A surge of Special Forces for Afghanistan likely

gun_bunny · 12-23-2008, 11:59

By Gordon Lubold Gordon Lubold – Tue Dec 23, 3:00 am ET

Washington – The Pentagon is likely to send up to 20 Special Forces teams to Afghanistan this spring, part of a new long-term strategy to boost the Afghan security forces' ability to counter the insurgency there themselves.

The "surge" of elite Special Forces units would represent a multiyear effort aimed at strengthening the Afghan National Army and police units that the US sees as key to building up Afghanistan's security independence, say defense officials who asked to remain anonymous because the controversial decision has not yet been announced. The US already plans to send thousands of additional conventional forces to Afghanistan sometime next year. But it is hamstrung by limited availability since so many of those forces are still in Iraq.

The deployment of the Green Berets, the independent, multifaceted force skilled at training indigenous forces, could fill critical gaps in Afghanistan almost immediately, defense officials say.

There are currently about 31,000 US troops in Afghanistan. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this weekend on a trip to Afghanistan that as many as 30,000 additional American troops could be deployed there within the next year or so.

On Monday, the Pentagon formally announced that about 2,800 members of the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division will be sent to Afghanistan this spring as part of the conventional forces deployed there. Once he assumes office, Barack Obama is expected to receive recommendations about how fast a drawdown can occur in Iraq – and how many forces can be sent to Afghanistan.

The deployment of the additional Green Berets has not yet been approved, but a senior defense official indicated it was very likely and would be finalized next month.

The deployment would be relatively small, probably only a few hundred individuals at first. Ultimately, other special operations forces, such as marines from Special Operations Command, Air Force special operators, and Navy Seals could be deployed under the plan.

The initial deployment of the Green Berets would expand the size of the Special Forces contingent there by 30 or 40 percent, defense officials say, and represent a significant new commitment to developing and expanding Afghan security forces.

Criticism over plan
However, the proposal is controversial. The plan is being pushed by Lt. Gen. Doug Lute, the so-called war czar under President Bush, who is poised to release a set of recommendations for how to reverse the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan in coming days. Defense officials say General Lute believes the deployment of the Green Berets could go a long way toward making up for a significant shortfall in the number of troops needed in the region.

Yet many within the tightly knit Special Forces community say the Special Forces teams already in use in Afghanistan should be employed far more effectively before any new teams, which number about a dozen men each, are deployed.

"I just don't think it's a very good use of the units if they are not going to be doing combat advising in an effective way," says one Special Forces officer with recent experience in Afghanistan. "I don't know any Special Forces who think that's really what we need over there."

"Textbook" operations for Special Forces dictates that the 12-man teams, known as Operational Detachment Alpha teams, or ODAs, should be paired with units of at least a few hundred Afghan security force soldiers.

But in many cases, the Green Berets are paired with much smaller groups of Afghan forces, sometimes even one-on-one. In other cases, they are used to man checkpoints, say some Special Forces officers.

Critics worry that Lute's plan is to simply send more Special Forces units to Afghanistan without a coherent plan to support them. "Don't just throw ODAs out there as an answer," says another senior officer. "That's just the easy, lazy answer out there."

Poor use of existing forces
There are other gripes with the way the teams now deployed to Afghanistan are being used.

Too few of the Special Forces teams are partnered with Afghan forces for longer than, say, a month at a time, creating an unsustainable and unproductive training relationship that runs counter to Special Forces doctrine.

Special Forces officers blame the problems on a lack of a coherent strategy for using the Green Berets in Afghanistan. Others say some Special Forces teams operate under NATO commanders from other countries and don't know how to employ the teams properly.

Perhaps most significant, Special Forces officers and experts say it would be a waste of time and resources to send additional Special Forces teams to Afghanistan unless there is a "surge" of helicopters, remote-controlled aircraft for surveilling the enemy, and other "enablers" to allow the teams that are there now to be more effective.

Roger Carstens, a retired Special Forces officer who is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank in Washington, visited Afghanistan a couple months ago and asked members of the Special Forces community what they thought about "surging" Special Operations Forces.

"Everyone of them said 'no SOF surge,'" he says. "What they need is an enabler surge and enduring partnerships with Afghan military and police units," he says.

