SOF Power

The Obama administration’s new budget doubles down on special operations forces. But is the Pentagon ready to support the unique requirements of keeping these elite soldiers in fighting shape?

BY DAVID BARNO, TRAVIS SHARP | FEBRUARY 14, 2012

Special operations forces are one of the big winners in the Obama administration's new Pentagon budget request released this week. The budget cuts hundreds of billions of dollars from the U.S. military's spending plans, but it protects funding for special operations forces (SOF) -- the elite, bin Laden-killing commandos whom the New York Times described Monday as the Obama administration's "military tool of choice." In the emerging strategic environment, it is clear that U.S. military power will increasingly be exercised by SOF acting by, with, and through partners around the world. Yet in embracing this approach, the Obama administration has not adequately addressed important questions about the impact on SOF culture, political oversight, and the risk of further budget cuts.

U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), the organization that manages SOF, has grown tremendously since 2001. Its manpower has nearly doubled, its budget has nearly tripled, and its overseas deployments have quadrupled. Demand for SOF has been driven by the global war on terror and by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Though America's military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is receding, this transition presents an opportunity to redirect SOF's unique capabilities to other regions and missions that have received less attention while the United States has been at war. In a remarkable sign of the enduring value of special operations forces, the Pentagon's new budget seeks to add 3,000 people to SOCOM, making it one of the few parts of the U.S. military that will actually grow -- while the rest of the military shrinks.

Yet the administration's growing reliance on SOF may soon clash with the culture of these forces. There are five "SOF Truths." One is that "quality is better than quantity." Another is that the special operations forces "cannot be mass produced." These mantras are what keep SOF special. But the Pentagon has not yet demonstrated how it will sustainably increase the number of special forces and continue to meet their high standards of excellence. Congress needs to wring more details out of the Department of Defense about how it plans to preserve this unique fighting culture.

Ensuring proper oversight is another unresolved issue. SOCOM is requesting greater autonomy to position its forces and equipment worldwide in response to rapidly emerging threats. This approach mirrors the decentralized and adaptable organizational model used by the terrorist organizations SOCOM seeks to uproot. However, while one can appreciate the need to keep SOF operations secret and swift, American political leaders must preserve their ability to fully control the instruments of U.S. military power. It's not clear that oversight procedures have kept pace with the swelling use of special forces. As Michele Malvesti, a former senior director for combating terrorism strategy at the National Security Council, concluded in a 2010 study, "While SOF are operating on an unprecedented scale across the globe, both their capabilities and the 21st-century threat environment are in many ways outpacing the nation's policies for employing SOF." Civilian leaders should update oversight and control policies in order to ensure that the influx of additional SOF does not compromise these leaders' ability to exercise strategic control of U.S. military activities.

Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

 SUBJECTS: MILITARY, NORTH AMERICA
 

Lt. Gen. David Barno (Ret.) is the former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

Travis Sharp is the Bacevich fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

CARL

9:37 PM ET

February 14, 2012

I don't understand why there

I don't understand why there is not more skepticism about the effectiveness of Spec Ops. They do things that are spectacular and make for great cinema. But are they really worth the cost? Do they actually produce strategic vs. tactical results as advertised? The whole capture-kill night raid business in Afghanistan is a Spec Ops show and we are told repeatedly how great it is working but we are far from success there and getting further away. Yet no ones questions the wisdom of doubling down on Spec Ops. Why?

 

HURRICANEWARNING

5:47 PM ET

February 15, 2012

Carl...

"Spec Ops" is a VERY broad term. There are many uses of what you call "Spec Ops" but what is more appropriately labeled "Special OPerations Forces". These are Counter Terrorism, Direct Action, Unconventional Warfare, Foreign Internal Defense, Psychological Operations, Civil Affairs, Counter Narcotics, Humanitarian Aid, Diaster Relief, Search and Rescue, Air Mobile OPerations, Special Reconnaissance, etc, etc... The bottom line here is that while the "Direct Action" raids are sexy, and as you say "make great cinema", they are but a fraction of what the force actually does. MOST, by far, of what SOCOM does is working by, with, and through, local forces. Training, mentoring, building relationships, doing community outreach, building schools and bridges, digging wells, creating medical clinics, empowering local communities etc. THey do this across the world, in MANY countries, where sometimes they are the only American face for hundreds of miles around. So while SEAL's and Rangers get alot of press for kicking down doors and shooting bad guys; remember that MOST of the force is involved with operations that are EXTREMELY strategic in nature and are aimed at preventing wars before they start, so that young American kids don't have to go into harms way and die for their country in some Near Eastern or North African @&#^% hole. They are to be trusted and respected for the thankless job they do on behalf of our nation. That is all.

 

EXPOSING HYPOCRITES

10:55 PM ET

February 14, 2012

panetta is a comfortable liar...like his boss

eom

 

FREETHINKER12

2:11 AM ET

February 15, 2012

all politicians are

next youll tell us that the sun is bright and that rainbows are pretty.

 

CHARLESFRITH

3:41 AM ET

February 15, 2012

Weak Journalism

Super Soldier testimony is available on Youtube by Duncan O'Finionan, Dave Corso and Miranda Kelly. Until Foreign Policy does the basic hygiene of researching the topic at a minimal hygiene level this article serves as spoon fed propaganda that distracts from the central issues of the matter.

 

FAIR AND BALANCED FREDRICO

4:09 AM ET

February 15, 2012

Cheney/Bush - The Truth is Out

During 9/11 Boy George was reading "My Pet Goat" to children, while Dead-Man-Walking Cheney was was at the scene of the crime (in the White House bunker) conducting scheduled, simulated war-games to fool NORAD and the FAA into standing down. Isn't it time we put these guys on trial for treason and mass murder?

 

KUNINO

2:43 PM ET

February 15, 2012

Another wild, apparently unjustified, claim

Messrs Barno and Sharp offer little or no justification for their wild-eyed claim that "the Obama administration has not adequately addressed important questions about the impact on SOF culture, political oversight, and the risk of further budget cuts."

If the administration has in fact done that, what's the evidence?

The current president seems to have done pretty well in political oversight of the military to this point, despite the fact that the Pentagon started out on SOP lines, devotingd considerable effort to deceiving and betraying the new guy in the White House.

His predecessor, Mr Bush, presumably was never told what we now know to have been perfectly true: the Pentagon didn't have the time, the knowledge or the skill by March 2003 to design and implement a successful invasion and occupation of Iraq. This was disguised from public -- and presidential -- sight for some time by the easy defeat of the Iraqi army in 2003, a campaign that cost fewer than 200 lives. The occupation part, as we all see, cost thousands more, which the Pentagon had not foreseen, or perhaps in late 2002 didn't care much about.

The split between the current president and the Pentagon seems to have come about in 2009, when the Pentagon was offering victory in Afghanistan and the president, after working through layers of military crap, found that the Pentagon couldn't define, or, really, guarantee it. Maintenance of the can-do rep had seemed to take precedence once more over doing what was in the central interests of the nation.

In line with his constitutional responsibility, Mr Obama imposed oversight at the time. Now Barno and Sharp suggest he can't do the same thing now.

Why?

 

ALIFELIX

6:50 PM ET

March 13, 2012

A Good Problem To Have?

Having too much of a good thing is a problem? Yes, there will be a learning curve to figure out the optimal way of managing an increase special forces entity, but nothing to worry about. It will have to be done slightly different than the current management of the other military branches, so hopefully the administration recognizes this fact and does not try to push a square peg in a round hole. When finishing this post on my iphone 5g, my biggest concern is will the people in the military and government be flexible enough and hopefully not too set in their old ways and methods.