Pretty powerful BLUF here.  While I am a little bit partial to SOF I do have to say that there is no one force or one capability or one instrument of national power that is a war winner (or war preventer) by itself.  I do worry that there are some (not this author of course) who view SOF as a silver bullet or a substitute for using other tools when they may be more appropriate to include large scale employment of conventional forces.  To me the solution to the "problem" of employment of SOF lies with strategists and campaign planners and the requirement to employ the right forces for the right missions.

The future of global security—from both non-state and state actors—will depend on preventing slow-burning and asymmetric threats from sowing instability abroad. Fully supporting the roles and resources of special operations is the best, most effective way to ensure America retains its strength and security.

...

Recommended Changes:

Equalize funding, resourcing, and personnel between direct and indirect SOF missions.

Decrease deployment rates to support the long-term readiness of the force.

Leverage the Army and U.S. Marine Corps to serve greater roles in indirect GCC operations.

SOF operational planning and synchronization should be pushed down to the Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOCs).

Strengthen SOF personnel and operational oversight.

Some important recommendations but I have a few quick comments:

I disagree with the use of the word equalize in terms of funding.  I think that the special warfare and surgical strike missions should be correctly resourced.  That does not necessarily mean they should be equal.  

Decreasing deployment rates is necessary but I worry too much that the pendulum will swing too far.  Soldiers join SOF to deploy overseas.  What we need is the correct priority placed on deployments  - they must support campaign objectives and strategies and not simply a deployment because someone wants to io They want to do this and if they are deprived because they have to be "rested" based on some arbitrary time criteria morale will suffer.   Effective Special Warfare (which includes UW and counter-UW and supports Political Warfare) is counter-intuitively characterized by slow and deliberate employment – long duration actions and activities, relationship establishment, development, and sustainment. These are long term activities and required investment in people and commitment of time.

I chuckle (respectfully) at the comment about Marine history and small wars.  I remember the pull between small wars and amphibious operations and Major Ellis' work in the interwar years.  I think a similar tug of war exists in the Corps today and one also in the Army between large scale military operations versus engagement, building partner capacity stability operations and counterinsurgency.

Yes, TSOCs should be the focal point for SOF campaigning in theater.  If they cannot be properly resourced(with personnel and forces) for campaigning then they will require long term and continuous augmentation from the SOF CONUS base.

The 2017 NDAA is going to codify the oversight function with the establishment by law of the Special Operations Policy Oversight Council and the insertion of the ASD SO/LIC into the ADCON chain of command giving ASD SO/LIC a service like responsibility and authority.  This may be a major inflection point for SOF.

Lastly I wonder if this is not a Freudian slip:  :-)

The future of global security and the fight against counterterrorism—from both non-state and state actors—will depend on preventing slow-burning and asymmetric threats from sowing instability abroad. Fully supporting the roles and resources of special operations is the best, most effective way to ensure America retains its strength and security.

Are we fighting against terrorists or are we fighting against the overemphasis on the counterterrorism mission?

Special Operations Forces: Let SOF be SOF

defense360.csis.org · by Kristen Hajduk · December 21, 2016

Overview

Thus far, the incoming Trump Administration has expressed interest in easing restrictions and White House oversight on military decision-making. A willingness to place more agency in the hands of operators could provide breakthrough opportunities and flexibility for Special Operations Forces (SOF) as they continue to combat terrorism.

Bottom Line

The future of global security—from both non-state and state actors—will depend on preventing slow-burning and asymmetric threats from sowing instability abroad. Fully supporting the roles and resources of special operations is the best, most effective way to ensure America retains its strength and security.

Download full report

Issue

The U.S. Special Operations Command’s (USSOCOM) direct action missions provide immediate response capabilities during violent conflict. This includes counterterrorism (CT), high-value targeting, countering weapons of mass destruction, personnel recovery, and hostage rescue operations. These direct operations buy time for longer-term indirect approaches—including civil affairs, building partner capacity, information operations, and special reconnaissance—to take effect. Indirect operations address the sources of terrorism or instability by increasing partner nations’ resilience and rule of law.

Military and civilian leaders have responded to the evolving threat of terrorism by emphasizing direct action missions. In 2006, USSOCOM was named as the lead command for all operations against al Qaeda (AQ). It was successful in severing AQ from its sources of power: people, money, and influence. This success and continued demand for special operations have led to slightly increased personnel numbers and larger budgets.

As USSOCOM became increasingly involved in CT operations, the demands on SOF created historically high rates of deployment. During any single year, SOF are deployed to nearly 75 countries around the globe, with some operations requiring up to a dozen raids each evening. The resulting demands on SOF have led to concerns for the chronic neglect of indirect missions and the future of SOF readiness. The following recommendations are designed to give the Department the flexibility to engage, support, and deploy SOF effectively and efficiently.