Adm. Eric Olson, the senior commander of US Special Operations Command, Tampa, Fla., is expected to convey the concerns of the special operations community to Gen. David Petraeus, the new commander of US Central Command.

A new command position
The proposal would also include the creation of a new Special Forces command position, to be filled by a one-star general in Afghanistan this spring, whose job it will be to marshal resources to ensure the Special Forces units are employed properly.

The Afghan National Army, the pride of the country's budding national security apparatus, and the Afghan National Police, which is still seen as largely corrupt and weaker, need help to build up into a larger, more effective force.

Ultimately, the US would like to see at least 134,000 soldiers trained and ready to provide for their own country's security.

But trainers have been hard to come by, and the mix of foreign and US forces has muted the training effort, US defense officials say.

Debo · 12-23-2008, 15:15

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20081223/ts_csm/asoftsurge

A surge of Special Forces for Afghanistan likely

– New U.S troops for Afghanistan
Slideshow: Afghanistan Play Video Video: Bush hails Afghan 'gains' BBC AP – In this undated photo provided by the U.S. Army, Capt. Kyle Walton, right, and Master Sgt. Scott Ford, …

Washington – The Pentagon is likely to send up to 20 Special Forces teams to Afghanistan this spring, part of a new long-term strategy to boost the Afghan security forces' ability to counter the insurgency there themselves.

The "surge" of elite Special Forces units would represent a multiyear effort aimed at strengthening the Afghan National Army and police units that the US sees as key to building up Afghanistan's security independence, say defense officials who asked to remain anonymous because the controversial decision has not yet been announced. The US already plans to send thousands of additional conventional forces to Afghanistan sometime next year. But it is hamstrung by limited availability since so many of those forces are still in Iraq.

The deployment of the Green Berets, the independent, multifaceted force skilled at training indigenous forces, could fill critical gaps in Afghanistan almost immediately, defense officials say.

There are currently about 31,000 US troops in Afghanistan. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this weekend on a trip to Afghanistan that as many as 30,000 additional American troops could be deployed there within the next year or so.

On Monday, the Pentagon formally announced that about 2,800 members of the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division will be sent to Afghanistan this spring as part of the conventional forces deployed there. Once he assumes office, Barack Obama is expected to receive recommendations about how fast a drawdown can occur in Iraq – and how many forces can be sent to Afghanistan.

The deployment of the additional Green Berets has not yet been approved, but a senior defense official indicated it was very likely and would be finalized next month.

The deployment would be relatively small, probably only a few hundred individuals at first. Ultimately, other special operations forces, such as marines from Special Operations Command, Air Force special operators, and Navy Seals could be deployed under the plan.

The initial deployment of the Green Berets would expand the size of the Special Forces contingent there by 30 or 40 percent, defense officials say, and represent a significant new commitment to developing and expanding Afghan security forces.

Criticism over plan
However, the proposal is controversial. The plan is being pushed by Lt. Gen. Doug Lute, the so-called war czar under President Bush, who is poised to release a set of recommendations for how to reverse the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan in coming days. Defense officials say General Lute believes the deployment of the Green Berets could go a long way toward making up for a significant shortfall in the number of troops needed in the region.

Yet many within the tightly knit Special Forces community say the Special Forces teams already in use in Afghanistan should be employed far more effectively before any new teams, which number about a dozen men each, are deployed.

"I just don't think it's a very good use of the units if they are not going to be doing combat advising in an effective way," says one Special Forces officer with recent experience in Afghanistan. "I don't know any Special Forces who think that's really what we need over there."

"Textbook" operations for Special Forces dictates that the 12-man teams, known as Operational Detachment Alpha teams, or ODAs, should be paired with units of at least a few hundred Afghan security force soldiers.

But in many cases, the Green Berets are paired with much smaller groups of Afghan forces, sometimes even one-on-one. In other cases, they are used to man checkpoints, say some Special Forces officers.

Critics worry that Lute's plan is to simply send more Special Forces units to Afghanistan without a coherent plan to support them. "Don't just throw ODAs out there as an answer," says another senior officer. "That's just the easy, lazy answer out there."

Poor use of existing forces
There are other gripes with the way the teams now deployed to Afghanistan are being used.

Too few of the Special Forces teams are partnered with Afghan forces for longer than, say, a month at a time, creating an unsustainable and unproductive training relationship that runs counter to Special Forces doctrine.

