Special WarfareThe Professional Bulletin of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School

PB 80–94–2 April 1994 Vol. 7, No. 2

Machiavelli noted more than 400 years ago,“There is nothing more difficult to carry out, normore doubtful of success, nor more dangerous tohandle, than to initiate a new order of things.”This is as true today as it was then. We, the mil-itary, are a bureaucracy, and everything weknow suggests that bureaucracies are hard tochange and, in reality, are designed not tochange. However, we know that bureaucraciesand the military do innovate. The question is,what process is used? One manner in which theArmy Training and Doctrine Command and theArmy are influencing change and responding toimmediate needs is through the initiative of bat-tle labs.

Battle labs capitalize on the experience of sol-diers, technology and emerging concepts toinfluence change and make advances in sixareas: doctrine, training, leadership, organiza-tion, materiel and soldiers. The battle lab is nota “lab” per se, but an organization of thinkersand doers, who, with their combined talents,and because of their experience in the field, areable to leverage emerging technology and devel-op concepts that close gaps and make improve-ments to those six areas.

Currently, there are six TRADOC battle labs,each oriented toward a particular battle dynam-ic. They are: Depth and Simultaneous Attack, atFort Sill, Okla.; Early Entry, Lethality and Sur-vivability, at Fort Monroe, Va.; MountedWarfighting, at Fort Knox, Ky.; DismountedWarfighting, at Fort Benning, Ga.; Battle Com-mand, at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.; and CombatService Support, at Fort Lee, Va.

The focus in each battle dynamic is to testconcepts and technology by experimentation,simulation and actual demonstration. The ideais to find out if a new technology or concept addsvalue. If it doesn’t, the idea is discarded withminimal loss of resources, and valuable time canbe used to explore ideas with more merit. But ifan idea does have value, the system is designedfor a quick turnaround to put it into the force.The battle-lab process does not negate the needfor combat developments and the concept-basedrequirements system; it acts to complementthem.

Army special-operations forces are activeplayers in the battle-lab system. We have partic-ipated in demonstrations and studies involvingterminal-guidance operations, reduction of sen-sor-to-shooter time lines, and early-entry opera-tions, all in conjunction with the TRADOC bat-tle labs. We will now dramatically expand ourefforts with the battle labs, capitalizing on ourunique experiences across the full spectrum ofconflict, including operations other than war.

Today’s world demands unprecedented cooper-ation among all services. There is a need toexploit readily available solutions to problems,develop new systems and concepts, and to doboth with increasingly scarce resources. Battlelabs, staffed with capable, imaginative peopleand supported by the Army at large, can providean effective and timely means for determiningour requirements. The Army special-operationscommunity is part of this effort.

Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow

From the CommandantSpecial Warfare

PB 80–94–2 Contents

Features2 Peace Operations: Post-Conflict Reconstruction and

Restoration-Assistance Missionsby Dr. Richard H. Shultz

6 The Organized-Crime Dimension of Regional Conflict and‘Operations Other than War’by Dr. Graham H. Turbiville Jr.

8 Ethnicity as Explanation, Ethnicity as Excuseby Dr. Paul A. Goble

12 The Role of the Media in Peacekeeping Operationsby James Adams

14 Preparing for Peacekeeping: Military Training and the Peacekeeping Environmentby Cols. John P. Abizaid and John R. Wood

21 USSOCOM Creates Clearinghouse for New Ideasby Brig. Gen. William F. Kernan

22 ODA Planning: Tips from the JRTCby Capt. Kevin Christie

28 The Subjective Side of Cross-Cultural Communicationby Lt. Col. James K. Bruton

32 Legal Aspects of Civil Affairsby Maj. (P) Neil Porter

36 Managing Special-Operations Forces Doctrineby Steven E. Cook

40 Interview: William Colby, former director, Central Intelligence Agency

Departments44 Letters45 Enlisted Career Notes46 Officer Career Notes48 Foreign SOF50 Update52 Book Reviews

Cover: Computer graphic by Bruce S. Barfield

V E R I T A S

STREBIL

A

E T

Commander & CommandantMaj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow

EditorJerry D. Steelman

Associate EditorSylvia McCarley

Graphic Art DirectorBruce S. Barfield

Special Warfare is an authorized, official quarterly of theUnited States Army John F. Kennedy Special WarfareCenter and School, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Its missionis to promote the professional development of special-operations forces by providing a forum for the examinationof both established doctrine and new ideas.

Views expressed herein are those of the author, and donot necessarily reflect official Army position. Thispublication does not supersede any information presented inother official Army publications.

Articles, photos, artwork and letters are invited, andshould be addressed to: Editor, Special Warfare,USAJFKSWCS, Fort Bragg, NC 28307-5000. Telephone:DSN 239-5703 or commercial (910) 432-5703. SpecialWarfare reserves the right to edit all material.

Published works may be reprinted, except wherecopyrighted, provided credit is given to Special Warfare andthe author.

Official distribution is limited to active and reservespecial-operations units. Individuals desiring a privatesubscription should forward their requests to:Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government PrintingOffice, Washington, D.C. 20402.

By Order of the Secretary of the Army:Gordon R. SullivanGeneral, United States ArmyChief of Staff

Official:

Milton H. HamiltonAdministrative Assistant to theSecretary of the Army

05740

Headquarters, Department of the Army

April 1994 Special Warfare Vol. 7, No. 2

With the end of the ColdWar, the internationalsecurity environment has

undergone several importantchanges. This is certainly true ofthe nature and dimensions of crisis,conflict and war. Will these develop-ments affect U.S. interests andopportunities abroad? How do theyalter the uses of military power ingeneral and, in particular, the rolesand missions of the U.S. Army andother armed services?

These questions are addressed informer Secretary of Defense LesAspin’s Report on the Bottom-UpReview, which purports to “providethe direction for shifting America’sfocus away from a strategy designedto meet a global Soviet threat to oneoriented toward the new dangers ofthe post-Cold War world thatthreatens important U.S. nationalinterests.” What does this entail?

The Review discerns a major shiftin the security paradigm from aglobal to a regional focus. Withinthis context, it envisages two cate-gories of regional conflicts — “large-scale aggression by major regionalpowers” and “smaller, often inter-nal, conflicts based on ethnic or reli-gious animosities, state-sponsored

terrorism, and subversion of governments.”

According to Aspin, these con-flicts will affect U.S. interests andvalues. Regional dangers can jeop-ardize specific economic, politicaland strategic concerns. However, healso asserts that there are core val-ues which we have an interest inpromoting abroad. These includedemocracy, human rights and thepeaceful resolution of conflict.

Regional challenges, defined inthis way, require two very differentkinds of responses. With respect toaggression by major regional pow-ers, the Review maintains that theU.S. will employ military forces todeter or defeat those that threatenour interests or allies. This involvestraditional combat missions. Whatdo these encompass?

Some have labeled them as non-traditional, others use non-combat,while they have also been designat-ed peacetime engagements for hos-tilities short of war. The Reviewidentifies peacekeeping, peaceenforcement, humanitarian assis-tance, disaster relief, and otherintervention operations as fittinginto this category. It also includespost-conflict restoration and recon-struction-assistance missions.While identified in the Review’s sec-tion on “Building an Overall ForceStructure,” nowhere are the post-

conflict uses of military powerdelineated or the linkages betweenit and other non-traditional mis-sions specified.

Internal conflictsThe kinds of internal conflicts

taking place today are not easilyunderstood. Neither are therequirements for their resolution orfor post-conflict reconstruction. Aglobal survey of current trends inethnic, religious and communal vio-lence and the factors causing theirescalation will bear this out. Beforebecoming involved in such situa-tions, whether alone or on a multi-lateral basis, the U.S. will require athorough understanding of the his-torical, cultural and political con-text. Answers to the following ques-tions are necessary: Why is collec-tive political violence occurring in agiven situation? What are its specif-ic dimensions? At what level ofmagnitude and intensity is it takingplace? Answers to these and relatedissues are essential before under-taking any of the non-traditionalmissions identified in the Report onthe Bottom-Up Review.

In order to begin an assessment,it is first necessary to locate the sit-uation under examination on theconflict continuum. The continuumcomprises five operational environ-

Peace Operations: Post-Conflict Reconstructionand Restoration-AssistanceMissions

by Dr. Richard H. Shultz

2 Special Warfare

This article is a summary of alarger paper to be presented laterthis year by the Army War College.

ments: stability, crisis, armed con-flict, chaos and war. Location on thecontinuum will determine the spe-cific non-traditional mission to beconsidered.

The situation should be assessedin terms of several generic charac-teristics that appear to precipitateinternal conflicts today and whichhave to be addressed in the conflictresolution and post-conflict recon-struction phases. These include cul-tural, political, economic and securi-ty factors. They are indicative of thedifficulties and challenges commonto post-Cold War internal conflictsand wars.

Cultural factors today center onethnic, religious and communal dif-ferences. The antecedents of thesekinds of conflict are complex andcan vary significantly from case tocase. They should be understood interms of both long-term discontent-ment factors and short-term precip-itants that ignite ethnic or religiousviolence. These factors can result inconflict situations that destroymany, if not all, aspects of a state’ssocietal infrastructure.

Political factors generic to inter-nal conflict include, in manyinstances, the breakdown and disin-tegration of the political system.The collapse of authority can resultin a situation of chaos andungovernability, marked by theemergence of increasingly militantethnic groupings who eschew anyform of compromise. Such situa-tions are exceedingly difficult to sta-bilize, let alone resolve. A lack ofstable political institutions ensuresthat the post-conflict phase will beas protracted and complicated asthe actual period of fighting.

The economic conditions resultingfrom internal war are directly relat-ed to the cultural and political ones.Urban and rural economic infras-tructures are in disarray. There isserious damage to roads, railwaysand shipping facilities for trade andthe import of vital supplies, such asfoodstuffs, medicine and othernecessities. Economic arrangements

with neighboring or regional statesare often severed. Access to vitalenergy supplies is reduced by a lackof funds or by sanctions.

Finally, there are serious securityproblems that have to be dealt within the post-conflict reconstructionphase. For instance, achieving acease-fire and disarming of thoseinvolved is difficult. Likewise, evenafter large-scale violence has beenhalted, disorder may continue byrandom armed bands, organizedcriminal groups and other disrup-tive elements that emerge in situa-tions of chaos and ungovernability.The security concerns of neighbor-ing or regional powers involved orthreatened by the conflict and itspossible future recurrence mustalso be addressed. Finally, and mostimportantly, the need to reorganizeor disband and rebuild the securityforces is a major aspect of the post-conflict reconstruction period.

Somalia is a case in point of thecomplexities involved in communalconflict and the ease with whichthey can be misunderstood. While

it was relatively uncomplicated toprovide humanitarian-relief sup-plies, resolving the conflict amongthe clans and moving to a post-con-flict situation have proven quiteproblematic for the U.N. andWashington.

Peace operationsThe aftermath of the Cold War

generated a great deal of interest inpeace operations. As was notedabove, the international environ-ment and the causes of regionalinstability have undergone signifi-cant change, and this has had animportant impact on the scope ofpeace operations. However, therealso has been a lack of understand-ing about the complexities of theseactivities.

Peace operations during the ColdWar were synonymous with U.N.peacekeeping missions. A prerequi-site for the deployment of peace-keeping troops was the consent ofthe parties to the conflict and atruce or cease-fire. Among the tac-

April 1994 3

U.S. Army photo

A U.S. Air Forceplane makes a dropof PSYOP leaflets inSomalia to informresidents of food dis-tribution points.

tics employed in peacekeeping oper-ations were observations, separa-tion and limited mediation to facili-tate and encourage implementationof agreements between the partiesto the dispute. These operations didnot include the direct use of coercivemilitary power to compel the com-batants to stop fighting (althoughpolitical and economic pressurescould be applied for such purposes).

Peace operations, as they areemerging today, are different fromthose that took place during theCold War. They are focused, moreoften than not, on intrastate aggres-sion and conflict that is the result ofethnic, religious and communal dif-ferences. These situations appearexceedingly difficult to resolve.Peace operations for these internalwars bring two important interna-tional norms — national sovereign-ty and human rights — into conflictwith one another. Many now arguethat it is necessary for third partiesto violate the sovereignty principlebecause of the serious abuse ofhuman rights in these internal con-flicts. As a result, a prerequisite forCold War peacekeeping operations,consent of the parties involved inthe conflict, is no longer regarded asessential. In fact, in these internalwars there may be no recognizedpolitical body or government to giveconsent. Ethnic and religious con-flicts may result in situations wherestate authority is extremely weak,divided or nonexistent.

In addition to being more difficultto undertake, post-Cold War peaceoperations will involve more thantraditional peacekeeping missions.This was first signaled in U.N.Agenda for Peace, by U.N. Secre-tary General Boutros-Ghali. Hecalled for an expansion of U.N.peace operations to include peace-keeping, peacemaking and peaceenforcement. However, the dimen-sions and the differences amongthese missions were not specifiedby the Secretary General and havegenerated both confusion and dis-agreement. For example, are these

peace operations in the traditionalsense, or do they involve third par-ties in armed conflict and war situ-ations? Are some of these opera-tions equivalent to a new form oflimited war for the intervening par-ties? Do armed peace interventionsaddress the factors that generateethnic, religious and communalinternal conflicts? If not, are thereyet other non-traditional missionsthat have to be considered to dealwith the post-conflict setting? Arepeace operations political-militaryor military-political in focus? Theseand related questions have beenraised about peace operations.

What do these post-Cold Warpeace operations and nontraditionalmilitary missions entail? A reviewof the professional literature andgovernment documents on the sub-ject suggests a spectrum of mis-sions. These include peace promot-ing, peacemaking, peacekeeping,peace enforcement and post-conflictrestoration and reconstruction oper-ations. Each may employ diplomaticand military means and can be con-ducted on a unilateral, ad hoc-coali-tion or international-organizationbasis. With respect to the latter,they can take the form of ChapterVI and VII actions. What do theyinclude?

Peace promoting involves third-party diplomatic initiatives prior toor in the early stages of a conflict.This could also include the deploy-ment of a peacekeeping force toprevent a confrontation from start-ing or escalating to armed conflict.Some propose that a standing forcewill be required if the U.N. or aregional organization is to be ableto conduct peace-promoting opera-tions that involve preventive peace-keeping activities. This would allowfor timely preventive actionsthrough the rapid deployment ofpeacekeepers to the region of poten-tial conflict.

Peacemaking consists of diplo-matic programs and initiatives toend an armed conflict and bringhostile parties to a settlement

through political means. It willeither precede or take place withoutthe deployment of a peacekeepingforce. Within the context of theU.N., this falls under Chapter VI ofthe Charter — “Pacific Settlementsof Disputes.” It identifies negotia-tion, inquiry, mediation, concilia-tion, arbitration and judicial settle-ment as appropriate mechanismsfor resolving disputes, and autho-rizes the Security Council to callupon the contending parties to set-tle their disputes by such means.These measures could be supple-mented with the provision of aid,humanitarian assistance, electionmonitoring and related support, aswell as the use of sanctions, block-ades and other forms of coercionshort of the introduction of forces.

Peacekeeping pertains to theimplementation and monitoring of acease-fire agreed to by the partiesinvolved in a conflict. It can workonly in an atmosphere in which hos-tilities have stopped. The partiesinvolved in the conflict must agreeto halt the fighting and accept thepresence of peacekeepers. The mili-tary forces deployed for peacekeep-ing are, in effect, truce-keepers.They are deployed when a cease-fireis in place and serve as an early-warning mechanism for potentialbreaches of the peace. A PKO willsucceed or fail not because of thecapabilities deployed, but because ofits neutrality and the consent of thecombatants.

Peace enforcement, which is alsoknown as military peacemaking andpeace-imposition operations, is verydifferent from traditional peace-keeping missions. The context is anongoing armed conflict, with notruce or cease-fire on the horizon.Consequently, unlike peacekeepers,peace enforcers are apt to beinvolved in combat situations. Theobjective is to separate the combat-ants and impose a cease-fire as thefirst step toward conflict resolution.Peace enforcement is military inter-vention. It is likely to violatesovereignty, particularly if one or

4 Special Warfare

more of the parties to the disputeopposes the deployment. Peaceenforcers will lose the neutrality ofpeacekeepers because they mustfight against those who oppose anoutside-orchestrated cease-fire andsettlement. A peace-enforcementoperation cannot resolve the causesof the conflict. The problems arepolitical and solvable only throughpolitical agreements that cannot beimposed by third parties. However,peace enforcement can lay the foun-dation for a settlement by breakingthe cycle of violence.

The foregoing focus on armedconflict or the potential for it.Their goal is to prevent violencefrom occurring or to bring thefighting to a halt. They do notaddress the complex issue of whattakes place after the termination ofhostilities. Another nontraditionaluse of the military, particularly fol-lowing peacekeeping and peaceenforcement, is post-conflictrestoration and reconstruction-assistance missions.

Post-conflict missionsIn the future, the U.S. is likely to

find itself involved in the aftermathof conflict situations where it mayor may not have been one of the ini-

tial belligerents, but is part of abilateral or multilateral effort toassist in the restoration and recon-struction of the political, security,social and economic infrastructure.This is what lies ahead in Somaliaand a multilateral reconstruction-assistance mission under considera-tion for Haiti.

To be sure, U.S. restoration andreconstruction-assistance opera-tions involve both civilian and mili-tary agencies of government. Theyare far more than a Department ofDefense mission and, in addition toincluding several civilian agencies,may be conducted in conjunctionwith international or regional orga-nizations. Nevertheless, the mili-tary has an important contributionto make.

In addition to peacekeeping andpeace enforcement, two other situa-tions may result in U.S. involve-ment in a restoration operation.The first follows the direct use offorce, as in Operation Just Cause.In the post-Cold War world, follow-ing armed intervention, the U.S.will require a post-conflict programthat contributes to stability anddevelopment. Second, it appearsthat the Clinton administration isdeveloping a policy to actively pro-mote democracy on the world scene.

It is likely to involve planning forand execution of a post-political cri-sis plan of support for infrastruc-ture restoration and democratiza-tion in former dictatorial regimes(e.g., Russia).

To summarize, we have identifiedfour post-conflict or post-politicalcrisis situations that may result inthe U.S. undertaking a restorationoperation either on its own or aspart of a multilateral arrangement.To reiterate, these missions wouldfollow in the aftermath of:

• Peacekeeping• Peace enforcement• Direct U.S. military interven-

tion; and• State transition from dictator-

ship or authoritarian rule.Unfortunately, U.S. policy and

strategy for post-conflict missionsis, at best, in a very rudimentarystate. This is particularly true forthe various civilian agencies thathave a role to play. However, DoDis only marginally more advanced,as the case of Panama demonstrat-ed. It lacked the appropriate doc-trine, programs, force structure andtraining to carry out such opera-tions in an integrated manner fol-lowing Operation Just Cause.

How can active- and reserve-com-ponent military forces be used for

April 1994 5

A U.S. soldier from the 7th SFGroup assists civilian law-enforce-ment personnel in apprehending sus-pected snipers following OperationJust Cause.

Photo by Kirk Wyckoff

reconstruction and restoration-assistance missions? Which of thepolitical, economic, security andsocial challenges that characterizepost-conflict environments can mili-tary forces perform? What are thesenon-combat military tasks? Amongthe most important are:

• Help in restructuring andreorientation of security forcesfrom instruments of repression toones that serve and support electedgovernment

• Basic infrastructure restoration• Host-country transportation

support and the distribution ofresources provided as part of thereconstruction effort

• Immediate humanitarian anddisaster relief

• Support for the establishmentof host-country governmentaladministration and processes

• Communication and informa-tional technical assistance

• Liaison arrangements withinternational and regional organiza-tions, as well as private voluntaryorganizations.

Some of these capabilities alreadyexist and only have to be expanded,reoriented and assigned to restora-tion and reconstruction-assistancemissions. However, others are notpart of the standard operating pro-cedures of the armed services andwill have to be developed. Each ofthese tasks has to be examined indi-vidually, and its specific contribu-tion to reconstruction operationsspecified. Each also should beappraised in terms of how it can beconfigured and integrated into larg-er bilateral or multilateral actions.A model of military capabilities forrestoration and reconstruction-assistance missions has to be devel-oped that can be adapted for theparticular context in which it isemployed as a planning instrument.

In a turbulent world, escalatingregional conflicts will affect criticalU.S. interests. These situations can-not be overlooked. Responding tothe period following conflict and cri-sis is as critical as those actions

taken to bring the discord to a halt.If this issue is not addressed, peace-keeping, peace enforcement andother peace operations will achieveonly a pause in the hostilities.

Dr. Richard H. Shultz is directorof the International Security StudiesProgram and associate professor ofinternational politics at the FletcherSchool of Law and Diplomacy, TuftsUniversity, Medford, Mass. He is afrequent lecturer to U.S. militaryacademies and war colleges and aconsultant to various U.S. govern-ment departments and agencies con-cerned with national securityaffairs. Most recently, he wrote Inthe Aftermath of War: U.S. Supportfor Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following JustCause (1993), and co-edited Securi-ty Studies in the 1990s (1993). Dr.Shultz’s articles have appeared inmore than 20 professional journals.

6 Special Warfare

The Organized-Crime Dimensionof Regional Conflictand ‘OperationsOther than War’

by Dr. Graham H. Turbiville Jr.

As U.S. national-security plan-ners seek to define, anticipate orreact to a host of security problemsaround the post-Cold War world,they are faced with familiar, endur-ing problems as well as with securi-ty issues that, in terms of content,scale and impact, seem strikinglynew. Among these many challengesis the appearance of an organizedcriminal dimension that increasing-ly shapes regional stability — par-ticularly as separatist movements,terrorist groups and parties to eth-nic conflict in Europe, Asia, LatinAmerica, the Middle East andAfrica have become more closelyassociated with organized crime ina variety of ways.

In security environments wherestate institutions have been ren-dered ineffective by sweeping politi-cal change, war, internal challengesor other factors, well-organized,cohesive, criminal groups withaccess to wealth and the latest tech-nologies have been quick to fill vac-uums or seize new opportunities.Organized crime in the form ofarms and drug trafficking, thesmuggling of strategic materialsand other profitable contraband,

This article is a summary of alarger paper to be presented laterthis year by the Army War College.

extortion and robbery, hostage-tak-ing for ransom, sophisticated finan-cial crimes, and other illegal activi-ties are increasingly an integralpart of ethnic conflict, insurgencyand civil war.

It is also in areas where stateinstitutions are fragile, economicresources limited and interethnictensions high, that criminal activityfounded primarily on ethno-nation-al linkages is particularly disrup-tive. The appearance of armed orparamilitary groupings acting insupport of criminal agendas andorganized along ethno-nationallines is a phenomenon associatedwith a number of areas. Clearly,too, criminal charges againstminorities in homelands and abroadare used also to discredit the aspira-tions of ethno-national groups andto justify repressive measures bygovernments.

