Beyond Irregular Warfare

All good points. I'd add to Bill's post the Coast Guard as many national navies resemble the CG in mission and organization than our Navy. Of course that adds DHS to the mix...

Guys,
Those are very well thought responses. One thing that keeps coming to mind for me as I read the various stories of the different services doing everything from Military training teams to close knit relationship advising is that there needs to be some sort of unified command (dare I say joint) that oversees this. I'm not sure what the answer is. When the Army decided to do away w/TMAG or not even attempt it, it was disappointing, being that they have Transition Teams in Iraq and Afghanistan that vary in their level of advising. I fear that these skills will be lost. Perhaps the Army should create the advisory group and put them under USASOCOM like the CAG is. I'm not sure what the final answer should be, but I do know that all the services are pursuing capacity building under the umbrella of SFA.
My last tour was with the IAG and we had former SF who acted as advisors and such to the IAG and TT's. All of them where more interested in FID rather than DA type stuff. I don't see why there couldn't be an Joint Advising unit tying in all the services efforts w/SF on staff or former SF assisting in part of this.
Good point by Bill, there is a whole aspect of the military that many ground combat element types never see wrt Air Ops and such that are critically important to do right. Having served within my service in both, I would say the Squadron Ops aspect is very tough to do right and in many cases the ground combat folks don't realize how dependent they are on these types doing their jobs right in order to carry out their ground missions.
Thanks for the comments.

Yeah had a brain cramp for a bit there. After reading Bill's post and Ken's post, I kinda thought to myself, "What and idiot". I just wasn't looking at the big picture but allowed myself to take the narrow view. I got it! Thanks for knocking me upside the head. Guess we have just gotten away from it for quite some years as a military. It's all coming back to me now.....

Good post, Bill. ODB's was helpful since I can't hear the speech -- but I don't see this:<blockquote>"I'm trying to grasp the intent on this one: "Mattis said he recently met with Army Chief Gen. George Casey, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway and Special Operations Commander Adm. Eric Olsen, to discuss the "division of labor" in advisory missions. "Where we need people to build relationships, thats going to be a Special Forces kind of job... where we want to just go in and train people in marching, basic marksmanship, first aid, small unit tactics, the general purpose forces will pick up most of those.""</blockquote>as a problem at all.

That's the way it worked -- and worked well for years. If the nation has an existing force and they want us to help them train, the GPF can do that -- the cold war method was through the MAAG who would get MTTs from either SF or the GPF -- when I was in a MAAG, we ordered and used both, depending on who was getting trained in what. I'm a great believer in SF but you'd be surprised at how many A Teams could not (or cannot) teach Tank Platoon tactics or Air Defense Battalion / Squadron Operationsand don't even think about getting one to fix the supply system...

The SF community, good as it is not only can't do some of those things, they don't want to try -- some in SF or greater SOCOM might (will?) want to control the overall training in a given nation and that may make sense or it may not. Each situation should be judged on its own merits; there cannot be a one size fits all model. Every nation, every situation is different.

On the other hand, when you're talking about training local forces from scratch, those with no military or military training to speak of, that's always been the SF specialty. That has been the initial entry from DoD into a bunch of nations. At least, it has since we foolishly dissolved the MAAGs. They or something like them needs to be invented by someone.

I don't think state or anyone else will have a problem with that division of effort. Except maybe USSOCOM...

While I found little to disagree with in COL Osbornes paper, it was written largely from a Special Operations perspective of the world, versus a more holistic DoD and the U.S. government perspective, so the narrow train of thought coming out USSOCOM does little for us in the Geographical Combatant Commands (GCC) working IW. While I believe Special Forces will always play a leading role in most forms of irregular warfare, they are not the end all be all to the problem set. Since the character of IW demands a hybrid military (conventional and unconventional) and law enforcement response, any serious paper on IW must address the projected roles of each service, the interagency, and perhaps organizations that do not yet exist, and then how all this is controlled and synchronized.

Ill offer the Navy as a service example; we need the Navy not only to secure sea lanes against conventional and irregular threats, but we also need the Navy to help develop the Navies and perhaps maritime law enforcement capabilities of friendly nations with an emphasis on brown water and close to shore operations to limit freedom of movement of insurgents/terrorists. The Navy should also be able to assist partner nations with ISR, transporting humanitarian supplies to support enabling a host government to respond adequately to a crisis, etc. to support the perception of good governance, etc. The roles for each service are potentially endless, but we first need to understand the problem set.

First, it is a mistake to think our responses to various IW threats against our national interests are going to be limited to global FID and UW, there is still a requirement to be able to execute unilateral global strike operations (whether they are low visibility SOF strikes, or by dropping a Bn from the 82d Airborne on the target with air power providing fires in support). It isnt too hard to imagine a country offering safe haven to a group of terrorists preparing to conduct attacks against our interests, and the situation may very well call for a unilateral pre-emptive attack.