Special Forces officers blame the problems on a lack of a coherent strategy for using the Green Berets in Afghanistan. Others say some Special Forces teams operate under NATO commanders from other countries and don't know how to employ the teams properly.

Perhaps most significant, Special Forces officers and experts say it would be a waste of time and resources to send additional Special Forces teams to Afghanistan unless there is a "surge" of helicopters, remote-controlled aircraft for surveilling the enemy, and other "enablers" to allow the teams that are there now to be more effective.

Roger Carstens, a retired Special Forces officer who is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank in Washington, visited Afghanistan a couple months ago and asked members of the Special Forces community what they thought about "surging" Special Operations Forces.

"Everyone of them said 'no SOF surge,'" he says. "What they need is an enabler surge and enduring partnerships with Afghan military and police units," he says.

Adm. Eric Olson, the senior commander of US Special Operations Command, Tampa, Fla., is expected to convey the concerns of the special operations community to Gen. David Petraeus, the new commander of US Central Command.

A new command position
The proposal would also include the creation of a new Special Forces command position, to be filled by a one-star general in Afghanistan this spring, whose job it will be to marshal resources to ensure the Special Forces units are employed properly.

The Afghan National Army, the pride of the country's budding national security apparatus, and the Afghan National Police, which is still seen as largely corrupt and weaker, need help to build up into a larger, more effective force.

Ultimately, the US would like to see at least 134,000 soldiers trained and ready to provide for their own country's security.

But trainers have been hard to come by, and the mix of foreign and US forces has muted the training effort, US defense officials say.

**The Reaper** · 12-23-2008, 15:21

SA, Debo, SA.

Look before starting new threads, young Jedi.

TR

Debo · 12-23-2008, 15:40

Quote:

SA, Debo, SA.

Look before starting new threads, young Jedi.

Roger that, TR. I should've looked harder. My apologies.

D.

Surgicalcric · 12-23-2008, 16:26

20 teams is all fine and good if they are going to be given the leeway to do what they need to do. However if the same problems, that has plagued SF in the recent years continue, this will serve as nothing more than the leadership being able to say the men were sent.

my .02

Crip

jbour13 · 12-23-2008, 17:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Surgicalcric

20 teams is all fine and good if they are going to be given the leeway to do what they need to do. However if the same problems, that has plagued Sf in the recent years, continue it will serve as nothing more than the leadership being able to say the men were sent.

my .02

Crip

Your .02 goes along way and is the root of an extensive amount of issues that exist in that theater.

You are most correct in the leeway statement. FID isn't being leveraged by the most capable out there, and what is being done by those in the responsible fields is marginal at best. We are like a symphony with 90 composers, and a bunch of equipment without the right people to make music.

Banging around and blowing hard doesn't mean shit unless it sounds good and executes well.

alright4u · 12-23-2008, 17:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Reaper

SA, Debo, SA.

Look before starting new threads, young Jedi.

TR

AMEN.

ROTCNY · 12-23-2008, 21:06

I just returned from Afghanistan a month ago. As an Embedded Trainer with an ANA Kandak(Bn), I had the opportunity to work with Coalition conventional forces and several ODAs.

Before anyone starts talking about an SF surge or even a large conventional surge, someone needs to take a look at what is already on the ground and synchronize the efforts of all the various Task Forces/ISAF Regional Commands. Its a unity of command nightmare in Afghanistan. Yes, I know they recently put COMISAF in charge of ALL US forces on the ground, but that isn't enough. The various NATO ISAF Regional Commands aren't following the same playbook. The US Army BCTs in country are not living up to their full potential. If 4th BCT 101ABN would get out of their FOBs more often and actually prosecute the fight 24/7, that alone would make things better.

The Coalition ANA/ANP mentoring mission led by CJTF Phoenix is a goat rodeo due to lack of logistical support, lack of assets(equipment/manpower) and poor decision making at the field grade level. Not to mention the fact that they often put underqualified/poor leaders in charge of mentoring teams out in remote locations when they would be better suited to a desk job or not wearing a uniform at all.

I'm all for more enablers, can't dispute that. An additional CAB is long overdue, along with additional ISR that is actually made AVAILABLE to tactical commanders on the ground instead of filtered through a battlespace owner's TOC located 100+ miles away from the fight.