Recommended Changes

Equalize funding, resourcing, and personnel between direct and indirect SOF missions. SOF’s value has equal footing in direct action and indirect activities in support of Geographic Combatant Command (GCC) missions. Whereas direct action may effectively target terrorists, indirect operations support stability and counteract sources of instability, preventing conflict or enabling host-nation forces to prevent or address conflict themselves. Without equal emphasis on indirect missions, SOF will fall back on an unending target list—perpetually repopulated with new individuals—without any off-ramps to stabilization and political reconciliation.

Today, the DoD Unified Command Plan gives USSOCOM responsibility to lead direct operations for combatting terrorism, however, the command has no formal authority to coordinate the indirect DoD activities that counter the sources of instability. This gap should be closed, with the Secretary of Defense naming USSOCOM as the DoD operational lead command for all indirect activities in support of CT. USSOCOM could then develop a template for long-term, indirect operations based on past successes with partner countries.

Decrease deployment rates to support the long-term readiness of the force. Return SOF personnel to 1:2 dwell time (also referred to as “days at home”). SOF personnel have not achieved sufficient dwell rates since before 9/11, and SOF senior leaders have observed the force “fraying around the edges” since that time. Deploying at these historically high rates withholds much needed time for them to recuperate between deployments, receive additional training, and spend much-deserved time with their loved ones. Allowing for reasonable dwell time provides opportunities for operations to devote time to develop intellectual capital, maintain and improve foreign language skills, and generally foster a force of strategically-minded leaders. Leaders must not sacrifice the strategic readiness of SOF for short-term tactical or operational gains.

Leverage the Army and U.S. Marine Corps to serve greater roles in indirect GCC operations. The size of SOF cannot be quickly surged. The force can reasonably grow at a rate of 3-5% each year without sacrificing quality. Adding to this burden are GCC requirements for SOF, which continue to grow exponentially in order to meet the demands of their respective operational environments. Therefore, the best way to preserve the high quality of the SOF while meeting the increasing GCC demands is to leverage the conventional forces to fill non SOF-specific requirements. To provide this support, the Services may have to resist the singular focus on high-end warfighting at the expense of the urgent need for indirect operations.

In Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, the Army proved its ability to adapt conventional units to civil affairs missions with relative rapidity and ease. The Army’s manpower, organizational reach, and historical experience can support this partnership by increasing the number of active duty civil affairs units and conducting the bulk of civil affairs operations and some information operations overseas.

Historical Role

The USMC can draw upon its historical role in small wars, doubling down on USMC cultural and structural attributes that make them more efficient at indirect missions.

Download full report

Similarly, leverage the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) to support building partner capacity and security cooperation activities. The USMC unit structures could be a substitute for USSOCOM’s small-unit, indirect operations with host nations. The USMC already has manpower and resources—such as air, naval, amphibious, ground capabilities—integrated down to the tactical level. The USMC can draw upon its historical role in small wars, doubling down on USMC cultural and structural attributes that make them more efficient at indirect missions.

SOF operational planning and synchronization should be pushed down to the Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOCs). Each GCC has a TSOC responsible for meeting theater-unique special operations requirements. TSOCs should serve a greater role in operational planning in support of GCC-wide strategies and help coordinate activities with the U.S. embassies within the area of responsibility. They should ensure alignment of country-level planning across the various SOF units assigned within the GCC. TSOCs can be powerful influences within the GCC—especially when the GCC headquarters are not located within the GCC for security reasons—like U.S. Central Command and U.S. Africa Command. USSOCOM can realize the potential of TSOCs by ensuring the highest-performing personnel in command of and deployed to TSOCs.

Strengthen SOF personnel and operational oversight. Seek statutory adjustments to combine the responsibilities of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict with the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence into a unified Under Secretariat for Special Operations and Intelligence (USD(SO&I)). This will allow for more collaboration between covert and overt activities conducted by the Department. It will also create one point of contact for coordination of paramilitary activities between SOF and the intelligence community. Last, increase the manpower and resources that support the ability of USD(SO&I) to provide independent assessments and departmental oversight of USSOCOM, information, and intelligence activities.

The future of global security and the fight against counterterrorism—from both non-state and state actors—will depend on preventing slow-burning and asymmetric threats from sowing instability abroad. Fully supporting the roles and resources of special operations is the best, most effective way to ensure America retains its strength and security.

Download full report >

defense360.csis.org · by Kristen Hajduk · December 21, 2016

Advice from SOF on the Use of SOF for the Next Administration

I was fortunate to be able to participate in the event and contribute to the discussion.  

