Why Does Special Forces Train and Educate for Unconventional Warfare?
Why Does Special Forces Train and Educate for Unconventional Warfare?
Why is it Important?
A Quick Response to Robert Haddick
by Colonel David S. Maxwell
Download the full article: Why Does Special Forces Train and Educate for Unconventional Warfare?
There is tremendous emotion, misunderstanding and just plain baggage surrounding Unconventional Warfare (UW). Most discussions revolve around the definition itself with little understanding of the breadth and scope of what UW entails. However, since most who discuss UW are only concerned with the words in the definition and do not delve into the intellectual foundation of UW, this short paper will seek to explain and interpret the words in the definition and answer the questions in the title. The USSOCOM approved definition for UW is:
“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.”
Since this will be a discussion of a doctrinal definition it may be instructive to recall the words of LTG (RET) John H. Cushman writing in his 1993 pamphlet “Thoughts for Joint Commanders” in which he recalls some historical admonitions on doctrine:
“A 1950 definition called doctrine ‘the compilation of principles and theories applicable to a subject, which have been developed through experience or by theory, that represent the best available thought and indicate and guide but do not bind in practice.'” (emphasis added)
“Doctrine is basically a truth, a fact, or a theory that can be defended by reason.”
“Doctrine cannot replace clear thinking…under the circumstances prevailing.”
This is wise counsel for anyone who wants to narrowly interpret doctrine. Doctrinal “purism” is unhelpful particularly when faced with the complex, ever evolving characteristics of war in the 21st Century. Doctrine can be used to train, prepare, and guide but it is effective strategy with campaign plans for implementation that are required to achieve objectives in the national interest.
Download the full article: Why Does Special Forces Train and Educate for Unconventional Warfare?
Colonel David S. Maxwell, U.S. Army, is a Special Forces officer with command and staff assignments in Korea, Japan, Germany, the Philippines, and CONUS, and is a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth and the National War College, National Defense University. The opinions he expresses in this paper are his own and represent no U.S. Government or Department of Defense positions.
Col. Maxwell:
An excellent essay, the conclusions of which I fully support.
In my essay, to which you are responding, I noted (as did Col. Witty in his essay) that UW campaigns can be politically problematic. That does not seem to be a controversial conclusion. But it also doesn’t mean that USSOCOM and the rest of the U.S. government shouldn’t also prepare for UW. In fact, in my essay I predicted that “the appeal of unconventional warfare as a policy option is likely to rise” and “[t]he job for Witty and his special operations colleagues is to make sure policymakers have a usable [UW] option should they call for it.” I believe this matches the conclusions you arrive at in your essay.
Cannot the logic for the continued training and education of the Special Forces for unconventional warfare also be found in the new US foreign policy direction — which is focused on transforming weak and failed states and better aligning these “loose cannons” with the United States’ strategic interests?
Certainly when contronted with the requirement to (1) transform as per our orders and (2) align specifically as to our interests, the potential for resistance by the governments of these weak and failed states is highly likely.
Therefore, preparations for dealing with the numerous potential rebellions of these various governments may need to be planned and prepared for; this, so as to cause our new foreign policy initiative to have sufficiently credible “teeth” with which to back up its demands.
It seems logical that (1) an exceptionally robust and credible unconventional warfare capability will be needed to (2) help execute and carry out our new “weak and failed states” foreign policy direction and initiative.
As such, should there not be even greater emphasis placed on unconventional warfare training and education of US Special Forces today — in light of our new foreign policy direction?
I couldn’t agree more with you. Lots of people just don’t understand what Special Force Units are trained for.
Also, it’s a pleasure to read your posts. I also post on the similar topic. I write about Navy SEALs and Delta Force. Please have a look when you have time.
Dave,
Thanks for this. The SF community needs to “lift the skirt” on topics like this to facilitate understanding of complex and controversial topics. UW is clearly such a topic.
Mine has been a lonely voice for several years now to attempt to shape perspectives on the value of seeing AQ less as a “Terrorist” organization, but more as a “UW” organization. There is little value in defining an organization by its tactics, as that only results in a counter-tactic approach. CT and GWOT are a coutner-tactic approach. By defining AQ by their mission we can then shape a more holistic mission to neutralize the problem. A “Counter-UW” perspective provides a framework into which a broad family of activities (COIN, FID, CT, Civic Action, etc) can be built into; and provides a clearer perspective as to balancing and directing the same.