The ODAs in Afghanistan were a pleasure to work with, but there was never any synchronized effort to match up ODA with ANA/ANP assets that we mentored. It was always my team coming to the ODA TL in our AO with a mission idea, or him coming to us...almost always done on a whim or in reaction to some time sensitive intel. This worked well for us, but I feel we could have accomplished alot more in our battlespace if we had formal mechanisms in place to share intel/assets with ODA 24/7.

One advantage my mentoring team had over conventional forces is we could plan and conduct our own missions with little or no interference from our higher command. In other words, our higher command was so ate up they didn't know how they could enable us or didn't want to spend the time to help. Therefore, they simply allowed us to do any mission we wanted as long as it met certain allowable risk criteria. Being allowed to fight our battlespace with our ANA based on our team chief's intent worked very well for us, up until the point where we required CJTF-101 assets to fight the enemy. It was almost impossible to get them to release down to us CAS/CCA/UAV.

The cliff notes of this rant is, lets do a REAL from ground to up analysis of our strengths/weaknesses...Lets fix the problems we have right NOW, before we start using troop surges as a bandaid to fix problems that will still exist whether we have 30,000 or 60,000 troops involved in OEF-A.

irnbndr · 12-23-2008, 21:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbour13

Your .02 goes along way and is the root of an extensive amount of issues that exist in that theater.

You are most correct in the leeway statement. FID isn't being leveraged by the most capable out there, and what is being done by those in the responsible fields is marginal at best. We are like a symphony with 90 composers, and a bunch of equipment without the right people to make music.

Banging around and blowing hard doesn't mean shit unless it sounds good and executes well.

Priceless!

This idea sounds like political wrangling to me. But from a glass half full prospective... I am happy to see that someone is speaking to the guys on the ground to get a realistic point of view. Maybe this will encourage some change in the community.

Or not.

Personally I don't see the support coming from NATO commanders to institute a USSF "surge". They are perfectly content to continue this half baked FID policy through the use of multi-national SOF who are not on the same page in the full spectrum of conflict.

I have not posted much on this site due to the notable intelligence of those who contribute. I hope I'm not stepping on any toes.

Guy · 12-23-2008, 21:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by ROTCNY

....would get out of their FOBs more often and actually prosecute the fight 24/7, that alone would make things better.

To figure this out.

Stay safe.

**Box** · 12-24-2008, 00:14

just think of how many more powerpoint slides the CJSOTF would have to staff if we were able to get another 20 ODA's on the ground...

**The Reaper** · 12-24-2008, 08:26

Can't wait till they pick an up and coming recent Ranger Regiment Commander to take over the CJSOTF and provide quality O-7 leadership.

God forbid that they promote an SF guy and slot him appropriately.

TR

Richard · 12-24-2008, 08:46

So when do they start building the border surveillance camps and strategic hamlets manned by SF led RFPFs* (Ruff Puffs)?

Richard's $.02

*Regional Force/Provincal Force

SF_BHT · 12-24-2008, 09:12

As I re-read my history books on LIC/FID/UW etc I am starting to see some old concepts coming back in the last couple of years. Newer gear but same old tried and true tactics.

It may not be jungle but it sure needs SF. The only thing different is now Conventional forces are starting to admit that we are needed. Not a lot but some........

The biggest problem is the Log flow. The crazies are already attacking our weak link and that is the ground trans for logistics into the combat zone. More Air (Helos) and ready support for the teams is a must. We are high maint but we produce High Quality Results.

**The Reaper** · 12-24-2008, 09:40

Hey, anyone else remember when the SF Groups had their own aviation elements?

I think we put those into the 160th for better support. Nowdays, they fly for the special units, other services, pretty much anyone but SF. Gonna get worse with the -53s gone and only a limited number of CV-22s just coming on line to replace them. At one time, the Guard (or was it Reserve?) SF Groups had their own fixed wing, Caribous, IIRC.

Too bad, it would be nice to be able to use those platforms to fight a war we are involved in right now.

You might even think that a forward looking SF leader would decide that the Groups needed their own aviation elements again, with fixed and rotary wing assets. At least chop a dedicated element to the CJSOTF, and set it so that the rotation cycles track with the Groups. The ATO system is not designed to provide dedicated support to a small asset.

Just my .02, YMMV.

TR