[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 112-139]
THE FUTURE OF U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
JULY 11, 2012
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman
JEFF MILLER, Florida JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
CHRIS GIBSON, New York TIM RYAN, Ohio
BOBBY SCHILLING, Illinois HANK JOHNSON, Georgia
ALLEN B. WEST, Florida KATHLEEN C. HOCHUL, New York
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona RON BARBER, Arizona
DUNCAN HUNTER, California
Peter Villano, Professional Staff Member
Mark Lewis, Professional Staff Member
James Mazol, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2012
Page
Hearing:
Wednesday, July 11, 2012, The Future of U.S. Special Operations
Forces......................................................... 1
Appendix:
Wednesday, July 11, 2012......................................... 27
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 2012
THE FUTURE OF U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Langevin, Hon. James R., a Representative from Rhode Island,
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and
Capabilities................................................... 1
Thornberry, Hon. Mac, a Representative from Texas, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities.............. 1
WITNESSES
Davis, Dr. Jacquelyn K., Executive Vice President, Institute for
Foreign Policy Analysis........................................ 8
Lamb, Dr. Christopher J., Distinguished Research Fellow, Center
for Strategic Research, Institute for National Security
Studies, National Defense University........................... 6
Robinson, Linda, Adjunct Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign
Relations...................................................... 3
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Davis, Dr. Jacquelyn K....................................... 74
Lamb, Dr. Christopher J...................................... 41
Langevin, Hon. James R....................................... 32
Robinson, Linda.............................................. 33
Thornberry, Hon. Mac......................................... 31
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Langevin................................................. 85
THE FUTURE OF U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, July 11, 2012.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 4:09 p.m. in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mac Thornberry
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MAC THORNBERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND
CAPABILITIES
Mr. Thornberry. The hearing will come to order. We greatly
appreciate all your patience. The bad news is we made you wait.
The good news is we won't be interrupted any further by votes,
but I very much appreciate you bearing with us.
First, I would ask unanimous consent that nonsubcommittee
members, if any, be allowed to participate in today's hearing
after all subcommittee members have had an opportunity to ask
questions.
Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
In the interest of time, I am going to also ask unanimous
consent that my opening statement be submitted as part of the
record and that the full written testimony of all our witnesses
be submitted as part of the record, but let me also say I
really appreciate the written statements that each of you
prepared. They were very helpful with lots of perspective but
also concrete, specific thoughts about what we need to watch
for, and that is exactly what we wanted to talk about in this
hearing, so I appreciate the excellent written statements that
you all have provided.
I would yield to Mr. Langevin for any comments he would
like to make.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Thornberry can be found in
the Appendix on page 31.]
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
RHODE ISLAND, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS
AND CAPABILITIES
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to our
witnesses today for testifying before us today. Our Special
Operations Forces are some of the most capable personnel in
high demand throughout our military, as we all know. For a
fraction of the Department of Defense's total budget, SOF
[Special Operations Forces] provides an outsized return on our
investment.
For the last decade, the bulk of the capabilities have been
greatly absorbed by necessities in Iraq and Afghanistan, but
now with our combat troops out of Iraq and our drawdown in
Afghanistan well underway, it seems appropriate to consider
what the future holds for SOF.
While SOF has been an integral part of conflicts in the
CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command] area of responsibility, I think
it is fair to say that some of the other combatant commands
have had to accept compromises in their SOF support for some
time now. As Admiral McRaven at U.S. Special Operations Command
and the rest of the Department of Defense goes through a
rebalancing process, I believe it is critical for those of us
in Congress to make sure SOF is properly manned, trained, and
resourced for future demands.
This is particularly important because Special Operations
Forces are perhaps best known for their direct action missions,
the bin Laden raid being a prime example. But their broad set
of missions range from unconventional warfare to foreign
internal defense to civil affairs and information operations,
among others, and in recent years, some of those skills may
have been atrophied. Put another way, our Special Operations
Forces are critical to our efforts to build the capacity of our
partners around the globe, enabling those partners to apply
local solutions to local security problems long before they
become a regional or global issue.
So we have many issues to consider to ensure that our
Special Operations Forces maintain their historic reputation as
agile and highly effective national security assets, and I
certainly look forward to hearing our witnesses' views on how
to ensure that we continue to populate our Special Operations
Forces with superior quality men and women who are highly
trained, properly equipped, and granted authorities needed to
continue their stellar contributions to our national security,
particularly given the highly uncertain threat landscape of the
future.
So I agree with the chairman.
I appreciate the statements that each of you have prepared.
I look forward to your testimony and look forward to getting to
questions.
But, Mr. Chairman, I especially want to thank you for
holding this hearing, and I certainly look forward to an
interesting discussion.
With that, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Langevin can be found in the
Appendix on page 32.]
Mr. Thornberry. I thank the gentleman.
We now turn to our witnesses, Ms. Linda Robinson, Adjunct
Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; Dr. Christopher
Lamb, Distinguished Research Fellow at National Defense
University; and Dr. Jacqueline Davis, Executive Vice President
for the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis.
Again, as I mentioned, your full statement will be made a
part of the record. We would invite you all to summarize as you
see fit. We will run the clock, you know, we are not going to
cut anybody off, but just as a guide for your summary, and then
we will turn to questions.
So, Ms. Robinson, thank you for being here. Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF LINDA ROBINSON, ADJUNCT SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL ON
FOREIGN RELATIONS
Ms. Robinson. Thank you very much, Chairman Thornberry,
Ranking Member Langevin, members of the subcommittee, thank you
very much for the opportunity to appear before this
distinguished panel.
The purpose of my testimony, of course, is to provide my
thoughts on the future of Special Operations Forces. You have
my full bio, but just to note, I have spent 27 years
researching various conflicts, and the last 13, much of that on
Special Operations Forces, both in the field and at
headquarters. I am currently at the Council on Foreign
Relations conducting a study on the future of Special
Operations Forces and also writing a book on SOF in
Afghanistan. I spent about 22 weeks of the last 2 years in
Afghanistan, and the particular focus of my research has been
the Village Stability Operations/Afghan Local Police
initiative, which is, as you may know, the largest SOF
initiative anywhere that is currently under way.
I will address three topics: The balance between the direct
and indirect approaches; the needed changes in authorities,
resourcing and force structure; and other changes to U.S.
Special Operations Command and the interagency process.
As noted, in the past decade, Special Operations Forces
have developed a world-class capability in the direct approach
or surgical strike capability. I see two areas in which
improvement might be considered in terms of balancing the
direct and the indirect. At the policy level, consideration
could be given for an established standard procedure for
balancing the direct and indirect and, in particular, ensuring
that all second- and third-order consequences are weighed in
the application of the direct approach.
I would note that both the current and former commanders of
U.S. Special Operations Command have repeatedly said in
testimony before this committee and elsewhere that the direct
approach only buys time for the indirect approach to work. So
this is a suggestion of actual mechanisms that can be
considered to achieve that appropriate balance.
The second consideration that I would offer is that intra-
SOF unity of command offers yet another mechanism for achieving
that balance between direct and indirect, and I would note that
in Afghanistan at this time, there is a Special Operations
Joint Task Force, called the SOJTF, that is taking command of
all SOF elements for the first time in the war, so we have a
very important milestone for this intra-SOF unity of command
that I think will yield valuable lessons. And one of the hoped-
for outcomes is that there will be more synergy achieved in the
efforts of the various SOF, so-called SOF tribes.
I would now like to turn to the indirect approach. I think
that is the area in which, that should be the primary area of
focus for improvements at this time. In my assessment, the
indirect approach is still suboptimized and the forces
primarily charged with carrying it out are not properly
resourced, organized, or supported, so I will just note briefly
that there are five improvements that I would recommend to
optimize the indirect approach. They are detailed at length in
my testimony, but I will just outline them briefly here.
First, I think greater clarity is needed as to what the
indirect approach is and part of the lack of clarity inherent
in the vagueness of the term indirect approach. It also is, at
its core, in my opinion, partnered operations. And SOF uses a
variety of partners, and it conducts a variety of operations, a
variety of activities as part of the indirect approach. So I
think a great deal of effort is needed to clarify this rather
complex term and what is meant by it. Doctrine, education, and
outreach are all components of clarifying what the indirect
approach is and how it is applied.
Secondly, there is a need to create first-class Theater
Special Operations Commands, which are currently the subunified
command of the Geographic Combatant Commands. These commands,
in my view, have not been optimized, and they require highly
qualified regional expertise. They require human and technical
intelligence specialists, expert planners, and SOF operators,
who serve extended tours there and receive career incentives
for serving at TSOCs [Theater Special Operations Commands]. The
TSOCs are by doctrine the C2 [command-and-control] node that is
charged with carrying out SOF operations in-theater and
advising the Geographic Combatant Commander. That doctrinal
role is currently not being fulfilled to its fullest, and in my
view, the TSOCs should be the epicenter for SOF operations,
should be seen as the most desirable assignment, and it doesn't
necessarily mean numbers of personnel, although I have provided
you the breakdown for SOF personnel assigned to the TSOCs. It
is quite below other headquarter elements at present, but I
would like to foot-stomp the idea is the quality; you need the
right expertise there and your top quality people there.
Thirdly, and this is very important, I believe that SOCOM
needs to reorient to prioritize support for the TSOCs and the
indirect approach in general, and this includes making a
priority out of resourcing, coordinating, and support for and
during SOF campaigns. There is an advocacy role. There is a
role for them to assist in the design and implementation of SOF
campaigns. SOCOM's [U.S. Special Operations Command] own J-code
staff section should prioritize the requirements, planning, and
resource support. There may be a call for a dedicated
organization within SOCOM headquarters to do this, but I would
caution that you don't want it to become an ancillary
appendage. I see this as very much a primary role that SOCOM at
large should play.
Finally, SOCOM might even consider detailing some of its
own personnel, which is now 2,606. It is a very large command.
Some of those might be temporarily or permanently assigned to
TSOCs.
Fourth, funding authorities for SOF to carry out sustained
indirect campaigns. This is a very essential, if complex, area.
Indirect campaigns can only be implemented over a number of
years if they are supported by predictable funding, and the
three hallmarks I think of what is needed in funding
authorities is multiyear funding, funding for SOF training
beyond just military forces, and assistance that goes beyond
counterterrorism to cover a range of security and stabilization
missions.
The State Department's role has been embraced by SOCOM.
They have the duty to ensure that all security assistance is in
line with U.S. foreign policy goals, and of course, in the
authorities, their reporting requirements, oversight, and Chief
of Mission approval are already provided. What I think is
missing is sufficient agility in the review and approval
processing. Oftentimes that can take up to 2 years, and that is
a very long lead time for the SOF campaign to get under way.
Finally, I think what is needed in the fifth category is
more flexible combinations of Special Operations and
conventional forces so that they can carry out indirect
campaigns both in a small footprint format in more places but
also for the occasional large-scale operation that may be
needed, and to wit, in Afghanistan now, there are two infantry
battalions assigned to SOF to carry out the Village Stability
Operations, and that is I think one useful example. But what is
needed for some of these small footprint campaigns is even
smaller units or even individuals, and that is very difficult
under the current force generation models for the Army, in
particular, to supply those needed capabilities. I would note,
however, that people are at work on trying to provide more
flexible combinations and also considering a blended command
that may be useful as a standing structure.
Finally, I would like to offer my view of some of the
principles that I think should guide assessment of the current
SOCOM proposals that are under discussion now. As you can tell,
I am a very strong advocate that SOCOM should become much more
aggressive about supporting the Theater Special Operations
Commands, and I believe that should be one of the guidelines.
The second guideline is that the Geographic Combatant
Commands should become more rather than less inclined to use
the TSOC, whatever solution is applied. So with those two
principles in mind, I note that Admiral McRaven has deemed that
having the TSOCs assigned to SOCOM will provide him more
authority to build that first-class TSOC. My question is, is
COCOM [Combatant Command], is this assignment of COCOM to
Special Operations Command necessary in order for them to fill
that resourcing function? Admiral McRaven has made clear
repeatedly that he intends for operational control to remain
with the Geographic Combatant Commander, and if that is
acceptable to the Geographic Combatant Commanders and if that
is the only way that SOCOM can be permanently oriented to
provide that support to TSOCs, then that would be the
appropriate course of action.
