Tomgram: Nick Turse, A Secret War in 135 Countries
By Nick Turse
Posted on September 24, 2015, Printed on September 25, 2015
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176048/
It was an impressive effort: a front-page New York Times story about a new
way of war with the bylines of six reporters, and two more and a team of
researchers cited at the end of the piece. They have plotted deadly
missions from secret bases in the badlands of Somalia. In Afghanistan, they
have engaged in combat so intimate that they have emerged soaked in blood
that was not their own. On clandestine raids in the dead of the night, their
weapons of choice have ranged from customized carbines to primeval
tomahawks. So began the Times investigation of SEAL Team 6, its nonstop
missions, its weaponry, its culture, the stresses and strains its warriors
have experienced in recent years, and even some of the accusations leveled
against them. (Afghan villagers and a British commander accused SEALs of
indiscriminately killing men in one hamlet.)
For all the secrecy surrounding SEAL Team 6, it has been the public face of
Americas Special Operations forces and so has garnered massive attention,
especially, of course, after some of its members killed Osama bin Laden on a
raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011. It even won a starring role in the
Oscar-winning Hollywood film Zero Dark Thirty, produced with CIA help, about
the tracking down of bin Laden. As a unit, however, SEAL Team 6 is roughly
300 assault troops, called operators, and 1,500 support personnel; in other
words, more or less a drop in the bucket when it comes to Americas Special
Operations forces. And its story, however nonstop and dramatic, is similarly
a drop in the bucket when it comes to the flood of special operations
actions in these years.
While SEAL Team 6 has received extensive coverage, what could be considered
the military story of the twenty-first century, the massive, ongoing
expansion of a secret force (functionally the presidents private army)
cocooned inside the U.S. military -- now at almost 70,000 personnel and
growing -- has gotten next to none. Keep in mind that such a force is
already larger than the active-duty militaries of Australia, Chile, Cuba,
Hungary, the Netherlands, Nigeria, and South Africa, among a bevy of other
countries. If those 70,000 personnel engaging in operations across the
planet -- even their most mundane acts enveloped in a blanket of secrecy --
have created, as the Times suggests, a new way of war in and out of
Washingtons war zones, it has gone largely unreported in the American
media.
Thanks to Nick Turse (and Andrew Bacevich), however, TomDispatch has been
the exception to this seemingly ironclad rule. Since 2011, when he found
special operations units deployed to 120 countries annually, Turse has
continued to chart their expanding global role in 2012, 2014, and this year.
He has also tried, as today, to assess just how successful this new way of
war that melds the soldier and the spy, the counterinsurgent and the
guerrilla, the drone assassin and the man-hunter has been. Imagine for a
moment the resources that the media would apply to such an analogous Russian
or Chinese force, if its units covertly trained friendly militaries or
went into action yearly in at least two-thirds of the countries on the
planet. Tom
U.S. Special Ops Forces Deployed in 135 Nations
2015 Proves to Be Record-Breaking Year for the Militarys Secret Military
By Nick Turse
You can find them in dusty, sunbaked badlands, moist tropical forests, and
the salty spray of third-world littorals. Standing in judgement, buffeted by
the rotor wash of a helicopter or sweltering beneath the relentless desert
sun, they instruct, yell, and cajole as skinnier men playact under their
watchful eyes. In many places, more than their particular brand of
camouflage, better boots, and designer gear sets them apart. Their days are
scented by stale sweat and gunpowder; their nights are spent in rustic
locales or third-world bars.
These men -- and they are mostly men -- belong to an exclusive military
fraternity that traces its heritage back to the birth of the nation.
Typically, theyve spent the better part of a decade as more conventional
soldiers, sailors, marines, or airmen before making the cut. Theyve
probably been deployed overseas four to 10 times. The officers are generally
approaching their mid-thirties; the enlisted men, their late twenties.
Theyve had more schooling than most in the military. Theyre likely to be
married with a couple of kids. And day after day, they carry out shadowy
missions over much of the planet: sometimes covert raids, more often
hush-hush training exercises from Chad to Uganda, Bahrain to Saudi Arabia,
Albania to Romania, Bangladesh to Sri Lanka, Belize to Uruguay. They belong
to the Special Operations forces (SOF), Americas most elite troops -- Army
Green Berets and Navy SEALs, among others -- and odds are, if you throw a
dart at a world map or stop a spinning globe with your index finger and
dont hit water, theyve been there sometime in 2015.
