The U.S. special operations forces occupy center stage in today’s war
against terrorism. Unfortunately, claims for their services far outstrip available
supply.
This was not always the case. By the end of the war in Vietnam, the military
services nearly eliminated the special operations capability of the United States.
Only the foresight of a few people, the rapid escalation of terrorism in the
late 1970s, and the concomitant need for a counter-terrorism force snatched
special operations from extinction.
The pendulum has now swung to the other extreme. Excessive de-mand for SOF
(special operations forces) troops today risks overextending a scarce and expensive
resource. The United States should prioritize special operators, use them where
they bring added value and preserve the flagship capabilities that the U.S.
Special Operations Command has labored to develop.
SOF have played important roles in World War II, the Korean War and the war
in South East Asia. Military commanders benefited from the special tactical
skills that SOF brought to the battlefield in special reconnaissance, direct
action, civil affairs and training foreign forces in unconventional warfare.
After the first two wars, special operations receded into the background, only
to be resurrected for the next one. By the peak of the Vietnam War in the late
1960s, the U.S. military had fielded seven active Special Forces groups, two
SEAL teams, two underwater demolitions teams and an Air Force special operations
wing.
But special operations forces also were penalized. When Americans turned their
backs on the men and women in uniform, they often heaped exceptional scorn and
ridicule on special operators, blaming the whole community for the failings
of a few. Adding injury to insult, the military’s conventional leadership
likewise disparaged special operators, viewing them as unprofessional (not conventional),
uncontrollable and unpalatable. Besides, the military had lost its taste for
“messy little jungle wars”—where SOF could shine, preferring
to refocus attention on the Central European plains and the threat from the
Soviet bear—where, it was believed, SOF would have much less, if any,
relevance. Equally important in all of this was the view that funding SOF would
take resources away from conventional forces.
As a result, the special operations community faced eradication. The air commandos,
probably the least known to the general public of all SOF forces at the time,
were almost completely disbanded. As aviators tried to sign up for non-SOF jobs,
gunship crews, combat controllers and para-rescuers could hardly get in the
back door of the mainstream counterparts in the conventional Air Force. Air
commandos who aspired to general officer rank were bluntly and publicly advised
that they “need not apply.”
Like their counterparts in Army and Navy special operations, their talents
were viewed as irrelevant in the Fulda Gap.
The Navy had some use for special warfare and underwater demolition tactics,
but not much, and certainly not in third-world jungles. The Navy wanted to forget
the Vietnam experience and redevelop its blue-water capabilities. If the Navy
could not decommission Naval Special Warfare, at least it wanted to place these
units in the Navy reserve.
Much the same story existed in the Army, which not only wanted increased mechanized
and armor units, but was anxious to get out of the military aid business, with
a concomitant lowering of the civil affairs and foreign training activities.
The Army slashed Special Forces in the early 1970s, such that by the end of
the decade only three of seven groups remained. With 3,600 Green Berets available,
the groups were far from fully manned. Quality and standards plummeted in the
1970s, as new recruits were brought in to fill gaps created with the mass retirements
of mature, skilled Special Forces non-commissioned officers at the end of the
war.
Perhaps the greatest deficiency of all, one that had profound consequences
for the United States only a few years later, was the total lack of joint training
and doctrine for special operations.
Fighting to Stay Relevant
A few determined individuals scrambled to retain the SOF capabilities that
would be needed to fight terrorism. To get there, they had to fight the objections
of the services and their engrained antipathy for special operations. However,
the SOF crusaders enjoyed some critical support among general officers, notably
Gen. Edward C. Meyer and Lt. Gen. Robert Kingston.
But what really turned the tide in favor of this capability was the growing
number of terrorist incidents emanating from the Middle East. The most notable
of these were the Israeli raid on the Entebbe airport in 1976 to rescue the
passengers of a hijacked Air France jet, and the German rescue of a Lufthansa
aircraft in Mogadishu the following year. These caught the U.S. government’s
attention, and President Jimmy Carter became interested in the capabilities
the United States maintained in order to protect Americans from terrorism.
The 1980 failed hostage rescue attempt in Iran proved the catalyst that changed
the fortunes of special operations. The teams that were pasted together to perform
the rescue lacked cohesion and joint training. The operators tasked with rescuing
the hostages once inside Tehran could have succeeded. The failure arose from
their inability to get to the target, as the enthusiasm of the pick-up team
of aviators far exceeded their capability to perform. The operation foundered
in a twisted mass of wreckage at the Desert One staging base.
