Indian Defence Review

No chance of a miss

Special Forces do not create resistance movements but advice, train and assist resistance movements already in existence. In asymmetric settings, Special Forces have limitless pro-active employment possibilities to exploit dissidence; employ asymmetric approaches from the NBC sphere to psychological operations, information war, economic/technical/ financial war. In counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency, Special Forces can be used for intelligence, surveillance and psychological operations, rival/pseudo gang operations, infiltrating tanzeems, neutralising terrorist leaders, organisations, support groups, infrastructure, selective raids, ambushes, snatch operations and incident response operations. In out-of-area contingencies, they can assist airborne/conventional forces or may be called upon to perform politico-military missions such as providing assistance to third world nations, surgical strikes, recovery missions, prevent terrorist use of WMDs and provide humanitarian assistance.

Conceptually, Special Forces should be employed to continuously ‘shape the battlefield’ from conventional wars in nuclear backdrop to asymmetric and fourth generation wars. Their employment should be theatre/region specific and as force multipliers to complement tasks performed by conventional forces, entailing high risk, and high gain missions having minimum visibility with desired effect. Their strategic tasking should be in sync with national security objectives. Since tasking of Special Forces invariably includes Special Operations, Covert Operations and Special Missions, these itself provide the leeway to undertake virtually any strategic task.

Core tasks of foreign Special Forces are direct action, special reconnaissance, foreign internal defence, unconventional warfare, counterterrorism and counter-proliferation of WMDs, civil affairs operations, psychological operations and information operations. It is significant to note that the USSF also undertakes undeclared tasks such as conducting proactive, sustained “man hunt” and disruption operations globally, building partner capacity in relevant ground, air and maritime capabilities in scores of countries on a steady-state basis, helping generate persistent ground, air and maritime surveillance and strike coverage over “under-governed” areas and littoral zones, and employing unconventional warfare against state-sponsored terrorism and trans-national terrorist groups globally.

Additionally, in the Af-Pak region, the CIA had a 3,000-strong army of Counter Terrorism Pursuit Teams (CTPT) that have depleted in Pakistan post the Raymond Davies episode and the killing of Osama-bin-Laden.

Manning

Globally accepted Special Forces truths are – humans are more important than hardware; quality is better than quantity; Special Forces cannot be mass produced; and competent Special Forces cannot be created after emergencies arise. Regrettably, India has ignored these factors. Authorised expansion rate of SOCOM is 1.8 per cent annually though in 2011, this was hiked to 2.5 per cent in 2011, and now there is a bid for an addition of 3,000 which includes ‘support elements’ due to increased responsibilities.

Pakistan added the fourth SSG battalion only in recent years. India went in for a 120 per cent increase in the period 2001-2004 alone including converting three parachute battalions to Special Forces. The unprecedented expansion was resorted to by deliberately feeding the hierarchy that 20,000 USSF were operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, which was untrue since this included 82 and 101 AB Divisions of the US. Actually even in the peak period of USSF deployment only 90xOperation Detachments Alpha (ODAs) were actually used (each ODA is 10-12 strong). In terms of expansion, we are making the same mistake in the expansion of the NSG.

Our Special Forces lack quality manpower including officers and shortages are shared with rest of the military, which implies that the significance of Special Forces is little understood.

Stie from the Sky

It is significant to note how seriously the USSF takes the issue of quality manpower. Take, for example, the personnel policies of the SEAL Team 6, which carried out the raid to kill Osama bin Laden. US Navy personnel volunteer for the SEALS and only those who make the cut are inducted. They serve in other SEAL teams for several years gaining operational experience.

Out of this lot, volunteers then opt for SEAL Team 6. It means they are truly the best of the best. Their average age profile is 32 years, which shows they have the right mix of youth and experience. This also underlines the seriousness with which the US develops their SF for various roles. The success of Op Neptune Spear is a testimony to that.

Equipping

Being under different chains of command, there is no commonality in equipment and no concept of ‘packaged equipping’, aside from Specialist/advanced training facilities being inadequate. Packaged equipment is essential because if a sub-unit does not have the complete authorised equipment, its combat capability will obviously be less.

The equipment that is lacking presently is in terms of light-weight, hand-held laser target designators, information system package to communicate with required entities to include voice, data, video streaming, light-weight long-range global communications to call multiple weapon strikes, state-of-the-art listening and surveillance devices, from miniature devices hand-held to MAVs, helicopter transportable all terrain vehicles, corner shots, goggles/devices to see through walls, hand-held EW weapons, state-of-the-art explosive devices with long-term timers, all-terrain light-weight clothing and load carriage, latest survival equipment, to name a few.

Integration

India is perhaps the only country whose Special Forces have no centralised command structure. This, plus the lack of strategic culture and prolonged employment in counter-insurgency leaves little scope for specialisation. Resultantly, Army Special Forces are more ‘Jack of all Trades’. MARCOS have limited prowess on land, GARUD are sans specialised air transportation units and their tasking duplicates the tasks of the Army Special Forces.

Integrated and adequate intelligence is not institutionalised. Language training and proficiency is grossly inadequate. There is no concept of integrated or even dedicated air support. There is no concept of ‘support units’ including civilians. The SAGs of NSG and SGs of SFF are not cohesive units since 33 per cent of their manpower is turned over annually. Amongst the various Special Forces there is little or no joint training. The high level of sophisticated coordination and synergy necessary between various political, military, intelligence agencies and other departments to pull off Special Forces strategic missions is missing.

There is urgent need to educate and create macro conditions for Special Forces through measures such as creation of a national vision, joint doctrine, joint organisations and integrated intelligence support.

What India needs is Special Forces for strategic tasks including deterrence against irregular and asymmetric warfare, Commando Forces for cross-border tactical tasks and within border tasks beyond the capability of regular infantry and Airborne Forces for rapid reaction and force projection within and outside India.

To begin with, the Special Forces should be organised as a small 200 to 300 strong force with the highest regional specialisation, directly under the highest political authority since most politico-military missions would be without reference to the military because of the sensitive nature. Manpower should be drawn from existing Special Forces plus other all India avenues. They should be tasked with surveillance and target designation in areas of strategic interest, shaping asymmetric and conventional battlefield to Indian advantage, deterring opponents exploiting our faultlines, controlling faultlines of adversaries, undertaking information/psychological operations and unconventional warfare, anti-hijack, building partner capabilities with friendly countries and providing cutting edge for strategic force projection.

The balance of the Commando Forces should be reorganised into an Integrated Commando Command directly under the CDS/Permanent Chairman COSC, integrating the Army Special Forces, MARCOS, Garuds, NSG and the SFF.

Conclusion

There is an urgent need to create a deterrent against irregular and unconventional forces. Pro-active employment of Special Forces can help create such deterrence. While we may continue building military and political will, we must concurrently get on with building this capability.