In regard to the other SOCOM proposals, which are that it
be assigned a global area of responsibility, that it be able to
initiate requests for forces and that, via a global employment
order, it be able to shift assets among theaters, I would like
to note in a broad way that any decisionmaking process I think
has to be both consultative and agile. And there are such
mechanisms that do exist via secure video teleconferences that
gather all of the stakeholders around the table and make the
decisions. And I think that is one modus operandi that has
developed over the past years that might be applied more
broadly for decisionmaking. But I think that anything that cuts
out a key stakeholder is bound to engender frequent conflicts.
Now, as to the operational role of SOCOM, global threats
today do have components that are both global and local in
nature. The local aspects are under the purview of the
Geographic Combatant Commanders, and I think that the task here
and a further study is warranted to see how the two commands'
purviews could be blended to find a new decision making
mechanism. What is clear to me is that SOCOM should do a much
better job than it has been on the institutional side. To me
that is where long-term strategic impact comes. SOCOM and SOF,
they have accomplished amazing things over the past decade, and
indeed for much of their history, but there has been something
of an operator mentality. The focus has been on tactical
proficiency and raising that to the highest level possible. I
think it is now time for SOF to rebalance from this largely
tactical and operational focus to concern itself with the
institutional development of SOF that will become more
strategic in its thinking and more strategic in its development
of leaderships. So to that end, I think that SOCOM has a full
plate and a full charter to do more in developing doctrine and
strategy, managing the careers and education of its SOF
personnel, and providing strategic leaders not only to the
community but who are viable candidates for the interagency and
joint community. And I would note to end that SOCOM has formed
or is in the process of forming a force management directorate
that I think is a very important and welcome step in the
direction of that institutional development. Thank you very
much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Robinson can be found in the
Appendix on page 33.]
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you.
Dr. Lamb.
STATEMENT OF DR. CHRISTOPHER J. LAMB, DISTINGUISHED RESEARCH
FELLOW, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC RESEARCH, INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL
SECURITY STUDIES, NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Lamb. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, it is
an honor to be here. I appreciate the opportunity to share my
views on the future of U.S. Special Operations Forces. I will
summarize my written statement with just three observations.
First, concerning SOF resources, SOF have been generously
resourced this past decade, and I believe they will likely be
protected from the kind of budget cuts affecting the rest of
the Department of Defense. That said, I think fiscal austerity
will affect SOF. The SOF leadership must make difficult choices
about what capabilities it will allow to diminish, which
capabilities it will retain and, in some cases, which
capabilities need to be reinvigorated. For example, SOF may
have to get along with less of the specialized intelligence
support that it has grown accustomed to in the past decade,
which might require SOF to partner more closely with host
nation personnel. That would be a good thing.
In my prepared remarks, I try to identify other areas where
hard resource choices must be made by Special Operations
Forces.
The second point concerns the division of labor between SOF
and General Purpose Forces and within SOF. The key to SOF's
strategic value in my estimation is distinguishing between SOF
and General Purpose Forces missions and capabilities and
between SOF direct and indirect approaches and capabilities.
Put differently, we cannot preserve and properly employ SOF
unique capabilities without first identifying them.
Some people believe these distinctions are academic or old
news. I disagree. I believe they are the difference between
success and failure, and they continue to be issues of major
import. For example, when SOF missions are conducted by
conventional forces or with units hastily assembled from
conventional forces, the risk of failure is much higher.
Of course, we saw this in the iconic case in the 1979
attempt to rescue hostages in Iran, but the problem persists.
In 2002, in Afghanistan, and a year later in 2003, in Iraq, we
lost momentum and dug a huge hole for ourselves by allowing
General Purpose Forces to take the lead on what were really
irregular warfare threats. By the time General Purpose Forces
recognized the irregular challenges and retrained and retooled
for what were inherently SOF missions, the problems had
metastasized, and we were on the defensive.
In addition, some forces recently designated as SOF have
proven ill-prepared for actual Special Operations.
Similarly, when we use SOF's direct approach to solve
problems that would be better addressed indirectly or when SOF
is not used to approach it in a complementary fashion, we risk
failure. I believe the 1993 SOF operations in Mogadishu,
Somalia, illustrate this point, but so do recent operations in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
For example, SOF Special Mission Units pursuing direct
action in Iraq were not able to make a strategic contribution
until their efforts were better integrated with those forces
conducting counterinsurgency through an indirect approach. As
Admiral Olson once commented when he was commander of USSOCOM,
SOF direct and indirect approaches, ``must be conducted in
balance, and that is the challenge.'' SOF leaders must keep
these two compatible but different approaches, skill sets, and
cultures equally robust and working in harmony and must prevent
either one from dominating or distorting the other.
Thirdly, the SOF interagency collaboration requirement.
Most irregular challenges cannot be defeated or managed
successfully by military means alone. I think that is well
accepted. What this means is that SOF capabilities must be well
integrated with other elements of national power. SOF progress
on interagency collaboration is one of the great success
stories of the past decade, but it is more costly, more
fragile, and more evident in SOF direct action than it is in
other SOF mission areas. So as a matter of high priority, I
think we ought to make such collaboration easier, more routine,
and more widely applied.
These three general observations summarize my testimony. In
closing, I would just like to note that when Congress
institutionalized SOF capabilities in the late 1980s, it
recognized that building SOF proficiency was a long-term
endeavor. SOF capabilities, like any military capability, are
subject to erosion. It takes continued vigilance to ensure
their preservation. In that regard, I think it is altogether
laudable that this subcommittee is interested in this topic,
and I greatly appreciate the opportunity to offer my views to
you on that subject. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Lamb can be found in the
Appendix on page 41.]
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you.
Dr. Davis.
STATEMENT OF DR. JACQUELYN K. DAVIS, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT,
INSTITUTE FOR FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS
Dr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee, for allowing me to express my views on the future of
SOF and SOCOM. As you know, U.S. SOF has always been deployed
for both direct actions and nonkinetic engagement missions, but
over the last several years in particular, preventive SOF
deployments aimed at building partner capacities and shaping
regional environments have emerged as particularly important
mission sets for U.S. Special Operations Forces and for SOCOM.
Building and nurturing partner security forces is often the
price of admission for U.S. access to countries or key regional
theaters. Moreover, as more and more nations object to the
presence of large American forces deployed in their countries,
SOF units with their small footprints are oftentimes a more
acceptable option.
For this reason, U.S. SOF indirect action engagements are
likely to become even more important going forward as budgets
become tighter and the imperative to operate jointly is matched
by the growing requirement to work with partners, be they from
the United States interagency or from outside the U.S.
Government. With this in mind, I would like to offer six
specific points for your consideration.
First, SOF's efforts in building global SOF partnerships
and global SOF networks will, I believe, facilitate American
efforts to build partner capacities and therein our efforts to
leverage allied partner SOF and other security forces for
common purposes. It will also contribute very importantly to
SOF interoperability and provide the United States with an
opportunity to address globally network challenges and threats
hopefully before a crisis emerges.
Second, the nature of the challenges ahead and the outlines
of the emerging security setting require us to be proactive, to
anticipate challenges and threats, and to do preventive
planning. This demands a new emphasis on indirect action
engagements without, however, dulling the spear of U.S. SOF's
direct action core competencies. That said, and as has been
pointed out earlier in the two previous presentations, many of
SOF's direct action core competencies are well suited to
support SOF's indirect action taskings, but a better definition
of what indirect action engagements means needs to be
considered.
Third, with the force slated to grow to about 71,000
troops, USSOCOM will have the resources to implement these two
lines of operation, but to do so as effectively as possible,
the commander of SOCOM, I believe, will need enhanced
authorities, both from the Department of Defense and from
Congress to manage his force globally. With respect to the
Department of Defense, the SOCOM commander needs to be given
authority to move forces in peacetime across regional Combatant
Command areas of responsibility to meet emerging needs or to
fulfill indirect action taskings.
Related to this, and this is the fourth point, is the
broader need for you in Congress to revisit Goldwater-Nichols.
In particular, in my view, what needs to be done is a
reassessment in the way that the legislation treated functional
versus regional Combatant Commands. In particular, the SOCOM
commander, I believe, should have authority over the TSOCs and
all U.S. SOF units based in CONUS [Continental United States]
and overseas. Right now he does not, and except for individual
ad hoc arrangements, he has no role in TSOC resourcing,
training, or peacetime planning, and that impinges on his
ability to manage his force globally to meet globally networked
threats. Giving SOCOM COCOM over the TSOCs and all forward-
based U.S. SOF units will address resourcing and training
shortfalls, and it will allow the redeployment of SOF units
from one theater to another, including from CONUS to forward
regions, as needs dictate. Global force management of U.S. SOF
is a necessity, not a luxury in the current strategic
environment.
Fifth, to support SOCOM indirect action strategies, I also
believe that Congress must address funding authorities. Here it
seems to me, and as Linda pointed out, that some of the
legislation in place is certainly useful, 1206 funding, for
example, but much of this funding is tied to specific
counterterrorism contingencies or to funding for Department of
State-led initiatives which often take time to get into place
and contain too many obstacles for timely action. What is
needed is multiyear authority, I believe, to support a broader
array of indirect action engagement strategies, including minor
MILCON [Military Construction] projects with partner SOFs and
other security forces.
And finally, SOCOM's vision of regional SOF coordination
centers should be encouraged, I believe, and implemented. While
SOCOM commands the greatest SOF capabilities in the world,
global problems require global partners and constructs. And one
approach to achieving U.S. national security objectives in this
regard is via the establishment of the regional SOF
coordination centers along the lines of the NATO SOF
Headquarters that is now, has been stood up since March 2010.
Based on a coalition of the willing nations, the NSHQ, the NATO
SOF Headquarters, has created a professional education program
for NATO SOF. It has reached out to non-NATO partners,
including for example Australia and Jordan. And it has
developed a collaborative relationship with interagency
partners. The DNI [Director of National Intelligence], for
example, is one of its biggest supporters, having provided
funds to develop an intelligence sharing and fusion capability.
While the establishment of the NSHQ was related to the
broader NATO umbrella, it is, as I pointed out a moment ago, a
voluntary MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] organization whose
construct can be a loose model for RSCC [Regional SOF
Coordination Center] development in other regions. The purpose,
again, would be to foster the idea of multilateral engagement
and to build interoperability among like-minded security
partners.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I will close, and I am willing
to take questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Davis can be found in the
Appendix on page 74.]
Mr. Thornberry. Well, thank you.
And again, thank you all.
I was struck as I read your written testimony and again
today how much agreement there is on so many points actually
among the three of you, which I think is significant, given
your different backgrounds and perspectives and so forth, which
tells me a lot.
One of the things, it seems, that you all agree on is that
the indirect approach needs more attention, and so that leads
me--and you have touched on it somewhat, but my question is,
what are the key elements that will make for success in the
indirect approach as we move ahead? What are the things that we
need to keep our eye on to ensure that the indirect approach
gets more attention and is successful in moving ahead around
the world?
Dr. Robinson.
And I will just go down the line.
Ms. Robinson. I did address and I do think my package of
five, I would hate to have to choose among the five because I
think they are all important, but I would add that in general
the U.S. political system shies away from proactive engagement,
and this indirect approach requires getting SOF operators out
there on the ground to understand the environment and develop
the relationships and access. It also requires persistence, and
that is another thing the U.S. political system is not good at.
We use the examples of Colombia and the Philippines as very
important success stories, but they did take a decade. So that
kind of strategic patience, I think, is really vital, and for
people to begin to see that it is really a very worthwhile
investment, and it can happen overall at a much lower cost than
the large-scale, large military operations that we have been
involved in, in the past. And then also as I say, I would foot-
stomp that the Theater Special Operations Command is the
primary node through which you are going to be implementing the
direct--the indirect approach and achieving balance with the
direct approach.
