LCDR Mark D. Divine
is a Navy SEAL currently serving a one year
recall in support of Operation Noble Eagle
and the War on Terror. Divine was Honor graduate
of SEAL training class 170, and has served
for 14 years with the SEALs - 7 & 1/2 of which
were on active duty at SEAL Team THREE, SEAL
Delivery Vehicle Team ONE and Naval Special
Warfare Group ONE. Most recently he was Executive
Officer at Reserve SEAL Team ONE. After leaving
Active Duty Mark started NavySEALs.com, which
has become a leader on the web for Special
Operations news and intelligence.
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March 23, 2004
By Mark Divine
How should Special Operations during Operation Iraqi Freedom be
graded?
Recently I introduced the Special Operations Imperatives as the 12
"specially ordered" circumstances considered vitally important for
Special Operations to succeed. The Imperatives were developed by Special
Operations Command (SOCOM) in the mid '90s, and are a great way to
analyze focused, Spec Ops missions of national strategic importance.
We don't hear much of them these days - probably because Special
Operations has been forced into the mainstream and we are conducting
SOF campaigns rather than single, focused missions. Our SOF is being
utilized much like it was in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam
conflict. However, it will be interesting to explore links between
the imperatives and our current conduct of Special Operations in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
(Earlier we looked at Imperatives 1 through 6, and if you missed this
article you can find it here).
Special Operations Imperatives 7 to 12 are:
*Anticipate and control psychological effects.
*Apply capabilities indirectly.
*Develop multiple options.
*Ensure long-term sustainment.
*Provide sufficient intelligence.
*Balance security and synchronization.
Imperative # 7 - Anticipate and control psychological effects.
This is tough to do. It is also difficult to know whether you are
succeeding with the various psychological operations (psyop) efforts
underway. Operation Iraqi Freedom planners clearly understood and
anticipated the importance of psychological effects of the war - but
did they anticipate the effects of the post-war insurgency and counter-insurgency?
It does not appear that way. The planning for post-war operations
was paltry. The U.S. Army is not good at counter-insurgency. In fact,
the Weinberger-Powell doctrine stated that the Army would use overwhelming
mass and power to ensure success, and would not get bogged down in
another Vietnam style war of attrition.
Give the Army another Army to fight, and they will systematically
tear it apart. Give them a murky insurgency, and they need to call
upon Special Operations Forces to work with local counter-insurgents.
In a way that is what Iraq and Afghanistan have evolved into, and
what Secretary Rumsfeld has been pushing for - but that is not what
was originally planned.
Had the planners studied history, they would have noted that we do
have a force that is adept at fighting insurgencies - in fact they
wrote a book on it. The USMC's "Small Wars Manual" is a virtual treatise
on how to fight and win in Iraq. The best psychological program we
could have implemented would have been to bring in the Marines armed
with their "Small Wars Manual," and along with SOF take immediate
control of the post combat rebuilding in Iraq.
Alas - hindsight is 20/20. In spite of short-sighted planning, the
Army's psyop teams have been operating around the clock in Iraq. They
have produced millions of leaflets, radio shows, and TV programming.
Psyop, which relies on marketing new ideas to a reluctant populace,
is countered by psycho-terror programs of the insurgents - such as
killing a family member if someone supports the coalition. Add to
that the mitigating effects of our own liberal media, which refuses
to report anything good about the changes in Iraq, and you have a
very long, uphill battle.
I submit that Imperative # 7 was not adhered to, and Psyop has had
only marginal effectiveness in the post-war special operations led
counterinsurgency. Our long-term success will be as a result of individual
Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and our allies winning over the Iraqi's
one person, and one project, at a time.
Imperative #8 - Apply capabilities indirectly. This is hard
to see in Iraq, but it was displayed brilliantly in Afghanistan. The
5th Special Forces Group's link-up with the Northern Alliance and
war against the Taliban was a classic example of indirect application
of force. With a very small cadre of highly trained Special Forces
'A' teams, combined with a rough and tumble rebel force on horseback,
we were able to rout the Taliban from Northern Afghanistan. How did
they do this?
Indirect Force. Our Special Forces soldiers were levers, applying
technology in the form of smart bombs, AC-130
'Spector' gunships, and modern tactics to a very ill-equipped
but eager rebel force. The Taliban were unprepared to deal with the
tremendous firepower of our air assets combined with on-the-ground
tactical controllers in the form of our SF soldiers and Air Force
Combat Controllers. (The Taliban, who had succeeded with a war of
attrition against the Soviets, were no match for the smart-bombs and
laser-guided munitions, the effects of which were devastating).
In Iraq, indirect application of SOF is being played out with the
slow and steady chipping away at the insurgent's networks - one brick
at a time. Rather than going directly for the big fish, we are going
after the facilitators - those who take money to facilitate a terrorist
transaction (weapons, demolition, harboring, food, transport, etc.).
As we bring down the facilitators, it exposes the low-level and mid-level
targets. As we roll up these guys, and their families for interrogation,
it will eventually lead to the high value targets.
We are implementing the same strategy in Afghanistan, though it is
much more difficult due to the loyalties that the Pushtan border tribes
have toward the Taliban and UBL. Imperative # 8 is safe.
Imperative #9 - Develop multiple options. Whether speaking
of an individual mission, or an SOF campaign, multiple options are
essential. It is Standard Operating Procedure to develop at least
3 courses of action (COA's) for every operation. When a course of
action is chosen, then there are multiple contingency plans developed
for every possible place where Murphy can stick his nose.
It is the nature of Special Operations to be flexible. This flexibility
allows immediate response to a change of plan. The Clausewitz principle
that "no plan survives contact with the enemy" has been proven again
with Iraq.