The 18 page report can be downloaded from my dropbox at this link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6891151/CNA_Advice%20from%20SOF%20for%20the%20Next%20Administration.pdf

Executive summary and table of contents are excerpted below.

Advice from SOF on the Use of SOF for the Next Administration

Rapporteur: Alexander Powell

October 2016 Executive Summary  On October 14, 2016, CNA convened a half-day meeting of experts to discuss the use of special operations forces (SOF) by the next administration. Our speakers consisted of a former Assistant Secretary of Defense and six former SOF Commanders whose rank at retirement ranged from one to four stars. Our audience of approximately 50 attendees consisted largely of active duty SOF and their civilian equivalents. The conversation was held under the Chatham House Rule of non-attribution. The overarching themes of that discussion included the following:  • The sanctity of SOF. SOF are a limited resource that are most effective when given clear policies and permissive rules of engagement (ROE), when employed and supported in accordance with the “SOF Truths,” and when allowed to have a strong voice in the decisions and policies governing their employment. Our attendees recommended that policymakers and conventional military commanders should:  o Educate themselves—and seek SOF input—on the relative strengths and weaknesses of SOF, and when they should and should not be used.  o Set policy and ROE, and trust that SOF will accomplish the mission, given their flexibility, adaptability, and record of success.  o Recognize that SOF are fully committed and continuing at the present pace of deployments risks burning out the force. Preservation of the force requires growth or relieving SOF of some of its currently assigned missions.  • Preparation of the policy environment. In strategic policy and resource discussions, SOF are often reliant on non-SOF experts to represent their capabilities and interests. Our attendees recommended that SOF leaders should: o Proactively engage influential civilians inside and outside of government in order to educate them on SOF capabilities, limitations, and requirements.  o Seek a more active voice when the use of SOF is considered as a policy option, for example by placing a flag or general officer on the National Security Council Staff.  o Clearly articulate the SOF narrative. For public audiences, this should include who SOF are, what they do, and why—while not revealing methods. For policy audiences, this should include a framework for how to think about SOF using past successes as examples.  • Balancing the future force. Countering terrorism will initially be a priority for the next administration and SOF will play a central role in this mission. But the U.S. is also facing increasing threats from China and Russia, among others. For SOF to play a role in shaping near-peer adversaries that is commensurate with their core competencies, some rebalancing of the force is required. Our attendees recommended that policymakers and SOF leaders should: o Recognize the role that SOF can—and should—play in shaping the environment around rising and resurgent near-peer adversaries. Give SOF greater space, authorities, and resources to act clandestinely in this role.  o Re-examine the balance between surgical strike and special warfare capabilities, personnel, and resources.  o Increase the diversity of the force via greater recruitment of minorities and women, and place an emphasis on their development, mentorship, and retention. Also increase emphasis on language and micro-regional studies.  o Develop SOF’s operational level capabilities, by codifying lessons from the Special Operations Joint Task Forces, resourcing USSOCOM to source and sustain them, and developing planners for SOF-centric campaigns.  • SOF as a source of innovation. SOF have pioneered numerous technologies and tactics that have benefitted the conventional military. The reasons behind SOF’s ability to innovate include a willingness to rapidly experiment and foster freedom of thought—these should be imitated and reinforced. Our attendees recommended that policymakers and military leaders should: o Shift the military service schoolhouses away from teaching mostly conventional war doctrine and “what to think,” to a balance of conventional and unconventional approaches and an emphasis on “how to think.”  o Adjust military service manpower policies to enable non-traditional career paths, new ways of developing leaders, and lateral transfers into service.  o Create a robust intellectual hub at USSOCOM to foster, develop, and transition new technologies and tactics to SOF and the conventional force.  The next administration will face a multitude of challenges and SOF will continue to play a central role in many of them. The recommendations above will help ensure SOF are as successful for the next administration as they have been for the last one.  Contents  Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1  Setting the stage for SOF ..................................................................................................... 1  Key themes ............................................................................................................................. 3  The sanctity of SOF ............................................................................................................... 3  Preparation of the policy environment ............................................................................. 4  Balancing the future force ................................................................................................... 5  SOF as a source of innovation ............................................................................................ 7  Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 9

U.S. Special Operations Forces at 9-11, Today, and for the Future

thecipherbrief.com · September 11, 2016

September 11, 2016 | LTG Charles Cleveland and COL David Maxwell

LTG Charles Cleveland
Senior Fellow, Madison Policy Forum

Col David Maxwell
Associate Director, Center for Security Studies, Georgetown University

Following the tragic attack on 9-11, U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) and the CIA, supported by airpower, conducted a punitive expedition that resulted in the Taliban and al Qaeda being routed from Afghanistan. In 2003, working with the Kurds, U.S. SOF conducted operations in northern Iraq, accomplishing the mission intended for a U.S. infantry division that was not allowed to deploy through Turkey. U.S. SOF were already advising and assisting Colombian military and police operations as part of Plan Colombia that contributed to the peace agreement in 2016. And in Asia, U.S. SOF supported the Philippine security forces in degrading and destroying terrorist organizations linked to al Qaeda while supporting peace negotiations with Moro insurgent groups.

