Special Warfare The Professional Bulletin of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School

PB 80Ð95Ð2 April 1995 Vol. 8, No. 2 From the Commandant Special Warfare

During a conference earlier this month, the Special Warfare Center and School celebrated the eighth birthday of the Spe- cial Forces Branch. Participants in the conference presented papers that not only examined the Branch’s current state but also looked at the future of special-opera- tions forces. One of the papers, presented by Dr. Robert Wright of the Army Center for Military History, was titled “Future Roles and Missions: Lessons from Ameri- ca’s Past.” At first, the title may sound odd — some would argue that to prepare for the future we must look forward, not back. But as we prepare for the opera- The lessons of history need not come tions we are most likely to encounter in from the analysis of battles and cam- the years ahead, we must be careful not paigns long past. In this issue we have to ignore the lessons learned from previ- lessons learned from a unit’s most recent ous operations. exercise, from events during Desert In this issue of Special Warfare, Dr. Storm, and from an examination of the Joseph Fischer examines the origins of Spe- foreign policies of past administrations. cial Forces. His analysis begins with World We cannot find all of our answers by War II and goes through the mid-1950s. looking at historical lessons: to do so This period marked the beginnings of our would be like preparing for the last battle. modern-day special-operations forces, but But in this issue, Dr. James Schneider even before the early SOF units were creat- makes the point, “To learn from the past, ed, U.S. forces participated in operations we must anticipate the future.” As our similar to those we now call special opera- perception of the future changes, so does tions. Amid current discussions about our perception of the past and the ways by peacekeeping and the accelerating pace of which we will interpret its lessons. ethnic, nationalist and separatist conflicts throughout the world, we may forget that our own Civil War was a nationalist-sepa- ratist conflict; that during Reconstruction our Army performed peacekeeping, nation- building and humanitarian-assistance mis- Maj. Gen. William F. Garrison sions; and that our Indian wars were a long-running ethnic conflict. Likewise, the partisan-warfare, coalition-warfare and peace-enforcement operations we are con- cerned about today had forerunners in the small wars that U.S. forces fought early in this century — operations that were detailed in the Marine Corps’ Small Wars Manual of 1940. PB 80Ð95Ð2 Contents April 1995 Special Warfare Vol. 8, No. 2

Commander & Commandant Maj. Gen. William F. Garrison Features Editor Jerry D. Steelman 2 Ambushing the Future by James J. Schneider Associate Editor Sylvia McCarley 11 Civil Affairs Information Collection in Kuwait City Graphics & Design by Lt. Col. Michael J. Cleary Bruce S. Barfield 14 Intervention Decision-making During the Bush Administration: Deciding Where to Go In and When to Get Out by Arnold Kanter

24 SF Direct Action and Targeting: Appropriate Force and

V E AS Customer Satisfaction R I RT T A E S LI B E T by Lt. Col. Ed Phillips

Special Warfare is an authorized, official quarterly of the United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare 28 Cut from a Different Cloth: The Origins of U.S. Army Center and School, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Its Special Forces mission is to promote the professional development of special-operations forces by providing a forum for the by Joseph R. Fischer examination of established doctrine and new ideas. Views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect official Army position. This 40 A Special Breed of Officer: The Special Forces Warrant publication does not supersede any information presented Officer in other official Army publications. Articles, photos, artwork and letters are invited and by CWO3 Shaun Driscoll should be addressed to Editor, Special Warfare, USAJFKSWCS, Fort Bragg, NC 28307-5000. Telephone: DSN 239-5703, commercial (910) 432-5703, fax -5341. Special Warfare reserves the right to edit all material. Published works may be reprinted, except where copyrighted, provided credit is given to Special Warfare and the authors. Official distribution is limited to active and reserve special-operations units. Individuals desiring private subscriptions should forward their requests to: Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402.

By Order of the Secretary of the Army: Gordon R. Sullivan General, United States Army Departments Chief of Staff 47 Officer Career Notes Official: 48 Enlisted Career Notes 50 Letters Milton H. Hamilton Administrative Assistant to the 52 Foreign SOF Secretary of the Army 54 Update 08077 56 Book Reviews Headquarters, Department of the Army Ambushing the Future

by James J. Schneider

Despite the current proliferation of forces. Failing to make this leveraged books and articles on the subject of the investment could lead to the erosion of our future, there is no unique set of creden- conventional capability. tials that makes anyone an expert. At Sixth, the future will require an expan- best, one can only provoke thought and sible Special Forces group capable of con- spur interest in the belief that the future ventional augmentation. An augmented matters, and for a military institution, SF group structure would provide Special nothing matters more. Forces with an independent operational In thinking about the future of one par- and even strategic presence. ticular military institution, U.S. Army Finally, the best vision for the future of Special Forces, we should consider the fol- Special Forces was given by President lowing provocations: John F. Kennedy. First, the future has little to do with the linear, mechanical passage of time. We do Confronting the future not await the future as we await a birth- The future personified is cunning, day, a dinner appointment or a wake-up unforgiving, deceptive, elusive and even call. The future is already before us, hid- seductive. It performs a kind of striptease, den in a fog. It is like a living thing that revealing a shoulder here, an ankle there, we must seek out, discover and ambush. but always remaining hidden, wrapped in Second, the U.S. Army of the future will uncertainty. face its greatest challenge since the end of For our part, we sit in innocence, tend- the American Civil War. ing to our immediate concerns, not recog- Third, the future will be dominated by a nizing that we may already be six years resurgent force that will change the into the 21st century. Historian John nature of both the nation-state and the Lukacs and others have suggested that national security system. the 20th century began in 1914 with Fourth, in the future, nations will no World War I and ended in 1989 with the longer wage war. They will wage peace. collapse of the Soviet Union. Their argu- Fifth, Special Forces, as distinguished ment suggests that the future moves upon from special-operations forces, will become us not simply with the linear passage of the hinge upon which the rest of the Army time but with the movement of a rapidly turns and moves into the future. Further- changing world through time. Indeed, more, Special Forces will be the premium whatever makes the future new in any we pay to ensure the unit integrity, coher- meaningful way is the novelty of our ence and cohesion of our conventional

2 Special Warfare thinking and understanding as we con- geopolitics euphemistically called the new front the changing world around us. The world order. But in scope and influence, challenge of the future, then, if it is a con- the dramatic transformation of the Soviet frontation with new ideas, is fundamental- Union is arguably the greatest geopolitical ly an intellectual struggle. event since the disintegration of the Gen. George S. Patton had something Roman Empire more than 1,500 years ago. similar in mind when he asserted that war Moved by these same events, the U.S. is the most complex form of human Army is already embarking on a revolu- endeavor. We can extend his assertion to tion of its own, but unlike the Soviet include operations other than war. Every Union and its security system, the U.S. military institution recognizes war as an Army must not fail. essential, defining challenge. It is para- A few years ago Eliot Cohen and John doxical that when armies fail most cata- Gooch wrote Military Misfortunes, a book strophically, the source of the collapse is on why military institutions fail. The found in peacetime and in the armies’ fail- authors cited three causes of catastrophic ure to confront the future. military failure: failure to learn from past Armies are not only instruments of poli- experiences, failure to anticipate the cy, as Karl von Clausewitz reminds us — future and failure to adapt to the future. they are also social institutions that train According to Cohen and Gooch, armies and evolve during peacetime. Armies as develop a kind of collective amnesia. Who, peacetime institutions are thus suscepti- for example, remembers Col. Lewis Mer- ble to the same forces that influence rill? Merrill, a West Point graduate (class nations and societies as a whole. And of all of ’55), was the commander of an elite the factors that influence the future of a Army unit that had been operating in a nation and its security system, the most semitropical region for nearly two years. dramatic is sudden and unexpected geopo- In one memorable operation, the colonel litical change. deployed part of his unit in 12-man We now stand square in the middle of detachments. Their mission was to chase such change. We have yet to divine the and destroy armed units of a clan that had full implications of the revolution in been terrorizing the local populace and

War damage to southern cities such as Charleston, S.C., posed a challenge to the U.S. Army during Reconstruction.

National Archives photo

April 1995 3 threatening the peace and stability go back 130 years. Reconstruction was, all throughout the region. at once, an effort in peacekeeping, peace On one particular day in March, Merrill enforcement, humanitarian relief, nation- placed two detachments under his best building and, with the rise of the Ku Klux officers: Lts. B.H. Hodgson and Donald Klan, counterterrorism. The Reconstruc- McIntosh. The two detachments, each tak- tion activities of Army units were unprece- ing along a local law-enforcement officer dented in their time, and they sound who knew the region thoroughly, moved remarkably familiar today. swiftly through the damp spring morning For the Army, and for Special Forces, to trap and crush the last remnants of the the future will be a period of global recon- clan. Shortly after their successful struction. It is beginning to dawn on many encounter, Merrill and his unit were reas- of our world leaders that although the signed to other, more conventional opera- West has won the Cold War, it can still tions. The place where Merrill operated lose the peace. The stage is being set for wasn’t Somalia or even Vietnam — it was peacekeeping and peace-enforcement oper- South Carolina, in the year 1873. The unit ations on a truly massive scale, and more was the 7th U.S. Cavalry, and the clan than 100,000 troops of all nations are that Merrill’s troops took down was the already involved in these activities. Ku Klux Klan. But there is another aspect of Recon- struction that anticipates the future — the Reconstruction Army’s unique relationship to the U.S. Historically, the operations in which Constitution. The newly revised Field Merrill and his troops took part were Manual 100-5, Operations, states, “The known as the period of Reconstruction. United States Army exists to support and Lasting from 1865 to 1877, the period rep- defend the Constitution.” Grant’s employ- resented, from a military standpoint, the ment of the Army during Reconstruction darkest days in the history of the Army. supported the Constitution and its newly During Reconstruction, the Army con- promulgated civil-rights amendments. The tributed extensively to the greatest social, U.S. armed forces, alone among the major economic and political restoration in its security forces of the world, swear alle- history as it labored to help maintain giance to our Constitution. This act of order and rebuild the devastated states of faith toward the ideals of freedom lends the former Confederacy. Swift demobiliza- moral authority to our position as a world tion, peacekeeping operations in the South leader. For better or worse, during this and political implementation of civil-rights time of global reconstruction, the rest of legislation created unprecedented circum- the world will continue to turn to the U.S. stances for the Army and its leaders. in the name of freedom. Most, like William T. Sherman, rejected the Army’s new role in operations other Resurgent force than war. Sherman’s position was simple: As an Army we are fortunate to have The Army should go back to the prewar such a rich historical tradition. But our tasks of guarding the nation’s frontiers experience is of little use if it cannot be against foreign and domestic enemies. On interpreted in light of future operations. the other side of the issue, Sherman’s In other words, to learn from the past, we longtime friend, Ulysses S. Grant, argued must anticipate the future. And the future that although the Union had won the war, will be dominated by a single overwhelm- it could still lose the peace envisioned by ing presence — the United Nations. Abraham Lincoln. The resurgence and the growing influ- A close study of the operations of units ence of the U.N. will not only affect our like Merrill’s 7th Cavalry reveals that the soldiers but may change the very struc- functional and conceptual roots of special ture of the nation-state. As the modern operations, in terms of peace operations, state evolved, it developed a legal struc-

4 Special Warfare Peacekeeping and peace- enforcement operations of the U.N. often function as safety valves to dissipate hostilities. United Nations photo ture that acted as a kind of genetic code. of the nation-state, the highest act of One of the key legal strands was the right sovereignty was to wage war and to freely of the state to declare and wage war. The set its limits, which often included the growing power of the U.N. is beginning total overthrow of the enemy. Those limits slowly to erode this defining characteristic defined victory for the soldier; in fact, the of the nation-state and increasingly call idea of total victory defined the fundamen- into question the use of war as a legiti- tal values of the military profession. In the mate instrument of national policy. In the past, when nations and empires decided to future, war and peace will be re-estab- fight for limited objectives, their decisions lished on a new conceptual footing, and were self-determined and were expres- the idea of the soldier will be redefined. sions of their own sovereignty. Now, the Increasingly, national armed forces will U.N. has begun to define victory on its resemble U.S. Army Special Forces. own terms. The U.N. was chartered June 26, 1945, The U.N. redefinition of victory has also to ensure for all nations “the maintenance set the stage for redefining the purpose of of international peace and security.” In a nation’s armed forces. Before the Korean their quest for global security, nations War a state’s armed forces existed to deter entered into a kind of Faustian pact with war and, if necessary, to wage war to the the U.N.: To be more secure, nations extreme. The emergence of the United would have to relinquish some of their Nations has created a new formula: Under sovereignty. Initially, the Cold War and the new U.N. arrangement of collective nuclear deterrence hid the full implica- security, nations will strive primarily to tions of this new global arrangement. Not compel peace. For the first time in the his- until the Korean War did we get a glimpse tory of warfare, the deterrence of war and of war fought for the enforcement of peace. the dominance of war-fighting is being When Gen. Douglas MacArthur uttered supplanted by a new concept of security his now-famous words, “There is no substi- focused on peace compelling, peace tute for victory,” he meant total victory. enforcement and peacekeeping. His statement was backed by thousands of Ironically, these peace operations do not years of history. Even before the existence guarantee peace. Instead, the U.N. has

April 1995 5 attempted to create a new precondition for in the world threat environment. During conflict by establishing peacekeeping and the Cold War, assessments were based on peace-enforcement operations, which often conflict arising between states or between function as safety valves to dissipate hostil- blocs of state coalitions. In the future, con- ities. When the pressure is too great, peace flict will arise as a consequence of four operations typically fail. Conceptually, the new factors. Foremost is the emerging U.N. has added an ambiguous but neces- power of the individual or small-group ter- sary threshold of compelling that is often rorist. Thanks to the proliferation and violated, leading to armed conflict. The accessibility of weapons of mass lethality, Korean Conflict and the Gulf War are the individual terrorist, especially, is examples of situations in which the thresh- potentially a strategic agent, a techno-ter- old was breached, but in which, neverthe- rorist capable of any level of destruction. less, the U.N. limited the scope of hostili- The second factor is the emergence of ties. It is the U.N.’s imposition of this “messianic statism.” The term refers to a threshold that makes peacekeeping and form of statecraft dominated by religious peace enforcement not war, but like war. fundamentalism and is best represented The U.N.’s central role in shaping the by such Islamic states as Iran and Sudan. future during global reconstruction will The central threat of the individual strate- persist, and its geopolitical influence will gic agent and the messianic state to world likely increase for at least five reasons: peace is that neither is subject to the • Fundamental changes in the global rationality of deterrence, since each is threat environment; motivated primarily by irrational factors. • The evolving role of the world media; This deterrent void will be filled by the • The increasing extension, complexity U.N. The third factor is the impending col- and vulnerability of the global economy; lapse of Africa, and the fourth is the rise of • The fact that peace costs less than ethnic violence. war; and The role of a global media will create a • The growing ideology of peace. second reason for an increasing U.N. role. The first reason for the increase in the Today the media knows no national U.N.’s global role is the dramatic changes boundaries — it is international. The

Through its global exten- sion, universal presence and speed-of-light technol- ogy, today’s media can change world opinion in a matter of hours.

Photo by Douglas Wisnioski

6 Special Warfare media is a powerful lever of public opin- global view is that peace is the natural ion. Through its global extension, univer- state of man and is worthy of securing in sal presence and speed-of-light technology, its own right. The yearning for a time of today’s media can change world opinion in innocence can best be explained by citing a matter of hours. As a consequence, local the profound cultural despair felt through- issues become laden almost immediately out the world as a consequence of the long with global implications and therefore Cold War, famine, crime, disease, overpop- become U.N. problems. ulation and a general sense of social disin- The third reason for a future U.N. pres- tegration. It is thus within the realm of ence concerns the vulnerability and com- possibility that the old ideology of state plexity of the global economy. Former Sec- nationalism will be supplanted by an ide- retary of State James Baker wasn’t far ology of peace. It would be extremely naive wrong when he said we went to war in the to believe that such a blissful state of exis- Persian Gulf because of jobs — jobs sus- tence could actually be attained. What tained by an oil-fueled world economy. concerns us is the U.N. belief that such a One can readily imagine the consequences state might be possible and is therefore had Iraq seized the Saudi oil fields along worth striving for. with nearly two-thirds of the world’s oil Cohen and Gooch have also pointed out reserves. The world’s need for oil demands that armies can fail because of their that the old Cold War strategy of contain- inability to adapt, both functionally and ment be replaced by a new strategy of organizationally, to the future. The U.S. accessibility: free access to energy markets armed forces are only slowly adapting to a under the protection of some kind of global future dominated by a resurgent globalism security arrangement like the U.N. and an increasing commitment to opera- The cost of war constitutes a fourth rea- tions other than war. The 1993 “Bottom- son for a resurgent U.N. With the collapse up Review” gave only a token genuflection of the Soviet bloc, most nations follow a to OOTW, placing its greatest emphasis democratic form of government. The one on major regional conflict. The report problem with democracies, as Winston acknowledged that as many as 50,000 Churchill once pointed out, is that they troops would be allocated to OOTW. How- are generally inefficient at waging war. ever, these, mostly Army troops, while The structure of a relatively free demo- constituting three percent of the total DoD cratic market economy tends to collapse armed strength, have been allocated $3 under the weight of protracted war. As the million, just 1/800,000 of FY 94’s DoD bud- number of democracies increases, simple get. Dollar shortfalls like this must be economies of scale will drive countries made up from other accounts such as toward a global security organization training and readiness. One could argue, under the aegis of the U.N. Even now we at least from a budgetary standpoint, that can anticipate the transformation of the DoD is not fully adapting to the future of North Atlantic Treaty Organization global reconstruction. (under the Partnership for Peace Pro- For its part, the Army follows DoD in its gram) from a regional security arrange- general orientation toward major regional ment to a future role as the U.N.’s mili- conflict. The revised FM 100-5 affirms the tary arm. Army’s purpose as one of war deterrence and war-fighting. The doctrinal emphasis Waging peace on deterrence and war-fighting is a natu- The final reason that suggests a domi- ral and justified reflection of a classical nant U.N. influence in the future is the theory of war dating as far back as the most difficult to articulate. An ideology of time of Napoleon. For the future, the peace is alien to the Western concept of Army will need a doctrine based more war, in which peace is seen simply as the firmly on a theory of peace and on a new relative absence of war. One emerging definition of victory. President Bill Clinton expressed as much in his address to the