The Wide World of Special Ops
This year, U.S. Special Operations forces have already deployed to 135
nations, according to Ken McGraw, a spokesman for Special Operations Command
(SOCOM). Thats roughly 70% of the countries on the planet. Every day, in
fact, Americas most elite troops are carrying out missions in 80 to 90
nations, practicing night raids or sometimes conducting them for real,
engaging in sniper training or sometimes actually gunning down enemies from
afar. As part of a global engagement strategy of endless hush-hush
operations conducted on every continent but Antarctica, they have now
eclipsed the number and range of special ops missions undertaken at the
height of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the waning days of the Bush administration, Special Operations forces
(SOF) were reportedly deployed in only about 60 nations around the world.
By 2010, according to the Washington Post, that number had swelled to 75.
Three years later, it had jumped to 134 nations, slipping to 133 last
year, before reaching a new record of 135 this summer. This 80% increase
over the last five years is indicative of SOCOMs exponential expansion
which first shifted into high gear following the 9/11 attacks.
Special Operations Commands funding, for example, has more than tripled
from about $3 billion in 2001 to nearly $10 billion in 2014 constant
dollars, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). And this
doesnt include funding from the various service branches, which SOCOM
estimates at around another $8 billion annually, or other undisclosed sums
that the GAO was unable to track. The average number of Special Operations
forces deployed overseas has nearly tripled during these same years, while
SOCOM more than doubled its personnel from about 33,000 in 2001 to nearly
70,000 now.
Each day, according to SOCOM commander General Joseph Votel, approximately
11,000 special operators are deployed or stationed outside the United States
with many more on standby, ready to respond in the event of an overseas
crisis. I think a lot of our resources are focused in Iraq and in the
Middle East, in Syria for right now. That's really where our head has been,
Votel told the Aspen Security Forum in July. Still, he insisted his troops
were not doing anything on the ground in Syria -- even if they had carried
out a night raid there a couple of months before and it was later revealed
that they are involved in a covert campaign of drone strikes in that
country.
I think we are increasing our focus on Eastern Europe at this time, he
added. At the same time we continue to provide some level of support on
South America for Colombia and the other interests that we have down there.
And then of course we're engaged out in the Pacific with a lot of our
partners, reassuring them and working those relationships and maintaining
our presence out there.
In reality, the average percentage of Special Operations forces deployed to
the Greater Middle East has decreased in recent years. Back in 2006, 85% of
special operators were deployed in support of Central Command or CENTCOM,
the geographic combatant command (GCC) that oversees operations in the
region. By last year, that number had dropped to 69%, according to GAO
figures. Over that same span, Northern Command -- devoted to homeland
defense -- held steady at 1%, European Command (EUCOM) doubled its
percentage, from 3% to 6%, Pacific Command (PACOM) increased from 7% to 10%,
and Southern Command, which overseas Central and South America as well as
the Caribbean, inched up from 3% to 4%. The largest increase, however, was
in a region conspicuously absent from Votels rundown of special ops
deployments. In 2006, just 1% of the special operators deployed abroad were
sent to Africa Commands area of operations. Last year, it was 10%.
Click here to see a larger version
A member of the U.S. Special Operations forces guides two soldiers from
Cameroons 3rd Battalion Intervention Rapid (BIR) during a 2013 training
event. (Photo by Air Force Master Sgt. Larry W. Carpenter Jr.)
Globetrotting is SOCOMs stock in trade and, not coincidentally, its
divided into a collection of planet-girding sub-unified commands: the
self-explanatory SOCAFRICA; SOCEUR, the European contingent; SOCCENT, the
sub-unified command of CENTCOM; SOCKOR, which is devoted strictly to Korea;
SOCPAC, which covers the rest of the Asia-Pacific region; SOCSOUTH, which
conducts missions in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean;
SOCNORTH, which is devoted to homeland defense; and the ever-itinerant
Joint Special Operations Command or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command
(formerly headed by Votel) made up of personnel from each service branch,
including SEALs, Air Force special tactics airmen, and the Army's Delta
Force that specializes in tracking and killing suspected terrorists.
The elite of the elite in the special ops community, JSOC takes on covert,
clandestine, and low-visibility operations in the hottest of hot spots.