U.S. SOF were well positioned and ready in 2001 to execute their fundamental doctrinal missions for which they were organized, trained, equipped, educated, and optimized: unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense or Special Warfare. However, counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations soon came to dominate the U.S. military campaigns for both special operations and regular forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and later in Yemen and throughout Africa.

What emerged after 9-11 was a special operations Surgical Strike capability that combined exquisite intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities with precision strikes from unmanned aerial systems and the unparalleled special operations ground and maritime capability to capture or kill high value targets at the time and place of our choosing, including killing Osama bin Laden in 2011. The development of such concepts as F3EAD – find, fix, finish, exploit, analyze, and disseminate – allowed the U.S. national mission force, often supported by regular forces, to take down enemy networks by operating at a tempo that paralyzed terrorist organizations. Counterterrorism direct action operations were raised to a high art form.

The 2006 QDR (Quadrennial Defense Review) called for a massive growth in SOF to nearly 70,000 personnel in the United States Special Operations Command. While the Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOCs), Ranger Regiment, Special Operations Aviation (Air Force and Army), the National Mission Force, SOF headquarters, and enabling forces (intelligence, communications, and logistics) expanded, the planned growth objectives for Army Special Forces and Navy SEALs were unable to be achieved. This proved two of the five SOF truths: competent SOF cannot be produced after emergencies occur, and SOF cannot be mass produced. One of the important developments post-9-11 was the establishment of SOF operational HQ in theaters as either Special Operations Command Forward (SOC-FWD) or Joint Special Operations Task Forces (JSOTF) to provide command and control of the tactical forces executing the full range of special operations missions for the Theater Commander.

While terrorism has been at the forefront of our security strategy the past 15 years, we are coming to realize that the threats we face now and in the future are larger than terrorism alone. Russia’s new generation warfare or non-linear warfare employing active measures and reflexive control; China’s Three Warfare’s: media warfare, lawfare, and psychological warfare; the Iran Action Network , and non-state actors such as ISIS and AQ are exploiting the conditions of political instability and ungoverned spaces and creating new security problems that cannot be addressed through counterterrorism operations as the single focus main effort.

The conditions can be described as revolution, resistance, insurgency, and civil war, and countries and non-state actors are exploiting them to achieve their geostrategic objectives. They are practicing a modern form of what George Kennan described in 1948 as Political Warfare. This is the norm in the Gray Zonespace between peace and war.

(Continued at the link below)

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/north-america/us-special-operations-forces-9-11-today-and-future-1091

I think Anthony Cordesman might have coined the phrase of the era:  "Strategic Tokenism" for the use of SOF. http://bit.ly/1PYsPJj

But this article, although written by a former Army Captain with no love lost for special operations, should make one think.  This entire article focuses on only one aspect of Special Operations and the smallest part at that.  This is all about the forces that conduct surgical strike (the execution of activities in a precise manner that employ special operations in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments to seize, destroy, capture, exploit, recover or damage designated targets, or influence adversaries and threats.)  It does not talk about the vast majority of special operations being conducted around the world that are defined as special warfare (the execution of activities that involve a combination of lethal and nonlethal actions taken by a specially trained and educated force that has a deep understanding of cultures and foreign language, proficiency in small-unit tactics, and the ability to build and fight alongside indigenous combat formations ina permissive, uncertain, or hostile environment.)

This article and all the emphasis on surgical strike (despite the words of senior leaders, to include GEN Votel who try to talk about the importance of special warfare and unconventional warfare see the JFQ article: http://bit.ly/1SRbTVV ) really should lead one to think of whether we are correctly organized for special operations.  The dominant special operations organization is JSOC and its national mission forces.  Is there really a need for 4 star functional combatant command?  Why does JSOC need a higher headquarters?  What value does USSOCOM add to JSOC operations?  

