Special Warfare

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

PB 80981

Winter 1998

Vol. 11, No. 1

From the Commandant

Special Warfare

In the previous issue of Special Warfare, we

emphasized the future of ARSOF by presenting the ARSOF XXI operational concept and
SOF Vision 2010. In this issue, we continue to
look toward the future as we examine the role
of the U.S. Special Operations Command and
the challenges that lie ahead for its forces.
General Peter J. Schoomaker, commander of
USSOCOM, discusses the current state of U.S.
SOF, SOFs relevance to the national military
strategy, and its current missions and challenges. Those challenges cover a wide range,
including terrorism and weapons of mass
destruction, advances in technology and the use
of information operations, and participation in
peacetime and conflict operations. General
Schoomaker forecasts a constantly changing
operational environment and provides tenets
that will guide SOF in adapting to new
demands.
Other articles in this issue amplify or expand
the ideas in General Schoomakers article.
Louis R. Beres examines our problems in defining terrorism, the importance of a precise definition of terrorism, and the implications that
the definition has for SOF. Anthony Marley discusses the issue of determining the proper DoD
role in peacekeeping and in conflict resolution,
and he details the strengths that SOF can offer
to those operations.
Major Fletcher Crews points to the likely
increase in information operations and the
need for PSYOP integration into joint campaign planning. He suggests coordination
techniques and a planning tool that could
contribute to more efficient PSYOP planning
and that could also improve communication
between PSYOP forces and other components of the joint force. Lieutenant Colonel
Frank Pedrozo discusses the Armys implementation of OPMS XXI and explains its
long-range effects on SOF.
One of General Schoomakers tenets for the
future is: A rapidly changing world deals ruthlessly with organizations that do not change.
One of our primary concerns at the Special

Warfare Center and School is that ARSOF doctrine, organization and training keep pace with
change. We are already updating FM 100-25,
Doctrine for Army Special Operations Forces, to
incorporate changes in the strategic environment and in joint doctrine. We are planning for
the implementation of OPMS XXI, and we will
ensure that SOF officers receive the training
and the assignments that will be essential for
their professional development under the new
system.
Our efforts are guided by the idea contained
in another of the tenets:The 21st-century SOF
warrior will remain the key to success in special operations. That idea emphasizes what
has historically been the basic focus of SOF
the human dimension. People are the heart of
special operations our forces may employ
technology, but their creativity and flexibility
give them an adaptability that weapons and
machinery do not have. In the future, as in the
past, that adaptability will be a critical asset.

Major General William P. Tangney

Contents

PB 80981
Winter 1998

Special Warfare

Commander & Commandant

Major General William P. Tangney
Editor
Jerry D. Steelman
Associate Editor
Sylvia W. McCarley
Graphics & Design
Bruce S. Barfield
Automation Clerk
Gloria H. Sawyer

VE R

IT

AS

ET

LI B

ER

Features
2

U.S. Special Operations Forces: The Way Ahead

by General Peter J. Schoomaker

10

SOF in Conflict Resolution: Operational Capabilities

vs. Political Constraints
by Lieutenant Colonel Anthony D. Marley, U.S. Army (ret.)

16

PSYOP Planning and the Joint Targeting Process

by Major Fletcher Crews

22

OPMS XXI: Implications for SOF

by Lieutenant Colonel (P) Frank Pedrozo

28

Terrorism, Law and Special Operations: Legal

Meanings for the SOF Commander
by Louis Ren Beres

TAS

Special Warfare is an authorized, official quarterly of the

United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare
Center and School, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Its mission
is to promote the professional development of specialoperations forces by providing a forum for the examination
of established doctrine and new ideas.
Views expressed herein are those of the authors and do
not necessarily reflect official Army position. This
publication does not supersede any information presented
in other official Army publications.
Articles, photos, artwork and letters are invited and
should be addressed to Editor, Special Warfare,
USAJFKSWCS, Fort Bragg, NC 28307-5000. Telephone:
DSN 239-5703, commercial (910) 432-5703, fax -3147.
Special Warfare reserves the right to edit all material.
Published works may be reprinted, except where
copyrighted, provided credit is given to Special Warfare
and the authors.
Official distribution is limited to active and reserve
special-operations units. Individuals desiring private
subscriptions should forward their requests to:
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Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. Special Warfare
is
also
available
on
the
Worldwide
Web
(www.usasoc.soc.mil/swcs/dotd/sw-mag/sw-mag.htm).

By Order of the Secretary of the Army:

Dennis J. Reimer
General, United States Army
Chief of Staff
Official:
Joel B. Hudson
Administrative Assistant to the
Secretary of the Army
04421

Headquarters, Department of the Army

Vol. 11, No. 1

Departments
37

Letters

38

Officer Career Notes

40

Foreign SOF

42

Update

44

Book Reviews

U.S. Special Operations Forces:

The Way Ahead
by General Peter J. Schoomaker

aving emerged from the Cold War as

a uniquely postured superpower,
America stands at the threshold of a
new millennium and her armed forces
peer into a seething cauldron of global activity. As we venture into an uncertain future,
threats to U.S. interests are developing new
dimensions. We are being increasingly challenged by regional instability, transnational
dangers, asymmetric threats, and the likelihood of unpredictable events threats that
are not easily addressed by simple force-onforce calculations.
To meet these challenges, we must leverage the best capabilities and potential of our
armed forces. This will be a difficult undertaking, for as Joint Vision 2010 counsels,
We will have to make hard choices to
achieve the trade-offs that will bring the
best balance, most capability, and greatest
interoperability for the least cost. Americas
special-operations forces, or SOF, effectively
satisfy the cost-benefit criteria, and they
have an important and growing role in
addressing many of the futures challenges.
Since its creation by the Cohen-Nunn
Amendment to the DoD Authorization Act

ED STAT

IT

H
MAN

SPECI
O

AL
P

R A I O NS
T

This article is a statement of the perspective of the commander in chief, USSOCOM,

regarding issues that SOF will face in the
future. Other articles in this issue and in
future issues will cover these topics and
others, such as the Army After Next Program, in more detail. Editor
2