Dr. Lamb. I would just briefly add a couple of points. I
would agree with my colleagues that multiyear funding is
incredibly important for any security assistance endeavor. In
this regard, perhaps USASOC [U.S. Army Special Operations
Command] could be given more authority. I am also very
intrigued by the possibility of assigning USASOC, U.S. Army
Special Operations Command, the responsibility for the Army's
Human Terrain Teams, which provide additional insight on social
networks and cultural attributes of regions around the world,
and it would pair up nicely I think in some respects with our
Special Forces.
I think we need to look at a reset of Special Forces. Over
the past decade, the expansion of Special Forces and employment
in Afghanistan and Iraq arguably has inclined some of the units
more toward direct action than their traditional bread and
butter competencies and indirect action. I think that is
something that the committee should be interested in, and I
have the impression that USASOC is interested in this as well.
I think that our long-term interests are well served by
improving our psychological operations, now called Military
Information Support capabilities. They dovetail nicely with
security assistance and the indirect approach. I think they
have long been the least beneficiary of all the SOF elements,
if you will. They have been somewhat neglected. The selection
and the training criteria are not nearly as rigorous for those
forces as they are for the other SOF elements. I think some
attention to that would be useful.
Over the long term, I have to say I am on record as one of
those people who thinks that if we can't rebalance in this
respect, we need to look at the possibility of a separate
command. I mean, we have looked at new commands for other
functional areas, and this may be something that the committee
over the longer term would want to consider as well.
Dr. Davis. Much of what I have thought about in this area
has already been said, but there are two specific things that I
would like to add or three specific things. The first is in
terms of the training and SOF education programs, I think we
need to start elevating the importance of the indirect approach
so that people don't believe it is a second-class set of
missions relative to the direct action missions, and I do know
that Admiral McRaven is very interested in trying to get a
handle on this in his own command. But I think it is a broader
issue for the U.S. Government and the interagency.
And one of the issues that I think Congress needs to
grapple with is the whole notion of security cooperation, who
has the lead? Does State have the lead, or does DOD [Department
of Defense] have the lead? And if DOD by default is given the
mission because it has the resources, then what does it need
for interagency collaboration in a specific key regional
theater? These are issues that I believe need further study,
and I believe, particularly since SOCOM was given the
responsibility in the Department of Defense for security force
assistance synchronization, it is something that impacts SOCOM
very directly, so I think this is one area that Congress can be
very directive and ask for further consideration, both from the
Joint Staff, from OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense],
from the interagency, and from perhaps even a private
assessment from outside of government to do a little red
teaming.
Finally, to make the indirect approach I think perceived to
be of equal importance with the direct approach in SOCOM
planning, I agree with what Chris was just suggesting a moment
ago, and that is perhaps the development of another three-star
command, a subunified command under SOCOM, which is the command
for irregular warfare or whatever or unconventional warfare,
whatever you want to call it, on a par with JSOC [Joint Special
Operations Command] and resourced as JSOC is currently
resourced.
Mr. Thornberry. Interesting. Thank you.
Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
If we could continue discussing the authorities, Dr.
Robinson, you have commented on this most directly, but here in
the subcommittee, we have heard about SOCOM's desire for
additional authorities, and can you elaborate on your opinions?
Is it SOCOM or the regional Combatant Commanders who are best
positioned to understand the needs of SOF, the capabilities of
SOF, and the best way to utilize SOF versus other assets?
Ms. Robinson. Well, first, I would like to say there are a
plethora of authorities that Congress has granted, and the
Theater Special Operations Command routinely combine a number
of them to try to put together what they would consider an
enduring campaign, not just the 1200 series, but JCETs [Joint
Combined Exchange Training], counternarcotics authorities, and
in my extensive interviews, a number of people who have
wrestled through this feel that there could be some
rationalization to cause them to have to go through less of
that cobbling together for a campaign, but I think that a
touchstone really is to continue with a Chief of Mission
approval, consider what the State Department equities are, but
ensure that that process works rapidly.
As far as whether SOCOM or the GCC [Geographic Combatant
Command] should take the lead, you know, this is I think a very
complicated issue, and from my standpoint, I would just like to
point out that SOCOM is currently providing, if you take both
the regular funding and the OCO [Overseas Contingency
Operation] funding, they are providing roughly half of the
funding for the TSOC, so they clearly under the current
arrangement have some ability to fund and support the TSOCs.
The question is, will they become much more aggressive and
coherent in their approach to the programming and budgeting
process if they are granted the COCOM authority? They have
stated, Admiral McRaven has stated that the GCCs would retain
the OPCON [Operational Control], but I think that is really the
crux of the issue, to ensure that the GCC continues to see the
TSOC as its arm and its primary mechanism for conducting SOF
operations. If they were to see it as a SOCOM entity, they
would be less likely to employ it in the field, and the net
outcome would be worse, in my opinion.
Mr. Langevin. Dr. Lamb or Dr. Davis, do you care to
comment?
Dr. Lamb. I would just briefly add one point to that. I
think that an effective long-term indirect approach in a
country, say, like Yemen or any other country with which we
want to develop better relations and a commonality of interests
in counterterrorism is dependent upon the interagency approach,
so without knowing the specific details of Admiral McRaven's
proposal, which I understand are still under development, my
inclination would be to favor them or look on them with favor
if they were going to be implemented through the local embassy
special assistance package or a team, an interagency team that
was overseeing that process. To me, that would make more sense
than trying to manage that effort globally from USSOCOM
headquarters.
Dr. Davis. I would just add to that point that it is all
situation dependent, and it depends on what is going on in the
region. For example, if this is something that is really
speaking to the counterterrorism set of mission areas that
SOCOM is interested in, then it might be appropriate for SOCOM
to take the lead, but I believe that Admiral McRaven has always
emphasized that what he would do in theater would come under
the Chief of Mission's authority. Operationally the regional
Combatant Commander would have control. It would all be in
consultation. What he is really concerned about is placing the
right resources, in the right place, in a timely fashion, and
then allowing his TSOCs to exercise with partner forces and not
just SOF counterpart forces, but Ministry of the Interior
forces, Drug Enforcement Agency forces, whatever is relevant
and specific in a particular theater in a specific context. He
wants to have the freedom to be able to develop a program of
outreach to those agencies with whom he would be working on the
larger global network challenges, and he continues to want to
support the regional COCOM's priorities, but oftentimes the
regional COCOM's priorities are different priorities than the
global functional command's priorities, and he is trying to
bridge that gap I believe in some of these proposals he is
grappling with.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you. My time has expired. I hope we
will get to a second round of questions. With that, I yield
back and thank you for your answers.
Mr. Thornberry. Mr. West.
Mr. West. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member.
And thanks for the panel for being here.
And, you know, maybe I am a little outdated because I did
retire 8 years ago, but I am trying to go back and just close
my eyes and think about the line and block charts that you all
are talking about and the dash--dotted lines all over the place
because, you know, one of the key things that they taught us
was unity of command and unity of effort, and so as I listen to
you talk about TSOCs, and, you know, them getting in the area
of operations, area of responsibility for theater commander,
you know, how will some of these things that we are talking
about, when we start to have a functional commander that is
over here, you know, headquartered in Tampa, you know, being
involved with the theater operations that let's say that
General Allen is specifically tasked with doing, what really is
the relationship that we are talking about here because having
been a commander in a combat zone, the last thing I wanted was,
you know, cowboys in my area of operations operating, you know,
independently without my understanding, and I don't want to see
us, you know, having that happen, you know.
I hear you talk about interagency and other things with
coalitions, so when you talk about this TSOC, I remember we
used to have SOCCEs [Special Operations Command and Control
Element] and every combatant command had a Special Operations
Command and Control Element that was supposed to be that
liaison with those Special Operations Forces. Are we bypassing
the SOCCEs now with these TSOCs? Or are we making the SOCCEs
irrelevant even?
Ms. Robinson. I would first answer that the SOCCE is more
of an operational and temporary construct, and the TSOC is an
enduring subunified command of the Geographic Combatant
Command. And I would say that the concern that you have
expressed is certainly one that has been heard and has been
voiced, and I would underline, I think it is critical that
there be, with any such change, a clearly enumerated permanent
assignment of operational control to the Geographic Combatant
Commander so that that principle of unity of command does
continue to be observed, and I think that the confusion----
Mr. West. And unity of effort.
Ms. Robinson. And unity of effort, yes, and through the
Chief of Mission approval that is in many of these authorities
that I think recognizes a very critical part of getting
interagency unity of effort. But I would like to add I think
that some of these concerns expressed around a global area of
responsibility for SOCOM as a functional command has created
some concern that there would be SOCOM moves to move forces in
and out of Combatant, Geographic Combatant Commanders' areas
without their approval, not just their coordination. So it
comes down to who has the vote. And in my view, this has got to
be a collaborative process or it is not going to work. Any
attempt by SOCOM to override or trump the GCC is going to issue
an endless bureaucratic battle. So I think the process needs to
be very clear. And while I recognize that many of these global
threats transcend the geographic combatant command boundaries,
you cannot have SOCOM sitting atop the Geographic Combatant
Commander system. Thank you.
Dr. Davis. Congressman, I don't believe that anything
Admiral McRaven is considering would do that. I believe he is
really thinking about his peacetime authorities and the
flexibility to move forces to meet prospective needs or looming
threats on the environment and to do the exercise and training
that he believes necessary to keep those units current in terms
of capabilities and understanding. I do not believe he is
talking about going over a regional COCOM's head. He is talking
about doing things together in a cooperative, collaborative
fashion.
Mr. West. And I will wholeheartedly agree with you because
one of the things that you all did bring up, when I was a
battalion commander in Iraq, we did four different missions in
support of Delta, and I think that, you know, there was a lot
of discovery learning on the fly, but we were able to, you
know, execute and provide the external cordon for them, but
there was rehearsals and, you know, getting down to TTP
[tactics, techniques, and procedures], so, you know, that
aspect I understand. And I wholeheartedly agree that on this
side, we should have more of those, you know, type of
operations where we are training together, we are learning, and
there should not be this distinction between, you know, the
Special Operation type forces to include the PSYOP
[Psychological Operations] forces and others and our
conventional forces, so, you know, that I support. But, you
know, when you start talking about on the ground in the combat
zone, you know, we have got to be very careful about the line
and block charts.
Dr. Davis. And he definitely is not talking about combat
zone. He is talking about those ambiguous environments where
there is activity.
Mr. West. We don't have ambiguous environments.
Dr. Davis. Not at all.
Mr. West. All right. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Mr. Thornberry. Ms. Davis.
Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
thank you all for being here. I guess one of the things I would
say about your presentation, and I really appreciate the hard
work that you all have been doing for so many years is, you
know, we have come a long way. I am not sure I would add baby
at the end, but we have come a long way, and I remember, and I
know the chairman knows this, sort of kind of the shock and
great concern that we had when it was obvious that people were
playing at their jobs, particularly as it related to trying to
do some interagency collaborative work when people really
didn't have the depth or the training to do that, and so we
have tried hard to understand that better.
One of the concerns that I remember, though, and you can
share with me if this is just not true today, is that one of
the reasons that the military obviously had a leg up, if you
will, on all of this is that they had a deep bench, and that
when we tried to do more cross-training and tried to bring
along folks who were involved, whether it was the State
Department or USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development]
if that was appropriate, whatever it was, Agriculture or
Commerce, we didn't have the people to really be available to
do the training and to meet together. I know that the Defense
University had that problem. There were plenty of individuals
in the Services to come forward, but we couldn't spare as many
people to do that. Is that still an issue and a problem?
Because as you talk about many of these areas, it does depend
on having people available to take the time to do that kind of
collaborative training together if, in fact, we are talking
about far more than theater operations. Has that problem gone
away? I doubt it because I don't think the resources are there.
