This strategy and environment require transformational intelligence-driven operations. Traditional paradigms created the reconnaissance by fire and reconnaissance in force, gathering intelligence to support operations against a predetermined target to defeat enemy armed forces and seize terrain. The new paradigm requires that friendly forces see first, then strike. The critical military problem is to actually identify threats and their systems, so that precision strikes can efficiently reduce their capability or intent. A non-linear battlefield collection plan should initiate the majority of operations, until a database of initial conditions is developed defining threat subsystems. Daily situation reports can be parsed into mutually exclusive, completely exhaustive packets using a simple Microsoft Access program to facilitate trend analysis. Other link analysis systems currently used by law enforcement can provide further definition. By its nature this task is interagency, combined, and joint.
The information gathered and analyzed by joint interagency intelligence staffs supports an Operational Net Assessment (ONA) that drives the weekly targeting cycle.17 When the intelligence staff has developed some picture of the threat subsystems: leadership, ideology, structure, sanctuary, source of supply, and method of control, these systems can be analyzed in a matrix to identify the operational objectives. The standard least-value target analysis matrix evaluates these subsystems, in terms of Criticality, Accessibility, Recoverability, Vulnerability, Effect, and Recognizability.18 While our risk management strategy identifies the targeted threat, ONA identifies the targeted subsystem. This enables subordinate Mission Planning Agencies to nominate targeted nodes within the subsystem and tailor operations that integrate operational maneuver, operational fires, unconventional warfare, information operations, and civil military operations to reduce the threat. Thus, the traditional targeting process, used for kinetic fires, is adapted to include all of the lines of operation. Once the operation is conducted, the weekly working group and Joint Targeting Board reevaluate the threat risk of the targeted faction and subsystem.
All patrols, projects, and operations developed in this fashion should have an objective tied to the campaign. An armored patrol, for instance, unless it is part of a logistics function or a psychological operation, may be counter-productive. The threat is a fish, which swims in the ocean of the people. A raid that is not precisely targeted risks disturbing the water and missing the fish. Aggressive operations like these, without measures of effectiveness tied to ONA, like body counts in Vietnam, are full of sound and fury- signifying nothing.
The ONA approach allows the Joint Targeting Board to select the subsystem for prioritization that will enable friendly forces to most efficiently reduce threat capability and intent. With heavy reliance on scarce reserve-based forces, Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs in particular, and the need for focused support from sparsely-manned human intelligence capabilities, the ability to narrowly focus coordinated efforts and avoid a reactive posture becomes critical. Further, we need to reduce demand upon critical resources to ensure long-term sustainability.
A lack of focus leaves SOF with the dilemma of supporting the unfocused efforts of a GPF headquarters and losing the ability to produce and maintain quality forces, or constantly seeking to extricate forces from the fight by demonstrating a lack of narrowly defined SOF missions. For this reason, the debacle granting operational control of the Army Special Forces-based Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force (CJSOTF) in Afghanistan to CJTF-180 was not repeated in Iraq. Similarly, the lessons of Operation Iraqi Freedom may tend against giving operational control of Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations assets to a GPF headquarters in the future.
The solution to the objective warfare challenge is SOF executive agency and operational control of large GPF formations. This forces the threat to answer the question: What do I do when faced with like forces?19 SOF are designed to operate in denied or politically sensitive areas. Army Special Forces have a unique capability and history tied to other governmental agencies (OGA) with human intelligence missions. This capability has a synergetic impact when integrated with civil-military operations, information operations, and unconventional warfare. The unconventional warfare role for which Army Special Forces was designed, and the niche role of SOF in coalition warfare indicate that the best tool to manage transition from Coalition forces to local military and law enforcement are SOF. Capture of High Value Targets and terrorists by SOF- coordinated indigenous forces will have unique long-term political advantages. Finally, SOF have an enhanced capability to direct precision fires essential on a politically sensitive battlefield.
GPF leaders, planners, and soldiers are trained for a very different battlefield. The younger, less culturally sensitive soldiers, sailors, and airmen generally operate unilaterally in formations Company-size or larger. The average unit has little contact with intelligence functions beyond situation and spot reporting. Cumbersome, multi-echelon fire control systems, combined with fear of collateral damage and less precision capability, delay responsive fires and reduce our symmetrical advantages.
The overall conflict construct we recommend envisions SOF primacy on the battlefield prior to open hostilities, transitioning to the GPF in a fight against large hostile formations as the GPF advances through pre-existing Joint Special Operations Areas. After the end of major combat operations, in the politically sensitive environment of stability operations, primacy returns to SOF.
The main effort of the Combatant Command would be the CJSOTF. The CJTF would remain a supporting headquarters and coordinate transition to civil authority. The standard role of the CJTF in Peace Support Operations, as opposed to fourth generation battlefield counter-insurgency, would ensure units were tasked with missions for which they had been trained, equipped, and organized. Field Artillery units would not find themselves in a counter-intelligence role. All units, even GPF, are designed to operate within a specific envelope of capabilities.20 The war would thus become the CJSOTF Commander's to win or lose.
The CJSOTF would have to be task organized like CJSOTF-North during early phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This task force, commanded by a Colonel, coordinated operations and fires for the equivalent of four Kurd Divisions, two conventional Brigades (173 ABN and 26 MEU), a Special Forces Group, a Coalition force, OGA elements, and a Special Operations Wing to defeat three Iraqi Corps. This was accomplished while preventing Turkish intervention, factional infighting, MEK on BADR hostilities, reducing the Ansar Al-Islam threat near Halabjah, and mediating between multiple armed factions to secure the northern oil fields and two cities of over a million people each in a Joint Special Operations Area (JSOA) of more than 173,000 square kilometers.