Some covert ops that have come to light in recent years include a host of
Delta Force missions: among them, an operation in May in which members of
the elite force killed an Islamic State commander known as Abu Sayyaf during
a night raid in Syria; the 2014 release of long-time Taliban prisoner Army
Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl; the capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala, a suspect in 2012
terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya; and the 2013 abduction of Anas al-Libi,
an al-Qaeda militant, off a street in that same country. Similarly, Navy
SEALs have, among other operations, carried out successful hostage rescue
missions in Afghanistan and Somalia in 2012; a disastrous one in Yemen in
2014; a 2013 kidnap raid in Somalia that went awry; and -- that same year --
a failed evacuation mission in South Sudan in which three SEALs were wounded
when their aircraft was hit by small arms fire.
SOCOMs SOF Alphabet Soup
Most deployments have, however, been training missions designed to tutor
proxies and forge stronger ties with allies. Special Operations forces
provide individual-level training, unit-level training, and formal classroom
training, explains SOCOMs Ken McGraw. Individual training can be in
subjects like basic rifle marksmanship, land navigation, airborne
operations, and first aid. They provide unit-level training in subjects
like small unit tactics, counterterrorism operations and maritime
operations. SOF can also provide formal classroom training in subjects like
the military decision-making process or staff planning.
From 2012 to 2014, for instance, Special Operations forces carried out 500
Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) missions in as many as 67 countries
each year. JCETs are officially devoted to training U.S. forces, but they
nonetheless serve as a key facet of SOCOMs global engagement strategy. The
missions foster key military partnerships with foreign militaries, enhance
partner-nations' capability to provide for their own defense, and build
interoperability between U.S. SOF and partner-nation forces, according to
SOCOMs McGraw.
And JCETs are just a fraction of the story. SOCOM carries out many other
multinational overseas training operations. According to data from the
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), for example, Special
Operations forces conducted 75 training exercises in 30 countries in 2014.
The numbers were projected to jump to 98 exercises in 34 countries by the
end of this year.
SOCOM places a premium on international partnerships and building their
capacity. Today, SOCOM has persistent partnerships with about 60 countries
through our Special Operations Forces Liaison Elements and Joint Planning
and Advisory Teams, said SOCOMs Votel at a conference earlier this year,
drawing attention to two of the many types of shadowy Special Ops entities
that operate overseas. These SOFLEs and JPATs belong to a mind-bending
alphabet soup of special ops entities operating around the globe, a jumble
of opaque acronyms and stilted abbreviations masking a secret world of
clandestine efforts often conducted in the shadows in impoverished lands
ruled by problematic regimes. The proliferation of this bewildering SOCOM
shorthand -- SOJTFs and CJSOTFs, SOCCEs and SOLEs -- mirrors the relentless
expansion of the command, with its signature brand of military speak or
milspeak proving as indecipherable to most Americans as its missions are
secret from them.
Around the world, you can find Special Operations Joint Task Forces
(SOJTFs), Combined Joint Special Operations Task Forces (CJSOTFs), and Joint
Special Operations Task Forces (JSOTFs), Theater Special Operations Commands
(TSOCs), as well as Special Operations Command and Control Elements (SOCCEs)
and Special Operations Liaison Elements (SOLEs). And that list doesnt even
include Special Operations Command Forward (SOC FWD) elements -- small teams
which, according to the military, shape and coordinate special operations
forces security cooperation and engagement in support of theater special
operations command, geographic combatant command, and country team goals and
objectives.
Special Operations Command will not divulge the locations or even a simple
count of its SOC FWDs for security reasons. When asked how releasing only
the number could imperil security, SOCOMs Ken McGraw was typically opaque.
The information is classified, he responded. I am not the classification
authority for that information so I do not know the specifics of why the
information is classified. Open source data suggests, however, that they
are clustered in favored black ops stomping grounds, including SOC FWD
Pakistan, SOC FWD Yemen, and SOC FWD Lebanon, as well as SOC FWD East
Africa, SOC FWD Central Africa, and SOC FWD West Africa.
Click here to see a larger version
A U.S. Army Special Forces soldier readies himself to jump out of a C-130J
Super Hercules over Hurlburt Field, Fla., March 3, 2012. (U.S. Air Force
photo by Staff Sgt. Jonathan Snyder)
Whats clear is that SOCOM prefers to operate in the shadows while its
personnel and missions expand globally to little notice or attention. The
key thing that SOCOM brings to the table is that we are -- we think of
ourselves -- as a global force. We support the geographic combatant
commanders, but we are not bound by the artificial boundaries that normally
define the regional areas in which they operate. So what we try to do is we
try to operate across those boundaries, SOCOMs Votel told the Aspen
Security Forum.