Special Warfare

of 1987, the United States Special Operations Command, or USSOCOM, has provided highly trained, rapidly deployable
and regionally focused SOF in support of
global requirements from the National
Command Authorities, or NCA; the geographic commanders in chief, or CINCs;
and our American ambassadors and their
country teams. During 1997, SOF deployed
to 144 countries around the world, with an
average of 4,760 SOF personnel deployed
per week. These statistics represent a
threefold increase in missions since 1991.
SOF consist of more than 46,000 people,
active and reserve, who are organized into
a variety of land, sea and aerospace forces,
including:
U.S. Army Special Forces, or SF; the
75th Ranger Regiment; the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment; Psychological Operations units and Civil
Affairs units.
U.S. Navy Sea-Air-Land forces, or
SEALs; special-boat units; and SEALdelivery units.
U.S. Air Force special-operations
squadrons (fixed and rotary wing), special-tactics squadrons, a foreign-internal-defense squadron, and a combat
weather squadron.
Although the acronym SOF is used to
describe this community of world-class
organizations, no one joins SOF per se.
Instead, personnel join one of the above
units, each of which is unique in its history, culture and contribution to the joint
SOF team and our nation is better
served as a result of this diversity.
The legislation that created USSOCOM
also specified certain SOF activities and
assigned to the command specific authorities and responsibilities. USSOCOMs
tasks, similar to those assigned to the services, include:
Manage a separate program and budget
(Major Force Program 11) for SOFunique requirements;
Conduct research, development and
acquisition of SOF-peculiar items;
Develop joint SOF doctrine, tactics, techniques and procedures;
Conduct joint SOF-specialized courses
of instruction;
Winter 1998

Train all assigned forces and ensure

their joint interoperability;
Monitor the readiness of all assigned
and forward-deployed joint SOF;
Monitor the professional development of
SOF personnel of all the services.
The first two tasks give USSOCOM
great flexibility in training, equipping and
employing its forces.

Relevance of SOF
The U.S. national military strategy
requires our armed forces to advance
national security by applying military
power to help shape the international environment and to respond to the full spectrum of crises, while also preparing for an
uncertain future. SOF support this shape,

Joint Vision 2010 counsels, We will have to

make hard choices to achieve the trade-offs that
will bring the best balance, most capability, and
greatest interoperability for the least cost.
Americas special-operations forces, or SOF,
effectively satisfy the cost-benefit criteria, and
they have an important and growing role in
addressing many of the futures challenges.
respond and prepare now strategy by providing an array of expanded options, a
strategic economy of force and various tailor to task capabilities and SOF are
particularly adept at countering transnational and asymmetrical threats.
Expanded options. SOF expand the
options of the NCA and CINCs, particularly in crises that fall between wholly diplomatic initiatives and the overt use of large
war-fighting forces. Decision-makers may
choose SOF as an option because SOF provide the broadest range of capabilities that
have direct applicability in an increasing
number of missions from major theater
wars to smaller-scale contingencies to
humanitarian assistance.
SOF allow decision-makers the flexibility to tailor U.S. responses, lethal and non-

lethal, to encompass this wide range of possibilities and to reduce the risk of escalation associated with larger, more visible
force deployments. Consequently, SOF may
be the best choice for crises requiring
immediate response or precise use of force,
such as Operation Assured Response the
evacuation of 2,115 noncombatants from
Liberia in 1996 with no loss of life.
Strategic economy of force. SOF may be
most effective in conducting economy-offorce operations, thereby generating a strategic advantage that is disproportionate to
the resources SOF represent. For example,
combat-ready Army SF teams are routinely
deployed around the world in support of
peacetime engagement that will prevent
conflict and conserve resources. By training

Although a potent military force, SOF can

often accomplish their missions without
resorting to the use of force. Their training
skills, combined with language proficiency,
cultural awareness, regional orientation,
and an understanding of the political context of their missions, make SOF unique in
the U.S. military true warrior-diplomats.
host-nation forces to provide their own security and by strengthening government
infrastructures through programs integrating Civil Affairs, or CA, and Psychological
Operations, or PSYOP SF foster stability
and help prevent local problems from developing into threats to international security.
Should conflict arise, these global scouts
can quickly transition to combat operations
and spearhead decisive victory. As SOF
engage in additional peacetime operations,
it is important to remember that we are
first and foremost warriors.
During conflict, SOF conduct operational
and strategic missions that directly or indirectly support the joint-force commanders
campaign plan. Fully integrated into the
joint campaign plan, SOF can attack highvalue, time-sensitive targets throughout
the battlespace to assist in rapidly achiev4

ing land, sea, air and space dominance.

SOF also conduct information operations;
train indigenous forces; assist conventional
forces in managing civilians on the battlefield; and provide advisory and liaison
capabilities that can be used to rapidly
integrate coalition partners and to leverage those partners unique qualities in
order to enhance the capabilities of the
entire force.
During postconflict situations, SOFs
training skills, coupled with CA and
PSYOP expertise, help speed the transition
to normalcy, thereby allowing conventional
forces to redeploy quickly. SOF use these
same skills during peace operations, such
as those in Haiti and Bosnia, to defuse
volatile situations, to provide ground
truth to commanders, and to assist in the
development of posthostilities controls.
Tailor to task capabilities. SOF are
readily adaptable to a broad and constantly varying range of tasks and conditions.
Their organizational agility allows SOF to
quickly concentrate synergistic effects
from widely dispersed locations and to
assist joint-force commanders in achieving
decisive results without the need for the
time-consuming and risky massing of people and equipment. Even under the most
austere conditions, SOF can conduct 24hour, multidimensional operations to penetrate denied or sensitive areas and resolve
terrorist activity; to pre-empt the threat
posed by weapons of mass destruction, or
WMD; or to strike key targets with precision and discrimination.
Although a potent military force, SOF
can often accomplish their missions without resorting to the use of force. Their
training skills, combined with language
proficiency, cultural awareness, regional
orientation, and an understanding of the
political context of their missions, make
SOF unique in the U.S. military true
warrior-diplomats. Moreover, this broad
array of versatile capabilities allows SOF
to tailor to task and to operate effectively
in any situation or environment.
Through their recurring interaction with
current and potential allies, SOF use their
expertise to assist American ambassadors
and the geographic CINCs in influencing
Special Warfare

American civilians evacuated from Monrovia,

Liberia, during Operation
Assured Response head
for the airport terminal in
Dakar, Senegal.
Photo by Richard M. Heileman

situations to favor U.S. national interests.