One area you did not touch on in this great piece that I personally think is critical in SF being built upon a foundation of UW is that the study of UW is the study of insurgency. SF soldiers are specifically selected for those with certain physical and mental toughness as all SOF, but uniquely selected for those with an aptitude for insurgency. It is the selection that makes SOF Special; the training is the icing on the cake. Icing without cake is what one gets without such selection.
It is this inherent understanding and thinking process on insurgency itself that, I think, makes US SF the effective force it has proven to be over the years, in peace and war, across the spectrum of the wide range of missions you lay out in your diagram.
(On a related topic, it the lack of this inherent understanding and thinking of insurgency in FM 3-24 that contributes most to that sense that many have that the manual is not quite right, but that they can’t put their finger on. We can’t let USAJFKSWCS sit out on the re-write as they did on the original)
Nice job.
Bob
Colonel Maxwell, that is a fantistic article but what concerns me is just how much SF has gotten away from it’s orgiinal mission. Somehow SF became an international SWAT instead of what they were created to be.
Also how come SF stopped publishing Special Warfare magazine? They haven’t come out with a new issue in like 6 months. Thats all skint up and stuff!
Maybe a way to socialize the importance of UW, as well as SF capabilities in this area, would be to bring conventional types, and maybe even the interagency, as observers of Robin Sage? Or create some videos of the exercise for viewing by appropriate audiences? Just a thought.
David—this link goes to what you have been writing about having a UW strategy and in the light on the Ukraine events, the cancelling of the Russian/Lithuanian Confidence Building treaty, and the new Russian Attack Helicopter Bde flight exercises along the Estonian border.
http://www.lithuaniatribune.com/67571/e-lucas-is-nato-ready-for-russias-new-generation-warfare-201467571/
The article goes to heart of the new Russian strategy referred to as the New Generation Warfare.
There is a 15 page pdf explaining the current Russian doctrine in this new UW strategy.
http://is.gd/berzins
I don’t think I saw this piece by Dave when it was published. Overall I agree with it, but at the end of the day these largely internal to SF discussions on UW do little to move the ball forward down the field where the goal is to effectively employ UW as a policy option.
Colin Gray in “the American Way of War” accuses us of being apolitical, astrategic, ahistorical, culturally ignorant, and technology/firepower dependent. I find it hard to argue with his conclusions, which doesn’t sit well for the potential future of UW as a way to achieve a policy objective for the U.S.. Those of us in the Special Forces community need to do much more to make UW a viable option for policy makers. Moving forward, I think we need to make some bold changes to advance the future utility of UW. Some recommendations for consideration follow:
1. First we need to remove it from the shadows and realize it is not a form of warfare solely conducted by Special Forces. To be effective it must be a whole of government and joint military effort, otherwise is little more than an isolated tactical approach to no particular end. We need to promote joint and interagency doctrine/policy for UW. Furthermore UW needs to be addressed as an option in key joint publications like JP 5-0 (plans) and JP 3-0 (operations). Fortunately the joint UW doctrine is under development, but if planners in the Geographical Combatant Commands (GCCs) don’t know how to integrate it into their schemes it will be for naught.
2. Send some of our best SF officers (COLs, CW5s, MSGs/SGMs) to work in the GCC J5s to ensure UW is considered as an option for all relevant contingencies the GCCs are looking at. I know the counter argument is that is why we have Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOCs), but the ground truth is most TSOC J5s have limited SF qualified officers, and they’re busy 85% of the time responding to TSOC and SOCOM requirements. We need SF officers specifically at the GCC to maintain that persistent presence, develop relationships based on trust (you’re part of their team, not the TSOC), and over time effect cultural change that is receptive to UW options.
