Previous IFPA-Fletcher Conferences

The 33rd IFPA-Fletcher Conference
on
National Security Strategy and Policy

October 16-17, 2002
The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
Washington, D.C.

Transcript: Session 2: Strategic Responses to New Security Challenges

The Role of Special Operations Forces in a New National Security Strategy
Address by Mr. Marshall Billingslea, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict

Harmon: … Our next speaker, also a distinguished graduate of the Fletcher School, is Mr. Marshall Billingslea. Now his office, of course, is in that of the Office of Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict.

And he has the title of Principal Deputy but, because that office has for some time, not had the service of a full time Assistant Secretary, he is, in fact, the man on the spot. Some of you know him from appearances on Capitol Hill. For example, on July 29th he testified before the Senate on Proliferation Accords. And, in fact, better than most in the executive branch, Marshall Billingslea knows the Hill because for six years he was a professional member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

He is now, was next then, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense of Negotiations Policy before assuming the job he has now. His remarks today will be on “The Role of Special Operations Forces in the New National Security Strategy.”

Billingslea: Thanks, Chris. I am greatly honored to speak with you today and take part in this timely conference. Throughout the years the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy have promoted discussion of important issues and highlighted a variety of matters critical to the national security. So it is distinct privilege for me not only to come back and participate in a conference, when I used to work for Dr. Pfaltzgraff and Dr. Shultz and help organize these conferences.

So it is wonderful to be back on the other side of the table with such a distinguished panel. For me it has also been a distinct privilege to work the men and women of our Special Operations community at a time and in a place where Special Operations Forces, or SOF as I will refer to them, clearly are in the ascendancy as a military capability, as a military tool of the nation.

In fact, I think we have yet to fully grasp all of the lessons to be learned from Afghanistan but I will endeavor to provide a few observations. The first and most important lesson to be learned, I suspect, is that the United States can fight an unconventional, irregular war if we are willing to take certain risks and to provide the SOF commander in the field with broad operational latitude. Operation Enduring Freedom very much was, as Gordon McCormack has termed it, a “plan as you go” operation.

The fight to topple the Taliban was waged on the ground by less than 500 Special Forces personnel. They mounted an unconventional warfare effort tied closely to indigenous forces and linked with the United States Air Force in a way that provided for a rapid and crushing defeat of the Taliban’s conventional forces. The war in Afghanistan was not a general’s war. It was a war waged by colonels and lieutenant colonels and won by small units that operated with autonomy in a highly fluid environment.

It was won by people that could meld with friendly Afghan forces who could and would do such things as operate without a safety net, develop such a rapport that they could trust their personal security to their Afghan allies, live without a huge logistics train to provide equipment and supplies, be able to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants in an environment where civilians and fighters, Taliban and non-Taliban and ex-Taliban were all jumbled together, and able to engineer a combined arms operation between U.S. B-52s and the northern alliance’s Soviet era tanks, mortars and irregular troops.

The U.S. military prides itself when combined armed efforts are well coordinated among U.S. military services. U.S. Special Operations Forces were able to coordinate operations in Afghanistan not between services but among different nations and different ethnic and linguistic groups. There is a reason that Special Operations Forces, or SOF, as they are more commonly known, were relied on to implement Operation Enduring Freedom and a reason that they will continue to serve as the tip of the spear in future operations to destroy terrorist networks.

The SOF operator is distinguished from other military personnel by a variety of factors, his language capabilities, his extensive overseas experience, his ability to work closely with foreigners and to train them, his ability to blend in to the fabric of the society in which he operates, his independence and an unparalleled degree of training.

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These Americans truly are one of a kind, each one. That is why there are so few of them. They cannot be mass-produced nor can their equipment. They are one of the nation’s most scarce resources and they should not be employed casually. But when we do call on them, as we saw in Afghanistan and as we have seen time and again in other military operations, we know that the interests of the nation will be well served.

SOF demonstrated a myriad of capabilities during Operation Enduring Freedom, within Afghanistan and simultaneously throughout the rest of the world. While Army Special Forces conducted the unconventional warfare that I was talking about, other Army and Navy SOF were conducting special reconnaissance and direct action to destroy Al Qaeda. Army Rangers demonstrated a strategic reach and prowess in night operations.