Following subsequent misuse of SOF in Grenada in 1983, several congressmen
finally leapt into the breach. Through legislation, they pushed the heretofore
reluctant military services aside, and mandated the creation of a unified Special
Operations Command, responsible for all doctrine, training and equipment of
special operations forces from three services, Army, Navy and Air Force.
The Congress went further. It gave the command its own separate budget, and
its own authority to acquire equipment and materials peculiar to special operations.
How times have changed since the dark years of the 1970s. The public’s
perception of special operations has shifted from disdain to adulation. In the
15 years since the creation of SOCOM, the command has proven itself as the vanguard
of future warfare. Before jointness set in the 1990s, as mandated in the 1986
Goldwater-Nichols reform, special operations forces had already become a truly
“purple” community. Before the U.S. military became accustomed to
coalition warfare, SOF specialized in working with other nations’ commando
counterparts. Today, the command has strong, tangible and effective inter-agency
lash-ups with both the State Department and the intelligence community. In fact,
there is nothing that special operators do that is not joint, combined or interagency.
The SOF creed includes the military truism that humans are more important than
hardware. The operators in the field are culturally sensitive, politically aware
and often multilingual.
Special operators are the forces of choice for U.S. ambassadors around the
world, as embassies seek tools to fulfill U.S. government objectives. Among
these are improving military-to-military relations with the host nation, especially
to provide quality training to the elite forces of the nation in question, and
to instill the importance of respect for human rights and subordination to civilian
authority.
War Against Terrorism
There is no shortage of photographs in the media worldwide depicting Special
Forces on horseback in Northern Afghanistan, collaborating with Northern Alliance
forces, Air Force special operations combat controllers and high-altitude B-52
bombers.
The catalog of SOF successes in Afghanistan is long. The Special Operations
Support Battalion moved into a deserted, ramshackle base in southern Uzbekistan
called Karshi-Khanabad, and in a matter of a hundred hours or so had established
a relatively sophisticated, well-supplied base of operations, with reliable
communications and transportation facilities up and running.
Air Force special operations crews flew long resupply missions back and forth
from Europe to Afghanistan. They flew 12-14 hours non-stop, air dropped bundles
of equipment and supplies on narrow mountain slopes, hidden within craggy, tortuous
mountain valleys, and then flew back to their European bases—over and
over again.
Special operators’ exc-lusive responsibilities for strategic psychological
operations (PsyOps) and civil affairs were again put the test in Af-ghanistan,
as they were on the battlefields of the Gulf and the Balkans. PsyOps missions
over and inside Afghanistan included the now famous broadcasting aircraft, the
“Commando Solo” EC-130E (a variant of the C-130 Hercules)—transmitting
mostly by radio humanitarian relief information, as well as messages designed
to undermine support for the Taliban and Al Qaida.
The Commando Solo unit is the 193rd Special Operations Wing (Air National Guard)
based in Harrisburg, Penn.
SOF civil affairs personnel (like the PsyOps community, mostly in the reserves
and the national guard) poured into Afghanistan to help set up basic humanitarian
infrastructure for populations in need—from schoolhouses to wells to hospitals.
These civil affairs personnel should be the leading edge of the transition to
post-conflict administration by civilian authority, whether that is the host-nation’s
leaders, international organizations, bilateral donors, NGOs or a combination
of these.
U.S. special operations forces, alongside other allied militaries and Afghan
militia forces, continue to scour the Hindu Kush mountain redoubts of the Taliban
and al Qaida, searching for wanted individuals or their remains, arms and ammunition,
written documentation, computer files, cell phones and any other evidence.
SOCOM was tapped to provide trainers for the fledgling Afghan National Army.
SOF personnel refurbished the training facility, assembled the recruits, dealt
with the paltry equipment and ammo available and provided a program of instruction.
Afghanistan, however, is not the only setting for Operation Enduring Freedom.
The al Qaida and its associated subgroups seek refuge and operate across the
globe. In the Pacific region, Army, Navy and Air Force special operations personnel
have been training and advising the Philippine military in its struggle against
terrorists on the southern islands. In particular, the Abu Sayyaf Group has
kidnapped and terrorized its way into prominence, especially on Basilan Island.
In addition to the training, SOF forces, aided by Marines and Navy Seabees,
have helped to promote safety and local humanitarian development.
The U.S. government has called on SOCOM to train Georgian army commandos in
that Caucasian country located on Russia’s southern border. The 10th Special
Forces Group has been assisting the Georgian military to set up the infrastructure.
Chechen rebels have sought refuge in a remote, mountainous region of Georgia
bordering the Chechen Republic in Russia, and are the cause of significant tensions.
Chechen militants are a main component of al Qaida, and have been some of the
fiercest fighters in Afghanistan.