During fiscal year 1997, SOF conducted 17
crisis-response operations and 194 counterdrug missions; they also performed
humanitarian demining operations in 11
countries. In addition to meeting these
real-world requirements, SOF maintained
a robust exercise schedule participating
in 224 combined exercises for training in
91 countries around the world.
This proactive peacetime engagement
not only allows SOF to help host nations
meet their legitimate defense needs, but
also to encourage regional cooperation, to
maintain U.S. access, and to visibly demonstrate the role of a professional military in
a democratic society. SOFs ability to help
mold the international environment,
rather than merely to respond to it, is our
most important day-to-day contribution to
national security and represents our
steady state for the future.
Asymmetric realities. U.S. conventional
military dominance encourages future
adversaries and competitors ranging
from established nations to nonstate groups
such as terrorists, insurgents and new and
unpredictable extremists to avoid direct
military confrontation with the U.S.
Winter 1998

Instead, our adversaries may use asymmetric means such as WMD, information
warfare, terrorism, fighting in urban areas,
or technological or operational surprise
to offset our conventional advantages and to
achieve their goals perhaps even posing a
direct threat to the U.S. homeland. Moreover, an adversary already engaged in conventional warfare with the U.S. could still
employ any of the above means to gain temporary or localized battlespace parity or
asymmetrical advantage.
The asymmetric challenge with the
gravest potential facing the U.S. today is
the threat posed by the global proliferation
of WMD and the means of delivering WMD.
In recognition of the significant dangers
associated with WMD, in May 1995 the
Department of Defense assigned SOF specific responsibilities in support of the
broader interagency task of preventing the
proliferation of WMD.
Today, counterproliferation, or CP, has
been given top operational priority at
USSOCOM. CP includes actions taken to
locate, identify, seize, destroy, render safe,
or transport WMD. We are pursuing several approaches to address the WMD
threat, including working with the geo5

graphic CINCs to determine how best to

bring SOFs capabilities to bear in support
of theater CP objectives. We continue to
refine our tactics, techniques and procedures in order to allow us to engage the
full range of WMD targets, including
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons;
improvised devices; means of delivery;
and supporting infrastructure.
Another serious asymmetric reality is
information-based conflict. The power of
information is growing exponentially, and
the increasing dependence of the U.S. and
its adversaries on information presents
many vulnerabilities and opportunities. In
the past, information operations were the
punctuation on the grammar of conflict
enhancing the impact of the military, diplomatic and economic efforts. Today, the military often augments the other elements of
national power to punctuate information
operations adding support, emphasis
and authority.
The information age has also opened up
a wide range of new opportunities, seemingly endless possibilities, and significant
vulnerabilities for SOF. Accordingly, we are
examining new ways to enhance our capabilities to ensure uninterrupted information exchange, to reduce an adversarys
ability to use information, and to influence
situations in order to support mission
accomplishment. These capabilities range
from passive defense to psychological oper-

ations to precision-strike operations

against key information nodes.
The revolutionary capabilities offered by
information-age technologies are forcing us
away from traditional assumptions about
SOFs organization and even the conduct of
operations. For example, future psychological operations will employ a CNN Central approach deploying small teams
that can reach back to a supporting network of expertise and disseminate information quickly over satellites, the Internet, television, radio and other media.
Meanwhile, the explosive growth of commercial information technologies has made
it possible for terrorist organizations,
crime syndicates and drug cartels to organize, plan and coordinate activities from
multiple locations around the world. With
ties to rogue states, corrupt public officials
and business organizations, these transnational entities can target many important
public infrastructures (financial institutions, air-traffic-control systems, energy
grids and telecommunications networks),
U.S. military forces, and American citizens.
One consequence of this increased connectivity will be the creation of distributed threats and conflicts that will make
national boundaries irrelevant. Given this
threat evolution, SOF will operate with
increasing autonomy within the commanders intent relying on distributed command and control, technology templating,

An instructor from the

10th Special Forces
Group explains lanemarking techniques to a
student demining team
in Bosnia.
Photo by Thomas Newell

Special Warfare

and information avenues of approach to

locate widely dispersed targets and to neutralize those targets using cyber weapons
and kinetic weapons. Maintaining operations security and employing deception
will become increasingly critical as our
own digitized signatures multiply.
Clearly, those who can exploit rapid
advances in information and informationrelated technologies stand to gain significant advantages and the most momentous changes in this sector are yet to come.
But technology alone is not the answer. We
must also capture the true art of information operations the techniques typified
in the reality manipulation employed daily
by the marketing and advertising behemoths of Hollywood and Madison Avenue.
The capabilities required to counter
WMD, to conduct information operations,
and to deal with other transnational and
asymmetric threats are extremely
resource-intensive, and in some cases they
are dependent upon the continued development of revolutionary technologies. That
development will be critical in ensuring
that SOF have the resources and the
increasingly sophisticated capabilities
required to dominate any form of conflict.
Equally important is the development and
the continued adaptation of a definitive
U.S. policy for addressing these and other
emerging threats. Considerable progress
has already been made in both areas of
development. Much, however, remains to
be done.

The way ahead

USSOCOM faces an operational environment characterized by accelerating
geopolitical change, rapid technological
advancement, evolving threats, constrained resources, and potential new
roles. These factors require innovative
thinking and new ways of shaping change
if we are to provide the widest array of
options in protecting Americas interests.
And the truth is, a business-as-usual
approach will not provide the capabilities
that we need in order to deal with the
transnational and asymmetric opponents
of tomorrow.

