U.S. Officials Warn Special Ops Forces Being Stretched to Possible Breaking Point
U.S. Officials Warn Special Ops Forces Being Stretched to Possible Breaking Point
Jeff Seldin – VOA News
Add U.S. lawmakers to the ranks of those worried the country's special operations forces are being stretched to a possible breaking point.
Pentagon officials raised the issue months ago, telling lawmakers in May the continuous, heavy reliance on the most elite U.S. forces was threatening to erode their capabilities.
Since then, such concerns have only grown, highlighted by a series of high-profile incidents, including a probe into whether two members of the Navy's SEAL team may have been involved in the death of an Army Green Beret member in Mali this past June, and the death of four special operation soldiers in an ambush in Niger last month.
"I do worry about overuse of SOF [special operations forces]," House Armed Services Committee Chairman Republican Mac Thornberry said Wednesday at a conference in Washington.
"They are increasingly an organization of choice because SOF is very effective," he said.
Force of Choice
There currently are about 70,000 active duty, reserve and civilian personnel serving under U.S. Special Operations Command. According to Congressional testimony, approximately 8,000 forces are currently deployed to more than 80 countries.
Some of the more high-profile missions include critical roles as part of the effort to defeat the Islamic State (IS) terror group in both Iraq and Syria, as well as assistance to Afghan forces fighting both the Taliban and IS.
Efforts to stem the influence of terror groups in Africa, including the mission in Niger, as well as efforts to reassure U.S. allies in Europe and Southeast Asia, have only increased the need for special operations forces.
"The operational tempo is so incredible," Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Democrat Jack Reed said at a policy forum on U.S. special operations forces.
"The idea that you would have within six years, multiple deployments, some people every six months to deploy, that in and of itself causes lots of consequences," he said.
Operational Tempo
Some lawmakers fear that even as U.S. special operations forces perform well while they are deployed, the high operational tempo is taking a toll once they return home — with personnel sometimes suffering from physical and emotional scars that cannot be easily identified.
"These men and women are some of the most hardcore, determined people that we have in our armed forces," said Republican Senator Joni Ernst, a combat veteran who served in Iraq.
"It is very hard for them to step forward and say, 'Hey, I need to go see the doc. Hey, I need to visit with the counselor,'" she said. "We have to provide more support for those who are engaging in this high op tempo environment."
Some of the country's elite forces are starting to get more help.
Ernst said some Navy SEAL teams now have psychologists assigned to their units. Other units are doing more to monitor and detect changes in behavior following deployments.
But she and others worry existing programs are not working well enough, and they say more needs to be done.
"We spend so much time and effort talking about the stuff we're going buy for the military. I'm not sure over the years we have spent enough time on our most valuable assets, which is our people," according to Thornberry, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee.
Still, there are nagging concerns the current special operations force may be nearing its limit.
"What they're capable of is unbelievable, but for how long?" said Representative Adam Smith, the ranking member of House Armed Services Committee. "How many missions can you send them on? How many times can they do this? I think that's what we don't know."
Growing Demands
In the meantime, lawmakers expect Washington's reliance on special operations forces is only going to grow, in part due to an expanding set of global hot spots and also because of a U.S. foreign policy approach that seems to be minimizing the use of diplomacy.
Senator Reed pointed to the U.S. operation in Niger, where four U.S. soldiers were killed, as an example.
"Part of that operation was sort of civic engagement — those special operators were talking to the head person in the village," he said. "Typically, with adequate security, that's a State Department function."
According to Ernst, "We should run the gamut before we are engaging our military and we can't do that if we don't have the personnel outside of DoD [the Department of Defense] that are shaping that battlefield for us, shaping that discussion.
"They have to be properly funded. It's critical to our national security," she said. "They help our [special forces] operators significantly."
Another option, according to both Reed and Ernst, is to expand the number of U.S. special operations forces, which they say may be necessary even with a bulked-up diplomatic corps.
"We have to increase numbers and resources," Reed said, warning, "We cannot sacrifice quality for quantity."
We seem to need a new starting point for these and other discussions, so let me offer one that both the U.S. Army Special Forces Command — and indeed President Trump — seem to be embracing; this being, the Clash of Civilizations thesis of S.P. Huntington.