Dr. Lamb. No, I would respond to that by saying that
actually particularly the Department of State, some of the
smaller elements in the national security system do have a
problem meeting interagency collaboration requirements,
particularly given the way we do it now, which is very labor-
intensive. It is a volunteer activity. You have to get all the
people in the same room on a sustained basis, so it is labor-
intensive. It is not very efficient, frankly, and in that
sense, the military definitely has an advantage. It can put
manpower on the task when it wants to. It is actually I think a
great compliment to past Special Operations commanders over
this past decade that they have been willing to allocate even
very scarce military talent to effect interagency
collaboration. So that is all to the good. But that is an
ongoing problem.
However, that said, I think that there are greater
problems, greater impediments to interagency collaboration than
just not being able to put the manpower forward to work on
these small teams. It doesn't take that many people working
together in a room to effect interagency collaboration if the
conditions are set for success. Typically in the current
system, we don't have those conditions set for success. So I
can elaborate on that if you like.
Mrs. Davis of California. Please, if you would. The other
question I would like to put into this discussion because my
time is so limited is really the women's role in SOF. What is
that? I mean, in terms of training and integrating women into
that. I know the work of the FETs in Afghanistan, the Female
Engagement Teams, and it is a significant role. Unfortunately,
they are being pulled out in a lot of areas, not because they
are not doing a good job but because their units are leaving.
And so how--where does that fit? Because I think that actually
we have seen what a difference their role can make, and I am
wondering if that is kind of a missing piece when we look at
this.
Dr. Davis. Well, certainly the current commander and the
previous commander of U.S. SOCOM has appreciated the potential
contribution that many women in the force are making, can make,
and will make into the future to support SOCOM and SOF
operations, and combined SOF and General Purpose Force
operations, both in operational settings but much more
importantly in this set of indirect action mission areas, where
women I think will increasingly be able to bring to bear their
capabilities. Certainly in Afghanistan, we have seen how
important in the Village Stability Programs that the
introduction of women in the forces has been, and the
utilization and leveraging of our particular assets as part of
the female gender.
Admiral McRaven, I believe, recognizes that and certainly
all of the components--Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force of SOF, of
building SOF forces--have valued their female operators,
whether they are intelligence personnel or whatever, MOS
[Military Occupational Speciality] they have. And I think in
the future as the numbers go up in SOF to 71,000, around 71,000
people in the force, I think you will see a larger percentage
of women in operational settings as well as in the headquarters
in the United States as well as in the TSOC organizations.
Mrs. Davis of California. Thank you.
I hope, Dr. Lamb, you can follow up in another minute about
some of those other obstacles. Thank you.
Mr. Thornberry. Mr. Barber, this may be our first
subcommittee meeting since you have joined the subcommittee. We
are glad to have you.
Let me ask about a couple of other things. Then absolutely
any other member who would like to pursue other things may
definitely do that.
Here is what worries me--one of the things that worries
me--a tremendous amount of publicity has been given to Special
Operations, especially since the Osama bin Laden raid. And that
has a danger in and of itself as the enemy learns what we do
and how we do it. But the rest of the story is now everybody
knows how good these folks are, and the temptation is to have
them do everything because they can do whatever they put their
mind to so well.
And so the question is: How do we ensure Special Operations
stays special? And especially in the situation where it looks
like in Afghanistan we are moving towards a situation where
Special Operations is going to run the country, from a military
standpoint, how does that work? And as we think about the
temptation to use Special Operations for everything and giving
them a whole country to run, does that threaten some critical
capabilities that nobody else can do? That is what is going on
in my mind, and I would appreciate your all thoughts on that.
Ms. Robinson. I think that is one of the concerns upper
most in the mind of the SOF leadership, and the danger of
overstretch is real. The way I see it, the mission in
Afghanistan, as we go toward a FID/CT [Foreign Internal
Defense/Counterterrorism] mission, is one that is appropriate
for SOF, but it will not be able to handle it alone. So it is,
I think, imperative that the mission be defined with some
precision, and then a blended command setup that draws heavily
on the conventional forces. And they have many particular
skills that do not exist in the Special Forces, Special
Operations Forces, including provost marshals, a lot of the
enablers, a lot of these special subsets.
So my general view is that blended SOF conventional force
combinations extend the reach of SOF and help them avoid
overstretch.
Also, I would like to underline what Jacquelyn said
regarding SOF partners. This is a very important way of also
extending SOF's reach. I think it is very little covered in
this country that NATO SOF and other coalition SOF are helping
in Afghanistan, particularly with the Provincial Response
Company training effort, but there are also Middle East
partners there helping, and these are very important force
multipliers, if you will.
And I think, looking around the world, a lot of those
missions, those indirect missions, are very small, a few teams
required per country. But I think it will require a constant
evaluation of the priorities. And within Afghanistan, they have
to make, I think, some hard decisions about where
geographically to focus. And my view is they should focus very
clearly on the insurgent belt, the south and the east, rather
than trying to make it a countrywide effort.
Thank you.
Dr. Lamb. I would just say that I think historically your
concerns are validated by experience. Not long after 9/11,
there were cases of Special Operations Forces being used for
what I considered inappropriate missions, such as site or
personal body protection missions that were not the best use of
our Special Operations Forces. Under the circumstances, it was
perhaps understandable that they were used for that purpose
around this town and elsewhere. But I think that has basically
declined.
Another area where I think this might be a problem was the
shift after 9/11 from security assistance being a collateral
mission to being a core mission. That has an advantage and a
disadvantage. The advantage is that SOCOM now has the lead
responsibility for recommending whether General Purpose Forces
or Special Operations Forces conduct a security assistance
mission. So that is a good thing in general. But if it invites
the Services, the General Purpose Forces, to back away from
security assistance and forces SOCOM to carry more of that load
itself, I would consider that a poor use of our Special
Operations Forces talent.
I must say, though, in this area, there is a problem within
SOCOM, I think, and it gets to the question of what is the
scale of our direct action missions. I mean, many of these
missions can be looked at as elective, if you will. We are
doing some of these missions on an industrial scale, if you
will. And that has had the effect of pulling in not just our
special mission units but pulling in the ODAs [Operational
Detachment Alphas] and everybody else to get involved in that
to a certain extent.
So there it is kind of a SOCOM management issue as to are
we really doing what we need to do with direct action. It is
quite possible, in fact, I believe it is probably the case that
our direct action missions could be executed with far greater
discrimination, taking into account the political effects of
those missions. It is an incredible capability. It doesn't have
to be used on the scale it is, I think, to achieve the
political effects that we would desire from that.
So, in that sense, some rebalancing within SOCOM could
limit the workload in that regard and make sure that they are
used to good effect.
Dr. Davis. Just one final thought along the lines of
Afghanistan. I have thought that what came out of the Chicago
summit was not precise enough in terms of defining what it is
actually that our forces are going to be doing after 2014.
There is the assumption that much of the burden of what
will occur after 2014 will fall to Special Operations Forces.
And, indeed, we have created a new command and control
structure for Afghanistan to facilitate the post-2014 period.
But understanding exactly what the training mission is, in
quotes, I think, needs to be spelled out much more precisely.
And then, the second part of that, understanding which allies
are going to be with us to perform that mission is not at all
clear in my mind. We made certain assumptions, for example,
about the French. The French have had a change in government.
Mr. Hollande made some pretty ambiguous statements in Chicago.
I have heard my German friends make statements about 2014. That
is just it. My Italian friends have made similar statements. In
Poland, they have created a SOCOM-like organization to promote
SOCOM and to keep its commitment in Afghanistan. But now, with
the government change in Poland and the tensions between the
president and the prime minister, they are now reconsidering
whether or not those units should be pulled back in under the
Army just to perform direct action missions and not do the
training and direct engagement missions that would be required
in Afghanistan.
So, to my mind, there is a lot of uncertainty, and that
uncertainty, called Afghanistan post-2014, impinges quite fully
upon the future of SOF and SOCOM planning, I believe.
Mr. Thornberry. Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I don't think it would be at all controversial to assert
that modern warfare is extremely complex and growing even more
so, and that any future conflicts will have cyber dimensions as
the domain continues to grow in importance. So with that, to
what extent is SOCOM training and resourcing able to operate
both in the cyber domain and in the nexus of the cyber domain
and the physical domain?
For example, advanced analytics to identify and exploit
networks, counterthreat capabilities and advanced offensive and
defensive network tools?
Dr. Davis. That is one area that I was going to suggest if
I had a question about what should the missions be or are there
any missions that SOCOM could shed for fear of getting into a
situation where this is a force of first choice that we go to
in every instance.
I believe SOCOM and SOF should be playing much more
intensively in the cyber area, but we might conflate its
activities in the cyber area with computer network operations,
information operations, strategic messaging, and even perhaps
psychological operations. There might be a way of putting
together these disparate pieces of a larger puzzle with a
greater emphasis on the cyber piece, which if you are looking
at networked global challenges, obviously the cyber piece
becomes very, very important.
I think that is one area that SOCOM needs to address much
more fully as we go into the future, in both planning, ensuring
it has the correct personnel with the right competencies, and
also with respect to operationalizing cyber as a piece of SOCOM
planning.
Mr. Langevin. Ms. Robinson, do you have any comments?
Ms. Robinson. My view is that some portions of the Special
Operations Community have been extremely effective in
leveraging other capabilities elsewhere in the Government. And
with the stand up of Cyber Command, I would hope that that same
kind of synergy could be employed rather than trying to create
a wholly new center of excellence, if you will, under the SOCOM
umbrella. Of course, there are very proficient tactical units
at the field level. For example, SOT-A [Special Operations Team
Alpha], is very valuable to those teams out in the field. But I
would think at the higher level, it is really a question of
increased interagency collaboration and formation of these
interagency task forces to get after the combined threat.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
Dr. Lamb.
Dr. Lamb. I was thinking about what I can say about this in
an unclassified venue, but I would just say that I support
SOCOM's involvement in information operations and also in
counter proliferation. Those are two missions it has added over
the past couple of decades, and I think they do have a very
discrete but well-defined role in those missions that they need
to be prepared for, and as far as I know are prepared for. So I
don't see that as undue expansion on their part.
Just to agree with my colleagues here, one of the big
challenges in any complex mission area, including cyber
security, but also counterinsurgency, counter proliferation, et
cetera, is that we have simply got to learn to work across
organizational boundaries. So you are not going to have
everything in a nice, neat package. SOCOM won't have the alpha
and omega responsibilities for cyber security or information
operations, or even for counterinsurgency. Or for very little
that it does, actually, which is why we really need to take
seriously the requirement to improve our interagency
collaboration skills. These missions have to be tackled on that
basis. And that goes for collaboration with the Geographic
Combatant Commands and SOCOM as well.
The other big challenge we have, in addition to cross-
organizational collaboration, I think, is decentralizing to get
the problem solvers closer to the problem, which is going back
to a point that was made earlier. I would like to see--I agree
that the Theater SOCs need to be muscled up, but I don't think
the tension should be between the Geographic Combatant Commands
and SOCOM for control of those security assistance missions. It
should be managed through the embassy and the interagency team
on the front lines that are going to work the problem day in
and day out on a persistent basis.
So if the decisionmaking is done closer to the problem, as
would be the case, for example, on JIATF-South [Joint
Interagency Task Force-South], and you just get general
supervision by SOUTHCOM [U.S. Southern Command] or the
respective combatant commands, I think we would have less of a
problem. So decentralization and working across organizational
boundaries, these are two things that we have to get better at.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the
balance of my time.
Mr. Thornberry. Mr. West.
Mr. West. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member.
I wholeheartedly agree with what the chairman just said,
because, you know, I remember back when we created the Green
Beret, a very specific, a very narrow mission set that we had
them do. And even when we created the Special Forces as a
branch when I was a young captain, once again, very specific
mission set.
But when you sit down and you look at Act of Valor and all
of these things, all of a sudden it becomes the shiny little
toy. And everyone is running and saying, well, the Special
Operations guys can do it; the Special Operations guys can do
it. Not only are we overextending them, also we are
underutilizing the other aspects of our military.
