10 October, 2005

Reorganizing the Special Forces

Some things are interesting enough to deserve a long quote. The source is William Arkin's "Early Warning" Blog of 5 October. William Arkin, for those who don't know him, is committed to exposing American military programs. He has a particular love for code names, and his most recent book is a digest of classified programs. His methods are basically OSINT + contacts in the defense establishment. Sometimes he claims to know more than he does (I was part of a group, long ago, that he contacted for information. We didn't give it to him. He published his best guess anyway. He was wrong.), but he does get a lot of open-source information and restricted documentation out to a wider audience. Here's what I found so interesting:

...November 1, SOCOM will formally activate its new Center for Special Operations as the nerve center to coordinate global operations and actionable intelligence, particularly against "high value targets." Previous directorates of operations, plans and policy; and intelligence and information operations; have already have been consolidated into the new Center under three groups: the Intelligence Support Group (J2), the Operations Support Group (J3), and the Campaign Support Group (J5).

The director of the Center is Lt. Gen. Dell L. Dailey, the commander of Joint Special Operations Command from 2001 to May 2003. Dailey was the overall clandestine special operations commander after 9/11, operating from Oman and then from Afghanistan as Commander, Task Force Sword (later called TF-11). Unlike Gen. Brown, who himself is rumored to be less than enthusiastic to be given responsibility for the war on terrorism; Dailey is considered one of the administration's primo shadow warriors.

At Rumsfeld’s request, SOCOM has drafted a global offensive counter-terrorism war plan that specifies procedures to be used by overt and clandestine special operations forces and supporting military forces and intelligence agencies in seeking out and attacking designated terrorist organizations.

"Our problem today is how to find a terrorist," Brown said in the interview. "...Osama bin Laden is a No. 1 priority for the CIA, for SOCOM, [and] for [the] Department of Defense."

The Unified Command Plan also assigns SOCOM the responsibility for "operational preparation of the environment," a symbolic change in language from the previously used phrase "operational preparation of the battlefield." The State Department argued that those parts of the world where military forces weren't predominant were not "battlefields."

Operational preparation of the environment includes the use of SOCOM's independent and clandestine intelligence collectors -- the so-called Gray Fox and other special mission units -- who would conduct surveillance and "prepare" for attacks on high value targets, renditions, and assaults, called "direct action" missions.

The section of the Unified Command Plan 2004 dealing with SOCOM reads:

In addition to functions specified in sections 164(c) and 167 of Title 10, USSOCOM’s responsibilities include:

A. Providing combat-ready operations forces to other combatant commands when and as directed.

B. Training, to include joint training exercises, of assigned forces and developing appropriate recommendations to the Chairman regarding strategy, doctrine, tactics, techniques, and procedures for the joint employment of special operations forces.

C. Integrating and coordinating DOD psychological operations (PSYOP) capabilities to enhance interoperability and support USSTRATCOM’s [Strategic Command's] information operations responsibilities and other combatant commanders’ PSYOP planning and execution.

D. Exercising command and control of selected special operations missions, as directed. [Author’s Note: "Selected special operations missions" refer to the clandestine operations of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and other classified special mission units].

E. Serving as the lead combatant commander for planning, synchronizing, and as directed, executing global operations against terrorist networks in coordination with other combatant commanders. CDRUSSOCOM [that’s Commander, US SOCOM] leads a global collaborative planning process leveraging other combatant command capabilities and expertise that results in decentralized execution by both USSOCOM and other combatant commands against terrorist networks. In this role, USSOCOM’s specific responsibilities:

1. Integrating DOD strategy, plans, intelligence priorities, and operations against terrorist networks designated by the Secretary.

2. Planning campaigns against designated terrorist networks.

3. Prioritizing and synchronizing theater security cooperation activities, deployments, and capabilities that support campaigns against designated terrorist networks in coordination with the geographic combatant commanders.

4. Exercising command and control of operations in support of selected commands, as directed.

5. Providing military representation to U.S. national and international agencies for matters related to U.S. and multinational campaigns against designated terrorist networks as directed by the Secretary.

6. Planning operational preparation of the environment (OPE); executing OPE or synchronizing the execution of OPE in coordination with the geographic combatant commanders.

It will be interesting to see the results, if any. Then again, it they are really good, we may not see anything for a long time.

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