Team Sergeant
02-18-2006, 17:51
Rumsfeld Aims
To Elevate Role
Of Special Forces
By GREG JAFFE
February 18, 2006
WSJ.com
Well into the Bush administration's second term, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is concentrating much of his energy on remaking a small but important corner of the military: special-operations forces.
The Pentagon chief's focus on these elite forces reflects his conviction that the Iraq war -- in which about 140,000 U.S. troops are struggling to rebuild a country from the ground up -- is an anomaly that is winding down and won't be repeated, say senior defense officials.
"We are not going to invade and occupy our way to victory in the long war against Islamic extremism," said Michael Vickers, who served as a senior adviser on the secretary's recently released review of Pentagon spending and strategy.
Instead, Mr. Rumsfeld's top-to-bottom review posits that the gravest long-term threat to national security comes from small cells of al Qaeda and its radical offshoots scattered across more than 80 countries. To take them down, Mr. Rumsfeld wants to build a much larger and more aggressive special-operations force with broader latitude to both work with indigenous forces and take action in countries where the U.S. is technically not at war.
"The special-operations forces are capable of doing things that other forces aren't," Mr. Rumsfeld said yesterday in a brief interview. "We are increasing their budget and we are increasing their equipment. The problem is bigger and there is more of a demand for them."
In some ways, the changes Mr. Rumsfeld is pushing return to the vision he brought to the Pentagon five years ago, before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Then, he spoke of a faster, more agile military and expressed suspicion about committing U.S. forces to extended nation-building missions.
Now, with nearly three years remaining in his tenure -- and no indications he plans to leave any time soon -- Mr. Rumsfeld is intent on laying a foundation for future administrations to use the military's elite commandos more expansively. The current plan would increase the number of special-operations troops by 14,000 to about 64,000 -- the largest number since the Vietnam War. Defense officials say the number represents the most the military can currently maintain without lowering standards.
The special-operations budget is growing; the proposed $7 billion budget for 2007 is about twice what the military invested in 2001, defense officials say. Meanwhile, conventional ground forces, which are doing the bulk of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, will by 2011 return to their prewar levels. The Air Force and Navy will absorb even deeper personnel cuts.
The secretary's focus on special operations comes at a time when his influence in some other areas, and his ability to push through significant changes in the Pentagon's conventional force, appear to be waning. On the foreign-policy front, for instance, Condoleezza Rice has emerged as the dominant figure of President Bush's second term, eclipsing the influence of both the Pentagon and the White House's National Security Council.
Separately, Mr. Rumsfeld's proposal to scale back the size of the Army's National Guard was rebuffed even before the Army had a chance to formally introduce it. Seventy-three senators lined up against it, arguing that the part-time soldiers were already far too stretched, and the Pentagon quickly retreated. In January, lawmakers, concerned about job losses, also shot down Mr. Rumsfeld's plan to mothball the 38-year-old USS Kennedy aircraft carrier, which Navy officials say they no longer need.
"Obviously there are those on the Hill who think we need more force structure than we think we need," said Kenneth Krieg, the Pentagon's top acquisition official, in a recent interview.
In part, Mr. Rumsfeld's decision to rely more heavily on special-operations forces could be borne of pragmatism. The Iraq war has been longer and bloodier than planners expected. That could make it tougher to mobilize domestic support for big military operations for years to come.
Iraq also has laid bare for Mr. Rumsfeld -- who pushed for the Pentagon to take the lead in postwar Iraq -- the military's limitations and need for partners. "The fact is that we can't nation build in that country or any other country," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "All we can do is contribute to creating an environment that is hospitable to their doing it."
Each of the four military services has special-operations forces, which are overseen by U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla. For the most part, they fall into two categories. "Black units," such as the Army's elite Delta force and the Navy's SEALS, focus primarily on highly sensitive "direct action" missions such as hunting terrorists or rescuing hostages. "White units," like the Army's Green Berets, work closely training, advising and in some cases fighting alongside indigenous forces world-wide.
Under Mr. Rumsfeld's plan, special-operations forces would work in small teams, fanning out to remote corners of the globe to live with, train and advise indigenous security forces battling terrorists. Troops also would gather intelligence and build relationships with locals over the course of months and years.
"To succeed...the U.S. must often take an indirect approach, building up and working with others," Mr. Rumsfeld's review states. It uses the term "indirect approach" no less than 11 times.
The clandestine special forces, known as "Special Mission Units," also are being significantly expanded. The units were created primarily to respond to crises such as a hostage situation or a nuclear weapon that had gotten loose. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker, who spent most of his career in these units, has compared these elite commandos to a Ferrari that is rarely driven out of fear its finish gets scratched.
