Indian Defence Review

David Maxwell’s recent article ‘Unconventional Warfare Does Not Belong to Special Forces’ in warontherocks.com makes interesting reading. English is a West German language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought by Germanic invaders and / or settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and Netherlands, as per Wikipedia. You then have the Queen’s English, American English, Hinglish (English with influx of Hindi words) and what have you. However, the US has been juggling with semantics all and sundry to suit their interests including in unconventional warfare. We first heard of “violent terrorism” as if there is ‘benign terrorism’ as well and you can separate the two.

The Sarin Gas attack on the Tokyo Subway on 20 March, 1995 was an act of “violent extremism” perpetrated by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult. In five coordinated attacks, Sarin was released on several lines of the Tokyo Metro, killing 13, severely injuring 50 and causing temporary loss of vision to some 1000 people. The Cult actually had two remote controlled helicopters and had even smuggled in a Russian Mi-8 helicopter part by part. Had they used aerial spraying, they had enough Sarin gas to kill one million people. Could you classify members of this cult “non-violent” terrorists before the Sarin attack ? Are there ‘good (benign) and ‘bad (violent) terrorists ?

Then came the “good Taliban” and the “bad Taliban” closely followed by “good Haqqanis” and “bad Haqqanis” latter sold by Kayani, Pakistan’s Army Chief to the US, that Michael Hughes, geopolitical journalist described succinctly in July 2010 by saying, “… In a movement that should have floored US policymakers, Kayani was brazen enough to try and inveigle Afghanistan to strike a power-sharing arrangement with the Haqqanis. And Kayani, apparently the spokesperson for the Haqqani group, said they’d be willing to split from and denounce Al Qaeda, which is President Obama’s primary rationale for the war. However, there is a higher probability of General Kayani converting to Hinduism than there is of the Haqqani Network ever being decoupled from Al Qaeda …… Nine years, nearly $300 billion dollars and 1900 dead coalition soldiers later, the US has officially verified that the entire war effort has been focused on the wrong side of the mountains.

Now David Maxwell writes that he has written for the past 30 years, based on obvious US inputs, that “US Army Special Forces is the only force in the Department of Defense (DoD) organized, trained, equipped, educated, and optimized for the conduct of unconventional warfare.” Maxwell clarifies he was wrong in implying that the unconventional warfare missions belong solely to US Army Special Forces (USSF).  He has cited the definition of unconventional warfare that resides in Joint Publication 1-02 the DoD Dictionary of Military and associated Terms and is now the foundation for US military unconventional warfare doctrine; consisting of “activities to enable a resistance or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow a government or occupying power through and with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force in a denied area.” There have been workshops and working groups laboring to refine the definition and one supposes this will be an infinite effort akin to finding a universal definition of terrorism that can never be conclusive.

In case of terrorism, there is ambiguity in the US itself. The US Patriot Act defines domestic terrorism as an act of violence that is intended to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.”  The August 2012 shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin killing six people was publicly described by the Attorney General as an act of terrorism motivated by hate. But, the Fort Hood massacre of November 2009 killing 13 and injuring 30 wounded has never been described officially as an act of terrorism even though the alleged shooter shouted “Allahu Akbar,” or God is great, when he opened fire.

However, in the case of unconventional warfare, saying that it is the sole domain of Special Forces is simply preposterous given that US Special Forces Command (SOCOM) totals 60,000 strong of which actual Special Forces are only 15,000 with balance 45,000 being support elements. Then the SOCOM Commander had admitted that at the height of the war in Iraq, peak deployment of USSF was only 90 x Operational Detachment Alphas (ODA), each ODA not being more that 10-12 men – implying 900 to 1080. That is hardly the requisite strength to deal solely with the raging unconventional war post initial invasion. Ditto for Afghanistan.

It is no secret that in recent years unconventional forces have demonstrated greater strategic significance over conventional and even nuclear forces. For that matter recent years have hardly witnessed combat between two conventional armies, none perhaps after the 2005 Russia-Georgia War. Application of unconventional war for victors may have come into sharp focus in recent years but it is not a new concept at all. In fact, unconventional warfare has defeated super powers – the US in Vietnam, the Soviets in Afghanistan and now the US again in Afghanistan. Should China attempt to fill the power vacuum in post 2014 in Afghanistan, the PLA will likely meet a similar fate. This is an era of unconventional wars with no rules, no regulations and no borders. Therefore, the Special Forces by themselves can hardly meet conflict requirements of such magnitude. Then unconventional warfare is not targeting any military but a nation state or an occupying power. The response therefore perforce has to be holistic; the synergized nation national power of the concerned state or the occupying power.

One example is the requirement of intelligence in unconventional warfare environment that besides requiring all source and real-time intelligence also requires application of ‘billion eyes on the ground’ concept – total citizenry at home and abroad. Special Forces are an essential part of this total effort.

What, however, must be acknowledged is that while USSF cannot be the sole force organized, trained, equipped, educated, and optimized for the conduct of unconventional warfare, they certainly are the ‘best’ organized, trained, equipped, educated and optimized for the conduct of unconventional warfare as ‘central to asymmetric response’. This is especially so because unconventional warfare is a dirty war that requires an equally dirty response for which Special Forces are best qualified. Maxwell’s reference to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) is a hint by itself. In World War II, the OSS utilized members of a German dissident group who had fled to France as refugees for unconventional operations against the German Army in conjunction OSS.

The philosophy of the then OSS Chief, General Donovan had been, “Use them as long as they kill Nazis”. So what has changed today? In recent times, the West has been employing its Special Forces for regime change as a new asymmetric option / policy. The combination is Information Warfare (IW), Intelligence agencies, Special Forces and air power applied in the last stages. If media reports are to be believed, US engages in asymmetric war by any means in national interest; recent reports indicate US used Al Qaeda in Bosnia, Libya and is doing similarly in Syria in conjunction USSF.

Paul Joseph Watson, wrote in his article ‘Whether America Shares Its Values with Terrorists’ that just as Al-Qaeda terrorists were used to oust Gaddafi, hundreds of Libyan rebels with Al Qaeda willing members were being airlifted into Syria to aid opposition in carrying out attacks against government forces. It goes without saying that the unconventional war in Syria is aimed at Iran, which is why the USSF are already engaging the latter. On balance, unconventional warfare cannot be the sole baby of the USSF but certainly the USSF are best suited and should be central to the response.