# Post-Afghanistan, Special Operations to Shift to Conflict Prevention



## Ravage (Aug 3, 2013)

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=1220







After U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan ends, special operators will have to shift from fighting in conflicts to helping to prevent them, Special Operations Command leaders said July 29.

The ability to build relationships with partner nations will determine whether this shift from combat to prevention works or not, said Col. Stuart Bradin, chief of the global network operational planning team at the U.S. Special Operations Command.

The command has changed its strategy from training and fighting to operations and prevention. “The reality is that strategically we have to put as much energy and effort in prevention as we do fighting wars,” Bradin said at a Heritage Foundation panel in Washington, D.C.

This cannot be achieved by just visiting host nation headquarters, Bradin said. There needs to be “a persistent presence where you are able to build a relationship with one of our key partners and allies that allows us the ability to help them and help ourselves,” he said.

“A lot of what we do is based on friendship. We’ve known our foreign partners 20 or 30 years. We are  personal friends,” he added.

The vision to build a global special operations network sprouted from the January 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance document, he said. 

To develop its strategy in accordance with the guidance, command officials compiled government and academic reports in order to pinpoint potential hotspots, Bradin said. 

“If you take a good hard look at where those friction points might be, then it can lead you to an area where you think you might be utilizing SOF in the future,” he said.

“In today’s environment, when you’re dealing with networks and flatter, faster enemies out there, you’ve got to have something that not only exists, but is more capable so it can respond to those types of threats,” he added.

In order to strengthen relationships with foreign partners, members of the special operations community must be well educated and at least partially bilingual, said Capt. Steve Wisotzki, commanding officer of the Navy Sea, Air and Land (SEAL) and Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewmen centers. 

Some special operators will need to be sent to schools outside of the military network — both to U.S. universities and overseas. If these personnel mix with those that they will be living and working with, it will create a more comfortable and credible network, Wisotzki said.

“It’s not going to be a U.S. only show and if our guys know a little bit of the language and can work with foreign SOF allies, it comes back to us more than double. We work with them, we don’t impose or tell them necessarily how to do things and we can respond to what they need,” he added.

Skeptics question how SOCOM will convince partner nations to implement its advice. The answer lies with treating them as equals, said Steven Bucci, director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

“You can’t treat the countries like they are little kids. You’ve got to advise and get to know them, or they’re not going to listen,” Bucci said. 

“But if you build a relationship ahead of time and prove your worth to them as a friend and a colleague, then when crisis starts they will take your advice and be prepared to deal with the crisis,” he said.

The only downside to this strategy is the fear that policymakers will decide that special operations is the answer to everything, he added. If so, the government may “use them [forces] in ways that will cause them to be thrown into a situation where they are really not the right answer and we get a whole bunch of really highly qualified, highly skilled folks killed.”

The new strategy is “a visionary return to the roots of the community with an acknowledgement of the present-day situation that we are running short of assets,” Bucci said.

“The world is more dangerous than it’s been before with a lot of potential threats out there and SOCOM is offering policymakers ways to address those threats at a very low level with a low footprint in ways that can hopefully defuse those threats before they turn to violence,” he said.


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## Marauder06 (Aug 3, 2013)

> “You can’t treat the countries like they are little kids. You’ve got to advise and get to know them, or they’re not going to listen,” Bucci said.
> 
> “But if you build a relationship ahead of time and prove your worth to them as a friend and a colleague, then when crisis starts they will take your advice and be prepared to deal with the crisis,” he said.



The problem with that line of thought, though, is that it does not account for the possibility that the other country will act as a friends and colleague during the crisis.  And what is a crisis for one country, isn't necessarily a crisis for another.  See also:  Pakistan.



> The only downside to this strategy is the fear that policymakers will decide that special operations is the answer to everything, he added. If so, the government may “use them [forces] in ways that will cause them to be thrown into a situation where they are really not the right answer and we get a whole bunch of really highly qualified, highly skilled folks killed.”



That's a pretty significant downside, and I think that fear has already been realized.  "Stability" operations sounds a lot like something the State Department, law enforcement, and a host of other non-.mil agencies ought to be involved in.  I must have missed it in the article where those elements were discussed.


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## AWP (Aug 3, 2013)

I stopped reading at "at least partially bilingual." That told me no one's taking this seriously, these are people fishing for soft answers to hard questions.


