GailForce: Aspen Security Forum Continued

As promised here are some more gems that came out of the Aspen Security Forum. I’ve already talked about the comments of Pakistan’s Ambassador and a little bit about Admiral Blair’s comments, more to follow on that but I’d like to start out talking about the very first session. It was called The Role of Special Operations Forces in the Global War on Terrorism and featured the Navy’s Senior Seal (called Bull Frog) Admiral Eric T. Olson, Commander of the US Special Operations Command.

What is significant about this for me is the Special Operations (Spec Ops) guys are normally so secretive, during my 28 years in service, even with all my security clearances I had to leave the room when they got up to talk about the “jobs” and “projects” they were working on. Most of my jobs involved providing intelligence support to conventional military forces. I also specialized in working joint operations but seldom got involved with the Spec Ops folks. Also in the countless conferences I’ve attended over the years I can’t recall one instance of these guys getting up talking about what they do publicly. They are a close knit, closed mouth community with good reason.

My only professional interaction came one time when I happened to be on a mission in the same foreign country where a Spec Ops team was doing their thing. I talked them into letting me follow them around for a few hours in order to get a better sense of their job. I obviously was being a pain and a burden because they bought me lunch and then told me to go away because I was blowing their cover. My professional pride was wounded but picked up as they also bought me some ice cream to eat on my way back to my “professional duties” at the time.

Most in attendance were blow away as Admiral Olson discussed their mission. He began by stating: “The special ops community is a fantastic community. It is a microcosm of the Department of Defense.” They conduct about a dozen missions a day in Afghanistan. The community has grown from about 32,000 to 60,000 and is now larger than the Coast Guard. Olson says he feels they need to continue to grow at about 3% a year. It is a joint organization meaning it consists of all services as well as civilian workers and contractors. All told the community accounts for about 3% of the Defense Department budget. About 13,000 are currently deployed. About 85% of their force operates in the US Central Command (CENTCOM) arena. They are also in 65 countries but the Admiral emphasized with the exception of Iraq and Afghanistan their mission is training and liaison.

As far as retention, about 82% of the force reenlists. Olson says, “Anybody who is worried about the future of America based on the youth they’re seeing just aren’t seeing the same youth I am in recruiting.” They are a highly educated group, about 30% of the enlisted force has college degrees and about 70% are married with families. About 60% of his force has come in after 9/11 so they have known no other working conditions than war. They do have woman serving in the community but no female Seal, Rangers, etc. because of the laws against it but they do have Female Engagement Teams whose role is to interact with Afghan woman. They don’t go on operational missions but there are 2-4 women per team. He believes as soon as the laws change woman would be ready to serve as Seals.

Admiral Olson said he would not talk much about the Bin Laden raid and would not give any tactical details but wanted to make the point the raid would not have been successful without the interagency cooperation between the intelligence community and the operators. I personally believe one of the reasons it took us 10 years to track down bin Laden was because of all the leaks in the media over the years concerning our intelligence capabilities. That’s why he had no internet connectivity and did things like burn his trash and rarely went outside.

Admiral Olson also said it would not have been possible if we hadn’t created a spec ops community. It was started 25 years ago in the aftermath of Desert One, the failed attempt to rescue hostages from Iran during the Carter administration. The Bin Laden raid was also successful because no one talked about the details before or after. The success can also be traced back to the lessons learned over 10 years of war.

In answer to a question of whether the Obama administration was switching from an emphasis on COIN to one of counter terrorism the Admiral replied: “Counterterrorism without counterinsurgency is a flawed concept.” In the numerous interviews I’ve done with military leaders involved in the Afghanistan conflict I’ve always gotten the understanding that Counterterrorism is part of the COIN strategy. I’ve read the COIN manual and that is also the impression I’ve come away with. Some in the media still have trouble grasping that concept apparently.

As to Al Qaeda, Admiral Olson says the fact that they’re almost done is not good enough. He used a boxing analogy to illustrate. What we’ve done until recently was jab them but only wounded them. The Arab Spring caused them to lose some steam and the death of Bin Laden was an upper cut to the jaw. Al Qaeda 1.0 is coming to an end but he’s worried about the 2.0 version which will be about their people using dual passports and will continue to look for new sanctuaries. They are looking for a message that would appeal to a larger audience.

Think I’ll end here. Tomorrow I’ll talk about what was probably the most controversial session the one with former Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair. As always my views are my own.