The U.S. Army Has Quietly Created a New Commando Division by Joseph Trevithick, War is Boring
On Sept. 30, the U.S. Army unceremoniously stood up a new headquarters—the 1st Special Forces Command—at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The division-level unit brings together more than 15,000 Green Berets and other special troops in a single new organization.
Previously, the Army’s Special Operations Command had directly controlled all of these troops plus others on a wide range of missions. The idea behind the new HQ is to assemble a force specifically tailored for dealing with what the Pentagon calls “hybrid warfare.”…
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Notice the inherent disconnect?
There is currently no US strategy in place for countering the Russian doctrine of UW as a political warfare tool and yet we get the following comment from a US Ambassador.
"If someday hybrid warfare played out on #NATO territory, we'd be ready."--US Ambassador Lute.
Now that is a disconnect.
Bill--by the way--the sectorial sanctions which arrived way to late to have initially an impact on Putin's actions together now with the falling price of oil and now the collapsing Ruble leads to this comment below taken from social media a few minutes ago.
Wow. Just wow. Russian rouble now down almost 9% today. That's a total crash. Worst since the default in 1998.
So some might in fact come to the conclusion that actually it was and is OPEC that is giving Putin second thoughts in the Ukraine nothing that NATO/US/EU or Germany has done politically in the last six months has had this impact.
Bill--really read the politico article and then look at my comments on just how NATO will or will not trigger Article 5 in a hybrid war.
Just how will NATO respond if "locals are acting out" and no one can prove the long arm of Russia?---will we in the US support a war over "acting out" locals"--seriously doubt it.
Believe me Russia has made some really bad decisions during their UW implementation in the Ukraine and that will not happen the next time around.
Therein lies my comments---and nothing blacking flag waving Islamists can do currently matches what Putin is "showing" us on a daily basis that counters our entire current foreign policy-- to in fact cancelling out the old Cold War MAD concept.
Bill---the core problem with the current DATE is in fact it is focused totally on a "near peer" opponent not a "peer" that is driving the latest tanks, firing the newest rocket and heavy artillery and using highly precise radar guided arty rounds (which right now the Russians are firing daily in the tens of rounds and we fire once a year due to costs), using highly mobile SF/airborne/mech units and coming with a deep SIGINT and drone ability and SF/armed intel recon teams as well as sabotage teams working the rear areas behind the forward units.
And along the way most US Army BCTS and Division HQs cannot react immediately to info warfare being directed at them and their AOR-they simply are not structured for any form of info war responses which Russia inherently uses to support their tactical side as well as their strategic side almost hourly.
The below article explains a little better the long term strategy and confirms to a degree that the current NATO concept on how to counter hybrid warfare will simply not work.
It’s Not Just #Ukraine: #Putin’s ultimate goal is to take control of territories #Russia ruled before 1917
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/its-not-just-ukraine-113… …
By the way---this is what cost the SecDef his job---as he attempted to point out the far more serious threat and it is not black flag waving radicals.
Bill---will respond in more detail later--but here quickly is the core NATO problem as well as why we are not finding a solution for the Russian hybrid moves.
Under NATO Article 5 that would trigger a military war response from NATO what if in fact the same exact actions occurring in the Ukraine were to start in say Latvia and or Estonia or for that matter Romania or Bulgaria.
Literally meaning the same political agitation starts within the Russian speaking minority, then some armed local individuals show up in the streets and then buildings are taken over by the locals---while still the inherent security problem of the NATO member--if then mercenaries start drifting into the country and reinforcing the "few armed Russian speaking locals" and there is absolutely no connection to be proven back to Russia.
Does then NATO get involved yes and or no and does NATO call for Article 5 to be implemented and that takes a full 28 member decision.
THEN and that is the THEN question does in fact NATO pull the trigger on Article 5 and go to war which then gives Russia full rights to cross the border and threaten at the same the use of tactical nuclear weapons as war has been declared on them.
AND at this point does NATO continue the use of military force to protect the NATO member and or does it suggest to the NATO country find a solution with your own internal minority which it has not been 100% proven that an outside military force has been identified? Who in NATO will step up and make that call that triggers full scale war?
This is in fact the current quandary and they have no answer--try to explain to the US population that the President is now required under NATO Article 5 decision that has been reached and agreed to ---to send a large number of US troops to get killed somewhere in say Estonia in a war with Russia over a group of Russian speakers claiming "discrimination" when the mercenaries have not been proven to be actual Russian troops.
That is exactly what is ongoing currently in the Ukraine and can be easily replicated anywhere on the borders of Russia even within the borders of current NATO members.
Again does the US population support an active open ended war over perceived "discrimination of a minority population"? If I was President I would not be so sure the US population and Congress would grant full scale war unless there was 100% evidence of an act of aggression by an outside force.
Will never happen and Putin knows it and if we are really honest with ourselves this is the current thinking in the White House--thus the lack of real engagement outside of sending Biden who really promised nothing and said very little and a few comments coming out of the White House.
In some aspects Putin is about to either prove or disprove the old question---does economics trump geo political decisions and or vice versa.
While important, I think you over hype Russia's hybrid strategy. First off it worked in Ukraine because Ukraine was dysfunctional and highly corrupt. Western European governments and the U.S. government would have a hard time justifying to their people why they decided to engage in combat operations against the Russians over Ukraine. It is also a strategy that has limits geographically based on their need to exploit existing Russian populations in the countries they're targeting. It becomes a different ball game if they do this in a NATO country, and now that they tipped their hand it will be harder to pull off in a NATO country. I disagree that strategists in Europe and the U.S. don't understand the Russian strategy, they understand it, but are still frustrated on how to respond to it.
