Special Forces Identify Crisis; Déjà vu all Over Again

(Author’s note: The majority of the current Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) doctrinal publications, although unclassified, are restricted behind a firewall and not publicly accessible, which further reduces their circulation with potential readers.)

In the last few weeks, there has been a fair amount of debate regarding the recent JSOU publication Special Forces has an Identity Crisis, Who are the Green Berets Supposed to Be, by Colonel (Retired) Ed Croot. If you haven’t personally seen the data from that study, I strongly recommend reviewing it before commenting. You may disagree with the results, but it’s hard not to acknowledge the data and the rigorous analytical process applied during Croot’s research. The data clearly indicates that there is, in fact, an identity crisis. For those of older generations, you might recall a similar period in the 1990s. Arguably, the twenty years of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) provided only a temporary reprieve from the post-Cold War Special Forces identity crisis debate.

Considering why the force responded the way that it did, one cannot help but feel that many of the underlying issues are not as complicated as they are often portrayed.

As a young detachment commander in 1995, I had to wrestle with an emerging doctrine that explained how various activities were now to be categorized as new forms of unconventional warfare. Some of these activities included Joint Combined Exercises for Training (JCETs), de-mining operations, and Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR), when conducted by Special Forces soldiers (referred to as an Unconventional Assisted Recovery Team, or UART). This all culminated in June of 2001, with the new FM 31-20, Special Forces Operations manual that explained the “traditional” unconventional warfare construct of guerrillas, auxiliary, and the underground was now expanded to include working with “conventional coalition forces”. The manual states, “The conventional coalition forces trained, organized, equipped, and led in varying degrees by SF represents the newest evolution in UW-related surrogate forces. SF units conducting UW as part of coalition support operations are task organized as Special Forces Liaison Elements (SFLEs). These elements collocate with military forces of coalition partners and provide essential U.S. command, control, communications, computers and intelligence links.” This would allow anything and everything to be labeled as unconventional warfare.

To say there was an identity crisis during that period would be an understatement. During this time there was a culture in which if an individual raised questions or concerns, they ran the risk of being labeled as someone who was not on board with ‘the program’. The situation had gotten so convoluted that in 2008, the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) directed a working group to clarify the meaning of UW. While this effort did result in a revised definition of unconventional warfare (which remains in place today), the purpose was not about changing or updating the topic as much as forcing clarity to arrest the growing interpretation and corresponding degradation of the associated requisite professional knowledge. As a former Chief of Special Forces (SF) doctrine, I assess that when the force and its leaders don’t take an interest in their own doctrine, and treat that doctrine with the respect it requires, this sends a powerfully negative message that has a ripple effect across the entire force. Thus, it is important to remember that doctrine matters more than you may think.

The assumption might be that after twenty years of combat experience in GWOT, the Special Forces community would have an incredible doctrine based on a wealth of proven practices and experiences and a corresponding clear value proposition message. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The Special Forces current doctrine is, in many cases, either completely absent or grossly verbose and unclear. Furthermore, few people reads a 600-plus page manual, as in the case of the current UW manual. In many cases, the doctrine does not provide viable, clear information, and in other cases, it provides outdated or inaccurate information.

The current counterinsurgency (COIN) and foreign internal defense (FID) doctrines are spread over multiple and somewhat redundant books, and still fail to provide concise clarity on the topic. There is little to no doctrine that explains the unique tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and role of Special Forces in COIN, based on the lessons from the GWOT. For example, from 2003-2011, the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force in Iraq (CJSOTF-AP) had responsibility that spanned the entirety of Iraq. As an example, three special forces companies or Operational Detachment Bravos (ODBs), with their assigned Operational Detachment Alphas (ODAs), under the control of a Special Operations Task Force (SOTF), could coordinate their targeting efforts against specific insurgent networks spanning from the Syrian border to Baghdad. This enabled the CJSOTF to target insurgent clandestine infrastructure and not be restricted by a single unit’s limited battlespace. They could then action those targets with their partner Iraqi counterterrorism (CT) forces. They developed procedures to transform classified intelligence into Iraqi warrants, which resulted in significant credibility with the population. This level of countering the insurgent infrastructure was beyond any other elements’ capabilities. The concept and lessons of these efforts are not captured in the doctrine. The conventional forces then and now, relying on FM 3-24 to understand the role of SF in COIN, have little to no idea this is what Special Forces can and in fact did contribute to COIN operations.

