Strategic Sabotage: Special Operations Forces Core Mission?
Introduction
This essay argues that strategic sabotage must be a SOF core activity to win future conflicts. The Global War on Terror (GWOT) created a SOF community that is used to being the supported entity. SOF dismantled terrorist networks with support from conventional forces who held the advantage within their domains. Those roles will reverse in a large-scale conventional conflict. Conventional forces will be the supported entity and will not hold the same advantages they did during GWOT. SOF’s role will be to use its core activities to enable conventional forces to win. Strategic sabotage is a means to fill this role and must be incorporated as a SOF core activity.
This work proceeds in four parts. First, it examines the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) core activities and how they do not prioritize strategic sabotage. Second, it defines strategic sabotage and proposes it as a core activity. Third, it examines a modern case study illustrating this necessity. Fourth, it sums up the argument that strategic sabotage must be a USSOCOM core activity to succeed in future conflicts.
USSOCOM Core Activities
USSOCOM lists twelve SOF core activities that define SOF’s role in the United States joint force. Two relate to strategic sabotage: Direct Action and Unconventional Warfare (UW). USSOCOM defines Direct Action as “Short-duration strikes and other small-scale offensive actions employing specialized military capabilities to seize, destroy, capture, exploit, recover, or damage designated targets.” Direct Action appears to include strategic sabotage. However, the activity’s emphasis is inadequate. This definition is tactical in nature. It focuses specialized, short-duration capabilities on targets without regard for strategic effects. Strategic sabotage should require long-term activities to disrupt enemy systems. It could also need multiple targets to effectively disrupt a system. This requires strategic and persistent SOF efforts to accomplish intended effects. Direct Action’s definition is insufficient to encompass strategic sabotage.
USSOCOM defines UW as “actions to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power.” This definition also appears to include strategic sabotage. Historical cases support this. Jedburgh teams in World War II organized resistance groups in France to frustrate plans and disrupt enemy decision options. However, it is insufficient to reduce strategic sabotage to a UW function. Strategic sabotage becomes secondary when the core activity focuses on raising the resistance. It must be an independent strategic tool that receives its own emphasis. UW becomes a means to enable strategic sabotage. Planners can focus on sabotage as an action with surrogate forces as an option alongside other SOF. USSOCOM’s core activities do not accomplish strategic sabotage in large-scale conventional conflict.
Strategic Sabotage
Strategic sabotage must be a defined USSOCOM core activity. It should be defined as specialized military actions against strategic targets to disrupt adversary systems, create dilemmas, target critical infrastructure, and enable conventional forces. This definition addresses Direct Action and UW’s shortfalls. It emphasizes strategic targets and SOF’s enabling role in large-scale conventional conflict. It also gives planners creativity and flexibility in how they accomplish the sabotage. Any domain or action is viable if it disrupts strategic enemy systems. Defining strategic sabotage as a core activity gives it organizational emphasis that USSOCOM lacks. This will push the organization into a supporting mindset rather than the supported role it has recently filled. The United States will be ahead once conflict begins if it integrates strategic sabotage into planning now.
Spider’s Web
Modern large-scale conflict reinforces strategic sabotage’s necessity. Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Web illustrates this. The Ukrainian Security Service (SSU) used low-cost explosive drones to conduct a deep penetration strike on Russian strategic bomber assets. The operation’s targeting, planning, and execution fit the proposed strategic sabotage definition and show why it must be a core activity. The SSU targeted four strategic Russian air bases deep inside Russian territory. Targets included Tu-95, Tu-22M3, and Tu-160 bombers, A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft, training facilities, and repair centers. This shows a strategic and systematic targeting approach that ensured the Russian bomber fleet would be thoroughly disrupted. The SSU spent eighteen months planning and laying the operation’s logistical framework. Operatives used unwitting Russian truck drivers to smuggle small strike drones, launch systems, and explosive payloads deep into Russia. They used precise intelligence on structural weak points to ensure the drones would cause maximal damage. This planning’s specialized, long-term, and detailed characteristics encapsulate strategic sabotage.
Spider’s Web’s execution and strategic effects highlight strategic sabotage’s importance. Ukrainian operatives exfiltrated Russian territory and remotely launched the drones from the unwitting drivers’ trucks positioned at Russian airbases. The drones bypassed air defenses and struck over forty aircraft, equating to around thirty-four percent of Russia’s strategic cruise missile delivery platforms. This crippled Russia’s ability to sustain missile attacks and directly supported conventional forces targeted by those bombers. The operation exemplifies strategic sabotage. Specialized forces used clandestine methods and intelligent targeting to disrupt a strategic system, create dilemmas, and enable conventional forces. The United States must implement this operational style to succeed in conventional conflict.