But the Pentagon has relied on the units heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the secretary's vision assumes that they will be employed far beyond those wars. Instead of the quick hostage rescues of the past, they will take on "long duration...clandestine operations in politically sensitive environments and denied areas," the review states.
"How do you wage a war in which the enemy operates out of a country with whom we are technically at peace?" said one senior special-operations official. "That is the question that the secretary is wrestling with."
Defense officials compare Mr. Rumsfeld's vision with the Reagan administration's strategy for fighting the Soviets and their proxies in the 1980s, when the U.S., without directly intervening, provided financial support and advisors to indigenous forces in places such as El Salvador and Afghanistan.
"The basic model is similar to El Salvador, except applied on a bigger, global scale," said Mr. Vickers.
The plan has some detractors. For one thing, some of the envisioned changes would push military forces into areas traditionally dominated by the Central Intelligence Agency. Such missions could be embarrassing if they go bad.
Proposed changes also depend heavily on the ability of U.S. forces to work successfully with local security forces that might not share the same objectives or values as U.S. forces. "The secretary has an enthusiasm for indigenous forces that is mystifying to me," said Frederick Kagan, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and former professor at the United States Military Academy. "It is unshaken even in the face of multiple setbacks over the last few years."
In Afghanistan, for example, local forces working with U.S. special-operations forces allowed thousands of al Qaeda fighters -- possibly along with Osama bin Laden -- to escape the country into Pakistan early in the Afghan war, Mr. Kagan said. In Iraq, local security forces have performed unevenly at best.
One of the most striking features of the Rumsfeld vision as outlined in the review is that it doesn't provide much new for the conventional Army and Marine Corps units who are now doing the bulk of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather, it suggests that these sorts of wars are an aberration that won't be repeated any time soon.
If envisioned reductions in conventional forces occur, "some capabilities" will have to be cut, said Marine Corps Gen. Michael Hagee at a recent breakfast with reporters. Army officials said they believe they can make up for personnel reductions by finding efficiencies that will allow them to make better use of the troops they have in the current force.
Write to Greg Jaffe at greg.jaffe@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114020280689677176-Uxax19bikHEgsAEAcgUHVa5VD6E_20070217.html?mod=publ ic_home_us_inside_today
To Elevate Role
Of Special Forces
By GREG JAFFE
February 18, 2006
WSJ.com
Well into the Bush administration's second term, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is concentrating much of his energy on remaking a small but important corner of the military: special-operations forces.
The Pentagon chief's focus on these elite forces reflects his conviction that the Iraq war -- in which about 140,000 U.S. troops are struggling to rebuild a country from the ground up -- is an anomaly that is winding down and won't be repeated, say senior defense officials.
"We are not going to invade and occupy our way to victory in the long war against Islamic extremism," said Michael Vickers, who served as a senior adviser on the secretary's recently released review of Pentagon spending and strategy.
Instead, Mr. Rumsfeld's top-to-bottom review posits that the gravest long-term threat to national security comes from small cells of al Qaeda and its radical offshoots scattered across more than 80 countries. To take them down, Mr. Rumsfeld wants to build a much larger and more aggressive special-operations force with broader latitude to both work with indigenous forces and take action in countries where the U.S. is technically not at war.
"The special-operations forces are capable of doing things that other forces aren't," Mr. Rumsfeld said yesterday in a brief interview. "We are increasing their budget and we are increasing their equipment. The problem is bigger and there is more of a demand for them."
In some ways, the changes Mr. Rumsfeld is pushing return to the vision he brought to the Pentagon five years ago, before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Then, he spoke of a faster, more agile military and expressed suspicion about committing U.S. forces to extended nation-building missions.
Now, with nearly three years remaining in his tenure -- and no indications he plans to leave any time soon -- Mr. Rumsfeld is intent on laying a foundation for future administrations to use the military's elite commandos more expansively. The current plan would increase the number of special-operations troops by 14,000 to about 64,000 -- the largest number since the Vietnam War. Defense officials say the number represents the most the military can currently maintain without lowering standards.
The special-operations budget is growing; the proposed $7 billion budget for 2007 is about twice what the military invested in 2001, defense officials say. Meanwhile, conventional ground forces, which are doing the bulk of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, will by 2011 return to their prewar levels. The Air Force and Navy will absorb even deeper personnel cuts.
