Mission Essential: Leveraging and Protecting Our Special Forces

By Phillip Lohaus 

Military leaders must build the optimal balance between special and conventional forces, or risk relearning the lessons of previous conflicts in a future one.

Today, special operations forces are arguably more valued than at any point in U.S. history, and their responsibilities are increasing. But as defense spending is cut and as SOF cooperate more closely with conventional forces, military leaders must be careful to define each force's role and to preserve their strengths.
Personnel-wise, special operations forces fared relatively well during the Pentagon’s recent budget cuts: the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review authorizes additional manpower increases for US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). If the recommendations of the QDR are implemented, the command’s manpower levels will have risen 22 percent since 2008 — the height of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.



To help fund these increases, the command has justified moving annual supplemental funding to its base budget to avoid the cuts that are affecting conventional forces. Yet even in fiscal year 2013, USSOCOM still relied on supplemental funds for a large portion of its budget, and the total funds available per soldier each year are projected to decrease through fiscal year 2015. Although the 2014 review calls on SOF to take the lead on “distributed operations to defeat al-Qaeda,” among other priorities, it makes no mention of how SOF will counter a metastasizing threat with fewer future resources.
Moreover, operations forces (SOF) are not exempt from the effects of sequestration. If sequestration continues, USSOCOM will lose around $1 billion in funding, or about 13 percent of its requested budget for fiscal year 2015. As the commander of Special Operations Forces–Europe put it, the “open checkbook approach to SOF has passed.”
If the open-checkbook approach has recently passed for SOF, it has long since passed for conventional forces. And because SOF frequently rely on conventional support, decreased funding to conventional forces will impact the former’s responsiveness and agility. Increasing resources to SOF at the expense of conventional forces will increase intercommand tensions and lead to a misuse of SOF as they fill in to address issues that conventional forces might better address.

A window of opportunity to expand knowledge of unconventional warfare techniques to the conventional force may have recently opened.

The tendency of leaders to think of SOF as a panacea to foreign policy troubles is not new, nor is it necessarily characteristic of a feeble strategic mind. Because they are viewed as “force multipliers,” it is tempting to regard SOF as an inexpensive solution to national security problems or as a politically safer choice than deploying conventional troops. In his May 2014 address to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, for example, President Obama announced that 9,800 American troops will stay in Afghanistan until 2015; approximately one-third of these will be SOF. But as witnessed at Tora Bora, the force multiplier effect of SOF is conceptual, not actual, and SOF cannot always substitute for larger levels of conventional troops. By some estimates, it would take closer to 25,000 troops — most of them conventional — to maintain security in Afghanistan.
Taking into account the lessons of history, and despite the complex current budget environment, the leaders of USSOCOM and conventional forces should take three steps to build the optimal balance between their forces in the future: (1) clearly delineate the respective roles of SOF and conventional forces; (2) promote flexibility and coordination while also protecting skills that take careers, not days or months, to build; and (3) transfer much of the responsibility for irregular warfare to the conventional force. Without pursuing these reforms, the military risks needing to relearn the lessons of previous conflicts in a future one.

A Clear Delineation of Roles
Joint Doctrine literature spells out the definition of SOF as units that are “particularly well suited for denied and politically sensitive environments” that apply their unique capabilities in circumstances “for which there are no broad conventional force requirements.” The vagueness of this definition naturally leads to confusion: how should we define precisely what constitutes a “politically sensitive” environment? In which circumstances are there no broad conventional force requirements? Separately, the current definition does not address leadership dynamics: under what circumstances should SOF lead conventional forces and vice versa? What should be the limits of SOF responsibilities with respect to irregular warfare? Moreover, an even more fundamental question remains unanswered: what makes SOF special?
Over the past seven decades, SOF have conducted a wide set of missions that relate to both direct and indirect action. Indirect action is a term to describe the efforts of the military to influence events outside of combat. It includes things like civil affairs, information operations, and foreign military training. Many of the SOF missions could also have been performed by conventional forces, and many conventional missions could also have been conducted by SOF. SOF are an important and vital tool for national security decision makers, but as their power, size, and influence increase, precisely defining their unique value will optimize their utility and reduce the chances that they will be misused.