Winter 1998

A rapidly changing world deals ruthlessly with organizations that do not change
and USSOCOM is no exception. Guided by
a comprehensive, enduring vision and supporting goals, we must constantly reshape
ourselves to remain relevant and useful
members of the joint team. As the president of AT&T once said, When the pace of
change outside an organization becomes
greater than the pace of change inside the
organization, the end is near.
This reality means that USSOCOM
must embrace and institutionalize the
process of change in a disciplined manner
that will allow us to move closer to our
vision. During this journey, only our core
values will be permanent and non-negotiable. Everything else our organization,

We need to anticipate trends and future scenarios, conditioning ourselves not to be surprised by surprise or by the rapidity and the
dynamics of change. As new threats arise,
we must decide which of our current capabilities to retain or modify, which new ones to
develop, and which old ones to discard.
force structure, platforms, equipment and
missions must continuously evolve to
meet the needs of the nation and to seize
the opportunities brought about by change.
To be relevant in the future, we must
continue our transformation while maintaining the readiness required to shape
and respond to the world today. We need to
anticipate trends and future scenarios,
conditioning ourselves not to be surprised
by surprise or by the rapidity and the
dynamics of change. As new threats arise,
we must decide which of our current capabilities to retain or modify, which new ones
to develop, and which old ones to discard.
SOF must focus on emerging threats
that either exceed the capabilities of conventional forces or that can be dealt with
better by small, highly specialized units.
We must carefully assess those threats
and, as appropriate, provide an effective
7

SOF soldiers must combine warrior skills with

language and cultural
skills. Here, Special
Forces soldiers inspect
parachutes of Thai soldiers during Exercise
Cobra Gold.
Photo by Keith D. Butler

solution through strategic planning,

resourcing, acquisition, and operationalsupport initiatives. Equally as important,
we must identify those missions that are
no longer relevant for SOF and recommend
shifting these missions to our conventional
forces in order to better focus our resources
on critical special-operations activities.
SOF must be a full-spectrum, multi-mission force providing a comprehensive set
of capabilities to the nation. This means that
we must swiftly adapt to diverse and evolving threats from less technologically
advanced adversaries as well as from peer
competitors. We must continue to operate
effectively in joint, combined and interagency environments yet we must transcend these traditional parameters to fuse
all of Americas political, military, economic,
intellectual, technical and cultural
strengths into a comprehensive approach to
future challenges. This approach will allow
SOF to tap into such diverse areas as commercial information technologies, utilization of space, biomedicine, environmental
science, robotics, organizational design, and
commercial research and development.
The 21st-century SOF warrior selectively recruited and assessed, mature,
superbly trained and led will remain the
8

key to success in special operations. These

warriors must be proficient in core competencies, training for certainty while educating for uncertainty. We must be capable of
conducting strategic operations in tactical
environments combining a warrior
ethos with language proficiency, cultural
awareness, political sensitivity and the
ability to use information-age technology.
We must also have the intellectual agility
to conceptualize creative, useful solutions
to ambiguous problems and to provide a
coherent set of choices to the supported
CINC or joint-force commander more
like Sun Tzu and less like Clausewitz. This
means training and educating people how
to think, not just what to think.
SOF must examine every advantage that
our technological genius can supply and
selectively exploit those few required for
success. We cannot afford purely materiel
fixes to every future problem; therefore, we
must leverage those critical technologies
that give us a decided advantage. We must
be quick to capitalize on emerging technologies that have the potential for significantly enhancing the human dimension
especially low-observable, masking technologies; smarter weapons; long-range precision capabilities, and information techSpecial Warfare

nologies. Merging technology with the

human dimension will improve the SOF
warriors survivability, lethality, mobility,
and ability to access and use all relevant
information sources.
We must also recognize that the benefits
of technological change cannot be fully realized until they are incorporated into new
organizational forms SOF organizational innovation is as important as innovation
in our weapon systems. Replacing technology without replacing old structures will not
work. Most importantly, we must remember that the purpose of technology is to
equip the man, not simply to man the
equipment. SOF people are at the heart of
all special operations; platforms and equipment merely help people accomplish the
mission. The fingers on our future triggers
must be controlled by willing warriors of
courage, compassion and judgment individuals of character with strong legal,
moral and ethical foundations organized
into dynamic and agile joint SOF teams.

Conclusion
As USSOCOM moves into the 21st century, we are evolving to meet future challenges and to sustain the relative capability advantage that we enjoy today. USSOCOM is already considering new and innovative methods of assessing and developing people; debating possible changes in
doctrine, roles, missions and force structure; preparing an investment plan for
modernization and streamlined acquisition
that leverages the revolutions in military
affairs and business affairs; and examining
new operational concepts for the conduct of
special operations in future environments.
USSOCOM headquarters is leading this
change by transitioning from a traditional
military staff to an information-age staff
that is shaped around a matrix of core
functions making it more flexible and
better postured to resource and support
global SOF requirements.
We cannot know with certainty who our
foes will be or precisely what demands will
be placed on us in the future. However, in a
time of uncertainty and opportunity,
USSOCOM will continue to provide our

Winter 1998

nation with the means to protect our interests and to promote a peace that benefits
America and the democratic ideals that we
cherish.

General Peter J. Schoomaker is commander in chief

of the U.S. Special Operations Command, headquartered at MacDill AFB, Fla.
Prior to this assignment, he
commanded the U.S. Army
Special Operations Command at Fort
Bragg, N.C. His other special-operations
assignments include command at the Special Forces detachment, company, battalion
and group levels; and command of the Joint
Special Operations Command. In other general-officer assignments, General Schoomaker served as assistant division commander,
1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas; and
as deputy director for operations, readiness
and mobilization, Department of the Army,
Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. He is a graduate of the Marine Corps
Amphibious Warfare School, the Command
and General Staff College and the National War College.

SOF in Conflict Resolution: Operational

Capabilities vs. Political Constraints
by Lieutenant Colonel Anthony D. Marley, U.S. Army (ret.)

dentification of an appropriate role for the

U.S. Department of Defenses specialoperations forces, or SOF (including Army
Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Air Force Air
Commandos, the Psychological Operations
groups, and the Civil Affairs brigades),
remains a contentious issue. Rather than the
question of What role could SOF play? the
central policy question is What role should
SOF play? The principal problem is that the
operational capabilities of SOF personnel
and SOF units greatly exceed the comfort
levels of Washington policy-makers (both
civilian and military).
Separate from the question of an appropriate role for SOF, but having an obvious
impact on it, is the fundamentally important issue of whether DoD should play a role
in conflict resolution of the so-called nontraditional variety. There is a general reluctance on the part of the Pentagon, but a
reluctance shared by many others within
the policy-making community, to see U.S.
participation in peacekeeping operations, or
PKO.1 Part of this reluctance is driven by