When I was down at Camp Lejeune, I did a 3-year Joint
assignment. What I saw was the MEU [Marine Expeditionary Unit]
program. I think that is something that we need to look at how
we can develop with our conventional forces because you take a
Marine infantry battalion and you separate out to be a Marine
Expeditionary Unit, a MEU, but it has to go through specific
training and some of that specific training is on a series of
Special Operations capable missions, so they get that tag line
MEU SOC [Special Operations Capable].
So I think what we need to start looking at, when I look at
this list, direct action, special reconnaissance, security
force assistance, unconventional warfare, foreign internal
defense, civil operations operations, counterterrorism,
military information support operations, counter proliferation
and weapons of mass destruction, and information operations, I
get exhausted just reading that list.
One thing that we are not talking about here, we still have
this thing out there called sequestration. So we really need to
start looking at how do we take and narrowly focus these
missions? Because one of the things we said in the military, if
everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. So how do you
properly train people on this litany of 10 or so different
tasks? They are not going to do it very well.
And I am very concerned about the fact that we are going to
try to turn over Afghanistan to the special operators. That is
not what they were intended to be. There is something that you
can go back to your think tanks and talk about. Let us look at
that MEU SOC model of how we can maybe alleviate some of these
missions from the ``Special Operations Community'' and look at
how--you know, we have Rangers out there. I mean, Rangers
should be able to do some of these operations, like a direct
action mission. They are highly specialized infantry. That is
what we need to start looking at. That is my little 2 cents
worth.
Dr. Davis. Congressman, if I may, if you take that list
that you just articulated and you look at it, you realize that
some of them are activities and some of them are missions. And
some of the activities might be core competencies of SOF, or
they might be core competencies of General Purpose Forces, or
they both might operate together. But I think we do need to
reassess what it is we want U.S. SOF to do. Absolutely. I
couldn't agree with you more.
Ms. Robinson. I think that one of the ways to avoid this
overstretch problem is to recall that SOF really are supposed
to be used in hostile, denied, or sensitive environments. I
think that is one way to quickly delimit some of this.
If we are talking about security force assistance in a
benign environment, that should be largely seen as a
conventional force responsibility, unless it is SOF training
SOF or SOF-like forces.
Also the list of nine, I have always had a problem with
that because it is kind of a mishmash, and I think the draft
Army doctrinal publication forthcoming has a binning of
surgical strike and special warfare, which I think provides
some intellectual clarity about what we are talking about. I
think they get trained on those subset missions really as part
of those two categories.
Finally, I would say, in Afghanistan, it is very important
to clarify the mission. If it is just behind-the-wire training,
yes, I think that can be not only a conventional force mission
but probably Afghans will be very quickly able to do much or
all of that themselves. But for continued counterterrorism,
combat advising and if there is an ongoing effort to support
the village stability ops and the Afghan Local Police, I think
that is clearly, we have those small teams out in those very
wild and woolly places, that is a SOF mission.
Mr. West. That fits within their mission statement. That
goes back to Vietnam when we had the Strategic Hamlet Program.
That is the mission set. But you are right, if it is just to be
there to train ANA [Afghanistan National Army], you don't need
special operators to train the ANA.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Mr. Thornberry. Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis of California. Dr. Lamb, just continuing, I
think you were talking--really, what gets in the way?
Dr. Lamb. Of interagency collaboration?
Mrs. Davis of California. Yes. And we know, we have had
those discussions before in terms of people looking only in
their own silos, but what is it?
Dr. Lamb. Well, I think the main obstacle to interagency
collaboration is the very structure of our system. We have
built very powerful, functional departments and agencies. And
this makes a lot of sense. It gives us a great reservoir of
support and all of the relevant elements of national power. So
there is a lot of advantage to that.
But if you compare those strengths against the cross
organizational collaborative constructs we have, they are all
very weak. So our ability to actually integrate those
functional capabilities to good effect is very poor.
And to bring it down to earth and really to my own personal
experience, I have had some examples that I can attest to in
this regard, but if you are sent to serve on an interagency
group, you immediately have a great tension. On the one hand,
you are trying to represent your agency correctly and protect
its organizational equities and its preferred position; on the
other hand, you have the sense that you are suppose to help the
whole group accomplish the mission well. This is a tension that
the system does not send clear demand signals on.
Many times those of us who have worked in bureaucracy will
be sent to these kind of groups with the overriding mandate to
make sure that the organization's preferred position comes out
in the end. Or if not, to ensure that it is not sacrificed,
which means that the thinking gets watered down, the products
get watered down, et cetera; the clarity gets watered down, et
cetera.
So my view of this is that, absent some kind of
intervention from--I actually believe and have written on this
subject--from Congress to give the President the authority to
delegate his authority for integrating across the Cabinet level
departments and agencies, we are going to continue to find that
this capability is very, very fragile.
Again, I think SOF really has to be congratulated as one of
the few elements of the national security system that have
taken this requirement seriously. I think they backed into it,
realizing that they were not going to get actionable
intelligence to go after the bad guys without interagency
collaboration. And they built that level of collaboration up.
They then looked at their operations and said, we are still not
getting strategic effect. They started bringing in other
things, like political talent and information operations
talent, and they started performing at a much higher level, our
special mission units. I think that is a great success.
We need to do the same thing on the indirect side. But this
is a pocket of expertise and success that is not replicated as
a general rule across the system.
There are other big problems. We have a penchant for taking
all of our complex national security missions and dividing
responsibility up among different entities. So we will have
someone work the policies, someone work the planning component.
Someone will work the actual operations. Someone will assess
it. Nobody manages the mission end-to-end, as a typical rule.
In all of the cases that I have studied where we have had
so-called black swans of interagency collaboration, those that
have performed really well, they do find a way to manage the
mission end-to-end. That is one of their distinguishing
characteristics. But typically, our national----
Mrs. Davis of California. Do we really study that to
understand what leadership is doing that is different in those
situations?
Dr. Lamb. Well, I am actually shocked by the lack of
serious, rigorous research on this subject. I would have
assumed, given all of the attention paid to it, rhetorically,
that we would have a lot of dedicated research. But when you
think about it, it is not so strange. None of our departments
and agencies is inclined to spend a lot of research dollars on
this because they are not assigned that responsibility. If you
look at the National Security Council, staff is actually
relatively small with a relatively limited budget, and they
typically have their nose deeply in the inbox. So there is not
really anyone with a vested interest in looking at this other
than the Congress or the President, I suppose.
But what research we have done on this indicates that there
are some overarching requirements for success. There are some
things to avoid, et cetera. And to promote our research a
little bit at National Defense University, we are doing a
series of case studies on this designed to find some general
lessons learned. And we do have support of some people in the
Special Operations Community for that purpose, which I am very
grateful for.
Mrs. Davis of California. But you seem to be suggesting as
well that Congress has a role and perhaps there are some
authorities or opportunities to make this easier or to
encourage more partnerships?
Dr. Lamb. Yes, we do. We actually have a study and a report
on that very subject, and we recommended that Congress pass
legislation that would give the President the authority to
delegate his presumptive authority, integrate the departments
and agencies through what we called mission managers. So we can
certainly provide that information to the committee staff, if
you would like.
Mrs. Davis of California. Okay. Thank you very much. My
time has expired.
Mr. Thornberry. It is an important problem. It is hard for
Congress to grapple with as well.
But the gentlelady knows, and I feel strongly, like she
does, that we have to grapple with it.
Let me ask a couple of organizational issues. There has
been tremendous growth in Special Operations over the last
decade. Admiral Olson used to always come and talk about his
concern that as we increase the number of people, we maintain
the quality of the people that are coming in. But from an
organizational standpoint, U.S. Special Operations Command was
created by Congress to be agile and given special procurement
authorities so they could buy and acquire what was needed right
away and get it done. Has SOCOM become too big? Has it lost
some of its agility as far as procurement or other hopes when
it was created?
Dr. Davis. It has not become so big; it is in danger,
perhaps, of doing so. But what has happened is, because of its
sustained operational tempos over the last several years in
particular, it has come to depend much more on the Services to
enable many operations. And in many cases, the Services,
looking at their own budgets, understanding the environments we
are in, are cutting those enablers, for example, that are
necessary for SOCOM and SOF to perform its missions in forward
areas.
So I think there is a danger of getting too large because
you lose your special nature, and you don't have the
specialized skill sets and core competencies of people you will
need. But more importantly, in this environment that we are in,
with each of the Services contracting, force structure and
looking at recruiting bases for people in competition with
SOCOM now, increasingly, that I think there is a danger as we
go forward of finding the right people for the command and
certainly having the Services support the commands with the
enablers that they need.
Helicopters is an area in particular in which SOCOM really
needs the air mobility piece to enhance its forward operations,
and the Services just don't have the capabilities to bring
forward in this regard.
Dr. Lamb. I would add just a couple of quick points. I
think it is a mixed picture. I mean, I would be the first to
say that SOF, especially in the direct action area, is much
more agile today than it was 10 or 15 years ago, not only
because of the resources that they have been given but because
of the experience they developed and because of the interagency
collaborative protocols and organizations they have pioneered.
They do things routinely today that were very difficult, you
couldn't even imagine them. I mean, somebody pointed out to me,
a colleague in the Pentagon that I was talking about this
testimony with, he pointed out that it took us 13 years to
identify the bombers of Pan Am 103. Our forensic capabilities
today are much, much, much more refined than that. We have
unbelievable agility in some respects in our Special Operations
Forces today. It is awe-inspiring.
On the other hand, in the indirect areas, I think we have
atrophied a bit. You know, we have with 80 to 90 percent of the
force in just two theaters, and so the language and cultural
skills in the context there have atrophied. In that sense, we
are less agile.
But one other thing that I have heard that I pass on to you
is that the abundance of technology that has been made
available has perhaps eroded some of the creative SOF problem-
solving skills. There was a certain pride--not unlike the
Marine Corps in certain respects--but certain pride in SOF
about being able to do very creative things with very little
resources. Certainly being able to go into a complex situation,
assess what resources you have, operate within those boundaries
and still solve the problems. Some people in the community
think maybe that has atrophied with the sort of direct action
capabilities that have been provided.
Ms. Robinson. I would like to add a few points. I think
SOCOM and its subordinate elements are not too big, but I do
think some rebalancing toward the indirect capabilities is
needed and perhaps relooking what the headquarters is doing.
Some redundant functions are there perhaps.
What is very clear to me is that these enablers are
critical for SOF to operate. The distributed operations require
a lot of lift and a lot of support. And out there in
Afghanistan, as you know, these rigors are working 24-7. All of
these people that have to supply the SOF teams out there in the
hinterlands, and SOF have been building more support forces.
That is the last part of the build for the expansion, and I
think it is very critical that they get that but also continue
to have access to conventional enablers. And that is part of
this SOF Force Generation process that they are working
through.
Finally, though, if budgetary requirements come to bear, I
think it is very important to remember that SOF truth that says
quality is more important than quantity, and I think the
command will protect that at all costs. The operatives have to
meet that standard in order to be able to perform their
assigned missions.
Mr. Thornberry. A similar question on the civilian side. We
have an Assistant Secretary for Special Operations and Low
Intensity Conflict. Any changes ought to be made there? Or do
you think that kind of counterpart within the Secretary of
Defense's Office is okay for now?
Dr. Davis. Looking at it from afar, I don't think that that
office has been particularly helpful to SOCOM until quite
recently. In the building, it has been rather lost in policy
debates. The ASD, Assistant Secretary of Defense, for SO/LIC
[Special Operation/Low Intensity Conflict] has been able to
articulate requirements, but I think going forward, working
together, and I know this is certainly the plan of Mike Sheehan
and Admiral McRaven, to make sure that they are in sync so that
Mike can articulate in policy forums the requirements for SOCOM
but also, very importantly, to say no, that is not a SOCOM
mission and you don't need SOCOM forces. When considering
global force employments, I think that is particularly
important. So I think the relationship needs to be much tighter
than it has been.
Now I know it was very tight when you were there, Chris.