The CJSOTF should be built around a Special Forces Group (which will surge for planned operations and re-deploy assets at its own discretion for sustainment). However, the staff augmentation should be extensive: a large current and future plans shop led by a strategist with the skill qualification, a fires shop capable of managing the Joint Targeting Board and a Joint Air Control Element, a deputy commander who commands the supporting Special Operations Wing, integrated air and ground future plans, and a huge intelligence kludge that contains elements from OGA, Special Mission Units, and a National Intelligence Support Team. The force should include a Special Operations Wing in direct support, a light infantry Brigade under operational control, indigenous units (unconventional warfare) under operational control, two battalions of Civil Affairs and an associated Civil Military Operations Center, and the entire Joint Psychological Operations Task Force with Commando Solo.
The CJSOTF would establish a JSOA around the targeted threat, depending on the subsystem chosen for attack, and design operations to reduce the threat capability. This would enhance air precision fires and responsiveness, and integrate the Mission Planning Agency and the intelligence production assets more closely. Thus, we can reduce the decision cycle and act proactively to seize the initiative from the threat. As threats were reduced, the JSOA could be lifted or shifted to address new targets.
The assigned conventional Brigade would provide platoon-sized positions to control lateral movement within the JSOA, support Civil Affairs projects, and separate factional elements to reduce threat risk.21 These units would be re-supplied by air during limited visibility and, more effectively, using local purchase. Remaining GPF would isolate the JSOA and act as a Quick Reaction Force. The CJSOTF would task the CJTF for additional forces, if required.
Regardless of executive agency, all lines of operation, Operational Maneuver, Operational Fires, Unconventional Warfare, Civil Military Operations, and Information Operations, need to be effectively integrated. Our basic assumption is that if we can enhance the yield of our operations, we will require fewer assets to accomplish the mission and thus enhance long-term sustainability. Each of the lines of operation has a synergetic impact on the others. Operational Maneuver should be examined for an Information Operations impact. For instance, when aircraft hide above 10,000 feet AGL, a message is being sent to the threat. When they are willing to improve responsiveness and awe by flying lower, another message is sent. Where no operational fires are possible, non-kinetic fires may be planned. The use of indigenous forces or Civil Military Operations sends still another message. The use of Information Operations can enhance the impact of Operational Maneuver and Fires. Unconventional Warfare, Civil Military Operations, and Information Operations can enhance the intelligence provided to support Operational Maneuver and Fires. In short, when we act, we should be ready to maximize the productivity of each of these aspects. A simple patrol should never be just a simple patrol.
The use of logical lines of operation designed for Peace Support Operations confuses apples and oranges. While useful in identifying sequential tasks leading to military conditions and measures of performance, these lines are not integrated to achieve effective military operations. Logical lines of operation are strategic tools, not operational ones. Logical lines of operation remain a useful tool for measuring the progress of reconstruction. Their use as part of an effects synchronization process attempts to make them an operational tool, assuming the desired measures of effectiveness are developed and the threat is being attacked by some other means. Actual battlefield effects synchronization is best addressed in the traditional forum of a Joint Targeting process.
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17: LTC (R) William Fleser, "Operational Net Assessment: Implications and Opportunities for SOF", Special Warfare, December 2002, pp. 12-17. The ONA process is an essential part of both Rapid Decisive Operations and Effects Based Operations concepts. It was briefed to CINCJFCOM in June 2001.
18: Fleser, pg. 14. This is a standard SOF target analysis process.
20: Paul K. Davis, Analytic Architecture for Capabilities-Based Planning, Mission-System Analysis, and Transformation (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2002), PP. 9-10. Force Planning is a design process based upon capabilities. The recent high-profile case of LTC West is an indicator of a core problem.
21: Scales, P.7. "The inter-disposition of forces in the enemy's midst ensures that we control the clock, not him." By preventing an enemy from massing to gain local superiority, we reduce the significance of the damage his actions can cause. Paradoxically, these smaller positions, supported by firepower and technology, actually reduce threat risk.
David E.A. Johnson, Senior Fellow
Lt. Col. David Johnson is a senior research fellow with the Center for Advanced Defense Studies and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Paris in Theoretical Information Science. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, a Graduate of the Command and General Staff Course, the Joint Defense College (France), and holds a Masters Degree in the History of Strategy from the Sorbonne. An Army Strategist, he has recently served as an Army Legislative Liaison with the House of Representatives, Chief of Plans for the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force in Northern Iraq and Chief of Plans for the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force for the Arabian Peninsula. He is currently assigned as Chief of the Special Operations Theater Support Element-Central Command. His dissertation is in the domain of intention awareness with implications for wireless encryption and the creation of organization independent software. He has participated in numerous working groups for the development of military decision-making systems, both American and French. He has published articles in Infantry and Special Warfare magazines.
This work is posted along the "Fair Use of Copyrighted Works" provisions. This work was originally published by:
The Center for Advanced Defense Studieswith the following provisio:
The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052
This work reflects the opinions of the author and not the official positions of The George Washington University, The Department of Defense, or any other organization with which the author is affiliated.
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