April 1995 7 graduating class at West Point in 1993: who were competent in the language and “You will be called upon in many ways in culture of a given country gave Special this new era to keep the peace, to relieve Forces the unique capability of operating suffering, to help teach officers from new with a wide range of peoples. These essen- democracies in the ways of a democratic tial Special Forces characteristics also con- army and still ... to win our wars.” The stitute unique solutions to the problems of president might just as easily have spoken the future. these words to Army Special Forces. They are the Army’s “hinge” between waging Insurance policy peace and winning wars, a hinge that will During global reconstruction, the pat- turn the Army into the future. tern of operations will most nearly resem- ble operations such as Restore Hope, Kennedy’s vision Restore Democracy and Provide Comfort. President John F. Kennedy envisioned a In these operations, Special Forces played broad role for Special Forces that extend- a key peacekeeping and peace-enforce- ed beyond unconventional warfare. For ment role that prevented the escalation of Kennedy, the green beret signified more violence to full-blown war and the later than an elite unit — it symbolized a fun- need for a massive conventional troop damental break with the past, necessitat- commitment. The essential function of ed by the Cold War. Kennedy saw the Cold Special Forces is to provide a kind of War as a war of ideas. In the Cold War the investment or insurance policy against the objective would become the hearts and commitment of conventional forces at a minds of the people. To wage this struggle later date. successfully, the U.S. needed a capability In October 1961 when President of dealing with other nations on a people- Kennedy was confronted with a series of to-people basis. In only the second nation- options concerning Vietnam, he saw the al security action memorandum of his initial employment of Special Forces as presidency, Kennedy implemented this the payment of an insurance premium vision by establishing what became essen- that would ensure the integrity of his con- tially the civil arm of Special Forces, the ventional force structure in Europe. In Peace Corps. Together, Special Forces and Vietnam, the cost of the premium escalat- the Peace Corps would deploy and fight on ed so fast that additional conventional an ideological battlefield. ground troops had to be spent to ensure The Special Forces characteristics that the integrity of the conventional forces in Kennedy found so valuable during the ide- Europe. If the insurance analogy is cor- ological struggle of the Cold War are pre- rect, then conditions in Bosnia-Herzegov- cisely the same as those required in tomor- ina, for example, suggest a major commit- row’s struggle for peace. For Kennedy, five ment of Special Forces before a large essentials made Special Forces the pre- deployment of U.S. conventional forces. eminent global, people-to-people organiza- The leveraged payment of a Special Forces tion. First, they possessed a unique lan- “premium” initially ensures the integrity guage capability. Second, they possessed a and the coherence of our conventional burning interest in every aspect of their forces in the event of major hostilities profession. Third, they had the mental dis- later. cipline and the perseverance to follow a The insurance analogy suggests a fur- course of action that would achieve results ther implication for the future: the U.S. only in the long term and under conditions armed forces are woefully underinsured. of great chaos and ambiguity. Fourth, they History suggests that during periods of demonstrated a trustworthiness and major geopolitical transformation, the dependability under minimal command expenditure of one unit trained in OOTW guidance. Finally, Kennedy believed that ensures the integrity and the coherence of highly intelligent and motivated soldiers three conventional units. Throughout our

8 Special Warfare own Reconstruction, roughly one-third of A conventionally augmented Special the U.S. Army was deployed in the South. Forces group would then be postured to This figure represents about 20,000 offi- conduct the more lethal operations of a cers and men who were organized into 10 peace-enforcement environment. Such to 12 regiments. If history is any guide, we augmentation could include light armor, can expect that in the future, at least one- light infantry and light artillery, as well third of our forces will be involved in peace as engineer and attack helicopters. When operations at any given time, and we properly augmented, the SF group can should be paying a premium in Special generate a major operational and even Forces strength at a rate of one-third of strategic presence. The tremendous lever- our overall ground strength. In other aging capability of augmented Special words, we need approximately one Special Forces means that a small, initial invest- Forces group for every Army and Marine ment of troops could reap a huge payoff in division. operational and strategic effect later. Third, Special Forces must more clearly Implications define themselves as the Army’s premier The central challenge of the future for people-to-people service branch. The Army Special Forces is to become the insurance at large seems to view Special Forces as agent of the Army, and perhaps even of primarily another direct-action component the armed forces. From a practical stand- of special-operations forces, but Special point, this suggests several implications Forces’ rich lineage and tradition suggest for Special Forces and for the rest of the a much broader capability. All of the Army. First, Special Forces are ideally armed forces must be made fully aware of suited to conduct peacekeeping operations the significant contribution Special Forces under Chapter 6 of the U.N. Charter. Such make in operations other than war. operations include observer missions, Fourth, Special Forces must develop a cease-fire monitoring, support activities, strategic-deception capability. With the war-zone stabilization, light border moni- Augmentation such as toring, supervision of cease-fires between attack helicopters would irregular forces, maintenance of law and allow Special Forces order, protection of humanitarian-relief groups to increase their agencies, and the guarantee and denial of operational and strategic the right of passage. Assumption of these presence. or similar Chapter 6 peacekeeping mis- sions by Special Forces would preserve the conventional integrity of our regular forces. Second, the Army needs additional Spe- cial Forces, probably as many as four more groups. In the future, the Army and DoD will be confronted by a fundamental dilemma: Either continue to invest in the substantial overhead of a heavy conven- tional force that will have its designed capability increasingly eroded as it assumes more and more peace operations; or reduce the conventional overhead in favor of Special Forces tailored for peace operations, while preserving a lethal core conventional capability. Special Forces groups must exploit their versatility, expandability and augmentation potential. U.S. Army photo

April 1995 9 signals technology now available, a Spe- strategy, operational art and tactics. Prior cial Forces group can simulate the signals to his appointment to SAMS in 1984, footprint of a much larger conventional Schneider spent four years as an opera- force. The simulated force can have a tions research analyst with the Analysis major deterrent effect during peacekeep- Center of the Army Training and Doctrine ing and peace-enforcement operations, as Command. He served three years in the well as during wartime. When confronting Army as a tanker, including a year in Viet- a technologically inferior opponent, the nam with the 1st Infantry Division. He influence of strategic deception alone can attended the University of Wisconsin at be decisive. Oshkosh and the University of Southern Fifth, Special Forces must exploit the California. He holds a Ph.D. in Russian emerging technology of nonlethal weapon- history from the University of Kansas. ry, including lasers, microwaves, sound waves, light waves, electromagnetic impulses, microbes, chemicals and even computer viruses. One can readily imag- ine an SF soldier typing away at a com- puter keyboard, when with the punch of a key, he takes down the entire energy grid or banking structure of an enemy country. Sixth, the Army must foster a greater Special Forces staff presence, especially in J-3 and J-5 positions. Special Forces should have proponency for the J-5 posi- tion during peace operations. It is wholly conceivable that the J-5 of a joint task force deployed on peacekeeping missions could become the U-3 of a superior U.N. command headquarters. The nature of peace operations clearly requires a differ- ent staff perspective and perhaps even procedures different from those of conven- tional warfare. Finally, the intellectual focal point of President Kennedy’s vision for Special Forces must be preserved and further sharpened. Kennedy envisioned the SF soldier as a modern ninja who would use his mind as a lever to concentrate the power of his weapons. During this time of global reconstruction, Special Forces will become the fulcrum of the Army.

James J. Schneider is pro- fessor of military theory at the School of Advanced Mil- itary Studies, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leaven- worth, Kan. He has taught and written extensively on military theory, especially as it relates to issues concerning

10 Special Warfare Civil Affairs Information Collection in Kuwait City by Lt. Col. Michael J. Cleary

During the Persian Gulf War, some including the 8th Marine Regiment and the critics chided the intelligence community 3rd and 5th Special Forces Groups. The G-2 for not delivering timely, accurate and also cross-checked information gathered reliable information to the appropriate from task-force CA assessment teams with decision-makers. information that the other assets received This was not the case with Task Force through their contacts with the populace. Freedom in Kuwait City. Although their The CA Task Force disseminated its col- intelligence resources were limited, the lection and analysis information at a daily elements of the task force coordinated briefing for all the participants of Task their activities and were able to collect, Force Freedom. This briefing provided analyze and disseminate Civil Affairs much-needed information that was not information. The task-force commander readily available elsewhere. The audience used this information to support his deci- included the medical and engineer com- sion-making process. mands that were conducting assessments In December 1990, the author’s Army of the viability of Kuwait City’s essential Reserve unit, the 304th Civil Affairs Group services. of Philadelphia, Pa., mobilized for Desert CA information relates to a specific area Storm. By February 1991, the unit was in which military forces are operating and assigned to Civil Affairs Task Force- to the civilian populace in that area. The G- Kuwait. The CATF was part of Task Force 2 section of the Civil Affairs Task Force Freedom, whose mission was to assist acted as a collection point for CA informa- Kuwait City in restoring its essential ser- tion — its staff debriefed the various CA vices destroyed during the Iraqi occupation. teams returning from their assessments and gleaned information from the teams’ Networking situation reports. This information, in turn, The intelligence section, or G-2, of the was consolidated into the G-2 portion of the Civil Affairs Task Force was charged with CA Task Force situation report and was monitoring the equitable distribution of food distributed vertically (to U.S. Army Forces- and with monitoring reported human-rights Central Command) and horizontally (to the violations. To accomplish these tasks, the other components of Task Force Freedom). G-2 section networked with intelligence assets of Task Force Freedom, such as the Neighborhood reports 513th MI Brigade, and with intelligence As a result of collating the information assets of other military units in the area, received from its CA assessment teams

April 1995 11 and conducting daily staff meetings, the tance and advised against it. Influenced G-2 section of the Civil Affairs Task Force by this information, the Kuwaiti govern- generated a daily neighborhood assess- ment called off the sweep. ment report regarding the threat situation FM 41-10 states that a collection plan is in the various neighborhoods of Kuwait to be used as a means of prioritizing infor- City. Each neighborhood was assigned a mation needed for processing. The neigh- red, amber or green code to indicate its borhood assessment report also designated particular threat condition. Because the certain priority intelligence requirements, Civil Affairs Task Force and its collateral or PIRs: agencies were constantly venturing into 1. What is the status of available food and the city, they needed to know which neigh- water supplies throughout the city? borhoods were safe (green) and which ones 2. Will there be a general increase in crim- weren’t. Again, the daily briefing became inal activity as a result of the Iraqi the vehicle by which this threat informa- occupation of Kuwait? tion was disseminated to the task force. The agencies in the audience were thus 3.What hazards do assessment teams able to provide their respective units with face? What are the locations of equip- timely, accurate and reliable information. ment, weapons caches and ordnance? In fact, the information was processed As assessment teams spread throughout from collector to decision-maker in about the city, the populace disclosed valuable 12 hours, cutting the normal cycle in half. information to them. The teams immedi- The following example illustrates how ately plugged that information into the information reached the decision-maker in collection plan in an effort to answer the a timely manner: The Kuwaiti govern- questions posed by the PIRs. ment planned to conduct a “sweep” for Iraqi equipment and documents discov- weapons in the Palestinian neighborhood ered by one assessment team were inven- of Hawalli. The CATF, acting on informa- toried and turned over to the 513th MI tion received from the assessment teams, Brigade, where they could be exploited for reported to the government that the sweep their intelligence value. Another team dis- would probably be met by armed resis- covered a piece of Iraqi communications

Essential Kuwaiti services such as this desalinization plant in Kuwait City suf- fered extensive damages during the Gulf War.

DoD photo

12 Special Warfare equipment at a Kuwait City bank. The information. When mingling with the pop- team reported the find to the G-2, which ulace, CA teams, by their very nature, inventoried the item and transferred it to passively collect data that conventional the 513th MI Brigade. intelligence resources would otherwise not consider essential. Coordination • CA information must be disseminated Collection and dissemination of CA in a timely manner for it to be useful to its information call for close coordination consumers. Hence, a mechanism must be between Civil Affairs and military intelli- put into place to collate specifically CA gence assets. The intel assets of Task information and to disseminate the infor- Force Freedom successfully integrated mation to those agencies within and out- their limited resources. The G-2 coordinat- side the special-operations community ed with the 513th MI Brigade, the 8th where it will be useful. Marine Regiment and the Armed Forces • To collect CA-unique information, the Medical Intelligence Command. The CA teams must develop a working rela- AFMIC assessed the viability of Kuwait tionship with other agencies within the City’s hospitals and medical clinics. The task force. CA teams must also interface G-2 section also interfaced throughout with their special-operations counterparts, Kuwait City with teams from the 3rd and especially the Special Forces groups 5th Special Forces Groups, to verify and deployed in the same areas as the CA exchange information. Coordination teams. proved useful in verifying information and helped minimize miscommunication, dis- semination of conflicting data and compe- Lt. Col. Michael J. Cleary, tition between activities. an Army Reserve officer, is A successful coordination effort devel- the G-2 for the 358th Civil oped between an officer from the Armed Affairs Brigade, Norristown, Forces Medical Intelligence Command and Pa. In his civilian occupa- personnel from the 5th Special Forces tion he serves as a prosecu- Group. The AFMIC officer “piggybacked” tor. During Operation Desert with medical teams while they were per- Storm, he was the deputy G-2 for the Civil forming their missions. On one occasion, Affairs Task Force-Kuwait. He also served the medical team and the AFMIC officer in Operation Just Cause in Panama in discovered that the Iraqis had used city 1991, and he served with the United hospitals to store military equipment of no Nations force in JTF Haiti in 1993. Dur- medical value. They promptly reported the ing Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti information to the CA legal team, which in 1994, he served as adviser to the determined that the use of medical facili- Haitian minister of justice. He holds MOS ties was inappropriate and possibly a 35E, counterintelligence, and is a graduate human-rights violation. of the Military Intelligence Officer Advanced Course, the Foreign Area Officer Conclusion Course and the Civil Affairs Officer During Desert Storm, the G-2 section of Course. He holds a master’s degree in the Civil Affairs Task Force coordinated political science from Villanova University. its limited resources in order to maximize its information-gathering capability. Dur- ing the process, the G-2 learned a number of lessons: • Intelligence assets from several agen- cies can be pooled to collect information, although their missions differ. • Civil Affairs information is people

April 1995 13 Intervention Decision-making During the Bush Administration: Deciding Where to Go In and When to Get Out

by Arnold Kanter

During the Bush administration, the security or other vital interests has United States was forced to address become more problematic, the case for numerous conflicts in other nations and to U.S. intervention in any given situation decide whether to intervene, when to has become less compelling. One need only intervene, and how to intervene with mili- contrast Angola and Afghanistan with tary forces. Liberia and Tajikistan. On the other hand, What follows is an attempt to describe absent a superpower competitor, the per- this decision-making process from the per- ceived risks of intervention likewise seem spective of a participant-observer and to to be lower: We no longer have to worry record observations that can be treated as about confronting Soviet surrogates and hypotheses for future research.1 It is limit- the possibility that U.S. intervention could ed to the consideration of post-Cold War escalate into a superpower confrontation ethnic, nationalist and separatist conflicts, and conflict.3 This combination of lower or EN&SC, from around 1991 to January stakes and lower risks tends to make 1993.2 The essay includes cases of “dogs intervention decisions more idiosyncratic that didn’t bark”; e.g., conflicts in Sudan, and even less predictable than they were Moldova and Tajikistan, in which inter- during the Cold War. vention was a theoretical possibility but Another consequence of the end of the never a serious option. It also attempts to Cold War is that classic cases of inter- account for the strikingly low number of state aggression are being supplanted by cases about intervention termination. ethnic, nationalist and separatist conflicts.4 As previously mentioned, the Conflicts U.S. interests at stake in such conflicts The most obvious, yet central, charac- are more ambiguous. Additionally, the teristic of post-Cold War conflicts is that political and legal grounds for interven- they do not take place in the context of tion in such conflicts are unfamiliar and superpower competition. The twin impli- controversial. Traditionally, there has cations of this fact are paradoxical. On the been a strong presumption in U.S. foreign one hand, absent a Cold War calculus, policy against “interference in the internal U.S. interests perceived to be at stake in a affairs of others.” This presumption is given EN&SC typically are seen to be reinforced by objections from governments lower than they might have been during whose political support we increasingly the Cold War: As the connection between require, governments that may be worried strife in far-off places and U.S. national about establishing precedents which might affect them in the future. Finally,

14 Special Warfare DoD photo the basis in international law for interven- taken. During this early stage of the post- Members of the forward ing in EN&SC often is problematic. That Cold War world, it has been difficult, if not component of Operation is important, because countries whose impossible, to articulate a set of principles Provide Comfort move political support we seek often will insist that the United States is prepared to through a valley in northern Iraq under the protection of on a solid international legal rationale for apply and invoke consistently. Neverthe- the no-fly zone. the proposed course of action. less, decisions have to be made, explained Such political and legal considerations and defended. loom large in U.S. decision-making about For example, if we are prepared to whether to intervene and how to intervene uphold (or restore) democracy in Haiti, in EN&SC precisely because the end of why will we not do so in Angola, much less the Cold War increased the political need in Georgia? If we are prepared to inter- for support from other countries and elimi- vene in Somalia in an attempt to end the nated our strongest claim on that support. starvation, why are we not willing to do For evidence of the importance that the the same in Sudan or in Burundi? If we U.S. attaches to multinational support for support the principle of self-determina- intervention and of the price paid in the tion, why do we oppose the secession of coin of constraints on U.S. action, one can Nagorno-Karabakh, Trans-Dniester, etc., examine the negotiations with our allies to from the entities that emerged out of the establish “no-fly zones” over northern and breakup of the Soviet Union? How do we southern Iraq and to respond militarily to reconcile our support for the principle of Iraqi defiance of U.N. inspection teams. self-determination with our own Civil War? (This is a question Russian officials Paradox are delighted to ask.) Plowing the unfamiliar ground of This “paradox of policy principles” prob- EN&SC also gives rise to what might be ably is explainable by reference to the nov- called the “paradox of policy principles.” elty of dealing with EN&SC in the post- There is considerable value, if not a clear Cold War world and the ambiguity of U.S. necessity, in articulating some principles interests at stake in any such conflict. to guide intervention decisions. These Whatever the reasons, the paradox impos- principles are necessary for furnishing es both internal and external costs. Inter- internal guidance to the bureaucracy and nally, the absence of a relatively consis- providing public rationales that explain tent set of decision guidelines adds to the the intervention decisions taken or not confusion and controversy surrounding

April 1995 15 any intervention issue. Externally, the unpredictable. As the contrasting respons- absence of a stable set of principles that es to the seemingly similar Somalia and can be invoked contributes to accusations Sudan cases suggest, media coverage can of inconsistency and hypocrisy. have a significant impact and helps put The central features of the post-Cold the issue on the agenda of senior decision- War world have made the decision-making makers. Moreover, intensive media cover- process related to intervention issues age all but compels senior-level decision- more complicated and less orderly. While makers to address the issue. As the there always has been some finite proba- Bosnia case illustrates, however, media bility that a decision about whether or not coverage can substantially increase the to intervene could have gone the other chances of an issue appearing on the deci- way, today that uncertainty has substan- sion agenda, but it does not necessarily tially increased and has potentially signif- lead to a decision to intervene. icant implications regarding our ability to Ad hoc, self-generated assessments by deter EN&SC. officials about “what is at stake” are another way in which candidates for inter- Characteristics vention are selected and rise to the top of If the uncharted territory of the post- the decision agenda. For example, the ebb Cold War world provided the context with- and flow in U.S. policy toward the conflict in which intervention issues were consid- in the former Yugoslavia can be explained ered by the Bush administration, perhaps in part by the issue being variously it is not surprising that the decision-mak- defined as a humanitarian tragedy, a test ing process itself was somewhat less than of NATO in the post-Cold War world, a orderly and well-structured. The following test of the European Community’s ability characteristics of that process can serve as to act, a test of U.S. leadership, a risk of hypotheses for future research. spillover and escalation, an important 1. The manner by which “candidates” for precedent for dealing with EN&SC in the intervention are added to the decision post-Cold War world, and a clear signal to agenda is relatively idiosyncratic and Russia about the constraints on its actions toward breakaway republics. The process

A member of a U.N. peace- keeping force stops to talk to two children. Images portrayed in the media can have a significant impact on public perception and can force decision-makers to address a situation.