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## DasBoot (Aug 3, 2013)

Is the same idea as what @Freefalling  talked about a few months ago? About SOF always "being on the war footing?"


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## AWP (Aug 3, 2013)

DasBoot said:


> Is the same idea as what @Freefalling  talked about a few months ago? About SOF always "being on the war footing?"


 
Maybe because I'm half asleep and fighting a headache, but I don't understand this at all.


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## DasBoot (Aug 3, 2013)

Freefalling said:


> Maybe because I'm half asleep and fighting a headache, but I don't understand this at all.


 Sorry about that, I typed that on my phone and it did not come out right. What I meant to say: You spoke about SOF and Conventional forces deploying in a post OIF-OEF world, I believe this was relating to the deployment of an Infantry brigade to Africa to train local forces. You said (in a post I am trying to find) that SOF should always be operating in combat in some form ("On the war footing") while CF should be back home, training, waiting for a big war/the chance for individuals to move up to SOF. I was wondering whether this is what you were speaking of. Again, sorry for the misunderstanding and poor communication on my end.


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## Raksasa Kotor (Aug 3, 2013)

LOL


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## AWP (Aug 3, 2013)

DasBoot said:


> Sorry about that, I typed that on my phone and it did not come out right. What I meant to say: You spoke about SOF and Conventional forces deploying in a post OIF-OEF world, I believe this was relating to the deployment of an Infantry brigade to Africa to train local forces. You said (in a post I am trying to find) that SOF should always be operating in combat in some form ("On the war footing") while CF should be back home, training, waiting for a big war/the chance for individuals to move up to SOF. I was wondering whether this is what you were speaking of. Again, sorry for the misunderstanding and poor communication on my end.


 
No that's not. My comment about language proficiency is driven by these observations:
- Language capabilities with SOF are currently degraded and our military as a whole has placed a high premium on terps. Epic fail. The more you rely on a terp the more control you're giving to a third party.
- Language proficiency takes time and money to develop. Without degrading other capabilities, how/ when/ where are units supposed to increase their proficiency?
- "Partially bilingual" might as well read "partially crippled." You're back to relying upon terps of questionable loyalties.

Put yourself in a local's shoes (or barefeet). Johnny Highspeed American shows up to teach you how to be highspeed like Johnny. You're stoked, here's this GreenSEALBeretRecon killer in front of you. He barely speaks your language, pulls out a pointee-talkee card, fumbles through a few words, and then conducts his training using some contracted college student we dragged in from wherever. How receptive are you to Johnny's message? We just spent millions to put Johnny in front of you and he lost your interest in the first hour. 'Murica.

I think that when we toss out language requirements anymore we're just paying lip service to their need. "Sure, sure, we'll sprechen zee francais muy bien before we get on the plane. No problemo."

Back to an older post, "in combat" and "on a war footing" are different animals. While I'm aware that CF have conducted FID missions, even pre-9/11, I think their scope should be very narrow in focus and great care taken to screen those sent for that purpose. I do not think that CF as a whole are trained to properly conduct FID in many areas of the earth; they CAN be, but I don't think they are.


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## Salt USMC (Aug 3, 2013)

Freefalling said:


> Back to an older post, "in combat" and "on a war footing" are different animals. While I'm aware that CF have conducted FID missions, even pre-9/11, I think their scope should be very narrow in focus and great care taken to screen those sent for that purpose. I do not think that CF as a whole are trained to properly conduct FID in many areas of the earth; they CAN be, but I don't think they are.



Agreed on all points.  From my limited experience doing the FID thing (and this may not hold true for all branches that try this), but the Marine Corps put forward a significant amount of money towards training us, and then promptly grabbed a bunch of crappy/junior Marines from various local units to form teams.  Of the team that I was a part of, only two out of ten were volunteers, and only two had actually deployed before.  I strongly question how well you can advise foreign units if 1) You likely don't want to be there, and 2) You don't know the task yourself.  The training was good but it focused almost exclusively on tactical skills, while advising took a backseat (for the most part).  Our culminating exercise, a month-long shindig called Enhanced Mojave Viper (at my old stomping grounds, 29 Palms) actually integrated advising in a very clever way.  We lived and worked with a platoon of role players for a while and did operations around a fake city.  It was pretty neat.  It's no Robin Sage, obviously, but gave us a little perspective on what we might be doing.