In one particular blurring of boundaries, Special Operations liaison
officers (SOLOs) are embedded in at least 14 key U.S. embassies to assist in
advising the special forces of various allied nations. Already operating in
Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, El Salvador, France, Israel, Italy,
Jordan, Kenya, Poland, Peru, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, the SOLO
program is poised, according to Votel, to expand to 40 countries by 2019.
The command, and especially JSOC, has also forged close ties with the
Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the
National Security Agency, among other outfits, through the use of liaison
officers and Special Operations Support Teams (SOSTs).
In todays environment, our effectiveness is directly tied to our ability
to operate with domestic and international partners. We, as a joint force,
must continue to institutionalize interoperability, integration, and
interdependence between conventional forces and special operations forces
through doctrine, training, and operational deployments, Votel told the
Senate Armed Services Committee this spring. From working with indigenous
forces and local governments to improve local security, to high-risk
counterterrorism operations -- SOF are in vital roles performing essential
tasks.
SOCOM will not name the 135 countries in which Americas most elite forces
were deployed this year, let alone disclose the nature of those operations.
Most were, undoubtedly, training efforts. Documents obtained from the
Pentagon via the Freedom of Information Act outlining Joint Combined
Exchange Training in 2013 offer an indication of what Special Operations
forces do on a daily basis and also what skills are deemed necessary for
their real-world missions: combat marksmanship, patrolling, weapons
training, small unit tactics, special operations in urban terrain, close
quarters combat, advanced marksmanship, sniper employment, long-range
shooting, deliberate attack, and heavy weapons employment, in addition to
combat casualty care, human rights awareness, land navigation, and mission
planning, among others.
From Joint Special Operations Task Force-Juniper Shield, which operates in
Africas Trans-Sahara region, and Special Operations Command and Control
Element-Horn of Africa, to Army Special Operations Forces Liaison
Element-Korea and Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Arabian
Peninsula, the global growth of SOF missions has been breathtaking. SEALs
or Green Berets, Delta Force operators or Air Commandos, they are constantly
taking on what Votel likes to call the nations most complex, demanding,
and high-risk challenges.
These forces carry out operations almost entirely unknown to the American
taxpayers who fund them, operations conducted far from the scrutiny of the
media or meaningful outside oversight of any kind. Everyday, in around 80
or more countries that Special Operations Command will not name, they
undertake missions the command refuses to talk about. They exist in a
secret world of obtuse acronyms and shadowy efforts, of mystery missions
kept secret from the American public, not to mention most of the citizens of
the 135 nations where theyve been deployed this year.
This summer, when Votel commented that more special ops troops are deployed
to more locations and are conducting more operations than at the height of
the Afghan and Iraq wars, he drew attention to two conflicts in which those
forces played major roles that have not turned out well for the United
States. Consider that symbolic of what the bulking up of his command has
meant in these years.
Ultimately, the best indicator of our success will be the success of the
[geographic combatant commands], says the special ops chief, but with U.S.
setbacks in Africa Commands area of operations from Mali and Nigeria to
Burkina Faso and Cameroon; in Central Commands bailiwick from Iraq and
Afghanistan to Yemen and Syria; in the PACOM region vis-à-vis China; and
perhaps even in the EUCOM area of operations due to Russia, its far from
clear what successes can be attributed to the ever-expanding secret
operations of Americas secret military. The special ops commander seems
resigned to the very real limitations of what his secretive but
much-ballyhooed, highly-trained, well-funded, heavily-armed operators can
do.
We can buy space, we can buy time, says Votel, stressing that SOCOM can
play a very, very key role in countering violent extremism, but only up
to a point -- and that point seems to fall strikingly short of anything
resembling victory or even significant foreign policy success. Ultimately,
you know, problems like we see in Iraq and Syria, he says, aren't going to
be resolved by us.
Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the
Nation Institute. A 2014 Izzy Award and American Book Award winner for his
book Kill Anything That Moves, he has reported from the Middle East,
Southeast Asia, and Africa and his pieces have appeared in the New York
Times, the Intercept, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Nation, and regularly
at TomDispatch. His latest book is Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars
and Secret Ops in Africa.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest
Dispatch Book, Nick Turses Tomorrows Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and
Secret Ops in Africa, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government:
Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a
Single-Superpower World.