I am coming to think that the Army actually appreciates the special warfare capabilities that reside in Army Special Operations more than the rest of USSOCOM.  After all it is the Army that has incorporated special warfare and surgical strike as the doctrinal descriptions of special warfare and surgical strike and not USSOCOM.  I think General Votel is the only member of USSOCOM in Tampa to use the words special warfare (again see this JFQ article http://bit.ly/1SRbTVV)  

What we do not have is an organization that is organized and optimized to conduct special warfare.  Perhaps the Army ought to recall its special operations forces (assuming that Title 10 Section 167 could be repealed) and form a Special Warfare organization that would be organized, trained, equipped, and optimized for special warfare.  The forces exist to conduct special warfare but there is no organization to conduct special warfare with the priorities, authorities, and resources similar to the scale of those that exist with our premier surgical strike organization.  Of course my words are sacrilege and I will probably be forced to turn in my SOF union card but my extreme rhetoric is really meant to ask are we giving sufficient priority to our special warfare capabilities.  Again, I think the Army appreciates them perhaps a bit more than the broader SOF community and certainly more than our policy makers and political leaders who desire the strategic tokenism offered by employment of our surgical strike forces (and I do not mean to disparage those forces at all - we have the best in the world and we need to sustain the highest level of capability within that force).  But I am not the first to ask these questions.  In 2009 someone named Yasotay asked whether we still need a USSOCOM at this link: http://bit.ly/20fhBWf  (Full disclosure - I do believe in USSOCOM but I believe we need to place greater priority on our special warfare forces but not at the expense of our surgical strike forces.)

nytimes.com

Welcome to the Age of the Commando

• by Matt Gallagher 
•  Jan. 30, 2016 
•  6 min read 
•  original

A FEW months ago, my wife and I had dinner with a couple we didn’t know very well. It was awkward at first, but there was wine, and conversation soon followed. At one point, the wife asked about my tour in Iraq, where I served four years as a cavalry officer. I began talking about the desert, the tribal politics and the day-to-day travails of counterinsurgency. “That’s all fine,” the husband interrupted. “But tell us about the super-soldiers. The Special-Ops guys. That’s what people care about.”

He had no time for “G.I. Joe.” He wanted “American Sniper.”

He is not alone. The mythos of Special Operations has seized our nation’s popular imagination, and has proved to be the one prism through which the public will engage with America’s wars. From the box office to bookstores, the Special Ops commando — quiet and professional, stoic and square-jawed — thrives. That he works in the shadows, where missions are classified and enemy combatants come in silhouettes of night-vision green, is all for the better — details only complicate. We like our heroes sanitized, perhaps especially in murky times like these.

The age of the commando, though, is more than pop cultural fantasy emanating from Hollywood. It’s now a significant part of our military strategy.

Last month the White House announced the nomination of Gen. Joseph L. Votel to lead United States Central Command, which is responsible for military operations in 20 countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Syria and Saudi Arabia — in other words, the hotbed of our geopolitical conflicts. General Votel has been the head of the military’s Special Operations Command since 2014. His Central Command nomination represents a break in tradition; it has almost always gone to generals of more conventional backgrounds. Military analysts hailed it as a sign of the Obama administration’s trust in, and reliance on, Special Operations.

Special Operations Command, or Socom, oversees all Special Operations Forces — our Delta Force operators, Navy SEALs, Green Berets, Army Rangers, among others. Special Operations personnel deployed to approximately 139 nations in 2015 — about 70 percent of the countries on the planet. While a vast majority of those missions involve training the defense forces of partner countries, a few involve direct combat.

In December, Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter announced at a House hearing that an “expeditionary targeting force” will be sent to Iraq to conduct raids on top Islamic State targets. They’ll be joining the roughly 3,500 troops already there working as advisers and trainers. President Obama seems desperate to strike a balance between doing nothing in the region and not reneging on his “no boots on the ground” promises.

Clearly, commandos have boots, and those boots touch the ground. But White House officials have taken to what a report in this newspaper recently called “linguistic contortions” to obscure the forces’ combat roles.

As the military as a whole downsizes, Special Ops recruitment continues to rise. There are approximately 70,000 Special Ops personnel today, a number that includes soldiers, civilians, National Guard and Reservists, as well. This number is up from 45,600 in 2001 and 61,400 in 2011. Still, Adm. William H. McRaven — then the head of Socom — told Congress in 2014 that “the force has continued to fray” from the endless deployment cycles. In response, the Army alone last year put out a call for 5,000 new Special Ops candidates.

In the political sense, the policy works. The secrecy surrounding Special Ops keeps the heavy human costs of war off the front pages. But in doing so, it also keeps the nonmilitary public wholly disconnected from the armed violence carried out in our name. It enables our state of perpetual warfare, and ensures that as little as we care and understand today, we’ll care and understand even less tomorrow.

