By David Isenberg
During the 1980s, "Special Operations", along with "Low Intensity Conflict" (LIC), became Washington's favourite buzz words. US policy makers view special forces as the solution to a world where threats to US interests are increasingly varied and diffuse.
The Department of Defence asserts that the major threats to the United States are "uncertainty, instability, and regional contingencies". Administration officials see special forces, like the traditional covert forces of the intelligence agencies, as an option between doing nothing and engaging in a full-scale war. But the Gulf War demonstrated that special forces can also operate in an all-out war.
"Within developing nations, dramatic increases in population and growing dissatisfaction with the perpetual gap between the rich and poor will continue to be major causes of unrest and insurgency", writes General Carl Stiner, head of the US Special Operations Command. "In a world marked by conflicting political, social and economic systems, there will always be those who consider their interests at odds with the United States."
LIC is one way to deal with those whose "interests are at odds" with the US. The US military defines LIC as "political-military confrontation between contending states or groups below conventional war and above the routine, peaceful competition among states ... waged by a combination of means employing political, economic, informational and military instruments".
A Congressional Research Service study concludes that "successful LIC operations allow highly developed states to achieve selected objectives while reducing risks in a world where the proliferation of mass destruction weapons, missile delivery systems, and other sophisticated devices make mid- and high-intensity warfare increasingly unattractive to rational decision makers".
Special Operation Forces (SOF) are key to LIC. Generically speaking, special forces are elite units. Special operations are "conducted by specially trained, equipped, and organised ... forces against strategic or tactical targets in pursuit of national military, political, economic, or psychological objectives. These operations may be conducted during periods of peace or hostilities. They may support conventional operations, or they may be prosecuted independently ..."
Long history
Long before the term special operations existed, US military forces were intervening in "low-intensity conflicts" and carrying them out as well. US Marines did so during 1801-07 in the "war" against the Barbary pirates. As US economic interests expanded worldwide in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, so did the use of the Marines.
Since 1985, the Marine Corps have had the Marine Expeditionary Unit/Special Operations Capable, or MEU (SOC). Six of these units, two of which are special operations capable, rotate on routine deployment to the Mediterranean and the Pacific Rim. In 1988 they saw combat in the Persian Gulf, attacking Iranian oil rigs and landing on suspected mine-laying ships.
A typical MEU contains about 2500 Marines and sailors trained to carry out some 18 specific missions, from non-combatant evacuations operations (such as Liberia in 1990) to training foreign military forces.
Army special forces units are the descendants of World War II units such as the Office of Strategic Services, Darby's Rangers and the Jedburgh Teams. In 1952, the Army formed the 10th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to wage guerilla or "unconventional warfare" in the event of a Soviet invasion of western Europe. The first non-Europe deployment of US special forces, aside from the Korean War, occurred in 1956, when Washington sent troops to Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam. By 1958, the basic operational unit of Special Forces had emerged as a 12-man team known as A-Detachment or A-team.
US special forces became more explicitly involved in counterinsurgency with President John F. Kennedy's second National Security Action Memorandum, ratified on February 3, 1961. One month later, the army doubled the number of special forces units.
Special forces played an extensive role during the Vietnam War, along with other counterinsurgency operatives such as the CIA's Operation Phoenix and the Marines' "combined action platoons". After Vietnam, the Pentagon reduced special force units.
It was not until the Reagan administration that their advocates again found a sympathetic ear, following the failed Iranian hostage rescue attempt in 1980 and problems in the 1983 invasion of Grenada. The 1983 Beirut bombing of the US embassy and of the Marine compound at Beirut airport strengthened the arguments of those seeking to revitalise US special forces, and led to the creation of a Joint Special Operations Agency in 1984. Between 1981 and the end of 1984, special operations funding nearly doubled, from $441 million to almost $800 million, and their active-duty number increased almost 30%, from 11,600 to 14,900.