Reprinted by permission from Small

Wars and Insurgencies, published by
Frank Cass & Company, 900 Eastern
Avenue, Ilford, Essex, England. Copyright
Frank Cass & Co. Ltd. The views expressed
in this article are those of the author and do
not reflect the official policy or position of
the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense,
or the U.S. government. Editor
10

the fact that PKO participation potentially

decreases U.S. security by tying down the
participating units, thereby reducing
national capability to carry out operations
elsewhere. There is also a major concern on
the part of DoD policy-makers that U.S. participation in a peacekeeping operation virtually guarantees that the PKO will become
a sinkhole for DoD resources personnel,
equipment, and operations and maintenance funding.
Numerous non-DoD policy-makers are
also concerned about the resource aspect,
although strictly from the budget-busting
optic. The U.S. government is already $1 billion in arrears to the United Nations for
U.N. peacekeeping assessments, and policymakers are reluctant to see us add to that
debt (irrespective of whether the U.S. were
to commit troops or materiel to the PKO).
Further, the hurt to U.S. public opinion
caused by the U.S. casualties in the Somalia
PKO has sensitized policy-makers (and policy influencers such as the U.S. Congress) to
the serious political costs that participation
in peacekeeping can entail. While these concerns do not absolutely predetermine our
policy position on a specific PKO, they do
make approval increasingly difficult; the
resource issue weighs against our approving the start (or extension) of a peacekeeping operation in the first place, while the
Somalia imagery pushes us toward a policy
of avoidance of U.S. casualties through nonparticipation in peacekeeping.
Special Warfare

An American officer talks

with Bosnian women following a PSYOP broadcast in which the details
of a proposed resettlement of their town were
announced.

Photo by Luis Deya

The muddle resulting from these interagency policy issues concerning participation in peacekeeping in general is compounded by attitudes concerning specialoperations forces. There appears to be an
ongoing (and seemingly permanent) rivalry
between the real DoD (i.e., regular forces)
and SOF. The driving force on this is mostly
resource allocation. SOF not only get allocations through the Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Special Operations and Low
Intensity Conflict, but additional funding
out of the real DoDs hide also comes to SOF
from the service secretaries. The real DoD
seems to be reluctant to see SOF units
demonstrate how special they are. But
since real DoD lacks other capabilities that
they are willing to provide to a peacekeeping operation (with the obvious and major
exception of cargo airlift), nothing gets done.
Another part of the problem is one of
image. Some within the policy-making community, Congress, and the media still think of
special-operations forces in terms of Vietnamera activities, or of various shadowy, perhaps
unsavory, politico-military activities in Latin
America. In this view, SOF elements are better suited to winning a conflict than they are
to helping heal the wounds of the conflict.
This image problem is further compounded by the name of one of the key SOF components: psychological operations, or
Winter 1998

PSYOP. The name itself conveys to many a

vision of a manipulative propaganda
machine, somewhat like Goebbels Nazi
Ministry of Information.
Regardless of the outcome of the policy
decision concerning what role SOF should
play in conflict resolution, I would like to
discuss a variety of ways in which specialoperations forces could play a productive
role. While the military/technical assistance
needs will vary from conflict to conflict, and
it is unlikely that policy-makers would
agree to task DoD (and SOF) with the entire
menu of possibilities, I believe that all of the
following are realistic possible uses for SOF.

Provision of information
SOF personnel could fill a dangerous void
by helping to sell the peace to the citizenry and combatants. PSYOP (hopefully
renamed) could play a beneficial role by
assisting with the process of accurately
informing the members of all warring factions, as well as the civilian populace of the
affected state, of the details of what has
been agreed to in the peace accord. In several conflicts the factional leadership has
tried to distort the impression given to their
adherents concerning the negotiated peace
agreement and disarmament/demobilization plans.2

11

An American officer of the

353rd CA Command confers with German army
officers in a civil-military
operations center.
File photo

PSYOP could also play a useful role in

providing timely and objective (nonpartisan) public news and information on a continuing basis throughout the transitional
period agreed to in the peace accord. Additionally, PSYOP personnel could facilitate
the local access of the international news
media in an effort to encourage multisource journalistic reporting of the peace
process.3

Disarmament
Special-operations shooters and
trainers, coupled with Civil Affairs
teams, could provide essential services
throughout the encampment, disarmament and demobilization process. Among
these services would be: establishing
camps; performing weapons inspection
and disposition; and conducting intelligence assessments.
The following skills and services are
critical for the establishment and successful operation of disarmament and demobilization camps: camp administration and
management; perimeter security; provision of health care for encamped person-

12

nel; camp sanitation, to include provision

of both clean water and sewage disposal;
and logistics planning and management
for the camps. All of these activities,
which are critical to the success of the
camps, are within the capabilities of SOF.
A multiplicity of weapons and munitions types will be surrendered in a wide
range in operating conditions (nonrepairable, repairable, and fully functioning). SOF armorers could assist with
the conduct of a triage operation to identify, register, inspect, and appropriately
dispose (in accordance with the terms of
the peace accord) of the weapons and
munitions.
The peacekeeping force and international community could benefit from periodic politico-military assessments (intelligence) concerning the health of the ongoing peace process: What percentage of
each factions forces have turned themselves in? What are the current threats to
the process? Are there major elements
who do not intend to carry through with
the terms of the peace accord and, if so,
what actions are they apt to take? SOF
elements are well-suited to collect, anaSpecial Warfare

lyze and report such information in a

timely manner.

Humanitarian assistance
Civil Affairs teams are capable of providing a variety of services in support of peacebuilding/national reconstruction efforts following the end of a conflict. They could provide personnel to participate in humanitarian-assistance assessment missions, or to
coordinate between humanitarian-assistance
agencies and DoD within a civil-military
operations center, or CMOC. In this capacity,
Civil Affairs personnel would liaise with nongovernment organizations to provide and
exchange information in an effort to better
meet the needs of the populace while enhancing the security of all concerned.
Civil Affairs units could also provide
teams of medical personnel and publichealth experts and assistance teams to
assist with the restoration and operations of
public utilities, and with the management
and operation of public transportation systems. Civil Affairs personnel could assist
the local populace with the restoration of
public administration, to include fire and
police protection.
Special Forces units are also capable of
participating in assessment missions and of
providing medical teams.

ing in special subjects that can be important

to the success of the integration process and
the image of the new national military.
These subjects would include the law of war,
respect for human rights, and the role of a
military in a democracy.