Legal and illegal immigration(facilitated by “people smuggling”efforts on several continents) is tak-ing place at an unprecedented rate,as are large refugee and populationdislocations associated with internalconflict and political or economicdisruption. This movement of peo-ples and the creation of ethnic dias-poras in many areas of the worldhave facilitated the operation of con-flict-associated organized criminal(or terrorist) activities, and providedexternal bases for rendering finan-cial and other support to factions inethno-national homelands.

Some security problems that hadin the past been driven by ideologi-cal, political or other imperativesnow have strong criminal motiva-tions as well. For example, the dis-appearance of the USSR, the social-ist bloc and regional surrogates hasremoved immediate sources of

financing, arms, training, safehavens and other support for clientstates, insurgencies and terroristorganizations. To a growing extent,organized crime is providing analternative means of support, aswell as a seductive source of per-sonal, criminal profit that trans-forms ideological or political fervorand changes the ways in which fac-tions respond to peace initiatives,incentives, coercion, successes andsetbacks.

The organized-crime dimension ofregional instability has implicationsfor the U.S. military concept ofoperations other than war, orOOTW, which comprises support toinsurgency and counterinsurgencyoperations and a range of contin-gency operations. Because of itseffectiveness, success and impact —and the extent to which the illegaldiversion of resources, directedcriminal violence, and other crimi-nal undertakings may underminethe effectiveness or intent of U.S.programs — organized crime is amore powerful part of the overallenvironment in which OOTW takeplace.

In this regard, organized crime isa factor for U.S. military plannersevaluating the goals, motivationsand financing of belligerent forces;assessing the security of U.S. mili-tary bases, deployed forces andmany aspects of their operations;determining the type and quality ofmilitary, law-enforcement and otherinteragency planning and coopera-tion deemed desirable and feasible;identifying optimum levels of sup-port and humanitarian assistance,as well as its most effective applica-tion; planning and executing post-conflict activities; and developingcampaign planning for foreign secu-

rity-assistance programs. Overall,given specific examples as diverseas states of the former Yugoslaviaand USSR; Turkey and Spain;Colombia and Peru; Sri Lanka andIndia; Lebanon and Syria; and ahost of others, a careful considera-tion of the impact of organizedcrime on OOTW assumptions, plan-ning and execution is a clearrequirement in a threat environ-ment that is still rapidly evolving.

Dr. Graham H. Tur-biville Jr. is a senioranalyst with the For-eign Military StudiesOffice, U.S. ArmyCombined Arms Com-mand, Fort Leaven-worth, Kan., and research coordina-tor for that office’s Low-IntensityConflict Section. He served previous-ly with the Defense IntelligenceAgency as chief of the Soviet/War-saw Pact Strategic OperationsBranch, and in a number of otherassignments dealing with combined-arms operations. Dr. Turbiville’swork has been widely published inthe U.S. and abroad. He is the edi-tor for the international journal,Low-Intensity Conflict and LawEnforcement, which addresses arange of transnational and othersecurity issues associated with oper-ations other than war and military-law enforcement interaction.

April 1994 7

Ethnicity — or more precisely,its political expression, eth-nonationalism — has become

an all-purpose explanation for ana-lysts who seek to comprehend post-Cold War conflicts under a singlerubric. And it has become an all-purpose excuse for political eliteswho, reflecting to the wishes of pop-ulations eager to rid themselves offoreign commitments, seek to justifya retreat from the world by suggest-ing that ethnic conflicts are by theirvery nature insoluble.

Neither of these uses of the termis justified. Ethnonationalism cer-tainly does not explain all the con-flicts in the world. In many cases, itis not involved; and even where itis, it is never the only factor. And itdoes not excuse Western govern-ments from action because ethnicconflicts, like all other kinds, can beameliorated or even ended by vari-ous mechanisms that already exist.

To say this is not to argue forintervention in any particular con-flict or in any particular way, butrather to suggest that until weunderstand both the nature of eth-nicity and its role in conflicts, wewill remain handicapped in bothour analyses and our choices about

actions. The purpose here is not toprovide any final set of guidelinesbut rather to advance the discus-sion by focusing on three mainissues: first, the nature and varietyof the latest flowering of ethnona-tionalism; second, the kinds of eth-nic conflict such ethnic assertive-ness can lead to; and third, the like-ly outcomes of such conflicts and, inparticular, the role of third partiesin promoting their resolution.

A new age of nationalism?During the Cold War, Western

and Soviet analysts assumed thatthe world — or at least Europe —had moved beyond nationalism,that ethnicity was a “survival of thepast” that would soon be overcome.1But the dramatic role of national-ism, both in the destruction of theSoviet monolith and in the conflictsthat have followed, has led manywho denied any role for ethnona-tionalism in the past to make theequal and opposite error that eth-nonationalism is the only forceworth speaking about in the currentenvironment. To get beyond suchsimplistic and extreme judgments,we need to consider why there hasbeen this new upsurge in national-ism, why it may be more limitedthan many people now assume, andwhat forms of ethnonationalism are

in fact out there now.2Perhaps the best explanation for

the new rise of nationalism — thenotion that a human communitydefined by actual or assumed pri-mordial ties must be recognized asdeserving special treatment, auton-omy or even independence — is thatmany of the forces which led to arise of nationalism in the 18th and19th centuries have exact and evenmore powerful analogues in the cur-rent environment:

• First, nationalism, both thenand now, represents an effort toreplace a discredited alternativemodel of political integration, inthis case, the collapse of Marxism.

• Second, the vast expansion ofmedia penetration across state bor-ders reduces the legitimacy of anystratum between the communityand its participation in the interna-tional media — in the 18th centurybecause of the rise of public educa-tion and the penny press; now, bythe globalization of CNN.

• Third, the increasing impor-tance of the state to society makescontrol of the state an ever moreimportant issue to the various pop-ulation groups under its control.The 18th century saw a dramaticexpansion in the state sector; so didthe late 20th century.

• Fourth, the increasing interna-tionalization of economic life pro-

8 Special Warfare

Ethnicity as Explanation, Ethnicity as Excuse

by Dr. Paul A. Goble

This article is a summary of alarger paper to be presented laterthis year by the Army War College.

duces migration flows that createnew minorities and greater cross-cultural awareness of differences instatus and economic position. Bothperiods saw increasing contacts andcomparisons between groups: noone wants to live in a hovel oncesomeone else has built a palace.

• Fifth, the increasing rapidity ofsocial change has increased thelevel of alienation among virtuallyall populations. That, in turn, hasspurred the search for new commu-nities, the most available andapparently stable of which are pri-mordial ones that we usually groupunder the rubric “ethnic.”

Because these forces alreadyaffect much of the world, there hasbeen growing concern that they andthe ethnonationalism they producewill soon overwhelm the capacity ofthe international system to cope.But there are three good reasons toassume that this will not happen.First, most of the world’s 6,500 eth-nic communities are too small orare too satisfied to engage in politi-cal life to become politicized. Sec-ond, the power of ethnicity is under-cut by other group loyalties whichin many cases are far stronger thanethnic ones. Thus, while my ethnicattachment may be very importantto me, my political or professionalidentities may override it in mychoice of action. And third, theplace where ethnicity has explodedthe most is precisely where thestate manipulated ethnicity for solong, namely the former SovietUnion and the former Yugoslavia.

This last point is particularlyimportant. The Soviets and, follow-ing their lead, the Yugoslavs, politi-cized, territorialized and arrangedinto a hierarchy the ethnic groupsunder their control, thus increasingthe salience of ethnicity anddecreasing the importance of othercollective memberships of the popu-lations under their control. Thus, itshould come as no surprise that inthese two regions, there is a generalconfusion about the differencebetween ethnicity and citizenship

and even between language andethnicity.3 Consequently, we shouldstop blaming the victims of this pol-icy and recognize that this peculiarpattern is unlikely to be repeatedelsewhere.

Because these impulses haveaffected a variety of communitieswhose current status, size and loca-tion vary enormously, they haveproduced a wide variety of ethnona-tionalisms. Perhaps the followinggroupings can organize our thinkingbefore we turn to the relationshipbetween ethnonationalism and eth-nic conflict. In the European con-text, there are five obvious types ofethnonationalism:

• Classical nationalism, the striving of a previously submergedcommunity to achieve state independence;4

• Irredentist nationalism, thedemand that borders be rectified totake into account ethnic or culturaldivisions;5

• Unexpected nationalism, theuse of ethnic symbols to build polit-ical authority in a state whoseindependence occurred indepen-dently of the efforts of its elites andpopulations;6

• Xenophobic nationalism, theattacks against ethnically differen-tiated groups who may live within alarger community in order to relievetensions and to reinforce the psy-chic borders of the larger group;7and

• Retrenchment nationalism, thearticulation of an identity for agroup that has lost its imperial pos-sessions and is unsure of its psycho-logical barriers. The model is post-Ottoman Turkey; the current prob-lem is Russia.8

In all these cases, it should benoted, ethnicity serves as an instru-mental value, as a resource used byelites and masses to advance theirinterests, and not simply as asource of virtual identity. And tothe extent that this is true, ethnicmobilization and countermobiliza-tion should be analyzed just asother mobilization and countermo-

bilization tools routinely are. Unfor-tunately, that has seldom been thecase to date.

Conflict classificationsBefore attempting to classify eth-

nic conflicts, three preliminaryobservations are in order. First, notall ethnic assertiveness leads to eth-nic conflict — most, but not all.Moreover, in some cases, it mayeven lead to the amelioration of con-flicts, ethnic and otherwise, byresolving issues that had agitatedsociety. Second, ethnicity is in nocase the only issue involved in suchconflicts — it may frame them,power them and even justify them,but ethnicity is about access toresources, psychic and otherwise —and it is not necessarily divorcedfrom the state. (Indeed, much of thediscussion about ethnic conflict isactually about the deterioration ofstate authority rather than aboutethnonationalism per se. This isparticularly the case in discussionsabout Bosnia and about several ofthe former Soviet republics.) In thatsense, it is a filter as well as aweapon. And third, ethnic conflictsare even more varied than the kindsof ethnic groups described above.

Among the ways that ethnic con-flicts can be classified are by the fol-lowing criteria:9

• Goals of the group involved:irredentism, state independence,domestic stability through the cre-ation or maintenance of ethnic soli-darity, mobilization of populationsfor national efforts including war,conflicts over resources, expulsionof minorities, and assertion of acomfort level for members of the in-group;

• Kinds of participants in the con-flicts: communal, individual, statevs. minority, state vs. state, and bywhether outside groups areinvolved, either in order to use thecompetitors as proxies for largergoals or to end the conflict; and

• Intensity of the conflict, rangingfrom latest interpersonal hostility

April 1994 9

to communal violence to interstatewar.

Cutting across all these divisionsis the issue of the importance of theconflict to outsiders. Sometimes aconflict may be important becauseof who is involved; at other timesbecause of the potential role ofother outsiders; and at still othertimes, because of its intensity orpropensity to spill over or snowballinto other, potentially more seriousconflicts. In discussing any particu-lar ethnonational conflict, we needto be extremely precise as to whatwe mean and what we care about —just as we would for conflicts of anyother type.

Outcomes and strategiesThese observations about the

nature of ethnicity and the natureof ethnonational conflict allow us toconfront the question of how weshould react. Before doing that weneed to make yet again three pre-liminary observations. First, ethnicconflicts are not by their natureeither rational or irrational, andnonethnic conflicts are not neces-sarily rational. Irrational behaviorcan be driven by nonethnic means,and rational behaviour may be dic-tated by ethnic considerations. Sec-ond, ethnonational conflicts arenever simply the result of “ancientethnic animosities.” This phrasemay please editorialists and pun-dits, but it seriously distorts reality.Anyone who asserts that a conflictis the product of these must explainwhy there has not always beenfighting at a particular level ofintensity. Once that explanation ismade, it becomes obvious that eth-nonational conflicts are powered byimmediate as well as longstandingfeelings and conclusions. Third, pre-cisely because both ethnic andnonethnic issues are invariablyinvolved, outsiders consideringwhat to do should not forget all themeans that have worked on pastconflicts that were traditionally ifnot always accurately described as

nonethnic.Because we can assume that we

will seek to get involved only inthose conflicts that we deem for ourown reasons to be significant, wecan usefully group them into thefollowing four-part schema:

• Conflicts where ethnic involve-ment is low relative to the impor-tance of other factors and the inten-sity of the conflicts is also low. Insuch cases, we would generally lookto the local authorities to act.

• Conflicts where ethnic involve-ment is high relative to the impor-tance of other factors and the inten-sity of the conflicts is low. In suchcases, we would also tend to rely onlocal authorities or internationalhuman-rights organizations.

• Conflicts where ethnic involve-ment is low relative to the impor-tance of other factors and the inten-sity of the conflicts is high. In suchcases, our strategies should be cho-sen primarily from those used forconflicts we would describe asnonethnic.

• Finally, conflicts where ethnicinvolvement is high relative toother factors and the intensity ofthe conflict is high as well. In these

cases — which are usually the oneswe are referring to when we speakof ethnonational conflicts — wemust employ strategies drawn upfor other kinds of conflicts and spe-cific strategies for ethnonationalconflicts.

There are five important cate-gories of strategy that can beemployed to deal with the ethnicdimension of conflicts of the lasttype:

• Changing international supportof and tolerance for ethnic assertive-ness. One of the major reasons forgreater amounts of ethnic assertive-ness in the period after the collapseof the Soviet Union and Yugoslaviais that the international communitydramatically changed its approachfor rewarding ethnic assertiveness.Prior to that time, the West’sapproach to such conflicts was tooppose secession, as in Biafra, andthat opposition by itself sent a sig-nal that ethnic assertiveness wouldnot pay. This observation alsoapplies to irredentism, communalviolence and other forms of eth-nonational conflict. Sanctions mayor may not work, but a clear state-ment that such actions will not be

10 Special Warfare

A United Nations patrol passes an area damaged by shelling during ethnicconflict in the former Yugoslavia.

United Nations photo

rewarded will serve as a constraint.• Using countermobilization tech-

niques. This can involve providingsupports for other kinds of identi-ties in the situation or introducing anew outside threat that will dwarfexisting divisions. An example iseconomic aid: If it is carefully tar-geted, it can reduce ethnic conflict;otherwise, it will only make the sit-uation worse.

• Removing irritants or makingcompromises. Some conflicts can beresolved by doing one or the other.Ethnic conflicts are not forever.They emerge, intensify and disap-pear. All the resolutions may not bepretty, and they are certainly notwhat everyone would like, but theconflicts themselves will eventuallydisappear.

• Containing the conflict and let-ting the two or more sides wearthemselves out. Perhaps the mostimportant strategy in dealing withethnic conflicts is to prevent out-siders from becoming involved,either through alliances or the sup-ply of arms and other aid, thusmaking the conflicts more serious.

• Using military force. In manyethnic conflicts, this is the ultimateanswer. Sometimes, as when theconflict is communal, military forcemust do more than end the conflict,it must engage in state-building.Other times, when the conflict isstate-to-state, this need not be thecase. Sometimes limited force canprovide the breathing room for theother strategies outlined above towork.

Obviously, ameliorating or endingethnic conflicts is not going to beeasy, but neither is this task beyondour means. We may decide that anyparticular conflict is unimportant,and we may be right. But in think-ing about such conflicts, especiallyin Europe, we should rememberWinston Churchill’s description ofthe world following World War I:

To the faithful, toil-burdenedmasses the victory was so completethat no further effort seemedrequired. Germany had fallen, and

with her the world combination thathad crushed her. Authority was dis-persed; the world unshackled; theweak became the strong; the shel-tered became the aggressive; the con-trast between victors and van-quished tended continually todiminish. A vast fatigue dominatedcollective action. Though every sub-versive element endeavored to assertitself, revolutionary rage like everyother form of psychic energy burntlow. Through all its five acts thedrama has run its course; the lightof history is switched off, the worldstage dims, the actors shrivel, thechorus sinks. The war of the giantshas ended; the quarrels of the pyg-mies have begun.10

Churchill’s words were written in1929. They capture as in a distantmirror our own mood and inclina-tions now. They were written onlyfour years before Hitler came topower and a decade before theworld was plunged into generalwar.

Dr. Paul A. Goble isa senior associate atthe Carnegie Endow-ment for Internation-al Peace, Washington,D.C., working on theproblems of the post-Soviet successor states. Before join-ing the Endowment in January1992, he served as desk officer forEstonia, Latvia and Lithuania andas special adviser on Soviet nation-ality problems to the assistant secre-tary for European affairs at the U.S.Department of State. Earlier heworked as director of research atRadio Liberty, as special assistantfor Soviet nationalities in the StateDepartment’s Bureau of Intelligenceand Research, and as a Sovietaffairs analyst at the ForeignBroadcast Information Service andthe Central Intelligence Agency.

Notes:1 On these assumptions and their limita-

tions, see Susan Olzak, “Contemporary Eth-

nic Mobilization,” Annual Review of Sociolo-gy, 9 (1983): 355-374; and Francois Nielsen,“Toward a Theory of Ethnic Solidarity inModern Societies,” American SociologicalReview 50 (1985):133-149.

2 For a fuller discussion of the issuesraised in this section, see Paul A. Goble, “ANew Age of Nationalism,” in Bruce SeymourII, ed., The Access Guide to Ethnic Conflictsin Europe and the Former Soviet Union(Washington, D.C., 1994), pp. 1-8, and therecommended readings on pp. 9-16.

3 For an especially egregious example ofthis, see the report of the Gorbachev Founda-tion, “Russkie v ‘blizhnem zarubezh’e,’ ”Nezavisimaya gazeta, 7 September 1993. Cf.the analysis of it in Paul A. Goble, “Can WeHelp Russia to be a Good Neighbor?”Demokratizatsiya, forthcoming. On thebroader process of politicization of ethnicityand the creation of nationality in the Sovietcase, see Paul A. Goble, “Gorbachev and theSoviet Nationality Problem,” in MauriceFriedberg and Heyward Isham, eds., SovietSociety Under Gorbachev (Armonk, N.Y.,1987), pp. 76-100.

4 For a useful discussion of this kind, seeIsaiah Berlin, “Nationalism: Past Neglectand Present Power,” Partisan Review 46(1979):337-358.

5 See J. Gottman, The Significance of Ter-ritory (Charlottesville, Va., 1973).

6 See Paul A. Goble, “The 50 Million Mus-lim Misunderstanding,” Chanteh 1 (1993):36-39.

7 On this phenomenon, see Group for theAdvancement of Psychiatry, Us and Them:The Psychology of Ethnonationalism (NewYork, 1987), esp. p. 87 ff.

8 See Paul A. Goble, “Russia’s ExtremeRight,” The National Interest 33 (Fall1993):93-96.

9 See the various works of Horowitz, Roth-schild and Royce for surveys of the variousways ethnic activism can be categorized.

10 Winston Churchill, The Aftermath (NewYork: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1929), p. 17.

April 1994 11

Peacekeeping and warfaretoday are taking place in theworld the like of which we

have never seen. All the old certain-ties have disappeared: there is noCold War, no superpower rivalry toprovide both tension and stability.Instead a series of relatively smallcrises have emerged unexpectedly.These have provided some freshchallenges for the policy-makers,the politicians and the media thatreport on them.

But it is not just the end of theCold War that has transformed thedebate. The end of that era has her-alded a new generation in the politi-cal leadership in many democraticcountries and has consolidatedchanges that have been under wayfor some time in the media. Consid-er this: The President of the UnitedStates is 46, the Prime Minister ofBritain is 50. The average age ofstaff working in the White House isaround 33. The average age of staffon my own newspaper has fallen inthe past 10 years from around 45 to30 as we struggle to reach theyounger readers we need to win thefierce battle for circulation.

This means that many of thepolitical leaders and most of their

advisers have no concept of thepolitical and personal consequencesof warfare. There have been noworld wars such as those that soscarred our parents and grandpar-ents. Thus there is no real concep-tion of the horrors of wars. In themedia, there are very few reportersand editors who have covered con-ventional conflicts. In 10 years ofreporting on wars, revolutions andterrorism around the world, I havecovered only two conflicts thatmight be considered conventional:the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf Waragainst Saddam Hussein. The bal-ance was made up by a large num-ber of smaller wars, low-intensityconflicts and acts of terror.

It is hardly surprising, then, thatthe current generation that is lead-ing the media and politics have avery limited vision of war and thecapability of the armed forces. It isa view formed by their own experi-ence, which is confined almostentirely to what they have seen onthe television and in the movies,and to some extent, what they haveread in the newspaper. This is asmall world, where action is concen-trated on human drama, the big pic-ture writ small so that it is under-standable to the average person. Itis a world where attention spansare short and where casualtiesshould be counted in single figures

to be acceptable.It was striking in both the Falk-

lands and the Gulf War that casual-ties were extraordinarily light.Even so, every single one was ana-lyzed and agonized over and investi-gated in an attempt to find unreal-istic certainties in the chaos of war.It is that drive to minimize loss oflife that is going to be a fact of deci-sion-making for the foreseeablefuture.

Reducing casualties is, of course,a laudable goal. But death andinjury are unfortunate conse-quences of committing militaryforces to conflict. Soldiers aretrained to kill people, and yet thereseems to be a broad view that crisismanagement today can somehow behandled without loss of life.

The media have played a largepart in developing this view. Themedia always demand excellence inothers, and in terms of crisis man-agement, that translates as a suc-cessful resolution with minimumcost to “our” side. In the past 10years, the way the media form opin-ion has changed dramatically. CNNis everywhere, and where CNNgoes, all the other media outletsswiftly follow. Censorship today isvirtually impossible, with backpacksatellite-broadcast systems andtelephones that allow reporters tofile their copy from anywhere in theworld. That access gives the newsan immediacy that drives the politi-cal process in ways that can be veryunhealthy, particularly when somany of the decision makers haveno experience of the world aboutwhich they are making decisions oflife and death.

A century ago, a single incidentthat was deemed to impinge onnational sovereignty would provokean immediate and violent act ofretribution. When General Gordonwas killed in Khartoum, the Britishdispatched a punitive expedition

12 Special Warfare

This article is a summary of alarger paper to be presented laterthis year by the Army War College.

The Role of the Media in Peacekeeping Operations

by James Adams

that years later punished the perpe-trators of the act. Today, when thebody of a single American isdragged through the streets ofMogadishu, the American govern-ment reverses its foreign policy andbegins a withdrawal from the coun-try. This momentous change in theway foreign policy is handled bodesill for the future.

With an attention span so shortand a world view so limited, it isdifficult to conceive how — whatev-er the good intentions on paper — aconsistent policy for crisis manage-ment can be developed by theworld’s leading democracies. Is itconceivable that the Americanadministration would send anytroops to a similar environment?Under the present circumstances,the answer is “no.”

War, peacekeeping and crisismanagement have never been aboutconsensus and opinion polls. Thesemay have been an influence, butthey have never been paramount.The successful prosecution of anymilitary operation is about leader-

ship, about a strength of resolvethat allows principle and convictionto ride over the often ill-formedmedia criticism and the snapshotreporting.