Copyright 2015 Nick Turse
© 2015 TomDispatch. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176048
Tomgram: Nick Turse, A Secret War in 135 Countries
By Nick Turse
Posted on September 24, 2015, Printed on September 25, 2015
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176048/
It was an impressive effort: a front-page New York Times story about a new
way of war with the bylines of six reporters, and two more and a team of
researchers cited at the end of the piece. They have plotted deadly
missions from secret bases in the badlands of Somalia. In Afghanistan, they
have engaged in combat so intimate that they have emerged soaked in blood
that was not their own. On clandestine raids in the dead of the night, their
weapons of choice have ranged from customized carbines to primeval
tomahawks. So began the Times investigation of SEAL Team 6, its nonstop
missions, its weaponry, its culture, the stresses and strains its warriors
have experienced in recent years, and even some of the accusations leveled
against them. (Afghan villagers and a British commander accused SEALs of
indiscriminately killing men in one hamlet.)
For all the secrecy surrounding SEAL Team 6, it has been the public face of
Americas Special Operations forces and so has garnered massive attention,
especially, of course, after some of its members killed Osama bin Laden on a
raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011. It even won a starring role in the
Oscar-winning Hollywood film Zero Dark Thirty, produced with CIA help, about
the tracking down of bin Laden. As a unit, however, SEAL Team 6 is roughly
300 assault troops, called operators, and 1,500 support personnel; in other
words, more or less a drop in the bucket when it comes to Americas Special
Operations forces. And its story, however nonstop and dramatic, is similarly
a drop in the bucket when it comes to the flood of special operations
actions in these years.
While SEAL Team 6 has received extensive coverage, what could be considered
the military story of the twenty-first century, the massive, ongoing
expansion of a secret force (functionally the presidents private army)
cocooned inside the U.S. military -- now at almost 70,000 personnel and
growing -- has gotten next to none. Keep in mind that such a force is
already larger than the active-duty militaries of Australia, Chile, Cuba,
Hungary, the Netherlands, Nigeria, and South Africa, among a bevy of other
countries. If those 70,000 personnel engaging in operations across the
planet -- even their most mundane acts enveloped in a blanket of secrecy --
have created, as the Times suggests, a new way of war in and out of
Washingtons war zones, it has gone largely unreported in the American
media.
Thanks to Nick Turse (and Andrew Bacevich), however, TomDispatch has been
the exception to this seemingly ironclad rule. Since 2011, when he found
special operations units deployed to 120 countries annually, Turse has
continued to chart their expanding global role in 2012, 2014, and this year.
He has also tried, as today, to assess just how successful this new way of
war that melds the soldier and the spy, the counterinsurgent and the
guerrilla, the drone assassin and the man-hunter has been. Imagine for a
moment the resources that the media would apply to such an analogous Russian
or Chinese force, if its units covertly trained friendly militaries or
went into action yearly in at least two-thirds of the countries on the
planet. Tom
U.S. Special Ops Forces Deployed in 135 Nations
2015 Proves to Be Record-Breaking Year for the Militarys Secret Military
By Nick Turse
You can find them in dusty, sunbaked badlands, moist tropical forests, and
the salty spray of third-world littorals. Standing in judgement, buffeted by
the rotor wash of a helicopter or sweltering beneath the relentless desert
sun, they instruct, yell, and cajole as skinnier men playact under their
watchful eyes. In many places, more than their particular brand of
camouflage, better boots, and designer gear sets them apart. Their days are
scented by stale sweat and gunpowder; their nights are spent in rustic
locales or third-world bars.
These men -- and they are mostly men -- belong to an exclusive military
fraternity that traces its heritage back to the birth of the nation.
Typically, theyve spent the better part of a decade as more conventional
soldiers, sailors, marines, or airmen before making the cut. Theyve
probably been deployed overseas four to 10 times. The officers are generally
approaching their mid-thirties; the enlisted men, their late twenties.
Theyve had more schooling than most in the military. Theyre likely to be
married with a couple of kids. And day after day, they carry out shadowy
missions over much of the planet: sometimes covert raids, more often
hush-hush training exercises from Chad to Uganda, Bahrain to Saudi Arabia,
Albania to Romania, Bangladesh to Sri Lanka, Belize to Uruguay. They belong
to the Special Operations forces (SOF), Americas most elite troops -- Army
Green Berets and Navy SEALs, among others -- and odds are, if you throw a
dart at a world map or stop a spinning globe with your index finger and
dont hit water, theyve been there sometime in 2015.