United Nations photo

16 Special Warfare of defining issues also depends on factors 4. The process by which the military such as who has access to senior-level frames the issue and formulates its assess- decision-makers, who reads what, who ment and advice is a “black box” to most talks with whom, and even the sequence participants outside the Pentagon. The in which seemingly diverse issues are civilian leadership in the Office of the addressed. Secretary of Defense may not be much 2. Although the identity of the partici- better informed. Although the Joint Staff pants is fairly stable and predictable, the routinely tasks the relevant command(s) decision-making process itself is fairly ad for assessments, recommendations and hoc. To some extent, this feature is simply plans, it is not clear how much — or what a reflection of the decision-making process kind of — guidance and context is provid- with respect to any important issue, par- ed with that tasking. It likewise is ticularly intervention decisions that are unclear how much and what kinds of nonroutine and often take place in a crisis informal communications between the atmosphere. It also is a reflection of the field and Washington take place in service still-developing intervention policy. We and other military channels. are still adapting to a new world order in 5. There are relatively stable and distin- the post-Cold War world, and there are guishable “agency perspectives” on issues central questions about how various U.S. related to intervention. Despite the pitfalls interests are engaged and how we should of generalizations, it nevertheless is possi- try to protect or advance them. We are ble to characterize broadly the positions now in an inductive, learning-from-experi- which the key organizations tend to adopt. ence mode, with little precedent, much The State Department tends to be more less policy, to serve as a guide to action. willing than the other participants to It is important to add that learning threaten and to deploy and employ mili- almost certainly is taking place. Not only tary forces. The State Department also is there a growing body of precedent as we tends to be more willing to take risks face more and more intervention deci- than the other participants do. In part, sions, but the criteria and checklists — this is a corollary to the observation that the questions that must be asked and the State Department does not pay the answered with respect to potential inter- price of military interventions, be they ventions — are becoming increasingly successful or unsuccessful. But it proba- standardized. bly also is a reflection of a bureaucratic 3. The decision-making process with tactic to make intervention options more respect to intervention issues frequently attractive by reducing their apparent begins at relatively senior levels and works force requirements.5 up from there. During the Bush adminis- Both civilian and military members of tration, issues related to the basic policy the Pentagon tend to be much more con- decisions about whether or not to inter- servative on use-of-force issues.6 This is vene with U.S. forces often were initially particularly true of the JCS representa- addressed by the Deputies Committee. tives.7 They typically insist that military Frequently, these senior-level interagency forces should be deployed only if the presi- deliberations were not supported by sub- dent is ready actually to use force. In con- stantial staffing or written analyses trast to the State Department, which because of several factors, including time views the threat and the use of force as a constraints and a fear of leaks. complement to other foreign-policy instru- The issues then were referred to cabi- ments, the Pentagon is more likely to view net-level officials for consideration before the use of force as a last resort; i.e., when being presented to the president for deci- diplomacy and other policy instruments sion. Decisions that emerged often seemed have been tried and have failed. to be surprising, abrupt changes in policy. In addition, JCS representatives typical- The decision to send a 30,000 man force to ly argue that if the U.S. is going to commit Somalia is a vivid case in point. military forces, it should be prepared to

April 1995 17 bring overwhelming force to bear.8 In part, the increasing military intervention to this position reflects a thoroughly under- ensure satisfactory outcomes. Put differ- standable desire to ensure victory. It proba- ently, there is concern that we will lose bly also reflects an effort to minimize casu- control of our stakes and therefore of our alties by intimidating would-be opponents involvement. An important corollary is and discouraging engagements. Finally, that it becomes increasingly difficult to JCS representatives clearly understand terminate U.S. military involvement short that intervention options entailing large of having achieved success or having set force requirements have the practical polit- an arbitrary deadline for withdrawal. ical effect of virtually ruling out military Although these slippery-slope arguments intervention.9 may be invoked by bureaucratic partici- 6. Personalities matter. If the foregoing pants who are opposed to U.S. intervention reflects the truism of bureaucratic behav- for other reasons, there is enough real- ior that “Where you stand depends on world experience to preclude simply dis- where you sit,” there is a related truism missing such objections out of hand. Soma- that the higher you go in an organization, lia provides a good illustration. The U.S. the less you can predict positions on issues airlift of relief supplies to a handful of from a knowledge of organizational mem- Somali airfields seemed to be a relatively bership. Given the decision-making pro- modest operation with clear limits, but it cess described above, however, the person- paved the way for the U.S.-led United al beliefs, experiences and perceptions of Nations International Task Force, or the participants played an unusually large UNITAF. Given the overwhelming U.S. role in the decisions that emerged. role in and responsibility for UNITAF, it In understanding U.S. policy toward proved to be virtually impossible politically Bosnia, for example, one needs to give full to do a clean hand-off to the United Nations weight to the lessons learned by Brent Operation in Somalia, or UNISOM. Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger, It is easy to imagine how the U.S. could from their respective tours of duty in have found itself on an analogous slippery Yugoslavia,10 to Gen. Colin Powell’s views slope in Bosnia. In early 1992, the U.S. on the use of force and the commitment of and several of its NATO allies reached a forces, and to President Bush’s determina- consensus to initiate an airlift of relief tion not to put U.S. ground forces into supplies to Sarajevo. Such an airlift Bosnia under virtually any circumstances. required that the Sarajevo airport be President Bush was strongly inclined to reopened, which, in turn, necessitated the accept military recommendations regard- deployment of air controllers, other techni- ing the forces required to accomplish the cians and experts, and a security force to mission he had given them and to grant protect them; i.e., a contingent totaling broad operational latitude in the conduct several hundred military personnel. The of that mission. Powell brought not only U.S. was prepared to provide this on-the- his forceful personality to the process but ground capability, but the French pre- also the healthy discipline of regularly empted the U.S. deployment with a con- insisting on an answer to the question: tingent of their own.11 “What is the military objective we are try- 8. Concerns about slippery slopes ing to accomplish?” notwithstanding, planning, paradoxically, 7. “Slippery slopes” are a frequent source is often shortsighted. Lack of foresight of concern, in part because they really may be due in part to a tendency to dis- exist. One of the arguments regularly count slippery-slope objections to interven- invoked in interagency debates to oppose tion as being little more than ways of cov- U.S. military involvement in an EN&SC is ering for other, often unstated, objections. that our role, however modest initially, Thus, if a decision is made to intervene, will start us down an uncontrollable “slip- the worries, concerns and risks expressed pery slope” to growing political responsi- by those who have been overruled tend to bility for the outcomes that emerge and for be forgotten or ignored.

18 Special Warfare A U.S. Air Force crew unloads a shipment of food supplies during relief oper- ations in Somalia. DoD photo 9. Decision-making is probabilistic and Bush administration.12 Nevertheless, it is context-dependent. It was argued above possible to infer from the record several that the combination of the lower risks and informal rules of thumb that the adminis- the reduced stakes that characterize U.S. tration used to structure the issues it intervention options in the post-Cold War faced and to inform the choices it made. world makes it increasingly difficult to pre- 1. Do not intervene — especially on the dict what the United States will decide and ground — absent high confidence that the how it will respond in any given instance. intervention will be relatively brief and Most of the characteristics of the decision- inexpensive and that it will cause minimal making process described here add to that casualties and collateral damage. This uncertainty. The decision to intervene in guideline reflects the intersection of Somalia in late 1992 with nearly 30,000 ambiguous (but clearly less-than-vital) American troops surprised most people, stakes and uncertain domestic political inside as well as outside the government. support for intervention. Quick, clean and It is likely that even the decision to take cheap interventions are more likely to be military action to drive the Iraqis out of commensurate with the stakes and are Kuwait was neither certain nor obvious to unlikely to generate significant domestic most people outside President Bush’s inner political problems. Conversely, the circle before it was announced. The net prospects for sustaining domestic political result of such unpredictability — rein- support over an extended period of time — forced by a long list of cases in which we especially as things go wrong, setbacks did not intervene, e.g., Sudan, Georgia, occur and costs mount — usually appear Tajikistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Bosnia — foreboding. is that it undermines the deterrent effect 2. Do not intervene unless there is a high of our threats to intervene. probability of success. This guideline adds another condition to the ones listed above: Guidelines for decision namely, if we intervene, we need to win or No set of formal policy guidelines for otherwise succeed. The implication of this intervention decisions existed during the added condition is that we should not

April 1995 19 intervene simply to raise the price of course, Congress could well impose other aggression or to send a message to would- conditions. Taken together, these be aggressors. An important corollary is prospects tend to discourage U.S. involve- that the perceived cost of a failed interven- ment in contingencies that carry with tion always is seen to exceed the cost of them a significant probability of congres- inaction, both at home and with respect to sional involvement.15 deterrence of future EN&SC. This per- 4. Minimize the need for political sup- spective creates a strong presumption that port and the risk of negative political con- it is better to take no action than to sequences. This guideline is an extension launch an intervention that risks failure. of the one above and is motivated by many Finally, the application of this guideline of the same considerations. Paradoxically, tends to equate the conditions for termi- the desire to avoid having an intervention nating the intervention with success; i.e., issue become fodder for political pundits the intervention typically must continue probably is strengthened as a consequence until we win. A distant second choice is to of the growing importance of domestic set a fixed, but essentially arbitrary, dead- political considerations in foreign policy.16 line for withdrawal. Put simply, the greater the chances of con- 3. Avoid congressional involvement in troversy, the lower the probability that the the decision-making process. The reluc- U.S. will intervene and the higher the pre- tance in involving — as contrasted with mium on keeping the intervention quick, informing — Congress stems in part from clean and cheap. a view about the respective roles of the 5. Insist that U.S. involvement is quali- executive and legislative branches in for- tatively different in political terms. The eign policy.13 It also is the result of a prag- public justification for this position is that matic calculation that to involve Congress because the U.S. is the world’s only is to impose the requirement that remaining superpower, its participation — Congress support, rather than merely especially any casualties it might suffer or acquiesce in, the proposed intervention.14 inflict — has distinctive implications and At best, congressional support will result consequences. U.S. involvement, therefore, in a loss of presidential flexibility. Of should be the exception rather than the

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney visits Gen. Maxwell Thurman following Operation Just Cause. Such unilateral operations as Just Cause may become rare exceptions to the rule of operations authorized by the U.N.

U.S. Army photo

20 Special Warfare rule, and it is perfectly appropriate for our U.S. determines that its forces should par- government to urge and expect others to ticipate in an intervention, we will be go where our forces will not. This rationale under considerable pressure to play a sub- was invoked to help explain why the Unit- stantial role. ed States would not contribute observers 8. Secure authorization by the U.N. or on the ground in Bosnia to help monitor another international organization. In the the “no-fly zone” established by the U.N. post-Cold War world, in which only less- Security Council.17 Whatever its legitima- than-vital interests are militarily threat- cy, the result of this perspective is the cre- ened, unilateral interventions such as ation of yet another presumption against Just Cause may increasingly become rare U.S. involvement. exceptions to the rule of operations autho- 6. Avoid committing U.S. ground forces. rized by U.N. Security Council resolutions. This guideline usually is applied by insist- In part, this is a requirement imposed by ing that U.S. contributions be limited to a our allies as a condition of their participa- situation in which they would be unique. tion (see below). Also, it is a condition Typically, it has been interpreted to refer imposed by the political rhetoric and reali- to unique American military capabilities, ties at home. Whatever its origins, it is a e.g.; strategic lift, intelligence and commu- source of additional legal and political con- nications.18 The clear implication is that straints on U.S. action. the U.S. has no comparative advantage in 9. Obtain multilateral participation. the ground forces who might be required This dictum might be considered a as part of an intervention force; therefore, straightforward corollary to the above it would expect others to contribute these guideline, but that should not obscure the capabilities. The desired effect of this fact that it imposes an additional set of guideline is to increase the chances that constraints. It is one thing for an ally to the U.S. role, if not the overall interven- offer political support, including voting in tion, will meet the standards of quick, favor of a U.N. Security Council resolu- cheap and clean. tion, but it is another thing for the ally to 7. Retain operational control over U.S. agree to join with the U.S. in a military combat forces, particularly ground combat operation. The price of participation is forces. In part, this guideline reflects the likely to be additional conditions and con- increased stakes that result from the com- straints on the operation as well as per- mitment of U.S. forces. It also reflects haps “side payments” on other, unrelated greater confidence in U.S. military leader- issues. ship, certainly as compared to Third World commanders. Finally, it reflects an appre- Conclusions ciation of the fact that the president will be As should be clear from the foregoing held responsible for American casualties, description, there has not been (and prob- no matter under whose command they ably still is not) an orderly, formal, well- occur. However, the president will likely be structured decision-making process that more severely criticized if casualties occur culminates in decisions about whether or while Americans are carrying out the not to intervene in the contingency at orders of a foreign commander. hand. The distinguishing features of the This guideline has the potentially per- post-Cold War world, which tend to reduce verse consequence of making U.S. military both the stakes and the risks of most participation tantamount to an all-or- interventions, only add to the complica- nothing proposition. If the U.S. insists tions and confusion. It also should be clear that its forces serve only under U.S. com- that the informal decision-making process manders during an intervention, then that does exist reveals relatively stable other potential contributors may expect characteristics, and that “learning” in the and, in any event, will argue that the U.S. form of convergence on tacit decision should contribute the bulk of the forces. guidelines and rules of thumb is occurring. Therefore, if, for whatever reason, the

April 1995 21 The picture of the decision-making proc- whether it should develop specialized ess which emerges from this examination capabilities tailored to meet the distinctive of the early post-Cold War period is one requirements of post-Cold War EN&SC. which is, paradoxically, both very insular Considering the Army’s severely con- and highly constrained by external fac- strained resources, the development of tors. It also is one which has strong, sys- such capabilities probably would come at temic biases against intervention. Indeed, the expense of capabilities to perform the question is less why the U.S. decides other Army missions. Without specialized to intervene in any particular instance resources, however, the Army may be ill- than how it ever manages to overcome equipped for the missions it most likely these strong, pervasive presumptions will be called upon to perform.19 against intervention. The other challenge concerns how the The most difficult and controversial Army supports the senior-level policy- issues typically concern the commitment makers who have been, and will continue of U.S. ground forces. These decisions are to be, confronted with intervention choic- qualitatively different from decisions es. As noted above, the Army leadership about the commitment of “unique” U.S. may not substantially participate in the capabilities, such as strategic lift and decision-making process. However, the intelligence. To overstate only slightly, military options these policy-makers U.S. decision-making about intervention is believe are available to them will have a about decisions concerning the deploy- significant impact on the choices they ment of U.S. ground combat forces. Final- make, and the manner in which their deci- ly, success is the primary, if not the sole, sion is implemented will have a substan- criterion for deciding when to terminate tial effect on whether U.S. political objec- an intervention. On the one hand, this is a tives are achieved. Bearing in mind the high standard which constitutes yet characteristics of the decision-making another obstacle to an intervention deci- process and the tacit decision guidelines sion. On the other hand, it has profound that senior policy-makers are likely to implications for “termination decision- employ, the Army should consider making” by making it very difficult to whether it can better provide analysis, extricate ourselves from an intervention options and implementation and how best short of victory. to anticipate the NCA’s political needs, concerns, and sensitivities related to Implications EN&SC. The Army finds itself in a paradoxical situation. The decision-making process described above — informal, ad hoc, high- Arnold Kanter is a senior level, insular — suggests that the Army fellow at the RAND corpora- leadership may have little warning before tion. From October 1991 an intervention decision is made, and a until January 1993, he small role in making it. However, it is served with the State Depart- Army commanders who typically are ment as Undersecretary of called upon to implement the most diffi- State for Political Affairs. In cult, sensitive decisions to intervene with this position, he was the State Department’s ground combat forces. chief operating officer with responsibility for This situation poses two challenges for the day-to-day conduct of American foreign the Army. The first concerns the capabili- policy and for crisis management. Prior to ties that the Army may be called upon to assuming his duties at the Department of provide. In intervention contingencies to State, he served as Special Assistant to the date, the Army has used existing forces President for National Security Affairs and designed to meet evolving Cold War mis- Senior Director for Defense Policy and Arms sions. One question facing the Army is Control at the National Security Council from 1989-91. Before entering the govern-

22 Special Warfare ment, Kanter was a member of the staff of tor in deciding whether or not to proceed. The combi- the Brookings Institution and a member of nation of increasingly tight defense budgets and neg- the faculty of Ohio State University and the ligible allocations for “peacekeeping” requires either that other military capabilities — typically readiness University of Michigan. He holds a bache- — will be shortchanged to cover the costs of an lor’s degree from the University of Michigan unbudgeted intervention, or that the administration as well as a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in pay the political price of seeking a supplemental political science from Yale University. appropriation from Congress. 9 JCS recommendations about force requirements are rarely subject to second-guessing and carry enor- Notes: mous weight in the decision-making process, whatev- 1 Given the limited objectives of this essay, which er other participants might suspect about what lay was drafted in the spring of 1994, no effort was made behind those stated requirements. to conduct interviews or to research primary and sec- 10 Eagleburger served as American ambassador in ondary source material. That said, there is every rea- Yugoslavia, and Scowcroft as defense attaché in son to believe that observations the essay records Belgrade. probably are generalizable, rather than being pecu- 11 The tacit competition between the U.S. and liar to the Bush administration. Both for that reason, France over which would provide personnel to reopen and as a stylistic convenience, it is written in the the Sarajevo airport was a reflection of intra-alliance present tense. politics, intramural disputes about the “European 2 On the one hand, Operation Desert Shield/Desert security and defense identity” and the respective roles Storm falls outside the boundaries of EN&SC. On the for NATO and the EC in expressing this identity. other hand, the ODS experience is relevant to an anal- 12 As it enters its second year in office, the Clinton ysis of EN&SC decision-making if only because it is administration likewise has yet to issue a “Presiden- regularly invoked as a successful model and precedent tial Decision Directive” with its policy guidelines. when EN&SC interventions are being considered. 13 Debates about the “Byrd amendment” on U.S. 3 An important residual of Cold War thinking involvement in Somalia and the “Dole amendment” remains. There has been great sensitivity about on U.S. involvement in Haiti are good contemporary becoming involved in any conflict which is located on examples of this issue. the Russian periphery or presents the likelihood of 14 Its public grumbling notwithstanding, Congress confronting Russian soldiers. This sensitivity all but often welcomes the opportunity not to have to take a ruled out serious consideration of intervening in formal position for or against controversial foreign- Moldova, Georgia and Tajikistan. Russian officials policy decisions, including decisions related to inter- did not hesitate to reinforce that sensitivity by draw- vention. ing analogies between the Monroe Doctrine and Rus- 15 Indeed, presidents sometimes establish congres- sian “responsibilities” in countries on their periph- sional approval as a condition for U.S. intervention ery; i.e., in the “near-abroad.” in order to avoid pressure from allies to become 4 The actual number of EN&SC probably has involved. Many analysts believe that Eisenhower increased with the end of the Cold War and the employed this tactic to deflect a French request for demise of the Soviet Union, but it is also the case assistance in Indochina. Some observers see the that these same factors permit — or in some cases same tactic at play in the administration’s insistence require — the U.S. to pay more attention to EN&SC. on congressional approval of any deployment of U.S. 5 As will be seen below, military participants ground forces in Bosnia. employ the opposite bureaucratic tactic of overstat- 16 As the Bosnia case demonstrates, inaction by ing the apparent force requirements. The result is the U.S. also can become a source of political contro- mutual suspicion and reciprocal incentives to engage versy and grist for editorial writers. in bureaucratic gaming. 17 Undoubtedly, there were several other reserva- 6 During the Bush administration, OSD and JCS tions about U.S. participation, including “slippery made it a regular practice to arrive at a common slope” concerns. position, which they would then jointly present in the 18 There is another sense in which U.S. capabilities interagency process. This practice may have had the can be unique: namely, when American participation collateral consequence of muting any “pro-interven- is politically indispensable. tion” proclivities among senior OSD civilians. 19 There also is the interesting question of whether 7 In fact, it is very difficult to distinguish between the availability of specialized capabilities tailored to JCS Chairman Powell’s approach to “use of force” the distinctive requirements of EN&SC would affect issues and the positions taken by JCS representa- decisions about whether to intervene and when to tives who participated at lower levels in the decision- exit by changing the cost-benefit calculations of making process. senior decision-makers. 8 At the same time, JCS representatives often worry aloud about the scarcity of critical force ele- ments and the implications a proposed military oper- ation will have regarding our ability to deal with other contingencies. Likewise, the projected dollar cost of a proposed operation can be a substantial fac-

