U.S. Special Operations: Personal Opinions

[Bill Moore]

Number 5, which says “Most Special Operations require non-SOF assistance.” That oversight was a serious mistake in my opinion, because its omission encourages unrealistic expectations by poorly tutored employers and perpetuates a counterproductive “us versus everybody else” attitude by excessively gung ho members of the SOF community.

The "us versus everybody else" comment really hit home. This is our primary national security challenge in my opinion, because it limits our ability to effectively apply our elements of national power. It is a problem throughout the government, not just within Defense. It will require a substantial culture change to fix it, and the change have forced upon legacy organizations by the right leaders.

Given their guidance and endless hours probing masterpieces by Special Ops groundbreakers like Mao Zedung, David Galula, and Sir Robert Thompson, I produced four surveys that publicized Special Operations Forces (SOF) favorably on Capitol Hill and beyond, when virtually every command, control, planning, and force posture problem reflected misunderstandings.

The quote above gets at many of the debates we have within our SOF community. What exactly are special operations? I could post the DoD definition here, but it wouldn't be overly helpful. However, I think most would agree that our first SOF organization (organized, equipped, trained, and employed to conduct these missions) was the OSS, then followed by the CIA and in DoD the formation of Special Forces.

When Mr Collins focuses on Mao, Galula and Thompson as special operations ground breakers, it seems he is implying that special operations was originally special warfare, or psychological warfare (different from psychological operations, but psychological operations play a key role)., and this was the special operations capability that JFK envisioned we needed to expand to counter Soviet infiltration and subversion globally.

The shift from psywar to DA/CT started in the 70s, especially after Israel's successful raid on Entebee. It was a capability that we didn't have, at least to the level it needed to be based on the changing threat environment. Developing a CT/DA capability was essential, what we did wrong is neglect our FID/UW capability while pursuing the CT/DA capability.

Direct action in fact has prospered since 1986, because every USSOCOM commander thus far has climbed the DA ladder, mostly within the Joint Special Operations Command.

DA prospered for a number of reasons, some of them were very good reasons. The fact that DA prospered is not a negative, we have the best DA force in the world, a capability we didn't have when we attempted to rescue the hostages in 1980. It is a capability we needed then, a capability we need today, and a capability we will need tomorrow.

The negative comes from the aspect that organizations chase money, and if DA is what draws the money, then all organizations tend to migrate that way. Other critical capabilities like FID/COIN/UW are neglected and not developed. Those who are supposed to maintain expertise in them, drift to missions like DA and SR to stay relevant to their payroll masters. SOCOM did great work, what they accomplished in 20 years was nothing short of a miracle, but it was a myoptic and single focused effort.

I wonder why any commander would waste area oriented, foreign language qualified, high cost, low density UW and FID specialists on direct action missions except in emergencies.

I think this statement is a bit over simplified, as there are numerous variables that influence how a force is employed. Sometimes those who are most at fault are actually in the force that is being improperly applied. I think much of the problems we see today was due to poor planning during the initial days of this conflict, and that resulted in less than ideal use of some SOF elements. Over time these methods of employment became the new norm, and we all know how hard is it to break out of a norm. Now we have SF NCOs and officers who have seen nothing else, so our next generation of SF leaders may continue to pull SF into DA/SR/CT fold. Like everything else SF does, they'll do it well, but who is going to do COIN/UW well? When we wonder how we got to stupid, we don't have to look too far back in our history to see where we turned left when we should of turned right. There is no single person to blame, there may not even be a group of people to blame, the decisions made at the time were based on numerous variables that existed at that time. The challenge now is to break the current mold and get back on the right path. Mr. Collin's statement below sums it up nicely.

When superiors don’t know what to do it’s hard for subordinates to know how to do it, but they must do the best they can with the hands they’re dealt.

Bottom up strategy sounds good, but rarely works. We need a top down strategy, that is executed bottom up. Tell the guys what you want, and they'll get it done.