The Wide World of Special Ops
This year, U.S. Special Operations forces have already deployed to 135
nations, according to Ken McGraw, a spokesman for Special Operations Command
(SOCOM). Thats roughly 70% of the countries on the planet. Every day, in
fact, Americas most elite troops are carrying out missions in 80 to 90
nations, practicing night raids or sometimes conducting them for real,
engaging in sniper training or sometimes actually gunning down enemies from
afar. As part of a global engagement strategy of endless hush-hush
operations conducted on every continent but Antarctica, they have now
eclipsed the number and range of special ops missions undertaken at the
height of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the waning days of the Bush administration, Special Operations forces
(SOF) were reportedly deployed in only about 60 nations around the world. By
2010, according to the Washington Post, that number had swelled to 75. Three
years later, it had jumped to 134 nations, slipping to 133 last year,
before reaching a new record of 135 this summer. This 80% increase over the
last five years is indicative of SOCOMs exponential expansion which first
shifted into high gear following the 9/11 attacks.
Special Operations Commands funding, for example, has more than tripled
from about $3 billion in 2001 to nearly $10 billion in 2014 constant
dollars, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). And this
doesnt include funding from the various service branches, which SOCOM
estimates at around another $8 billion annually, or other undisclosed sums
that the GAO was unable to track. The average number of Special Operations
forces deployed overseas has nearly tripled during these same years, while
SOCOM more than doubled its personnel from about 33,000 in 2001 to nearly
70,000 now.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20Each day,
according to SOCOM commander General Joseph Votel, approximately 11,000
special operators are deployed or stationed outside the United States with
many more on standby, ready to respond in the event of an overseas crisis.
I think a lot of our resources are focused in Iraq and in the Middle East,
in Syria for right now. That's really where our head has been, Votel told
the Aspen Security Forum in July. Still, he insisted his troops were not
doing anything on the ground in Syria -- even if they had carried out a
night raid there a couple of months before and it was later revealed that
they are involved in a covert campaign of drone strikes in that country.
I think we are increasing our focus on Eastern Europe at this time, he
added. At the same time we continue to provide some level of support on
South America for Colombia and the other interests that we have down there.
And then of course we're engaged out in the Pacific with a lot of our
partners, reassuring them and working those relationships and maintaining
our presence out there.
In reality, the average percentage of Special Operations forces deployed to
the Greater Middle East has decreased in recent years. Back in 2006, 85% of
special operators were deployed in support of Central Command or CENTCOM,
the geographic combatant command (GCC) that oversees operations in the
region. By last year, that number had dropped to 69%, according to GAO
figures. Over that same span, Northern Command -- devoted to homeland
defense -- held steady at 1%, European Command (EUCOM) doubled its
percentage, from 3% to 6%, Pacific Command (PACOM) increased from 7% to 10%,
and Southern Command, which overseas Central and South America as well as
the Caribbean, inched up from 3% to 4%. The largest increase, however, was
in a region conspicuously absent from Votels rundown of special ops
deployments. In 2006, just 1% of the special operators deployed abroad were
sent to Africa Commands area of operations. Last year, it was 10%.
Click here to see a larger version
A member of the U.S. Special Operations forces guides two soldiers from
Cameroons 3rd Battalion Intervention Rapid (BIR) during a 2013 training
event. (Photo by Air Force Master Sgt. Larry W. Carpenter Jr.)
Globetrotting is SOCOMs stock in trade and, not coincidentally, its
divided into a collection of planet-girding sub-unified commands: the
self-explanatory SOCAFRICA; SOCEUR, the European contingent; SOCCENT, the
sub-unified command of CENTCOM; SOCKOR, which is devoted strictly to Korea;
SOCPAC, which covers the rest of the Asia-Pacific region; SOCSOUTH, which
conducts missions in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean;
SOCNORTH, which is devoted to homeland defense; and the ever-itinerant
Joint Special Operations Command or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command
(formerly headed by Votel) made up of personnel from each service branch,
including SEALs, Air Force special tactics airmen, and the Army's Delta
Force that specializes in tracking and killing suspected terrorists.