Special Operations are not a panacea. Just as SWAT teams can’t fulfill their purpose without everyday beat cops on corners, operators can’t and don’t function in a vacuum. Many a military analyst has compared our current “counterterror” approach to a Band-Aid; while effective, that effectiveness has no clear end state. And recent history suggests an overreliance on our commandos can lead to tragedy. In 1993, in Somalia, Special Operations seemed a cure-all, too. Then came the battle of Mogadishu. Same with 1980 and Operation Eagle Claw, as we desperately tried to end the Iran hostage crisis. The former led to a short-lived retreat from international intervention, the latter to the very creation of Socom.

Further, like a postmodern Praetorian Guard, our operators don’t serve at the will of the American people. Though Congress holds the purse strings for Special Operations, decisions about individual missions are not generally put before them for approval. Individual force commanders overwhelmingly make those calls. While Mr. Obama has proved cautious in authorizing their use, the next commander in chief might not be so prudent.

Clear away the smoke and romance, and Special Ops often function as highly trained kill squads sent out into the beyond in the name of country. They are the best there is at that. But this strategy ensures a recurring cycle of armed conflict, a decision of such significance that all citizens need to be weighing it and considering it, not just a select few.

My own experience with Special Ops is mixed. I didn’t have many positive encounters with them overseas. As part of the fabled surge in Iraq, my scout platoon and I patrolled a rural town north of Baghdad for 15 months on a counterinsurgency mission that often seemed to conflict with that of the operators.

IN early 2008 we were called to a farm to help pick up the pieces after a commando raid. A tribal leader claimed that two of his lieutenants had been taken by mistake by “the other Americans, the ones with helicopters.” Those other Americans, the tribal leader told me, said that the two Iraqis were brothers, and members of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Now we were left to explain to the men’s family why they were gone, why their house had been cycloned, and why a placard of Mecca had been torn from a wall, and receive the hard stares from those men’s children as we stood over a dead pet dog that had been shot during the raid.

I didn’t tell that story to our dinner companions, though. Instead I talked about a visit I made to Tacoma, Wash., in 2011, when I got to know the other side of these other Americans. I’d left the military and was now a writer, or trying to be one. A college friend and his Ranger unit were returning from Afghanistan, and I had visions of writing a tale of young men constantly at war but in between battles.

The Rangers, the Special Ops unit that Pat Tillman left his N.F.L. career in 2002 to join, is a proving ground of sorts, and attracts many younger soldiers. Though designed in part as an elite light infantry for airfield seizures, the Rangers have seen their purpose morph: More than ever, kill-or-capture raids are their raison d’être. They’re the fullbacks of the Special Ops world, all brute force and power, as memorialized in the film “Black Hawk Down”: “We get on the five-yard line,” a Ranger officer tells a dismissive Delta soldier, “you’re going to need my Rangers.”

The days in Tacoma were spent trying (and failing) to get the Rangers’ public affairs office to approve on-post access. The nights in Tacoma were mostly spent in bars with young Rangers looking to unwind from their last tour while also prepping for the next one. They described the routine: three to six months deployed, three to six months stateside, rinse and repeat. Elizabeth Samet, who teaches English at West Point, calls these service members “war commuters.” More than one observer in Tacoma, including some partners and spouses, termed it an addiction.

If that was true — and it didn’t apply to many, in my estimation — they’d have their reasons.

A number of Rangers I met joked that vampires saw more light than they did during their deployments. I came to see these young men in a way I hadn’t when I’d worn the uniform myself, because of the way they embraced the endlessness of it all. They weren’t fighting for resolution, as we’d been in Iraq, or how we thought we’d been. Peace over there wasn’t their goal. Calm back here was.

I didn’t agree with that worldview, not at all. But I still appreciated it.

On Super Bowl Sunday, my friend and I were invited to watch the game with a group of older sergeants. It seemed that most had already settled into their stateside lives, sharing diaper responsibilities with their wives, swapping war stories with one another in between.

While the adults watched the game, kids ran around with Nerf guns as big as they were. This was no Cowboys and Indians. They were playing “Rangers and Rangers.” They all wanted to be like Daddy, and none were willing to play the role of an Al Qaeda jihadist, even in pretend.

Continue reading the main story

The baby-faced Ranger privates I helped sneak into bars in 2011 are hardened sergeants by now. The sergeants I met are either in charge of entire Ranger companies or have moved into the so-called black units of Socom, like Delta Force. They remain anonymous silhouettes to the country they serve, not just because their bosses at the Pentagon want it that way, but because we do, too.

The other Americans, indeed.

Matt Gallagher is a former Army captain, Iraq war veteran and author of the novel “Youngblood.”