But as we look around the worldtoday, it is difficult to find the lead-ership qualities that successful cri-sis management demands. Withthis lack of resolve, it is difficult tosee just what future peacekeepinghas. The Pentagon and all the otherdefense ministries around the worldhave been war-gaming the almostinfinite number of scenarios thatthe current unstable world can pro-duce. There is no doubt that themilitary can change its tactics andtrain its people. But what will per-suade this new generation of lead-ers in the media and politics tounderstand that peace has a price?I fear there are not enough politi-cians with the courage to pay theprice or enough members of themedia who respect the bold deci-sions that may cost lives. Instead,there is a drive for quick, easy solu-tions to complex problems, and if

those easy solutions do not work,then there appears to be no will tofind the real answers.

James Adams, as the WashingtonBureau chief of theLondon SundayTimes, is responsiblefor the newspaper’sreporting in the Unit-ed States. He reports on Americanpolitics, international relations andintelligence matters. Before takingup his current post, he was manag-ing editor of The Sunday Times andthe newspaper’s defense correspon-dent. He has reported on wars andrevolutions all over the world and isfamiliar with the operation of con-ventional armies and guerrillaforces, which he has seen at firsthand. He is the author of 11 books.

April 1994 13

Satellite-broadcast systems givemodern news coverage an accessand an immediacy that can drivethe political process.

1958 and 1983, with the Multina-tional Force and Observers in theSinai from 1981 to the present, inKurdistan in 1991 and in Somaliatoday, U.S. soldiers have deployedinto the highly politicized arena ofpeacekeeping. Often these forces,trained for war but with no enemyto defeat and no war to win, occu-pied ground, took casualties andmaintained order in difficult, dan-gerous circumstances.

Defining the nature of such oper-ations remains difficult. Continualrefinements of definitions, as wellas scholarly debate about theirmeaning,1 point to obvious confu-sion about how military forces pre-pare and operate for an environ-ment that has been described as“not war but like war.”2 Peacekeep-ing, peace enforcement and peace-support operations, for the purposeof this paper, are referred to by thegeneral term “peacekeeping.”

The U.S. Army’s reaction to itsrapidly expanding peacekeepingrole and the evolving definition ofpeacekeeping itself can best bedescribed as pragmatic; professionalbut cautious. There is concern thatArmy doctrine and operational pro-cedures determined ad hoc to suiteach deployment may establish“rules of the game” different fromthose determined by a more deliber-ate analysis of missions, objectives

and force requirements.3 The Armyhas made considerable progresslately in gathering lessons learnedand writing new doctrine to governoperations in the peacekeepingenvironment.

But misgivings persist. What arethe costs, in men and material, ofthese missions and for how long willthey deploy? Will peacekeeping mis-sions dull the warfighting edge socarefully developed in the yearssince Vietnam? Must units betagged as peacekeeping forces andremoved from consideration fromother missions?

Recent travel to Somalia, Britain,Sweden and Germany, where wemet with military professionalsactively engaged in or preparing forpeacekeeping duties, confirmed ourconviction that peacekeepingrequires training and attention torestraint, civil action, force protec-tion and multinational military andcivilian coordination. Preciselybecause it is “not war but like war,”preparing for peacekeeping is notbusiness as usual.

Peacekeeping environmentPeacekeeping is less a specific

type of military mission and morean operation conducted in a uniqueenvironment. It is an environment,just like mountain, jungle or desert,

14 Special Warfare

Preparing for Peacekeeping:Military Training andthe PeacekeepingEnvironment

by Cols. John P. Abizaid and John R. Wood

The incredibly quick and deci-sive victory in the Gulf War vindi-cated the warfighting doctrine andpeacetime training strategy of theUnited States Army. The Army,designed to fight and defeat theSoviets on the plains of CentralEurope, found its tactics, equipmentand organization were more than amatch for a non-Soviet foe.

Yet since the war in the Gulf, theArmy has found itself engaged inoperations in Kurdistan and Soma-lia that tested not only its ability tofight but also its ability to conductsecurity operations in support ofhumanitarian-relief activities. Asthe world’s only military superpow-er, the United States finds itselfcalled upon more and more to pro-vide a full range of combat, combat-support and combat-service-supportforces to help conduct peacekeepingoperations around the world.

Many Americans regard peace-keeping as a new mission for ourarmed forces. But in the DominicanRepublic in 1965, in Lebanon in

Cols. Abizaid and Wood examinedpeacekeeping activities and trainingof the U.S. and five other countries’armed forces during 1992-1993.Their views do not reflect the officialpolicy or position of the Departmentof the Army, Department of Defenseor the U.S. government.

that leaders must understand andtrain for. This environment can becharacterized as austere, disor-dered, dangerous, extremely close tolocal populations, and politicallycharged. Operations tend to be mul-tiservice and multinational, andthey require much coordinationwith civil agencies and organiza-tions. The use of force typicallydefined in the rules of engagementis tempered by restraint and cau-tion. Most difficult for many mili-tary professionals is the conceptthat there are often no clearlydefined enemies for the peacekeep-ing force.

Even in times of peace, areassuch as Cambodia, Kurdistan andSomalia can be regarded as under-developed and austere. But whenthe destruction and the anarchy ofcivil war are added, the militaryproblems for a peacekeeping forcebecome both operationally andlogistically complex. Adding to theproblem is that peacekeeping forcestend to be small by military stan-dards and must be prepared tooperate in extremely large areaswith isolated units.

While the units will be isolated inthe conventional military sensefrom adjacent and higher units,they will most certainly not be iso-lated from the civilian population.In Somalia, Bosnia and Macedonia,nearly all major military activitytakes place in and around the civil-ian community. Because of thisenvironment, “work” is quite unlikethat of combat units preparing foraction during Desert Storm.

Understanding the local politicaland civilian situations, therefore,becomes important at even the low-est levels of leadership. Units can-not rely only on higher headquar-ters for intelligence about local con-ditions. Intelligence must be gath-ered from the bottom up, using allsources available to the local com-mander. Counterintelligence andCivil Affairs assistance must beavailable to task force-, company-and team level commanders.

This concept is not new. The U.S.

Army’s 1965 field manual for coun-terinsurgency operations stressed acomplete understanding “of theinformal and actual civilian powerstructure of the area” where “actualsocial controls are in the hands ofreligious, tribal, economic or othernon-governmental power struc-tures” more than in the hands ofthe recognized government. Thevalue of Civil Affairs, PSYOP andhuman-intelligence assets at thebrigade and battalion levels wasclearly recognized.4

Because of the unusual anduncertain threat, the first task fac-ing leaders deployed to keep orenforce the peace is force protection.Peace agreements, even if they doexist, offer little protection fromrenewed factional strife, randomviolence, lawlessness or terrorism.Soldiers face the prospect of con-fronting armed belligerents whorespond only to the use or threat-ened use of force.

In such an environment, coordi-nation and control are crucial tosuccess. An inappropriate responseto a provocation or inattention tosecurity details can endanger thepeacekeeping force by provoking acounteraction by the local populace.Rules of engagement become espe-cially important. The use ofrestraint and minimum force,thought by some to be more a con-cept of police than of military forces,becomes a key element in the peace-keeping environment. Soldierstrained to destroy the enemyrequire a changed mindset.

The peacekeeping arena requiresthe close cooperation of all services,and while one service may be pre-dominant in an area, all will play atleast some role in any operation.The peacekeeping arena also tendsto be international, with civilianagencies playing important roles.Civilian relief agencies operatingwithin the peacekeeping environ-ment require constant and closecoordination with military units.

The destruction and disorder sooften found when peacekeepingforces arrive also force military

leaders to repair devastated infra-structure. Roads, ports and airfieldsusually require repair or modifica-tion for mission accomplishment.This, in turn, forces planners to pro-vide a larger-than-normal engineercontingent with deploying forces.Since it is not unusual for localauthority to be destroyed, peace-keepers often find themselvesforced to participate in the policingof the area. Conducting searches,detaining criminals and seizingweapons often become key elementsin the military forces’ strategy forcontrolling its areas and protectingitself.

Peacekeeping and trainingTraining for peacekeeping is little

different from training for anyunique or demanding environment.The Army has long recognized theneed to structure and conduct train-ing which simulates the uniquedemands of a particular region, the-ater or level of lethality.

Proficiency in warfighting, inboth basic soldiering and function-al specialties, underlies success inpeacekeeping. The necessarychanges can be taught as refine-ments to operations, expansion of basic skills and enhancement of fundamental procedures in a relatively short period beforedeployment.

The design of training will varyfrom mission to mission, dependingon the operational environment.What will not change is that prede-ployment training is essential.Leaders must allocate time andresources to prepare soldiers for theunique demands of peacekeeping.

Soldier trainingA former chief of staff for U.N.

forces deployed to Cyprus, BrigadierMichael Harbottle, aptly describedthe importance of the individual sol-dier in peacekeeping. “There is nodoubt in my mind,” he said, “thatthe success of a peacekeeping opera-tion depends more than anythingelse on the vigilance and mental

April 1994 15

alertness of the most junior soldierand his non-commissioned leader,for it is on their reaction and imme-diate response that the success ofthe operations rests.”5

Individual soldier training mustadapt the soldier to the specific con-ditions of the peacekeeping battle-field. Training in force protection,intelligence collection and use, useof force, and regional awareness,coupled with certification of profi-ciency in common tactical tasks,forms the heart of essential individ-ual training for peacekeeping.

Soldiers must be trained how andwhen to use force when faced withthe variety of lethal and nonlethalsituations likely to occur in a peace-keeping environment. The rules ofengagement will detail when to usedeadly force, but the majority ofconfrontations a soldier willencounter will require using a less-er degree of force. He must betrained to use an array of othercoercive techniques such as verbalpersuasion, police support, warningblows and carefully aimed fire.

British troops getting ready forduties in Northern Ireland andNordic soldiers preparing fordeployment to Macedonia arespecifically retrained to use mini-mum rather than maximum forceto deal with the threats they face.

At one British range, soldiers werepresented with numerous targets,only some of which were hostile. In Sweden, soldiers faced tough,non-lethal problems in a well-designed, simulated peacekeepingenvironment. In all cases, the exer-cises were recorded and reviewed,and lessons were immediately reinforced.

In peacekeeping, the ability ofindividual soldiers to hit targetsquickly and accurately is closelytied to the need of commanders toemploy minimum force to achievesuccess. Well-placed rounds againsta sniper or warning shots deliveredas a message to a potential foe maybe just the right amount of force apatrol leader needs.

Refinement of marksmanship pro-cedures to present different sets oftargets to soldiers and to force selec-tive engagements will better preparesoldiers for a peacekeeping environ-ment. Soldiers will face difficultchoices in the event they must usetheir personal weapons. They mustbe trained to think before they shoot.

Wearing body armor, buildingwell-designed fighting positions andpracticing proper dispersal andcover in static locations and on themove are all elements of force pro-tection. Because of their presencemission and the poorly defined

notion of friendly and enemy terri-tory, peacekeepers are always vul-nerable to unexpected acts of vio-lence — sniper fire, ambush and carbombings can and do occur.

British soldiers are trained in amock village complete with civil-ians, terrorists and a compoundwhich troops use as their base. Wewitnessed several types of terroristattacks against the “secure” baseand were impressed with the stan-dard of individual force-protectionmeasures taken by soldiers. Drills,signals and standard operating pro-cedures were used to respond tothreats quickly. Mutual securitystandards produced rapid reinforce-ment of defensive actions.

Whenever soldiers enter areaswhere others have fought earlier,they encounter large amounts ofunexploded ordnance and inevitablyoperate in and around unmarkedand uncleared mined areas. Themanufacture and use of homemadeordnance is also prevalent. The needto train soldiers to recognize, markand report such dangers is obvious.In every major peacekeeping arenafrom Cambodia to Bosnia, mines andfabricated explosives continue totake a toll on troops and civilians.

Peacekeeping soldiers and leaderswill always have to deal with civil-ians. Soldiers search cars at check-

16 Special Warfare

Photo courtesy John P. Abizaid

U.S. paratroopers keep a Kurdishdemonstration designed to preventU.S. withdrawal under control.

points; sentries encounter childrenaround their areas. Patrols areapproached by people asking forfood, wanting to give information orjust asking questions. Dealing withcivilians becomes a daily occurrencefor lower-ranking soldiers. On occa-sion, troops may have to detaincivilians for questioning.

While rules of engagement detailthe conditions for the use of force,other legal questions may need tobe answered. For example, whatrights of search, pursuit, detentionand seizure do soldiers have, and atwhat point are they violating thelegal rights of the citizens? Whatnew agreements with civil authori-ties affect expected actions by sol-diers? By knowing their rights, sol-diers are better armed to handlediverse situations. As civil authorityis re-established, updated trainingon the legal rights of soldiers andcivilians must occur.

The ethnic diversity potentialpeacekeeping areas requires soldierawareness and leader understand-ing, and cultural predeploymenttraining is essential. In Sweden,area experts and local nationalswere brought in to acquaint troopswith their new environment. Civil-ian relief workers, police officials,news correspondents and nativeexperts were asked to share theirrecent personal perspectives.

The capacity to employ inter-preters and conduct negotiations is avital skill for leaders at all levels.The ability to enforce a U.N. man-date, for example, by discussion,mediation or insistence requires asmuch skill from the sergeant at hislevel as it does from the diplomat athis.

In Bosnia, junior British leadersoften confront Serbian checkpointcommanders and must assert theright of free passage for U.N. con-voys. In Kurdistan, it was notuncommon for U.S. officers to negoti-ate with both Iraqi and Kurdishleaders in attempts to separate war-ring factions and enforce boundaries.In each instance, superiors were faraway, and quite junior leaders were

required to defuse numerous poten-tially dangerous situations.

In Sweden and Great Britain wesaw junior leaders placed in suchuncomfortable situations duringtraining. Structuring training tostress junior leaders in such circum-stances and familiarizing them withthe use of translators will pay divi-dends in any peacekeeping sector.

Because the peacekeeping battle-field is extended and because activi-ty can happen anywhere within aunit’s boundaries, skill in usingcommunications equipment andtaking maximum advantage of itsrange are key. Careful, rehearsedreporting procedures to cover a widerange of military and nonmilitaryactivity are essential if commandersare to properly respond to the prob-lems encountered. Formattedreports, operational code words andkey terrain reference points permitrapid passage of information in theoften nonsecure communicationsenvironment of peacekeeping.

In 1985, 24 Finnish peacekeeperswere taken hostage in southernLebanon by an armed faction.6 In1988 Marine Lt. Col. William R.Higgins, the chief of ObserverGroup-Lebanon, was taken hostageand murdered. Both incidents showthat the threat of hostage-takingremains very real given the poten-tial impact such hostage-takingwould have on world media. Giventhe absence of front lines and thepotential presence of hostile forcesthroughout the area of operations,all peacekeeping soldiers face thepotential of being taken hostage.Training on how to react, report,negotiate and prevent hostage situ-ations has recently been incorporat-ed into the training programs ofNorway. Training soldiers on howto react if captured, how to avoidcapture and how to report such inci-dents is essential.

Unit trainingMany tactical techniques used by

units in peacekeeping are fairlysimple, easily trained and suited to

a “battle drill” approach. Such unittasks as patrolling, manningcheckpoints and observation posts,convoy escort, assembly areaactions and area security are easilystandardized.

Squads and platoons perform themajority of peacekeeping tasks, andthe training of these units falls com-fortably within the capabilities ofthe battalion and company. Help isneeded, however,to create theunique peacekeeping environmentin training so units and soldiers cantrain realistically.

Just as force protection is a majorconcern for individual soldier train-ing, so it is a primary concern forcollective training. The tragedy ofthe Marine barracks bombing inLebanon cannot be lost on leaders.Lax security measures, poor disper-sal, unclear rules of engagementand the inability to properly andflexibly respond to a broad numberof threats characterize units inade-quately trained in force-protectionmeasures.

In Britain and Sweden, force-pro-tection measures were hammeredhome in routine training. In oneexample, we saw a civilian van usedas a mortar-firing vehicle against a“secure” British base. In anotherinstance, we saw a car bomb driveninto the center of a control point.Collective lessons learned at thesquad and platoon levels duringthese exercises would guide unitsonce they are deployed to theirpeacekeeping areas of operation.

Control points, or checkpoints,are common means of controllingareas of operation in peacekeepingenvironments. In Somalia, we sawnumerous static checkpointsmanned primarily in urban areasdesigned to interdict weapons traf-fic. We also heard of various meth-ods of mobile or “flying” checkpointsestablished by mobile forces at ran-dom points throughout an area ofoperation to gain temporary controlof a particular location or situation.

While the basic concepts of build-ing, manning and operating check-points seem simple enough, tech-

April 1994 17

niques and actions during varioustypes of hostile or nonhostile inci-dents lend themselves to a drillapproach at squad, platoon andcompany levels.

In Somalia, as in Bosnia, the suc-cess of the relief mission depends onthe movement and protection ofnumerous humanitarian-relief con-voys. The need to clarify techniquesand procedures for convoy and con-

voy-escort duties is apparent.Indeed, the need for developingdrills for all types of mounted move-ment, from convoy protection tomovements to contact, is essential.In almost every peacekeeping cam-paign, there is a maneuver phasewhich requires peacekeeping unitsto maneuver and take ground, oftenagainst an armed faction. This wastrue for U.N. troops first introduced

into Cyprus and was later true forcoalition forces deployed in Kurdis-tan. The idea that peacekeeping is astatic, observation-post business isnot true, and units must expendnecessary time training forces tomaneuver.

Patrolling is an essential skill forall units engaged in peacekeepingduties. Unlike combat patrols, how-ever, peacekeeping forces send outpatrols to show presence and estab-lish temporary security in areas notnormally occupied. Peacekeepingpatrol leaders will often be facedwith unusual problems. In Somalia,patrols often came across banditryin progress. In former Yugoslavia,patrol leaders find themselvescaught in cross fire between war-ring factions. In both cases, leadersmust respond to the incidents withless firepower and more mentalflexibility than normally requiredon the conventional battlefield.

Training techniques in bothBritain and Sweden did much toprepare patrol leaders for the unex-pected demands of the peacekeepingbattlefield. Patrol movements werecarefully coordinated, reporting wasspecific and mutual support wasensured. Intelligence, battlefieldinformation and civilian reportswere quickly analyzed at patrol-coordination centers, and relevantcautions, modified instructions ornew missions were immediatelypassed to soldiers on patrol.

In Somalia, no two sectors werealike. Different clans, differentpolitical parties, different feuds anddifferent economic difficulties allshaped the local situation. Whileintelligence data about the majormilitias proved generally reliable,local commanders were forced todivert substantial effort towardimprovising means of gathering andprocessing information concerningtheir “tactical” areas of control.Training units to do this at thesquad, platoon and company levelsis important if commanders hope tosucceed in understanding and con-trolling their sectors of the peace-keeping battlefield.

18 Special Warfare

Course trains soldiers for peacekeeping duty

A course taught at the JFK Special Warfare Center and Schoolprepares U.S. officers to serve as U.N. military observers.

The United Nations Peacekeeping Observer Course, or UNPKO, isa nine-day course designed to prepare U.S. officers bound for U.N.observer duty in various locations. “We’ve been training soldiers for 3 1/2 years in the necessary skills to stay alive on peacekeeping mis-sions,” said Maj. William Wheelehan, commander of E Company,2nd Battalion, 1st Special Warfare Training Group. “Primarily wecenter training around our Individual Terrorism Awareness Course,but we’ve recently expanded the course to include other training.”

The Individual Terrorism Awareness Course trains students in avariety of terrorism-awareness subjects. “While serving as a U.N.observer, the soldier becomes symbolic and therefore attractive as aterrorist target,” Wheelehan said. “Because observers are U.S. citi-zens and a symbol of the U.N., a terrorist organization may attackthem to gain visibility for its cause.”

Students in the UNPKO receive an introduction to terrorismwhich emphasizes the philosophy and doctrine of terrorism and itsoperations, and studies classic terrorist attacks. Later they aretrained in individual protective measures, passive techniques theycan employ to prevent or deter attacks, including detection of terror-ist surveillance. A practical exercise then tests their ability to detectsurveillance.

Course emphasis then shifts to active measures: students learnvehicle dynamics, evasive driving techniques and vehicle-barricadebreaching to allow them to escape terrorist attacks. Finally, they aretrained in hostage-survival techniques.

In addition to the terrorism-awareness training, UNPKO studentsreceive area-specific training to acquaint them with the politico-mili-tary situation and the customs and cultural nuances that exist with-in their mission area. Emergency first aid, generator operations andmaintenance, mine detection and identification, desert survival anda refresher course on radio procedures form the remainder of thecourse.

The UNPKO is open only to service members slated for U.N.observer missions and is normally taught twice per year. For infor-mation on the Individual Terrorism Awareness Course, contact SFCJohn Johnson, E Co., 2nd Battalion, 1st Special Warfare TrainingGroup, at DSN 239-5833, commercial (910) 432-5833.

The U.S. Army’s 1967 counterin-surgency manual stressed the needfor Civil Affairs, PSYOP and coun-terintelligence assets to be placed atthe disposal of brigade and battal-ion commanders.7 In the peacekeep-ing environment, such assets arecrucial to success. The addition ofnew staff members at lower levelsnecessitates additional team train-ing. These assets should be trainedwith the supported unit beforedeployment to assure success oncedeployed.

Staff trainingStaff training deserves specific

attention as units adapt operationsto the peacekeeping environment.Coordination of actions in peace-keeping is especially daunting.Staffs at all levels have to coordi-nate actions with a more diverse setof external agencies. Joint, com-bined, coalition and civilian compo-nents operate in most areas and,therefore, require staff coordinationwith the local maneuver comman-der. Civil Affairs, counterintelli-gence, PSYOP and communicationsplanning are key battalion combatmultipliers in peacekeeping.

Information channels, operationalpriorities and terms of reference aredifferent, however. For example,

engineers, not scouts, may producethe best intelligence. Logisticsrequirements and transportationneeds may demand increased atten-tion. And the presence of UnitedNations, allied and sister servicesgenerates a host of new terms, con-cepts and corresponding acronyms.Past peacekeeping commandershave adapted to the situation inmany ways. Brigadier Harbottleformed a special “OPS E(economic)”section designed for such nontradi-tional roles as arbitration of landdispute, the movements of teachersand the protection and distributionof relief supplies.8

In Somalia, the resourcefulness ofU.S. Army commanders in handlingthe myriad of additional staff-coor-dination tasks was especially note-worthy. Fire-support officers, air-defense officers, engineers and sup-port-platoon officers were assignednew coordination and reportingresponsibilities. Liaison establishedwith coalition, civil and humanitari-an organizations at great cost inscarce leader resources producedexceptional results. The preparationof liaison teams is not routine, how-ever, and procedures must be estab-lished to meet the particularly highdemands for them in the peacekeep-ing environment.