April 1995 23 SF Direct Action and Targeting: Appropriate Force and Customer Satisfaction

by Lt. Col. Ed Phillips

Given the modern battle calculus, the ing Center and the Joint Readiness Train- classic Special Forces direct-action mis- ing Center focus on field-training exercises sion — using detachments against generic with battalion task forces and sometimes point targets — seems to make little brigades, the BCTP trains corps and divi- sense. Air Force aircraft are capable of sion staffs. Army SF regularly provide spe- penetrating deeper and packing a more cial-operations command-and-control ele- lethal load than the hardiest SF detach- ments, or SOCCEs, to player GPFs in ment. Aircraft strike with stunning accu- BCTP exercises. racy, and, in the case of cruise missiles, Normally, one SF company is tasked to with no operator risk. Manned aircraft provide a SOCCE. However, for this par- carry a more sophisticated, effective array ticular war-fighter CPX, the 2/7th expand- of designators and sensors than Army ed its participation and provided two SOC- Special Forces could ever hope to employ. CEs, the operations center and signal cen- And, as the Gulf War demonstrated, if ter of the forward operational base, and aerial platforms can find the target, they the SOF player cell at the battle simula- will probably kill it. tion center. Because of the 2/7th’s involve- So where does this reality leave Special ment at every level in the simulation (divi- Forces? Are we out of the unilateral sion close fight to corps deep battle, corps destruction business? main to brigade tactical operations cen- Recent SF experience in the Battle Com- ters, joint special operations task force to mand Training Program, or BCTP, sug- FOB), the battalion staff had to confront gests not. Our understanding of the direct- the DA-targeting dilemma head-on. action mission, however, especially in The BCTP scenario postulated a contin- what we decide to attempt, must come on gency operation in which elements of the line with reality and the needs of the sup- XVIII Airborne Corps — 82nd Airborne ported general-purpose force, or GPF. Division, 101st Air Assault Division, 24th Mechanized Infantry Division and 10th Background Division (Light) — secured a lodgment From January through March 1994, the such as an airhead or a seaport and subse- 2nd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, quently attacked to protect the lodgment. supported the XVIII Airborne Corps and The enemy was an artillery-heavy force the 82nd Airborne Division during ramp-up organized along former Warsaw Pact lines command-post exercises and the BCTP (in other words, it had enough artillery war-fighter CPX. While the National Train- and multiple-launch rocket systems to cre- ate a moonscape).

24 Special Warfare In the ramp-up CPXs, the SF players player units had to find a better way of performed special reconnaissance in great supporting the GPF. depth to provide early “decision point” To do this, the FOB reviewed the CPX warning for the corps. SR teams “comput- in terms of the SOF Mission Criteria: er identified” enemy artillery but had no • Appropriate SOF mission capability to interdict it. In both CPXs, the • Supports campaign plan 82nd’s units suffered heavy casualties • Operationally feasible from that same artillery. (During the sec- • Resources available ond CPX, two brigades each suffered more • Outcome justifies risk than 50-percent casualties.) Close air sup- The FOB focused on enemy artillery as port and MLRS counterbattery fire didn’t the GPF’s biggest concern, at least help — the systems could not detect the through D+5. The CPX review indicated mobile artillery, which scurried into that given some early air assets, SF spe- ravines and valleys after delivering devas- cial-reconnaissance and unconventional- tating fire. This counterfire phenomenon warfare player units could help the GPF. was not unlike the problem with mobile • First, terminal-guidance operations, SCUDs that the coalition experienced dur- or TGOs, as a form of DA are certainly ing Desert Storm. appropriate SOF missions, especially when air platforms can’t locate a target on Mission criteria their own, a situation common with mobile During the after-action review for the or nonlinear targets. Indeed, it could be ramp-up CPX, the FOB staff and the argued that the only appropriate DA mis- SOCCE commanders asked the logical sion for the A-detachment is standoff questions: What can we do to help the strike, employing aircraft or long-range GPF? What is the GPF commander’s weapons when other systems can’t find a biggest problem? SF units had only one critical target (SCUDS in the desert or clearly specified task in the corps opera- mobile artillery in rough terrain in the tions plan: to provide early warning. BTCP scenario). Locating an opposing Clearly, early warning was not enough. SF force’s mobile theater ballistic missiles or other delivery systems that are capable of

Although modern aerial platforms strike with stun- ning accuracy, SOF spe- cial-reconnaissance and unconventional-warfare assets may sometimes do a better job of finding the target.

DoD photo

April 1995 25 employing nuclear, biological and chemi- sions with staff elements of the 82nd Air- cal munitions may become extremely borne Division and the XVIII Airborne appropriate (and more important) in the Corps, the FOB developed a series of post-Cold War world. National policy-mak- implied tasks. One was artillery attrition. ers are voicing increasing concerns with The SOCCEs convinced the battle simula- the threat such systems represent. tion center, which portrayed the theater • Second, interdiction of the artillery in targeting board, of the need for artillery the BCTP scenario clearly supported the targeting. From D-2 to D+2, SF directed campaign plan. The 82nd Airborne Divi- platforms against the enemy artillery, sion could not survive unless the enemy causing a 30-percent attrition prior to the artillery was damaged or destroyed early. 82nd’s arrival. By D+4, the division had And if the 82nd failed, so would the cam- secured its objectives with minimal casu- paign plan. alties, a vast improvement over the results • Third, the use of aerial interdiction was of the ramp-up CPX. A decisive force mul- certainly feasible. The SF detachments tiplier for both the division and corps com- were already on the ground, and the U.S. manders, SF earned their pay on the com- enjoyed air superiority in the scenario. puter battlefield, much more so than if • Fourth, each ODA had all the they had provided early warning only. resources needed to interdict artillery, In the BCTP simulation, the FOB assuming that such action had been coor- aggressively pursued targets as systems dinated before their infiltration. Laser and in so doing directly assisted the XVIII designators were unnecessary. Airborne Corps in accomplishing its mis- • Finally, the ODAs were at no greater sion. On paper, the damage to enemy risk than if they had performed only SR artillery probably saved 2,000 U.S. lives. and UW missions. Artillery systems were The GPFs were satisfied because SF thick on the battlefield and easy to spot detachments located systems no other from ground level. forces could find. SF survivability was high Acting on this analysis and on discus- (all computer casualties occurred during infiltration), because the threat was Air Force personnel study engaged discriminately and indirectly. imagery products to devel- op a target list. To be a Lessons learned viable part of the campaign plan, SF must be aggres- There are many disconnects between sively involved in the tar- BCTP and reality: no joint task force, no geting process. dedicated theater-targeting board, and limited air-interdiction resources. The cor- relation between the BCTP and reality is the subject of another article, but the 2/7th learned valuable lessons that will be of good use in all theaters. Lesson one: Systems vs. grid coordi- nates — To be a viable part of the cam- paign plan, SF must be aggressive in the targeting process. Most theater-targeting boards are, understandably, strike-air- craft-driven. We are a high-tech military. Air Force technicians studying an array of imagery products develop the ubiqui- tous grid-coordinate target list. Imagery identifies fixed or linear targets, and the targeting board assigns resources against the targets based on the priorities of the DoD photo

26 Special Warfare joint task force or the theater commander It’s easy to find. The Air Force could knock in chief. The air tasking order allocates it out easily, but the SF detachment can’t sorties, and bombs fall with computer get to it with enough demolitions to do the logic and businesslike efficiency. job. While all of this fits neatly from an Air The feasibility of such a DA mission, Force perspective, from an Army perspec- given the associated risk to the detach- tive anyone knows that employment of ment, is questionable, especially when ground forces is never business as usual. the Air Force can do a better job with less What happens to the moving targets, risk. It makes little sense to squander SF which may be key but cannot be located by detachments on targets that could be bet- satellites or other technology? Even if that ter destroyed by other BOSs. Better to high tech succeeds in finding a mobile tar- identify the niche where Army SF can get, the discovery is only a snapshot in provide a service that other BOSs cannot. time — five minutes later, the target may Again, aggressive involvement in the tar- be out of range. geting and employment process is the Grid-coordinate targeting does not way to ensure optimal SF use and battle- address the mobile-SCUD problem that field synergy. Given the technologies the coalition experienced during Desert available, Army SF should focus on Storm or the mobile-artillery problem that standoff techniques in order to engage the XVIII Airborne Corps experienced in the threat discriminately. the BCTP. These problems must be looked upon as systems, not as locations. In the planning process, SF operational bases Lt. Col. Ed F. Phillips is and FOBs must ask the following: What commander of the 2nd Bat- systems concern the JTF commander or talion, 7th Special Forces the CINC? Which can we logically affect? Group. In previous assign- How do we sell it? ments, he served as platoon Failure to focus on key systems repre- leader, battalion S-1, battal- sents failure to use Army SF to their ion S-3 and company com- fullest potential as a battlefield operating mander in the 82nd Airborne Division; system. Moreover, failure to offer SF and as detachment commander, battalion employment ideas can result in inappro- S-4, group S-4, group S-3 and company priate employment concepts from an over- commander in the 7th SF Group. He is a worked JTF. graduate of the Command and General Lesson two: SOF-appropriate DA mis- Staff College at the U.S. Army School of sions, engaging the threat discriminately — the Americas. Phillips served as an adviser JTF headquarters are busy places. A JTF in El Salvador from 1984 through 1985. commander and his staff have hundreds of “slice” elements to synchronize. Unless SF logically present employment alternatives, detachments may receive “afterthought” mission taskings based on the targeting- board grid-coordinate list. This “Brooklyn Bridge” syndrome usually occurs during Joint Chiefs of Staff exercises: An SF detachment receives a mission such as “Take out the bridge at coordinate X.” Often, the target in question is so low in priority that the JTF runs out of airplanes before it can service it, and often the target is as difficult to take down as the Brooklyn Bridge. Now, that bridge (or any similar fixed target) is not going anywhere soon.

April 1995 27 Cut from a Different Cloth: The Origins of U.S. Army Special Forces

by Joseph R. Fischer

“War,” wrote the 19th-century military Frequently, these groups fight from the theorist Carl von Clausewitz, “is merely shadows of society, selecting targets the continuation of politics by other designed to undermine civilian morale. means.” The assumption that war exists This threat has forced the U.S. Army to as a normal part of the political process of rethink its doctrine and to broaden its nations lies at the heart of this quotation. response in meeting contingency demands During Clausewitz’s time, war served as a that do not fit the traditional definition of dialectic, carried on primarily by armies war between nation-states. FM 100-5, Oper- and navies rather than by diplomats. Mili- ations, addresses the commitment of mili- tary establishments existed for two rea- tary forces in three distinct environments: sons: either to wage war or to deter war. war, conflict and peacetime.2 Whereas our Much of what Clausewitz said about conventional armed forces center on mili- war is relevant today. Events of the last tary objectives during war, circumstances 40 years, however, have forced increased peculiar to conflict and peacetime employ- attention to a chapter in his book On War ments frequently require that political, eco- entitled “The People in Arms,” in which he nomic and social goals take precedence over expounded on the role of the partisan. military considerations. The U.S. Army’s Drawing on Napoleon’s experiences in problem is that its structure is configured Spain and Russia, Clausewitz reminded toward conducting war-environment opera- his readers that although partisans lacked tions. Conventional infantry, armor and the ability to effect a decision in war, their artillery units do two things well in war: ability to “nibble at the shell and around they control terrain, and they destroy the the edges” of an opponent had frequently enemy’s ground forces through firepower helped set the stage for his subsequent and mobility. In less lethal environments defeat.1 In the 20th century, Mao Tse-tung their utility is more circumspect. Our ability incorporated Clausewitz’s ideas about par- to operate in environments short of war tisans into his own guerrilla-war theory. rests largely with a group of Army soldiers Since the Chinese Revolution, various cul- known as Special Forces. tural, religious and political factions have adopted guerrilla tactics in their own Counterinsurgency struggles against their perceived enemies. Special Forces had existed for years within the Army force structure before the This article originally appeared in the Vietnam War brought them public recog- Spring 1994 issue of The New England nition. They were depicted as our answer Journal of History.

28 Special Warfare to communist-sponsored wars of national termed an unconventional-warfare capa- liberation. Their portrayal as counterin- bility.4 What little experience our mili- surgency experts represented a reversal tary had gained in this field was in from their original role: opposing unconventional-warfare efforts To infiltrate ... to designated areas with- directed against U.S. interests. Soldiers in the enemy’s sphere of influence and to or Marines had crushed indigenous tribes organize the indigenous guerrilla potential and put down a guerrilla uprising in the on a quasi-military or a military basis for Philippines following the Spanish-Ameri- tactical and strategic exploitation in con- can War, and they conducted numerous junction with our land, sea and air forces.3 military operations in Central America This original SF mission focused on and the Caribbean in defense of Ameri- conducting guerrilla war in support of can political and economic interests. Mili- conventional operations. The employment tary officers believed themselves to be of Special Forces in Vietnam indicated a experts in counterinsurgency but had widening of mission responsibilities that long forgotten that guerrilla operations continues today as the Army adjusts to a were once a part of America’s strategic rapidly changing geopolitical environ- approach to war.5 ment. Expertise both in the culture and in the language of their assigned geo- OSS formation graphic areas make SF soldiers invalu- The beginning of World War II caught able assets in pursuing U.S. policy in the the U.S. unprepared. Much of the Pacific developing world. Although assigned a Fleet rested in ruins in the silt of Pearl combat role during war, Special Forces Harbor. In Europe, France had fallen, and have made their most significant contri- only the approach of winter had stopped butions during conflict and in peacetime Hitler’s panzers from reaching Moscow. environments. Britain was still holding out against the Special Forces’ new-found respectabili- Luftwaffe, but German U-boats were tak- ty is a relatively recent occurrence. At ing a terrible toll of British shipping. Fac- the beginning of World War II, we pos- ing a bleak strategic situation, President sessed nothing that could remotely be

A Special Forces adviser in Vietnam plans an operation with his South Vietnamese counterpart.

Photo by Don Brown

April 1995 29 Franklin D. Roosevelt was open to sugges- the areas in which he expected his people tions. Even before Pearl Harbor, William to operate. J. Donovan, a successful Wall Street lawyer who had earned the Medal of European theater Honor during World War I, argued for a The OSS fielded a number of special- government organization dedicated to col- operations organizations. In the European lecting strategic intelligence. Roosevelt, theater, two distinct groups of operatives against the advice of his service chiefs deployed into Nazi-occupied France. One and J. Edgar Hoover, bought the idea. group was the Jedburghs, named after a After an inauspicious beginning, Dono- town along the Scottish-English border. A van’s organization became known as the Jed team typically consisted of two officers and an enlisted radio operator. Great Britain, France and the U.S. provided most of the personnel for the 96 Jedburgh teams that were eventually fielded and deployed to Europe.6 Donovan believed that resistance groups existing throughout much of Nazi-occupied Europe could cre- ate chaos in the German rear areas by dis- rupting road and rail traffic and conduct- ing other acts of sabotage. To maximize their effectiveness, however, they had to be linked into the operational plans of the Allied armies gathering for the invasion of France. Donovan wanted the Jedburgh teams to be the link between the partisans and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. SHAEF’s next question about the Jed- Photo courtesy Special Warfare Museum burghs concerned the timing of their Brig. Gen. William Dono- Office of Strategic Services. Not content to deployment. If the Jeds deployed too early, van (right) confers with limit his organization’s activity to gather- the British Lord Mounbat- Germany would realize the invasion was ing intelligence, Donovan expanded the ten (center) during World imminent. Another concern was how Ger- War II. OSS’s scope to encompass “special opera- many would react to increased guerrilla tions,” a term that eventually became activity. These considerations overrode synonymous with unconventional war- arguments to insert the Jeds early: The fare. Under this heading, Donovan includ- first teams to deploy to France did so only ed sabotage, subversion, propaganda and hours before the landings. The majority of guerrilla warfare. deployments occurred after the establish- Donovan envisioned high-risk endeav- ment of the beachhead. ors for his special-operations people. Jed teams contacted French partisans When military thinkers were increasingly and waged an energetic war against their seeing technological sophistication as the German adversaries. The effectiveness of prerequisite for success in war, Donovan the campaign, however, remains question- was holding almost antiquated beliefs able. In northeastern France, the Jed concerning the importance of the individ- teams that were most advantageously posi- ual. He intended to create an organization tioned to support the landings received from carefully screened volunteers who almost no mention in official reports of possessed initiative, intelligence, drive units driving inland from Normandy.7 and physical stamina. Competency in Many problems plagued the Jedburghs, Norwegian, French, Italian, Greek and especially the inexperience and the skepti- Slavic languages was also emphasized cism of conventional Army staffs with because these languages were common to

30 Special Warfare regard to employing this new asset. Gen. ment.8 Hence, most OGs deployed in 15- George Patton’s diary entry for Sept. 2, man teams.9 Language skills, good physi- 1944, reveals the thinking characteristic of cal condition and a willingness to perform one of the Army’s best ground commanders. hazardous duty topped the list of charac- “General ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan was in camp teristics that OSS recruiters sought.10 when I got back and was most complimen- Most volunteers came from Army units tary,” noted Patton. “While I think the and possessed expertise in at least one of efforts of his cohorts (Office of Strategic the following: light and heavy weapons, Services) are futile, I personally like and engineering, medicine or communications. admire him a lot. I will now get set for the Intended for deployment deep behind next move.” Most general-staff officers enemy lines, the teams would have to be viewed the Jedburghs as audacious but as self-sufficient as possible. Like the Jed- largely irrelevant, an attitude that ensured burghs, the OGs were capable of organiz- underemployment for the Jeds. ing and directing guerrillas. OGs could also conduct direct sabotage, rescue Operational Groups downed pilots and collect intelligence. The second organization formed by the The OSS formed OGs for deployment in OSS, the Operational Groups, suffered the France, Germany, Norway, Italy, Greece same kinds of problems that plagued the and Yugoslavia. Except for the German Jeds. The OGs’ impact on the war was group that deployed into northern Italy, greater than that of the Jeds because the the OGs saw action in their assigned OGs were organized for a much wider areas. The teams organized and directed range of missions and were deployed over Italian partisans in disrupting enemy sup- a larger area. ply lines and forcing the Germans to In the original configuration, each OG divert combat units to rear-area security. consisted of 30 enlisted soldiers and four They performed similar operations in officers. Subsequent training exercises, Yugoslavia and Greece. Here their pur- however, convinced the OSS that the 34- pose was to convince the German high man OG was too large for easy deploy- command that the Allies intended to mount an offensive through the Balkans.