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A version of this op-ed appears in print on January 31, 2016, on page SR6 of the New York edition with the headline: Welcome to the Age of the Commando. Today's Paper|Subscribe

Kimberly Dozier references Project Gray.  I attended the conference yesterday as well.  The US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School has initiated a collaborative web site that will be very useful to all of those who want to focus on the Gray Zone.  I would urge those with an interest to join the site and begin contributing.  It can be accessed at this link: http://www.projectgray.org/  

Excerpt:

Linder held a one-day conference in Washington, D.C., to address how best to fight ISIS, to teach Washington policymakers and think tankers how special operations teams work to help local forces—a messy, years-long process.

​From the Project Gray Web Site:

About Project Gray

---

Project Gray is a collaborative study of the Gray Zone - the space between war and peace - where competitive interactions that fall short of a formal state of war, and which are characterized by ambiguity and uncertainty about relevant policy and legal frameworks, are undertaken by state and non-state actors. Conventional military responses by the Department of Defense lie outside the spectrum of appropriate responses for Gray Zone challenges. To address these conflicts, we must evolve our organization, intellectual, and institutional models to operate successfully in the Gray Zone.

Through a series of publications, forums, and events with academic, government, and military partners and other interested parties, Project Gray will enable us to analyze regional and trans-national conflicts, find solutions and develop best practices to operate in the middle ground between war and peace. It is our hope that the information shared and understanding gained can be used across geographic lines in response to similar challenges.

Project Gray is an initiative of the U.S. Army Special Operations Center of Excellence. We invite you to get engaged and join the conversation!

Now regarding this article and MG Linder's comments.  The only thing I can hope for is that the deployment of this "targeting force" could be to satisfy the need for immediate and visible action that can demonstrate metrics and actually provide "cover" and start buying some time for the forces conducting special  warfare to operate. Maybe there is a campaign plan that will employ surgical strike forces and special warfare forces in a mutually supporting and complementary manner.  See highlight paragraph below.

Excerpts:

The idea behind the new expeditionary force is to re-create a smaller version of the elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) cell that operated in Iraq during the U.S. occupation. That force eventually carried out dozens of raids each night, with the evidence or information from captives in the first raid leading to the next raid.

Carter and Chairman Dunford told the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that the new “expeditionary” special operations force would carry out raids and hostage rescues in Iraq and Syria.

“The raids in Iraq will be done at the invitation of the Iraqi government and focused on defending its borders and building the Iraqi security force's own capacity,” Carter said at Tuesday’s hearing

​.

The targeting troops are part of a two-pronged attack by special operations forces, to buy time for the work of 50 special operations advisers, who are headed to northern Syria to work with the so-called Syrian Arab Coalition, which includes the Kurdish fighters that have proved to be some of the most effective in winning territory back from ISIS.

The idea is to use the same model as the one in Afghanistan in 2001, when roughly 60 U.S. Special Forces Green Berets worked with the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban.

“You have to empower locals to fix their own problems,” said Maj. Gen. James Linder, commander of the Green Beret’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

“You cannot clear out those villages with Americans and have the same results,” he said in an interview with The Daily Beast.

“So you have to get in there to find out who is the key communicator, what’s going to motivate those folks, what is their cause,” he said.

The U.S. advisers can teach them everything from how to train a small unit to carry out an ambush to how to coordinate multiple teams attacking the same target—something that rebel forces on their own have to learn by trial and error, with often deadly and disastrous results.

Other important lessons: teach them not to hit infrastructure or civilians, so that they’ll actually have something to govern afterwards.

Linder held a one-day conference in Washington, D.C., to address how best to fight ISIS, to teach Washington policymakers and think tankers how special operations teams work to help local forces—a messy, years-long process.

 “You need to manage expectations in the U.S. public,” he said, echoing top U.S. military officials who have spoken of this as a generational fight. “This will be a long-term engagement.”

​

thedailybeast.com

Obama Unleashes Hunter-Killers on ISIS

BULLSEYE

The Special Ops Forces that got Bin Laden, Saddam, and Zarqawi are finally being sent by the dozens to go after the Islamic State’s leaders. Can these troops turn the tide?

“You don’t know at night who’s going to be coming in the window. And that’s the sensation that we want all of [ISIS’s] leadership and followers to have.”

The Obama administration is dispatching a targeting force of elite U.S. special operations troops into northern Iraq, after top U.S. defense and intelligence officials warned the ISIS network is growing faster than the coalition that’s fighting it, senior U.S. officials tell The Daily Beast.

The new special operations task force is aimed at denting the so-called Islamic State Group’s popularity by decimating its leadership, and gathering the intelligence needed to cut off more of its operations before they can launch.

