In my Foreign Policy column, I discuss whether Admiral William McRaven's request for greater operational freedom for Special Operations Command will extend to an unconventional warfare campaign in Syria.
This week, the New York Times reported on a draft proposal circulating inside the Pentagon that would permanently boost the global presence and operational autonomy of U.S. special operations forces. According to the article, Adm. William McRaven, the Navy SEAL who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and who is now the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), is requesting additional authority and independence outside of the normal, interagency decision-making process.
After the successful direct action strike against bin Laden and SOCOM's important role in training allied security forces in Afghanistan, the Philippines, and elsewhere, it is easy to understand how McRaven's command has become, as the New York Times put it, the Obama administration's "military tool of choice." A larger forward presence around the world and more autonomy would provide McRaven's special operations soldiers with some of the same agility enjoyed by the irregular adversaries SOCOM is charged with hunting down.
McRaven's request for more operational authority is an understandable reaction to the additional responsibilities the Obama administration and the Pentagon are heaping on SOCOM's shoulders. In the post-Afghanistan era, it will be more politically difficult for U.S. policymakers to employ large numbers of conventional ground forces. But the work of hunting down terrorists and training foreign security forces in unstable areas will go on -- missions that will fall to McRaven's men. In addition, U.S. policymakers expect McRaven's troops to track down loose weapons of mass destruction anywhere in the world and to conduct discreet on-the-ground reconnaissance and intelligence gathering when high-tech overhead systems can't collect the information needed.
But the growing crisis in Syria could provide the most challenging test for McRaven and the operating authorities he seeks. Last year's successful overthrow of Muammar al-Qaddafi showed how outside military support for insurgents -- a core special forces mission called unconventional warfare (UW) -- can produce decisive results with a small investment. Should a coalition of Arab and Western powers eventually intervene in support of Syria's rebels, McRaven and his operators might face their most complicated mission yet.
The New York Times piece made no inference to UW, but it is a mission that dates back to the origins of U.S. Army special forces at the start of the Cold War and is a basic component of special forces training. Special forces UW doctrine usually foresees a Special Forces-led UW operation as just one line of effort in a larger military campaign typically dominated by conventional forces. But after Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. policymakers may look to special operations UW campaigns to go it alone, doing the disruptive and controversial regime changing once entrusted to large armies. Major combat operations and unconventional warfare are both offensive operations. But with the use of conventional forces politically constrained, policymakers may look to McRaven's special operators to use their UW skills to carry out regime change, the most controversial of offensive missions.
The Libyan rebels who ousted Qaddafi were supported by a classic unconventional warfare campaign. In addition to British and French special operators, hundreds of Qatari soldiers infiltrated into Libya during the fighting last summer. These covert forces (none, officially, from the United States) provided arms, equipment, training, and coordination with the NATO fighter-bombers that were systematically destroying Qaddafi's army. After a slow start, Libya's rebels, once provided with outside support, combined with NATO air power and drove Qaddafi from power. UW methods achieved a decisive result at little cost and seemingly little risk.
Some now look to Syria and wonder whether a UW campaign could achieve the same result. Proponents will point to Libya as a model for success. They may also argue that the doctrine of "responsibility to protect" should apply to the Syrian civilian population as much as it did in Libya. And they may mention that the successful removal of Bashar al-Assad would inflict a grievous geostrategic setback to Iran. Opponents would note that such a campaign lacks legal authority from the United Nations Security Council thanks to opposition from Russia and China. And just because UW worked in Libya is no guarantee of success in Syria; a botched operation could lead to an escalating quagmire, as U.S. policymakers have learned to their later regret on so many occasions.
Chapter Four of the Army field manual for unconventional warfare contains a long list of planning considerations to take into account prior to beginning a UW campaign. These include numerous factors -- such as the viability of the insurgents and political constraints on U.S. actions -- that bear on whether a particular UW mission is feasible or even wise. As much as they wish it were otherwise, McRaven and administration policymakers don't get a chance to choose the problems that come across their desks, nor are they always allowed to wait until circumstances for a certain course of action become ideal. Last March, the approach of a Qaddafi armored column on Benghazi triggered NATO's intervention in Libya, ready or not. Perhaps the prospect of an al Qaeda takeover of the support to Syria's rebels may force the hand of policymakers in the Arab world and the West.
With the usefulness of conventional forces on a steep decline after Iraq and Afghanistan, McRaven knows that much will be asked of his command in the period ahead. In response, he wants the authority to match those heavy responsibilities. The admiral will stand on familiar ground when asks for a freer hand to hunt top terrorists, train foreign security forces in difficult places, or conduct dangerous but important reconnaissance.
What will be more interesting is how much policymakers will look to McRaven and his operators to carry out support for convenient insurgencies, one of the oldest and most controversial of special operations missions. Libya was textbook case of unconventional warfare. SOCOM may get Syria and perhaps its toughest job yet.
