by Ronald Holt
Download the Full Article: The Use of Pseudo-Operations in the AFPAK Theatre
What would be the effect if we had small integrated groups of former Taliban and US Special Operators working together, masquerading as Taliban, living off the villagers as the Taliban do, and feeding USSOCOM actionable HUMINT?
This short paper is designed to be a "thought-piece" with the purpose of stimulating "out of the box" ideas. Pseudo Operations involve recruiting and training ex-insurgents to operate as insurgents and produce intelligence, cause enemy casualties, and create distrust between the local population and the insurgents. Such on the ground intelligence gives a deeper picture of enemy intentions, infiltration routes and support amongst the local population. Real- time intelligence can lay the groundwork for successful direct actions missions. Sometimes pseudo-operators will disguise themselves as members of adjacent countries' military in order to operate in enemy sanctuaries. In this paper I will argue that Pseudo-Ops might be of use given the current situation in AFPAK and particularly in southern Afghanistan and in areas of Pakistan such as North Waziristan or even Baluchistan.
Download the Full Article: The Use of Pseudo-Operations in the AFPAK Theatre
Dr. Ronald Holt is a tenured Professor of Anthropology and Fulbright Scholar. He was the senior social scientist for Human Terrain Team AF-1 at FOB Salerno Afghanistan in 2008. Dr. Holt has done fieldwork in several Islamic countries and with Native American tribes.
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Ron Holt said:
"Yes pseudo-ops are not new and the Rhodesians had at least two instances of "turned" terrorists turning on their SF teammates."
The few problems never offset the benefits of the program as a whole.
The problem appears to be in Afghanistan that the authentication of teams/gangs/units of pseudo-operators is merely a cell-phone call away.
I would suggest that the Nyadzonya Raid carried out by the Selous Scouts in August 1976 requires study. These "big" ops work once.
Further study should relate to how the Selous Scouts evolved operationally from the early days into a "target acquisition force" whose efforts resulted in 70% of the internal kills mainly through the RLI Fire Force deployments called in on targets located by the scouts.
It is not easy to get the majority of officers to think "out of the box" or use lateral thinking. Perhaps the greatest one can wish to achieve is to make the officers receptive to "new" ideas and different tactics. Thereafter you leave it up to the few that are capable of coming up with the smart ideas.
Yes pseudo-ops are not new and the Rhodesians had at least two instances of "turned" terrorists turning on their SF teammates. My idea here was to mention pseudo ops as a way to generate thinking. Pseudo-mullahs? Pseudo rich Saudi moneymen? Effective rumor-based IO? What can you readers come up with that is novel and effective in the current environment?
How can we adapt faster and less predictably than the Taliban et al? We are trying to push adaptability here at Fort Benning but we need all the help we can get.
"someone above and beyond the regular special forces soldier"?
Oh, he means SOF, not the JFKSWS S qualified soldier - "Green Beret".
SOG in RVN had CCN, CCC, and CCS who regularly ran psuedo ops in mixed "body and fender" teams who would operate for weeks and could call in SF assets such as the Mike Force and air assets on real time targets.
"Everything is new again."
Maybe, David, because he didn't do much more than a spare book report, wherein others have been working for more than 10 years of their professional lives on the very notion of pseudo gang employment and other related topics.
If one is going to provide a "thought piece" that professes an "out of the box" novelty, shouldn't one give a few more thoughts, and newer ones at that, than have been provided over the past decade, including in this very forum?
And if one is going to arrogate all those deep thoughts, shouldn't one attempt a bit more than spatchcocking an aside from a forward? Or does he truly believe that the media, which know almost nothing about COIN, would care about pseudo gangs one way or the other?
That sort of tellingly gratuitous comment leads one to doubt the rest of the piece, and I'm a big fan of pseudo gangs. So are Niel Smith, David Maxwell and others who are SWJ contributors.
Rhodesian forces certainly carried out a lot of false flag operations and pseudo-operations during their 'External Operations' in the chimurengas/bush wars. There are numerous accounts of security forces disguising themselves and their vehicles as civilians, insurgents and even Mozambican military vehicles, and carrying out extended reconnaissance missions and devastatingly effective raids.
Of course, the US ran similar style operations in Vietnam, the British in Kenya (and, to a lesser extent, in Aden), and various intelligence services (CIA, Mossad, ISI) have also conducted similar operations.
The level of success on the whole has been moderate, in most cases, and the best successes - as Matt implied - have been largely due to lucky breaks. None of which is to say that such operations shouldn't be given a chance in the current AFPAK theatre... but I'd bet almost anything that they already have been, and are being, carried out.
Indeed thought-provoking, perhaps moreso because it begs some empirical evidence as to the "success" of the Rhodesian model. For instance, when the Holt notes that the Scouts and Special Branch "turned" insurgents, an appraisal of how reliable these insurgents (or if they turned completely) were would be instructive. The case of Dhofar springs to mind, when initial iterations of firqa were disbanded due to loyalty issues, amongst other factors.