The secretary's focus on special operations comes at a time when his influence in some other areas, and his ability to push through significant changes in the Pentagon's conventional force, appear to be waning. On the foreign-policy front, for instance, Condoleezza Rice has emerged as the dominant figure of President Bush's second term, eclipsing the influence of both the Pentagon and the White House's National Security Council.
Separately, Mr. Rumsfeld's proposal to scale back the size of the Army's National Guard was rebuffed even before the Army had a chance to formally introduce it. Seventy-three senators lined up against it, arguing that the part-time soldiers were already far too stretched, and the Pentagon quickly retreated. In January, lawmakers, concerned about job losses, also shot down Mr. Rumsfeld's plan to mothball the 38-year-old USS Kennedy aircraft carrier, which Navy officials say they no longer need.
"Obviously there are those on the Hill who think we need more force structure than we think we need," said Kenneth Krieg, the Pentagon's top acquisition official, in a recent interview.
In part, Mr. Rumsfeld's decision to rely more heavily on special-operations forces could be borne of pragmatism. The Iraq war has been longer and bloodier than planners expected. That could make it tougher to mobilize domestic support for big military operations for years to come.
Iraq also has laid bare for Mr. Rumsfeld -- who pushed for the Pentagon to take the lead in postwar Iraq -- the military's limitations and need for partners. "The fact is that we can't nation build in that country or any other country," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "All we can do is contribute to creating an environment that is hospitable to their doing it."
Each of the four military services has special-operations forces, which are overseen by U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla. For the most part, they fall into two categories. "Black units," such as the Army's elite Delta force and the Navy's SEALS, focus primarily on highly sensitive "direct action" missions such as hunting terrorists or rescuing hostages. "White units," like the Army's Green Berets, work closely training, advising and in some cases fighting alongside indigenous forces world-wide.
Under Mr. Rumsfeld's plan, special-operations forces would work in small teams, fanning out to remote corners of the globe to live with, train and advise indigenous security forces battling terrorists. Troops also would gather intelligence and build relationships with locals over the course of months and years.
"To succeed...the U.S. must often take an indirect approach, building up and working with others," Mr. Rumsfeld's review states. It uses the term "indirect approach" no less than 11 times.
The clandestine special forces, known as "Special Mission Units," also are being significantly expanded. The units were created primarily to respond to crises such as a hostage situation or a nuclear weapon that had gotten loose. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker, who spent most of his career in these units, has compared these elite commandos to a Ferrari that is rarely driven out of fear its finish gets scratched.
But the Pentagon has relied on the units heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the secretary's vision assumes that they will be employed far beyond those wars. Instead of the quick hostage rescues of the past, they will take on "long duration...clandestine operations in politically sensitive environments and denied areas," the review states.
"How do you wage a war in which the enemy operates out of a country with whom we are technically at peace?" said one senior special-operations official. "That is the question that the secretary is wrestling with."
Defense officials compare Mr. Rumsfeld's vision with the Reagan administration's strategy for fighting the Soviets and their proxies in the 1980s, when the U.S., without directly intervening, provided financial support and advisors to indigenous forces in places such as El Salvador and Afghanistan.
"The basic model is similar to El Salvador, except applied on a bigger, global scale," said Mr. Vickers.
The plan has some detractors. For one thing, some of the envisioned changes would push military forces into areas traditionally dominated by the Central Intelligence Agency. Such missions could be embarrassing if they go bad.
Proposed changes also depend heavily on the ability of U.S. forces to work successfully with local security forces that might not share the same objectives or values as U.S. forces. "The secretary has an enthusiasm for indigenous forces that is mystifying to me," said Frederick Kagan, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and former professor at the United States Military Academy. "It is unshaken even in the face of multiple setbacks over the last few years."
In Afghanistan, for example, local forces working with U.S. special-operations forces allowed thousands of al Qaeda fighters -- possibly along with Osama bin Laden -- to escape the country into Pakistan early in the Afghan war, Mr. Kagan said. In Iraq, local security forces have performed unevenly at best.
One of the most striking features of the Rumsfeld vision as outlined in the review is that it doesn't provide much new for the conventional Army and Marine Corps units who are now doing the bulk of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather, it suggests that these sorts of wars are an aberration that won't be repeated any time soon.
If envisioned reductions in conventional forces occur, "some capabilities" will have to be cut, said Marine Corps Gen. Michael Hagee at a recent breakfast with reporters. Army officials said they believe they can make up for personnel reductions by finding efficiencies that will allow them to make better use of the troops they have in the current force.
Write to Greg Jaffe at greg.jaffe@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114020280689677176-Uxax19bikHEgsAEAcgUHVa5VD6E_20070217.html?mod=publ ic_home_us_inside_today