An OSS operative (second from left) poses with parti- sans in a French village.

Photo courtesy Special Warfare Museum

April 1995 31 Soldiers from OSS Detach- ment 101 teach members of the native resistance to use automatic weapons in their fight against the Japanese. Photo courtesy National Archives In the process, OGs killed or wounded sev- Germans in occupied Europe. OSS sup- eral thousand German soldiers and porters took great satisfaction in Gen. destroyed key rail and highway bridges Dwight D. Eisenhower’s statement on the and extensive sections of railroad track. In importance of partisan operations: Norway, one OG tied down significant I consider the disruption of enemy rail numbers of German soldiers in hit-and- communications, the harassing of German run strikes and destroyed the Tangen rail- road moves and increasing strain placed way bridge, a key conduit for German on the German ... internal security services iron-ore shipments from neutral Sweden. throughout occupied Europe by the orga- OGs deployed into France at approximate- nized forces of resistance, played a very ly the same time as the Jedburghs and considerable part in our complete and played a key role in the invasion of south- final victory. ern France. Assisted by the French resis- Eisenhower’s praise only indirectly tance, the groups caused more than 1,000 touched on the Jedburghs and the OGs. The German casualties, captured 10,000 pris- records of the field armies deployed to oners and destroyed 32 bridges. As Ger- Europe do not indicate that much thought man resistance began to crumble, the OGs was given to guerrilla war. Many high- prevented the German army from destroy- ranking officers considered it a waste of ing transportation facilities crucial for the both manpower and materiel. Often, the Allied advance. driving force behind deployments of special Evaluating the effectiveness of the Jed- units was the OSS’s own staff officers serv- burghs and the OGs remains a difficult ing in the field armies. Vague mission state- task. The extensive list of targets hit and ments, a rapidly changing tactical situation casualties produced suggests that the OSS and inadequate communications equipment conducted a successful war against the limited the effectiveness of the Jedburghs

32 Special Warfare and the OGs once they were deployed. Fur- training camps in Canada and in the thermore, few of the targets they destroyed Catochin Mountains near Camp David, proved to be beyond the capabilities of Ger- Md. Eifler and 20 other soldiers deployed man engineers to repair. The OSS people to the CBI theater in the spring of 1942. were considered minor players in the out- Their mission was to collect intelligence come of the European war. and foment a guerrilla war against the Japanese. “All I want to hear from you,” Pacific theater Stilwell told Eifler, “are booms coming In the war against Japan, guerrilla-war from the Burma jungle.”13 Woefully short advocates found a better environment in of manpower and unable to retake the ini- which to test their SOF ideas. Again, tiative in the area, Stilwell had to buy Donovan took the lead. With American time by keeping the Japanese off balance. forces being largely swept from the Pacific If Detachment 101 were successful, it early in the war, few places offered much could help achieve his objective. Should opportunity for a small group of soldiers to the unit fail, the loss of a handful of Amer- make a significant contribution. But the ican soldiers would not affect the opera- China-Burma-India theater appeared to tional situation. be one such place. The air- and ground- Eifler’s first attempt to infiltrate ground transportation routes through the area forces into Burma was unsuccessful. Only provided the only hope of keeping Chiang after he worked out an agreement with Kai-shek’s Nationalist army in the field Brig. Gen. Edward H. Alexander, chief of against the Japanese. So long as the the Air Transport Command, to parachute Nationalists remained in the war, the agents into Burma in exchange for orga- Japanese would have to keep significant nizing an evasion-and-escape network for numbers of their armed forces in China pilots shot down over the Himalayas did and away from the invasion routes the situation begin to change. Detachment planned by Gen. Douglas MacArthur and 101 soldiers found many of the local Adm. Chester Nimitz for their drives tribes, particularly the Kachins, willing to through the southwest and central Pacific. assist the Allies against the Japanese. By mid-1942, Japanese ground forces Under Detachment 101’s direction, the had closed the Burma Road, the last Kachins became critically important to ground link to China, and were threatening Stilwell. The dense terrain made it diffi- a campaign into India. Donovan lobbied to cult to spot targets for Allied bombers. have a group of OSS operatives sent to sup- Kachin guerrillas found nearly 80 percent port operations in China. Skeptical of the of the targets that had been selected for OSS and pressured by Chiang Kai-shek’s bombardment and conducted bomb-dam- intelligence chief to deny Donovan’s people age assessments following the strikes.14 access to China, Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell The pilot-recovery network boosted pilot refused to commit himself.11 Nonetheless, morale. Detachment 101 eventually direct- Donovan made plans to recruit a unit for ed 10,800 soldiers from the indigenous the theater. Eventually, the two reached a tribes of northern Burma in a successful compromise: Stilwell accepted the OSS guerrilla war against the Japanese. detachment; Donovan permitted Stilwell to The OSS served as the key player in the name its commander. The new detach- unconventional-warfare campaign waged ment’s operations would also be limited, for in every theater commanded by an Army the time, to Burma.12 general officer, except for Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Command. Detachment 101 MacArthur prevented the OSS from work- Stilwell appointed Maj. Carl Eifler to ing within his command, although Philip- command the new unit. Using the same pine guerrillas operating on a number of selection criteria as for other OSS organi- the islands caused considerable trouble for zations, Eifler built an organization at the Japanese. They also provided invalu- able intelligence concerning Japanese

April 1995 33 army and navy units stationed among the cy. On Oct. 1, 1945, Truman ordered the islands. American officers who had OSS disbanded immediately.18 escaped capture on Bataan helped and fre- Truman’s decision should not have come quently commanded the resistance effort. as a surprise. In the postwar rush to Two Americans, Col. Wendell W. Fertig demobilize, the OSS’s contribution to the and Lt. Col. Russell W. Volckmann, proved overall war effort constituted only a small particularly troublesome for the Japanese. part of the whole. None of the unconven- Neither man had received any special tional-warfare efforts had been in and of training for his role. Fertig’s efforts were themselves decisive. All had depended on assisted by MacArthur’s early decision to conventional military forces to deliver the support the guerrillas with weapons and coup de grâce. Inside the military, the OSS ammunition. Volckmann had elected to was an organization without a constituen- forgo life in a Japanese prisoner-of-war cy. The perception existed that unconven- camp by fleeing into the jungle when his tional warfare did not fit within the Amer- unit received orders to surrender.15 After ican way of war. spending several months making his way Throughout most of our history, Ameri- into the mountains of northern Luzon, he can military thinkers have concentrated began building a guerrilla organization. on developing the means to wage war The harshness of Japanese occupation according to a strategy of annihilation. In methods made recruiting fairly easy. For turn, the U.S. has dedicated impressive three years, Volckmann directed the guer- economic resources toward producing rilla campaign in his area, receiving only a machines of war that make possible the modicum of guidance and supplies from combination of firepower and mobility crit- MacArthur’s headquarters.16 Nonetheless, ical to the American military. Guerrilla when American troops landed on Luzon, war represents a different approach to Volckmann produced five regiments of strategy. Focusing on the importance of Philippine guerrillas (nearly 20,000 sol- the individual, guerrilla fighters aim at diers) to assist in retaking the island. achieving their objectives through the gradual wearing away of the enemy’s OSS deactivation capability and will to fight. Whereas a suc- In the European and the Pacific theaters cessful strategy of annihilation depends on of the war, American soldiers had success- the ability of the military to project power fully conducted UW against their oppo- over space, attrition assumes the need to nents. The question facing the military project power over time. The American establishment with the coming of peace public has never seen war as a normal was what to do with this new American state of affairs and tolerates it reluctantly, capability. Roosevelt believed it would be pressing the government to finish the mat- necessary to maintain a government orga- ter quickly and at little cost in terms of nization dedicated to gathering strategic lives and fortune. This philosophical intelligence and responsible solely to the framework alone ensures that the military president. Donovan, in a memorandum to will not find it necessary to retain a UW Roosevelt, outlined his ideas for the organi- capability in a postwar environment of zation. Opponents of the idea leaked the declining military budgets. memorandum to The Chicago Times, which The postwar years of increasing ten- described the proposed organization as a sions with the Soviet Union brought a re- “Super Spy System for the New Deal.”17 evaluation of the need to collect strategic The unwanted publicity forced Roosevelt to intelligence. The National Security Act of postpone his decision on the issue. Roo- 1947 authorized the formation of the Cen- sevelt’s death in April 1945 brought Harry tral Intelligence Agency to fill the void left Truman to the White House. Truman sup- by the deactivation of the OSS. Later, ported neither the OSS nor Donovan’s pro- National Security Council 10/2 named the posal for a new postwar intelligence agen- CIA responsible for covert paramilitary activities during peacetime.19

34 Special Warfare The Army expressed interest in develop- combat by March 1951. During the war ing a UW capability, but proponents were McGee and Lt. Col. Jay D. Vanderpool unclear about how the organization would built up the force to the strength of five look. The most commonly broached idea regiments, which were eventually desig- called for the creation of airborne Ranger nated the United Nations Partisan Forces units that could “organize and conduct Korea, or UNPFK. Partisans received overt and covert operations behind enemy training in all facets of UW, and their lines.”20 Little came of the proposal, and trainers labored diligently to prepare the interest in unconventional warfare them for their role. Partisan leaders waned until the Korean conflict. received the following advice: Initiative and aggressiveness tempered Korean conflict by calm judgment will be encouraged. North Korea’s invasion of South Korea Avoid trying to win the war by yourself; caught American commanders in the Far pace the attack in accordance with your East by surprise. Unprepared for conven- advantage; when the advantage has tional operations, the U.S. Army possessed passed, get away to fight another day. Hit absolutely no capability to conduct uncon- and run; these are the guerrilla’s tactics. ventional warfare. It had neither forces The planning of such an operation should prepared for such a mission nor a doctrine include an escape route and a rally point. to guide the effort. Opportunities did exist Substitute speed and surprise for mass.21 to mobilize a partisan movement in some Most guerrilla operations occurred along areas of North Korea where cultural ties North Korea’s eastern and western coasts, linked the inhabitants more closely to the but the operations in the west proved far South than to the North, particularly the more effective.22 Some operations conduct- Koreans living near the 38th parallel in ed by McGee’s partisans demonstrated con- North Korea’s Hwanghae Province. Real- siderable audacity and produced exception- izing where the province’s loyalties lay, al results. In one such operation, partisans Kim Il Sung instituted a harsh policy of cut the Wonsan-Koson railroad, used to incorporation following the division of the supply Chinese and North Korean forces. country in 1945. The program produced Previous attempts to cut the railroad dissent and forced many Hwanghaese to A soldier holds a banner migrate south of the 38th parallel. from the U.N. Partisan The first suggestion that United Forces Korea. Nations forces should undertake partisan warfare came in 1950. It met with little support, particularly as U.N. forces flanked the North Korean army at Inchon and drove it northward toward the Yalu. In January 1951, with China’s entry into the war and the prospect for a quick end to the conflict gone, Col. John McGee in the 8th Army Headquarters resurrected the partisan-warfare idea and secured its approval. After gaining access to weapons, ammunition and other supplies, McGee gathered a small cadre of officers and men to train the partisan forces he expected to recruit. With the exception of a few indi- viduals who had served in the OSS or as guerrillas in the Philippines, none of the cadre had any UW experience. McGee managed to put partisan units in Photo courtesy Special Warfare Museum

April 1995 35 through aerial bombardment had been only West Germany if war came. U.S. military partially successful because communist planners faced the prospect of having to repair teams were masters at fixing the blunt the Red Army’s blitzkrieg, then hav- damage. To keep the railroad closed, the ing to find a way to mass enough combat tracks would have to be cut at a point power to destroy the invader. This phase where repair crews could not easily get to of the fighting was expected to approxi- the damage. Derailing a train inside a rail- mate World War II combat. Any angle road tunnel seemed the best way to accom- that might increase NATO’s chances was plish this. After a suitable tunnel was locat- considered worthwhile. ed, a small band of partisans parachuted Inside the Pentagon, a small group of into the area, placed explosives under the unconventional-warfare advocates had rails inside the tunnel and then waited for established a foothold and were energeti- a supply train to arrive. The explosion cally pushing the idea that UW could help derailed the locomotive, and a number of break the deadlock in NATO’s favor. Led railcars piled up inside the tunnel. by Brig. Gen. Robert McClure, chief of psychological warfare at the Pentagon, Damage estimates staff officers argued that partisan units Partisan operations continued through- operating against the Red Army’s line of out the war. By 1953, UNPFK included supply in Eastern Europe could make a 22,227 partisans. Measuring the effective- valuable contribution to NATO’s defense ness of the partisan operations is difficult. and counterattack.23 Working under the Official estimates claimed by UNPFK assumption that the Soviet Union’s heavy- included the killing of 69,000 enemy sol- handed seizure of Eastern Europe follow- diers and the destruction of 80 bridges and ing World War II had created feelings of more than 2,700 vehicles, at minimal cost animosity necessary to motivate parti- to UNPFK. Even American officers who sans, all that was necessary, so the argu- directed UNPFK doubted these numbers. ment went, was for the U.S. to organize, In fairness, UNPFK’s figures probably equip and direct this new army.24 The pro- were inflated. During World War II, studies posal was vintage Donovan, updated to showed that American units regularly deal with a new enemy. inflated their estimates by 7-9 times. McClure became the leading advocate Assuming UNPFK did no worse than match for the creation of an Army organization the U.S. Army’s inaccuracy, the partisans dedicated to UW. Volckmann, now could still take credit for killing 7,700- McClure’s subordinate, had performed 10,000 North Korean and Chinese soldiers. much of the preparatory work for making Regardless of which figures one accepts, the the concept a reality. Realizing that overall assessment is that UNPFK repre- involvement in UW would encounter a sented a bargain for the Army. reluctant audience, he worked to fit the Army support for unconventional opera- new doctrine into the larger strategic pic- tions increased during the Korean conflict. ture. At a conference attended by Gen. J. UNPFK’s record only partially explains Lawton Collins, Army chief of staff, Volck- the turnaround—the situation in Europe mann explained why UW was necessary. better accounts for the change. President We may visualize the world today as Truman was hopeful that the American being divided into two major layers of lead in atomic weapons would deter war, individuals that cover the earth unrestrict- but if it did not, military leaders were ed by national boundaries. These layers, expecting a war with the Soviet Union to one red and one blue, are held together by be protracted. The Soviet Union enjoyed a common ideologies. Any future war may much better strategic position in Europe well be regarded as an international civil than did the United States. The Red war waged by these opposing layers. The Army’s numerical superiority and forward full exploitation of our sympathetic blue basing would permit a rapid thrust into layers within the enemy’s sphere of influ- ence is basically the mission of special-

36 Special Warfare forces operations. It is from the blue layer within the enemy’s sphere of influence that we must foster resistance movements, orga- nize guerrilla or indigenous forces on a military basis, conduct sabotage and sub- version, effect evasion and escape.25 After McClure gained enough support to create the new unit, the next problem was to find personnel authorizations to fill it. Volckmann again took the lead, battling the Army’s bureaucracy for a year over the matter.26 Working a deal with an old West Point classmate, Volckmann finally secured 3,000 personnel spaces from Army units that had been or were being deactivated.27 10th SF Group On June 19, 1952, the Army formed the Photo courtesy Special Warfare Museum 10th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, Europe into the 10th SF Group. Screened Members of an early Spe- N.C. Commanded by Col. Aaron Bank, a closely to ensure their anti-communist cial Forces detachment take time out from moun- veteran of the OSS Jedburghs, the 10th pedigree, these soldiers provided a level of tain-warfare training. SF Group began with only a handful of language proficiency never again equaled soldiers. An extensive campaign to fill the in Special Forces. group’s ranks soon followed. Recruiters In 1953 when Red Army tanks rolled focused on soldiers with OSS or Ranger into the streets of East Berlin to crush a experience.28 Airborne units also proved to German anti-communist uprising, the be a good source for the kinds of soldiers 10th had begun to reach the standards set the 10th SFG’s officers desired. Volunteers by Bank. Fearing the possibility of anoth- knew little about the unit except that the er European war, the Army deployed half duty would be hazardous. of the 10th to Bad Tölz in the Federal The architects of the 10th SF Group Republic of Germany. The remaining sol- built it along the lines of their own experi- diers formed the basis for the Army’s sec- ences in World War II. The 15-man OSS ond Special Forces group, designated the OG became the pattern for the SF A- 77th Special Forces Group. To hide the detachment, the smallest deployable com- 10th’s deployment, the Army provided a ponent of the group. Training also mir- cover story that depicted the unit as the rored that received by OSS operators dur- 10th Airborne Reconnaissance Group, but ing the war. Bank arrived at Fort Bragg the effort fooled no one.30 with a trunkful of OSS documents and les- Throughout much of the rest of the son plans.29 These provided the frame- decade, soldiers of the 10th, 77th and later work for training the new unit. The mini- the 1st Special Forces Group prepared for mum goal was for each enlisted soldier to unconventional warfare aimed at the Sovi- possess expertise in at least one of five et Union and the People’s Republic of military skills, including weapons, com- China. War plans varied for each group. munications, medical, engineering, or The 10th, for example, intended to commit operations and intelligence. With each 50 detachments to operations in Eastern team targeted for a particular region Europe and the Soviet Union itself should behind the Iron Curtain, language skills war break out. The Army, along with the received considerable attention. Thanks CIA, developed a network of agents in largely to the Lodge Bill, SF recruiters Eastern Europe to use as contacts for the were able to bring large numbers of dis- detachments once they deployed. The placed foreign nationals from Eastern agents would provide places in which the teams could hide and prepare themselves