Conclusion
To sum up, strategic sabotage must be defined as a USSOCOM core activity. The current core activities are insufficient to create the effects needed in a large-scale conventional conflict. During World War II, strategic sabotage enabled conventional forces and created Allied freedom of action while hindering Germany’s. Modern case studies like Spider’s Web illustrate strategic sabotage’s continued effectiveness when prioritized and executed. The United States must return to this focus. USSOCOM must establish strategic sabotage as a core activity to succeed in future conflicts.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of War or the United States Government.
Sabotage is a critical capability and it is good that Justin is outlining this. Recall the traditional definition of Conventional Warfare (from the 1997 Joint Doctrine Encyclopedia). This was the longest serving UW definition consistent from the 1950s until changed in Joint Doctrine in 2010. But do we need sabotage as a stand alone mission? It is not the doctrinal mission (or additional core activity) that needs to be changed. It is the strategy and campaign plans that should be the focus. Everything he describes could be (and should be as appropriate) described in the campaign plan to support the theater or national strategy. (note the current definition of UW is: activities to enable an insurgency or resistance movement to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government of occupying power through or with an underground, auxiliary, or guerrilla force in a denied area).
Unconventional Warfare
A broad spectrum of military and paramilitary operations, normally of long
duration, predominantly conducted by indigenous or surrogate forces who are
organized, trained, equipped, supported, and directed in varying degrees by an
external source. It includes guerrilla warfare and other direct offensive, low
visibility, covert, or clandestine operations, as well as the indirect activities of
subversion, sabotage, intelligence activities, and evasion and escape. Also
called UW.
Unconventional warfare (UW) includes guerrilla warfare (GW) and other low visibility,
covert, or clandestine operations, as well as subversion, sabotage, intelligence collection, and
evasion and escape (E&E). (See figure below.) GW consists of military and paramilitary
operations conducted by irregular, predominantly indigenous forces in enemy-held or hostile
territory. It is the overt military aspect of an insurgency or other armed resistance movement.
Guerrilla forces primarily employ raid and ambush tactics against enemy vulnerabilities. In
the latter stages of a successful insurgency, guerrilla forces may directly oppose selected,
vulnerable enemy forces while avoiding enemy concentrations of strength.
Subversion is an activity designed to undermine the military, economic, psychological, or
political strength or morale of a regime or nation. All elements of the resistance organization
contribute to the subversive effort, but the clandestine nature of subversion dictates that the
underground elements perform the bulk of the activity.
Sabotage is conducted from within the enemy’s infrastructure in areas presumed to be safe
from attack. It is designed to degrade or obstruct the warmaking capability of a country by
damaging, destroying, or diverting war material, facilities, utilities, and resources. Sabotage
may be the most effective or only means of attacking specific targets that lie beyond the
capabilities of conventional weapon systems. Sabotage selectively disrupts, destroys, or
neutralizes hostile capabilities with a minimum expenditure of manpower and materiel. Once
accomplished, these incursions can further result in the enemy spending excessive resources
to guard against future attack.
…
When UW operations support conventional military operations, the focus shifts to primarily
military objectives. However, the political and psychological implications remain. UW
operations delay and disrupt hostile military activities, interdict lines of communications,
deny the hostile power unrestricted use of key areas, divert the hostile power’s attention and
resources from the main battle area, and interdict hostile warfighting capabilities. Properly
integrated and synchronized UW operations can extend the depth of air, sea, or ground battles,
complement conventional military operations, and provide the JFC with the windows of
opportunity needed to seize the initiative through offensive action.
During war, SOF may directly support the resistance movement by infiltrating operational
elements into denied or politically sensitive areas. They organize, train, equip, and advise or
direct the indigenous resistance organization. In situations short of war, when direct US
military involvement is inappropriate or infeasible, SOF may instead provide indirect support
from an external location.
UW may be conducted by all designated SOF, but it is principally the responsibility of
Army special forces. Augmentation other than SOF, will usually be provided as the situation
dictates by psychological operations and civil affairs units, as well as other selected
conventional combat, combat support, and combat service support forces.
The Joint Doctrine Encyclopedia (1997) (pages 713-715)
https://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/jp-doctrine/jp-encyclop%2897%29.pdf