But I think in the policy world in the Pentagon, the ASD
SO/LIC needs to be much more proactive than he traditionally
has been in inserting SOF equities, SOF issues into policy
debates but also protecting SOF interests.
Dr. Lamb. I would add one quick comment.
We were chuckling because we were talking about this very
issue a little earlier. I have not worked in that organization
for over 15 years, but I still know people in it, and I would
not want to make a--I don't know that there are any structural
changes that need to be made there.
But I would say one thing to Members of Congress about the
creation of the ASD SO/LIC; I think it was a good move.
Just to give you one example, if you chart some of the
issues that are now standard thinking in Special Operations
Command, like the distinction between a direct and indirect
approach or what are the key elements that make Special
Operations special, et cetera, you can track them all of the
way back to early 1990s when a group of special operators and
people in ASD SO/LIC sat down to create something called the
Long-Range Planning Document for SOF. And so I do think the
organization has had an effect, and a positive effect.
That said, there have been times when people in the
building, and I have worked in other offices in the Pentagon,
have asked whether they really need to hear the Assistant
Secretary's view because it is not likely to be at all
different or interesting compared to U.S. SOCOM's view. And so
I think there is something that needs to be looked at there.
If an incoming Assistant Secretary asked my advice, one
thing I would say to them is that you need deep Special
Operations expertise on your staff, but you also need
multifunctional expertise on your staff as well. Just like SOF
has to work with other skill sets to be effective against the
complex missions that we face, that staff needs to, in its
oversight role, needs to have a multifunctional base, and that
might be something to look at.
Ms. Robinson. May I add two points?
I think that the Office of SO/LIC should focus full time
and exclusively on SOF. And I think historically they have been
burdened with other additional responsibilities. And to me,
this is too critical a portfolio to have other issues also
under that ASD. I know there is some concern in the building
there if they were to reorganize in that way, they might lose
bodies. But I think it is very important that ASD SO/LIC be
focused on SOF.
Secondly, I think its oversight role does require some
degree of independence. Yes, to support SOCOM, but I think it
is very important that the USDP, the Under Secretary of Defense
for Policy, be able to turn to ASD and say, be my honest broker
here, tell me what you think, give me your own opinion. Thank
you.
Mr. Thornberry. Any other questions?
I think that is it for now. Thank you all again for your
testimony and for answering our questions and for all of the
work that you have done in this area. We look forward I am sure
to further communication with you as we grapple with what we
can do to help make sure that Special Operations is as well
positioned as possible in the future to help protect our
country.
Again, thank you for being here.
With that, the hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:35 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
July 11, 2012
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
July 11, 2012
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Statement of Hon. Mac Thornberry
Chairman, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities
Hearing on
The Future of U.S. Special Operations Forces
July 11, 2012
Today we gather to examine the future of Special Operations
Forces. The accomplishments of SOF over the past decade in
fighting terrorists have been remarkable. While I believe too
much information about what they do and how they do it has been
publicized, the American people generally and especially those
of us charged with more detailed oversight stand in awe of
their professionalism and dedication.
But none of us can afford to rest on our past
accomplishments. The world changes and threats continue to
evolve. The days and years ahead will see new challenges and
tight budgets. So it is appropriate to examine how Special
Operations should evolve to ensure that our Nation's security
is protected. Congress has a key role to play in that
evolution, and I know that members of both sides of the aisle
are committed to playing a constructive role in shaping those
changes.
Statement of Hon. James R. Langevin
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities
Hearing on
The Future of U.S. Special Operations Forces
July 11, 2012
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for
appearing before us today. Our Special Operations Forces are
some of the most capable personnel in high demand throughout
our military. For a fraction of the Department of Defense's
total budget, SOF provides an outsized return on our
investment. For the last decade, the bulk of their capabilities
have been rightly absorbed by necessities in Iraq and
Afghanistan. But now, with our combat troops out of Iraq and
our drawdown in Afghanistan well under way, it seems
appropriate to consider what the future holds for SOF.
While SOF have been an integral part of conflicts in the
CENTCOM area of responsibility, I think it's fair to say that
some of the other combatant commands have had to accept
compromises in their SOF support for some time. As Admiral
McRaven at U.S. Special Operations Command and the rest of the
Department of Defense goes through a rebalancing process, it is
critical for those of us in Congress to make sure SOF is
properly manned, trained, and resourced for future demands.
This is particularly important because special operations
forces are perhaps best known for their direct action
missions--the bin Laden raid being a prime example. But their
broad set of missions range from unconventional warfare and
foreign internal defense to civil affairs and information
operations, among others, and in recent years some of those
skills may have atrophied. Put another way, our special
operations forces are critical to our efforts to build the
capacity of our partners around the globe, enabling those
partners to apply local solutions to local security problems
long before they become a regional or global issue.
We have many issues to consider to ensure that our special
operations forces maintain their historic reputation as agile
and highly effective national security assets. I look forward
to hearing our witnesses' views on how to ensure that we
continue to populate our Special Operations Forces with
superior quality men and women who are highly trained, properly
equipped, and granted the authorities needed to continue their
stellar contribution to our national security, particularly
given the highly uncertain threat landscape of the future. Mr.
Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing, and I look
forward to an interesting discussion.
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
July 11, 2012
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN
Mr. Langevin. 1) How do we deconflict and coordinate such
capabilities within SOF from existing or nascent capabilities elsewhere
in the Department of Defense and the intelligence community, and ensure
proper oversight?
Ms. Robinson. There is a pressing need for a classified analysis of
the mission, size and expenditure of organizations with overlapping
missions to determine whether their roles and missions are clearly
delineated, properly coordinated or at least deconflicted, and to some
degree redundant. Such an analysis would look at potential redundancies
as well as synergies between SOF and the CIA's Special Activities
Division and DIA's DCS and CIA's NCS.
As established by law, the intelligence committees conduct
oversight of intelligence activities and covert activities for which a
presidential finding has been issued under Title 50, while the armed
services committees conduct oversight of military activities and
activities conducted by the military that are not covered by a Title 50
finding. Because the subject involves both military and intelligence
entities, ideally such a study would have joint sponsorship by the
HPSCI and HASC. In addition, members who sit on both committees have a
unique ability to assess this issue comprehensively on an ongoing
basis, and this membership might be harnessed in a more systematic
fashion.
Historically, the main body of the CIA has believed its core
mission is to collect intelligence rather than to conduct covert
action. In practice, there seems to be a need for some resident covert
action capability at CIA. The question is whether the missions and
needed capability and capacity of the paramilitary SAD should be more
clearly delineated. My observation from the field, while limited and
anecdotal, is that coordination and unity of effort among the SAD and
military units can be improved. While individual tactical units may
work well together, there is no mechanism to ensure deconfliction at a
minimum, or harmonization of effects, or even synergistic operations in
the context of an overall campaign plan or strategy. SOF theater and
national mission forces have taken an important step by establishing
their first unified SOF command in Afghanistan, but the CIA's
counterterrorism mission occurs in close proximity to SOF's without any
similar coordinating construct. The CIA, of course, is not in the
military chain of command.
On the military side, the armed services committees should and
presumably are exercising their oversight responsibilities fully with
regard to special access programs that do not fall under Title 50. The
intelligence responsibilities of the military under Title 50 are quite
extensive and oversight of these activities will presumably increase
with the creation and expansion of the DCS at DIA. The degree to which
redundancies between DCS and CIA's NCS may be created is an issue that
should be examined. Battlefield or military intelligence requirements
vice national or strategic intelligence requirements provide a starting
point for deconfliction, but in practice this line can be difficult to
draw. The past decade has demonstrated the effectiveness of closer
collaboration between intelligence collectors and analysts and special
operations forces. SOF operators are to some degree collectors, and
operational preparation of the environment is a necessary part of
special operations. Steps have been taken to deconflict the human
source management issue, but this is only one aspect of the increasing
overlap between special operations and intelligence activities. A
comprehensive independent evaluation would help policymakers and
legislators assess the requirements and organizational implications.
Mr. Langevin. 2) Is SOCOM properly resourced to meet its current
demands? In what ways will we need to adjust this resourcing as forces
draw down in Afghanistan and begin to meet other demand signals for SOF
capabilities?
Ms. Robinson. The current USSOCOM budget request for FY2013 of
$10.4 billion represented a slight decrease from the FY2012 $10.4
billion spending level. While some additional savings may be found at
the margins, the likely high ongoing demand for SOF to meet irregular
threats in a cost-effective manner warrants maintaining the approximate
current budget level.
However, a rebalancing of resources within the USSOCOM budget is
advisable. My preliminary conclusion from the past 12 months of my
Future of SOF study is that a resource shift of at least 25% will be
required, as well as organizational reorientation, to fully optimize
what USSOCOM commanders have called ``the indirect approach.''
Rebalancing existing USSOCOM resources to achieve this optimization,
rather than providing additional resources, is the preferred option
given the current fiscal constraints. While overall force levels in
Afghanistan are declining, the requirement for SOF in Afghanistan is
still unknown, pending specific decisions by U.S. policymakers and the
government of Afghanistan pursuant to the Strategic Partnership
Agreement announced in May. If SOF are to continue a foreign internal
defense mission in addition to a counterterrorism mission, the levels
of SOF required in Afghanistan could remain in the 7,000 range for some
years. The unified SOF command (SOJTF) should be migrated to lower
echelons to eliminate separate SOF commands; in addition the pooling of
SOF lift and ISR represents a more cost-effective employment of SOF
assets.
The demand signal for unilateral surgical strike missions will
likely decline in the years ahead, but is likely to be more than
matched by demand for employment of SOF in indirect or special warfare
missions. (ADM McRaven has noted in testimony to Congress that there is
unmet demand from other AORs as CENTCOM has absorbed up to 85% of
deployed SOF in the past decade.) Savings from reduced surgical strike
missions are required to address shortfalls in intellectual capital,
organizational structure and personnel development to employ SOF in an
indirect manner for sustained effect. USSOCOM and TSOC organizations
and personnel can be reassigned and/or replaced with quality personnel,
enablers, resources, and intellectual capital out of existing resources
to fully optimize the indirect approach. In particular, the deputy
commander of USSOCOM (who is to be designated as the lead for the
indirect approach and TSOC optimization) may require significant
organizational structure to provide the needed USSOCOM support and
oversight to TSOCs as they grow and enhance their capability to perform
their doctrinal duties of planning and conducting special operations
and providing effective advice to the geographic combatant commander.
Here is a brief list of what DCOM USSOCOM may need: USSOCOM should
create a robust structure under the DCOM to support the indirect
approach with campaign planning support, resource coordination, and
advocacy and interface at the policy and interagency level and with the
geographic combatant commands and country teams to ensure SOF are used
in sustained campaigns for maximum impact rather than tactical and
episodic effect. This should be accomplished by repurposing current
manpower and funding. However, since only 28% of USSOCOM have the
requisite special operations expertise, the number of active and
retired SOF should be increased and key positions coded for SOF
experts. Furthermore, additional USSOCOM personnel should be
permanently assigned to TSOCs.
Finally, the SOCOM NCR structure would seem to fall most
appropriately into this organizational restructuring. As I understand
the plan, USSOCOM IATF personnel will be shifted to the SOCOM NCR over
time at no net increase in expense or staff. These Washington-based
USSOCOM personnel can collaborate with interagency partners in
developing proposals and plans and monitoring execution but should not
be seen as supplanting the policy deliberation and decisionmaking
process, which falls under the purview of the civilian policy structure
at OASD SOLIC and the IPC, DC, PC interagency process. Ongoing
interagency coordination may be more easily accomplished in Washington
than in Tampa, but USSOCOM should scrub its organizational plan to
ensure efficiency and eliminate redundancy. The JIATF-NCR and SOCOM-NCR
with its SID might be integrated into one streamlined organization
tasked to support the full range of special operations missions.