April 1995 37 for combat. The teams would then begin additional groups formed in the National raising, training and directing partisan Guard and the Army Reserve. bands to operate against targets of oppor- The growth of and the use of Special tunity. Bank believed it possible to raise Forces during the 1960s represented an 50 battalions of partisans for use against evolutionary step for the Army. War had the Red Army. To secure the Red Army’s not broken out on the plains of Europe as supply lines, Russian commanders would planners had envisioned. An Army that have to pull 18 divisions from the front to was built for conventional battle found control the partisan threat. The only prob- itself unprepared to meet the challenges of lem with the concept, as Bank was to find a conflict that did not meet the traditional out, was that the commanding general of definition of war. Special Forces provided United States Army-Europe had little, if the only force capable of an immediate any, knowledge of the 10th SF Group’s response to the Army’s needs. For 35 requirements or capabilities. No plans years, Special Forces have provided the existed to support the logistics require- Army with its best capability of meeting ments of 50 battalions of partisans.31 contingencies below the threshold of war. In a time of tight budgets, SF opponents saw the new units as the least critical to the Army. With “massive retaliation” being the words commonly used to sum- Joseph R. Fischer is a marize the official defense policy of the historian with the U.S. U.S. in the 1950s, the three SF groups Army Special Operations appeared extraneous. Also, many Army Command at Fort Bragg. He officers still saw unconventional warfare has nearly 20 years of com- as, at best, ineffective and, at worst, ille- missioned service in both gal and unethical. Special Forces support- active and reserve compo- ers doubted the organization would survive. nents, including service as commander of a In 1959, the CIA sought the Army’s mechanized-infantry company in the 3rd assistance in countering a growing threat Armored Division, as commander of an A- from communist guerrillas against the detachment in the 7th Special Forces Laotian government. The Army turned to Group and as a history instructor at the the 77th SF Group to conduct the mission. U.S. Military Academy at West Point. As a Most of the training that Special Forces major in the Army Reserve, he is assigned soldiers had received centered around con- to the Army Special Forces Command. He ducting guerrilla operations. It seemed is a graduate of the Army Command and logical that any group of soldiers trained General Staff College, the Infantry Officer to foment a guerrilla war possessed the Advanced Course and the Special Forces qualifications to defeat one. When the first Qualification Course. He received his teams deployed to Laos from Fort Bragg in Ph.D. in history from Penn State Universi- 1959 in an operation eventually code- ty in 1994. named White Star, they started Special Forces down a new path. The Army’s fore- most experts in insurgency became mas- Notes: 1 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard, ters of counterinsurgency. President John ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, F. Kennedy particularly liked the idea of 1984), pp. 480-81. using Special Forces as low-visibility point 2 A number of factors differentiate the three envi- men for the military in the battle against ronments, the most important being the level of hos- what was perceived to be Soviet-sponsored tilities present. In war, the weapons available for use may range from nuclear to conventional munitions. guerrilla wars. SF advocates found Normally the goals are clear and are stated in mili- renewed support in high places. With con- tary terms (e.g., “Invade the Continent of Europe,” or siderable prodding from the White House, “Evict Iraqi Forces from Kuwait”). Armed combat is the Army reluctantly authorized an assumed necessary. Under a conflict environment, active-duty strength of seven groups, with the goal is frequently to deter escalation to war and

38 Special Warfare resolve the conflict. Combat is possible, but the 15 Both Volckmann and Donald Blackburn were weapons are limited to conventional munitions, with assigned to the 11th Division when word reached strict rules of engagement to limit unnecessary dam- them that their unit was to surrender. Volckmann age. Recent U.S. operations in Somalia provide the requested permission from his division commander, best example of this kind of operating environment. Brig. Gen. William Brougher, to ignore the order and Finally, military operations in a peacetime environ- escape through enemy lines with the intention of ment have as their goal the further continuation of establishing a resistance movement in the enemy’s peace. The use of force is considered undesirable. See rear. Brougher agreed to list the two men as missing FM 100-5, Operations (Washington, D.C.: Depart- in action when the division surrendered. See Russell ment of the Army, 1993), p. 2-1. W. Volkmann, We Remained: Three Years Behind 3 Alfred Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Enemy Lines in the Philippines (New York: W.W. Origins (Washington, D.C.: National Defense Univer- Norton & Co., 1954), pp. 40-41. sity Press, 1983), p. 149. 16 Maj. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby, ed., The Guer- 4 The term “unconventional warfare” refers to sab- rilla Resistance Movement in the Philippines (Tokyo: otage, escape and evasion, and guerrilla warfare U.S. Army Forces Pacific, 1948), 2:44. (insurgency). 17 Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its 5 Most colonial powers had experience with coun- Origins, p. 30. terguerrilla warfare, but the U.S. may well have 18 Ibid. been the most successful at it. The U.S. Marine 19 Ibid. Corps eventually compiled a handbook on its experi- 20 Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its ences with counterinsurgency that remains excep- Origins, p. 71. tionally current in spite of its 1940 copyright. See 21 Headquarters, Far East Command Liaison FAWMC 2890, Small Wars Manual (Washington, Detachment (Korea), 8240th Army Unit, Guerrilla D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1940). We Operations Outline, 1953, by Lt. Col. Jay D. Vander- also employed guerrilla units during the American pool, OIC Guerrilla Division, 22 January 1953, filed Revolution and the Civil War. with Staff Visit of Col. Bradford Butler Jr., March 6 Dutch, Belgian, French Canadian, South African 1953, Record Group 319, Army-Chief of Special War- and New Zealand soldiers were also in the Jed- fare, 1951-54, National Archives as quoted in Pad- burghs, though in small numbers. See Jedburgh dock, U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Origins, p. 102. Team Listing, Jedburgh Papers, USASOC History 22 Many of the partisans working along the west and Archives, Fort Bragg, N.C. coast were natives of Hwanghaese and therefore 7 S. J. Lewis, Jedburgh Team Operations in Sup- were very familiar with the area. port of the 12th Army Group, August 1944 (Fort 23 McClure was well-positioned to make such an Leavenworth, Kan.: Combat Studies Institute, 1991), argument. In 1951, Secretary of the Army Frank Pace p. 60. had appointed him as the ranking officer in a newly 8 John W. Shaver III, “Office of the Strategic Ser- created special staff department at Pentagon level, vices: Operational Groups in France During World the Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare. This War II, July-October 1944” (Master’s dissertation, office had proponency not only for psychological oper- U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, ations but also for unconventional operations. 1993), p. 3. 24 Charles M. Simpson III, Inside the Green Berets: 9 Ibid. The First Thirty Years (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 10 Miscellaneous Records of Operational Group A, 1983), p. 16; and interview with retired MSgt. John OSS-OG After Action Report-Italy, OSS Records, Dolin conducted 21 December 1993, USASOC Histo- USASOC History and Archives, Fort Bragg, N.C., p. 2. ry and Archives, Fort Bragg, N.C. 11 Stilwell’s reaction to the initial offer of OSS sup- 25 Headquarters, The Infantry School, Fort Ben- port was anything but encouraging. He was on record ning, Ga., Memorandum to the Commanding Gener- as claiming that guerrillas operated outside the legal al, Infantry Center, subject: Analysis and Suggested framework of war and that they were capable of doing re Gen. J. Lawton Collins’ Conference, 5 April 1951, little more than “shadow boxing” with the enemy. See from Lt. Col. Russell W. Volckmann, 9 April 1951, Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, p. 32. filed with Psy War 337 (16 April 1951). Record Group 12 The OSS did eventually establish a presence in 319, Army-Chief of Special Warfare, 1951-54, TS China, training thousands of guerrillas for opera- Decimal Files, Box 12, National Archives. tions against the Japanese and, at times, Chinese 26 Russell W. Volckmann to Beverly E. Lindsey, 21 communists. Organized into “columns” of 1,000 men, March 1969, in Volckmann Papers, USASOC these units, along with their American advisers, Archives, Fort Bragg, N.C. struck targets from the Chinese coast to the Mongo- 27 All of the 3,000 positions Volckmann secured lian border. See Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the came from the Ranger companies the Army had acti- Sun: The American War with Japan (New York: Vin- vated for the Korean conflict. tage Books, 1985), p. 462. 28 Interview with retired MSgt. John Dolin. 13 Ibid., p. 464. 29 Interview with Caesar J. Civitella, 20 October 14 David W. Hogan Jr., U.S. Army Special Opera- 1988, USSOCOM, MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. tions in World War II (Washington D.C.: Center for 30 Interview with retired MSgt. John Dolin. Military History, 1992), p. 110. 31 Ibid.

April 1995 39 A Special Breed of Officer: The Special Forces Warrant Officer

by CWO3 Shaun Driscoll

In 1983, the commanding general of the because of their training, qualifications JFK Special Warfare Center presented a and mission. proposal to the Department of the Army for the creation of a new warrant-officer Continuity specialty for Special Forces. In June 1984, Originally called special-operations the first group of 40 SF warrant officers technicians, Special Forces warrant offi- was appointed at Fort Bragg. cers were conceived, based on a doctrinal The 11 years since then have seen the decision, as a replacement for the SF creation and development of an elite corps detachment executive officer, a first lieu- of officers unique to SF — warrant offi- tenant, to provide officer continuity and cers who go beyond the original role of expertise. The XO’s role was essentially to “officer technician” to lead, train and manage administration and logistics; the advise in the demanding environment of SF warrant officer had more to offer. He special operations. was designed to be the tactical and techni- Warrant officers, unlike other officers, cal expert, regional authority, primary are single-track specialists who have no adviser to the detachment commander, functional area or secondary occupational and the detachment chief of staff. The specialty. The Army’s traditional definition warrant officer was ideally suited to of a warrant officer is “An officer appointed replace the XO, because, unlike the other by warrant by the Secretary of the Army officers, he came from the ranks of the SF based upon a sound level of technical and detachment and was frequently one of the tactical competence. The warrant officer is most experienced soldiers on the team. a highly specialized expert and trainer In addition to SF-related schooling, the who, by gaining progressive levels of exper- warrant officer possesses regional abilities tise and leadership, operates maintains, and a language capability. During the Spe- administers, and manages the Army’s cial Forces Warrant Officer Basic Course, equipment, support activities, or technical he receives further training in advanced systems for an entire career.” special-operations techniques; staff organi- Although part of the traditional defini- zation and procedures; combined tactics to tion accommodates Special Forces warrant brigade level; regional studies; training officers, they are distinct not only because management; computer skills; survival, of their combat role — they are the Army’s evasion, resistance and escape; Psychologi- only warrant officers with a direct ground- cal Operations and Civil Affairs. combat role and are eligible for the Com- The warrant officer assigned to the A- bat Infantryman’s Badge — but also

40 Special Warfare detachment provides officer continuity. He The decrease in applicants can probably remains on the team much longer than be attributed to the 180A program’s hav- other officers and many of the NCOs. It is ing exhausted the force’s supply of soldiers this continuity that makes the warrant, qualified by the original prerequisites — now called the assistant detachment com- MOS 180A demanded too much of the mander, the person best-qualified to force. The Special Operations Proponency advise the detachment commander and to Office of the JFK Special Warfare Center manage the mid- and long-range training and School re-evaluated the program’s plans of the detachment. The assistant prerequisites and concluded that they detachment commander doesn’t devote were not a sound representation of what himself to administration and logistics as the force could offer. did the XO. He focuses on those skill areas For example, SOPO found that the aver- unique to his MOS, including Special age length of “team time” in Special Forces Forces operations and intelligence — the (in grades E-6 through E-9) was four years. cornerstone of his training. This average detachment time holds true today — many soldiers serve their second Growth problems SF assignment in SWCS, not on a detach- Like many successful new programs, the ment. Another unrealistic requirement Special Forces warrant-officer program was the need for three MOSs. This require- encountered problems during its growth. ment was met more often by applicants The program’s own entry-level prerequi- from Fort Bragg-based SF groups than by sites created hurdles for those aspirants those from other groups. Although all the who wanted to take the career challenge. SF groups conducted cross-training, the Initial prerequisites included three CMF 18 groups based at Fort Bragg could better MOSs, a 2/2 language rating and four years afford to send their NCOs to the MOS-pro- of Special Forces experience. Although the ducing courses there. force seemed to have sufficient applicants Another problem was the lack of unit during the first two years of accessions, the command emphasis on the 180A program. response soon slowed dramatically. Change is not always easy, and effective change seldom occurs quickly. Some com-

The Special Forces war- rant officer provides conti- nuity of team leadership and focuses on skill areas unique to his specialty, including SF operations and intelligence.

U.S. Army photo

April 1995 41 manders and their senior enlisted advisers assignments demonstrating soldiers’ experi- were reluctant to embrace the new war- ence and potential as small-unit leaders. On rant-officer concept — they perceived it as the average these candidates have more a threat to the professional development of than 14 years of education. aspiring detachment commanders since it Another common denominator among eliminated the XO position, and as a bur- NCOs selected for candidacy is their den on the NCO corps because it lured desire to lead as officers and to make a away potential SF team sergeants. Others qualitative difference on the A-detach- thought that a warrant officer’s duties ment. Power, wealth and status are not would conflict with or even usurp the team the common motives among SF warrant sergeant’s role. These perceptions were officers — job satisfaction is probably their largely based upon lack of knowledge about number-one motive. the program; they later proved to be A recent example of the desired MOS untrue. Ultimately, the senior leadership of 180A candidate with a balance of experi- the SF community provided the emphasis ence and potential is WO1 Robert Buderus. necessary for the reluctant few to recognize Buderus had eight years of active federal the doctrinal difference and the enhancing service when he applied, was a sergeant quality of the SF warrant officer. first class and an ANCOC graduate. His SF experience included more than four years of Profile team time as an 18D and 18B in the 7th SF Current 180A prerequisites call for staff Group. His conventional service included a sergeants and above, a CMF 18 MOS, a tour in Korea as an infantryman and a tour minimum of three years’ time on an A- in the 82nd Airborne Division as a rifle detachment, a score of 85 or better on the team leader in the 3rd Battalion, 505th Defense Language Aptitude Battery, com- Regiment. pletion of the SF ANCOC after Oct. 3, 1994 In addition to his other military train- or SF O&I qualification, and letters of rec- ing, Buderus possessed a 2/2 Spanish rat- ommendation from commanders at the ing and was qualified as a Ranger and as detachment, company, battalion and group a military-free-fall jumpmaster. With his levels. previous record of high achievement in Recent MOS 180A applicants selected for other service schools, it was no surprise candidacy were SFCs who averaged 11.6 that Buderus was named the distin- years of active federal service and 4.9 years guished honor graduate of both his SF of detachment time (four years is the aver- O&I class and his class in the Warrant age for the entire CMF) and were gradu- Officer Candidate School at Fort Rucker, ates of the SF Advanced NCO Course. Typ- Ala. Typically, SF WO candidates, like ical candidates have language ratings Buderus, take many of the top honors at (many exceeding the entry-level 1+/1+), the WOCS. high aptitude scores and high scores on the Army Physical Readiness Test (under the Three hurdles grading criteria of the 17-21 age group), The stress of WOCS is the first hurdle and a demonstrated history of high the SF warrant-officer candidate must achievement. overcome. Six weeks and four days long, This history normally demonstrates a the course has turned back many candi- pattern of graduation honors from Army dates who lacked the commitment. This service schools including Ranger School, the is the purpose of the course — simply to SF Assistant Operations and Intelligence find out who’s serious and who’s not. Sergeant Course and SF ANCOC. Other Those who quit are not penalized; they typical attributes include high-quality resume their NCO careers. Those who do “troop” or conventional time as squad and complete WOCS are conditionally section leaders in a Ranger battalion, the appointed as WO1s, by warrant, by the 82nd Airborne Division, or other infantry Secretary of the Army.

42 Special Warfare The next hurdle for the newly appointed warrant officer is the SF Warrant Officer Basic Course, which provides the myriad of subjects unique to MOS 180A. This 18-week course is taught by senior SF warrant offi- cers and further enhances the tactical and technical abilities of its students. Graduates of SF WOBC are awarded MOS 180A — a contingency to formalize their conditional appointments. Many of the new 180As will go on to language training or other specialty training prior to their first assignments. In some cases the complete training period, including a tour at the Defense Language Institute at Monterey, Calif., can be as long as 24 months. In terms of dollars and time, this initial training investment exceeds, on average, all other fields. Because of this ini- tial front-end-loaded investment, the SF warrant officer becomes a significant asset to his commander and the commanders to follow. The third hurdle is the challenge to the new warrant officer to complete his transi- tion from NCO to officer. This hurdle is open-ended; for most 180As, the transition is a growing experience that allows them to adapt to increased responsibilities, authori- U.S. Army photo ty and expectations. After 24 months of Graduates of the SF Warrant Officer Basic Course receive the MOS 180A and face the chal- successful warrant-officer service, the WO1 lenge of the transition from SF NCO to SF warrant officer. is not only promoted to CWO2 but also commissioned. Under current timelines, SF then later in company-, battalion- and warrant officers can expect to be promoted group-headquarters positions. Most have to CWO3 as regular Army officers with commanded detachments, some in combat, about seven years of warrant service (five and continue to command while assigned years after CWO2), to CWO4 with 12 years, to the detachment level. Sometimes as and to CWO5 with 17 years of warrant ser- many as 50 percent of these officers are in vice. For the young sergeant first class with command at any given time. 8-10 years of active federal service, 12 All warrant officers may command years to CWO4 is an attractive opportuni- (preferably as a CWO2 or after at least ty. Promotion opportunities for each grade one successful rating period as a WO1), in the Army warrant-officer corps are as and commissioned warrant officers follows: 80 percent for CWO3; 76 percent (CWO2s and above) have the same author- for CWO4; and 44 percent for CWO5. MOS ity granted to all other officers. Most SF 180A has consistently exceeded the DA warrant officers will command A-detach- averages for promotion to CWO3 and ments at some point during their careers. CWO4 — a record indicative of the quality Some 180As have commanded during of soldiers in this specialty. more of their team time than not, includ- ing combat. SF warrant officers should Assignments serve as assistant detachment comman- Today, SF warrant officers serve in all ders (or detachment commanders when SF groups, primarily on detachments, appropriate) at the detachment level for a minimum of five years, but they may serve

April 1995 43 up to 14 years on detachments if required. role, the senior 180A at company, battal- This detachment-level assignment should ion and group levels will advise the com- be considered “branch-qualifying.” mander on all warrant-officer matters. All These time parameters are created to job descriptions (basic, senior and master) provide maximum utilization and continu- allow for the command role of the SF war- ity for WO1s, CWO2s and CWO3s on rant officer. Because of the dynamics of detachments (two of the six WO detach- the operational environment, a comman- ment slots are grade-coded for CWO3s). der may elect to have a warrant officer Other professional-development guidance (any grade) command a separate task- will be addressed in the MOS 180A chap- organized element. The 180A is fully capa- ter of DA Pamphlet 600-11, Warrant Offi- ble of both assuming this role and com- cer Professional Development, that is now manding the mission. being staffed through Army channels. Beyond the A-detachment, SF warrant Growth dynamics officers serve as operations and intelli- Because of their abilities, SF warrant gence officers in Special Forces companies, officers are much in demand throughout battalions, groups and, recently, in theater the Army SOF and joint communities. The SOCs. SF warrants are primarily opera- field is continually identifying upward and tors, and about 95 percent of their assign- lateral areas for growth, but because of ments are in the SF groups. Small num- manpower constraints, the current strate- bers of senior warrant officers will also gy for growth is to fill the need, validate or serve in the U.S. Special Operations Com- “grow into” the position and then seek mand, the U.S. Army Special Operations authorization for the billet. Command, the U.S. Army Special Forces For example, the theater special-opera- Command, the SWCS and the Joint Readi- tions commands, or SOCs, have 180As ness Training Center. serving in operations/plans and intelli- gence/targeting staff roles. With their Job descriptions unique expertise and regional skills, SF To accommodate the growth and doctri- WOs enhance the SOC’s planning and nal presence of MOS 180A, job descrip- operational abilities. These jobs in the tions for senior and master warrant offi- SOCs are operationally significant and cers have recently been written based on logical for growth. Unfortunately, the the basic MOS 180A job description. The majority of these positions have no perma- basic MOS 180A job description is tailored nent authorizations or billets to support to the detachment level: the permanent assignment of 180As. All Commands in the absence of the detach- billets require a billpayer; as a result, WO ment commander; serves as technical and slots have to be taken “out of hide” from tactical authority in all aspects of Special the SF groups, creating shortages there. Forces operations; supervises all staff Acquiring increased authorizations activities; is the PSYOP and Civil Affairs requires the full support of the SOC and authority; has cultural, regional, and lin- the theater commander in chief, and the guistic abilities; manages the mid-term slots may develop slowly because of cur- and long-term training. rent manpower constraints. In our current The senior and master warrant-officer zero-sum situation, in order for 180A to job descriptions expand the basic role of gain billets, other warrant-officer fields the SF warrant officer to encompass the must lose them. staff duties of SF warrants in company Approximately five percent of MOS operations, battalion operations, group 180A authorizations are in TDA units intelligence and group-operations sections. such as the JFK Special Warfare Center As an additional duty, all senior and mas- and School, and senior warrant officers ter warrant officers serve as senior war- are hand-picked for these assignments. rant advisers to the commander. In this The SWCS authorizations will increase in