Demining
SOF elements could provide important
assistance for demining efforts (as they are
already doing in several countries). Mines
are extensively employed in an increasing
number of contemporary conflicts. SOF personnel and units could provide critically
important demining services in support of
conflict resolution. These could include
assessing the nature and extent of the mining problem; mine awareness information
and training campaigns (to include train
the trainer efforts) to sensitize the populace to the problem; and train-the-trainer
instruction in detection, clearance and
destruction of mines.
In any situation in which antipersonnel
mines have been widely employed, there
will be numerous citizens who have lost
limbs. SOF personnel could help in placing
Mines
have
been
employed in a number of
contemporary conflicts.
SOF personnel can provide critically important
demining services during
conflict resolution.

Integration of military forces

By performing defense-requirements surveys and by providing military training, SOF
teams can assist with the planning and the
implementation needed to integrate former
opposing forces into a unified, national military.
Defense-requirements surveys can be
conducted to identify and recommend the
force size and force structure for the country
in question.
In the realm of training, SOF units and
personnel could conduct both technical/professional military education courses and
professional ethics training. They could
present a variety of professional courses, to
include military basic training, NCO training, officer-candidate courses, staff-officer
training, and unit tactical training, to the
integrating forces.
SOF personnel could also provide trainPhoto by Edward Cranick

Winter 1998

13

SOF personnel can provide training to foreign

militaries identified for
peacekeeping duties. The
training would include the
majority of skills that SOF
already teach as members
of mobile training teams.
File photo

prosthetics workshops into service and in

training local staff to operate them.

Peacekeeping
Another service that SOF can provide to
conflict-resolution efforts (as they are
already doing) is to train units from foreign
militaries that have been identified for participation in an international peacekeeping
operation. The type of training to be provided would include the vast majority of skills
already being trained by mobile training
teams, and would comprise both peacekeeping-specific and traditional subjects.
This, in turn, raises an issue concerning the
development of a U.S. peacekeeping doctrine
and a course of instruction that could be presented by U.S. trainers. Up until now, DoD has
not had an agreed-upon peacekeeping curriculum with which to conduct training (for either
U.S. or foreign personnel).4 This lack does not
prevent DoD (and SOF) from making valuable
contributions on an ad hoc basis, but it does
prevent them from taking a comprehensive
approach to peacekeeping training.
In addition to the myriad possibilities discussed above, SOF units and personnel are

14

obviously capable of serving as conventional

forces in international military observer,
peacekeeping, or peace-enforcement missions. In this capacity, they could draw upon
their politico-military expertise to aid
efforts to resolve local-level conflicts.

Early warning
All the efforts above are concerned with
resolving, and recovering from, wars and
other violent conflicts. Like the dog that
did not bark, conflicts that are resolved in
their early (pre-violence) stages are harder to identify than most efforts associated
with conflict resolution (peacekeeping and
peace building). But SOF are particularly
well-qualified in their training and missions (mobile training teams and joint
combined exercise and training deployments) to identify dysfunctional aspects of
a countrys military establishment. This
can permit SOF (if the SOF elements are
particularly sensitive to the politico-military situation) to serve as an early warning system. Effective early warning
might permit political intervention sufficiently timely to prevent the outbreak of

Special Warfare

violence. In cases of conflict, as in most of

the other ills of the world, prevention is
preferable to a cure. Further, the professional training SOF provide might possibly influence the foreign military forces to
move in more productive directions.

Conclusion
Every effort at conflict resolution is different, requiring a response tailored to the
specifics of the local situation. As outlined
above, SOF elements are well-suited to
play an important role in conflict-resolution operations.
Temporally, I believe that SOF elements
could make their greatest contribution during the ill-defined transition from war to
peace. Peace enforcement, while at times of
critical importance, draws upon only a limited slice of SOF capabilities. Longer-term
recovery and development efforts, on the
other hand, should remain the responsibility of the traditional assistance agencies and
organizations.
Their training, missions, politico-military
sensitivity, and readiness make SOF elements uniquely qualified to contribute to a
diverse variety of peacekeeping situations.
The principal question remains one of operational capabilities vs. political constraints:
whether policy-makers will capitalize on
these capabilities and employ special-operations forces in international peacekeeping
and peace-building operations.

Notes:
Presidential Decision Directive On Multilateral
Peace Operations (PDD 25)7, signed in 1993, was
intentionally written so as to limit the likelihood of
participation by U.S. forces in peace operations.
2 For example, following the July 1993 signing of the
Cotonou Peace Accord that sought to end the civil war
in Liberia, each of the multiple factions disseminated
information to its fighters concerning the details of
the accord that made that faction appear victorious,
rather than explaining that a compromise agreement
had been negotiated. The U.N. monitoring force in
Liberia lacked the capability to simply read the agreement word-for-word in a radio broadcast.
3 U.N. forces recognized this important benefit of
PSYOP in Somalia, where they called upon U.S. forces
to conduct such a program. The U.N. failed to include a
PSYOP radio-broadcast capability in subsequent peace
operations in Mozambique, Liberia and Rwanda.
4 The U.S. Army has published FM 100-23 to provide guidance to the Army for the conduct of peace
operations, but there is not yet a joint doctrine for
peacekeeping.
1

Lieutenant Colonel Anthony D. Marley, U.S. Army

(ret.), is a private consultant
on African political-military
matters. Prior to retiring
from the Army, Marley served
as the political-military
adviser in the Bureau of African Affairs in
the U.S. Department of State. In other
assignments, Marley served as the politicalmilitary officer in the Office of the Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense for African
Affairs in the Pentagon, and as a defense
attach in Liberia. He is a graduate of the
Cameroon Command and Staff College
and of the Naval Postgraduate School.