3. Ensure SF planners embrace a strategic mindset, which may mean ditching the military decision making process which focuses on dumbing down complex problems to provide clarity for tactical action at times to really think through a complex problem, and how we could employ UW to achieve a policy end, and equally important being savvy enough to realize when it is not appropriate. We need to shift our mindset from targeting so called centers of gravity, to exploring how we can shape conditions that are aligned with U.S. interests. In simple terms putting policy first, and tactics a distant second. One point I somewhat disagree with Dave’s article is where he wrote something along the line of “foremost the underground is about providing intelligence to facilitate operations,” but I think if we are thinking strategically the underground is first and foremost about day after victory, which means a focus on establishing a shadow government that can effectively assume control when the adversary government collapses. Of course they can and need to provide intelligence also, but this gets back to putting policy first and tactics second. CvC wrote something about war being an extension of politics, yet in our system we tend to execute war at the tactical level with little consideration of achieving a better peace. This mentality of, oh we created a bit of a mess, time for the State Department and USAID to react to it, but at least we did our job.
4. We need to stop perpetuating the myth that we need a “long time” to prepare an area to conduct UW. Historically this has been disproven on numerous occasions. It does take a long time to prepare our forces to conduct complex UW operations, but we will seldom have the luxury of knowing where we may need to conduct UW in advance in the current age. Our UW doctrine and historic practice (mostly training) is largely based on the Cold War paradigm where SF teams would focus on a particular country for UW in case the balloon went up. With a few exceptions those days largely don’t exist anymore. For example, if we choose to do so we now have an opportunity to conduct UW in Syria, Crimea, and other locations that we didn’t foresee until the local political and social events unfolded. Uncertainty if the new norm, and that is what we need to prepare for. We unnecessarily take an option off the table when state we need a long time to prepare. We need the ability to respond to opportunity when it arises, and that means our community needs to focus on how to be more flexible and agile and yet still deliberate in our planning for UW. We’re not there yet, partly because we have a tendency to cling to the past we’re comfortable with.
5. We need to return to a culture of lifelong learning in SF ranks. We can claim to be UW experts all we like, but the reality is the scope of UW is so complex no one can be an expert. Embrace humility and constantly strive to improve. A learning culture means ODA leadership giving reading assignments, and then having team discussions on a particular topic. This means getting away (and I believe we have in SF) from the dumbing the force down by forcing them to focus on testing 10 common army per year as part of validation, and instead engage in learning that actually matters. We need to deconventionalize our force and quit mimicking conventional army training models that are directed to adapt to the lowest common denominator. That methodology is fine when we’re training soldiers in developing nations, not for developing a UW force that must be capable of integrating operations, intelligence, politics, psychological operations, etc. in a very complex environment.
6. Finally we need talented SF soldiers who separated or retired from the service to run for Congress and seek positions in OSD and other locations where their influence can challenge existing strategic paradigms that are excessively conventional.
“Doctrine can be used to train, prepare, and guide but it is effective strategy — with campaign plans for implementation — that are required to achieve objectives in the national interest.”
Given our overarching foreign policy objective (to transform outlying states and societies more along modern western lines and to incorporate these states and societies more into the western sphere of influence):
a. Where is the effective strategy that COL Maxwell calls for? And
b. Where are the campaign plans for implementation of this strategy that COL Maxwell notes is critical?
Let us consider these questions — and the idea and utility of unconventional warfare — in light of what appears to be our new “self-determination” world-view and strategy.
As per its suggested name, this new world-view and strategy:
a. While acknowledging our desire to transform and incorporate other states and societies as per Paragraph 2 above,
b. Also recognizes that these such decisions must, ultimately, be made by these states and societies (examples: Russia, China, Iran and their neighbors) themselves.
(This new world-view and strategy also acknowledging that the transformation and incorporation of not EVERY outlying state and society is needed to provide for our national interest.)
This new understanding, and the strategy based on same, thus, tending to preclude the use of our military forces (in any way, shape or form) to achieve our desired ends. (Such seeming to blatantly violate the idea and principle of “self” determination.)
The question then becomes: Based on this new “self-determination” concept and strategy, do we still need to train and educate our special forces as to: “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?”
Herein — and because of our new “self-determination” view-point and strategy — would not our campaign plans specifically preclude such features/options/activities as are identified with “unconventional warfare” as described in the paragraph immediately above?