Small Wars Journal

Persistent Engagement in Colombia

Tue, 07/29/2014 - 7:36pm

Persistent Engagement in Colombia - Joint Special Operations University monograph by Mark Moyar, Hector Pagan, and Wil R. Griego

From the Introduction:

From its inception, the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has enshrined capacity building in its doctrine as the central pillar of the “indirect approach,” which is the essential complement to direct action by U.S. Special Operations Forces (USSOF). USSOCOM Publication 1 calls upon Special Operations Forces (SOF) to train, advise, and assist partner-nation institutions in order to build their capacity, which in turn will reduce U.S. visibility, risk, and cost. It emphasizes “the need for persistence, patience, and continuity of effort” in capacity building.

In recent years, USSOF engagement in Colombia has been hailed widely as an exemplar of effective capacity building activities, and as proof that persistent engagement is critical to success. The duration and continuity of engagement have indeed been critical to successful capacity building, in Colombia and elsewhere. But they are only one part of the story, representing the quantitative side of SOF engagement. Much less attention has been devoted to the qualitative side of USSOF involvement in Colombia, which is no less important, although it is considerably less obvious and cannot be measured numerically. Taking the qualitative side for granted would be a major mistake, for history shows that providing large quantities of assistance over long periods of time has been no guarantor of success.

This monograph demonstrates that a combination of high quantity and high quality USSOF engagement bolstered Colombian capacity, and that it did so primarily by promoting the development of Colombia’s human capital…

Persistent Engagement in Colombia

Categories: El Centro

Comments

Move Forward

Wed, 07/30/2014 - 8:05pm

Good study. However, I offer a few observations to dispel the notion that Plan Columbia and U.S. support there could have translated to a light footprint in Iraq and Afghanistan.

<blockquote>Uribe was able to bring the insurgents to their knees because he succeeded in making improvements across the military and police beyond the elite forces. Such broad improvements were required to hold territory after it had been cleared by the elite mobile units.</blockquote>

Keep in mind that Columbia had existing professional and conscript Soldiers and police. According to the study, DOD personnel were limited to 800 and contractors to 600 during Uribe's rule. This quantity could not have begun to train all of Iraq or Afghan forces from scratch.

Under Plan Patria, Uribe added nine new Army mobile brigades to the existing eight. That is not a small footprint. He augmented the police expanding from 113,600 to 160,000. That is not a small footprint. During Libertad I he placed 11,000 Columbian troops around Bogota alone in platoon-size elements. That is probably more than the total U.S. forces that will remain in all of Afghanistan next year. He sent another 17,000 members of Army mobile brigades, also in small units, to southern Columbia to remove that safe haven and drive FARC into the jungle.

None of this sounds like Afghan VSO/ALP or the Sons of Iraq. These were augmented central government forces under a legitimate ruler who had realistic alternatives to the coca crop, a better national GDP, there were not multiple competing ethnicities, nor any imposition of Sharia law as a goal of some.

<blockquote>Uribe, on the other hand, wished to pursue a large counterinsurgency strategy that required hundreds of thousands of competent security forces.</blockquote>

U.S. personnel were prohibited from participating in combat operations which would not have been feasible in either Iraq or Afghanistan until national security forces existed. By mid-2008, the study cites a decline in FARC membership to about 9,000 losing some 22,000 to quitting, losses, and giving up and becoming regular citizens again. However, the evidence indicates that FARC discouragement was due to competent overall security forces and leadership of the host nation...not just the efforts of U.S. advisors.