Winter 1998

15

PSYOP Planning and the Joint Targeting

Process
by Major Fletcher Crews

f psychological operations, or PSYOP, is

to be a key element of information operations and command-and-control warfare, PSYOP must be integrated into campaign planning at the theater and jointtask-force levels, and the PSYOP campaign
must be linked to the overall campaign.
To be effective, PSYOP planners must
understand the targeting and coordination
process. They should also have an effective
means of expressing their ideas so that
non-PSYOPers can understand and apply
them to their own campaign-planning
processes.
This article explains the role of the
PSYOP planner in campaign planning and
recommends a tool and the coordination
procedures that will help synchronize
PSYOP planning and targeting with the
activities of the other components of the
joint task force, or JTF.
Targeting is the process of selecting targets and determining the appropriate
response to them, taking into account operational requirements and force capabilities. Targeting and joint fires are intended
to delay, disrupt, divert or destroy the
enemys military potential throughout the
depth of the operational area.
At the JTF level, targeting and joint fire
support are derived from the guidance of
the joint-force commander and from the
concept for the campaign or operation. In
order to effectively employ all joint forces
against the enemy, the commander of the

16

joint task force, or CJTF, must prioritize,

deconflict and synchronize all actions of
the joint forces. Through the J3, the CJTF
provides targeting guidance and priorities,
apportions and allocates resources, establishes the timing and specific effects
required on each target, and tasks components to strike targets or to support those
strikes.
In general, the joint-force commander
relies on his joint targeting coordination
board, or JTCB, to implement his guidance.
The JTCB must ensure unity of effort
across the JTF spectrum of fire. This is no
easy task, given the frequently overlapping
and sometimes competing interests among
the various components of the JTF.
The targeting process begins with guidance and priorities issued to the CJTF by
the National Command Authorities and
continues with identification of requirements by components, prioritization of
requirements, acquisition of targets, attack
of targets and the assessment of target
effects. Targeting is performed by all JTF
components who have the capability of
delivering fires. Components coordinate
and integrate their targeting recommendations at the JTCB.
A campaign is the operational process by
which the commander coordinates,
employs and sustains his available
resources in a series of phased joint actions
in order to achieve strategic objectives. A
campaign plan translates strategic guidSpecial Warfare

ance into operational directives. The

PSYOP campaign plan is nested within the
overall campaign plan: It is intended to
translate strategic guidance into operational PSYOP.
Army Field Manuals 33-1 and 33-1-1
attempt to codify the elements of the
PSYOP campaign-planning process, but
the 4th PSYOP Groups planning and
readiness standing operating procedure,
or PSOP, offers a more detailed explanation of the process as it is currently
practiced.
The mission-planning process described
in Chapter 3 of the 4th POG PSOP is
designed to ensure that planning is conducted in a focused, efficient manner, with
input from higher headquarters and subordinate units. The process consists of eight
steps, shown in the chart at right. To produce a PSYOP plan that is nested within
the supported commanders plan, the
PSYOP planner must take each step in
sequence and apply the process in a timely
manner.
The PSYOP campaign-development
process is designed to ensure that every
PSYOP activity contributes to the
accomplishment of the supported commanders intent. Chapter 4 of the 4th
POG PSOP lists 14 steps in the process,
also shown at right. The key to the campaign-development process is to work
down from the analysis of the supported
commanders mission to the development of psychological actions, or PSYACTs, and then to integrate those PSYACTs with the other actions of the
ground tactical plan.
However, even the PSYOP campaigndevelopment process described in the
PSOP is incomplete. A step seems to have
been omitted between Steps 12 and 13:
12a. Develop and integrate a PSYOP targeting matrix. The PSYOP targeting
matrix is intended to be used primarily by
the JPOTF J3 as a tool for war-gaming
possible effects of PSYACTs or other
activities in relation to each other, for
sequencing of PSYACTs, and for prioritizing PSYOP fires. The matrix offers a format that is recognizable to conventionalforce planners from all services, and it
Winter 1998

Mission Planning Process

1. Receive the mission/issue warning order.
2. Conduct mission analysis and present missionanalysis brief.
3. Develop courses of action.
4. War-game courses of action.
5. Compare courses of action.
6. Present course-of-action decision brief and receive
commanders decision.
7. Prepare OPLAN/OPORD.
8. Issue OPLAN/OPORD.

PSYOP Campaign Development Process

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.

Receive supported units mission.

Analyze/determine supported commanders objectives.
Conduct PSYOP mission analysis.
Develop PSYOP courses of action.
Analyze potential target audiences.
Select target audiences.
Analyze target audiences.
Develop PSYOP actions and products.
Develop PSYOP activities.
Develop PSYOP series.
Develop PSYOP programs.
Develop PSYOP campaign.
Execute PSYOP campaign.
Monitor/modify PSYOP campaign.

17

provides a smooth process of integrating

PSYOP nonlethal fires into a standard
targeting-and-fire-support architecture.

PSYOP targeting
PSYOP targeting is perhaps the single
most important element of PSYOP planning. Its role is especially critical in making
the PSYOP campaign relevant to the other
elements of the joint task force. PSYOP targeting synchronizes the PSYOP campaign
with the overall campaign plan of the supported commander and, if properly formatted, gives the other planners something concrete to link to.
In the authors view, the PSYOP targeting process begins with Step 6 of the
PSYOP campaign-development process
Select target audiences. To maintain a common frame of reference, PSYOP planners
must use the same terminology used by the
other planners with whom they work. This is
not to say that PSYOP planners should
abandon the standard PSYOP target-audience-analysis process, but rather that they
should group their target audiences according to the categories used by informationwarfare and command-and-control-warfare
planners. The target categories are:
Links. Connections, human or mechanical/electronic, between nodes.
Nodes. Key centers of power and influence, human or mechanical/electronic.
Human factors. Intelligence, attitudes,
emotions, beliefs, values, morality, personality, etc.
Weapon systems. Primarily mechanical
systems; however, a weapon system
could be human; e.g., a suicide bomber.
Databases. Computer data, software and
hardware, electronic media.
A critical node is an element, position or
communications entity whose disruption
or destruction would immediately degrade
an adversarys abilities. A vulnerable node
is one that is susceptible to PSYOP attack,
is a realistic target, and is accessible by
means at our disposal or means available
to others that we understand and can
access. (A PSYOP target will most likely
need to be a demonstrably critical node to
warrant the apportionment of a JTF com-

18

manders assets to attack it.)

Targets are further characterized as
high-value targets, or HVT; and high-payoff targets, or HPT. An HVT is critical to
the success of the enemys mission. An
HPT is critical to the success of the friendly units mission.