Regarding CT as a Special Forces core task and operation, there is no Special Forces doctrine for CT operations. Soldiers in the special operations community routinely hear that the force needs to shift from CT to focus on Irregular Warfare (IW). Both the CT and IW manuals are protected behind firewalls on the Army Publishing Directorate website. This is particularly confusing since CT is listed as a part of IW in Department of Defense Directive 3000.07, Irregular Warfare. In many ways, this is like saying, “We need to get away from eating apples and focus more on fruit.” It is not hard to see why a soldier might have some confusion.

Published in January 2021, and also hidden by a firewall, Training Circular (TC) 18-05 Special Forces FID and Support to Counterinsurgency, explains that Special Forces’ role in COIN includes: (1) Direct Action, (2) Special Reconnaissance, and (3) Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction. It then goes on to explain:

“Other activities SOF may conduct include: intelligence activities, CI support, security activities, countering IEDs, Cordon and Search, countering threat networks, targeting threat infrastructure, detainee activities, CT and population control.”

This is a very odd list of seemingly routine activities.

By comparison, the 1965 Army FM 31-21 Special Forces Operations manual had a very clear chapter on COIN:

“Broad unconventional warfare doctrine does not apply to counterinsurgency situations. In unconventional warfare operations, the US sponsored guerrillas operate deep within enemy or enemy dominated territory and are the insurgents themselves. Their efforts are directed towards the delay and harassment of the enemy military force and are facilitated by inducing the local civilians to support the guerrilla effort. In counterinsurgency operations, US sponsored forces are operating in a less restrictive operational environment with their efforts directed toward prevention or countering the insurgent’s movements by winning the support of the population, thus denying the insurgents their support and by combat actions against the insurgent force.”

The chapter then goes on to explain that Special Forces can conduct counter-guerrilla operations, counter-underground operations (like those of the Phoenix program), as well as train, advise, and accompany a host nation’s military, paramilitary, and civilian irregular militias, such as tribal elements. Perhaps, if there had been COIN doctrine for Special Forces that explained this in 2001, it would not have taken six years of missteps and hard learned lessons to develop effective concepts like the Sons of Iraq or Village Stability Operations in Afghanistan. To be sure, these operations were quite similar to the Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDG) of Vietnam.

In the past, the force has demonstrated a tendency to jam the square peg of UW into the round hole of reality, loosely overusing and misapplying the term at any opportunity. In doing so, the force often leaves members of the US military’s joint force and Special Forces community scratching their heads. For example, an SF Team Sergeant should never include “…conducts irregular warfare…” as their team’s tactical mission task. This is because “Conduct (insert type of operations here, UW, CT, FID, etc.)” is never an appropriate mission task. A task is something to be accomplished, best expressed as an action verb (e.g., destroy, disrupt). Yet, Special Forces soldiers are often coached to think in these terms.

Anecdotally, having returned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina from northern Iraq in 2004, I attended a GWOT planning group meeting. I listened as a senior officer pontificated that we must update the definition of UW to include terrorism. His argument was that we needed to portray a unique Special Forces variety of CT and COIN. This is the kind of flawed thinking that confuses the special operations and conventional communities, as well as dilutes the discrete subjects, like UW, to the point where it becomes more of a mindset or marketing slogan than a topic with actual professional knowledge associated with it. Simplify put, this is inflexibility, masked as adaptability.

ATP 3-18.1 Special Forces Unconventional Warfare includes a description of three new versions of UW that exist beyond the “traditional models of unconventional warfare.” These include very confusing descriptions of UW against insurgents and terrorists, operations that the rest of the military would refer to as COIN or CT. The doctrine also incorrectly describes Phase 1 (Preparation) of the seven phases of UW . Historically, Phase 1 (formerly known as Psychological Preparation until 2006) has always been preparation of the environment, specifically the indigenous populations’ will to resist, and not a description of home station planning efforts. The description of planning procedures for unconventional warfare is so detached from reality that it’s beyond comment in this forum. The 632-page document includes plenty of other questionable TTPs for UW, such as how to sling load a tactical vehicle from a CH-47. If this were a medical textbook, how many inaccurate statements could it have before it raised concerns among its owners and users?