The second issue ties in closely to the first, and that is the need for new doctrine to address the IW problem sets. The tired voices that continue to hype that our 1950s vintage doctrine on UW and COIN is sufficient are disconnected from the world were living in. While our FID and COIN doctrine is still developing, especially with the push to develop security force assistance doctrine and associated authorities, but our UW doctrine has been time locked in the post WWII model. Unfortunately more appropriate models for executing UW can be found by looking at Iran and complex organizations like the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Third, how should the GCC Command and Control long war operations that span multiple nations, and the fights are waged differently in each one based on local conditions? We simply dont have enough personnel to stand up a JTF structure for each fight. We get back to the point where were weighting on the effort on C2 support, and providing less and less experienced capability to the tip of the spear where it counts because more and more folks are sitting on a JTF staff somewhere producing slides on metrics for another worthless brief. We have to enable the Embassies to become the C2 node in most cases with the appropriate DoD augmentation as required, but the majority of long term support needs to be resident at the GCC and their subordinate special operation commands, but neither is organized to facilitate this. It might be time to revisit the regional engagement command concept.

Just finished watching the video. Yes does change the context to a degree. One key point from the Grunts to Rebuild Like SOF article. "Some point to the El Salvador model as the preferred model for counterinsurgency, where a small team of U.S., advisors, not more than 55, trained the El Salvadoran military to defeat a community insurgency in the 1980s. The problem is the militarys acute shortage of advisors able to train foreign militaries. That mission is one for which the Special Forces ODA teams were created and are well suited. Yet, those teams currently operate as commandos, pursuing high value terrorist targets and insurgent leaders around the world."

If this is the focus for SF then why are we not doing it, by, through, and with? Would this not kill two birds with one stone? Currently we are getting back to this and have slowly been heading that way for a few years.

I'm trying to grasp the intent on this one: "Mattis said he recently met with Army Chief Gen. George Casey, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway and Special Operations Commander Adm. Eric Olsen, to discuss the "division of labor" in advisory missions. "Where we need people to build relationships, thats going to be a Special Forces kind of job... where we want to just go in and train people in marching, basic marksmanship, first aid, small unit tactics, the general purpose forces will pick up most of those."

So when a country we have been working with for years wants their forces trained we'll send GPF. If it's country we are just starting to work with we will use SF. State Department will have fun selling that one. Is this not SF's bread and butter? I'm just overall confused on this one, maybe someone could shed some light on this for me.

I agree. Unfortunately, I'm too deaf to do video or even listen to the TV and I was unable then or today to find a transcript through Google, other search engines, the FPRI, ROA or JFCom. If you run across one, perhaps it could be posted.

I'd also offer up that news / blog accounts of leadership addresses don't always do complete justice to the message / content or context.

Here is a <a href="http://www.fpri.org/multimedia/20090212.jointwarfare21stcentury.html">v… of General Mattis' recent speech</a> delivered at the <i>Foreign Policy Research Institute</i> - the one cited by DoDbuzz (<i>Grunts to Rebuild Like SOF</i>) above.

Two interesting comments and they illustrate the problem I cited in my first post above.

Trust.

It's totally missing -- and both sides of the debate bear some responsibility. I don't think it's a fight for survival though I'm sure a few on each side see it that way. It is a fight for funds and power (read: freedom of action, spaces and flags as much as raw power) and those kinds of fights are inherent in our political and military system. They are not going away. That does not mean they cannot be tempered with a dose of reality as opposed to a parochial view. I suspect MCTAG is an example. The current Commandant may be a big war fan and not SO inclined, he therefor sees MCTAG as a potential diversion of good people and funds away from his primary concern.

Conversely, General Mattis has just done the math. There aren't enough people truly interested in the SF -- as opposed to the SOF, two very different things -- mission who will really be qualified and want to do the job to adequately support more than one medium sized FID effort. If a greater effort is needed, it will have to involve the GPF.

It would probably be helpful if more people did that math but the budget, strength and freedom of action issues intrude. Having done both DA and FID missions, I know the former is more fun with more breaks and less hassle -- plus you get to eat better, a lot better -- and given the option, I know which I'd elect.

I also know there are degrees of difficulty in DA missions and the GPF is perfectly capable of doing the lower order jobs and the Rangers can do the mid level efforts. Everyone else knows that also. High end DA takes tremendous specialization and training. We need DA units on several levels -- and we need SF with their UW and FID skills. They are different missions and require a different mindset. Both jobs, at the top end, are difficult and not something everyone can do. At the lower end of both missions, though, we have proven many times over the years that the average guy or gal can do most things pretty well. Only when turf questions intrude do we get dumb about it.

Back in the day, no one asked me which I'd elect, the fun DA stuff or living on rice for months at a time and trying to improve my furrin language skills. They told me which needed doing and I did each at the time to the best of my ability. We can't always do what we want to do. That's particularly true in a war. Most folks know that; just a matter of remembering where the real war is. It is not inside the Beltway...

It also helps if we play to our strength and, if caught off balance, we should try to recover to adjust back to a position of balance. We are good at the ad hoc stuff but we don't need to codify it. It would be a mistake to go too far in either direction and most know that. Most...

We need to be able to trust each other and that seems to be far more difficult than it probably should be.

