SOCOM’s Goal: Pre-Empt Wars
05.20.2013 at 02:03am
SOCOM's Goal: Pre-Empt Wars by Howard Altman, Tampa Tribune
… after more than 12 years of war, special operations forces are frayed — and in more demand than ever. With the military facing big spending cuts and a new emphasis on places around the globe, U.S. Special Operations Command, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, is working to adapt to new realities…
Great title (written with sarcasm). I am sure the editor and author probably meant prevent wars as I think there is some baggage with a doctrine of pre-emption. For more back to the future we should recall this excerpt from the 2002 NSS which also has been termed as the “Bush Doctrine” While the second paragraph below seems completely logical the use of the word preemption connotes in particular the Iraq War and that of course has baggage.
BEGIN EXCERPT:
From the 2002 NSS: The security environment confronting the United States today is radically different from what we have faced before. Yet the first duty of the United States Government remains what it always has been: to protect the American people and American interests. It is an enduring American principle that this duty obligates the government to anticipate and counter threats, using all elements of national power, before the threats can do grave damage. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction – and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. There are few greater threats than a terrorist attack with WMD.
To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively in exercising our inherent right of self-defense. The United States will not resort to force in all cases to preempt emerging threats. Our preference is that nonmilitary actions succeed. And no country should ever use preemption as a pretext for aggression.
END Excerpt.
Coming soon to a country a near you – the Afghan Village Stability Operations. Wonder how chiefs of mission feel about that?
BEGIN Excerpt:
Given his vision, McRaven might consider clips from another movie: “Back to the Future.”
A program special operators run in Afghanistan, for instance, where they work in villages training locals as police, is a modern version of what Green Berets did in Vietnam.
This program can work around the globe, Bradin said.
END Excerpt.
I absolutely agree that the traditional Special Operations (and in particular Special Warfare – generally embodied within Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations) missions and activities have the most continued relevance today and in the future for addressing the complex security threats we face now and will in the future (ones that are not existential to the US, but may very well be existential to our friends partners and allies). But I do not think the journalist did any favors to USSOCOM in describing the narrative in terms of the Bush Doctrine as well as the vision of conducting VSO around the world. The missions conducted as part of VSO are absolutely relevant and timeless but each will be applied uniquely based on the situation as it really exists and the VSO model may not be appropriate around the world and in fact may receive push back from countries or our own civilian government agency personnel.
Re: The “Back to the Future” comment:
Should we consider that the author — intentionally or unintentionally — may have suggested that we are reverting, once again, to something akin to “containment?”
COL Bradin: “There has been a shift in strategy from war to defensive tactics.”
An interesting discussion of preventive — as opposed to pre-emptive — wars.
The authors, I believe, are rather famous (or should I say infamous?).
http://www.harvard-jlpp.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/YooFinal.pdf
Here is a (seemingly) simple question:
Special forces used to prevent wars to what end?
Herein, let us consider the current theory: Self-determination.
Thus:
a. Special forces.
b. Used to prevent wars.
c. So that self-determination (in other countries) can be realized.
Problem:
1. The presence of foreign special (and/or other) forces in another country would seem to negate the idea that “self-determination” was what was going on. The foreign power(s) would seem to be intervening so as to help one side or another achieve victory and, thereby, secure its (the foreign power’s) own interests. “Self-determination,” therefore, and via these such interventions, being denied — and being shown to be simply fancy, fantasy or subterfuge?
2. “War” is a classic, common and frequently essential tool which is often needed to achieve “self-determination” (American Revolution). Thus, to deny and/or to preclude war is one not, in effect, denying a population its, potentially, most important and most critically needed tool re: the ability to “self-determine?”
Thus, if not to facilitate “self-determination,” to what end are US special (and/or other) forces being deployed to prevent wars in other countries?
A quote from the article toward the end:
“Al-Qaida is going to undergoverned countries,” said Mann. “They are exploiting these rural areas for strategic safe havens.”
A top-down, big military footprint approach has failed in the past, Mann said. He advocates for the small footprint approach that special operations forces provide best.
This is patent nonsense. The big-footprint approach did not fail. It was never the approach. Occupation failed. Namely, we failed at the business of occupation as a matter of strategy and willingness to deal with the moral dirt of occupation honestly. The three co-dependent concerns of occupation are politics, economics, and security. We focused on one of these and then wondered why the whole enterprise was such a cluster. Framing this argument as a matter of foot-print and “top down direction” is specious and self-serving.
SOF will fail just as GPF failed if the strategy they are executing isn’t up to the task of socio-economic reform. Going about the hinterlands of the world and dropping AQ bodies is a strategy, but it is not a strategy that will impact socio-economic structures. And let’s be honest with ourselves, where in the ranks of SOF are the socio-economics experts with a few decades to spare to manage such strategies? At best we should be prepared for marginal gains. They are gains, with fewer AQ-types if we are successful. But let’s keep the dreaming in check.