The Danger of Even a Lot of Knowledge
Abu Muqawama: Special Forces, or the Danger of Even a Lot of Knowledge by Andrew Exum, World Politics Review and Are Special Forces Special Enough? By James Joyner, Outside the Beltway.
A few weeks ago, when I started this series of columns on the perils of the special operationalization of U.S. national security policy, I briefly argued that U.S. special operations forces are often not as good as they or their commanders believe them to be. I worried about a young Special Forces officer with six months of Arabic convincing himself he was “Sir Richard Burton in a green beret.”
Some of my friends in the U.S. Army Special Forces demanded to know why I was picking on them, while others suggested my own service in the 75th Ranger Regiment explained my obvious bias against “indirect” special operations forces. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and in this column, I will expand on why both special operations forces and their commanders should be more humble about what these forces can and cannot do in complex operational environments…
Are Special Forces Special Enough? By James Joyner, Outside the Beltway.
In a World Politics Review column titled, “Special Forces, or the Danger of Even a Lot of Knowledge,” former Army Ranger and current Middle East policy expert Andrew Exum argues persuasively that special operations forces have far less regional and cultural knowledge than they’re given credit for. This is important, Exum explains, because it’s easy to assume that a crash course in the local language and mores combined with some time in country allow people to make more nuanced judgments than they’re truly qualified to make.
Driving his point home, though, I believe Exum takes it too far…
I especially like this comment from an apparent senior Infantry NCO in the comments section of Joyner’s article that illustrates a trait that SF selection tries to screen for and that most SF Officers and NCOs learn in Robin Sage and from experienced senior NCOs when on their teams – Cultural expertise is not the most important thing – but cultural respect is paramount. This is one key aspect of being able to operate in the Human Domain.
11B40 says:
Wednesday, June 13, 2012 at 13:30
Greetings:
When the time came for me to begin my world travels, my dear, now-departed father took me aside for another good bit of his advice. When you go to foreign countries, or even other parts of our own country, you go as a child. There is much to learn. Go gently. Eat the local food, laugh at the local jokes, and be very cautious with the local women.
These articles could have been summed up very simply by stating hubris is extremely dangerous and unbecoming of anyone in a leadership position (SF or not, military or not). We should of course welcome criticism in SF and use it to improve, but I didn’t see any recommendations for change other than to do a better job of humbling the small percentage of our officers who think they’re more capable than they actually are. Yet we all know it is hard to change personality, some people take their arrogant traits to the grave, others mature over time. The bottom line is we do a fairly good job of training and educating SF soldiers to adapt to their environments.
This is a terrible analogy, but an individual can attend an outstanding safe drivers course, do well in the course, and then disregard everything he/she learned after they graduate and end up killing an innocent family in an auto accident due to careless driving. He knew how to drive safe, but failed to do so. We’ll always have our 10%.
The key to Special Forces is in the assessment and selection, coupled with the institutional culture; far more than the training, and perhaps even the operational experience.
I have had several conversations with my US AID compadres, or assorted PhDs who have much more experience in a particular place, or with a particular language or culture. But it is hit or miss as to the essence of that person as to how they process that knowledge and apply it.
In this business, far more than what one knows, it is what one understands that is important. I never cease to be amazed by the many brilliant people I meet, often with amazing educational credentials or years of experience in a particular place who know so much, only rely so much upon that knowledge that they cannot see what they do not understand. The are trapped by their very knowledge, in that they attempt to frame every situation into that context. This is very much true with much of our conventiional force approach to these types of problems as well. This is why we “Clear-hold-build” to conduct COIN, or why we build host nation forces that mirror our own so that they too can clear-hold-build like us some day.
But the goal of SF is to recognize that we do not know everything about anything, but to go in with the curiosity and respect Dave Maxwell describes below; to accept any situation or populace as it is, to seek to understand it through their lens and to assist as best we can to help them to be a better version of what they are, rather than a lesser version of what we think they should be. Do we always get this right? No, of course not. Has the last 10 years affected our ability to do this in negative ways? I suspect it has. Everyone needs to get back to their roots, and that includes SF.
We don’t need a massive force of Americans out fixing the world on our terms armed with tremendous knowledge of the places they are doing this. We simply need a handful of quiet professionals who humbly interact with a wide range of cultures and people, operating off of the inate instincts they were selected for and a solid base of training and experience, going off of not what they know, but rather fully aware of what they don’t know, and seeking simply to better understand.
“Cultural expertise is not the most important thing – but cultural respect is paramount.”
I’ve had the opportunity recently to talk to several Regular Army folks who were thrust into the job of advising without having the benefits of SF selection, training, and organizational culture. Basically, it was learn as you go- innovating on the fly.
When we looked at what we did to have success, it was relationship building, period.
1. Spending at least one meal together everyday- not the drive buy cup of tea.
2. Watching movies together.
3. Talking about families.
Contrastingly, the hardest moral dilemma we faced, was what to do when your counterpart’s norms, value, and beliefs violated your ethics? The most harmful one being torture.
My most memorable/peaceful moment in Iraq was after Ramadan in 2006. I was invited to a friend of mine’s house (Sheik who’s uncle was the governor of Diyala province) to share in the feast after Ramadan. We stayed up until midnight discussing life, family, and religion. He explained Islam, and I explained Christianity. We both walked away understanding it was the same God just different beliefs.
Also, partnering requires a good fit just as it does with a good CO/1SGT relationship. In some cases, an advisor may be a good advisor and his counterpart may be a good officer, but the two don’t work well together for various reasons.
One last point. After you’ve developed the personal relationship, you still have to separate the professional relationship particularly if you are trying to conduct conflict resolution between competiting tribes, families, etc…