Besides practicing the staff-plan-

ning process, joint and combinedtraining is the best preparation forstaff officers assigned peacekeepingduties. We saw multinational opera-tions at all levels in Somalia — U.S.soldiers supporting Australian baseoperations, Moroccans patrollingwith the 10th Mountain Division,Pakistanis conducting securityoperations with U.S. Marines, andArmy, Navy, Marine, and Air Forcelogistics units sharing duties to sup-port the entire international force.

Because peacekeeping doctrineand the understanding of combinedoperations with non-NATO forcesare not clearly defined, we foundU.S. staffs spending a great deal oftime and effort defining terms, dis-cussing procedures and conductingmeetings simply to make thingswork. Expanding staff training toinclude peacekeeping scenarios withjoint and multinational players isessential.

Force structure, doctrineForce mobility in the peacekeep-

ing efforts we observed and studiedwas absolutely essential. Unitswithout the proper mix of transportand supply vehicles are quite limit-ed in their usefulness in the typical-ly large areas assigned to smallunits. While excellent use can be

April 1994 19

Photo courtesy John P. Abizaid

U.S. paratroopers check a Kurdishguerrilla’s weapon before he enters aU.S.-controlled “safe” area in north-ern Iraq.

made of helicopters, they should notbe used to replace vehicular assets.

Civil Affairs and PSYOP teams,ad hoc unit civic-action officers,counterintelligence teams, transla-tors and additional intelligence per-sonnel were invaluable in peace-keeping operations in Somalia.These were precisely the type ofpeople and units that were in shortsupply and frequently needed at thebattalion level. Nearly every com-mander expressed the need foradditional area experts, people withpolice backgrounds or an under-standing of civilian-relief agenciesto assist in solving the numerousdaily problems of peacekeeping. Thepeacekeeping environment placedunique requirements on local com-manders. Adopting a more aggres-sive approach to linking supplemen-tal peacekeeping resources withunits during peacekeeping trainingand staff preparation can do muchto resolve this problem.

Doctrinal voids exist at everylevel. Common terminology foroperational matters was lackingwithin all units and at the joint andcombined levels. Trying to makebattalion commanders understand apresence mission is quite difficult ifthe terms are unfamiliar. There aresimply tactical and operationalactivities that take place within thepeacekeeping environment whichare not adequately defined oraddressed by current doctrine.

We must analyze the peacekeep-ing environment and establish theall-important common languagenecessary to build the operationalelements of the peacekeeping bat-tlefield. This task, however, is notmerely one for each national ele-ment to handle separately; an inter-national military effort is required.

Any debate about the “appropri-ate” force to conduct peacekeepingis misguided. The factors of mission,enemy, terrain, troops and timeavailable will decide the best forcemix to do the job. While infantryskills are at a premium in thepeacekeeping environment, all sol-diers and specialties, along with

requisite equipment and armament,can be asked to serve. The idea thatpeacekeepers must be nonthreaten-ing, and therefore lightly armedand equipped, may be inconsistentwith mission demands. Peacekeep-ing forces must always be trained tofight and equipped to accomplishforce protection.

ConclusionThere is no standard peacekeeping

mission. Each operation is conductedin a unique setting with its ownpolitical, geographic, economic andmilitary characteristics. While it isdangerous and even deadly at times,it presents leaders and soldiers withthe difficult requirement of usingarmed restraint and minimum forceto accomplish the mission.

The essential starting point forpeacekeepers is a well-trained andhighly disciplined force, well-grounded in warfighting skills. Butthe next step in preparing forces forpeacekeeping is providing trainingthat allows soldiers and leaders toadjust their mindset from combat topeacekeeping.

To design this training and pre-pare the proper force for deploy-ment, military leaders must beguided by appropriate assessmentsof the environment and recognizedpeacekeeping doctrine. We shouldavoid the notion that combat-readytroops are ready for peacekeeping.Predeployment training and mis-sion analysis are essential, and weshould prescribe a minimum essen-tial predeployment preparation andtraining period that allows units toadequately prepare for the complexmission ahead.

There is no need to train peace-keeping and neglect warfighting.With adequate notice and subse-quent training, well-trained forcesare well-prepared to accomplishpeacekeeping duties. Leaders mustsimply recognize that there is a costin additional resources to preparesoldiers for success in this uniqueenvironment. As the New WorldOrder continues to challenge our

political leaders with more andmore opportunities for peacekeep-ing, soldiers must train themselvesand their units for its demands.

Cols. John P. Abizaid and JohnR. Wood studied the U.S. military’s,particularly the U.S. Army’s, readi-ness to conduct peacekeeping activi-ties as part of their senior servicecollege fellowship program. ColonelAbizaid attended the Hoover Institu-tion, Stanford University, andColonel Wood attended the George-town University School of ForeignService. Both officers have extensiveoperational experience: ColonelAbizaid was operations officer forthe U.N.’s Observer Group-Lebanonand was an infantry battalion com-mander in Kurdistan during Opera-tion Provide Comfort. Colonel Woodhas served in a variety of commandpositions as a Field Artillery officerand commanded the 3rd/8th FieldArtillery during the Gulf War.

Notes:1 Donald M. Snow, Peacekeeping, Peace-

making and Peace Enforcement: The U.S.Role in the New International Order(Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute,U.S. Army War College, February 1993).

2 Roger J. Spiller, Not War But Like War:The American Intervention in Lebanon (FortLeavenworth, Kan.: Combat Studies Insti-tute, January 1981).

3 Snow, p. 2.4 United States Army, Field Manual 31-16,

Counterguerrilla Operations, 1967, pp. 16-19.5 Michael Harbottle, The Impartial Soldier

(London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p.191.

6 “24 Soldiers of UN Seized by Militia inSouth Lebanon,” New York Times, 8 June1985, p. 1.

7 FM 31-16, p. 19.8 Harbottle, pp. 29-30.

20 Special Warfare

April 1994 21

The special-operations commu-nity has come a long waysince USSOCOM was created

by act of Congress in 1987. Our peo-ple, our units, our tactics and ourequipment are some of the best inthe world, but we can’t rest on pastsuccesses.

What has always made specialoperations special is our top-notchpeople finding new and innovativeways to overcome incredible obsta-cles to get the job done. We mustcontinue that spirit and activelyseek creative solutions to daily challenges.

Change, like death and taxes, isone of the few things we can counton in this world. The difference,however, is that we have some mea-sure of control when it comes tochanges in our lives and institu-tions. To stimulate and managechange within the special-opera-tions community, the U.S. SpecialOperations Command has estab-lished the SOF Clearinghouse forgood ideas affecting all facets of spe-cial operations. Through the clear-inghouse, Gen. Wayne A. Downing,the commander in chief of USSO-COM, is building an institutionalclimate which encourages innova-tion and fosters creativity.

How many times have you oryour people had a better way ofdoing a job than current proceduresdictate? How often do you or yourbuddies comment on the dubiouslineage of whoever designed thetools and equipment you’re workingwith? When was the last timesomeone in your unit said, “If Iwere the general for a day, I’d ...”?Well, here’s your chance to change

the world.The SOF Clearinghouse, within

the Directorate of Plans, Policy,Doctrine and Combat Assessmentat USSOCOM, is your entry pointto the command. Although encour-aged, it is not mandatory that yousubmit your ideas through thechain of command. An unfilteredproduct is sometimes more valuablethan one with all the controversyremoved. If your proposal is toohard to do, we’ll tell you — but letus be the judge of your ideas. Topicsfor consideration include, but arenot limited to: organizational struc-ture, roles and missions, trainingprograms, tactics development,standardizing procedures, commandrelationships and personnel man-agement. The only limits to thisprocess are your imagination andcreativity.

This program is intended for folksin the trenches — active, reserveand alumni. Polished, fully staffedideas are not what we’re looking for.If you can scribble your idea onto asingle sheet of notebook paper, we’llhelp you develop and refine it. Out-lines or bullet statements are fine;just be complete enough for theclearinghouse staff to help you cap-ture the essence of your idea. Theonly restriction is that we cannothandle classified proposals. Theclearinghouse is an open forum forthe free exchange and developmentof ideas. To be successful, the pro-cess must remain unclassified.

Once an idea is submitted to theclearinghouse, the first thing we dois acknowledge your submission.You have the right to know wehave your proposal and are giving

it a fair shake. After giving youridea as objective an appraisal aswe can, we will do one of threethings: accept your idea as is forpresentation to the CINC, help youdevelop your concept further, orsend you an explanation why wecannot accept your suggestion.Ideas accepted by the CINC will besent to the appropriate USSOCOMand component staff directors fortheir consideration.

The clearinghouse will use theservice components’ professionaljournals to provide periodicupdates, listing the ideas beingoffered to the CINC and the currentstatus of prior initiatives acceptedfor staffing or implementation.Prompt reporting of initiatives sub-mitted, periodic status reports, andopen discussion to help develop andimprove good ideas is one of thebest ways to keep the clearinghouseprocess alive.

We must, and will, prove that thisprocess works so that those on theline will have faith in the clearing-house and the confidence to airtheir ideas. We won’t promise thatall ideas submitted will be imple-mented, but we can promise thatthey will be given fair considera-tion. My staff will help you developyour thoughts, and if we use yoursuggestion, you will be given credit.You, the men and women of SOF,have proven you have the intelli-gence, problem-solving skills, cre-ativity, flexibility and determina-tion to make this process work.Using those skills to effect changeswill keep this command at the lead-ing edge of our nation’s forces wellinto the next century.

Brig. Gen. William F. Kernan iscurrently the director of plans, poli-cy, doctrine and combat develop-ments for the U.S. Special Opera-tions Command, MacDill AFB, Fla.

USSOCOM CreatesClearinghouse for New Ideas

by Brig. Gen. William F. Kernan

block” by following a sequence, butdon’t go into the depth needed toget a good product. They usuallyend up with one well-developedcourse of action, or COA, and sev-eral “throwaways” that are of novalue for comparison.

Intelligence integrationEveryone seems to know what

intelligence preparation of the bat-tlefield is, but very few know howto focus the process down to theODA level, or how to integrate itinto mission planning. Teams ofteninfiltrate without any idea ofwhere enemy reaction forces orlikely patrol routes may be located,or where to start looking for thetarget. The priority intelligencerequirements/intelligence require-ments that the ODA receives fromthe forward operational base arealmost invariably accepted withoutanalysis, although they may bearlittle or no relation to the teammission or capabilities. Is “enemyability to reinforce with second-echelon divisions” a valid PIR for acombat-search-and-rescue mission?Closely tied to the development ofPIR and IR is the ODA reconnais-sance and surveillance plan, some-times called the collection plan. Ihave never seen a detailed recon-naissance and surveillance planthat focuses on specific PIRs theteam needs answered in order toaccomplish the mission. Inade-quate intelligence integration fre-quently leads to mission failure atJRTC.

RehearsalsPerhaps the area most neglected

in isolation is rehearsals. Our nor-mal time line for an isolation is 48-72 hours, but teams spend little, ifany, of that time rehearsing. Wehave had an ODA spend four daysin isolation and never do a single

22 Special Warfare

by Capt. Kevin Christie

Author’s note: This work is by nomeans a substitute for the appropri-ate doctrinal references; however, itmay arouse some interest and pro-vide a few helpful tips to SFODAplanners. Any opinions expressedherein are solely mine and not nec-essarily approved by JRTC, the Spe-cial Operations Division or theDepartment of the Army.

Congratulations! Your detachmenthas been selected to come “play” atthe Joint Readiness Training Cen-ter. Despite all the rumors and warstories, as a Special Forces observ-er-controller I’ve seen enough rota-tions to give you the real word. I’mnot going to tell you how to win atJRTC: Trying to beat the systemwill just get you in trouble here. Iwill tell you about some of the sys-temic mistakes we observe, rotationafter rotation, and how you canavoid committing them. I hope youcan put this information to gooduse, not only at JRTC but in allyour future operations.

The thing that makes or breaksmost ODAs at JRTC is the qualityof their mission planning. If a unithas a good isolation, it has a goodchance at doing well on mission exe-cution. A bad isolation, however,almost always leads to serious prob-lems or mission failure.

The majority of the problems inisolation occur in three areas: theODA command estimate, intelli-gence integration and rehearsals.

Command estimate processA lot of ODA leaders seem to

believe that only battalion andhigher echelons conduct a formalestimate. When the ODA bypassesthis process, it frequently missesidentifying specified, implied andmission-essential tasks in its ini-tial mission analysis. Teams some-times waste hours floundering inendless brainstorming sessions andend up going into the briefbackwithout a clear understanding oftheir missions. Paradoxically,ODAs use the lack of time as theexcuse for not using a step-by-stepprocess. Some units “check the

ODA Planning: Tips from the JRTC

rehearsal. We have had many morespend all their rehearsal time prac-ticing loading and unloading heli-copters, or walking through thewoods practicing “SOPs” withoutever practicing “actions at the objec-tive.” As a result, teams have proba-bly lost more people through thefailure to practice casualty evacua-tion from the objective than anyother area. ODAs hardly everrequest realistic support forrehearsals, such as target mock-ups. The FOB support center cansupply many enhancements, butODAs use the “we’ll never get it, sowhy ask” excuse for not requesting.

These are some of the problemswe’ve seen. Now let’s look at an“ideal” isolation, observing sometechniques that have worked wellover numerous rotations.

First, a few words about pre-iso-lation preparation:. It’s sometimeshard to try to sell an ODA on “con-ventional” doctrine, but most of ourcurrent planning doctrine isstraight out of FM 101-5. Just dustoff the book issue you used in theAdvanced Course and in CAS3, andyou will have the ODA planningprocess in the bag. The key refer-ences we use at JRTC for missionplanning are:

• FM 101-5, Staff Roles and Rela-tionships. — Describes the estimateprocess.

• FM 7-70, The Light InfantryPlatoon and Squad. — This handymanual has a simplified estimateprocess aimed at junior officers andNCOs.

• ST 100-9, July 92, The Com-mand Estimate Process. — ThisCGSC text provides detailed tech-niques for implementing doctrine inFM 101-5. You have to pick throughthe “Fulda Gap” stuff, but Chapters2 and 4-7 are excellent.

• Ranger Handbook. — Invalu-able reference for developing theground tactical plan, planning

and executing rehearsals andinspections.

• The 34-series FMs describeintelligence integration, in particu-lar, FM 34-36, Special OperationsForces Intelligence and EW Opera-tions; FM 34-130, IntelligencePreparation of the Battlefield; andFM 34-2, Collection Management.Better yet, you can save yourself alot of reading by getting a copy ofFM 34-8, Commander’s Handbookfor Intelligence. This pocket-sizedguide distills the intel FMs into auser-friendly format.

Study these references now,before you deploy. Keep them athand in isolation. The next step isto develop a detailed isolation stan-dard operating procedure. Focusthe SOP at individual positionsand staff sections to make sure youcover all the bases. You can alsoconstruct some visual aids that willhelp quite a bit in organizing yourtime and facilitating the planningprocess. Get some poster board andwrite out the headings for suchthings as mission statement andintent (two levels up), specified and

April 1994 23

Special Forces soldiers haul theirgear to a waiting helicopter duringtraining at the Joint ReadinessTraining Center.

Photo by Bill E. Hyatt

implied tasks, course-of-actionsketches, etc. Develop a blankmatrix for comparing courses ofaction. Save one board for breakingthe command-estimate processdown into steps, by time. Thisschedule will help to focus theteam effort on completing thedetailed planning process. Getthese boards laminated so you canreuse them. Work with the chartsand the SOP in a practice isolationor two before you get to JRTC.Enough about mission prep — onto isolation.

IsolationShortly after isolating, you

should receive a warning order insome form. If time is critical, thekey planners may begin workingwith this information while therest of the team sets up the isola-tion area. Designate one man tosupervise the setup, or key leaderswill be pulled away to handleminor details.

Staff-section locations must facil-itate the information flow. Thedetachment commander, teamsergeant, team tech and intel NCOshould all be located in a planningcell, as the most critical informa-tion is shared here. Keep wallspace free for posting charts. Mapboards should have ops and inteloverlays precut and ready to behung. A good technique is to haveall reference materials (area study,target intel packet, OPORD, etc.)placed in clearly marked foldersand laid out on a large table. Makeone guy responsible for keepingtrack of the references and keepingthis area organized — it will savetime and trouble searching forinformation later.

Once the isolation area is set up,anyone not involved in preliminarymission planning should beinvolved in some sort of prepara-tion. There is no excuse for doingroutine things like making equip-ment lists during critical planningtime when it could have been doneprior to the mission brief. This isalso the time to establish your rela-tionship with your liaison officer,who will be critical to the successof your isolation. Most LNOs areeager to help the team but lack theexperience to be effective. TheLNO is not just a messenger boy.He needs to be aggressive andproactive in facilitating the infor-mation flow between the ODA andthe staff. Sit down with the LNO

and discuss his duties; give himfeedback throughout isolation asnecessary.

FOB mission briefIf the FOB staff is doing its job,

your team should get its operationsorder at least two hours prior tothe mission brief. It is a good ideato separate out the annexes to theappropriate ODA staff sections atthis time, while the planning celltakes the basic order and targetintel packet. Give a time for every-one to get back together and getyour initial planning guidance.Everyone should be highlightingspecified tasks from their annexesand noting vague or conflicting

24 Special Warfare

The command-estimate schedulehelps to focus the team effort oncompleting the planning process.

COMMAND ESTIMATETIME BLOCK: 1300-1730

WHEN WHO WHAT POC

STAFFSECTS

ALL

ALL

ALL

ALL

ALL

STAFFSECTS

ALL

ALL

ALL

ALL

ALL

REVIEW OPORD/ANNEXES

INTEL BRIEFING

ID SPEC/IMP/M.E. TASKSCONSTRAINTS/RESTRICTIONS

BREAK

DEVELOP/BRIEF ODA MSN

BRIEF ENEMY COA

DEVELOP COAs

ANALYZE COAs

WAR-GAME COAs

COMPARE COAs

BREAK

BRIEF DECISION, INTENTAND CONCEPT

STAFFLDR

INTELNCO

XO

OPSNCO

TM LDR

INTEL

STAFFLDR

XO

XO

XO

OPSNCO

TM LDR

1300-

1345

1345-

1400

1400-

1430

1430-

1445

1445-

1500

1500-

1515

1515-

1545

1545-

1600

1600-

1630

1630-

1700

1700-

1715

1715-

1730

NOTES: INTEL NCO CONCENTRATES ON IPB 1300-1500

information. In the mission briefitself, ask the staff hard questions.If the FOB staff is having prob-lems, good questions will bringthem out. When the S-2 says “Ifyou want the photographs of theobjective, request them by RFI,”tell him up front that you wanteverything he has. This is yourchance to have the battalion com-mander energize the people sup-porting you.

The most important single pieceof information you will get duringthe brief is the battalion comman-der’s intent. This must be absolute-ly clear, or you may waste hours ofplanning time. If you are at allunsure about the focus or desiredresult of the mission, nail it down

here. This should be given to you inwritten form, so you can post it.

Command estimateThe team sergeant should have a

time schedule ready to go after themission brief, if not sooner. Post itprominently. One individual mustbe responsible for timekeeping, par-ticularly during brainstorming ses-sions. These tend to deteriorate ifnot held to strict time limits.

Immediately after the missionbrief, if you haven’t already done so,give the staff sections time to goover their sections of the operationsorder. When you get back together,each section should have a list ofspecified and implied tasks, mission

constraints and restrictions readyto be discussed. Winnow out theroutine implied tasks like “packrucksacks,” define the significantconstraints and restrictions, andpost these on your charts. Deter-mine which tasks are mission-essential and highlight these tasks;you derive the ODA mission state-ment from them. Now write themission statement. Make sure it isclear and complete; it is the basisfor your subsequent planning.

IPB products such as threat andterrain templates need to be briefedto the team at this time. Productsthat are not delivered by the FOB S-2 must be developed by the team.The enemy reaction force you shouldhave predicted on the threat-integra-tion template will not be impressedby the fact that the FOB staff didn’tdo its job. The intel NCO has a criti-cal function during this phase —that of predicting the most likelyenemy course of action. He must beprepared to think like the enemycommander, especially when war-gaming. See Chapter 7 of ST 100-9for a complete discussion of threatintegration into COA development.

At this point, you must developODA courses of action. There areseveral ways to do this. You canbrainstorm. You can have sectionsor individuals develop COAs sepa-rately. You can dictate one or moreCOAs and have the team try tothink up better ones. The techniqueshould depend on the level of expe-rience on the team and the ability ofindividuals to express themselves.

However you do it, make yourbest effort to come up with at leasttwo supportable COAs. If a COAwill not fulfill minimum missionrequirements, why even put it onthe board? By the way, “HALO,

April 1994 25

The COA comparison helps in devel-oping distinct, relevant criteria forevaluating courses of action.

COA COMPARISON

CRITERIA COA 1 COA 2 COA 33 x R&S TM1 x MSS1 x LZ

4 x R&S TM1 x MSS1 x LZ

2 x R&S TM2 x MSS2 x LZ

COMMAND & CONTROL 2 3 1

MANEUVER (INFIL/EXFIL) 1 1 2

MANEUVER(AREA COVERAGE)

2 1 3

SURVIVABILITY 2 2 1

UNITY OF COMMAND 1 1 2

SOLDIER LOAD 2 3 1

SECURITY 2 3 1

RESUPPLY 1 2 3

FOLLOW-ONDA MISSION

1 2 3

TOTALS 14 18 17

static line, air land” are not threegood courses of action! Infiltrationtechnique is important only as itfacilitates the ground tactical plan.GTPs focus on task organization,scheme of maneuver, main effort,etc. Start out each COA with a dis-tinct GTP, and then develop aninfil/exfil technique which best suitsit. Once the COAs are developed,take them through evaluation, com-parison and war-gaming.

ST 100-9 discusses these tech-niques in more detail. The only areaI will highlight is COA comparison.You must develop distinct, relevantcriteria for comparison, or you arejust wasting time. If each COA youdevelop is equally viable except forone criteria, rethink either theCOAs or the criteria. Whichevercourse of action turns out to be best,post it and focus the team on it. Theother COAs, if well-thought-out,should become the basis for contin-gency plans. You can now writeyour commander’s intent and devel-op a general scheme of maneuver.You will need these to brief the mis-sion concept, or MICON, to the bat-talion commander.

MICON briefIf you developed a good estimate,

this meeting will give the comman-

der confidence in your ODA missionand make the briefback almostredundant. One way to conduct theMICON is to talk through your mis-sion analysis and COA-selectionprocess. Use the visual aids postedon the walls to show the logicalsequence in your thought process.You should brief the scheme of themaneuver, infil and commo plans ingeneral terms. This is also the timeto talk about mission-essentialequipment or personnel shortagesand any critical informationrequirements that have not beenanswered, not at the end of thebriefback! Schedule a progressreview before the briefback, if nec-essary. It is a good idea to give thecommander a schedule of keyrehearsals at this time; this is yourbest opportunity to pump him upfor rehearsal support.