The tendency of leaders to think of SOF as a panacea to foreign policy troubles is not new, nor is it necessarily characteristic of a feeble strategic mind.

The true value of SOF is the innovation that their employment brings to the battlefield and to military doctrine. This has been the case in both conventional conflicts in which SOF have played a supporting role and in unconventional ones in which they have taken a leading role.
But SOF’s ability to develop new techniques and to innovate in new war-fighting environments does not, and should not, equate with a monopoly on the application of the doctrines that they pioneer. In many situations, SOF-developed doctrine may be even more effective when it is transmuted to the larger conventional force. A prime example of this is irregular warfare doctrine. Given that Islamic extremist insurgencies appear to be increasing in size and frequency around the world, the U.S. military should protect and promote its ability across all services to conduct counterinsurgency. It may have made sense for SOF to keep primary responsibility for the indirect approach when counterinsurgency seemed like a passing phase of American warfare. It makes much less sense to do so now, when it will likely remain a central tenet of American war fighting for the foreseeable future.
In the past, responsibilities for irregular warfare have roughly followed the arc of military funding, with SOF picking up the responsibility for missions such as peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance during times of decreased spending. This cycle is also partially to blame for the nature of the relationship between SOF and conventional forces. Clearly delineating which force should take the lead on specific issues or in particular contingencies will curtail redundant training, reduce the likelihood of cross-command tension, and aid in streamlining command and control when forces cooperate on the battlefield.

A Measured Approach to Flexibility
Given the uncertainty surrounding current budget dynamics, politicians and military commanders from both the conventional and SOF communities must square the circle between a decrease in resources and an expanding spectrum of national security threats. To address this challenge, military commanders have called on their forces to become more flexible and adaptive. This policy, if not implemented carefully, risks creating a force of generalists at the expense of developing soldiers with deep expertise.
Skills relevant to the indirect approach are particularly vulnerable to increased calls for flexibility. For example, sophisticated language skills and regional expertise are developed over a career, not overnight. A policy of flexibility increases the risk that these skills will be viewed as more fungible and easier to inculcate than actually is the case.
As SOF experiences in Operations Provide Comfort and Just Cause demonstrated, the ability to influence local populations is directly related to these capabilities. It takes time to build a deep understanding of a region and its languages, but an effort to make forces more “flexible” could reduce time available for this pursuit. In addition, efforts to build relationships with foreign forces, a key tenet of the indirect approach, will not reach their potential if the military does not allow individual soldiers to establish trust with their trainees over time. In many cases, constancy is just as important as flexibility. Without a measured approach to flexibility, conventional and special operations forces risk repeating the mistakes of the Nixon and Clinton years, when confusion about responsibilities, a lack of well-developed skills (particularly language skills), and poor coordination precluded the success of several important missions.

SOF are an important and vital tool for national security decision makers, but as their power, size, and influence increase, precisely defining their unique value will optimize their utility and reduce the chances that they will be misused.

Flexibility should not be viewed simply as a cost-saving measure, nor should it discourage soldiers from acquiring deep knowledge in their assigned area of expertise. It should also not change how individual soldiers are used on the battlefield. Increased flexibility should, however, improve the ability of commanders to leverage the most important skills available in a timely matter for any contingency. Most of the areas of expertise the military may need to draw from already exist, but insufficient communication and coordination have stymied past efforts to allocate the right resources to the right place at the right time. In sum, flexibility should facilitate communication, improve logistical coordination, and familiarize soldiers with a broad range of skills outside of their primary area of focus. It should not create a force of generalists.