Comments
"UW" is one of those magical acronyms that has something-for-nothing qualities to it. "Black Hawk Down" told us a lot about what was kept secret about such ops in Vietnam...where we learned that it doesn't work. Special Forces in the Central Highlands were just a border force and, like the French, needed backup from large "paras" units and B-52s. The trouble was that the other side was marvelous as backing up its probe teams, masters of insertion and extraction, so that we were forever on the defensive, holding on to outposts mostly through the bringing up of massive firepower (how would you compare our SFs with their sappers in iridescent bikinis? So far, I have come across many similar cases in Iraq/Afghan Wars, the former kept secret, the latter an embarrassing subject of some very not very good news reports but some good books.
I am told that unlike in the case of the original qualification of Green Berets, today's SecOps people are lacking high-tech expertise if they have firepower skills, those with engineering skills but not Grizzly traits, the other way around, of course, just don't make it.
Lastly, as others pointed out. Terrorist education is through attrition, ours makes every operative sent on a mission as precious and costly as an antique Ming vase. We have so few of these "good men" and can't afford to waste them. For the terrorists, every guy who survives two to three years of cold turkey action is Darwinian mission-expert and already amply followed by several understudy-replacements. So far our greatest UW warrior in the drone; it alone is willing to kill and die for God like the Jihadis. Unless someone didn't look, it is clear that we are losing the UW against terror because killing theirs excites the understudies ti volunteer. Men based on career discipline, backed up by a non-caring society that simply shrugs:"ain't my kid in that war," makes that kind of warfare an attraction to some persons, some of whom our society will later greatly regret having made such skilled killers. Our best and brightest killers-- and most aggressive-- go to "fight" on Wall Street. It is Wall Street competition that has so lowered the quality of our career officers. In UW, command is the single most critical component. Three lost UW wars later, who do you think got the better deal, Wall Street or the Pentagon?
Another great article.
RE: "...U.S. policymakers expect McRaven's troops to track down loose weapons of mass destruction anywhere in the world..." I highly recommend Marc Ambinder & D. B. Grady's new e-book "The Command: Deep Inside the President's Secret Army" a concise but engrossing overview of JSOC -- denotes the concerns about the ability to address WMD into the future as JSOC's profile grows. v/r RJP, House of Marathon
How about SEALS INC. instead of SEALS USN?
http://americasfailureiniraq.com/2012/02/17/the-iraq-war-is-not-over-me…
Carl,
Those bases serve strategic purposes related to deterrence and demonstrating our commitment to regional security, and wars that are deterred are hard to put a dollar savings on, but I think in the long run they save money for the nation over time. We are a global power and have global interests, so it is only natural that we continue to have a global presence. Furthermore those bases are frequently partially funded by the host nation, because they provide that country with a level of security that country wouldn't have otherwise, or in the case of Japan we didn't want them to have it, because it would have destablized the Asia-Pacific region. Our Navy will be around for a long time (I hope), and they can support with air in the littorial regions with little in the way of permanent bases (still need dual use agreements for some support bases). Regardless, we didn't end up spending a billion dollars a month to support an occupation army that didn't accomplish much, so I think an argument could be made that UW is very cost effective. The resistance forces own the problem after the government falls, we don't, and we can provide the level of support we desire based on our objectives and how things are going. Much rather have that option than the quagmire course of action, where we end up getting pinned down with our political rhetoric.
UW may be cheaper than using GPF for an extended period, but it still isn't cheap if it has to be supported by air forces and navies. The counterargument is that those air forces and navies will be around anyway. That may be or not be. But for those air forces and navies to be available to support UW there needs to be bases close by. Establishing and maintaining those bases is expensive both monatarily and politically, especially for the US since we have bases all over the world.
Are we at risk at pursuing a method just because it is the latest in cool? I guess if Syria imploded immediately after the first Gulf War we would have advocated using our high tech GPF smart weapons to liberate Syria from itself. Robert may be right that the international community facilitated a decisive "tactical" victory over Qadaffi by providing support to the resistance forces, but it would be a stretch to call it a strategic victory at this point. AQ is not only in Syria, it is also in Libya competing for influence among other groups.
Assuming we use UW to remove Assad, what would follow? Would it really be in our interests or the interests of region to see the regime fall? We don't even know how much popular support Assad has, as far we know he may have still majority support from his population because they don't want the Islamists to take over. This is exactly a freedom march as some in our media describe it (because it makes a good story), of course there are those in the resistance that have liberal ideas and want to build a modern state, but there are others who want to pursue a more fundamentalist form of Islam, which is oppressive, and that is why I suspect many people still support Assad. I'm sure Israel would appreciate us putting the Muslim Brotherhood equivalent in power in Syria, since they already have to carefully watch developments in Egypt.
We too often confuse doctrine with strategy. I suspect we can enable the resistance to remove Assad, but then what? We can send in GPF and remove Assad, but then what? These are same questions we never developed sufficient answers for in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Carl using airpower doesn't change the character the war, in Libya it was still UW, since we were supporting a resistance. If we were using the resistance to support GPF, then UW would have been a supporting effort and it wouldn't political warfare as we define it. Even with the use of expensive aircraft it was still much cheaper than occupying Libya with GPF for an extended period, so in fact we can have it both ways. UW is generally cheaper, but the disadvantage is that we have less control in most cases. Off the cuff the only situation that I can think of where we would be at less risk of losing control using UW is liberating an occupied country and re-establishing the former government.