Team planningYour ODA will be working in staff

sections for much of this time. Havestaff leaders brief you and the teamsergeant regularly on the status oftheir sections, or better yet, sched-ule staff meetings where informa-tion can be shared. The intel NCOmust continually update the teamon changes to the enemy situation.He also works closely with you and

the other key planners to developthe R&S plan. The plan must tievalid ODA PIRs into terrain, taskorganization and time to answerwho, what, when and where. FM34-8 has examples of matrixes thatyou can use to help focus the collec-tion effort.

During this time, communica-tions planning should receive someof your attention as well. Communi-cators almost always develop a goodprimary and alternate means ofcommo, but contingency and emer-gency systems are often forgotten.You must demand commo checks onall systems and with all stations ifit is at all possible to do so. Ifcommo goes down, the FOB will notbe screaming for the blood of yoursenior commo NCO — they’ll wantyours. Minimize environmental fac-tors and human error on the groundby detailed inspections and checksin isolation.

The pilots’ brief is critical to yourinfil planning. Try to schedule it asearly as possible. Give the pilots awritten DZ/LZ list in addition to anoverlay to minimize the chance oferror. Be prepared to be somewhatflexible, as the pilots may have ter-rain or threat factors that limittheir route options. However,always remember that it is thepilots’ job to support you, not the

26 Special Warfare

Photo by Bill E. Hyatt

Soldiers from the 7th SF Group pullrucksacks into a UH-1H Iroquoishelicopter during training at theJoint Readiness Training Center.

other way around. If the pilots can-not support your scheme of maneu-ver, bring it up to the FOB com-mander ASAP. Ensure that yourLZs and DZs are tied in logically tothe escape-and-evasion plan, theresupply plan and contingencyplans. All of these must also becoordinated in detail with the FOBstaff! Your emergency resupply maynever fly if the plan is stuck in theS-2 safe.

As these plans are completed,put them in the commander’s brief-back folder as annexes to the ODAoperations order. Don’t worryabout making the OPORD pretty,just make it legible. Consider usingmission-specific preprinted formatsto save time and improve attentionto detail. Of course, a word proces-sor will create a good-looking prod-uct, but avoid wasting time withendless rewrites.

RehearsalsRation your isolation time to

make use of every spare minute forrehearsals. Just as important,have a plan for each rehearsalperiod. The few minutes you spendprioritizing and coordinating willsave hours of confusion in therehearsal area. Consider the use ofOPFOR, MILES, mock-ups,pyrotechnics and anything elsethat will add to realism. Practicingcasualty evacuation is a must. Tryto use the same types of terrainand visibility conditions expectedin the operational area. If time per-mits, move your actual infil dis-tance on the ground with fullrucks. You will realize ratherquickly if you have to adjust theinfil plan, or at least toss out thatextra pair of socks. Don’t neglect topractice inter-team commo. When-ever possible, have a competentoutside observer watch yourrehearsals to get an unbiased cri-

tique. That extra set of eyes willpick out the obvious flaws in a“perfect” rehearsal.

ODA briefbackIf you have efficiently used your

time in isolation, the briefback willbe a snap. Spend only the minimumamount of time necessary on brief-back rehearsals, without all the“bells and whistles.” If the comman-der prefers a fancy show, tryexplaining in advance that youwould rather spend your time onexecution rehearsals (and then dothem!). Adjust the briefback formatto the type and complexity of themission. For a 24-hour mission, is itreally necessary to have the seniormedical NCO talk about diseases inthe indigenous population?

The five-paragraph OPORD for-mat is logically organized and famil-iar to everyone. Strongly considerusing it as your briefback sequence,especially for relatively simpledirect-action and special-reconnais-sance missions. Briefers can refer tonotes, but people who read word-for-word give the impression they don’treally know the material. Finally, ifyou discover prior to or even duringthe briefback that you have a poten-tial mission stopper, tell the bossthat you need a delay. Be real sureyou can talk clearly about your riskassessment, though, or at best youwill have to execute the missionanyway.

ConclusionOnce you get the final approval,

the ODA should be able to get on thebird immediately and accomplishthe mission. Any time before youactually launch should be used forconducting final inspections, steril-izing the isolation area and resting.If you’ve got more time, fine-tuneyour rehearsals. Just don’t findyourself adjusting the headset for

your night-vision goggles as you runto board the aircraft.

That about covers it. If you maxi-mize the use of your time in isola-tion, you will have a real good shotat a successful mission execution. Ihope some of the tips I gave youhelp. Good luck!

Capt. Kevin A. Christie is currently aSpecial Forces observ-er-controller at theJoint ReadinessTraining Center, FortPolk, La. A 1983 grad-uate of Florida State University, hewas commissioned in Infantry andserved as a rifle and scout platoonleader with the 193rd InfantryBrigade in Panama. His SpecialForces assignments include servingas commander of two SF A-detach-ments in the 5th SF Group, includ-ing seven months in Saudi Arabiaand Iraq during DesertShield/Storm.

April 1994 27

Suppose you are on a mobiletraining team mission to adeveloping country. Your host-

nation counterpart invites you tohis home for dinner. Would youknow upon arrival whether youshould bow, shake hands, bring agift, take off your shoes, greet hiswife, ignore his wife, or what? Dur-ing dinner what subjects would youdiscuss? What should you avoidtalking about? How long should youstay? How would you tell when it istime to leave?

The people skills of SOF person-nel often share equal importancewith their technical proficiency.Regional orientation, language skillsand the facility to work with peopleof other nationalities distinguishSOF organizations like SpecialForces, Civil Affairs and PSYOP.This article outlines an approach tocross-cultural preparation, high-lighting the subjective side of inter-personal communication.

In today’s challenging environ-ment, a SOF team may be alertedfor an advisory or training missionthat requires considerable interper-sonal interaction in a somewhatunfamiliar host nation. Missionbriefings and area orientation usu-ally follow, along with an assess-ment of language requirements andthe requisite cross-cultural commu-nication skills.

Properly understood, cross-cultur-al skill entails not just learningabout another people, but alsodeveloping the ability to learn fromand with another people. According-ly, one of this nation’s prominentcross-cultural training teams differ-entiates in their presentationsbetween what they describe as “bigC” culture and “little C” culture.1

Referring to the objective manifes-tations of a culture, big-C culturepertains to what a people have cre-ated and institutionalized. It mayinclude a society’s history, its artssuch as music, dance, theater andliterature, its artifacts, its science,sports, national heroes, holidays andthe like. One can acquire at least apartial understanding of big-C cul-ture from objective descriptionsabout a country readily available inencyclopedias, The Country Studyseries, or an area study. Big-C cul-ture can instruct us about a society,but not necessarily about how tocommunicate with its people.

Little-C culture, on the otherhand, relates to subjective valuesand behavior, such as customs andetiquette, and verbal and nonverbalcommunication styles. For the visi-tor, an understanding of little-C cul-ture derives from an individual’spersonal interactions and internalexperience — though it may beguided by an objective knowledge of

the host nation’s predominant val-ues, and its customs and taboos.Little-C culture configures the pro-cedural matters of assisting, teach-ing, training, managing, leading,socializing with, negotiating with orotherwise influencing the hostnationals.

Big-C culture makes one educat-ed but not necessarily competent.Little-C culture makes one compe-tent but not necessarily educated.Big-C culture and little-C cultureare not so much polar opposites aspart of a continuum. Each can com-plement the other.2 This comple-mentarity notwithstanding, it is theauthor’s contention that SOFshould give more emphasis to little-C culture in the pre-mission phase.

During Desert Shield/Storm,members of 5th Special ForcesGroup successfully displayed bothbig-C and little-C cultural under-standing in working with their Arabcounterparts. Through liaison andtraining teams with 104 maneuverelements, 5th Group personnelassisted the Joint Arab Forces andother allies in upgrading their profi-ciency in areas such as NBC train-ing, close-air-support coordination,conduct of border-security opera-tions and other aspects of tacticaltraining.

It took the SF trainers longerwith some nationalities than with

28 Special Warfare

The Subjective Side of Cross-Cultural Communication

by Lt. Col. James K. Bruton

others to break the ice and to gainacceptance from their Arab counter-parts. But once trust and rapportsolidified, SF became what one gen-eral called “the glue that held thecoalition together.” Close personalrelationships developed, and in sev-eral instances, Arab commandersaccepted as confidants and as defacto staff members both their SFofficer and NCO counterparts.3

Certain objective factors con-tributed to SF success. In additionto their overall professionalism andexperience in desert operations, 5thGroup members had the advantageof previous training with Arabforces over the years in exercisessuch as Bright Star. Many spokeArabic, from survival level to mini-mal proficiency. In general, thesemen had acquired a collective famil-iarity with Arab cultures.

As Desert Shield/Storm showed,SF’s display of technical knowledgeby itself may not be enough to affecthost nationals. Arabs respectedAmerican technical skill in theabstract and were impressed by thebreadth of knowledge and instruc-tional skills of their SF trainers. Yetthis appreciation in and of itself didnot make them receptive to individ-ual Americans on an interpersonallevel. What produced receptivenesswas the patience, adaptability andflexibility that characterized the SFtrainers’ approach. Their use of Ara-bic, their deference to Arab customsand their acceptance of the gracioushospitality that Arabs traditionallyshow guests enabled them toimmerse themselves into the dailyliving patterns of their Arab coun-terparts. Said one sergeant:

The fastest way to establish thatrapport is just to live with them, toeat what they are eating, to sharewhat they are sharing. If they aredigging a hole, then you help outdigging a hole. Don’t just see themonce a day, like for lunch. You arenot going to get very far with them.... Share, work together with yourcounterpart. Do these things firstand other things will fall into place.There is no rehearsal for establish-

ing rapport. It is a play-by-ear situ-ation. ... Be professional. Try not tolose your cool because they are notdoing things the American way.4

Many in business and diplomacy,as well as the military, who operatesuccessfully in other cultural envi-ronments attribute their compe-tence to careful observation whichinforms judgment. Knowing what toobserve is the key. Observationincludes recognizing our own Amer-ican behavior patterns and beingsensitive to the presence of con-trasting mindsets and alternativebehavior patterns throughout ourinteractions. Intercultural commu-nication skill,5 after all, is aboutdealing with differences, not withcommonality.

Illuminating the right questionsbefore entering another culture canfacilitate this process. As an exer-

cise, think about a foreign culturein which you have lived or one thatyou will soon enter. Can you answerthe following? Or will you be able toanswer these questions after a shorttime in the host nation?6

• Is it a society that uses directverbal communication that isstraightforward and to-the-point,like the U.S., or does it prefer indi-rect or contextual communication?

• How do the people make arefusal or tell you no?

• Does “yes” mean yes? Whatdoes “maybe” mean?

• What do the people do nonver-

bally to let you know:- They aren’t listening?- They have a problem?- They want to terminate the

conversation?• What subtleties do they use in

etiquette as a means of indirectcommunication?

• When connecting or making apersonal bond, what speaking pat-terns and body posture do they use?

• Do they usually make direct eye-to-eye contact during conversation?

• What physical distance do theymaintain in conversation?

• When they smile, what mean-ing (or meanings) does their smileconnote?

• To what extent do they use ges-tures and touching (beyond thehandshake) when conversing?

• How do you know when youhave been “accepted”?

• How do the following modes ofcommunication differ from what weare used to in the U.S.? In the hostnation how do we:7

- Refuse- Confront- Take initiative- Give and receive compliments

and criticism- Conduct small talk- Express humor- Express opinions- NegotiateThese questions serve as cuing

mechanisms to broaden our percep-tiveness rather than as questionsthat lend themselves to definitiveanswers. Here one can begin to seethe significance of nonverbal com-munication. “Most Americans,” saysanthropologist Edward Hall, “areonly dimly aware of this ‘silent lan-guage’ even though they use itevery day. They are not conscious ofthe elaborate patterning of behaviorwhich prescribes the handling oftime, spatial relationships, atti-tudes toward work, play and learn-ing. In addition to our verbal lan-guage, we are constantly communi-cating our real feelings in the lan-guage of behavior.”8

Subjective communication consid-erations also come into play for SOF

April 1994 29

…cross-cultural skill

entails not just learning

about another people,

but also developing the

ability to learn from and

with another people.

teams involved in assessment andconduct of training of foreignnationals. These questions mayapply to host-nation learning stylesand role of teachers in the hostnation.

• How do host-nation stud-ents/trainees view the teacher/trainer? Do they view him as anexpert or as a facilitator? Is heexpected to have all the answers? Isit permissible for the teacher toacknowledge a mistake or to admithe does not know the answer?

• Do the host-nation officers trainwith their soldiers (at the risk of los-ing face if they err), train separatelyor not at all? (In some traditionalcultures the simple fact that one isan officer implies he has all theknowledge needed to do his job — nofurther training is seen as necessary.)

• How are students taught — bydidactic instruction, rote memoriza-tion, participatory student-centeredexercises, or hands-on practicaltraining? How are they tested?

• Are students willing to displayknowledge and skill before theirpeers — that is, are they individual-ly competitive, or do they avoidstanding out by deferring to thegroup harmony?

• Is self-critique by students (asU.S. soldiers do in after-actionreviews) a viable concept? Do theycritique themselves if it mightreflect negatively on their leaders ortheir teachers?

Intercultural communication isan individual developmental pro-cess that cannot be learned in a for-mularistic or cookbook manner. Onelearns it as one goes along, mostlyby confronting and responding con-structively to differences in others,or to others who are different. Sinceintercultural communication occursface-to-face, it produces the experi-ence — sometimes gratifying, some-times discomforting — of almostimmediate feedback. We can gener-ally assess how we are doing both insubjective and in objective terms ofgoal accomplishment.

Dealing with differences, howev-

30 Special Warfare

Cross-cultural Resources

Cross-cultural preparation often combines generic content withcountry- and culture-specific information. Sometimes very fewculture-specific resources on a given country may be availablewhen needed. The good news is that certain generic cross-culturalmodels and concepts by themselves can go a long way towardpreparing one for entry into an unfamiliar culture. These modelscan provide a basis for comparing and contrasting American val-ues with those of other cultures and illustrating different mind-sets. A thorough generic orientation can hone one’s ability toanticipate, readily detect and respond to behavior patterns differ-ent from our own — even in the absence of area specialists or cul-ture-specific data. The following references contain generic mod-els and concepts that might be useful to SOF.

Hofstede, Geert H. Culture’s Consequences. Beverly Hills: SagePublications, 1984. This presents Hofstede’s extensive study onthe how national culture affects work-related values and atti-tudes far more than age, gender, profession, or position in anorganization. Hofstede compares cultures on the basis of fourdimensions: high vs. low individualism; large vs. small power dis-tance; strong vs. weak uncertainty avoidance; and high vs. lowmasculinity. The book contains a wealth of insightful data but issomewhat academic and presents rather challenging reading.

Hofstede, Geert H. Cultures and Organizations: Software of theMind. Berkshire, UK: McGraw-Hill Book Co. (UK) Ltd, 1991. Inthis more user-friendly sequel, Hofstede expands on his fourdimensions contrasting work related values of fifty countries. Hismodel and analyses can serve as a useful tool to help one identifyand describe anticipated differences in a foreign culture.

Kohls, L. Robert. Survival Kit for Overseas Living. Yarmouth,Maine: Intercultural Press, 1984. An excellent handbook forinternational travelers and expatriates, this widely used guidefocuses on adapting to living abroad and dealing with cultureshock. Specifically it contains a discussion of the Kluckhohnmodel — a relatively value-neutral way of comparing one culturewith another using five orientations: human nature orientation,man-nature orientation, time orientation, activity orientation,and social orientation.

Stewart, Edward C. and Milton J. Bennett. American CulturalPatterns: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Yarmouth, Maine: Inter-cultural Press, 1991. An important step in understanding othercultural values is to first understand our own American values.This work provides a succinct basis for examining the embeddedAmerican values that guide our thinking and behavior in ways ofwhich we may be only partially conscious.

— Lt. Col. James Bruton

er, can be psychologically threaten-ing to some. We should not assumethat special-operations schooling inand of itself prepares all its mem-bers for effective cross-culturalinteraction. Intercultural communi-cation skill depends as much on theuser’s willingness to cultivate per-sonal growth through interpersonalinteraction as it does on formaltraining in language, history, gov-ernment and big-C culture.9

The emphasis the Army places onbattle-focused collective and indi-vidual training should not eclipsethe importance of subjective com-munication-skill developmentamong SOF personnel. The continu-ous deployment abroad of SOFunits in this post-Cold War era ofethnic, religious and regional con-flict will elevate cross-cultural abili-ty as a high-demand skill far intothe future.

Lt. Col. James K. Bruton, USAR, is aSpecial Forces officerwho served four yearsin Southeast Asia ininfantry, advisory andSpecial Forces assign-ments. He recently managed a con-sulting and training business inOklahoma. Colonel Bruton is cur-

rently doing graduate work at theJohns Hopkins School of AdvancedInternational Studies.

Notes:1 The trainers are Dr. Milton J. Bennett

and Dr. Janet M. Bennett of Portland StateUniversity. The Bennetts’ 2 May 1991 pre-sentation, “Exploring the Intercultural Per-spective,” at the annual congress of theInternational Society for Intercultural Edu-cation, Training, and Research greatly influ-enced the structure of this article. The Ben-netts derived the concept of big-C cultureand little-C culture from Peter L. Berger andThomas Luckmann, The Social Constructionof Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology ofKnowledge (New York: Anchor Books, 1967).Also helpful to the author was Milton J. Ben-nett, “Foundations of Knowledge in Interna-tional Educational Exchange: InterculturalCommunication,” in Joy Reid, ed, Buildingthe Professional Dimension of EducationalExchange (Washington, D.C.: NAFSA, 1988).

2 Two sources contain excellent checklistsof background information about the hostcountry that encompass big-C and little-Cculture. One can use these to test one’sknowledge of a culture with which one feelsfamiliar or of a culture in which one desiresmore information. Some of these can serve asice-breakers and conversational topics. See“Let’s Play Fifty Questions” in Robert L.Kohls, Survival Kit for Overseas Living(Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press, Inc.,1984); and “Suggested People-Map Coordi-nates” in V. Lynn Tyler, Intercultural Inter-acting (Provo, Utah: David M. Kennedy Cen-ter for International Studies Publication Ser-vices, 1987).

3 James K. Bruton and Edward C. Stew-art, The Gulf War: An Analysis of American

and Arab Cross-Cultural Encounters, anunpublished manuscript, p. 36.

4 Ibid., pp. 32-33.5 Some use the terms “cross-cultural” and

“intercultural” interchangeably, and themeaning often varies with the writer. Here“inter” implies between or two-way. “Cross”more commonly is one-way and suggests theone doing it. V. Lynn Tyler, “Miracles - Mys-teries - Myths,” (Provo, Utah: David M.Kennedy Center for International StudiesPublication Services, 1988).

6 Most of these questions came from DonHenderson of Global Selling, a New York-based training company.

7 These suggested communication skillscame from Carolyn Feuille of LanguaTech, aSan Francisco-based training company.

8 Edward T. Hall, The Silent Language(New York: Anchor Press, 1973), p. xiii. Hallhas categorized 10 separate kinds of humanactivity labeled the primary message sys-tems, or PMS. “Only the first PMS involveslanguage. All the other PMS are nonlinguis-tic forms of the communication process.” p.38.

9 Intercultural communication is a growth-oriented and difference-based approach.Writes cross-cultural psychologist EdwardStewart: “With informed judgment, it is pos-sible to abandon the idea that cultural differ-ences are impediments to communicationand cooperation and instead accept the chal-lenge that cultural differences are resourcesthat can be used for mutual benefit of mem-bers of the societies involved in cross-culturalcooperation.” Edward C. Stewart and MiltonJ. Bennett, American Cultural Patterns: ACross-Cultural Perspective (Yarmouth,Maine: Intercultural Press, 1991), p. 176.

April 1994 31

Photo by Thomas Witham

A U.S. soldier (right) discussessmall-unit tactics with Arab coun-terpart soldiers during OperationDesert Shield.

Modern-day Civil Affairsunits trace their roots tothe Second World War,

when the U.S. Army created “civil-government units” to assist combatcommanders in dealing with civil-ians in combat zones and occupiedareas.

The operations of these unitsreduced the number of combattroops diverted from their primarymission, cut interference by civil-ians in combat operations, orches-trated the creation of new politicaland economic infrastructures indefeated countries and ensured thecontinuation of CA units in theArmy force structure.

Although Civil Affairs operationsbenefit commanders and civilians ina number of ways, the basis forthose operations is not altruism, butinternational law, and it is impor-tant to understand the legal author-ities which underlie CA operations.

Joint Pub 3-57, Doctrine for JointCivil Affairs, defines Civil Affairsas: “The activities of a commanderwhich establish and maintain rela-tions between his military forcesand civil authorities and people in afriendly, neutral, or occupied coun-try or area to facilitate militaryoperations and consolidate opera-tional objectives. Civil Affairs mayinclude exercise by military forcesor authorities of activities or func-

tions normally the responsibility oflocal government. These activitiesmay occur prior to, during or subse-quent to military action in time ofhostilities or other emergency.”

Joint Pub 3-57 further states:“The nature and scope of CivilAffairs activities will be determinedby many factors and variablesincluding National CommandAuthority guidance and missionorders, national security objectives,U.S. foreign policy, participation ofallied and friendly countries, Opera-tional Law, and requirements of themilitary situation.”

According to the Operational LawHandbook, published by the U.S.Army Judge Advocate General’sSchool: “Operational Law (OPLAW)incorporates, in a single militarylegal discipline, substantive aspectsof international law, criminal law,administrative law, and procure-ment-fiscal law relevant to the over-seas deployment of U.S. militaryforces. It is a comprehensive, yetstructured, approach toward resolv-ing legal issues evolving fromdeployment activities.”

Operational law has been viewedas having two aspects: internal, orthose issues relating strictly to mili-tary operations (primarily combatoriented); and external, or thosedealing with the relationshipbetween a deployed military force

and the civilian population. CivilAffairs units assist the commanderin meeting legal obligations princi-pally in the latter area.

Civil Affairs operations are vitalto commanders in wartime. Thisusefulness in war has been mir-rored in peacetime operationsdesigned to support friendly foreigngovernments and create goodwilltoward the United States. While theoverall Civil Affairs missionremains the same in either situa-tion, the legal authorities whichauthorize or mandate Civil Affairsoperations are different dependingupon where the unit’s mission islocated in the spectrum of conflict.

The focus of Civil Affairs opera-tions also differs vastly dependingon the mission of the supported unit.During wartime, the focus is on mil-itary objectives. Civilians are anobstacle to combat operations, andtheir support is secondary to thosemilitary objectives. Minimizing civil-ian interference with combat opera-tions is the primary Civil Affairsmission. In operations other thanwar, however, the political legitima-cy of the supported group or govern-ment becomes the center of gravity.