The elite of the elite in the special ops community, JSOC takes on covert,
clandestine, and low-visibility operations in the hottest of hot spots. Some
covert ops that have come to light in recent years include a host of Delta
Force missions: among them, an operation in May in which members of the
elite force killed an Islamic State commander known as Abu Sayyaf during a
night raid in Syria; the 2014 release of long-time Taliban prisoner Army
Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl; the capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala, a suspect in 2012
terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya; and the 2013 abduction of Anas al-Libi,
an al-Qaeda militant, off a street in that same country. Similarly, Navy
SEALs have, among other operations, carried out successful hostage rescue
missions in Afghanistan and Somalia in 2012; a disastrous one in Yemen in
2014; a 2013 kidnap raid in Somalia that went awry; and -- that same year --
a failed evacuation mission in South Sudan in which three SEALs were wounded
when their aircraft was hit by small arms fire.
SOCOMs SOF Alphabet Soup
Most deployments have, however, been training missions designed to tutor
proxies and forge stronger ties with allies. Special Operations forces
provide individual-level training, unit-level training, and formal classroom
training, explains SOCOMs Ken McGraw. Individual training can be in
subjects like basic rifle marksmanship, land navigation, airborne
operations, and first aid. They provide unit-level training in subjects like
small unit tactics, counterterrorism operations and maritime operations. SOF
can also provide formal classroom training in subjects like the military
decision-making process or staff planning.
From 2012 to 2014, for instance, Special Operations forces carried out 500
Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) missions in as many as 67 countries
each year. JCETs are officially devoted to training U.S. forces, but they
nonetheless serve as a key facet of SOCOMs global engagement strategy. The
missions foster key military partnerships with foreign militaries, enhance
partner-nations' capability to provide for their own defense, and build
interoperability between U.S. SOF and partner-nation forces, according to
SOCOMs McGraw.
And JCETs are just a fraction of the story. SOCOM carries out many other
multinational overseas training operations. According to data from the
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), for example, Special
Operations forces conducted 75 training exercises in 30 countries in 2014.
The numbers were projected to jump to 98 exercises in 34 countries by the
end of this year.
SOCOM places a premium on international partnerships and building their
capacity. Today, SOCOM has persistent partnerships with about 60 countries
through our Special Operations Forces Liaison Elements and Joint Planning
and Advisory Teams, said SOCOMs Votel at a conference earlier this year,
drawing attention to two of the many types of shadowy Special Ops entities
that operate overseas. These SOFLEs and JPATs belong to a mind-bending
alphabet soup of special ops entities operating around the globe, a jumble
of opaque acronyms and stilted abbreviations masking a secret world of
clandestine efforts often conducted in the shadows in impoverished lands
ruled by problematic regimes. The proliferation of this bewildering SOCOM
shorthand -- SOJTFs and CJSOTFs, SOCCEs and SOLEs -- mirrors the relentless
expansion of the command, with its signature brand of military speak or
milspeak proving as indecipherable to most Americans as its missions are
secret from them.
Around the world, you can find Special Operations Joint Task Forces
(SOJTFs), Combined Joint Special Operations Task Forces (CJSOTFs), and Joint
Special Operations Task Forces (JSOTFs), Theater Special Operations Commands
(TSOCs), as well as Special Operations Command and Control Elements (SOCCEs)
and Special Operations Liaison Elements (SOLEs). And that list doesnt even
include Special Operations Command Forward (SOC FWD) elements -- small teams
which, according to the military, shape and coordinate special operations
forces security cooperation and engagement in support of theater special
operations command, geographic combatant command, and country team goals and
objectives.
Special Operations Command will not divulge the locations or even a simple
count of its SOC FWDs for security reasons. When asked how releasing only
the number could imperil security, SOCOMs Ken McGraw was typically opaque.
The information is classified, he responded. I am not the classification
authority for that information so I do not know the specifics of why the
information is classified. Open source data suggests, however, that they
are clustered in favored black ops stomping grounds, including SOC FWD
Pakistan, SOC FWD Yemen, and SOC FWD Lebanon, as well as SOC FWD East
Africa, SOC FWD Central Africa, and SOC FWD West Africa.
Click here to see a larger version
A U.S. Army Special Forces soldier readies himself to jump out of a C-130J
Super Hercules over Hurlburt Field, Fla., March 3, 2012. (U.S. Air Force
photo by Staff Sgt. Jonathan Snyder)
Whats clear is that SOCOM prefers to operate in the shadows while its
personnel and missions expand globally to little notice or attention. The
key thing that SOCOM brings to the table is that we are -- we think of
ourselves -- as a global force. We support the geographic combatant
commanders, but we are not bound by the artificial boundaries that normally
define the regional areas in which they operate. So what we try to do is we
try to operate across those boundaries, SOCOMs Votel told the Aspen
Security Forum.