A common Special Forces origin story centers on the requirement for UW to have a discrete force to carry the mission out. While a true statement, the other side of the story rarely comes to the fore. The reality is that the opportunities to conduct UW are few and far between. It’s an important mission, but very difficult to anchor your relevance to as a reason for being. The force quickly realized that this model was not sustainable within the Army. As a result, SF doctrine quickly adapted and expanded the role of SF, adding COIN in 1961, direct action and special reconnaissance in 1968, and counterterrorism in 1977. COIN was replaced by FID in the 1980s. Good organizations evolve and change what they do over time. They don’t attempt to alter their environment by redefining long-standing topics in an effort to maintain their preferred core activity.

Organizations have two options for being relevant. They can use a competitive model; that is, be better at something that their customer base wants and needs; or they can be unique. Being unique, however, doesn’t automatically make that organization relevant. The organization is only relevant insofar as that is what the customer needs. In the last thirty years, the Special Forces have become increasingly disconnected from their customer base, which are the Geographic Combatant Commands (GCCs) and the Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOCs).

In 1968, roughly 70% of Special Forces were permanently stationed overseas. This included the following units:

• 1^st Special Forces Group
• 5^th Special Forces Group
• 8^th Special Forces Group
• 10^th Special Forces Groups
• Detachment-A
• Detachment-K
• 46^th SF Company).

Additionally, the Army stationed three Special Forces Groups in the continental United States. This included the 3rd Special Forces Group, 6th Special Forces Group, and the 7th Special Forces Group. Since then, the Army moved the vast majority of Special Forces organizations to the continental United States. As a result, these formations are not truly accessible to the GCC for employment because they must first go through a slow and lengthy request for forces process. The solution, in some cases, has been a new normal of rotational headquarters deployed forward. While a predictable and somewhat sustainable solution, these “ad hoc” task force headquarters often lack true regional fidelity and long-term perspective. Furthermore, with the disbanding of the Commander’s In-Extremist Force (CIFs) and Crisis Response Forces (CREs) a few years ago, largely against the wishes of the GCCs, Special Forces has largely removed itself from any crisis response options and further degraded its value proposition to the GCCs.

Final Thoughts

The Special Forces Regiment is a critically valuable capability within the joint force. However, its value is degraded if its narrative, doctrine, and employment model are not concise and clear, commonly understood, or an agile and responsive employment model to the GCCs needs. The force would do well to stop using the term “SOF” when they really mean “SO”. They are not interchangeable. Consider two different panel discussions. One titled “The Role of SOF” and the other “The Role of SO”. The first one, by default, will justify the current business model and structure. The second one, untethered to a specific force, has the potential to generate thought that could inform decisions about the best approach, model, and structure. It’s a subtle distinction but critically important. Constant and over-use of the term “SOF” over “special operations” has the potential of creating solutions in search of a problem to solve.

Special Forces doesn’t need another slick marketing document that restates all the popular buzz words in the National Defense Strategy. Nor does it need doctrine that reads more like propaganda, but is surprisingly light on actual TTPs. Rather, the Special Forces needs a simple and clear narrative rooted in reality. It needs a clear and concise doctrine that underpins the narrative and is based on lessons and best proven practices. It needs a true business relationship with its consumer – the TSOCs and GCCs.

Imagine a company that puts the bulk of its energy into the quality of its product but almost no time into its distribution plan and connection to the consumer. This task is handled by another third-party organization. The consumer explains that they are interested in their product, but it’s too hard to place an order. The response they get is that that’s the process, followed by a confusing description of their quality. The current centralized process managed by USSOCOM was designed at the start of the GWOT for the combat zone rotations. It was designed for predictive rotation and subsequently outdated and insufficient for the world today.

Furthermore, the Army should replace regional orientation with a regional command relationship enabling employment. The main idea being that the Army should enable its tactical commands to properly command. Moreover, Special Forces should revise the officer assignments and management process to enable longer tours for company and field grade officers in operational units. No business in the world could run a successful franchise where its mid-level managers are swapping out after one to two years of management. Make captain assignments four years, and major assignments three years. For those who automatically think of all the reasons this can’t be done, I would submit that’s the mindset that got us here.