It will be roughly 200 strong, based in northern Iraq, according to a senior defense official.

It’s the sharp end of the spear that will work with 50 special operations advisers who are deploying to northern Syria later this month, to advise local forces how to fight.

"It puts everybody on notice in Syria,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter told Congress on Tuesday. “You don’t know at night who’s going to be coming in the window. And that’s the sensation that we want all of [ISIS’s] leadership and followers to have.”

The war against ISIS began as a mission that President Barack Obama swore would not lead to ground troops. It became an operation in which U.S. officials only grudgingly acknowledged forces were not only on the ground but in combat. Tuesday’s announcement suggests that U.S. forces could now be on the front lines. 

The announcement of additional troops, made during a House Armed Services Committee on the war effort, surprised many at the Pentagon. Several of those involved in the effort struggled to answer basic questions about the new mission.

One thing that’s clear: The extra forces represent the latest adjustment to a strategy that has been stalled for months, according to Pentagon officials. Indeed, at Tuesday’s testimony, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford admitted that the U.S. had “not contained” ISIS. 

Carter and Chairman Dunford told the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that the new “expeditionary” special operations force would carry out raids and hostage rescues in Iraq and Syria.

“The raids in Iraq will be done at the invitation of the Iraqi government and focused on defending its borders and building the Iraqi security force's own capacity,” Carter said at Tuesday’s hearing.

The move was dismissed by critics of the Obama administration’s ISIS strategy, which relies on 3,500 U.S. troops already in Iraq to train local forces to do the fighting, combined with U.S. and other coalition airpower to hit ISIS targets.

“There is no firm date when we could get ISIS out of Raqqa or even Mosul,” Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) told MSNBC, referring to ISIS’s Iraqi and Syrian capitals. “And as long as they’re there and they have a base, they’re metastasizing.”

Pentagon officials say ISIS has lost 40 percent of its territory in Iraq and 5 percent of what it once held in Syria since the coalition launched attacks in August 2014. 

But U.S. intelligence officials say it continues to draw 1,000 new recruits a month, and is spreading, attracting new followers through violent actions like the attacks in Paris.

The idea behind the new expeditionary force is to re-create a smaller version of the elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) cell that operated in Iraq during the U.S. occupation. That force eventually carried out dozens of raids each night, with the evidence or information from captives in the first raid leading to the next raid.

JSOC members have been on the ground in limited numbers since the start of the U.S. anti-ISIS campaign. But the new expeditionary task force will also provide the kind of airpower, combat search and rescue, and medical capability that special operations officials say will enable more aggressive raids throughout Iraq and inside Syria with a lower risk of casualties—an important requirement of the casualty-averse Obama White House.

One senior U.S. official explained that administration officials had been reluctant to approve raids without such resources available, because if operators were badly injured, they’d be outside the “golden hour” to get them to life-saving medical aid.

The targeting troops are part of a two-pronged attack by special operations forces, to buy time for the work of 50 special operations advisers, who are headed to northern Syria to work with the so-called Syrian Arab Coalition, which includes the Kurdish fighters that have proved to be some of the most effective in winning territory back from ISIS.

Senior officials say those advisers are expected to deploy in the next two weeks, with their first job to assess just how well the Syrian Arab Coalition is fighting and how to help them step up their fight against ISIS.

“All we have right now is their interpretation of what’s going on,” a senior official briefed on the operations said. He predicted the assessment of the local fighters could take weeks.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the special operations deployments.

The idea is to use the same model as the one in Afghanistan in 2001, when roughly 60 U.S. Special Forces Green Berets worked with the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban.

“You have to empower locals to fix their own problems,” said Maj. Gen. James Linder, commander of the Green Beret’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

“You cannot clear out those villages with Americans and have the same results,” he said in an interview with The Daily Beast.

“So you have to get in there to find out who is the key communicator, what’s going to motivate those folks, what is their cause,” he said.

The U.S. advisers can teach them everything from how to train a small unit to carry out an ambush to how to coordinate multiple teams attacking the same target—something that rebel forces on their own have to learn by trial and error, with often deadly and disastrous results.

Other important lessons: teach them not to hit infrastructure or civilians, so that they’ll actually have something to govern afterwards.

Linder held a one-day conference in Washington, D.C., to address how best to fight ISIS, to teach Washington policymakers and think tankers how special operations teams work to help local forces—a messy, years-long process.

 “You need to manage expectations in the U.S. public,” he said, echoing top U.S. military officials who have spoken of this as a generational fight. “This will be a long-term engagement.”

—with additional reporting by Nancy A. Youssef