UW has its place in the world, but it also has numerous limitations, and decisions should be based on solely on its potential to accomplish objectives on the cheap.
In his sixth paragraph Mr. Haddick says Unconventional Warfare achieved a decisive result in Libya with little cost. But he also says they did it with the help of NATO airpower. You can't have it both ways like that. Flocks of jets and other airplanes cost a lot of money. Inexpensive unconventional efforts would have been useless without all those expensive airplanes.
I forgot about the NATO ships. Those are thoroughly conventional and expensive.
I received a couple of comments and a query via email so I thought I would share my response.
I was asked what other countries (say other than the US and UK) really have forces to conduct UW (as well as FID) as most Special Operations Forces seem to focus on the direct action commando raid and counterterrorism side of special operations. My response:
"Good question. Probably the Aussies to a certain extent. We have worked for decades trying to help the Koreans develop a real UW capability for operations in north Korea. The Thais as well. They know our doctrine inside and out but still (like most countries) like to gravitate to the high end sexy side of special operations. I wonder about the French, I just don't know but I imagine they have some capability."
"Seems like we have helped Bahrain and Qatar and Jordan to develop UW capabilities, if in fact according to open source press reporting they were advising and assisting the resistance Libya - which is probably something we should consider for Syria - kind of the "indirect, indirect" (or double secret probation) approach. They could be our surrogates and we might be better off behind the scenes using them (or others) as a cut out."
As someone else pointed out to me as well, Cuba has been quite the UW nation in Latin America over the years.
Although I mentioned the "indirect, indirect approach" in a somewhat tongue in cheek way, I think it is important to remember that we can conduct operations through and with various surrogate elements and do not have to directly put US forces on the ground (though that loses some of the romanticism of conducting UW for some). The UW mission can be very flexibly applied but as I stated up front before launching into it we need to do the necessary and very thorough strategic analysis based on a determination of the effect, outcome, or objective we want to achieve and then do the planning (to include as I said "what comes next") with the appropriate risk analysis to apply the right forces to do the right missions to achieve our policy and strategic goals. It may require the direct application of force(s), the indirect application, or the Indirect application (one removed) or a combination of all three.
Where to begin? Just a few hasty comments to which I am sure many can add.
Robert is right that ADM McRaven and SOF do not get to choose the problems they deal with; however, before we begin talking about conducting UW in Syria we (and I do not really mean we as in the public but really our national leadership) should talk about what our policy and strategy is and what we are trying to achieve. UW is a US strategic offensive option conducted to achieve a strategic effect. What effect would we seek to achieve and what blood and treasure are we willing to invest to achieve that? Just taking out al Assad as the subtitle says? Then what comes next? Just like in Afghanistan we helped resistance forces to oust the Taliban, but did we have a plan for what comes next? Do we really think we would (or could stop) at ousting al Assad? Before we talk about conducting UW we have to conduct a thorough estimate and do the necessary strategic calculations.
Of course since we are talking about it in the open press, it becomes that much harder for the forces to conduct UW should such a decision be made. And we should not be romanticizing UW because it is one of the most difficult missions to "completely" pull off – emphasis on "completely" since it is really what follows the operation that is the real hard part. It is just not some sexy operation that ends in "taking out someone" (e.g. the Taliban, Bin Laden or even Qaddafi).
On the other hand, I am somewhat heartened that people are talking about UW at all. Many think it is an anachronism. But we should consider the current definition: "Activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through and with an underground, auxiliary and guerrilla force in a denied area." As I said it is a strategic offensive option but it is not one that stands alone and the questions have to be asked about what comes next – when a government or occupying power is coerced, disrupted, or overthrown (especially overthrown), then what do you do now lieutenant?
Many think this only applies to the US conducting UW, but when this definition was debated one of the intentions was to be able to describe UW as a generalized method that can and is applied by others, both friendly and enemy. Though there are many tactical and operational variations (especially with the underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force) this definition provides a generalized description of the phenomena of UW which in essence when talking about coercion, disruption and overthrow is a form of political warfare. I mention this because there are open source reports that AQ is allegedly supporting the Syria resistance against al Assad. We should think about that – is AQ conducting such activities? If true, there is surely some irony in that, but it also appears the AQ organization certainly has some agility to adapt to conditions and situations while the US strategic decision-making apparatus may not be as agile (but some might effectively argue that it might be a good thing for the US national security decision making apparatus to be more deliberate and not act so "agilely" [read hastily] as some of our opponents – though of course Boydites would argue that we forfeit initiative if others can operate faster than our decision cycle or OODA loop – as heretical as it sounds to many, perhaps it is better to be more deliberative before we act).
But a lesson that should be considered from Robert's discussion is that to conduct effective UW there must be preparation. This requires investment in people to have a deep understanding of and experience in the potential operational environments around the world, not only as they currently exist but anticipating what the US might require to be able to do in the future – should national decision makers desire potential options from the entire US national security tool kit as UW is one of many, many tools in the tool kit. The question will always be what is the right tool to be used in a given situation – if any?