A Force for Innovation and a Force for Amplification
The Joint Special Operations Command is a “subunified command of USSOCOM” that studies special operations requirements, techniques, plans, and tactics. The organization has led innovation in special operations warfighting, has had members involved in every major SOF operation since Operation Eagle Claw, and has members located throughout the world. As the main center for the development of direct-action tactics, many of the most elite units in the U.S. military have benefited from the work of the command. In essence, the Joint Special Operations Command exists as a center of excellence for developing tactics for the direct approach to unconventional warfare.
Yet no existing organization could act as a development center for the indirect approach. Civil affairs teams, psychological operations organizations, regional experts, and humanitarian specialists exist within the larger USSOCOM umbrella, but no single organization has been mandated as a center of excellence to develop the tactics of these units or to serve as a focal point for conventional and interagency coordination.
USSOCOM should create a center to oversee the development of advanced techniques related to the indirect approach, potentially including those related to information warfare.

Freeing SOF of some responsibilities may be precisely what is needed for them to retain the intellectual flexibility and focus to remain the military’s innovators.

USSOCOM’s training center for the indirect approach should be made widely available to the conventional force.
National security priorities dictate the need to expand the indirect approach, and expanding the roles of conventional forces for this purpose will be resource-intensive. But from a budget perspective, a window of opportunity to expand knowledge of unconventional warfare techniques to the conventional force may have recently opened. Part of the Obama administration’s recent proposal to provide $5 billion for a “counterterrorism partnerships fund” could partially offset these costs. Most of the responsibility for foreign internal defense missions should be transferred to the conventional force, and then the president’s counterterrorism partnership fund could help increase the prevalence of unconventional warfare skills in the American conventional forces. Thus, the conventional force, rather than USSOCOM, may be the best entity to oversee partnership fund monies.
But regardless of how these new funds are allocated, strategic imperatives do not always fit nicely within current resource constraints. History has shown that, over the long run, an ounce of prevention is often worth a pound of cure. The better the conventional force integrates irregular warfare techniques into its doctrinal approach, the more effective the U.S. military will be in both pre- and postconflict environments, and its efforts may very well deter or mitigate future conflicts.

Conclusion
Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom provided many opportunities for conventional forces and SOF to work together toward common objectives and to gain improved understanding of the distinct advantages of working in tandem and of when the use of a particular force might be preferable to the use of the other in different contingencies. But these operations did not mark the first time that these lessons were learned. America’s experience on the battlefield since WWII shows that SOF are often on the leading edge of operational development.
But while certain missions that rely on the presence of small and well-trained units, such as surgical, direct-action missions, should remain within the purview of SOF, other concepts developed by SOF, such as foreign internal defense missions and interagency collaboration, need not remain the exclusive domain of SOF war fighting. Rather, the comparative advantage of each force should dictate roles and missions. The flat hierarchy and cutting-edge war-fighting skills of SOF are ideal for surgical and secretive missions — that is, those that require innovation. Conversely, the mass of the conventional force is ideal for missions aimed at a large population — that is, those that require amplification.
Given the recent ascendancy of SOF, some may bristle at any wholesale transfer of responsibilities out of USSOCOM. But the definition of what constitutes the “tip of the spear” changes over time, and many of the tactics, techniques, and procedures SOF developed might have a larger effect if practiced by the larger conventional force. The concepts of close air support, for example, and of stability and security operations, have transmuted from being SOF-exclusive concepts of operation to having wide-ranging applicability across the conventional force. In fact, freeing SOF of some responsibilities may be precisely what is needed for them to retain the intellectual flexibility and focus to remain the military’s innovators.
The current budget environment necessitates that the military to do more with less, but this should not preclude strategy from driving budgetary decisions. By clearly delineating the roles of each force, judiciously improving flexibility between them, and transferring much of the responsibility for the indirect approach to the conventional force, military leaders will protect the independent and innovative spirit of SOF, amplify the impact of critical irregular warfare tactics, and make permanent the improved understanding between forces built over the last decade. We cannot know what shape the next battle will take, but if we take steps to improve and better understand the nature of SOF and conventional force relations, we will maximize the chances that we will not repeat the same mistakes we have made in the past.
Phillip Lohaus is a research fellow at AEI’s Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies.