Obama Prefers Special Ops to Combat Forces in the War on Terrorism. It’s Not Working.
Obama Prefers Special Ops to Combat Forces in the War on Terrorism. It's Not Working. By Max Boot, Los Angeles Times
… This may sound like Pentagon inside baseball, but it actually reflects an important trend: the extent to which President Obama depends on Special Operations forces, especially the joint command, which specializes in direct action missions: kicking down doors and killing or capturing terrorists. Army Special Forces, popularly known as Green Berets, by contrast, specialize in the less sexy mission of working “by, with and through” indigenous forces. No career Green Beret officer has ever been put in charge of SOCOM.
Having become president by strongly opposing the Iraq war, Obama is loath to commit ground forces to combat. But it's a different story with special operations forces. Wherever the president sees a terrorist threat, his preferred solution is to use drones or special ops troops to stage “surgical” strikes against “high-level targets.”
And how is this strategy working? Thomas told a West Point interviewer last spring that in the war on terrorism “we're losing across the board.” That's not because of any lack of valor or skill on the part of the troops Thomas commands. Special operators can eliminate individual terrorist leaders such as Osama bin Laden, but they cannot eliminate the organizations those leaders run…
There are no silver bullets. And of course the administration is only relying on one small part of special operations forces. Max gets it right in the last sentence below. (unlike the Washington Post)
QUOTE This may sound like Pentagon inside baseball, but it actually reflects an important trend: the extent to which President Obama depends on Special Operations forces, especially the joint command, which specializes in direct action missions: kicking down doors and killing or capturing terrorists. Army Special Forces, popularly known as Green Berets, by contrast, specialize in the less sexy mission of working “by, with and through” indigenous forces. No career Green Beret officer has ever been put in charge of SOCOM. END QUOTE
Another uninformed opinion piece that presents contradictions between the arguments it presents. First off there are multiple lines of effort at play, but of course some are more news worthy than others when your motivation is viewer ratings. An informed author would realize there is more at play. Max should be informed, so he must be pursuing an agenda.
The direct action role is a critical role, and one we can ill afford to let up on.
Max states SOF can kill leaders but not organizations. I could argue that point, but what we can’t do is kill ideas. That doesn’t mean targeted killing isn’t achieving the limited objectives they’re intended to.
Max suggests we pursue a comprehensive COIN campaign in Iraq and Syria. We certainly tried that approach in Iraq previously, and we are still at it in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, not every insurgency responds to the principles in our COIN doctrine. As Max accurately points out there are bigger issues at play. That issue is our proxies in these countries minus the Kurds don’t believe they’re fighting for a better future. They don’t want fight for our security, but what they want. COIN won’t change that Max, so while our current approach may be flawed, COIN isn’t even feasible. UW for the same reason will have its limitations if our interests are not aligned with those we are supporting.
As Churchill said, we will get to the right solution after trying all the wrong ones.
Where should I start?
The «war» against terrorism is not a conventional campaign requiring massive boot presence on the ground, but a multi-level, multi-disciplinary combat.
Military SF/SOF have their role, as have intelligence (including intel agencies paramilitary units), security, police and constabulary forces of several countries.
But as this is a «political» form of «war» (something we keep forgetting), there is also an enormous amount of work to be played at the cultural and ideological level, in social networks and media and PR, diplomacy and state pressure mechanisms, education and a large etc.
You have to be here in Europe to understand the enormity of this complex task.
So the LA article is seeing only the tree, not the forest.
And it ignores the fact that these kind of conflicts have the potential to last long, and not to end with totally satisfactory results.
Nuno Rogeiro
Lisbon, Portugal
The “not politically sustainable” reason why Obama prefers special operations to combat forces in the war on terrorism/the war to transform outlying states and societies more along modern western political, economic and social lines:
BEGIN QUOTE
Conclusion
COIN is a badly flawed instrument of statecraft: Why?
– The locals ultimately own the country being fought over. If they do not want the “reforms” you desire, they will resist you as we have been resisted in Iraq and Afghanistan. McChrystal’s strategy paper severely criticized Karzai’s government. Will that disapproval harden into a decision to act to find a better government or will we simply undercut Afghan central government and become the actual government?
– Such COIN wars are expensive, long drawn out affairs that are deeply debilitating for the foreign counterinsurgent power. Reserves of money, soldiers and national will are not endless. Ultimately, the body politic of the counterinsurgent foreign power turns against the war and then all that has occurred has been a waste.
– COIN theory is predicated on the ability of the counterinsurgents to change the mentality of the “protected” (read controlled) population. The sad truth is that most people do not want to be deprived of their ancestral ways and will fight to protect them. “Hearts and Minds” is an empty propagandist’s phrase.
– In the end the foreign counterinsurgent is embarked on a war that is not his own war. For him, the COIN war will always be a limited war, fought for a limited time with limited resources. For the insurgent, the war is total war. They have no where to escape to after a tour of duty. The psychological difference is massive.
– For the counterinsurgent the commitment of forces must necessarily be much larger than for the insurgents. The counterinsurgent seeks to protect massive areas, hundreds of built up areas and millions of people. The insurgent can pick his targets. The difference in force requirements is crippling to the counterinsurgents.
What should we do?
– Hold the cities as bases to prevent a recognized Taliban government until some satisfactory (to us) deal is made among the Afghans.
– Participate in international economic development projects for Afghanistan.
– Conduct effective clandestine HUMINT out of the city bases against international jihadi elements.
– Turn the tribes against the jihadi elements.
– Continue to hunt and kill/capture dangerous jihadis,
How long might you have to follow this program? It might be a long time but that would be sustainable. A full-blown
COIN campaign in Afghanistan is not politically sustainable.
END QUOTE
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/us-department-of-state-case-no-f-2014-20439-doc-no-c05760317-date-1231201
Change the name of this “war:”
a. From “a war on terrorism.”
b. To (as the above analysis acknowledges) “a war on those who do not want the reforms that we desire” — and/or — “a war on those who do not wish to be deprived of their ancestral ways.”
Then:
a. The enormous (global; cultural?) scope and scale of this/these war(s) becomes apparent,
b. The exact nature of these wars (differing values; differing ways of life; differing ways of governance, etc.) is made clear and
c. The reason why “combat forces” cannot be expected to “win” such wars is, accordingly, more-easily understood?
Other “instruments of state-craft,” it would seem, will be needed to “win” such “wars; “wars” designed to transform outlying states and societies (against their present will; as the state department document/item above so clearly acknowledges/spells-out) more along modern western political, economic and social lines.
(Thus to suggest, for example, that LTG Thomas’ comment, re: “losing across the board,” is best understood within [a] a global and cultural-conflict context and, thus, [b] not so much re: a “war on terrorism” as a war/an endeavor to transform outlying states and societies [against their present will] more along modern western political, economic and social lines?)
Bottom Line:
Re: the use of military forces, the primary use of “combat forces” — to achieve such grand, contested and long-term projects as outlined above (outlying state and societal transformation) — cannot (as the state department item above so clearly indicates) be politically and/or economically sustained.
Accordingly, other, more-sustainable ways and other, more-sustainable means (surgical strike?) must be found and employed to help us achieve our such objective.
Given that there is no (acceptable) military solution to the “war on terrorism” it is well that we apply as little military as possible, and avoid large, expensive conventional approaches that are no more likely to do good, and far more likely to do harm.
A thought and question for those who know much more about this than me:
If standing, governing regimes (however organized, ordered and oriented) are now no longer consider to be the problem but, instead, are seen more as the solution and, indeed, as something of a gift from god.
(This, given the debacles of Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, etc. recently; wherein, in the name of transformation more along modern western lines, the regimes of these listed nations were undermined/overthrown, with extremely negative and indeed catastrophic consequences for all concerned.)
Given these circumstances (regime change = catastrophe) and the understanding derived therefrom (regime change is not the way to go),
Then does this not suggest that the regime-coercion and regime-change threat/leverage — that might have, in the past, been so effectively generated and used by our forces conducting special warfare and/or by our other instruments of power — that these such threats/leverage have now actually been eliminated and/or been fatally withered away by these such catastrophic results/failures?
This making these such instruments of U.S./western power — and the means, methods, approaches and personnel used for such purposes (regime coercion; regime change) — to, accordingly:
a. Become much less useful to our combatant commanders? And, indeed,
b. Become much less useful to our commander-in-chief?
This such understanding helping to explain, likewise and for example, why “surgical strike” might now be seen as the only truly effective tool in our special operations tool box?
Thus to see, and specifically because of the catastrophic failures outlined above, such entities as Putin, Kim, Xi Jinping, Ali Khamenei, etc., (a) become emboldened and (b) literally laugh in our face should we suggest — or imply — that regime coercion/regime change, via our special warfare people or via some other venue, was what we had in mind?
Thus, not so much what Obama (and the next president) “prefers,” as what Obama (and the next president) actually has left to work with?
For the next president:
*Back to Clausewitz (who himself knew Tuchydides, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, etc.) – if war is a continuation of politics by other means, war cannot solve a problem that cannot not be solved at political level. And terrorism is a political problem (involving security, defense, intelligence, policing, policy, etc.)
*There are no miracles or clear cut solutions for the current «war». And maybe our generation will not see any lasting outcome.
*So any power and alliance in the world has to count with uncertainty in this field. Uncertainty and the possibility of things getting worse before they get better, if they ever do.
*This terrorism threat is a cancer. And there is no known absolute cure for a cancer. We count with luck, palliatives, humane care, new treatments, hope and faith, but not more than that. In this field we have to construct or reconstruct a doctrine that makes these control damage mechanisms the tools of the trade. The use of SOF is one of those, provided the user understands the capabilities, limits (including timing) and nature of those forces. If we use them always in any scenario and for all purposes, including the more trivial ones, they cease to be «special».
*So if there could be a selection of keywords for the New Doctrine, some of them would surely be «flexibility», «pragmatism», «clandestinity», «political-military ops», «psyops», «infowar ops», «constant review», «lessons learned», «better intelligence», «adequate technological applications», «understanding the enemy», etc.
Nuno Rogeiro
Lisbon
Portugal
SF has only been a branch since ’88, and “career SF officers are only now making 3 stars. There have been several (Lindsay, Steiner, Shelton, and Brown; 4 of 10 and 4 of 7 Army officers) who were Green Berets during their career prior to the establishment of the branch. The statement is a little inaccurate without understanding the whole context.