First, from the U.S. Army Special Forces Command:
BEGIN QUOTE
Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations examined the nature and course of conflicts among nations. His main thesis was that the wars of princes and ideologies were in the past and that new conflict would be between civilizations. Huntington named eight such civilizations including Western, Islamic, Confucian, and Japanese civilizations. With the book’s publication in 1993, readers could view the Iran-Iraq war, Operation Desert Storm, and the ongoing conflict in Israel and easily envision Huntington’s description of the conflict between Western and Islamic civilizations. What was less obvious was the growing rift between the successor state to the Soviet Union—the rump state now called the Russian Federation—and the West. Moscow was emerging as the leader, champion, and oftentimes tyrant of the Slavic Orthodox civilization. …
END QUOTE
http://www.jhuapl.edu/ourwork/nsa/papers/ARIS_LittleGreenMen.pdf (See Page 6 of Part I.)
Next, from President Trump:
BEGIN QUOTE
Those heroes remind us that the West was saved with the blood of patriots; that each generation must rise up and play their part in its defense — (applause) — and that every foot of ground, and every last inch of civilization, is worth defending with your life.
Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield — it begins with our minds, our wills, and our souls. Today, the ties that unite our civilization are no less vital, and demand no less defense, than that bare shred of land on which the hope of Poland once totally rested. Our freedom, our civilization, and our survival depend on these bonds of history, culture, and memory.
And today as ever, Poland is in our heart, and its people are in that fight. (Applause.) Just as Poland could not be broken, I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever be broken. Our values will prevail. Our people will thrive. And our civilization will triumph. (Applause.)
END QUOTE
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/07/06/remarks-president-trump-people-poland-july-6-2017 (Look to the paragraphs at the very bottom — at the conclusion — of this speech.)
Bottom Line Question — Based on the Above:
Thus, is it through this new lens (everyone seeming to be on the same page here, with both U.S. Army Special Forces Command, and indeed President Trump, seeming to [a] abandon the End of History thesis and [b] embrace the Clash of Civilizations concepts?);
Thus is it through this such exact new lens that we might best now both see, and indeed understand, such things as “Special Operations Forces Being Stretched to Possible Breaking Point?”
Herein, our such forces being our civilization’s current answer to:
a. Our need to advance our civilization — and especially our values — throughout the entire Rest of the World? (And to, thereby, “triumph?”) And/or to:
b. Prevent other civilizations from advancing their civilizations — and their different/alternative values — throughout the entire Rest of the World? (And to, thereby in this alternative way, “triumph”)
(Maybe need to first answer this question — to wit: “What is the role of our special operations forces in the Clash of Civilizations” — before we move on to a further discussion of this, and/or other, matters???)
Bill C., what exactly is new? This is the same argument you have made in response to every article for the past few years. It isn’t new and it isn’t germane to the subject of most articles you respond to.
About the actual article, not the distracting discussion below. There are many angles to this issue. Clearly the force is stressed, but most of us who are in or were in like being deployed. Garrison time was/is a nightmare, where warriors are stuck in the inane conventional army life style where the focus is on political correctness, haircuts, organized runs, and other such nonsense. Too much of that, our SOF warriors will leave in droves. Perhaps one way to alleviate stress, is to reduce the about of stupid requirements on the force when they’re in garrison (I can only speak for Army SOF, I don’t know how this impacts Navy, Marine, or Air Force SOF).
We can’t reverse bad decisions from the past, but the desire to see most of the force married, which started in the 90s, has had both positive and detrimental effects. Clearly a high OPTEMPO stresses families, which in turn stresses the soldier. Some families are more resilient than others based on a wide range of factors, but regardless they all feel the impact of dad being away for extended periods. SOF family support programs certainly help, but they can’t fill the missing dad gap.
The problem will only get worse with the Army now lowering its recruiting standards. What Country Team or partner nation will want to invite potential trouble makers into their backyards, which is what will happen to the conventional army if they can’t maintain standards. The SOF preference will remain, even if it isn’t necessarily a SOF mission.
expand, what options are available to reduce the stress on the force? Some were addressed in the article, such as assigning psychologists to the units, but my experience before retiring is that the surge of young psychologists in the Army’s ranks were creating more harm by defaulting to issuing medication to deal with mental problems. In the short and long term, they frequently made the problems worse.
Maybe one answer is getting rid of the up or out bureaucracy in SOF. Let people take a break in the school house or staff, and then return to an operational team. That will mean making the rank structure more flexible and more senior in some cases. A lot of O4s, E9s, W4s still are capable and eager to get back into the fight. Another option, one SOCOM is pursuing is reducing the size of staffs in the forward deployed JTFs. They have grown to an unsustainable level over the years, and the folks manning these billets are frequently pulled from jobs where they’re supposed to be enjoying some down time with their families.
We should also be very hesitant about expanding the ranks of SOF. Despite claims to the contrary, quality will suffer. Assuming the demand for SOF will continue, and perhaps increase, and the force can’t substantially