Air Force and Army Special Operations Aviators performed their intrepid work under conditions where the investments in specialized training and equipment produced capabilities, produced actions unique to SOF. Air Force Special Tactics Airmen transformed the role of SOF by integrating every U.S. services air power into the operation.

Their unique ability to rack and stack multiple types of aircraft, different procedures, different communications frequencies and to bring both precision and dumb ordinates danger close and on target proved critical not only to halting and reversing, as you will remember, the Taliban thrust in several areas, but also to crushing Taliban resistance around key cities.

The result of this combined push by SOF was a Taliban uprooted and an Al Qaeda on the run. These few examples represent an important synergistic effect that Special Operations Forces have in their efforts. The sum of their efforts is greater than their individual parts. Other SOF capabilities are sometimes less touted but play no less a vital role. SOCOM’s(?) Civil Affairs men and women are deployed worldwide long before hostilities erupt.

The also remain long after the guns have fallen silent to help rebuild the instruments of effective governance. While the bulk of the mission in Afghanistan is now fallen to the conventional military, the most important part in my view, winning the peace, is still in the hands of Civil Affairs Operators who are working with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department to rebuild a society torn by war, frayed by fanaticism.

Legitimization of the Karzai government through a consistent and measurable improvement in the quality of life for the Afghan people, is essential to U.S. national security. We cannot afford for Afghanistan to slide back into a quagmire. President Karzai must succeed and the work of the international community and SOCOM Civil Affairs personnel are crucial to the effort.

The work of Civil Affairs in Afghanistan also sends an important message to the Muslim world. Our quarrel is not with Islam. Our fight is with terrorists and the despots that harbor them. By removing the Taliban we have made life livable once again for the Afghan people. That is a message that the Muslim world needs to hear and understand.

Which brings me to another invaluable part of the Special Operations community, the service men and women of our psychological operations detachments. These people are spearheading U.S. efforts in a war of words and a battle of ideas. There success is fundamental to the victory in the war on terrorism. We can spend endless time and effort chasing terrorist operatives but unless we can address the root causes of terrorism, the conflict in which we are now engaged will never end.

On a strategic level, SOF programs offset the shrill and distorted propaganda that our adversaries are pumping out. By offering alternative sources of information to those who are denied basic rights of freedom and access, freedom of speech and access to information. At the tactical level SIOP capabilities to transmit, radio broadcast, to distribute leaflets and to use loud speakers provide opportunities for enemy soldiers to surrender and to prevent civilians from getting in harm’s way.

It is also important to note that both active and reserve SOF components have been engaged in a variety of the activities I have mentioned. The Army National Guard 20th Special Forces Group, for example, is the core of the combined Joint Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan today. The new National Security Strategy, which has been discussed already and which has been designed to meet the circumstances in which we find ourselves today, calls for preemptive operations to interdict threats before they manifest themselves.

A preemptive posture imposes two important requirements on our military, finding the adversary and responding in a timely fashion. SOF can meet those challenges, separately or together. Yet engaging in this across multiple theaters is going to stretch the limits of the current force structure. That is going to require the nation’s leadership to make more deliberate choices when, where, and how we employ SOF around the globe.

Some of this stress on the force will be offset by adding SOF resources in several areas, additional capabilities and capacity to conduct special reconnaissance, improved capacity and speed of response by where we preemptively move SOF forces, where we deploy them overseas, enhanced mobility platforms to respond once an adversary is found, and expanded logistics.

I could go into greater detail but the time is short. Finally, all of this means that conventional forces are going to need to step in and pick up certain missions. These may or may not be what we have traditionally seen as SOF-unique missions. Many of them may not be, things such as evacuation of an Embassy or combat search and rescue. The commands tend to ask SOF to perform such missions because of the confidence that we all attach to their ability to get the job done.

It also means that regional combatant commanders will in the future not be able to own the SOF units assigned to their area of responsibility as they have in the past. We’re indeed in a much more fluid environment and assets needed for one action, one in one country are going to be needed the next day somewhere else, perhaps far, far away. That said, in addition to leading the charge in the war on terrorism, and engaging in a deep and lasting change in Special Operations Forces posture around the world

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the command also faces a core challenge, which is to continue the evolutionary process to create a force better prepared to meet the challenges of the future. The force that we begin building today is the force that administrations 10 years from now will rely upon to safeguard the nation’s interest.

In closing, let me restate that SOF very much are part of the vanguard of the new National Security Strategy. SOF proved their mettle and their value to the nation during Operation Enduring Freedom and numerous other operations and training events that were conducted simultaneously in every theater. But SOF cannot rest on their operational laurels.

If given respite, Al Qaeda will rebuild itself, Al Qaeda will strike in ever more devastating ways. Each formation within SOF has a role to play and a sustained campaign against Al Qaeda and against the Al Qaeda leadership. Although the global pro-active soft posture is going to stretch and test the limits of the current force, additional resources, new partnerships and the divesting of current missions will ensure the SOF do not exhaust themselves during this campaign.

Again, I thank you very much for the opportunity to speak at this forum and I hope that I provided some stimulus to the discussion.

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Marshall, the following was a question posed to you during the question-and-answer period, which you had to miss because of your meeting at the Pentagon. I thought you might be interested, so I have included it. –pj

Clark: Jeff Clark, Center of Military History. This is a question for Mr. Billingslea, SOLIC. Sir, you spoke about rebuilding, reconstruction, the role of Special Operations in that task, it could be in Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq or Kuwait. And you mentioned Civil Affairs and they have a great capability for infrastructure, for governmental infrastructure reconstruction with help from the Corps of Engineers and maybe companies like Newton-Brown.

But what about the political reconstruction or construction? You go into a country like Iraq or post-World War II Germany and Japan. Who do you think or how—Do you have any thoughts about how best to approach that part of kind of nation building if we want to get back into that business? That is my question. Thanks.

Harmon: Mr. Clark’s question is a very good one. However, he can’t tell probably because of where the podium sits, but the Principal Deputy of SOLIC has escaped back to the Pentagon and has to face another meeting there. It may well be, however, that three of our other panelists are interested enough in the question to want to comment on it. Yes, sir.

Locher: It has been many years since I have been the Assistant Secretary for SOLIC, so I am a little dated, but with respect to this idea of political reconstruction, when a Civil Affairs team is preparing for reconstitution of a government, the team can have expertise on political, governmental matters. As a matter of fact, when we were redoing the reconstitution in Kuwait, that was actually planned here in Washington with 54 Civil Affairs Reservists and one member from 20 Kuwaiti ministries.

So there is expertise there, political expertise in the Civil Affairs Organization, how that might be augmented by other elements of the United States government I don’t know at that present time. But this is an area where the Civil Affairs people could at least make a start.

Harmon: General Anderson, the Army is so heavily involved in Civil Affairs abroad, especially with some of the reservists work, things like that side of work. I don’t know if you wanted to add to—

Anderson: Well, you bring up a very good point. And certainly, Mr. Locher is well informed on that. I think the other dimension to this, however, is that when you are addressing that kind of a problem, that kind of an issue, this really requires an inter-agency approach. And it should not be expected that the military, in and of itself, has to develop those skills solely to be able to perform that function.

Others, such as the Department of State and other organizations within the government are well equipped to be able to do those kinds of things. And so, I think an inter-agency approach with the Civil Affairs and the other organizations equipped to do that is a good start, if you would.

Gertz: Yes, and I would also like to make the point that I think that NGOs can also play that role. There is a very good group headed by Al Santoli who used to work on the Hill and he just a formed a group that is supporting our Special Forces in the Philippines by getting medical supplies and getting them out to the people in the poor areas of the southern Philippines. And he really looks at it as the humanitarian war against terrorism because that is really going at the root causes.

And that is a program that is just beginning and I think that the military is going to look to NGOs to do that in a lot of other places, too.

__: I would add that the President’s new National Security Strategy certainly indicates the significance of the war of ideas in the current effort abroad against terrorism, that certainly reasonable structures have a great deal to do with the kind of alternative there can be both to some of the plans of terrorist but also the norms the despots try to establish before housing some of those same terrorists.

And I think that the United States may or may not have been tremendously good in the past at sort of the war of ideas and the proponency in preparation for democracy abroad. But it does seem to me to be an absolutely vital part of our national strategy. It has been, of course, a part of all past national security strategies, at least all those I have read.

And it varies on emphasis with administration to administration but each has recognized its utility and the current one, released September 17th , certainly does too.