SOF troops are operating in other theaters as well. Special Forces and SEAL
units have trained Colombian land and riverine forces for counter-drug missions,
and it is not unreasonable to expect further training requests as Colombia faces
increasing turbulence and violence from insurgents and paramilitaries heavily
involved in the narcotics industry.
U.S. special operations forces also have long standing experience in training
the militaries of other Andean Ridge nations facing the scourge of drug production
and trafficking. Civil affairs and psychological operations units remain heavily
engaged in Kosovo, to help bring stability to that region. The persistence of
tensions and insecurity indicates that SOF will continue to be in demand there.
Challenges for SOCOM
The U.S. government will be relying on special operations forces to combat
the following:
- Religious and ethnic fanatics in terror organizations such as al Qaida, who
believe in a cause and commit violence and murder to promote that cause.
- Traffickers in illicit and semi-licit commodities such as narcotics, weapons,
diamonds and humans (typically women and children). They have money, but need
customers and protection.
- Rogue experts in the creation of weapons of mass destruction—especially
chemical, biological and nuclear—and those with access to materials used
in their manufacture.
- International criminal syndicates whose job is putting these factions together
for profit. They help provide protection, logistics, and cash to facilitate
this nefarious commerce. Greed and ingenuity make it work.
Terrorism, meanwhile, will not be the only national security issue that the
United States will encounter in this century. This nation will continue to face
decisions on whether to become involved in various complex emergencies around
the world, some of which might not have direct connections to the war on terrorism.
Many of these situations will be fraught with ambiguities, emotions and divergent
opinions about our interests. Nevertheless, international institutions, NGOs,
nation-states, and human victims will look to the United States for leadership,
resources and action. Once again, special operations will emerge as a tool of
choice for American policy makers. The hallmark has become: if you need a job
done quickly, turn to SOF.
SOCOM has long been aware of this trend, and is determined not to be surprised.
The command founded a Future Concepts Working Group in 1998 to conceptualize
skills, equipment and resources that SOCOM will require decades hence. Working
with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, national laboratories, think
tanks, and many others, the FCWG identifies future flagship and operational
capabilities for the SOF community. Then, taking advantage of the command’s
budgeting and acquisition authorities, SOCOM’s budget and acquisition
units work to concretize the futuristic concepts, and tie them to the Defense
Department’s budget cycle.
The reality today is that the Special Operations Command has a limited number
of forces to distribute around the world. Special operations forces cannot be
mass-produced, according to another command axiom.
A few changes are in order to protect special operations capabilities and fulfill
growing U.S. requirements in the war against terrorism.
First, the U.S. government needs to prioritize the missions for which the use
of SOF is considered essential. Toward this end, the command has established
a collaboration center at Ft. Bragg, N.C. Among other tasks, the center will
serve as a clearinghouse for the services, the theater combatant commanders,
and SOCOM—each of which will be represented—to coordinate recommendations
to the secretary of defense on where SOF resources should be employed.
Second, the rest of the defense establishment and non-defense civilian authorities
should realize that special operations forces serve U.S. national interests
beyond the war on terrorism. Nobody can predict where the next catastrophe will
take place. SOF must retain the agility to perform a task, withdraw, regroup
and be ready at a moment’s notice for the next mission. At the same time,
SOCOM must keep its eye on modernization, acquiring advanced technologies and
methodologies to help achieve superiority in information operations.
Third, SOF should not be so constrained by current requirements as to prevent
the command from constantly peering into the dark, beyond the leading edge of
today’s military technologies, preparing for the conflicts of the next
decade and beyond. SOF can also be a pioneer in procedures such as post-conflict
transition to international civilian authority. Military forces continue to
play an important role in helping nations rehabilitate themselves under conditions
of lingering violence and instability. But at a certain point, these forces
must work themselves out of a job and hand over the task to expert international
and non-governmental organizations. SOF planners know how to accomplish that.
Fourth, 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. For example, the Air Force can better develop its combat
search-and-rescue forces, the Army can perfect its ability to work with foreign
forces by teaching small unit tactics and demining skills, and the Navy could
enhance its capabilities in maritime interdiction and non-hostile ship boarding.
Finally, the best way to avoid overtaxing special operations forces is to develop
and employ non-military capabilities for prosecuting the war on terrorism. As
the administration has cautioned time and again, this war is multi-faceted,
multi-dimensional and multi-national. It will require heavy investment in diplomacy,
intelligence and law enforcement. The United States should reserve its military,
and in particular special operations forces, for those missions to which they
are best adapted and where force and violence are unavoidable.
David Litt is a U.S. ambassador who recently served as a political advisor at
the U.S. Special Operations Command, in Tampa, Fla.