Our challenges are tied more to policy and rules of engagement limitations than military capability. Not denying we have limitations, but as the 1st Special Forces Command concept points to, those limitations are being addressed (albeit, this transformation took much longer than it should have). In the end though, we are still at risk of building a Ferrari that will be stuck in the garage if we don't get the policies and ROE modified. It will come out for specific car shows like Afghanistan and Iraq, but we need them operating and shaping globally, since today's conflicts are not confined to specific joint areas of operation. We're faced with the challenge of you can do this here in this little circle, but outside the circle you can't do anything. In many cases we're fighting regional and global networks. Furthermore, for competitors that we are confronting in the space above legal economic competition and short of war like Russia, we could impose costs elsewhere well beyond Ukraine to influence their decision making.
Regarding Russia info warfare, yes they're pretty good, but again based on asymmetric policies and ROEs. They're not doing anything we don't have the capability to do. I also don't think the Russians believe we're as inept as you do. They think we're behind the so-called color revolutions like the Arab Spring, and the color revolutions in Eastern Europe. Because of this belief (fact or not) they have developed a hybrid strategy to counter it and pursue their objectives on the periphery of their country.
I know what DATE is, and it sounds like a promising training concept. I found at least four different explanations for CAM as it relates to the military, please explain which one you're referring to. Also, why do you think DATE needs to be replaced? It sounds like they're trying to capture the full spectrum of conflict in training scenarios, which gets after the requirement to balance our efforts. Is the idea bad, or is it falling short in practice?
Are we not recreating the wheel or at least turning the wheel back to 1969 where CA and Psychological Operations forces were part and parcel under a single SF structure---it just was not a division slot/nor division formation.
While a nice shift of focus--no one really does seem to "fully understand" the depth and breath of the new Russian UW doctrine that they are actually field testing hourly inside the Ukraine while we just talk about "hybrid warfare".
The Russian Army's current use of combined CF and SF combined with intel armed units--cannot be currently matched at all by the entire US military regardless of how hard it tries---we are nowhere close to combining a strategic with a tactical UW field strategy supporting political warfare at the international level that the Ukraine is at currently.
What the Russians have pulled off is extremely interesting as it plays fully against our own internal weaknesses and negates our military/political strengths--that is why is was so designed and is currently so effective especially if coupled with tactical nuclear threats along the way---are we ourselves ready to threaten tactical nukes-no.
Example are we the US ready to pull the Article 5 trigger of NATO if all of a sudden a bunch of Russian speakers pour into the streets and claim they are being discriminated against and want "federalization"---are we ready to go to for war over "discrimination" and "federalization"---no not really as we see in the Ukraine--where blankets and MREs are about our only assistance in that ongoing "hybrid war" and that does not work well against T72s and 64s and BM27/31s.
Heck we cannot even get the current Army out of DATE and back to CAM which is an inherent part of "hybrid warfare". In fact the Russian UW strategy is simply a combined CAM/DATE on steroids and not even the famous NTC can replicate that mixture.
And Russia info warfare--we are not even in the same room as they are currently everyday in the entire global media market---and we come nowhere even close to IS.
Example--the UK has shut down over 30,000 social media and internet sites of IS alone this year and they are sinking from the weight of even trying to keep up.
FranticGoat: Your analogy is flawed and misses the point and is uninformed by Special Forces history. The previous command, the US Army Special Forces Command (USASFC) (which has now been redesignated as the 1st Special Forces Command), also had "ALL" "Green Berets" (and all the Special Forces who wear those hats) assigned to it and it was always a division level (2 star) headquarters. The use of the word commando is inappropriate for use with Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations forces which are now all assigned to the 1st Special Forces Command in order to optimize the Special Warfare capabilities inherent in those forces. The only US Special Operations Force that uses commando is the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) who nicknames their forces as "Air Commandos" which is a tribute to its history. But US Special Operations writ large has never called themselves commandos, only uninformed members of the press and pundits call it by that name.
We'd be happy to correct any errors. But we do use "commando" as an informal, generic catch-all akin to "special operations forces." Also, a two-star command is understood to be "division-level," so again informally this is accurately a creating a "commando division" of sorts. The fact that the intermediate headquarters is the only thing new doesn't really change that. The Army officially sanctions talking about "7th Infantry Division," which was "created" by activating a two-star command to manage existing brigades. The same can be said of "creating" the 23d Infantry Division in Vietnam from previously separate brigades.
Unlike the article, the presentation is clear and it sounds like a good concept. The one glaring shortfall from my seat is that it still does not fully address the shortfall in C2 capacity for Special Warfare. As the brief clearly points out, the world is a mess, and that mess is not limited to one specific area in the world. Since these missions will generally be enduring, we will still need enhanced Special Warfare C2 capacity at most of the TSOCs on an enduring basis. I can foresee the USASFC(A) C2 element supporting the highest priority effort or top two priority efforts, but other efforts will remain important and they need solutions to address the C2 gap.
The key to long term success for this concept is to avoid creating a bureaucracy that becomes paralyzing. USASFC C2 structures need to remain agile, flexible, and adaptive so they can change based on changes in the operational environment.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending upon your point of view, there is no shortage of work.
Please take a look at the briefing from the Commander of the 1st Special Forces Command at this link to correct the numerous inaccuracies in this article (and note the term commando is not used once in BG Rogers' presentation just to correct one of the many). http://www.benning.army.mil/mcoe/maneuverconference/presentation/pdf/BG…