure of, 141; and Task Force Ranger, 124–25, 128; tactical issues during, 144–45; U.S. public’s support for, 127, 134

INDE X

United States Agency for International Development, 204–5 United States Army Special Operations Command, 5 United States Marine Corps, 64, 66 United States Special Operations Command, 2, 5, 55; and Somalia, 139–40 United Task Force, 111 UNOSOM I. See United Nations Operation in Somalia UNOSOM II. See United Nations Operation in Somalia urban combat, 53 USAID. See United States Agency for International Development USSOCOM. See United States Special Operations Command

367

UW. See unconventional warfare Uzbekistan, 20–21, 25 village stability operations, 103–4; development of, 194–97; effectiveness of, 206–10; necessity of, 197–204; phases of, 191–92; purpose of, 191; strategic utility of, 211 Waco, Texas, 95 Warrant Officer, 4 Wedemeyer, A. C., 75 Whitcomb’s Rangers, 62 White SOF. See Special Operations Forces Wisner, Frank, 124 World War I, 64–65 World War II, 66–71 Zarqawi, Abu Musab al-, 172–173