Wartime Civil AffairsThe highly mechanized and tech-

nological nature of the modern bat-

32 Special Warfare

Legal Aspects of Civil Affairs

by Maj. (P) Neil Porter

tlefield, combined with a war-fight-ing doctrine which calls for theswift concentration of massed forcesand firepower against enemy weakpoints followed by a swift drive intothe enemy’s rear areas, assures thecomplication of battle plans by thepresence of civilians in the area ofoperations. The Civilian Conventionof the 1949 Geneva Conventionsprovides that civilians in occupiedterritories are “protected persons”and charges commanders of occu-pied territories with certain legalobligations toward them. CivilAffairs operations specificallydirected at compliance with theserequirements are known as civiladministration. Some of the moresalient points addressed by the Con-vention are that:

• “Family honor and rights, thelives of persons, and private proper-ty, as well as religious convictionsand practice” will be respected.

• Civilians who are not nationalsof the power whose territory isoccupied have the right to leave theterritory.

• Forcible individual or masstransfers or deportations of protect-ed persons from one occupied terri-tory to the territory of the occupyingpower or any other country are pro-hibited. This does not prevent evac-uation of a given area on grounds ofsecurity of the population or mili-tary necessity. Such persons shouldbe returned to their homes as soonas hostilities have ceased.

• Placement of protected personsin an area exposed to the dangers ofwar is prohibited.

• Deportation or transfer by theoccupying power of members of itsown civilian population into theoccupied territory is prohibited.

• The occupying power mustfacilitate the care and education ofchildren.

• The occupying power mustensure availability of adequate food

and medical supplies, providingthem from its own stocks if theresources of the occupied territoryare inadequate.

• The occupying power mustensure and maintain hospital estab-lishments and services, publichealth and hygiene in the occupiedterritories. Medical personnel of allcategories shall be allowed to carryout their duties.

Another wartime function of CivilAffairs is to assist the commanderin the acquisition and control ofproperty. Commanders are autho-rized to exercise control over prop-

erty in enemy and occupied territo-ry. Such control reduces the strainon logistical trains by supplyingoperations with locally obtainedmaterials and preserves assetsrequired by the civilian population.

Property control is generally clas-sified as follows: destruction, confis-cation, seizure, requisition and con-trol. The type of control a comman-der may lawfully exercise dependson whether the property is privatelyowned or government property andwhether it has military application.

Property of any type may bedestroyed when justified by militarynecessity, and no compensation isrequired. Commanders may confis-cate enemy public movable property(limited generally to that havingeither direct or indirect militaryapplication — this includes privateproperty being used by enemytroops). Confiscated propertybecomes the property of the victor;

again, no compensation is required.Seizure refers to the taking ofenemy private movable property. Aswith confiscated property, seizedproperty becomes the property ofthe capturing state. Generally, pay-ment of compensation to the owneris required but is not made until thetermination of hostilities.

Enemy private movable andimmovable property may be requisi-tioned, for use in the occupied areaonly, in order to meet the needs ofthe occupying force. Housing, facto-ry output, farm produce, etc., maybe requisitioned. Immediate pay-

ment of compensation to the owneris required when property is requi-sitioned. Finally, commanders mayexercise the degree of control neces-sary (including denial of access) toprevent the use or destruction ofproperty in the occupied territory.

To maintain order in occupied ter-ritories, existing law and legal struc-tures should be retained. Wherelaws are inimical to U.S. objectives,however, they should be amended orrepealed. Commanders may aug-ment or supplant existing lawthrough Civil Affairs enactments.There are six types of enactments —proclamations, ordinances, notices,directives, laws and regulations —each of which has a different pur-pose and effect. Initially, CivilAffairs units, under the staff super-vision of the commander’s G-5, areresponsible for enforcement of theseenactments. Violators are prosecut-ed before a military tribunal or in

April 1994 33

Civil Affairs operations are vital to commanders in

wartime. This usefulness in war has been mirrored in

peacetime operations designed to support friendly foreign

governments and create goodwill toward the United States.

local civil courts if authorized by thecommander.

The goal of civil administration isto create an effective civil govern-ment which supports U.S. objectivesand to return it to local control assoon as possible. Civil Affairs per-sonnel screen the local populationand identify suitable individuals forleadership positions. Civil Affairsunits identify needs and organizelocal inhabitants, under reliableleadership, to restore the damagedinfrastructure.

Peacetime Civil AffairsThe U.S. often uses military

forces to achieve political objectivesduring peacetime. Civil Affairs proj-ects in these operations include con-struction, medical, dental and vet-erinary activities by military per-sonnel. Civil Affairs units are alsoused extensively in contingencyoperations such as noncombatantevacuation operations, disasterrelief and refugee operations.

Civil Affairs personnel also aug-ment military units during over-seas operations such as joint train-ing exercises. The civil-militaryoperations officer bears the respon-sibility for coordinating the CivilAffairs activities conducted by thecommand.

Fiscal-law considerations intrudeinto these operations. With minorexceptions, operations and mainte-nance appropriations funding,known as O&M, may not be used toconduct humanitarian and civic-assistance activities, or HCA, or tofund the activities of foreign armedforces. Commanders and CMOsmust understand the parameters oftheir funding sources because thedistinction between activities isoften shaded.

Funding for HCA is appropriatedannually by Congress and dis-tributed to the regional unified com-mands. Each CINC validates HCAprojects within his area and assignsmissions to specific units. Thesemay not duplicate social or

economic-assistance programs beingadministered by other U.S. agenciesin the area. HCA funds may not beused, either directly or indirectly, tosupport foreign military or paramil-itary activities. Title 10, U.S. Code,Section 401 provides the legalauthority to conduct HCA andspecifically authorizes:

• Medical, dental and veterinarycare provided in rural areas of acountry.

• Construction of rudimentarysurface-transportation systems.

• Well-drilling and constructionof basic sanitation facilities.

• Rudimentary construction andrepair of public facilities.

There is one exception to the pro-hibition against using O&M fundsfor small HCA projects not previ-ously identified. Congress has rec-ognized the unique mission of spe-cial-operations forces (defined inTitle 10, U.S. Code, Section 167 andincluding Civil Affairs) and hasauthorized O&M funds to be used topay the incremental expenses of for-

34 Special Warfare

Members of Fort Bragg’s 27th Engineer Battalion construct aschool in Honduras. The U.S. often uses military forces toachieve political objectives during peacetime.

Photo by Mike Edrington

eign armed forces when the primarypurpose is the training of U.S.forces. An annual report of expensespaid under this exception must beprovided to Congress. This “SpecialForces exception” is codified in Title10, U.S. Code, Section 2011 andauthorizes payment of:

• Expenses of training special-operations forces assigned to thatcommand in conjunction with train-ing, and training with, armed forcesand other security forces of a friend-ly foreign country.

• Expenses of deploying such special-operations forces for thattraining.

• In the case of training in con-junction with a friendly developingcountry, the incremental expensesincurred by that country as thedirect result of such training.

The success of HCA in overseasoperations has motivated Congressto authorize the use of U.S. armedforces to perform HCA in domesticoperations. Title 10, U.S. Code, Sec-tion 410 provides for armed forcesto engage in “civil-military coopera-tive action programs” to meet thedomestic needs of the UnitedStates.

Although the President is com-mander in chief of the armed forces,Congress approves their budget. Bylimitations in funding appropria-tions and application of Title 31,U.S. Code, Section 1301a (the “pur-pose statue”), which prohibits any

expenditure of funds for other thanthe intended purpose, Congress isable to shape military operations toa certain extent.

The dichotomy between commandand funding can place the militaryin an awkward position when thereis public and congressional opposi-tion to a president’s foreign policy(as there was to President Reagan’spolicies regarding Central America).Military operations will be subject-ed to close scrutiny by Congress andthe press. Fiscal-law violationscould not only be embarrassing tothe armed forces but also subjectcommanders to criminal sanctions.

ConclusionCivil Affairs units are an indis-

pensable tool for commanders inmeeting their legal obligations.They are an important force-multi-plier during wartime as well as aneffective means for generating good-will toward the United States andproviding support for democraticgovernments in developing nations.By integrating Civil Affairs into theoverall concept of operations, U.S.forces can preserve combat assets,reduce civilian interference and pro-mote mission legitimacy in supportof U.S. national policy in the area ofoperations. All CA operations havetheir basis in law, and whether theyare meeting wartime obligations tocivilians or fulfilling fiscal-law

responsibilities in peacetime, com-manders must ensure that theyremain within that legal authority.

Maj. (P) Neil Porteris currently Chief forReserve Law in theOffice of the StaffJudge Advocate forthe U.S. Army SpecialOperations Command.His other assignments include ser-vice as deputy staff judge advocatefor the Army Civil Affairs and Psy-chological Operations Commandand as staff judge advocate for JointTask Force-Guantanamo during theHaitian relief operation. He has alsoserved as civil-military operationsofficer attached to the 7th SF Groupduring the joint training exerciseFuerzas Unidas Uruguay 93. Agraduate of the Command and Gen-eral Staff Officer Course and theCivil Affairs Course, he holds abachelor’s degree from the MontereyInstitute of International Studiesand law degrees from Gonzaga Uni-versity, Spokane, Wash., and theUniversity of Miami.

April 1994 35

Doctrine is the groundwork for allmissions of Army special-operationsforces, and development of that doc-trine is the job of the JFK SpecialWarfare Center and School.

As the branch proponent for Spe-cial Forces and the functional pro-ponent for Psychological Operationsand Civil Affairs, the SWCS com-mander must implement and exe-cute the SOF doctrinal-developmentresponsibilities of both the U.S.Special Operations Command andthe Army Training and DoctrineCommand.

The Army Special OperationsCommand has also appointed theSWCS as its executive agent toreview combined, joint, multiserviceand Army doctrinal literature andpublications and to develop ArmySOF doctrine and training material.Within the SWCS, producing thatmaterial is the job of the DoctrineDivision of the Directorate of Train-ing and Doctrine.

Within SOF doctrinal and train-ing publications, there is an estab-lished hierarchy to provide a struc-ture for their design, development,integration and promulgation. Thehierarchy organizes the content ofthe publications to be comprehen-

sive without being redundant.The hierarchy also aligns these

publications with the needs of thetarget audience and helps trainersand soldiers identify the publicationmost relevant to their needs. Thus,it serves the managers and develop-ers of doctrinal and training litera-ture as well as their users.

All ARSOF field manuals arelinked to FM 100-25, Doctrine forArmy Special Operations Forces.They are oriented toward comman-ders, staffs and operational person-nel from operational elementsthrough the Army Special Opera-tions Command and cover allARSOF mission areas. Productionof these manuals proceeds throughtwo stages: the initial and finaldrafts. The average time for comple-tion of these manuals from conceptto distribution of the final Depart-ment of the Army-approved copy isbetween 18 months and two years.The title, scope and status for eachARSOF doctrinal publication is list-ed below:

• FM 100-25, Doctrine for ArmySpecial Operations Forces, is theintegrating manual for ARSOF. Itdescribes ARSOF roles, missions,capabilities, organization, command

and control, employment and sus-tainment in all operational environ-ments and at all levels of war,across the range of military opera-tions. It serves as the doctrinalfoundation for subordinate ARSOFdoctrine, force design, materielacquisition, professional education,sustainment and individual andunit training.

• FM 31-20, Doctrine for SpecialForces Operations, is the SF princi-ples manual. It is directly linked toand must be used in conjunctionwith the doctrinal principles foundin FM 100-25, and FM 100-5, Oper-ations. It describes SF roles, mis-sions, capabilities, organization,command and control, staffing,employment and sustainmentacross the range of military opera-tions. It provides the authoritativefoundation for SF subordinate doc-trine, force design, materiel acquisi-tion, professional education andindividual and collective training.FM 31-20 is under revision with afielding date of June 1995.

• FM 31-20-1, Special Forces Tac-tics, Techniques, and Procedures.This manual will contain the tac-tics, techniques and procedures thatare basic to most SF missions. It

36 Special Warfare

ManagingSpecial-Operations Forces Doctrine

by Steven E. Cook

will cover subjects such as regionalthreats, environments, staff proce-dures, training management, pre-mission activities, mission-taskingprocedures, deliberate and time-sensitive planning and post-missionactivities. This publication will linkFM 31-20 to the five mission manu-als. FM 31-20-1 is in development,with a scheduled fielding date ofMarch 1995.

• FM 31-20-2, UnconventionalWarfare Tactics, Techniques, andProcedures for Special Forces, willcover the principles of unconven-tional warfare at operationaldetachments A, B and C levels. Top-ics will include rural and urbanresistance organizational concepts,infiltration, contact procedures,

resistance buildup, organization,training, operations, demobilizationand exfiltration. FM 31-20-2 is indevelopment, with a scheduledfielding date of June 1995.

• FM 31-20-3, Foreign InternalDefense Tactics, Techniques, andProcedures for Special Forces. Sub-jects will include command and con-trol, staff procedures, intelligence,training, adviser techniques, civildefense, pacification operations,hand-off procedures, counterinsur-gency and other operational tech-niques. This manual is scheduled tobe published and fielded in June1994.

• FM 31-20-4, Direct Action Tac-tics, Techniques, and Procedures forSpecial Forces. Subjects include

rural and urban assault techniques,raid, ambush, standoff attack, ter-minal guidance, mining and demoli-tion, sabotage and incendiarism.This manual is scheduled to be pub-lished and fielded in September1995.

• FM 31-20-5, Special Reconnais-sance Tactics, Techniques, and Pro-cedures for Special Forces. Thismanual defines special-reconnais-sance and surveillance actions con-ducted by SF to obtain or verify, byvisual observation or other collec-tion methods, information concern-ing the capabilities, intentions andactivities of an actual or potentialenemy or to secure data concerningthe meteorologic, hydrographic, geo-graphic or demographic characteris-

April 1994 37

FM 31-20-1SF TTP

FM 31-20-2SF UW TTP

FM 31-20-3SF FID TTP

FM 31-20-4SF DA TTP

FM 31-20-5SF SR TTP

FM 31-20-6SF CT TTP (U)

FM 33-1-1PSYOP TTP

FM 41-11CA TTP

FM 33-1PSYOP

FM 31-20SF

FM 41-10CA

FM 100-25DOCTRINE FOR

ARSOF

FM 100-5OPERATIONS

FM 31-19SF MFFP TTP

TC 31-24SF AIR OPNS

TTP

TC 31-25SF WATER OPNS

TTP

FM 31-27PACK ANIMALS

TTP

SWCS Doctrine Hierarchy

tics of a particular area. It includestarget acquisition, area assessmentand post-strike reconnaissance.This manual was published andfielded in March 1993.

• FM 31-20-6, (U) Counterterror-ism, Tactics, Techniques, and Proce-dures for Special Forces (U). Thismanual will standardize doctrine onSF counterterrorism operations forregional contingencies. FM 31-20-6(U) is in development, with a sched-uled fielding date of September1995. Distribution is restricted andcontrolled by the commander of theSWCS.

• FM 31-19, Military Free FallParachuting Tactics, Techniques,and Procedures, describes proventechniques and guidelines that areessential for safe, successful mili-tary free-fall operations. The proce-dures contained in this publicationapply to multiservice free-fall oper-ations. This publication supersedesFM 31-19, dated February 1988,and was published and fielded inFebruary 1993.

• TC 31-24, Special Forces AirOperations, is a guide for SF com-manders, staffs and operational-detachment personnel in planningand conducting air operationsacross the range of military opera-tions. It establishes a coordinatedand common planning base forunits participating in multiserviceand joint operations. This manualwill be nominated for revision as ajoint publication.

• TC 31-25, Special Forces Water-borne Operations, provides a consol-idated reference for training andemploying SF personnel in all typesof waterborne operations. It pro-vides detailed operational planningconsiderations for small-boat opera-tions, surface-swimming operations,and operations involving underwa-ter breathing apparatuses. Thismanual will be nominated for revi-sion as a joint publication.

• FM 31-27, Use of Pack Animalsin Support of Special Forces, willdescribe the tactics, techniques andprocedures for staffers and opera-tors at group level and below forplanning and using packing andpulling animals in all environmentsand SF missions. Topics to beincluded in the manual are rigging,employment, transporting, care andfeeding of animals, veterinarymedicine and use of indigenoushandlers. Production of this manualis currently on hold.

• FM 33-1, Psychological Opera-tions, describes PSYOP employ-ment, command and control, andsupport across the range of militaryoperations. It is the doctrinal guidefor commanders, planners andusers of PSYOP and a guide forthose who must consider the psy-chological effect of military opera-tions on a target audience. Themanual is the basis for PSYOP forcedesign and materiel acquisition. Itwas published and fielded in Febru-ary 1993.

38 Special Warfare

‘Doctrine’ terms have different meanings

In discussing doctrine, the terms “doctrine,” “tactics,” “techniques,”“procedures,” “drills” and “tactical standing operating procedures” aresometimes used interchangeably, but they have specific meanings:

• Doctrine is composed of the fundamental principles by whichmilitary forces or elements thereof guide their actions in support ofnational objectives. It is authoritative but requires judgment inapplication.

• Tactics are the employment of units in combat; the orderedarrangement and maneuver of units in relation to each other and/orto the enemy in order to realize their full potential.

• Techniques are the general and detailed methods used by troopsor commanders to perform assigned missions and functions. Specifi-cally, they are the methods of using equipment and personnel. Tech-niques describe “a way,” not “the only way.”

• Procedures are detailed courses of action that describe how toperform a task.

• Drills provide small units with standard procedures essentialfor building a strong, aggressive force. They provide standardizedactions that link soldier and collective tasks at platoon level andbelow. There are two types of drills that apply to all types of units —battle drills and crew drills.

— Battle drills are collective actions that can be rapidly executedwithout applying a deliberate decision-making process.

— Crew drills are collective actions that the crew of a weapon orpiece of equipment must perform to use the weapon or equipment.

• Tactical standing operating procedures are sets of instructionscovering those features of operations which lend themselves to a def-inite or standardized procedure without loss of effectiveness. Theprocedure is applicable unless soldiers are ordered otherwise.

— Steve Cook

• FM 33-1-1, Psychological Oper-ations Techniques and Procedures,sets forth techniques and proce-dures for implementing U.S. ArmyPSYOP doctrine contained in FM33-1. This manual was publishedand fielded in June 1994.

• FM 41-10, Civil Affairs Opera-tions, is the keystone doctrinalmanual for U.S. Army CA opera-tions. It defines the CA mission anddescribes roles, capabilities, organi-zation, command and control, com-bat support, combat-service supportand employment in all environ-ments across the range of militaryoperations.This manual was pub-lished and fielded in January 1993.

• FM 41-11, Civil Affairs Proce-dures, is the procedures manual forFM 41-10. It provides general guid-ance for commanders, staffs andemployers of CA operations in alloperational environments andacross the range of military opera-tions. This manual is scheduled tobe published and released in March1995.

To receive these publications asthey are fielded, units shouldensure that their publicationsaccounts are current and that theirrequirements are accurately shownon DA Form 12-11-E, on file with

the AG Publications Center; 2800Eastern Boulevard; Baltimore, MD21220-2896. Block numbers must beincluded on DA Form 12. The blocknumbers are:

Publication Block no.

FM 100-25 4654FM 31-20 0531FM 31-20-1 5281FM 31-20-2 4870FM 31-20-3 5096FM 31-20-4 5097FM 31-20-5 5098FM 31-20-6 (U) RestrictedFM 31-19 1110TC 31-24 1113TC 31-25 1114FM 31-27 5100FM 33-1 1116FM 33-1-1 5177FM 41-10 0347FM 41-11 5180

A final point on ARSOF doctrinalpublications is that they are genericguides; they do not eliminate therequirement for a well-written stan-dard operating procedure at all lev-els, driven by a mission-essential-task list.

For more information on the SOFdoctrinal system or status of cur-rent SOF doctrinal publications,

contact Steve Cook, Chief, DoctrineManagement Branch, at DSN 239-8689, commercial (910) 432-8689.

Steven E. Cook is currently the chief ofthe Doctrine Manage-ment Branch of theSpecial Warfare Cen-ter and School’s Direc-torate of Training andDoctrine. His other Army civilianassignments include serving as aninstructor on the Special ForcesOperations and Intelligence Com-mittee and as a project officer in theDirectorate of Combat Develop-ments. His military service includesfour tours in Southeast Asia as anNCO in airborne, infantry,pathfinder and reconnaissanceunits. As an officer he served in air-borne and airborne-school assign-ments and in Special Forces as anA-detachment executive officer,detachment commander, companycommander and battalion executiveofficer.

April 1994 39

William Colby served with theOffice of Strategic Services in WorldWar II, both as a member of a Jed-burgh team in France and as amember of an operational group inNorway. Following the war heearned a law degree at ColumbiaUniversity and worked in the lawfirm of former OSS commanderWilliam Donovan. When the KoreanWar began in 1950, he entered theCentral Intelligence Agency. From1951-1959, he served with Americanembassies in Stockholm and Rome.As first secretary to the AmericanEmbassy in Saigon from 1959-1962,he helped develop the strategic-ham-let program. Returning to Saigon in1968, he replaced Robert Komer asdirector of Civil Operations andRevolutionary Development Sup-port, or CORDS, the Vietnamesepacification program designed toweaken Vietcong influence. He laterserved as executive director-con-troller of the CIA and as deputydirector of operations before his

appointment as director in 1973. Heretired from the CIA in 1976.

SW: What made you volunteer toserve with the Office of StrategicServices?Colby: Well, I’d say there wereprobably three factors. One is that Iwas a son of an Army officer in theinterwar era, so I had some famil-iarity with the service. Secondly, Ihad decided a long time ago thatthe war was coming and that weshould have been much more activein getting ready for it than we were,and I went into the Army in thesummer of ’41. And the third reasonwas that I’d always been interestedin international affairs — I’d livedin China, spent a summer with aFrench family and studied theSpanish Civil War during my timein college. When I got in the Army,they first sent me to Fort Bragg tothe Field Artillery ReplacementTraining Center, then to Fort Sill togo to the Battery Officers Course.

They kept me there teaching after Ifinished, and I was afraid I wasgoing to miss the war. This wasmid-’42. I saw a notice about volun-teering for parachuting, and thatwould have to be forwarded; yourcommander couldn’t turn it back. SoI signed up. I had to cheat throughthe eye exam. I sat down next to theeye chart to take my clothes off forthe exam, and I memorized the20/40 line. I zipped it off, and thenthe doctor said, “Now do it back-wards,” and I was trying to do it,and he said, “You really want to bea parachutist?” and I said, “You’redamn right I do.” He said, “I thinkyou’ll be able to see the ground OK,go ahead.” I went to jump schooland came back to Fort Bragg in theparachute artillery battalion andwas prepared to stay there. A guycame down from OSS recruitingpeople to go jump into France, andthat sounded a hell of a lot moreinteresting than struggling aroundwith a 75mm gun on the ground.