It's probably a little late for it now, but there should be some enhanced incentive for adviser teams (rather than 'Hey, you can go deploy!').  FMOS or specialized pay or SOMETHING.  Promise some TAD time in DLI.  I know the problem but I definitely don't know the solution.  And since Afghanistan is winding down, it's probably too late to implement anyway.


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## DA SWO (Aug 3, 2013)

Would "Terp" Bn's help solve the problem?  Find guys/gals who can learn the language and attach them to the SOF Element.  Not as good as the oDA speaking directly, but more reliable then the local guys whose tribal politics may emerge at the wrong time.


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## Raksasa Kotor (Aug 3, 2013)

SOWT said:


> Would "Terp" Bn's help solve the problem?  Find guys/gals who can learn the language and attach them to the SOF Element.  Not as good as the oDA speaking directly, but more reliable then the local guys whose tribal politics may emerge at the wrong time.


 
Good idea on paper, but in reality I don't think they would be any more reliable. The owning branch would do it's damndest to fill it with native speakers - which is logical - but even if the terp themselves didn't have a clear tribal affiliation, the folks they were interfacing with would most likely still perceive one due to lineage. Then there's the ever present issue of the wildly varying quality of attached support personnel.


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## Viper1 (Aug 4, 2013)

In my opinion, you can't do conflict prevention without a lot of diplomatic and State Department involvement.  Until we can get that relationship, balance, and budget right between SOF and State Department, we're only making it harder for the guys on the ground.


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## DA SWO (Aug 4, 2013)

Viper1 said:


> In my opinion, you can't do conflict prevention without a lot of diplomatic and State Department involvement.  Until we can get that relationship, balance, and budget right between SOF and State Department, we're only making it harder for the guys on the ground.


Agree, but State has to start stepping up and doing their job. State has come to rely on the Military (esp GO's) to initiate/conduct Nation to nation programs/contacts.  That's one of the reasons cutting GO's is difficult.


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## TLDR20 (Aug 4, 2013)

Viper1 said:


> In my opinion, you can't do conflict prevention without a lot of diplomatic and State Department involvement.  Until we can get that relationship, balance, and budget right between SOF and State Department, we're only making it harder for the guys on the ground.



Not to mention State hates SOF, and treats us like third class citizens when abroad.


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## Ranger Psych (Aug 4, 2013)

Not like there could be a fantastic synergy of Carrot and Stick between State and SOF that could accomplish huge things.


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## Viper1 (Aug 4, 2013)

SOWT said:


> Agree, but State has to start stepping up and doing their job. State has come to rely on the Military (esp GO's) to initiate/conduct Nation to nation programs/contacts.  That's one of the reasons cutting GO's is difficult.


 

I agree but part of the reason they are relying on us is because DoD has the funding.  The State Department has been needlessly underfunded the last 3 or so decades and that type of neglect has led us to where we are today.


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## Viper1 (Aug 4, 2013)

cback0220 said:


> Not to mention State hates SOF, and treats us like third class citizens when abroad.


 

I agree here as well but I've met a couple decent folks that work for them.  Of course, they were all former military who ended up going to DoS so they had bona fides anyhow...


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## Marauder06 (Aug 4, 2013)

Let me ask all of you this:  when was the first time you ever worked with someone from the State Department?  Was it in training at home station, or was it downrange?  If it was the later, do you think that's a problem?  In your personal contacts, how many State Department people could you get in contact with immediately?  I think for most of us, those answers are going to be "downrange" (or "never"), "yes it's a problem," and "none."  And I'm pretty sure it would be similar if I asked State Department folks similar questions.

Our Task Force worked very closely with State and I don't recall any issues.  Part of the reason for that is our unit invested heavily in the relationship; we put a seasoned field grade officer in as LNO to their headquarters and they put the equivalent (if not higher) in ours.  That's important because you can't just start off from scratch when trouble starts, you need to be building ties back in home station as well.  At least, you need to do that if you want to have a successful long-term partnership.  

State is good at what it does, when it does it.  That said, State is not without its inherent problems.  People like to point out State's size and funding comparative to the DoD, but that's not the real issue.  The real problem is the organization's culture.  For every Amb. Ryan Crocker, the Department of State probably has thousands that don't want to do any "diplomacy" that doesn't involve the cocktail circuit.  Throw all the money and manpower you want at the problem, but if you have a culture that makes it hard for you to get 24 volunteers to staff your embassy in Iraq, out of a pool of 11,000+, then it's time for some deep self-reflection.