44 Special Warfare SF Warrant Officer Job Descriptions

Key to the success of the Special Forces warrant-officer program has been the development of job descriptions which reflect the leadership and doctrinal respon- sibilities at each of the three levels. The job descriptions are as follows: The Special Forces Warrant Officer serves as the assistant detachment command- er, is second in command and commands in the absence of the detachment com- mander. Commands half the SFOD “A” during split-team operations. Provides tactical and technical assistance to the detachment for all Special Forces opera- tions, e.g., direct action, special reconnaissance, unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, psychological operations, counterterrorism, advanced special operations techniques, and/or civil-military activities in support of joint, com- bined or unilateral operations across the operational continuum. Possesses spe- cialized military skills needed to operate in all physical environments and the cultural awareness, regional expertise and linguistic skills for worldwide deploy- ments. Supervises and directs all staff functions to include managing the devel- opment of SFOD “A” mid- and long-range training plans. The Special Forces Senior Warrant Officer serves as the company operations war- rant officer and as the battalion operations warrant officer with a focus on Spe- cial Forces operations and intelligence. The senior warrant officer provides tacti- cal and technical assistance to the commander for all Special Forces operations, e.g., direct action, special reconnaissance, unconventional warfare, foreign inter- nal defense, psychological operations, counterterrorism, advanced special opera- tions techniques, and/or civil-military activities in support of joint, combined or unilateral operations across the operational continuum. Possesses specialized military skills needed to operate in all physical environments and the cultural awareness, regional expertise and linguistic skills for worldwide deployments. Advises the commander on all regional considerations pertinent to the opera- tional environment. Commands a task-organized operational element and/or serves on an SFOD “A.” Serves as an instructor/writer in an Army service school. Acts as the senior warrant adviser to the commander, advising the commander on all warrant-officer-related issues. The Special Forces Master Warrant Officer serves as the group operations war- rant officer or as the group intelligence warrant officer in the Special Forces group, with a focus on Special Forces operations and intelligence. The master warrant officer provides tactical and technical assistance to the commander for all Special Forces operations, e.g., direct action, special reconnaissance, uncon- ventional warfare, foreign internal defense, psychological operations, counterter- rorism, advanced special operations techniques, and/or civil-military activities in support of joint, combined or unilateral operations across the operational continu- um. Possesses specialized military skills needed to operate in all physical envi- ronments and the cultural awareness, regional expertise and linguistic skills for worldwide deployments. Advises the commander on all regional considerations pertinent to the operational environment. Commands a task-organized opera- tional element and serves in key staff positions above group level. Acts as the senior warrant adviser to the commander, advising the commander on all war- rant-officer-related issues. — CWO3 Shaun Driscoll

April 1995 45 time to enhance the Center and School’s descriptions that provide a better doctri- ability to develop doctrine and training nal focus. The field has evolved well and to train entry-level warrant officers beyond the ambiguities of the “special and SF soldiers in specialty-skill areas. operations technician” to the refined rele- vant role of the Special Forces warrant Evolution officer. In our current military structure, Since 1984, the original 40 SF warrant MOS 180A is one of a kind. Its evolution is officers have been joined by nearly 350 apparent today as SF warrant officers others in MOS 180A. In bringing their worldwide lead, train, advise and com- experience as NCOs to the leadership of mand Special Forces units, meeting the SF units, these warrant officers have demands of our operational environment brought an unprecedented change to the worldwide. SF community. They have been instru- mental in the activation of Branch 18 by pulling up the slack and commanding CWO3 Shaun Driscoll is detachments in the absence of captains. the MOS 180A manager in Branch 18 would have had a difficult road the Special Operations Pro- to health had it not been for MOS 180A. ponency Office at the JFK On the battlefield, MOS 180As have led Special Warfare Center and and served on A-detachments in a direct School. His prior assign- ground-combat role — in two theaters of ments include serving in the operation to date. SF warrants are 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Infantry, as a enmeshed in our day-to-day worldwide squad leader; and in the 1st and 3rd bat- operations as key players and are there- talions of the 10th SF Group as an SF fore in harm’s way every day. The combat weapons sergeant, intelligence sergeant accomplishments of MOS 180A alone are a and later as both assistant commander historical precedent. and detachment commander on several A- As a result of identity confusion in both detachments. He participated in Opera- joint and foreign environments, in April of tions Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Provide 1994 the commanding general of the Comfort and Silver Anvil. He is a graduate SWCS elected to delete the term “techni- of the SF Warrant Officer Advanced cian” from the MOS title of 180A. Divorced Course and the Defense Language Institute from the term “technician,” MOS 180A has (German). He holds a bachelor’s degree further refined its identity by changing its from Western New England College and is principal duty titles and by developing a candidate for a master’s degree from senior- and master-warrant-officer job Campbell University.

46 Special Warfare Officer Career Notes Special Warfare

Senior warrant-officers may The Special Warfare Center and School recommends that commanders of serve additional duty SF units appoint their senior warrant officer the additional duty of senior warrant-officer adviser. The adviser would become the unit focal point for all warrant-officer professional-development information. Interested war- rant officers can request an SF warrant-officer professional-development briefing mailout by calling the SWCS Special Operations Proponency Office at DSN 239-2415/9002 or commercial (910) 432-2415/9002.

Officers should branch- Field-grade SF officers with a functional area of 39 should attempt to qualify before FA39 branch-qualify before their FA39 participation. If an officer is identified to assignment serve an FA39 tour prior to branch qualification, he will serve a maximum of 18 months and then be reassigned to an SF unit to become branch-quali- fied at the major level. For information contact Jeanne Schiller, FA39 man- ager, at DSN 239-6406 or commercial (910) 432-6406.

Important to match WO DA Pamphlet 600-11, Warrant Officer Professional Development, scheduled grade, assignment for release this year, will provide a career road map for warrant officers. The chapter on SF warrant officers will stress the importance of branch-qualify- ing assignments. Important assignments by grade are assistant detachment commander, WO1-CWO3; company operations warrant officer, CWO3; bat- talion operations warrant officer, CWO4; group operations warrant officer, CWO5; and group intelligence warrant officer, CWO5. This pattern empha- sizes the importance of assigning WO1s and CWO2s to the detachment level. Commanders are encouraged to assign warrant officers commensurate with their rank, their abilities and the guidance in DA Pam 600-11.

Army to call Reserve SF During fiscal year 1994, the Army called 22 SF captains to active duty from captains to active duty the Army Reserve to fill shortage year groups. During FY 95 it will call six. These captains will have assigned functional areas and will have the poten- tial to serve full careers in the active component. PERSCOM will manage their career development in their branch and functional-area. To ensure that these officers achieve branch qualification as captains, they should be assigned as detachment commanders as soon as possible. DA selection boards will review each officer’s entire file. Those promoted to major before the fourth anniversary of their call will be granted Regular Army status. All others will compete for voluntary indefinite status after the third anniver- sary of their call. Raters and senior raters should counsel, assess and rate these officers as they do all other captains in their units. For information contact Maj. Dan Adelstein at the SWCS Special Operations Proponency Office, DSN 239-2415/9002 or commercial (910) 432-2415/9002; or Capt. Steve Whitmarsh at the SF Branch, U.S. Total Army Personnel Center, DSN 221-3175/3178 or commercial (703) 325-3175/3178.

April 1995 47 Enlisted Career Notes Special Warfare

SOPO addresses The Special Operations Proponency Office has provided the following questions on 18D information in response to inquiries from the field expressing concern about the health of Military Occupational Specialty 18D: •As of Sept. 30, 1994, the operating strength of 18D was 92 percent. U.S. Total Army Personnel Command’s program guidance is 102 percent. This equates to a shortage of 74 18Ds. More than 220 students are pro- jected to attend 18D training in FY 95. While all other MOS training is being drastically reduced, 18D classes remain full. SOPO and the SF Branch are projecting that MOS 18D will reach PERSCOM program guidance in early FY 96. MOS 18Ds will then have an opportunity to reclassify into MOS 18F and to request duty as drill instructors or as detailed recruiters. •SF medics were excluded from the early-release programs because 18D is an understrength MOS. Department of the Army policy is that no understrength MOS will participate in the drawdown programs. SF engineers at skill-level 3 could not participate for the same reason. •Noncommissioned officers in MOS 18D enjoy healthy promotion selec- tion rates. In the last master-sergeant selection board, 18D had the highest selection rate of CMF 18. •The 18D retention rate is well above the Army average. The initial re- enlistment rate for 18D is 93 percent, as opposed to the Army average of 46 percent. This high re-enlistment rate is partly due to a selective re-enlistment bonus: 18D is the only SF MOS authorized a re-enlist- ment bonus. Currently the SRB for 18D is 2A, 2B. When MOS 18D reaches PERSCOM’s program guidance, the SRB will most likely be terminated. •The physician’s assistant program recently imposed a restriction that applicants not have more than eight years’ time in service. This policy has constrained the accession of 18D soldiers into the program. The Special Forces community had nothing to do with effecting this change in the selection criteria. The time-in-service restriction will allow PA candidates to complete the PA training and to retire as commissioned officers with 20 years of service. •Currently, selected SF medics attend training that certifies them as emergency medical technicians-paramedics (EMT-P). When the SF medical course moves to Fort Bragg, N.C., in FY 96, SF medics will have the opportunity to gain EMT-P certification as part of the Special Forces Qualification Course. Anyone who has questions pertaining to MOS 18D professional develop- ment should contact the Special Operations Proponency Office, DSN 239-9002/8423 or commercial (910) 432-9002; or the SF Branch at DSN 221-8888.

48 Special Warfare Green-to-Gold offers Career-minded enlisted soldiers who have the desire to pursue a college scholarships, commissions degree and future leadership opportunities in the Army are candidates for the Green-to-Gold program. Once they have been approved for the program, active-duty soldiers are released from their service obligation to accept scholarships in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. After com- pleting a degree program and the required ROTC courses and summer camps, scholarship winners earn commissions as second lieutenants. Scholarship winners receive financial assistance toward college tuition and educational fees up to an annual amount of $12,000 (Tier I), $8,000 (Tier II) or $5,000 (Tier III), based on the scholarship award. Each winner also receives $450 per year for textbooks, supplies and required equip- ment. A tax-free subsistence allowance of $150 per month for up to 10 months a school year is also part of the financial package. The tiered scholarship program is new and will permit greater tailoring in the award of funds to eligible applicants. The maximum available scholarship has been increased to $12,000 annually. The tiered award program will be applied beginning with scholarship winners for academic year 1995-96. Two- and three-year scholarships are available for soldiers who have already started college; four-year scholarships at designated schools are available for those who are just beginning. Soldiers who accept the scholarships and complete the commissioning program incur an eight-year service obligation, which can be served on active duty or in the Army Reserve or National Guard. Green-to-Gold winners must be medically qualified to serve as commis- sioned officers in the U.S. Army, must meet Army height and weight standards, be able to pass the Army Physical Fitness Test, and be no older than 25 upon graduation and commissioning. An age waiver of up to four years may be granted based upon time in service. Soldiers must also be high-school graduates or the equivalent, must have a minimum GT score of 110 (two- and three-year applicants only), a SAT score of 850 or an ACT score of 19 (three- and four-year applicants only). A letter of acceptance from a degree-producing college or university offer- ing ROTC, and letters of recommendation from company and battalion commanders must be submitted as part of the application packet. Soldiers should contact their nearest ROTC department for information and assistance in applying for the program. Soldiers overseas should con- tact their education center or the ROTC department of their school of choice. — 1st ROTC Region PAO

April 1995 49 Letters Special Warfare

SF need to be aware The range of this new technolo- CWO4 Harry D. Rider Jr. burning of latest developments gy has made it necessary for the midnight oil in his basement in fire support corps’ deep operations to coordi- office in Flint Kaserne at Bad nate the use of airspace with both Tölz to come up with a plan for Selected personnel from our SF the Air Force and Army aviation. the 18-series MOS and the “S” company recently participated in a Current firing systems can pro- identifier for support personnel. command-post exercise with V cess the mission using both uni- In 1992 I finally saw the “S” Corps. During this exercise I had versal-transverse-mercator grids identifier go into effect. I looked the opportunity to learn about and geo coordinates. at the guidelines for obtaining the some of the recent developments Because its range is so great, “S” identifier and realized that in fire support and some of the the ATACMS gives new meaning the seriousness with which Chief developments planned for the to the term “area of operations.” It Rider had pursued the issue had future. would benefit Special Forces to be somehow been lost. Over the last few years a new aware of what this missile can do After the message came out, missile has been introduced at the and how to call it in. TSOF teams what I saw was every Tom, Dick corps level. The Army Tactical in front of the corps’ position or and Harry putting in for the SQI. Missile System, or ATACMS, is outside the recon interdiction I saw folks requesting the “S” very accurate and can be fired phase line can utilize this missile identifier who had been in the from a multi-rocket launcher sys- both to interdict targets and to unit for less than two years, and tem. The MRLS can fire two mis- protect themselves. They would in the Army less than three. But siles at a time. have to contact the forward opera- based on the guideline of taking The ATACMS are tube-launched, tional base, which, in turn would part in “exercises,” they meet the fin-stabilized, inertially guided mis- contact the special-operations com- requirements. It did not matter siles. They are part of the MTOE mand-and-control element, which that these folks had no real con- for general-support artillery units has a liaison officer inside the cept of special operations (at the assigned to corps and divisions. corps’ deep operations. company and battalion levels), Currently, they are using the JEE and had served only briefly at the missile, which has an unclassified SFC Richard P. Milloy Jr. Special Operations Support Com- range of 124 kilometers and carries Co. B, 1/10th SF Group mand level, or at the one- to four- a payload of 950 baseball-sized star command level (SOCs over- bomblets called M-74 anti-person- seas, USASOC, USSOCOM). nel/anti-materiel munitions. Cov- Requirements for SOF I believe that in order to better ered with a titanium shell, they support SQI should be provide support, personnel who explode on impact and are extreme- more stringent have the “S” identifier should have ly effective against everything but some knowledge of how an ODA, I remember some years ago the thickest armor. The next gener- ODB and ODC are structured. there was much discussion within ation will have even a longer range Many who have the “S” identifier the special-operations community (248 kilometers unclassified) and have no such idea, and, sadly, about getting the “S” identifier for will have global-positioning-system many could not care less. I feel special-operations support per- guidance, making it even more that the intent of Chief Rider, Col. sonnel. This would enable these accurate. Classified data is avail- Scot Crerar and others has been personnel to be identified and able. Another future development, lost. Consequently, many complain assigned within the special-opera- which has been named the JTC that the “S” identifier does them tions community, thereby keeping missile, will have the ability to no good because each MOS branch qualified special-operations sol- attack tanks it detects by sound gives the identifier little, if any, diers in support jobs. I remember and infrared sensors. consideration in assignments.

50 Special Warfare If the guidelines for obtaining pany commander’s business. I call They tend to be rather dry itera- the “S” were more stringent, per- it leading from the front. tions of the nearest service school’s haps the folks of TAPA would In working at a corps HQ, we most newly beloved doctrine, fre- take the SQI as seriously as was have found that conventional quently pressured from vulnerable the original intent. forces expect SOF to be in the best faculty. of physical condition. A corps The naval services, despite their Sgt. Jerry Green needs to know the best way to reputation for adherence to tradi- Special Operations Command employ SF, Rangers and PSYOP, tionalism, are ahead of the Army Central but the constant remarks of the in the area of professional com- MacDill AFB, Fla. officers and NCOs that “Your stan- mentary. The Marine Corps dards screw up the curve on the Gazette frequently has wide-rang- APFT,” tell me they care about PT ing discussions on doctrinal and PT most unforgiving area as well. Believe me, those conven- tactical matters, and the Naval Recently I entered my office and tional guys are watching to see Institute’s Proceedings have an found the incoming and outgoing whether you’ll go the extra mile. excellent forum titled “No One sergeants major fighting over our While running the airfield at Fort Asked Me, But ...” The contents of copy of the January 1995 Special Lewis one weekend in the rain, I these publications often espouse Warfare. I asked that when they noticed someone waving his positions that are markedly differ- finished wrestling with it they let encouragement — it was the corps ent from the pronouncements of me take a look, too. When they commander. the higher leadership. Clearly the brought it in, I asked, “Are there Our section has set a goal to writers consider their communica- any good articles?” They said, “Yes score 300 on the APFT. Since our tions to be open and do not fear sir, the one on PT by Ranger average age is 39, some of us have retribution for thinking and writ- Roach.” to work harder to attain this goal. ing heretically. Their hazard I was not surprised that two Each man draws upon his appears to be limited to embar- Special Forces sergeants major strengths to push himself and oth- rassment if their ideas are seen as with almost 50 years of experience ers. As a result, we all improve in too fey by some readers. between them found the most our strong and weak areas. There I think it would be educational interesting article in the magazine is still plenty of time for those and healthy if SW had a similar to be about PT. In my limited 18 technical skills after 90 minutes of forum where readers could try out years of experience in the infantry hard PT. After all, Ranger Roach their thoughts, describe their and Special Forces, I have found is one of the sharpest officers I experiences and comment on pre- no other area in which the profes- have ever known on history, tac- vious articles — in short, any sub- sional soldier is as unforgiving as tics or a computer, but he never ject that has any relationship to PT. In all good units, PT is where was mad if I turned his computer Special Forces. officers are tested first. All their off for an airfield run. ability to quote history, expound Retired Col. Scot Crerar on the latest doctrine and impress Lt. Col. Ralph E. Saner Jr. Vienna, Va. others with their computer skills G-3, SOCOORD is destroyed by the first rucksack I Corps We believe the suggestion for a march or run that they fall out of. Fort Lewis, Wash. section featuring comments and In 1986-1988, Ranger Roach, commentary is a valid one. In who was a battalion commander, fact, in our January issue we pub- gave his battalion staff a hard hour Magazine needs more lished, in the “Letters” section, a of PT every Friday using the con- professional discussion solicitation to our readers for tinuous-motion exercise. The rest of Since its first publication, I have more comments, letters and dis- the week, he visited a different A- been a subscriber to Special War- cussion of SOF issues. We hope to team in each company. It was the fare. Although I have found it to be create in Special Warfare a forum goal of each A-team in my company a good publication, I think it could for ideas that will promote to make PT so hard for him that he be improved with the addition of a thought and discussion. — Editor. wouldn’t come back, but he always feature that encourages frank pro- returned for more after he had fessional commentary, comments checked the other teams. Some and reflections. I know of no pat- might call this getting into a com- tern for such in Army publications.

