Comments:
Some inside baseball from Michael Gordon and Eric Schmitt.
Unfortunately it is just not as easy as giving a commander's in-extremis force (CIF) to AFRICOM.
Effective employment of a CIF would still require six things:
1) intelligence (to prevent the failure of anticipation)
2) Rapid and agile crisis action decision-making (again ideally the rapid decisions to alert and position a force in anticipation of a crisis)
3) A stationing location that allows for relative or reasonable proximity to likely crisis areas.
4) a stationing location with the facilities that allow for the required advanced training to maintain the highest state of readiness for the force.
5) Dedicated enablers; e.g., intelligence, EOD, combat control teams, etc (I would note also that a stand alone CIF that is located separate from its parent battalion is problematic from a logistics support, personnel rotation, command and control, training perspective).
6) Dedicated airlift for rapid deployment to the crisis location.
If the article below is accurate and the CIF was deployed for training to Croatia we also have to understand that the CIF trains with regional forces routinely to enhance its own readiness, improve the capabilities of like forces of friends, partners, and allies, and also improve interoperability should they be deployed to a situation requiring a combined response. The CIF also supports the combatant commander's Theater Campaign Plan through engagement with the like forces of friends, partners, and allies. This must go on as a matter of routine but also have to be canceled on short or not notice if there is intelligence requiring the force to be placed on alert and this requires an agile decision making apparatus both to anticipate potential crises and to provide the requisite orders and authorities for rapid action.
In light of my hasty analysis above where we would put a CIF (hopefully with it parent battalion) and all required support with the required training facilities, with dedicated air support that would be under the command and control of AFRICOM (SOCAFRICOM) and be in proximity to likely crisis locations? I ask this somewhat rhetorical question because I know it was asked some years ago and there was no good answer except the one where the current EUCOM CIF is located (recall that we could not even get the AFRICOM HQ stationed on the continent let alone permanently based combat forces). Furthermore, the rationale became that since this same force had responsibility for the African AOR before there was an AFRICOM then the force could be "shared" as noted in the article. Seems a logical course of action until there are crises occurring in Africa that require some dedicated attention as we are now perhaps seeing.
An alternative is of course to put a force afloat in proximity to the crisis areas but there are two issues for that. This requires a sustained presence of afloat forces (e.g., amphibious ready group or an expeditionary strike force) as well as continuous rotation of the assault force because the skills they possess are very perishable and require advanced training that cannot be sustained while afloat. As the skills of the assault force atrophy while they are afloat the force will have to be rotated with shore based forces to maintain the highest state of readiness.
Lastly there is no good answer to this complex problem unless a high level effort is launched diplomatically to be able to find a location to station this force and decisions are made to fully resource a force from a personnel, equipment, training, and facilities perspective to provide the AFRICOM Commander a dedicated in-extremis capability.
Libya Attack Shows Pentagon’s Limits in Region
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: November 3, 2012
WASHINGTON — About three hours after the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, came under attack, the Pentagon issued an urgent call for an array of quick-reaction forces, including an elite Special Forces team that was on a training mission in Croatia.
The team dropped what it was doing and prepared to move to the Sigonella naval air station in Sicily, a short flight from Benghazi and other hot spots in the region. By the time the unit arrived at the base, however, the surviving Americans at the Benghazi mission had been evacuated to Tripoli, and Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were dead.
The assault, on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, has already exposed shortcomings in the Obama administration’s ability to secure diplomatic missions and act on intelligence warnings. But this previously undisclosed episode, described by several American officials, points to a limitation in the capabilities of the American military command responsible for a large swath of countries swept up in the Arab Spring.
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