Maybe instead of increasing State's manpower and money,, we should just create a couple of new military MOSs, DoD seems to get stuck doing their jobs most of the time anyway.  Maybe we could just expand the FAO program, I doubt we'd have trouble getting 24 people to deploy.


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## TLDR20 (Aug 4, 2013)

Marauder06 said:


> Let me ask all of you this:  when was the first time you ever worked with someone from the State Department?  Was it in training at home station, or was it downrange?  If it was the later, do you think that's a problem?  In your personal contacts, how many State Department people could you get in contact with immediately?  I think for most of us, those answers are going to be "downrange" (or "never"), "yes it's a problem," and "none."  And I'm pretty sure it would be similar if I asked State Department folks similar questions.
> 
> Our Task Force worked very closely with State and I don't recall any issues.  Part of the reason for that is our unit invested heavily in the relationship; we put a seasoned field grade officer in as LNO to their headquarters and they put the equivalent (if not higher) in ours.  That's important because you can't just start off from scratch when trouble starts, you need to be building ties back in home station as well.  At least, you need to do that if you want to have a successful long-term partnership.
> 
> ...



Or let SF guys do it as a SWC tour.


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## Brill (Aug 5, 2013)

Marauder06 said:


> Let me ask all of you this:  when was the first time you ever worked with someone from the State Department?



Long time ago and until just a few years ago.  Personal opinion based on daily interaction outside warzones: vast majority (circa 90%) are complete idiots and have a sincere and deep rooted disdain for military or anyone else who comes from that line of work.  We're viewed as hindering their objectives and they only appreciate the greenbacks we bring to the table.  Naturally I speak for not all DOS folks and am merely generalizing.

Just imagine an ENTIRE organization run by officers.  The horror...the horror...


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## TLDR20 (Aug 5, 2013)

lindy said:


> Long time ago and until just a few years ago.  Personal opinion based on daily interaction outside warzones: vast majority (circa 90%) are complete idiots and have a sincere and deep rooted disdain for military or anyone else who comes from that line of work.  We're viewed as hindering their objectives and they only appreciate the greenbacks we bring to the table.  Naturally I speak for not all DOS folks and am merely generalizing.
> 
> Just imagine an ENTIRE organization run by officers.  The horror...the horror...



Goddamn I wish I could agree and like this post.


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## DA SWO (Aug 5, 2013)

Your post 

Worked with State in mid-90's; then watched State turn Haiti into a goat fuck.
Worked with State, UN folks in Bosnia, Kosovo.  Most of them are self-centered pricks who know they will never be held accountable, and DoD will rescue their asses (figuratively, and literally) is things take a dump.


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## Blizzard (Aug 11, 2013)

Agree that these are challenges that need to be addressed.  But, as the discussion here hits on, the question really becomes who should be addressing these matters; DoS, some OGA, or the military.   My view is that ownership lies primarily with DoS.   However, as Marauder pointed out, the reality is that comes with it's own challenges, not the least being it's very political and changing nature.  Regardless, the line defining the military role continues to blur more and more...

From the _Air Force Officer's Guide_:   "The armed forces exist to serve the United States by providing the military wherewithal to deter war and, should that fail, to fight and conclude war to the advantage of the United States.  The armed forces do not exist for themselves, as a source of employment, as a market for American industry, or as a social welfare tool for social engineering."

It could be argued, perhaps, that "conflict prevention" is tantamount to deterring war.  My view is that they are distinctly separate.

While speaking to the topic of professionalism, former Air Force Chief of Staff General Ronald R. Fogelman summed it up well, and I believe his statement is applicable here, when he said, "The Air Force is not a social actions agency.  The Air Force exists to fight and win wars.   That's our core expertise; it is what allows us to be called professionals.  We are entrusted with the security or our nation..."

"Air Force" can be substituted with "armed forces" in Fogelman's statement above.


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## goon175 (Aug 15, 2013)

Yeah, to echo what a lot of you are saying, I don't understand where the folks at the top forgot to read the memo on what the different departments do:

State Dept. : Diplomacy : War Prevention

Defense Dept. : Combat : Fighting/Winning Wars (when the above dept. fails)

Seems pretty simple to me.


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