Human intelligence (HUMINT) in Africa at the time left much to be desired. Al-Qaeda had a decided footprint on the continent and had launched multiple devastating operations against U.S. embassies and the USS Cole pre-9/11. It wasn’t until the terrorist organization diverted high-profile individuals and sizable dollar figures to the region that Africa’s role in a post-Afghanistan al-Qaeda became clear.
In some ways, the CJTF-HOA was a screen for JSOC. While the Combined Joint Task Force had to work with host nations and engage in diplomatic genuflection in a kind of global CSI, JSOC moved with purpose to build from scratch a serious intelligence apparatus. Just as General Michael Flynn would face in Iraq, high levels of classification and compartmentalization obstructed intelligence analysis. As did the Iraq campaign, for that matter. Resources that might otherwise have proved vital in the Horn of Africa were diverted. Yet while U.S. operations are now drawing to a close in Mesopotamia, and terrorist activities flourish in such places as Somalia, Africa still wants for intelligence assets.
Still, along with the SEAL insertion in 2003, CIA paramilitaries and JSOC Mission Support Activity (or Task Force Orange) launched daring operations to make up for lost time on the intelligence front. At first, the intelligence missions were about gathering and confirming information, but, as Naylor concludes, “They soon expanded to include working with warlords to hunt al-Qaida members, tapping cellphones, purchasing anti-aircraft missiles and, ultimately, developing a deeper understanding of al-Qaida’s East African franchise and how it fit into the wider al-Qaida network.”2
Eventually, U.S. operatives persuaded warlords to whack or sack al-Qaeda operatives. Enemies captured by Somalis would be treated to “extraordinary rendition”—or capture and interrogation not otherwise permitted if captured by U.S. forces. For their part, warlords, who worked only for the highest bidder, were given to believe that betraying the United States would mean missile strikes. Though no such U.S. aircraft were in the region, the ruse worked. Had things gone wrong in a region where just about everyone was hostile to U.S. personnel and interests, the Joint Special Operations Task Force–Horn of Africa, under the code name MYSTIC TALON, secretly stood ready to go in with extreme prejudice and rescue captured Americans.
While image intelligence assets remained tasked in Iraq, Orange used its specialization in signals intelligence to invade the Somali cell phone network, and it paid off in big ways. It wasn’t long before serious counterintelligence operations could be drawn up and executed. Not only were key al-Qaeda figures targeted by cruise missiles, but U.S. intelligence could now see where various terrorist cells intersected and better understand how they might be dismembered.
In 2006, that intelligence (a still-ongoing and effective program) would be applied with a dagger’s edge, as JSOC took advantage of the conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia. Though the Command was inexplicably caught flat-footed at the time, it soon inserted a small number of hunter-killers to work alongside Ethiopian special operations teams. JSOC might have gone larger but for anxieties in Washington.
The Pentagon and the White House decided to focus on key terrorists, eschewing the possibility of large Somali casualties. Naylor quotes an official who said, “If we wanted to kill a couple of thousand guys, we could have done that pretty much any time.”3 A small JSOC footprint prevented jihadists from pointing to the U.S. presence as some kind of holy war against Islam.
Meanwhile, under the aegis of General Stanley McChrystal, JSOC’s command presence spread from a few people in Nairobi to stations throughout Kenya and into the capital of Ethiopia and across the Horn of Africa. This command would soon produce kinetic operations and a fast, deep operations tempo. In the process, it would seem as if Africa would transition from a CIA to a wider Defense Department theater.
•••
With policymakers obsessed with tracking down every last member of al-Qaeda, the Command’s other capabilities have atrophied. We know this because Admiral Eric Olson, the former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, said as much to Congress in a little-noticed written answer to questions late last year. According to the admiral, special operations forces needed more resources to combat the threat of nuclear proliferation.