An additional potential redundancy could be the MARSOC plan to
develop organic CS/CSS capability. While lift is always in short supply
for theater SOF, most of the ``enabler'' needs should be met by the
conventional forces. They have been traditionally reluctant to split
off small elements of enablers to support SOF distributed operations,
but the fiscal imperatives and the likely future high demand for small-
footprint operations makes it essential for all conventional forces to
build in the flexibility to produce scalable support for the full range
of SOF missions. This is one subset of the larger issue of integrating
SOF and conventional force operations that might be a subject of future
hearing to provide Congress with greater insight into both the demand
for and the difficulties encountered in providing ``enablers'' such as
lift and ISR, ``thickeners'' such as additional infantry, and blended
SOF-conventional commands to conduct large-scale or hybrid irregular
campaigns. SOF cannot operate without conventional support, and many of
the demands for small-footprint missions can best be met by a
combination of SOF and conventional forces. At a minimum, Congress
should follow this issue closely to ensure that critically needed
advances in SOF-conventional integration occur.
Mr. Langevin. 3) How do we deconflict and coordinate such
capabilities within SOF from existing or nascent capabilities elsewhere
in the Department of Defense and the intelligence community, and ensure
proper oversight?
Dr. Lamb. Complex counterterrorism missions require deconfliction,
coordination and oversight, but none of these requirements is easily
achieved. Some observers are concerned that military units are
conducting classified missions usually carried out by civilian
intelligence organizations without the benefit of well-established
oversight mechanisms, and also that civilian intelligence organizations
are trying to conduct paramilitary operations without the clear chain
of command and support necessary for success. Operating under current
system constraints, a case-by-case approach is the best way to
deconflict defense and intelligence capabilities. We need a
collaborative interagency process for mission analysis that accurately
identifies the capabilities required for mission success. If both the
intelligence and defense communities share information and
decisionmaking processes for this purpose it should be possible to
determine whether the mission is best pursued using covert tradecraft
that is the specialty of the intelligence community, or direct action
capabilities (i.e. traveling quickly to and from a target and
neutralizing all opposition to that effort) that are the specialty of
the defense community, or some combination of both. Once it is clear
whether mission requirements are predominantly intelligence or defense-
based, a lead organization can be assigned responsibility and other
organizations can support the effort. Congress can examine whether or
not this collaborative mission analysis and assignment process is
happening, and if so, whether it is happening frequently enough.
If the mission requires a combination of covert tradecraft and
military action, as many counterterrorist missions do, it is preferable
that the two communities work closely together. Reportedly much
progress in defense and intelligence cooperation has been achieved
since 9/11, but the standing presumption should be that both the
intelligence and defense communities will be tempted to ``go it alone''
even when the mission arguably requires capabilities from both
communities. Each community also may be inclined to duplicate
capabilities resident in the other, thereby generating risks that can
compromise mission success. Trying to build resident capabilities that
are not consistent with an organization's core mission can dilute the
focus on core competencies and, over time, degrade them. For example,
some are concerned that covert tradecraft has diminished in the
intelligence community since 9/11 as the CIA emphasizes paramilitary
operations. Relying on more accessible but hastily assembled and less
proficient secondary capabilities can compromise mission success. For
example, in the past some military units have tried to conduct
intelligence operations without sufficient expertise and achieved poor
results.
Oversight of deconfliction and coordination efforts is admittedly
difficult in current circumstances. The United States government does
not have an authoritative process for command and control of missions
requiring the combined efforts of multiple departments and agencies of
the executive branch. Only the President has the authority to integrate
the efforts of departments and agencies, and he does not have the time
to do so. At the risk of flippancy, the President is ``commander-in-
brief.'' His management of any given national security mission is
seldom sustained and never comprehensive. It is virtually impossible on
a day-to-day basis for the President to control how departments and
agencies cooperate or fail to do so, so responsibility for any given
mission often remains ambiguous. Interagency committees and other
bureaucratic ``confederations'' cannot be held accountable for results
because they have no authority to direct departments and agencies to
take action. Mission critical cooperative action can be spurned and
later justified as beyond the mandate of any given department or
agency. Alternatively, under loosely defined ``lead agency'' norms, it
might be possible for operators in the field to take actions with the
presumption that a combination of legal authorities granted to
different agencies permits it. Such cooperation is laudable and can be
effective, but it also can obscure clear identification of the decision
chain that authorized the actions. Either way, oversight and
accountability can be weakened. The absence of a mechanism for the
President to delegate his executive authority for integrating the
efforts of departments and agencies on priority missions is a major
shortcoming in the way our national security system functions. If
Congress passed legislation that gave the President authority to
formally delegate his integration powers, it would improve
transparency, accountability and oversight for complex, high-priority
interagency missions.
Congress also should collaborate across organizational boundaries
in order to provide effective oversight of complex counterterrorism
missions. In the same way the departments and agencies of the executive
branch must assess mission requirements to assign mission leads, the
House and Senate Intelligence Committees and House and Senate Armed
Services Committees should collaborate to assign oversight of those
missions and to decide whether in certain cases it makes sense to
exercise congressional oversight jointly.
Mr. Langevin. 4) The Joint Interagency Task Force-South (JIATF-
South) is frequently mentioned as a blueprint for how agencies across
the U.S. Government and partner nations can work together to facilitate
security objectives. Could this be replicated and used as a model for
theater special operations forces, particularly those units engaged in
long-term missions to build partner capacity?
Dr. Lamb. I believe theater special operations forces (SOF) can
apply some aspects of the JIATF-South model to improve interagency
cooperation in pursuit of long-term missions to build and exercise
partner capacity to defeat unconventional threats. Historically our
security assistance partnerships with other nations have been
compromised by unrealistic assessments of what the host nation can
absorb; inadequate interagency coordination of the effort;
unwillingness to tolerate the lesser degree of control such an indirect
strategy dictates; poor supporting coordination at the regional level;
and inadequate long-term commitment. The stellar model of interagency
cooperation pioneered by JIATF-South would be more likely to address
these challenges effectively. Interagency security assistance teams
with embedded theater SOF personnel could, I believe, achieve better
results at significantly less cost than our current approach.
However, this assertion requires a few caveats. The results the
security assistance teams could achieve while working primarily through
host nation forces would likely be less immediate and more ambiguous
than the results achieved by JIATF-South's interdiction of drug
smuggling. The teams also would be smaller and less enduring than the
JIATF-South model. They might more closely resemble the small
interagency train and equip program used in the Balkans in the mid-
1990s, which effectively operated out of Washington but had elements
working in country as well. They would ramp up and actively partner
with the host nation until it was effectively engaging the irregular
challenge and then ramp down and eventually stand down. They would not
need to be large permanent structures like JIATF South or the National
Counterterrorism Center.
To work well, they would require some of the benefits JIATF-South
has, to
include:
A mandate from senior authorities that gives a high
priority to the interagency mission and organization;
An end-to-end approach to mission management that
focuses on outcomes, not inputs;
A long-term commitment from national command
authorities that is bipartisan and consistent;
A deep appreciation for and sensitivity to the
missions and equities of partnering organizations; and
A clear source of resources, with steady provision
being more important than absolute levels.
Moreover, the Department of State would have to support the team
the way SOUTHCOM supports JIATF South, which would allow the
interagency security team semi-autonomy to pursue its mission as it saw
best while operating under the country team's broad supervision. If
these conditions were met, I believe we could expect better results
with smaller overall efforts, along the lines of what SOF, working with
other agencies, was able to achieve in Colombia prior to the terror
attacks on 9/11 and more recently by working closely with the
Philippine government.
Mr. Langevin. 5) Is SOCOM properly resourced to meet its current
demands? In what ways will we need to adjust this resourcing as forces
draw down in Afghanistan and begin to meet other demand signals for SOF
capabilities?
Dr. Lamb. Overall, I believe USSOCOM has been well resourced to
meet its responsibilities. Even though U.S. forces have withdrawn from
Iraq and are set to ramp down in Afghanistan, SOF will continue to be
heavily engaged. For this reason we should safeguard the overall level
of resources provided to SOF for the immediate future. However, as
requirements evolve, the distribution of those resources should as
well. As many sources, including SOF leadership, have argued, in the
future we should expect SOF to focus more on an indirect approach to
tackling irregular threats. Accordingly, distribution of resources to
SOF programs should demonstrate a shift in emphasis to indirect
capabilities. In particular, more resources should be shifted to the
U.S. Army Special Operations Command. It is responsible for Special
Forces, Civil Affairs, Military Information Support forces, among other
things. All of these units can play critical roles when SOF adopt an
indirect approach where they working with and through host-nation
forces to accomplish their missions.
Here are some ways resources could be redirected to improve
indirect capabilities:
Resource Theater Special Operations Commands so they
can better facilitate interagency collaboration; for example,
by absorbing the costs of database integration and shared
intelligence.
Accept reductions in some of the specialized hardware
and intelligence support that enables theater SOF to track
enemy movement. Instead, invest these resources in security
assistance activities that would allow Special Forces to
partner more closely with host nation personnel.
Invest in rebuilding Special Forces language and
cross-cultural skill sets applicable to parts of the world
other than Iraq and Afghanistan.
Consider standing down some of the fourth battalions
added to Special Forces Groups and using the personnel for
other purposes. Instead of deploying more as Special Forces
teams the personnel could enter longer periods of training
where they would have more family time but also could regain
eroded skill sets. They also could be assigned to the Special
Forces Regional Support Detachments where they would be
available for special assignments in embassies and in support
of other activities that better enable SOF indirect action.
Improve the ability of military information support
forces (which used to be called psychological operations
forces), to support SOF indirect approaches. Military
information operations require mastering persuasive
communications skills as well as in-depth knowledge of
indigenous attitudes and motivations. USSCOM needs to work on
better selection and training for these valuable personnel.
Transfer responsibility for the Human Terrain System
from the Army's Training and Doctrine Command to the U.S. Army
Special Operations Command, which should then invest in
improvements to ensure Human Terrain Teams are able to support
indirect approaches with socio-cultural knowledge.
Redirecting resources within USSOCOM to better balance SOF direct
and indirect approaches will help ensure these two compatible but
different SOF approaches, skills sets and cultures are equally robust
and can work together in harmony without one dominating and distorting
the other. At the same time it will be important to ensure SOF does not
expend resources on capabilities and missions that are better performed
by General Purpose Forces. One possible concern in this regard is the
movement of security assistance from a collateral SOF mission, which
was true before 9/11, to a core mission following 9/11. USSOCOM is now
the designated joint proponent for Security Force Assistance, a
development that requires monitoring. On the positive side, by Joint
Doctrine, USSOCOM recommends the most appropriate forces for a security
force assistance mission. On the down side, the USSOCOM lead might
become an excuse for General Purpose Forces to ignore the security
assistance mission, which would be quite disadvantageous. SOF will need
to continue partnering with General Purpose Forces on security
assistance or it could easily be overwhelmed by the mission and its
resource implications.
Mr. Langevin. 6) How do we deconflict and coordinate such
capabilities within SOF from existing or nascent capabilities elsewhere
in the Department of Defense and the intelligence community, and ensure
proper oversight?
Dr. Davis. Going forward, after the tremendous successes that U.S.
SOF have achieved in operational settings over the years, there is
great danger that SOF will emerge as the ``go to'' force for military
tasks that could be undertaken by General Purposes Forces (GPFs) or
even other capabilities in the Interagency tool kit. To ensure that SOF
remain ``Special'' it will be necessary to refine their core
competencies and perhaps reduce their ``roles and missions.'' In
looking at the list of SOF core activities, it is apparent that
activities to support missions are conflated with mission-tasking
themselves. Moreover, this list was generated before the events of 9/11
and, therefore, needs to be reassessed to meet the requirements of a
vastly different security-planning environment. For example, of the SOF
core activities listed, at least five are missions that can be
performed by SOF as well as GPFs. These five include:
Counter-Insurgency (COIN) operations;
Counter-Proliferation or Combating Weapons of Mass
Destruction (C/WMD);
Counter-Terrorism (CT);
Civil Affairs (CA); and
Information Operations (IO).
The seven remaining core activities are SOF competencies but might
be conceived differently to meet new planning requirements.