Here is what I don't understand wrt the service chiefs comments in the "Grunts to rebuild like SOF;
I belong to MCTAG and we are still figuring out our roles. Certainly we are a GPF that operates with SOF like functions in that we advise train HNSF. From what I understand the CMC is not a fan. One reason we were stood up was to keep regular infantry battalions, Artillery, to a lesser degree engineer and other support units strength from being sapped. Based on his comments and Gen Mattis comments I wonder if this is being paid lip service or we're simply not in the plan. I just don't know.

I have to again wonder after hearing what I did yesterday if this does not come back to budget. DOD is planning on taking some funds away from conventional forces and adding funds to irregular forces. Is this the play to stay tapped into those funds? Additionally one has to wonder just how big is the divide between conventional and SOF? Is it a fight for survival? Just makes one wonder.

This article <a href=http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/02/19/grunts-sof-fob-based-coin-must-end-ma…; "<i>Grunts to Rebuild like SOF..."</i></a> reporting comments by CinCUSJFCom is interesting and seems perhaps at odds with the principles outlined in <i>"A Strategic Concept for Countering Irregular Adversaries and Engagement in Complex Security Environments."</i>

One could get confused.

One could also wonder why SF was converted to door kicking and direct action when that is more nearly a GPF mission. Or why, if USSOCOM wants to retain control of that, more Ranger Battalions were not formed in lieu of the additional SF battalions that are being formed (for what mission?). Or why the GPF is being converted to SF missions like training indigenous forces.

Who knew we were into cross dressing...

I'm impressed by the fact that 18 months or so ago USSOCOM established an Irregular Warfare Directorate. Having been SF a very long time ago, I -- obviously mistakenly -- thought that had long been an SF (and thus by default) a SOCOM mission. I am curious as to why it took about five years after such warfare became again an item of interest to the US for that Directorate to be activated but I suspect I know the answer and am in that fully correct and fully mistaken...

Seriously, I know that USSOCOM has been quite busy and I mean no disreapect to the guys and gals there. I mention that above only to make two points:

The Department, as the author says, meaning all of DoD one presumes, did indeed take its eye off the ball on irregular warfare. However, It should not be forgotten that so too did the services and commands subordinate to the Department do exactly the same thing. They all prepared for the war they wanted to fight as opposed to the one that every intelligence indicator since the early 1980s said was most likely. That mistake certainly should not be repeated by anyone.

Secondly, in the Department and all those services and Commands there were a number of people who for many years said "This is not smart" with respect to ignoring irregular warfare. Everyone in the services and those commands did not succumb -- and I personally know of some rather serious internal food fights on the topic -- but their leaders did succumb. The point there is that the smart guys do not always get the attention they deserve. That, too is a mistake that no one should wish to repeat.

Colonel Osborne says:<blockquote>"For Special Operations Forces - we will continue to play the leading role in denied and politically sensitive environments and remain the sole DoD capability for unconventional warfare. We will also remain the most responsive for emergent and short fused requirements."</blockquote>I totally agree with the first two contentions but do have to wonder if the third will be correct in all situations. I can visualize a few where SOCOM might not be the preferred -- or the largest -- first responder.

He also says:<blockquote>"In many cases, a blend of either General purpose forces enabled by SOF - or SOF enabled by GPF will be the right answer. And while we have a fairly good idea of what GPF enabled by SOF looks like - the JTF and CJSOTF relationships are good examplers, we will be required to open the aperture on what SOF enabled by GPF really means. SOF must be supported by enablers and sustainers that only exist in GPF formations. This support must be characterized in terms of "direct support" or even by formal command relationships such as TACON or OPCON. And the types of enablers must be broadened to adequately address the challenges we confront - capabilities like vertical and horizontal construction, administrative lift, and a full range of ISR platforms have a role and must be included in the dialogue. This aspect of IW implementation may in fact present the greatest challenges with respect to breaking cultural paradigms within the department."</blockquote>I fully agree and hope we get to that point; we really need to do that. It will indeed be perhaps the greatest challenge. A significant part of that problem is going to be over classification and compartmentalization of information. It is difficult to agree to wholeheartedly support someone who says "I can't tell you." I'm fully cognizant of the whys and the rule -- I merely suggest that is a sticking point that really needs to be remedied.

I also note that in the professed solutions "<i>...JTF and CJSOTF relationships..."</i> imply a degree of stove piping while the reverse, GPF enablers working with SOF might require TACON or OPCON discards stovepipes. I'm old and retired so totally out of it but I suggest that sounds like a one way street even if it is not and is not meant to sound that way.

We were there before, trusting each other and GPF working for SF -- then 28 years of peace intruded and battles over the budget and some other minor things caused a massive growth in parochialism. Both sides, conventional and SO are equally guilty. Both sides need to fix that or what should happen will not.

I know that cooperation is the rule, mostly, at lower levels but the higher up the chains one goes, the greater the problem appears to be. That, in my opinion, is almost the reverse of what one would intuitively expect. It certainly is the reverse of what's needed. I hope you guys can fix it.