Thus the SOF plan must constantly evolve and adapt to the changing
circumstances. In our current adventures, it appears that the application
of SOF is in response to the Iraqi and Taliban reaction to our toppling
their respective regimes. Thus, SOF did not go in with well defined
multiple options, but once on the ground, are developing strategies
and tactics to defeat the enemy. Imperative # 9 gets a pass.
Imperative # 10 - Ensure long-term sustainability. How long
is long-term? We have about another year at our current operational
tempo before the tires fly off the SOCOM Ferrari. Does this mean that
we can't fight another major war, or continue operations in Iraq?
No.
It means that we need to adjust our force posture to bleed off the
over-pressure. The training and rotation system of the SEAL Teams
is at full burn. Our operators are doing an extraordinary job, and
gaining new knowledge and combat skills daily. But you can't squeeze
blood out of a stone. There are numerous initiatives afoot to level
the field.
The USMC is contributing a 100-man, mixed Force Recon/intel/comm team
to SOCOM under the operational control of the SEALs for a pump, which
will bring more combat power to the SEALs. Additionally, numerous
jobs are being handed off to contractors or conventional forces to
allow SOF teams to focus on the primary mission of capturing the insurgents
and terrorists.
Reserves are being reorganized to align current needs into the Active
Force and push Active Forces that are not critical into the Reserves.
Fortunately, as mentioned above, SOCOM is by its very nature an adaptive
creature, so it is transforming itself even while fighting on multiple
fronts. It is akin to rebuilding an airplane while in flight - but
it is being done.
Imperative # 10 is safe as long as we do not embark on another military
adventure in Iran or elsewhere after the November election. If we
do, then there may be some challenges.
Imperative # 11 - Provide sufficient intelligence. This imperative
is critically important. SOF has been stung by faulty or incomplete
intelligence many times in the past. The Son Tay raid is a good example,
as is Mogodishu.
Further, our entire intelligence apparatus is suspect due to the WMD
gap. However, the continuous flow of relevant and timely intelligence
is making the difference in Iraq. What accounts for this apparent
dichotomy? Well, the intel in Iraq is being generated by expert interrogators
on the ground as soon as the bad guys are brought in and the target
is exploited for it's intelligence value.
The interrogators are a mix of Army, Navy, FBI, and unspecified OGA's
(Other Governmental Agencies). The intel is then immediately fed back
to the operators, who roll out the door to act on it. We call this
"the fusion of operations and intelligence" - it is likely the single
most important lesson that SOF has re-learned in Iraq.
It is a unique strength of Special Operations to collect their own
intel, and it mirrors what the SEALs did in Vietnam. (SEALs in Vietnam
had a hugely successful intel campaign which led to an NVA bounty
on any SEAL captured or killed of $10,000). Prior to Iraq we did not
have (many) SOF on the ground - and our CIA HUMINT in the region was
nil. As a result the intel was limited to speculation as to what the
reaction to the toppling of Saddam would bring.
Imperative # 11 gets a failing grade - SOF was not provided sufficient
intelligence, they had to generate it on their own.
Imperative # 12 - Balance security with synchronization. The
final Imperative is clearly directed at a single-focused, strategically
important SOF mission like the Son Tay raid. Synchronization requires
rehearsal to get the various units speaking a common language and
communicating with common platforms. Synchronization also speaks to
de-confliction with other friendly forces.
Rehearsals are a security risk. There was a huge focus on rehearsals
and synchronization for Son Tay. There was also an almost insane level
of security. It is plausible that they rehearsed too much and somehow
the mission was compromised (though there is no proof of this) because
when the force executed the mission flawlessly in North Vietnam, there
were no American POW's at the target site. They had been moved weeks
prior.
In Iraq, security and synchronization have given way to an extraordinary
operational tempo driven by the political need to get the insurgency
under control at all costs prior to the November election. Our Special
Operations Forces are pushing the envelope in all directions to make
it happen, but as the daily news indicates, it is improbable that
we can stop the insurgent activity in such a short period of time.
There are just too many disaffected former Iraq Baath party members
out of work, and foreign fighters flowing into Iraq. Imperative #
12 is also a wash.
As this analysis suggests, Special Operations are undergoing a significant
transformation from a focus on missions, to a focus on campaigns.
The campaigns are heavily reliant on intelligence gathering and exploitation,
as well as preparing the battlefield for conventional operations.
The concept of SOF as "Global Scouts" is discussed in the 2004 SOCOM
posture statement.
There are lessons to be learned from the Special Operations Imperatives,
which are from the era when SOF was mission focused. Perhaps the imperatives
can be updated to reflect the new reality. Anticipating psychological
effects of the campaign are still critical, as is the application
of indirect force.
Long-term sustainability is key for counter-insurgency operations
and "global scouting" because it is a long-term effort that does not
pay immediate dividends. Having multiple options, backed by solid
initial intelligence and an ongoing intelligence / operations collection
and fusion capability is crucial to success.
Balancing security and synchronization is important for a SOF campaign
due to the duration and intensity of operations. On the one hand,
as the operators gain experience against the threat, they reduce the
frequency of mistakes. On the other hand, as the success mounts, the
operators start to burn out from the intense operational tempo, and
can tend to make stupid mistakes. Taking the same route more than
once, forgetting to de-conflict with the new conventional force that
moved in last week, and ignoring warning signs of intel gathering
activity against your location are all potential threats of not balancing
security with synchronization.
It is easy to armchair quarterback a war. It is infinitely harder
to fight and win it. It is "imperative" that we win our current campaigns
in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are at a point in our military development
that our warriors can change a 2-century old paradigm in the Middle
East. SOF will do its part, as will the conventional forces. Will
the public and politicians do their part?