Accordingly, they might be considered as:
Direct Action (DA);
Special Reconnaissance (SR);
Military Information Support Operations (MISO), to
include PsyOps, Strategic Communications and some aspects of
Cyber warfare and Computer Network Operations;
Building Partner Capacities (BPC), which could
include Foreign Internal Defense (FID), aspects of
Unconventional Warfare (UW) and Security Force Assistance
(SFA);
Stability Operations, which could include CA;
Support to GPF Operations in conventional theaters;
and
Specialized Missions as tasked by the National
Command Authority (NCA).
In terms of mission deconfliction two areas need further
clarification. The first is that of Security Force Assistance and
Security Assistance, which is also a function of Security Cooperation
and is a shared mission objective across the Interagency. The tools for
implementing Security Cooperation activities are many and varied,
coming from different agencies as well as from across the military
forces. So far as the Department of Defense (DOD) is concerned,
security cooperation is the essence of preventive planning, and yet it
is among the first of the GPF accounts to be cut in difficult budget
environments. Moreover, to be effective, security cooperation requires
sustained engagement with partner forces, and that is oftentimes a
luxury that the GPFs do not have, particularly in the current setting
as our overseas basing infrastructure contracts and at a time in which
the GPFs are predicating much of their planning on rotational
engagements and periodic exercises. In some instances, the engagement
strategies of the Services are comprised of exercises and training that
have long been on the books and which embody episodic activities. As a
result, they are not the kind of persistent activities that U.S. SOCOM
has long sponsored and implemented through its Joint Combined Exchange
and Training (JCET) exercises--which originally were created to train
U.S. SOF, but have been ``hijacked'' by the Combatant Commanders as a
critical aspect of their engagement strategies because, in part, DOD
and State are at odds over who ``owns'' the security assistance role.
DOS has the lead, but more often than not has had to depend on DOD to
perform the missions because it has the resources, training, and
personnel to do these things. Thus, in my view, especially as SOCOM
emphasizes the greater importance of Indirect Lines of Operation in its
global force planning, the military should be given the authority to
lead, especially in the train and equip and building partner capacity
mission sets. To facilitate this, however, SOCOM would need, as the
designated lead to synchronize the SFA missions in DOD, multiyear
authority that allows SOF to train partner security forces and to
implement minor MILCON projects, as appropriate and feasible to support
this general mission tasking.
Moreover, because the emerging strategic environment features
global, networked threats, SOF will have to operate between GCC seams
and with an ability to deconflict national mission force employments
with those of theater SOF and GPFs. This implies the need for greater
and enhanced intelligence fusion, technologies to deconflict disparate
battlefield activities and an ability to operate with partners--
traditional SOF allies and nontraditional partners, which may include
nonmilitary security forces and international organizations. NATO SOF
has created a technology called BICES--the Battlefield Information
Collection and Exploitation System, which operates with firewalls to
keep U.S. intelligence classified, but enables partner forces to act on
time sensitive information. Perhaps BICES should be considered for use
outside of NATO. There is a precedent for this as it is currently being
used by ISAF in Afghanistan and with non-NATO partners.
The second area of mission deconfliction that needs further thought
is that between SOCOM and CIA activities. Traditionally, CIA forces are
postured for covert missions, while SOF conduct clandestine and other
missions for which deniability is not an issue. This is not a bad
formula in my view. Both need to operate seamlessly in specific
theaters and they will need to synchronize planning and deconflict
force employments when focused on a particular theater or engagement.
Thus, there is a need to work together, train together, and operate
synergistically based on common procedures and techniques, which can
only be achieved if SOF and CIA forces collaborate closely to achieve
common ends and endeavor to understand each other's cultures. In this
context, SOCOM's efforts to assign SOF to Interagency partners is
important and with the CIA, in particular, the need to share and fuse
intelligence is critical to operational success. Beyond this, a new
assessment of our 1947 national security structure surely is long
overdue. The world has changed since it was put into effect and the
nature of the challenges that we face require cross-Agency, whole-of-
government approaches.
Mr. Langevin. 7) Similarly, NATO Special Operations Headquarters is
a potential model for future engagement. Are its benefits replicable in
other regions, and if so, are there regions suitable for similar
centers in the near- to mid-term? What lessons from NSHQ partner
capacity activities can SOCOM apply globally?
Dr. Davis. I definitely believe many of the lessons the NSHQ has
learned are applicable to Admiral McRaven's Regional SOF Coordination
Center (RSCC) construct. That said, obviously, there are a handful of
``lessons-learned'' that are unique to the NSHQ as it operates in the
NATO environment, and working initiatives through the NATO process. The
NATO SOF HQs has benefited the United States in several ways. First,
and very importantly, it is a force multiplier that allows NATO SOF (in
ISAF) to assume tasks that U.S. SOF would have had to implement had
they not been deployed. Second, the NSHQ, with its Professional
Military Education (PME) programs and development of NATO SOF doctrine,
tactics, and procedures, has contributed to building partner capacity
in and for NATO and in this way has promoted interoperability, allowing
alliance and partner forces to operate seamlessly in Afghanistan.
Third, the point about fostering partner relationships is very
important, as the NSHQ has relationships with NATO SOF and non-NATO
partner countries, such as Jordan and Australia, as I noted in my
opening remarks. Fourth, with its creation of the BICES network, the
NSHQ has facilitated the sharing of information, which has led to
intelligence fusion in support of operational units in Afghanistan.
And, finally, the NSHQ is reaching out to Interagency and other
partners to foster a comprehensive--or what we call a whole-of-
government--approach to security planning. Indeed, General Clapper is
one of the godfathers of the BICES network and outside of the Alliance,
the European Union (EU), Interpol, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
(DEA) have participated in some NSHQ classes or
activities.
The answer to your second question is yes. I believe that the NSHQ
construct, even absent a NATO-like Alliance umbrella, can be used in
other regions to promote U.S.-regional partner SOF collaboration, to
build partner capacities, and to develop a basis for allied/partner
interoperability, including in multilateral settings. The priorities
from my perspective are: the Asia-Pacific region, Africa, the Americas,
(to include U.S. NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM), and the Middle East. As to
your third question, what lessons can be applied from the NSHQ
experience to other regional theaters, a number of specific ideas come
to mind. First, among the most valuable attributes of the NSHQ is its
capacity to facilitate networking among Special Operations Forces.
This, in turn, contributes to building trust and confidence and in so
doing demolishes obstacles that often get in the way of national
bilateral or multilateral military planning. The experience of the NSHQ
in this regard transcends the NATO alliance and it is shared between
NATO allies and non-NATO partners. Using the Regional SOF Coordination
Center (RSCC) construct, the NSHQ experience can be replicated in other
theaters, even without a NATO-like umbrella. In many countries, SOF
organizations face similar challenges--resourcing, for example--and the
capacity to interact with similar organizations experiencing similar
issues is a source of support that can go a long way toward building,
refining, and honing SOF capabilities and planning. The RSCC construct
would also support and facilitate SOF interaction with nonmilitary
security forces and with national and transnational intelligence
organizations, which in turn, can and would support operational
planning.
A second lesson that can be universally applied is that the NSHQ
has become a repository for cumulative knowledge and lessons-learned
from operational experiences. Everyone brings his own unique
experiences to an endeavor, and the ability to understand and
appreciate that experience means that SOF can build multiple options to
achieve their own asymmetric advantage over enemies. It also means that
SOF can look at alternative courses of action to address everything
from training, meeting, mentoring, or assessing engagements. The value
of multicultural understanding is increased when one exists in a
multicultural environment. A third area in which the NSHQ has excelled
and which should be replicated in other theaters is the development of
a data bank of capabilities and skill sets that can be tapped as
situations dictate. Nations possess some unique skill sets or unique
``kit'' that may be unknown to its U.S. counterparts until engaged in
multinational forums. For instance, the NSHQ recently hosted a SOF
medical conference that led to a greater understanding of another
nation's medical breakthrough, and ultimately access to that capability
for the benefit of U.S. deployed forces. Finally, the NSHQ-offered
Staff Officer courses in the classroom environment allow nations to
discuss lessons learned from operations--and also how to maximize
effects from limited assets. What this really means is that a course of
instruction allows for the sharing of best practices for employing
aviation or ISR assets, sharing data (computers, phone data, other
material) obtained on an objective, and mapping relations through a
database (which is ultimately accessible to others). Notable in this
regard, the NSHQ spearheaded the introduction of biometric enrollment
and ``technical exploitation operations'' into NATO SOF training (and
ultimately employment), and the information and intelligence collected
on an objective is now introduced into a common database, accessible to
all U.S. forces and agencies. Ultimately, troop success, force
protection, and speed of operations are significantly enhanced, but
data is also available to U.S. and other nation law enforcement
agencies, thereby increasing the level of protection afforded citizens
of those nations.
Mr. Langevin. 8) Is SOCOM properly resourced to meet its current
demands? In what ways will we need to adjust this resourcing as forces
draw down in Afghanistan and begin to meet other demand signals for SOF
capabilities?
Dr. Davis. Going forward, resourcing for SOCOM is highly dependent
on U.S. strategic guidance, the level of U.S. involvement in
Afghanistan after 2014, and the extent to which changes are made to
SOCOM's global posture. If the United States retains a force presence
in Afghanistan after 2014, much of that commitment will likely come in
the form of SOF deployments. This will mean the need to continue to
resource SOF deployments in that theater, as well as resourcing SOF
operations in areas of instability, such as Mali, Yemen, and in
Southeast Asia, not to mention in areas of emerging ``threats'' and to
counter looming challenges. Without sequestration, SOCOM's budget
requests for the next fiscal year and beyond in the FYDP should be
adequate to oversee the rebalancing of Indirect Action Missions with
Direct Action capabilities, the redeployment of CONUS-based SOF
overseas, and the development of the RSCC concept in key regional
theaters. If sequestration kicks in, then all bets are off, and SOCOM,
like the other Combatant Commands and DOD more generally will have to
make difficult choices and assign priorities. This could, conceivably,
take a toll on the Admiral's desire to augment Indirect Action
strategies and lines of operation. It might also impact professional
military education (PME) and the quality of life of SOF personnel, as
rotational deployments are more likely to be relied on to meet mission
taskings. The minor MILCON funding that SOCOM is requesting to
implement the RSCC vision and to support other regional needs would
probably be at risk in such an environment, and this would also hamper
the Commander's ability to support national taskings in situations/
environments that are not considered crucial to U.S. national interests
at the moment.
Again, depending on what the U.S. does with respect to Afghanistan
after 2014, SOCOM may experience capability gaps in the forms of
critical mission enablers in areas outside of Afghanistan. The most
significant of these are likely to be helicopters and ISR capabilities.
I fear that this will become an even more difficult shortfall as the
Services downsize and make economies in their force postures. As for
SOCOM's assumption of combatant command authority over the Theater
Special Operations Commands (TSOCs) in peacetime, SOCOM would not need,
nor is requesting additional funding. (Moreover, the Commander does not
want to take Executive Agency (EA) for the TSOCs. This would be a
burden that the Command could not handle. EA authority has been and
should remain the responsibility of a Service, which has the resources,
base support, and money, etc. to perform this tasking.) What would be
helpful would be SOCOM's ability to fund the MFP-11 aspects of the
TSOC--something that now is not being done. This is a question of
authorities and interpretation, not of additional resourcing per se.
Here, as I noted in my testimony, multiyear funding for 1208 Train and
Equip activities would be helpful, as it would for 1206 and 1207
accounts more generally. Most of the authorities under which U.S. SOCOM
operates are focused on the counterterrorism mission set. Funding for
short, episodic engagement that does not provide the persistent
presence required to build SOF partner units capable of handling
regional issues without significant U.S. support will not work well for
the Indirect Strategy envisioned by SOCOM. This is why Congress should
consider very seriously Legislative Proposal 308. Legislative Proposal
308 would enable SOF partner building, empower the TSOCs, and provide
SOCOM with the authority to manage resources across AORs.
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