40 Special Warfare

Interview:William Colby,

former director, Central Intelligence Agency

SW: What was your first OSSassignment?Colby: I went through the selectionand training process, and when Ifinished the training, I joined a Jed-burgh team. The idea of the Jed-burghs was to drop one American orBrit, one French officer and a radiooperator of one of the three nation-alities; mine was French. They’ddrop them a month or two ahead ofthe armies. If you sent them tooearly and they raised too muchresistance, the Germans would chopthem all down. If you sent them intoo late, they were incidental. So itwas a very complicated process.Yougot in touch with the local resis-tance nets. The idea was to makecontact with the Resistance, trainthe people, get them coordinatedand working together, ambush theGermans, slow them down so thatthey couldn’t get back to Germanyto regroup. It was the summer of ’44in France; this was after D-Day. Wewere in uniform; the Germans saidthey’d shoot us if they caught us,whether in a uniform or not. Theirtheory was that any fighting out-side the regular military battlelines was improper. They werewrong, but they did shoot a few. Myparticular position happened to besort of on the right flank of Patton’sThird Army. We did some ambush-es and slowed the Germans down toa degree so that Patton could drivefor the German border and notworry about his flanks, because hehad ample warning if any problemarose. It was a useful operation.

SW: Didn’t you have some experi-ence on an operational group, too?Colby: Yes. After the Jedburghoperation, my boss said he wantedme to take a group up to Norway, soI did. We blew up a railroad a cou-ple of times, but I don’t think wechanged the course of the war verymuch. We lived as a unit up in thehills. They originally wanted tosend 30-odd of us in the first batch,and we got 16 in; the rest didn’tmake it.

SW: Were the others captured asthey were jumping in?Colby: No. The first night we hadeight Liberator B-24’s, and four ofthem dropped people on the target,one dropped 50 kilometers away inSweden, and the other three wenthome; they couldn’t find it. Andthen a few days later they triedagain with the remaining three, andone of them crashed in the Orkneysand they were all killed. They tried

again a few days later, and one ofthe planes hit a mountaintop nearus. They were all killed, and at thatpoint we said, “No more.”

SW: What types of missions did youperform?Colby: Well, the mission there wasthat the Germans had about400,000 troops up in northern Fin-land that had been pushed up thereby the Russians, and they were

bringing them down through Nor-way to take them back to Germany.Our mission was to slow down thatprocess. We were scattered along arailroad in northern Norway. Theidea was just to interrupt it everynow and then. We blew one smallbridge. Another time we blew a longstretch of track, and they shot at usa few times — one of my Norwe-gians was wounded.

SW: What do you think are some ofthe most important things to remem-ber about your OSS experience?Colby: I think it was importantthat we learned the desirability oflanguage, sort of as a precursor tothe present stress that SpecialForces put on it. And, of course, oneof the Jedburghs was Col. AaronBank. He is one of the great namesin Special Forces, because he cameout of the World War II experienceand then fought to keep the conceptalive. I think the one most impor-tant thing was that the Jedsbecame exposed to the politicalaspects of the operation, the limita-tions — you don’t raise a rebellionunless you have some way of rein-forcing it. I thought the idea of notsending us too soon was very bright,very intelligent. They realizedyou’re going to raise a lot of peopleup in resistance. You’ve got to havesome reinforcements coming in verysoon, or they’ll be cleaned out.When you’re dealing with a resis-tance, you’ve got to be aware of thepolitical component of the effort.That is an absolute vital part of thiskind of irregular warfare. Why arepeople doing it? They’re either therewith you or they’re not. They can gohome, it’s up to them. You’ve got tohave a political appeal. Why arethey going to do it? Of course I’vebeen interested in politics and revo-lutionary war for a long time. Myexperiences just reinforced thatbelief.

SW: That’s part of what SpecialForces training emphasizes today:an appreciation of the political andcultural aspects of a problem.

April 1994 41

“The one thing I thinkI did learn ... is that ...you’ve got to beaware of the politicalcomponent of theeffort. That is anabsolute vital part ofthis kind of irregularwarfare.”

Colby: Special Forces today is somuch better than we were. It’sunbelievable. And I don’t mean justthe equipment — I mean the train-ing, the subtlety of it. In the Jed-burghs, they taught us how tosneak around and shoot and useknives. But there was absolutely notraining in the politics of the prob-lem: how to get along with people.So I read Lawrence of Arabia’sbook, and he had all sorts of thingsin there about how you get alongwith a strange culture, how torelate to them and handle yourself,how to defer and suggest. You don’ttake command, you don’t boss peo-ple, you just have to work your waythrough it. It was good training inthe basic principles of how you getalong.

SW: You were later the director ofthe CORDS program in Vietnam.How successful do you think wewere there in understanding thepolitical aspect?Colby: Well, I wrote a whole bookabout it, Lost Victory, which I thinkpoints out that the CIA did under-stand the political component ofthat people’s war and, in its initialprograms of the early ’60’s, got someprograms going that were thentaken over by the local government,particularly the strategic-hamletprogram, which had its troubles,but it seized the initiative from theenemy. I always thought the mili-tary aspect was almost irrelevantbecause the enemy was fighting thepeople’s war, not a soldier’s war.Our previous experience was inKorea, and we approached it as aconventional struggle, except forCIA. We had some Special Forcesassigned to my station when I wasthere. They were the first teamsthat came in. And we put them upin these little Montagnard villagesand they taught self-defense andhelped the Montagnards get orga-nized, trained them and so forth,but essentially, the local leadershipwas in command. And they began toclear out substantial areas. Thenwe asked for more Special Forces

and they sent them, and at onepoint we had 400 Special Forcesworking under the CIA station.Once they got under the MilitaryAssistance Command, their missionchanged, and they were told todevelop an offensive guerrilla force.So they took the guns away from allthese people in the little villages,and they used the reinforcementforces, the so-called strike forces, toreinforce among several villages.And they took them and movedthem over to the Cambodian border.That lost the entire local-defensephilosophy behind the effort, andthey spent their time running upand down the border town trying tofind people on the Ho Chi Minhtrail. They did a lot of very heroicthings, but I think it just turnedaway from the whole base-building,defensive approach. My line hasalways been that you could conducta strategic offensive through defen-sive tactics. And then, finally, Presi-dent Johnson got impatient andsaid, “We’ve got to get after thisother war,” because his politicalbackground was that you’ve got toget an appeal to the people; you’vegot to help the people. So he said,“That other war has been totallypassed aside when we were chasingaround on search-and-destroy allthe time. Let’s get back to priorityon that.” Then this raised the prob-lem again, how do you keep a unityof command? It took Bob Komer tostraighten out how you could dothat. He first kicked all the agenciesin Washington to start to worktogether better, and then they con-ceived the idea that General West-moreland would have a civiliandeputy for pacification. That deputywould handle all aspects of pacifica-tion, while the rest of the militaryhandled the other, but you had theunity of command in the singleheadquarters. It was a genius idea.Previous to that time, the civilianagencies had resisted the military’staking the thing over. They said thesame thing will happen again:they’ll go chasing off after theenemy instead of building under-

neath. But they didn’t, and so Bobgot it going, and I followed him, andmy contention is that we essentiallywon the war. That’s why I called itLost Victory. We had a victory. Thetest I think was between ’68 and’71. We essentially cleaned the com-munists out of the countryside inSouth Vietnam; there were practi-cally none left, certainly not athreat to the state. We had soimproved the situation that whenthe communists saw this all hap-pening, they saw that they were los-ing. So they mounted up a soldier’swar, a very conventional militaryattack at three points on the fron-tier, and they came across in thespring of ’72. And we, between ’69and ’72, had removed about 500thousand American soldiers fromthe country. There were no morecombat troops left. There were somelogistics and advisory and some air,but no combat troops. But whenthis attack came, it was met on theground by the Vietnamese Army,not the Americans, and it held.Some units broke, but essentially, itheld. Over the course of the nextmonth or two, the enemy waspushed back across the border. Nowit wasn’t without American partici-pation, but the American participa-tion was enormous logistics. Youtrain a foreign army to use Ameri-can weapons and American tactics,you’d better provide it with Ameri-can logistics or it isn’t going towork. And secondly, U.S. air power,which we used quite lavishly andvery effectively, worked out verywell. So here, the combination ofthe Vietnamese on the ground plusthe enormous American support,but not participation, threw theenemy back. I call that victory, ifSouth Vietnam could sustain itself,not with American troops but withAmerican support. That was whatwe were after; that was our nation-al objective. Of course after that,the logistics was cut way back, andby 1975, when the second majorattack took place, there was no pos-sibility of using American airpower, with the Congress in the sit-

42 Special Warfare

uation it was, and bingo, it fellapart, so that’s the “lost” part of the“lost victory.” But the lesson to meis, don’t try to run it with soldiers,don’t try to run it with sweetnessand light, combine it. Use yourintelligence, use your special opera-tions, use your regulars wherethey’re appropriate. But don’t justuse one or the other, use them all incombination.

SW: What do you think we need toremember about that experience aswe look to what we call operationsother than war?Colby: I wrote a piece in theDefense Intelligence Journal hereabout a year ago, and it seems tome that the CORDS experienceoffers some good advice to us —that you don’t have the militaryintelligence, the tactical intelligenceworking just by itself. Because themilitary, with the best will in theworld, are not very political, andthey are not very sensitive to politi-cal problems. The CIA is basicallyinclined to look upward rather thandownward with where the informa-tion goes. So what do you do? Youput them together. Don’t think CIAdoes it all by itself or the Army doesit all by itself. They work as a team,and they work very well. It seems tome that there really is better liaisonbetween the agency and the mili-tary than there used to be, andthat’s to be praised.

SW: What is your opinion of ourmodern special-operations forces?Colby: I think they’re doing a finejob. I’m a great supporter. I applaudthe way the military as a whole hasreally taken to special operations asan important element of our mili-tary structure. Granted it took theCongress to sort of force it downtheir throats, but nonetheless, it’sthere. The fact that there’s a CINC,and you have the kind of structurethere is and the budget that theyhave, apparently being reasonablyprotected, is a good sign. My linehas always been that the most like-ly forces you’re going to use are the

special operations. They’re the onesyou’ll use more often, and I thinkthat’s been demonstrated.

SW: Do you think that likelihoodwill continue into the future?Colby: Albert Einstein said in thelate 1940s that the advent of thenuclear weapon has changed every-thing but the way we think. Well, Ithink that if he were alive today, hewould say the end of the Cold War

has changed everything but the waywe think. With all the benefits ofthe Bottom-Up Review, I think weneed a better intelligence assess-ment as to what kinds of problemswe’re going to face and what weneed forces for. I think there arepotential savings in that. I thinkthat special-operations forces comeout very well in that assessment,because you are essentially talkingabout small engagements, andyou’re talking about an engagementwhich will involve a rounded

approach to a problem, not merelythe application of force — the kindsof things that the special-operationspeople have done in Panama, andwith the Kurds. The question willbe, do we want to intervene in someof these faraway places? I thinkthat there are a lot of them in whichwe won’t. But if we want to inter-vene, I think special operations aresome of the best ways to intervenewith a modest force as part of amultilateral, multinational force.There is a question of how far theAmerican people want to go. I don’tthink they are willing to go a longway, and they’re not willing to goalone. I think that they would agreeto participate in a multilateral forceas maybe one-quarter or one-fifth ofthe force involved. But that meanswe have to figure out the wholerelationship — who works forwhom? It’s a complicated problem.It took us 20 years to figure out thelogistics and the communicationsand command structures in NATO,and that was in the face of the Redarmy, so we had to. We haven’t fig-ured out those relationships for“peacemaking,” and the question is,can we do it now? The administra-tion’s partnership for peace has theelements of how to approach it: aflexible approach of different rela-tions with different nations, bring-ing them into some sort of coordi-nated effort. That’s going in theright direction, but we’re a long wayfrom home.

April 1994 43

“My line has alwaysbeen that the mostlikely force you’regoing to use are thespecial operations,and I think that’sbeen demonstrated.”

44 Special Warfare

‘Trainer’ term incorrectIt was with great pleasure I

recently read SW’s interview withLt. Col. Geoffrey Lambert, Lt. Col.Frank Pedrozo and Col. J.S. Roachregarding the role of Special Forcesduring the course of El Salvador’s12-year civil war (October 1993). Asa former SOF operator during theinitial advisory training effort(1981-1984), I would only point outLt. Col. Lambert’s error in offeringthose Special Forces personnelworking in-country “never wereadvisers ... They never were legallyauthorized to advise.” In all fairnessto the colonel’s statement, it is myprofessional observation he erred infavor of being politically correctregarding an issue which is sorelymisunderstood not only by the pub-lic, but the U.S. military communityas a whole.

Special Forces personnel assignedto the U.S. MilGroup in El Salvadorwere both trainers and advisers, asis evidenced by formal MilGroupdocumentation as well as furtherdocumentation to this effect recent-ly issued by a number of respectedcivilian and military offices.

The operative term “adviser” isused to describe U.S. military per-sonnel assigned to fight in this con-flict throughout the two mostimportant studies published on thewar in El Salvador, American Mili-tary Policy in Small Wars. The Caseof El Salvador (Lt. Cols. A.J. Bace-vich, James D. Hallums, Richard H.White, and Thomas F. Young), andAmerican Counterinsurgency Doc-trine and El Salvador, by BenjaminC. Schwarz of the RAND Institutefor National Defense Research.

Contrary to Lt. Col. Lambert,SOF operators acted as combat

advisers from 1981 onward as hos-tile-fire pay statements signed byCol. Moody E. Hayes, COMISMIL-GP, El Salvador, demonstrate.Engaged in combat in the field(“high-risk areas”), in urban areas(i.e., San Salvador, 1983/84/89) andin their cuartels (i.e., San Miguel,La Union, Usulutan) by often mas-sive FMLN guerrilla forces, theyserved with documented honor anddistinction.

As Special Forces soldiers wehave much to be proud aboutregarding the civil/military victoryof our counterparts over the Marx-ist forces of the FMLN. For the sakeof advisers such as SFC GregoryFronius, who died fighting along-side those Salvadoran soldierswhom he was responsible for, let’snot dishonor this brilliant chapterof Special Forces history by assum-ing a “politically correct” stancewhen it is no longer necessary.

Greg WalkerSenior editor, Behind the LinesFestus, Mo.

Sniper program result of one man’s efforts

Having been there during itsinception, I particularly enjoyed thearticle on the 10th Special ForcesGroup’s sniper-training program(October 1993). I would like to add acouple of purely historical com-ments to this excellent article.

First, the start of the snipertraining program was largely due tothe efforts of one man, SFC BillAmelung. He was one of those truebelievers that are sometimes foundamong the possessors of demandingskills. He believed in large-boremarksmanship and in its applica-

tion in sniping. Buoyed by this con-viction, he took it upon himself toconvince the Group that it shoulddo something in this field. At thattime, continuation of the then-newsniping training program at theIMA was very “iffy.” It had few sup-porters and many opponents. SFCAmelung first convinced the GroupS-3, Maj. Ken Getty, then the DCOand the CO. He was given the obvi-ous reward for his efforts — theinstruction. He did it, overcomingnumerous obstacles. That the pro-gram was started, developed, sur-vived and succeeded is largelyattributable to SFC Amelung’sefforts.

The other comment concerns thesniping range so well described inthe article. This facility was entire-ly built by the 10th SFG withexternal help consisting mostly ofpermission and tolerance. Includedin the shooting house were areasfor weapons maintenance, storageareas and facilities for overnightguards. construction was to resi-dential standards. It was turnedover to the post only when it wascompleted.

Retired Col. J.H. CrerarVienna, Va.

Special Warfare welcomes lettersfrom its readers but may have toedit them for length. Please includeyour full name, rank, address andphone number. Address letters toEditor, Special Warfare; Attn:AOJK-DTP-B; JFK Special WarfareCenter and School; Fort Bragg, NC28307-5000.

LettersSpecial Warfare

April 1994 45

The proposed DA PAM 600-25, Noncommissioned Officer Professional Devel-opment Guide, has chapters covering active- and reserve-component soldiersin CMF 18 (SF), CMF 37 (PSYOP), and CMF 38 (Reserve CA). The chapterscontain information about institutional training, operational assignmentsand self-development that SOF soldiers can use to help manage theircareers. The chapters should be fielded during 1994. For further informa-tion, contact Sgt. Maj. Bill Frisbie, proponent sergeant major, or MSgt.Danny Carpinetti, CMF 18 manager, SWCS Special Operations ProponencyOffice, at DSN 239-9002/2415, commercial (910) 432-2415, fax -9406.

The Army Special Operations Command needs active- and reserve-compo-nent soldiers to fill 37F slots in the 4th PSYOP Group at Fort Bragg, N.C.Applicants should be airborne-qualified or airborne-volunteer privates andspecialists. For more information, call SSgt. Stewart Marin, PERSCOM 37Fcareer adviser, at DSN 221-8340/6044, commercial (703) 325-8340/6044.

The Army Recruiting Command is looking for enlisted SF soldiers to applyfor SF warrant-officer training. Applicants must have fewer than 12 yearsactive federal service (waiverable with DA approval). They must also be inthe grade of staff sergeant or above, have three years’ ODA experience, havea DLPT rating of 1+/1+ or a DLAB score of 85, be an SF O&I graduate, haverecommendations from company, battalion and group commanders, and beunder 36 in the active component or under 42 in the reserve component. Formore information, contact the SF warrant-officer recruiter at DSN 464-0820/0832/ 8779/8789, commercial (502) 624-0820/0832/8779/8789.

The following points of contact may be useful to enlisted SOF soldiers whoneed information about assignments or career development:

Maj. Christopher Allen SF Enlisted Branch chiefMSgt. Philip Taxiera Professional-development NCOMrs. Faye Matheny 18 B, C and D assignments managerMs. Jacqui Velasquez 18 E, F, Z and ROTC assignments,

ANCOC managerMs. Dyna Amey SFQC accession managerSSgt. Stewart Marin 37F assignments, ANCOC managerMrs. Loretta Spivey SF Branch secretary

Assignment-related questions should be directed to the appropriate assign-ment managers and career-development questions to the professional-development NCO. Students attending the SF Qualification Course withassignment-related questions should contact their student PAC. Branchphone numbers are DSN 221-8340/6044, commercial (703) 325-8340/6044.Address correspondence to: Commander, U.S. Total Army Personnel Com-mand; Attn: TAPC-EPK-S; 200 Stovall St.; Alexandria, VA 22331-0452.

DA PAM 600-25 to containchapters on SOF MOSs

Army filling 37F slots in 4th PSYOP Group

Enlisted SF soldiers mayapply for SF warrant officer

PERSCOM points of contact

Enlisted Career NotesSpecial Warfare

46 Special Warfare

Several ongoing warrant-officer actions can have implications for SpecialForces warrant officers:• The revision of AR 611-112, Manual of Warrant Officer MOSs, will notonly provide standards of grade for MOS 180A, but will also regulate thegrade-coded assignments of all SF warrant officers. All W-1/W-2 positionsare on A-detachments; two A-detachments will remain coded W-3, the com-pany position is coded W-3, the battalion position W-4, and both group-level positions are coded W-5. AR 611-112 as a standard of grade will stip-ulate that all entry-level SF warrant officers will initiate a special back-ground investigation for a top-secret security clearance to provide betterassignment potential as senior and master warrant officers.• The revision of DA Pamphlet 600-11, Warrant Officer Professional Devel-opment, will include a chapter on MOS 180A. This pamphlet will providecareer guidance for SF warrant officers and promotion guidance for DAselection boards. This guidance will include the recommended minimum of5-7 years on the operational A-detachment (and up to 14 years, if required)in the warrant ranks of WO1, CWO2, and CWO3. This guidance will alsoemphasize the assignments of 180As in authorized grade-coded positionsand explain the possible negative connotations of an assignment in anunauthorized position. Warrant officers and their commanders shouldunderstand these important implications.• AR 621-1 now provides partially funded degree-completion opportunitiesfor most CWO2s and CWO3s. CWO2s will be eligible for associate-leveltraining and CWO3s for baccalaureate-level training on Army time. Thesedegrees have an impact on promotions to the next higher grades.• The MOS 180A is changing its MOS title and principal duty titles toeliminate the ambiguities sometimes associated with the term “technician”and to better define the duty title of the SF warrant officer. Because SF

SOF officers eligible foradvanced degree in SO/LIC

Warrant-officer actions have implications for SF

Under a recent agreement between the commander of the U.S. Special Oper-ations Command and the Chief of Naval Operations, qualified SOF officerswill be selected for an advanced degree program at the Naval Post GraduateSchool leading to a master of arts in special operations and low-intensityconflict. The purpose of the program is to provide highly qualified officers,with advanced academic schooling, to SOF positions requiring extensiveexpertise in SO/LIC. The SF Branch at PERSCOM will select 10 officers foreach course of instruction. Selected officers will be senior captains or juniormajors with above-average performance fiches. The quota for attendance bybranch and functional area will be six 18A54 and two 18A39 officers percourse. One Ranger Regiment officer and one SOF-aviation officer will alsobe selected by the Infantry and Aviation branches. The academic programwill last 18 months, followed by a three-year utilization tour. Positions so faridentified for utilization are joint billets in theater special-operations com-mands. Interested officers should send a completed DA Form 1618R to Com-mander; U.S. Total Army Personnel Command; TAPC-OPE-SF; 200 StovallStreet; Alexandria, VA 22332-0414. For more information, contact Capt.Ernie Benner at the SF Branch, phone DSN 221-3175/3178.