Lessons learned from the overall experience could also better inform (or at least highlight) the differences with AFG.
Not to suggest that it was incumbent necessarily on Holt to produce such figues (given he is upfront about its short nature and provides bibliographical references), but it could have lended greater analytical depth to our consideration of the AFG case.
I will say, however, that the language requirements needed to realise this kind of operation effectively (however that is measured) would place a training burden on SF units (I speak from observing the Australian case) which is greater than they can currently afford.
Thought provoking. I enjoyed it. I don't know why some people feel compelled to try to prove to everyone they know more about a subject than the author, yet do not add anything to the discussion. The DEA, FBI, and every other LEA in this country have been using this tactic for years also. The author(s) could have spent 10 years researching history and produced an epistle-then we could have hundreds of pages to pick apart, I'm glad they didn't.
Pseudo-Operations to Neutralize Extremist Networks, Insurgents, and Terrorists
by Seth Wheeler
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/418-wheeler.pdf
This is the problem with former HTS types.
Been there done it--if he would have checked his VN history-SF together with the CIA ran a number of pseudo ops (both with and without former VC/NVA guerrillas/soldiers) during the period 1968 through 1973 with a large degree of success in some of the ops --so so in others.
Do not understand why his research did not turn up that SF operational record.
The novelty of the "thought piece" is undercut by the bibliography, which suggests the use of pseudo gangs is neither novel (the term is from Kitson) nor "out of the box" (it was long considered an organic expedient for British counter-revolutionaries in the post-Colonial era; John Arquilla a mere seven years ago recommended their use in AfPak).
Because the tool is from such old kit, it's odder still to see the offhanded barb about "the bias of today's media."
Assuming it's not as intellectually limp as the conjecture sounds (it likely was imported straight from General Sir George Erkine's introduction to "Gangs and Pseudo Gangs") one might suggest that it's also inapt because it posits the various media as lying liars (or, at least, biased actors) and a potential pseudo gang operation as something quite different.
This couldn't be farther from the truth, which is the entire point of pseudo gangs -- to make the truth appear to be a lie, and a lie the truth, which is part of a wider psyop effort unleashed by a police state (which Kenya was but which is obviously unobtainable now in Afghanistan, which barely has a government of any merit).
In such a milieu as post-war Kenya, the attractiveness of using pseudo gangs derives not necessarily from the HUMINT that they might acquire but rather the confusion the bands sow by degrading trust within an insurgent network and the people supporting it.
Did we walk into an ambush because Maj Kitson saw us? Or is my leader one of Kitson's paid defectors? How did the police know when to break up our cadre meeting? Did the witch doctor put a curse on me or did my friend sell me out to the British? If all of us gave an oath of loyalty to Ngai that would bring death to those who violated it, why are the disloyal amongst us still alive?
These aren't necessarily questions answered - or even posed -- by Kitson. Rather, they come from reading the memoirs of the Kikuyu insurgents, who recalled the toxic effects the pseudo gangs had on morale and cohesion amongst the people and their revolutionaries.
In much the same way, our current drone strikes often are seen as doubly successful because they not only remove key "nodes" in the revolutionary network but also sow doubt and confusion. Someone close -- it is assumed -- had to rat out the "nodes" in the village.
I can't imagine how "the media" might be biased one way or another in this. The media that concerned Erskine were those that called into question the legality and legitimacy of the Security Forces in Kenya, "constant criticism" that was tantamount to a "smear campaign" -- but that which today likely would be seen as accurate descriptions of British efforts there.
Kitson, however, was far more nuanced, admitting that even he wondered about the morality of the Colonial project and the way the Emergency was being prosecuted:
"I picked up a pamphlet one day on Waterloo station written by Mr Fenner Brockway. This did nothing to improve my morale because it sowed seeds of doubt in my mind as to whether we were handling the Emergency in a civilized manner. Furthermore, after reading the pamphlet, I was not quite sure whether the British had any right to be ruling Kenya at all. Fortunately my morale was in good order so I suffered very little from the experience. All the same it is not pleasant from a soldier's point of view to have the cause for which he may have to fight called in question by a Member of Parliament."
Perhaps if he had written that in The Daily Telegraph and not "Gangs," Sir George would've called him out for the "smear" and the "bias," too!
The Soviet KGB tried to do this--or something similar-- with their "Alpha Teams" during the Soviet-Afghan War. Consensus seems to be they were moderately successful in northern Afghanistan, less so in the south.
While the thought of being able to strike at insurgent sanctuaries is appealing, one has to wonder that once insurgents started shooting at each other in Balochistan, if the entire situation there would not destabilize.