April 1995 51 Foreign SOF Special Warfare

Separatist movement grows Discontent with Indonesian rule is escalating among the younger genera- in East Timor tion of East Timor, particularly those citizens born since the island’s annexation during the mid-1970s. East Timor — comprising half of Timor island off northern Australia — was ruled by Portugal until it was invad- ed by Indonesia in 1975. The invasion followed a period of civil strife brought about by Portugal’s withdrawal as colonial administrator. Indonesia formally annexed East Timor the following year, an act still not recognized by the United Nations. While the United States recognizes Indonesia’s annexation of the area, long-standing American policy stress- es that East Timor must be heard on the issue of its status within the Republic of Indonesia. The Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, or Fretilin, has routinely conducted guerrilla actions ever since the 1975 invasion. According to current estimates, Fretilin forces are small, numbering less than 200 personnel. However, the growing popular resentment of Indonesia became embarrassingly evident in November 1994 during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting attended by U.S. President Bill Clinton. Some 29 East Timorese scaled a fence sur- rounding the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta and occupied the embassy com- pound for two weeks. They demanded the release of Timorese resistance leader Zenana Gizmo, jailed for leading an armed uprising, and asked President Clinton to intercede on behalf of the East Timor people. Simul- taneous rioting in the East Timor capital of Dili left four dead and saw additional clashes with police. These continuing incidents, the rising sep- aratist sentiment and a clear polarization of East Timor’s younger gener- ation characterize the island as a potential hotspot. Indonesia maintains an 800-man combat battalion and six territorial battalions, totaling 4,522 personnel, on the island. While territorial units primarily conduct nation- building activities, they also are expected to support combat operations and counterguerrilla actions.

South African Internal and external security problems have increased the importance of military, police forces military-police cooperation in South Africa. In neighboring Mozambique’s form security task force general elections in late October 1994, the Mozambique Liberation Front, or Frelimo, won a highly contested election over its archrival, the Mozam- bique National Resistance, or Renamo, following several years of civil war. Prior to the election, South Africa’s concerns caused the country to deploy a combined task force composed of the South African National Defense Force, or SANDF, and South African police elements along its border with Mozambique. The task force increased patrols along the bor- der to deal with refugees and conflict spillover in the event the elections sparked fresh civil war between Frelimo and Renamo. Various SANDF elements have continued their involvement in other law-enforcement and security-force roles, including crime-prevention and border-patrol duties. This shared mission marks continuing joint efforts by military and police personnel to deal with internal-security problems.

52 Special Warfare Mexico identifies arms The Mexican Attorney General’s Office has identified gunrunning as a trafficking as major problem growing Mexican problem. The demand for guns by criminal groups and by guerrillas is said to be a major cause of the problem, along with the proximity of the United States, which the attorney general’s office calls the “world’s largest manufacturer of all types of weapons.” It is asserted that the movement of weapons from the U.S. into Mexico is a dimension of the overall problem. The Mexican media has also addressed the exis- tence of financial support for guerrilla groups from American and Euro- pean church and civic organizations. The Mexican government’s February decision to more actively confront EZLN guerrillas in southern Mexico was linked, in part, to the claimed discovery of arms caches.

Central Eurasian conflict Continuing armed conflict and turmoil from the Caucasus to Central Asia attracts foreign involvement have attracted outside participants with a sweeping array of affiliations and interests. The variety of combatants illustrates especially well the com- plexity of ethno-national-religious issues in the region and the many agen- das associated with regional instability. Several incidents are notable: Early in 1994, Armenian forces in the disputed region of Nagorno- Karabakh captured and displayed for public view several “Afghan muja- hedin” extremists who had been fighting on behalf of Azeri army forces. As many as 2,500 Afghans have reportedly been serving as mercenaries for Muslim Azeri forces. The Afghan government acknowledges the problem but claims no state involvement. More recently, a Russian report indicated that three “assault elements” of Afghan mujahedin had been dispatched from Azerbaijan to the Chechen Republic — still considered part of Russia despite its claims to indepen- dence. The mujahedin were expected to join the forces of the Chechen presi- dent, who is challenging Moscow’s authority and is also engaged in an ongoing civil war. This report was of particular concern to Russia, because it marked the first known use of Azeri territory as a staging area for Islam- ic extremists sent to operate in Russia and in other countries of the Com- monwealth of Independent States. The Azeri-populated Republic of Nakhichevan (inside Armenia and border- ing Turkey and Iran) was the site of a September 1994 operation conducted by Turkish and Azeri forces against separatists of the Kurdish Worker’s Party, or PKK. About 30 PKK militants were reportedly captured. The PKK, which is heavily involved in drug trafficking as a means of organiza- tional support, is believed to have training camps in Armenia, from which members cross through Nakhichevan into Iran and then into Turkey to carry out operations against the Turkish government. The Central Asian state of Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan and is the site of a continuing civil war, has attracted numerous foreign militants and trainers with Islamic affiliations. According to Russian Border Troops, who by agreement guard the Afghan-Tajik frontier, captured documents substantiate the presence of militants from Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In particular, the Bor- der Troops have noted a marked improvement in opposition-force ambush and attack skills since the arrival of “Arab mercenaries.”

Articles in this section are written by Dr. Graham H. Turbiville Jr., Maj. Thomas E. Sidwell and Maj. Mark Mills of the Foreign Military Studies Office, Combined Arms Command, Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

April 1995 53 Update Special Warfare

USASOC authorizes jumpmaster course. Forbes said. Copies of official jump MFF badges Soldiers must obtain authoriza- records and graduation or qualifica- tion before wearing the badges, tion certificates, along with basic Special-operations forces quali- Forbes said. The commanding gen- personal information, are required fied in military free-fall are now eral of the Special Warfare Center to verify an applicant’s eligibility. authorized to wear new, distinctive and School is the approving author- Once qualification is verified, appli- badges for one of the military’s most ity for students who graduate from cations will be sent to USSOCOM demanding and hazardous skills. the MFF parachutist and jumpmas- for approval. A U.S. Army Special Operations ter courses after Oct. 1, 1994. The Placement of the MFF badge is Command policy outlining applica- USSOCOM commander is the prescribed in AR 670-1, Wear and tions procedures and wear of the Appearance of Army Uniforms and military free-fall, or MFF, Insignia. “An important fact we parachutist and jumpmaster badges must emphasize to everyone is that for Army SOF was approved Dec. 9, the MFF badge is not to be worn in 1994, by Lt. Gen. J.T. Scott, lieu of the parachutist badge, but in USASOC commanding general. conjunction with it,” Forbes said. Gen. Wayne A. Downing, comman- “The MFF badge is considered to be der in chief, U.S. Special Operations a group-four badge, such as the Command, approved the badges for parachutist and air-assault badges. MFF parachutists and jumpmas- Recent changes to AR 670-1 allow ters Oct. 1, 1994. only five badges to be worn at any Active-duty and reserve SOF per- one time. Three of the five may be sonnel assigned or attached to from group four, meaning that a USASOC or to one of its subordi- soldier may wear the MFF, nate commands or units may wear parachutist and air-assault badges the MFF badges while assigned to at the same time.” these units, said Capt. Gary L. A winged dagger pointing sky- Forbes, plans officer for the ward beneath a deployed square USASOC Deputy Chief of Staff for parachute canopy gives the badge Personnel. design a historical significance and Personnel may also wear the Designs copyright James Phillips recognizes SOF MFF capabilities. badges when assigned or attached The new MFF badges: parachutist (top) and jumpmaster. The MFF jumpmaster badge is set to USSOCOM headquarters or to apart from the other badge by a one of its component commands. approving authority for all other five-point star surrounded by a When service members leave a applicants. wreath centered above the USASOC or USSOCOM unit, they USASOC major subordinate com- parachute. are no longer authorized to wear mands are conducting an ad hoc Veterans of combat MFF opera- the badges, Forbes said. The query to identify soldiers who have tions are authorized a bronze star badges may not be worn for official earned MFF skill identifiers, Forbes to be worn on their MFF badge. The photographs. said. After May 1, applications combat jump must be verified and Parachutists may wear the must be submitted directly to the the bronze service star authorized badges once they have completed an SWCS G-1 for validation. before the star can be worn. Appli- approved MFF course or have made Army SOF personnel who quali- cation must be made through the an MFF combat jump. The jump- fied in MFF before Oct. 1, 1994, same procedure as for the basic master badge is worn by those who must submit written application for MFF badge. — Carol Jones, have completed an approved MFF authorization to wear the badges, USASOC PAO

54 Special Warfare Clearinghouse seeks Field Manual 100-23, Peace 60 nonconsecutive days in the area innovative ideas Operations, will be used as the of operation; basis for training soldiers and lead- • Served in combat or hazardous To help maintain pace with an ers in conducting peace operations duty during the operation with increasingly complex and changing around the world. armed opposition, regardless of world, the U.S. Special Operations “With this manual, the Army time in the area; Command is seeking innovative continues the broadening of its •Served as an aircraft crew ideas from anyone who has a better post-Cold War doctrine: doctrine member flying regular missions in way to do things. that is focused on warfighting, yet the operation area; The SOF Clearinghouse was accommodates employment across • Received recommendation for established in January 1994 by the full range of operations,” said the award from the service chief or Gen. Wayne A. Downing. Its pur- Gen. William W. Hartzog, comman- commander of a unified command. pose is to provide a means of har- der of the Army Training and Doc- nessing, nurturing and disseminat- trine Command. SFAS graduates profiled ing innovative ideas throughout the “The discipline, the responsive- Information from the SWCS command. The Clearinghouse ness to a chain of command, the research data base yields the fol- seeks suggestions relating to spe- type of training that soldiers lowing profiles of typical selectees cial operations from anyone, receive that enables them to fight from the Special Forces Assess- whether active-duty, reserve or and win wars apply to peace opera- ment and Selection program: civilian. Topics may include, but tions,” said Rich Rinaldo, one of the Enlisted personnel are not limited to, organizational writers of the manual. • Sergeant (E-5) structure, roles and missions, edu- In developing FM 100-23, doc- • 25 years old cation, training, employment con- trine writers used lessons learned • Have one year of college cepts, personnel policies and com- from recent operations such as • Have five years in the Army mand relationships. Restore Hope in Somalia and Pro- • Have a GT score of 118 Contributions need not be sub- vide Comfort in Iraq. Historical • Achieve a PT score of 244 (17- mitted in any particular format, nor cases were also used, including the year-old standard). is it necessary to submit them 1900 Boxer Rebellion in China and Officers through the chain of command. The the United Nations Operation in • Captain (O-3) Clearinghouse cannot accept classi- the Congo in 1960. • 28 years old fied material or suggestions related • Ranger-qualified to current operations. Soldiers earn DoD medal • Achieve a PT score of 260 (17- The Clearinghouse will acknowl- for Haitian service year-old standard). edge and evaluate each submission. It will either accept the idea, help Military personnel who served in or directly supported Operation 4th POG soldiers receive the author to develop the concept Bronze Stars further, or explain to the author Uphold Democracy in Haiti will why the suggestion cannot be receive the Armed Forces Expedi- Seven members of the 4th accepted. Credit will be given for tionary Medal. PSYOP Group received Bronze those suggestions accepted. Army Gen. John M. Sha- Stars in December for exceptionally Proposals should be mailed to the likashvili, chairman of the joint meritorious service in operations in SOF Clearinghouse, HQ USSO- chiefs of staff, authorized the award Somalia in 1993. COM (SOCC-CIG), 7701 Tampa in late December. The award’s In a Fort Bragg ceremony, Lt. Point Blvd., MacDill AFB, FL opening date is Sept. 16, 1994, the Gen. J.T. Scott, commander of the 33621-5323; or faxed to DSN 299- day initial deployments to Haiti U.S. Army Special Operations Com- 5109 or commercial (813) 840-5109. began. No closing date has been set. mand, presented the medals to Maj. For more information, call Lt. Col. The award is limited to Uphold Gray L. Nichols, Maj. Robert J. Nel- Brad Washabaugh, DSN 968-2646 Democracy participants who actu- son, SSgt. James M. Kalanui, Sgt. or commercial (813) 828-2646. ally served within a roughly 300- Patrick A. McKeever, Spec. Curtis square-mile operations area cen- Agee, Spec. Roger Blankenship and New manual defines tered on Haiti. Personnel who were Spec. Travis Ernst. peace operations not assigned to deployed units may qualify for the award if they meet The Army has published its first at least one specific guideline: field manual defining the principles • Served 30 consecutive days or of peacekeeping operations.

April 1995 55 Book Reviews Special Warfare

We Were Soldiers Once ... and why the fighting at LZ X-Ray was Young. By retired Lt. Gen. Harold so ferocious and unyielding. G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway. Moore and Galloway also inter- New York: Harper Perennial, 1993. viewed some of the families who ISBN 0-06-097576-8. 471 pages, lost sons and husbands at LZ X- $13. Ray. These interviews provide a look at “the other face of war” sel- This book is, without question, dom examined by contemporary the best volume written to date on military writers — the devastating infantry combat in Vietnam. effects those losses had on Ameri- There are a number of features can families. The sacrifices made that distinguish this book from the by those left at home are as moving chronicles of others. First and fore- as any acts of heroism accom- most, it was written by two men plished by the soldiers of the 7th who were there in November 1965 Cavalry on the battlefield. at Landing Zone X-Ray, in the Ia The book discusses only briefly Drang Valley, for the first major the American political/military battle between the forces of North strategy in Vietnam; it is not about Vietnam and the men of the 1st the failure of the American political Battalion, 7th Cavalry. Harold system in the conduct of the Viet- Moore, then a lieutenant colonel in into his thinking as the ground nam War. The book is about sol- command of the 1/7, and Joe Gal- commander as events of the battle diers in combat — up close and per- loway, a noted war correspondent, unfolded. He discusses how he sonal. If you can read this book provide a blow-by-blow account of used artillery and close air support without being deeply emotionally one of the most savage battles of the to halt the multiple attacks of the affected, you have no heart. Vietnam War. North Vietnamese and how he This is not a book to be read The book is gutsy, absolutely attempted to employ his men in quickly. Because so many first-per- realistic and filled with heart- the most desperate of circum- son narratives are included, it is rending and inspiring examples of stances — inflicting maximum sometimes difficult to follow every common men caught in the meat damage on the enemy while con- soldier’s story. This is meant as no grinder of combat and rising to the serving his combat power as best criticism of Moore and Galloway’s occasion through the performance he could. efforts. The first-person narratives of uncommon acts of bravery and Moore and Galloway returned to of the soldiers who fought the battle heroism — many of which went Vietnam 25 years after the battle to add immeasurably to the book’s unrecognized because so many of conduct interviews with the enemy realism. The book accurately the participants did not survive commanders. These interviews pro- reflects, as well as a book can, the the battle. The book lays open the vide key insights into the thinking terrifyingly tumultuous events of most horrifying ordeals faced by of the Vietnamese commanders and combat — the gut-wrenching fear, men in close combat. Moore and their leadership. The Vietnamese bone-numbing fatigue, exhilaration Galloway must have spent years had never faced large numbers of and comradeship that only combat conducting interviews with the Americans on the battlefield before. veterans can know. If you read only privates, sergeants, and young Their orders were to win at any one book this year, make it this one. officers who fought the battle cost. The North Vietnamese mili- either as individual or as members tary leadership felt that their first Lt. Col. Robert B. Adolph Jr. of squads, platoons or companies. major battle with the Americans Joint Special Operations Cmd. Moore himself provides insights must be a victory — which explains Fort Bragg, N.C.

56 Special Warfare The Guts to Try: The Untold sort out the aftermath, the British mand. For while the operations Story of the Iran Hostage Res- who shared the airport from which were as different as night and day, cue Mission by the On-Scene some were launched and to which questions concerning the strategic Desert Commander. By retired some fewer returned, could have objectives were as relevant in Iran Col. James H. Kyle. New York: saved much of the effort that fol- in 1980 as in Somalia in 1993. If we Orion Books, 1990. ISBN: 0-517- lowed. They provided the message can be said to have “low-tech-ed” 57714-3. 352 pages. $21.95. from which the title is taken, “To Eagle Claw, did we not perhaps you-all from us-all, for having the “high-tech” Gothic Serpent, and if Col. Jim Kyle has written the guts to try,” delivered with typical the results were similar, are there insider’s guide to Desert One. It is British understatement and not lessons to be learned from both? by far the most direct and accurate aplomb. The “new world order,” “opera- depiction of Operation Eagle Claw, Questions may be raised about tions other than war,” “coalition the attempt to rescue the Ameri- the relevance of a highly personal warfare” and other current buzz- cans held hostage in Iran in 1980. work concerning the “pickup ball words seem as new and different Other works have sketched the game” which went terribly awry in today to most special operators as training and planning for what the Iranian Desert. After all, should the current SOF superstructure would have been the “takedown” of not the Goldwater-Nichols reform, would have seemed to Kyle, King the sites at which the Americans and their compatriots at the time of were held; others have criticized Operation Eagle Claw. While the the hand dealt the men who made specifics may not seem relevant, the attempt; others have discussed lessons learned anywhere in the the seemingly fatal obsession with crucible of combat, including macro OPSEC in the planning and train- decisions at echelons above reality, ing and the White House view; but should never have to be relearned none are written from the opera- by the next generation of soldiers, tional vantage point provided by statesmen or diplomats. “Kemo” Kyle. To that end, this book is highly Kyle’s book is written by a spe- recommended. It can be appreciat- cial-operations professional who ed and applied by both the novice lived the entire experience. His and the most experienced special- rivetting tale spills forth from the operations professional. While the ground-up planning and the give- Holloway Commission report fits and-take of forming the joint task the same category, it is not often force, through the exhaustive and that a first-person source is avail- realistic rehearsals (which have able to flesh out the official since become the standard of such account. The Guts to Try is must operations), the “go/no-go” deci- reading for those who are heading sion-making at the highest levels for joint special-operations billets of our government, the euphoric USSOCOM, Program 11 budgeting, and for those who count themselves execution, the “abort from hell,” sub-unified command special-opera- as serious practitioners of the spe- and the official and personal after- tions commands in every theater, cial-operations craft. As those who action review of what must have AC and RC Special Forces groups, a read the book will know, while been gut-wrenching proportions. full Ranger regiment, the best coun- Eagle Claw might have been a As one of the participants so terterrorism force in the world, pickup ball game, it was an all-star aptly put it at a most propitious Army, Air Force, and Navy special- pickup ball game. We had no finer point in the operation, this was the operations commands, all in some military professionals in our inven- “Super Bowl” of U.S. military spe- part due to the efforts of profession- tory than those who strove at cial operations, and although it did als like Kyle, have obviated the Desert One. not succeed, the sheer magnitude of necessity to study the lessons the obstacles in the path to success learned there? Ask that question of Col. Henry Watson III were such that no other nation the unit members of the 1st Battal- OASD-SO/LIC could even have contemplated ion, 160th Special Operations Avia- mounting such an effort. While it tion Regiment; the 3rd Battalion, would be left to the Holloway Com- 75th Ranger Regiment; and the mission and the U.S. Congress to U.S. Army Special Operations Com-

April 1995 57 Special Warfare

This publication is approved for public release; distribution is unlimited ■ Headquarters, Department of the Army

Department of the Army JFK Special Warfare Center and School ATTN: AOJK Ð DT Ð PBM Fort Bragg, NC 28307 Ð 5000

PIN: 073630Ð000