In one particular blurring of boundaries, Special Operations liaison
officers (SOLOs) are embedded in at least 14 key U.S. embassies to assist in
advising the special forces of various allied nations. Already operating in
Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, El Salvador, France, Israel, Italy,
Jordan, Kenya, Poland, Peru, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, the SOLO
program is poised, according to Votel, to expand to 40 countries by 2019.
The command, and especially JSOC, has also forged close ties with the
Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the
National Security Agency, among other outfits, through the use of liaison
officers and Special Operations Support Teams (SOSTs).
In todays environment, our effectiveness is directly tied to our ability
to operate with domestic and international partners. We, as a joint force,
must continue to institutionalize interoperability, integration, and
interdependence between conventional forces and special operations forces
through doctrine, training, and operational deployments, Votel told the
Senate Armed Services Committee this spring. From working with indigenous
forces and local governments to improve local security, to high-risk
counterterrorism operations -- SOF are in vital roles performing essential
tasks.
SOCOM will not name the 135 countries in which Americas most elite forces
were deployed this year, let alone disclose the nature of those operations.
Most were, undoubtedly, training efforts. Documents obtained from the
Pentagon via the Freedom of Information Act outlining Joint Combined
Exchange Training in 2013 offer an indication of what Special Operations
forces do on a daily basis and also what skills are deemed necessary for
their real-world missions: combat marksmanship, patrolling, weapons
training, small unit tactics, special operations in urban terrain, close
quarters combat, advanced marksmanship, sniper employment, long-range
shooting, deliberate attack, and heavy weapons employment, in addition to
combat casualty care, human rights awareness, land navigation, and mission
planning, among others.
From Joint Special Operations Task Force-Juniper Shield, which operates in
Africas Trans-Sahara region, and Special Operations Command and Control
Element-Horn of Africa, to Army Special Operations Forces Liaison
Element-Korea and Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Arabian
Peninsula, the global growth of SOF missions has been breathtaking. SEALs or
Green Berets, Delta Force operators or Air Commandos, they are constantly
taking on what Votel likes to call the nations most complex, demanding,
and high-risk challenges.
These forces carry out operations almost entirely unknown to the American
taxpayers who fund them, operations conducted far from the scrutiny of the
media or meaningful outside oversight of any kind. Everyday, in around 80 or
more countries that Special Operations Command will not name, they undertake
missions the command refuses to talk about. They exist in a secret world of
obtuse acronyms and shadowy efforts, of mystery missions kept secret from
the American public, not to mention most of the citizens of the 135 nations
where theyve been deployed this year.
This summer, when Votel commented that more special ops troops are deployed
to more locations and are conducting more operations than at the height of
the Afghan and Iraq wars, he drew attention to two conflicts in which those
forces played major roles that have not turned out well for the United
States. Consider that symbolic of what the bulking up of his command has
meant in these years.
Ultimately, the best indicator of our success will be the success of the
[geographic combatant commands], says the special ops chief, but with U.S.
setbacks in Africa Commands area of operations from Mali and Nigeria to
Burkina Faso and Cameroon; in Central Commands bailiwick from Iraq and
Afghanistan to Yemen and Syria; in the PACOM region vis-à-vis China; and
perhaps even in the EUCOM area of operations due to Russia, its far from
clear what successes can be attributed to the ever-expanding secret
operations of Americas secret military. The special ops commander seems
resigned to the very real limitations of what his secretive but
much-ballyhooed, highly-trained, well-funded, heavily-armed
http://warontherocks.com/2015/03/the-seductiveness-of-special-ops/operators
can do.
We can buy space, we can buy time, says Votel, stressing that SOCOM can
play a very, very key role in countering violent extremism, but only up
to a point -- and that point seems to fall strikingly short of anything
resembling victory or even significant foreign policy success. Ultimately,
you know, problems like we see in Iraq and Syria, he says, aren't going to
be resolved by us.
Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the
Nation Institute. A 2014 Izzy
Awardhttp://www.ithaca.edu/rhp/independentmedia/izzy/2014izzyaward/ and
American Book Award winner for his book Kill Anything That Moves, he has
reported from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa and his pieces
have appeared in the New York Times, the Intercept, the San Francisco
Chronicle, the Nation, and regularly at TomDispatch. His latest book is
Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest
Dispatch Book, Nick Turses Tomorrows Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and
Secret Ops in Africa, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government:
Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a
Single-Superpower World.
Copyright 2015 Nick Turse
© 2015 TomDispatch. All rights reserved.
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