Implicitly referring to JSOC, he said that the weapons of mass destruction (WMD)–hunting capacity of the special missions units has been “limited” due to a lack of time and money to sufficiently train for those types of contingency missions. This is the backwash from success in the war on terror. The gravest threat to the world, as stated by President Barack Obama, is nuclear terrorism. The focus of the force best equipped to counter that threat has been otherwise occupied. JSOC is merely one part of SOCOM, which, at one point during the last decade, was deployed in more than fifty-five countries simultaneously. So-called white, or acknowledged, special operations forces, such as the Rangers, the Green Berets, and the SEAL teams—laid the groundwork for many JSOC successes and found themselves competing with JSOC for resources at the same time. Special Forces Command suffered a high casualty rate, too. But JSOC was sexy. Its direct action missions were more easily evaluated in terms of success or failure. The U.S. Army Special Forces colonel who stands up a school in Afghanistan “will get very little attention and almost no impact on a national strategy, and yet he’s making as much of a difference as JSOC,” a special forces general officer with JSOC experience put it, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “I think that those people making decisions on national-level policy need to be very cautious of overdependence on a policy that is impacted by a classified operation or unit,” he said.
While SOCOM’s budget doubled from 2001 to 2011, Admiral William McRaven now faces the task of rebalancing the overall command and rebuilding basic unconventional warfare capabilities, while ensuring that the special missions can be carried out. He has told senators that he worries that SEAL combat swimming skills and Ranger airfield-securing capabilities are rusty.
Michele Malvesti, a former senior director for combating terrorism during the Bush administration and the daughter of a Delta Force commander who died in a training accident, was more blunt in an article written for the Center for a New American Security:
Over the past nine years SOF have focused on unconventional warfare, counterinsurgency, and most prominently and extensively, on CT operations. Such time and attention appropriately match the nature of the conflicts in which SOF are engaged today.
Yet arguably the gravest threat to U.S. national security is WMD terrorism. The proliferation of WMD capabilities to state actors presents a related challenge for the future. While there is some overlap in the counterterrorism and counterproliferation missions, SOCOM must continue to ensure that it has established and regularly reviews the right readiness metrics for WMD counterproliferation, with SOF fully exercising and maintaining a robust ability to locate, capture or destroy, or render safe weapons of mass destruction in a variety of situations and environments. Virtually no other military component or U.S. department or agency has the ability to conduct the full range of counterproliferation missions or address WMD networks under the unique set of conditions in which SOF have been trained to operate and complete such tasks.4
Malvesti has several proposed solutions, but one of them is increased transparency and oversight and a rededicated focus by the special missions units on actual special missions, rather than on what amounts to tactical infantry strikes. (See here the disastrous 2011 shoot-down of a U.S. Army Chinook, which took the lives of thirty U.S. service members, including a SEAL team, the helicopter crew, and the pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Bryan Nichols.)
When visitors are given access to JSOC’s sprawling compound at Pope, they must first drive up Malvesti Road, which is named after Michele’s father. Michele, by virtue of her own academic work and because she grew up as one of them, is considered by many in JSOC to be a plank holder in the small community. Her word can open or shut doors, so it’s significant that she’s taken a stand. JSOC has changed the wor
ld, and now the world is changing JSOC.
Notes
1. Sean Naylor, “The Secret War in Africa,” Army Times, November 2011, http://militarytimes.com/projects/navy-seals-horn-of-africa/.
2. Sean Naylor, “Clandestine Somalia Missions Yield AQ Targets,” Army Times, November 14, 2011, http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/11/army-clandestine-somalia-missions-yield-al-qaida-targets-111411/.
3. Sean Naylor, “The Secret War: Tense Ties Plagued Africa Ops,” Army Times, November 28, 2011, http://www.navytimes.com/news/2011/11/army-tense-ties-plagued-africa-ops-112811w/.
4. Michele Malvesti, “Time for Action: Redefining SOF Missions and Activities, Center for New American Security, http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/SOF_malvesti_Dec2009_code304_policybrief_0.pdf.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Tip of the Spear
Chapter 2: Doers, Not Teachers
Chapter 3: Interrogations and Intelligence
Chapter 4: Find, Fix, and Finish
Chapter 5: The Tools for the Job
Chapter 6: A Known Unknown
Chapter 7: When You See the Word National, You Know It Is Important
Chapter 8: The Activity
Chapter 9: Semper ad Meliora
Chapter 10: Widening the Playing Field
Chapter 11: Target: Africa
The Command: Deep Inside the President's Secret Army Page 8