The most notable Reagan era development was the 1986 creation of the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) as the newest of eight unified commands in the US military's combatant structure. USSOCOM has control over 42,000 Army, Air Force and Navy active, reserve and national guard forces.
When TWA flight 847 was hijacked in 1985, the Army's Delta Force was flown to Europe to await an opportunity to launch a rescue attempt. Three months later, when the Achille Lauro was taken over by renegade Palestinian fighters, Delta Force and a SEAL team prepared for a rescue attempt, and SEALs participated in the subsequent capture of some of the hijackers when their plane was intercepted.
In 1987 the Army's special operations helicopter unit, Task Force 160, deployed secretly to the Persian Gulf as part of the reflagging operations of the Kuwait oil tankers. They played a key role in attacking the Iranian oil platforms being used to launch attacks on the tankers.
SOF personnel conducted many missions in the 1989 invasion of Panama. That turned out to be only a warm-up for what was to come.
The US military build-up in the Middle East after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait included nearly 10,000 special operations forces — the largest deployment of special forces in history. Among the first units to deploy to Saudi Arabia in August 1991, they carried out missions before, during and after the war, and included special forces from the Army, Air Force and Navy, and Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) and civil affairs units.
The mission included reconnaissance, psychological operations, "civil affairs", direct action and search and rescue operations. They also aided Kurdish refugees and supported other allied military forces.
Language specialists served as liaisons with Arab forces. Members of the 5th Special Forces Group, for example, helped reconstitute the Kuwaiti army from a handful of volunteers to five light infantry brigades.
Broadcasting death
Specific special operations missions included dropping high-tech parachutes to drift through the night sky and report on enemy positions, disabling communications towers and water wells, and using lasers to target Scud missile launchers and tank emplacements for air attack. Special forces also placed explosive charges on bridges to cut off Iraqi avenues of retreat.
A Navy SEAL team secretly boarded a freighter intercepted by the US Navy in mid-August and infiltrated Kuwait to protect the US embassy. One unconfirmed report asserts that coalition special forces tried but failed to capture a Soviet adviser to the Iraqi Army during the war.
Members of the Air Force's 1st Special Operations Wing dropped the massive Vietnam-era 15,000 pound BLU-82 bombs, killing large numbers of Iraqi soldiers and inducing others to desert or surrender.
Air Force special forces conducted many armed reconnaissance and fire support missions in southern Iraq and Kuwait. Army special operations personnel also conducted long-range helicopter reconnaissance missions in central and west-central Iraq.
Navy SEALS dropped from helicopters on 25 occasions into Gulf waters to detonate mines.
On the final day of the war the Iraqis had moved 26 Scud missiles near their western border for a saturation attack on Israel. Members of the US Delta Force, along with British SAS commandos and regular US Air Force personnel, destroyed them.
After the war there were reports that special forces personnel helped round up Palestinians from suspected "safe houses" in Kuwait City. About 1500 special forces aided Iraqi Kurds who fled after the failed uprisings against Saddam Hussein.
Less oversight
Since the Gulf War, US special forces have become the golden boys of the national security establishment. Military planners expect special forces to play a role in literally all possible future conflicts.
They no doubt will play a greater role in the Middle East, especially in intelligence gathering as Congress moves to reshape the intelligence establishment. Covert operations traditionally conducted by the CIA may be assigned to special forces.
Policy makers who hesitate to deploy regular military forces see special forces as the ideal response to insurgencies, terrorist actions and hostage taking. They believe special operations will face less congressional oversight than traditional intelligence agencies.
In 1990, General James Lindsay, then head of USSOCOM, pushed for blanket approval to conduct certain clandestine missions without oversight from the CIA or the State Department. The move was disapproved but is likely to come up again.
Where the enemies are "uncertainty" and "instability", special forces will be shock troops of the New World Order.
[From Third World Network Features, 87 Cantonnment Rd,10250 Penang, Malaysia.]