Officer Career NotesSpecial Warfare

April 1994 47

warrant officers frequently command A-detachments (sometimes as manyas 60 percent and a substantial cumulative portion of most SF warrants’team time is in command), a more concise title was sought and found: onethat includes the word “commander.” The changes are: MOS 180A, “Spe-cial Forces technician,” to MOS 180A “Special Forces warrant officer”;“detachment technician” to “assistant detachment commander”; “companytechnician” to “company operations warrant officer”; “battalion technician”to “battalion operations warrant officer”; and, at the group level, “grouptechnician” to “group intelligence warrant officer” and “group operationswarrant officer.” Titles should be entered as appropriate in Part IIIa of theOER, DA Form 67-8, and on the Officer Record Brief in Section IX, Assign-ment History, under “Duty Title.”• Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow, the commanding general of the SWCS, hasinstituted a policy to cap the age of SF warrant-officer applicants at 36years. All future DA selection boards will be briefed on the desired maxi-mum age of the MOS 180A selectee. The reserve component will use a 42-year age cap for an interim of two years, after which it will adopt the 36-year age cap. As MOS 180A accessions decrease, this qualitative measurewill assist the SF community in selecting those candidates with the bestphysical potential required by the rigors of the A-detachment.• MOS 180A will continue to recruit and select warrant officers eventhough the accession requirements will be reduced in FY 95 and FY 96.Because of the reduced accession requirements, selection into the only truecombat warrant-officer MOS will become increasingly difficult. Applicantswho exceed the DA-mandated active federal service of 12 years will be sub-ject to waiver action from HQDA. The SF proponent will recommendwaivers for qualified soldiers who have 12-14 years of active federal ser-vice. Applicants beyond 14 years of AFS will no longer be competitive orpresent adequate future-service potential. MOS 180A will be very competi-tive, and applicants should consider this aspect of selection when prepar-ing their applications. Key areas of selection will include the applicant’sservice potential, qualifications, experience and language rating.• Qualified NCOs applying for candidacy as SF warrant officers should asktheir commanders for an interview and a letter of recommendation. Theseletters should be individualized and not “generic” endorsements. Appli-cants and their commanders must recognize the importance of the recom-mendations as a qualitative tool for the DA Selection Board.• The CWO3, CWO4 and CWO5 promotion board for active-component war-rant officers will convene May 31, 1994. Zones of consideration will be for:

CWO3 — Above zone: All CWO2s with ADOR 30 Sep 88 and earlierPrimary zone: All CWO2s with ADOR 1 Oct 88 - 30 Sep 89Title 10 does not provide for below-the-zone promotion to CWO3

CWO4 — Above zone: All CWO3s with ADOR 30 Sep 88 and earlierPrimary zone: All CWO3s with ADOR 1 Oct 88 - 30 Sep 89Below zone: All CWO3s with ADOR 1 Oct 89 - 30 Sep 90

CWO5 — Above zone: All CWO4s/MWO4s with ADOR 30 Sep 87 and earlierPrimary zone: All CWO4s/MWO4s with ADOR 1 Oct 87 - 30 Sep 89Below zone: All CWO4s/MWO4s with ADOR 1 Oct 89 - 30 Sep 90

Eligible warrant officers should update their DA photographs, Official Mil-itary Personnel Folders and Officer Record Briefs. For more information onSpecial Forces warrant-officer issues, contact CWO3 Shaun P. Driscoll, SFwarrant-officer manager, SWCS Special Operations Proponency Office, atDSN 239-2415/9002, commercial (910) 432-2415/9002.

48 Special Warfare

Foreign SOFSpecial Warfare

Turkey bolsters effortsagainst terrorist group

Czechs resume Semtex exports

In August 1993 Turkey announced its intention to begin increasing policeand military forces designated to conduct operations against the terroristKurdish Workers’ Party, or PKK. Under this plan, “special teams” within theGeneral Directorate of Police would be strengthened with personnel who willreceive six months training in police schools. Some 3,000 troops will beselected from commando units for the military component. They will haveserved in southeastern Anatolia, be especially well-paid and be expected to“live like the PKK members live” in the mountains. While under the SpecialOperations Department of the Turkish armed forces, the teams will operateunder the control of ground-force and gendarmerie commanders. An associ-ated intelligence organization of military and civilian personnel will provideinformation on PKK bases, deployments and operations.

The on-again, off-again export of the general-purpose plastic explosive Sem-tex, manufactured in Czechoslovakia during the height of the Cold War andlinked to terrorist groups around the world, is scheduled to resume. TheCzech Republic recently announced that exports were beginning to selectedcountries. The first Semtex shipment under the resumed exports willreportedly go to the British Defense Ministry. Czech reporting suggests thatthe British authorities intend to run experiments on the explosive that isoften used by Irish Republican Army terrorists — including the October1993 destruction of a building in Belfast. According to the 1991 internation-al convention signed in Montreal, Semtex intended for industrial applica-tions is to be a bright red-orange color and detectable by security-monitor-ing equipment. Variants of the explosive produced for civilian purposes arealso less powerful than the nearly odorless version that became a favoriteweapon of terrorists. Despite this and the export ban that had earlier beenin place, Semtex continues to be smuggled across borders. Substantialquantities of the explosive have been stolen from industrial enterprises inthe Czech and Slovak republics for sale on the black market. Shortly beforethe most recent ban was lifted, Czech police seized 100 kilograms of indus-trial Semtex from a group of Czech citizens who were planning its illegalsale abroad. In Slovakia last October, some 900 kilograms of the explosivewere stolen from the warehouse of a private firm, together with more than2,000 detonators. Czech officials candidly admit that they have no idea howmuch Semtex has been stolen or illegally diverted, and the continued black-market trade in the explosive seems certain.

In late November, President Alberto Fujimori of Peru made a dramaticrejection at the United Nations in New York of a proposal by the SenderoLuminoso guerrillas for peace negotiations. The Peruvian government hastaken an “unconditional surrender” approach, although an amnesty law,the Law of Repentance, allows for individual surrender and impunity forpast association with the guerrilla group. Sendero Luminoso has becomesynonymous with fanaticism, though there seems to be more continuityand vision to the organization than would be expected from a simple per-sonality-based movement that had lost its top leadership. In the euphoric

Andean Ridge governmentsincrease counterinsurgency

resolve

April 1994 49

Articles in this section are written by Dr. Graham H. Turbiville Jr. and Lt. Col. Geoffrey B. Demarest of the ForeignMilitary Studies Office, Combined Arms Command, Fort Leavenworth, Kan. All information is unclassified.

aftermath of SL leader Abimail Guzman’s capture last year, Fujimoripromised to eliminate the group by 1995. Now the government seems to bebacking off from that goal in light of SL’s apparent resilience. Neverthe-less, Fujimori’s tough policy is both an indicator of government confidenceand a morale booster for the stressed Peruvian public. Problems witharmed local self-defense committees in rural areas, car bombings in Limaand criticism of the president’s governance by decree are balanced by ameasure of efficiency in the counterguerrilla efforts of the security forcesand by generally positive economic trends. In sum, while Sendero Lumi-noso may be a resilient foe, the Peruvian state is more robust than it wassometimes thought to be.In Colombia, there also appears be a renewed commitment to overcome itsleftist armed opposition. Security-force budgets continue to rise and majorreforms, both of the military forces and, more importantly, of the police,are on the verge of implementation. Police reforms include short- and long-term projects to improve internal order. Higher pay scales and higher edu-cational requirements for police personnel are tied to a new organizationalstructure. The police will stay under the ministry of defense to assure theirapolitical professionalism, but they will have a new look and more mis-sions. Lightly armed urban police will patrol Colombia’s major cities whiletwo other distinct subdivisions provide security services in rural areas.One of these would be given the capability and mission to counter orga-nized internal armed groups. The hope is to eventually withdraw theColombian Army as the primary countersubversive force in the country.Meanwhile, drug trafficking remains a challenge. New twists include theproduction and export of “liquid marijuana” (a more transportable mari-juana extract) and an apparent reassertiveness of the ancient emeraldmafia. Colombian society, however, seems to be increasingly unified inmeeting the challenge. Special operations against internal enemies of thestate may fall increasingly to police departments and less to militaryforces. Whether or not the Colombian police can develop the level of profes-sionalism and public legitimacy necessary to assume missions now fallingto the military is in great measure dependent on funding commitments bythe Colombian government.

Opium poppy cultivationreported in Peru

Peruvian authorities are monitoring reports of opium-poppy cultivation intraditional Peruvian coca-growing areas. According to Peruvian assess-ments, limited numbers of poppies are being grown in the Amazonas andCajamarca areas, with Colombian narco-traffickers reported to be dis-tributing poppy seeds in Peru’s Sisa River Valley, San Martin Province.Poppy cultivation in Colombia itself increased rapidly in the late 1980s,although earlier reports were sparse. Heroin laboratories soon appeared,and by the early 1990s a vigorous, profitable heroin trade with the U.S.and Europe had developed. Peruvian specialists assert their intention toprevent the establishment of significant poppy cultivation in Peru. Theypoint out that a glut of cocaine on world markets, falling prices for the cocacultivators and high profits to be made from heroin are factors that adviseearly Peruvian countermeasures.

50 Special Warfare

Jedburgh veterans dedicatememorial stone

Members of an elite World War IIunit gathered at the JFK Plaza Jan.28 to dedicate a granite marker tothe memory of their unit and fallencomrades.

Hosted by Lt. Gen. J.T. Scott,commander of the Army SpecialOperations Command, the dedica-tion ceremony paid tribute to theJedburghs, units of the Office ofStrategic Services that operatedbehind enemy lines in three-manteams.

“This stone memorializes thecourage and accomplishments of theJedburghs and reminds us of theneed for special-operations soldiers— soldiers willing to make the ulti-mate sacrifice for their country,”Scott said.

The OSS created 99 three-manJedburgh teams during World WarII to provide special-operations sup-port for the allied invasion of Ger-man-occupied France and theNetherlands. The teams, normallyconsisting of one French officer, oneAmerican or British officer, and anenlisted radio operator, penetrateddeep behind enemy lines to workwith resistance groups in harassingGerman forces.

The Jedburghs became a tremen-dous combat multiplier in Europe,disrupting the movement of thou-sands of German troops and theirsupplies. The standards they setand the traditions they establishedlive on in modern special-operationsforces, Scott said.

Jedburgh team member and for-mer director of the Central Intelli-gence Agency William Colby wasguest speaker for the ceremony.Although technology, equipment

and training are better today thanthey were in the 1940s, Colby said,there is a direct link between theJedburghs and modern SpecialForces soldiers through the empha-sis placed in both training programson cultural preparation. — SusanJackson, USASOC PAO

19th SF Group looking for MI soldiers

The 19th Special Forces Group islooking for NCOs qualified in mili-tary intelligence.

The unit has openings for NCOsin MOSs 96D, 96B, 97B, 97E, 98C,98G and 98H.

The 19th SF Group has units inUtah, Colorado and West Virginia.Members will have opportunitiesfor advanced military schooling,OCONUS deployments and real-world missions, according to Capt.James P. Dorschner, Group S-2.For more information, contact

Dorschner or SSgt. Brad Kingstonat DSN 766-3737, commercial (801)576-3737.

Soldiers must meet course prerequisites

The JFK Special Warfare Centerand School’s 2nd Battalion, 1st Spe-cial Warfare Training Group,reports that some students areturned away once they show up fortraining in military free fall, under-water operations and operationsand intelligence courses becausethey do not meet the prerequisites.

Prerequisites for the courses arelisted below:

• Military Free-Fall ParachutistCourse — Open to active- orreserve-component officers, warrantofficers or enlisted personnel in spe-cial-operations forces who areassigned to, or on orders for assign-ment to, a military free fall-codedposition; or selected DoD personnelor allied personnel who are quali-fied military parachutists. Appli-cants must have passed the high-altitude, low-opening physicalexamination in accordance with AR40-501, Chapter 5, Paragraph 5-5,within one year prior to class dateand must report with completemedical records, including originalHALO examination, on day of in-processing. Applicants must havenine months remaining in serviceupon graduation.

• SF Combat Diver QualificationCourse — Open to active- orreserve-component Army or selectedDoD personnel assigned or onorders to a special-operations-forcesunit. Applicants must be male com-missioned officers, warrant officersor enlisted personnel. They mustpass a scuba physical examination

UpdateSpecial Warfare

Jedburgh veterans join modern-day USASOCsoldiers in dedicating the memorial stone.

Photo by Keith Butler

in accordance with AR 40-501,Chapter 5, Paragraph 5-8, withinone year before the course comple-tion date and must report withmedical records on the day of in-processing. Applicants must passthe Army Physical Readiness Testwith a minimum of 70 points ineach event and an overall score of210 or above (scored on the 17-21-year age group) and must meetheight and weight standards out-lined in AR 600-9.

• SF Assistant Operations andIntelligence Sergeant Course —Applicants must be members ofactive- or reserve-component Spe-cial Forces units. They must be staffsergeants or above, be MOS 18-series qualified for at least threeyears and have served in an SFoperational unit for at least threeyears. They must also pass theAPRT within 30 days before attend-ing the course (verified by the com-mander), have a current periodic SFphysical in accordance with AR 40-501, Chapter 5, Paragraph 5-3, andbe airborne-qualified, able to partic-ipate in airborne operations and onjump status.

For more information on coursesin the SWCS 2nd Battalion, contactSFC Robert De Groff at DSN 239-4420, commercial (910) 432-4420.

USSOCOM develops Civil Affairs data base

A global Civil Affairs data base isbeing developed under the supervi-sion of the U.S. Special OperationsCommand.

The data base, which will beavailable to all CA soldiers viamodem, will become the primarysource for all Civil Affairs informa-tion, according to Pamela Dover, aCivil Affairs data base action officerin the Army Civil Affairs and Psy-chological Operations Command.

Maps, which will identify monu-ments, artifact locations, trans-portation assets and populationstatistics, will be quickly retrievedby telephone and then downloadedinto portable lap-top computers

throughout the CA community inthe future, Dover said.

A prototype of the data base wasrecently presented to members ofUSACAPOC at its headquarters atFort Bragg. At the presentation,programmers stressed that the sys-tem being developed compiles infor-mation in a format compatible withFM 41-10, Civil Affairs Operations.

Covering the 22 CA functionalareas, the data-base information isorganized into a system that CA sol-diers can quickly understand andretrieve, said Juergen Buehring, acomputer specialist in the USSO-COM J-9 section.

Training and user manuals arenow being developed for the system,Buehring said. He expects the sys-tem to be operational in about ayear. — Gerard Healy, USASOCPAO

FM 100-5 package releasedon CD-ROM

The Army Training and DoctrineCommand has released an educa-tional package to accompany therelease of the new Field Manual100-5, Operations.

Developers say the package canbe a valuable tool that will assistcommanders and leaders in devel-oping training and leader-develop-ment programs.

The package has three elements:a CD-ROM computer disk, a 35mmslide presentation with a script, anda VHS videotape.

The CD-ROM disk contains boththe 1986 and 1993 versions of FM100-5 and copies of FM 25-100,Training the Force, FM 25-1-1, Bat-tle Focused Training, The NationalSecurity Strategy of the UnitedStates and The U.S. National Mili-tary Strategy.

Three audio-visual animations onthe disk explain the concept of bat-tle space, the dynamics betweenoperational offense and defense,and the concept of simultaneousattack in depth. Teaching pointsaccompany each animation.

The slide presentation and script

explain the new FM 100-5 in termsof new concepts and the strategiccontext in which it was developed.The videotape gives viewers histori-cal insight into the production ofArmy keystone doctrine and its rel-evance to the Army.

Initial distribution of the train-ing package sent 1,200 copies ofthe CD-ROM disk and 650 copies ofthe slide presentation and video-tape to active- and reserve-compo-nent Army units. For more infor-mation, contact Lt. Col. Pat Ritter,TRADOC School of Advanced Mili-tary Studies, at DSN 552-2138/3345.

ACAP services ease job transition

Soldiers and civilians leaving theArmy because of downsizing canmake a smoother transition byplanning ahead and taking advan-tage of the Army’s program for tran-sition assistance.

The Army Career and AlumniProgram, known as ACAP, has beendeveloped to ensure that Army per-sonnel experience a successful tran-sition into civilian life. It is open toArmy personnel, family membersover 18 and DA civilians affected byforce alignment or reduction.

ACAP provides a number of ser-vices, including individual transi-tion plans, automated career plan-ning, quarterly job fairs, small-busi-ness counseling, workshops andbenefits counseling. Personnel mayattend ACAP as many as 180 daysprior to their terminal leave or ETSdate.

To take full advantage of theprogram, affected soldiers andcivilians should register as early aspossible. Commanders, firstsergeants and unit leaders canassist by affording personnel everyopportunity to participate. Formore information, contact theACAP office on your installation.

April 1994 51

52 Special Warfare

Getting It Right: American Mili-tary Reform After Vietnam tothe Gulf War and Beyond. ByJames F. Dunnigan and RaymondM. Macedonia. New York: WilliamMorrow & Company, 1993. ISBN 0-688-12096-2. 320 pages. $23.

Everyone is getting involved inthe reform business — even ourDefense Department. Historically,America’s military forces have hada lackluster performance, in spite ofseveral reorganizations andinspired leadership. This has beenparticularly true following the firstbattle of a major conflict. In Febru-ary, 1991, the American militarydid something unique. For the firsttime in history, U.S. troops won thefirst battle of a war and did it withminimal losses. The Gulf War wasan unqualified success.

The recent work by James F.Dunnigan and Raymond Macedoniatraces the sweep of reforms in ourarmed services over nearly twodecades — from the painful after-math of Vietnam to the Gulf War.The authors appear to be well-qual-ified to speak on the subject of mili-tary reform. Dunnigan has beendesigning war games for the U.S.military since 1966 and helped tore-establish war-gaming at the U.S.Army War College.

Retired Army Col. RaymondMacedonia, educated at the Univer-sity of Pittsburgh, the WhartonBusiness School and New York Uni-versity, later served on the facultyat the U.S. Military Academy atWest Point. He also held severalkey assignments on the Joint Staff,including directing interagency ana-lytical study efforts which led tonegotiations with the former SovietUnion on mutual and balanced force

reductions.Written primarily for civilians,

Dunnigan and Macedonia’s workfocuses on their concept of a “victorydisease,” an affliction caught bymost armies after they have foughta war. The authors summarize thesymptoms of this disease by explor-ing the following issues:

• “It worked so well last time,let’s do it again next time.” — Theauthors contend that the victorydisease tends to make winnersblind to needed technological andorganizational changes.

• “Congratulations, you’refired!” — According to the authors,nations, particularly democracies,do not willingly spend largeamounts of money on troops inpeacetime.

• “What exactly did we do inorder to win?” — Losers want todump old habits and winners arereluctant to fiddle with what isobviously a winning combination.

The book’s strong suit lies in

telling the story of early visionarieswhose impacts are still felt intoday’s military. These includeArmy Gen. William DePuy, ofwhom the authors say, “He led theway in breaking the mold by creat-ing an Army trained and ready towin its first battles quickly, deci-sively, and with minimum casual-ties.” DePuy is credited with estab-lishing the U.S. Army Training andDoctrine Command, which recentlycelebrated its 20th year of con-tributing doctrinal, training andforce-structure enhancements toour modern Army.

Also included in this list of vision-aries are Retired Army Gen. Paul F.Gorman, former commander inchief for U.S. Southern Commandfrom 1983-84, who is praised for hisefforts in helping to establish theNational Training Center at FortIrwin, Calif.; Retired Army Gen.William R. Richardson, who is cred-ited with establishing the AirLandBattle doctrine; and Retired ArmyGen. Maxwell R. Thurman, “Anextraordinary man with exceptionaltalent and creativity,” who wasinstrumental in turning the volun-teer Army into a quality fightingforce.

If this volume has a weakness, itlies in the highly generalized “shot-gun” descriptions of the condition ofthe Army’s noncommissioned officercorps following the Vietnam War.The authors describe this group ofwarriors as “drifting toward booze,brawling, and (having) complicatedlove lives.” Nothing could be furtherfrom the truth. Having benefitedfrom the experience and wisdom ofsome of these outstanding individu-als during his early military career,this reviewer can certainly vouchfor their many contributions to

Book ReviewsSpecial Warfare

today’s Army.Getting It Right describes some of

the crucial issues facing today’s mil-itary. It provides the reader withplenty of material from which todevelop informed opinions of ourmilitary forces and their role in aNew World Order.

Maj. Michael E. Long360th CA BrigadeColumbia, S.C.

Understanding War: Essays onClausewitz and the History ofMilitary Power. By Peter Paret.Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Universi-ty Press, 1992. ISBN: 0-691-00090-5(paper). 229 pages.

Peter Paret, professor of historyat the Institute for Advanced Studyat Princeton University, is perhapsAmerica’s foremost expert on Karlvon Clausewitz and his political-military writings. Therefore, any ofParet’s thoughts and opinions needto be taken seriously.

This book is a collection of Paret’sessays and speeches on Clausewitzand war in 19th-century Europe,compiled over his illustrious aca-demic career. Paret provides dozensof insights into Clausewitz’s think-ing and the times in which hewrote. As such, this book is anexcellent companion to Paret’s andMichael Howard’s translation ofClausewitz’s On War — the besttranslation of Clausewitz on themarket. Perhaps a better title forthis latest work would be, “Under-standing Clausewitz and HisTimes” — for this is what the bookdoes best.

Since Clausewitz lived and foughtduring the Napoleonic era, Paretgives much space to the discussionof Napoleon and his war-fightingstrategies and their effect on politi-cal and military figures and theo-rists of the day. Paret deserves con-gratulations for his syntheticapproach to the subject. By examin-ing the social, economic, politicaland military means for making warin the 19th century, he enhancesour understanding of the total envi-

ronment of central Europe at thattime.

As in all compilations of differentworks, Paret’s book suffers from alack of continuity, but this observa-tion need not be interpreted as criti-cism. In fact, because of the way thebook is divided into three parts,with 16 chapters, it makes superbbedtime reading. No essay is so longthat it would keep you up late.

Although many of his chaptersmake for interesting reading,Paret’s expositions on “Nationalismand the Sense of Military Obliga-tion,” and “Conscription and theEnd of the Ancien Regime in Franceand Prussia,” are most thought-pro-voking. These two essays go to theheart of the body politic and itsrelationship to nationalism —which is what made Napoleon’sdraft of two million Frenchmen intohis military possible. Many ofParet’s observations about the 19thcentury retain value today.

For instance, he writes, “National-ism implies a measure of sacrifice ofmen’s immediate concerns for thegreater good; but on occasion thecommon cause may appear to beimperfectly represented,” and “How-ever men have felt about fighting fortheir country — ecstatic, resentful,resigned — whatever their attitude,it has rarely been in perfect harmo-

ny with the principles and expecta-tions of their governments.”

Paret’s discourse concerning theAmerican Revolutionary War andits effect, or more correctly, its lackof effect, on European militarythought is also fascinating. Of par-ticular interest to Clausewitzianscholars will be Paret’s observationsin “Clausewitz: Life and Thought,”and his publication, with commen-tary, of two of Clausewitz’s previ-ously unpublished letters concern-ing strategy.

A possible criticism is that thebook assumes knowledge the readermay not possess. Paret’s essaysappear targeted at graduate-levelaudiences who have already readOn War and have studied the warsof 19th-century Europe. If the read-er does not have this scholasticbackground, then the book may beof limited utility.

Moreover, Paret’s style of writingtends toward the “old academic” —his sentences are sometimes overlylong and complex. Paret alsoassumes the reader’s knowledge of19th-century French, British andGerman history. This is under-standable, but unfortunately, again,limits his audience to graduate stu-dents or well-read military-historybuffs.

Overall, and with an understand-ing of their limitations, Paret’sessays are illuminating and inter-esting. Understanding War,although too grand a title for a col-lection of any one person’s essays, isenlightening reading.

Lt. Col. Robert B. Adolph Jr.Joint Special Operations Cmd.Fort Bragg, N.C.

April 1994 53

Department of the ArmyJFK Special Warfare Center and SchoolATTN: AOJK – DTP – BFort Bragg, NC 28307 – 5000

This publication is approved for public release; distribution is unlimited ■ Headquarters, Department of the Army

Special Warfare

BULK RATEU.S. Postage

PAIDRochester, NY

Permit No. 1025

PIN: 072070–000