Targeting matrix
The first block of the targeting matrix
assigns a number to the target. (Any number of PSYACTs can be executed against
the same target.) The second block assigns
a priority to the target, based upon the
supported commanders guidance and an
analysis of the target audience. Priority is
assigned by the J3 and the chief of the
product-development center, or PDC. The
third block is simply a yes-or-no answer for
HVT and HPT criteria.
The fourth block identifies the type of
target to be attacked: link, node, human
factor, weapon system or database. The
fifth block expresses briefly the priority
intelligence needed to determine the
attack guidance. For example, Will interceptor pilots fly in response to cross-border
air operations? In this case, the target
would be the interceptor pilots. The sixth
block is the trigger or the event that would
cause the JPOTF to execute PSYOP fires
against the target. In this example, the
trigger could be the increased activity of
the ground-support personnel at the interceptor air base.
The seventh block describes the PSYACT
itself, such as a leaflet drop. The eighth
block shows the attack guidance derived
from a target-audience analysis and a mission analysis. In the example of the air base,
for instance, analysis of the target audience
might show that leaflets would be the proper medium for communicating the desired
message. A mission analysis might indicate
that because of the air-defense threat, only
fast-moving aircraft would be capable of
reaching the target, so the attack guidance
would be MK-129 leaflet bombs.
The ninth block is the source of feedback
once the PSYACT has been executed. In
the example of the air base, a good source
of feedback would be reconnaissance pho-

Special Warfare

PSYOP Targeting Matrix

Target #

Priority

HVT/HPT

Type
Target

PSYOP
PIR

Trigger

PSYACT

Attack
Guidance

Feedback

Planned
Effect

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
tos of the airfield during the days following
the leaflet drop. The 10th block describes
the desired effect of the PSYACT, such as
reduced activity of ground-support personnel at the airfield and a decreased likelihood of sorties in the near term.

Pitfalls
PSYOP planners are subject to two common pitfalls. The first, the contemplating
infinity trap, occurs when a unit begins
detailed planning based on fragmentary
information or incomplete guidance. The
trap springs when planners realize that
without clear guidance, the number of possible actions, reactions and counteractions
of the multiple target audiences is overwhelming. At that point, the planners place
detailed PSYOP planning in the too-hardto-do box. They then generally fall back on
product development and concentrate on
producing pretty products.
In most cases, the PSYOP campaignplanning process must begin at Step 3 of
the mission-planning process Develop
courses of action. It is a fatal error to
begin developing PSYOP products and
actions before a detailed mission analysis

Winter 1998

has been completed.

The second pitfall is the put-a-bow-onit trap. In this situation, the PSYOP planner, hoping to eliminate the troublesome
gray areas that exist in operational planning, narrows the focus of the PSYOP campaign-planning process by making broad
assumptions at the outset. One common
assumption is that the campaign will
progress from start to finish in accordance
with some scripted plan. The PSYOP planner who falls into this trap will develop
detailed product books and execution
matrices that depict every target audience,
PSYOP objective, PSYOP campaign objective, PSYOP theme, PSYACT and PSYOP
series, from beginning to end. The PSYOP
campaign will appear impressive in its
thoroughness, but it will be inflexible in its
execution. If one of the basic assumptions
changes or is shown to be false, the entire
campaign plan will be invalidated, forcing
the planner back to the drawing board.
It is important for the PSYOP planner to
remain linked to the overall campaignplanning process and to keep in mind the
purpose and the limitations of a campaign
plan. It is no more feasible for a PSYOP
planner to attempt to synchronize every
19

supporting action of a campaign plan at

the outset than it is for an artillery planner
to attempt to plot every target that will be
needed in support of a campaign. PSYOP is
a supporting player in a cast whose stars
are the JTF commander and his combatant
forces. The best a PSYOP planner can hope
to offer is a detailed PSYOP plan for the
initial phases of the operation and a functional methodology for developing more
plans as the operation evolves.

must direct the PDC to begin an analysis of

possible target audiences and to begin the
development of prototype PSYACTs. Once
the J3 is armed with the supported commanders objectives, the JTF planners
template of projected enemy positions, the
target audiences and some recommended
PSYACTs, he is ready to war-game the
PSYOP fires. Keeping in mind that the
focus of the overall PSYOP campaign will
change over time, perhaps even from day to
day, the PSYOP planner should plan only
current fires in detail; planned fires should
be developed in concept.
The PSYOP targeting board is chaired by
the JPOTF J3 and is attended by the
JPOTF J2 and J5, as well as by representatives from the PDC. The board meets before
the daily JTF targeting board so that the
JPOTF targeting boards product can be
integrated into the JTF targeting board.
The PSYOP targeting board begins with
the J3 giving a quick synopsis of the current friendly and enemy situation, including the number of sorties currently on the
air tasking order, or ATO, and any signifi-

Coordination
In order to guarantee the synchronization of lethal and nonlethal fires, the
PSYOP targeting process must be coordinated with the JTFs targeting process. The
JPOTF J3 is the focal point for planning
the PSYOP campaign and for integrating it
with the JTF campaign plan or theater
campaign plan. To be of value to the JTF,
the JPOTF must provide its targeting
input in a timely manner.
Once the JPOTF J3 has carried the mission-planning process through Step 3, he

The Joint Targeting Process

NCA

Intel Sources

CinC

JIPTL

CJTF

Tasking

J3
J2

JTCB
(JFSOC/JFFC)

JAOC

JPOTF

Units
JFSOC
JFFC
JIPTL
JAOC

20

ATO

Joint-force special operations command/component

Joint-force fires coordinator
Joint integrated prioritized target list
Joint air-operations center

Special Warfare

cant shift in the JTFs targeting priorities

or in the upcoming ATO. The JPOTF J5 (J3
plans/future ops) then gives a rundown of
the JTFs enemy templating for the next
two ATO cycles. The J3 follows with a
restatement of the JTF commanders
intent.
Next, the PDC chief briefs all ongoing
PSYACTs, including any not scheduled in
the ATO. The PDC chief presents the evaluation by the PDC and the strategic studies
detachment of the enemys vulnerable nodes
and submits his nominations for PSYACTs
in support of current, future and planned
operations. These PSYACTs are validated
by the J3 and prioritized by the board members. The PSYOP targeting board then submits its final product, the PSYOP targeting
matrix, to the JPOTF commander for concurrence and validation. The matrix then
serves as the vehicle for the JPOTF to nominate targets at the JTCB.
The JPOTF J5/future-ops planner represents the JPOTF at the JTCB. He nominates targets and requests the allocation of
resources through the same process that
the other components use. The PSYOP targeting matrix will allow the J5 to negotiate
with the other components on equal
ground.
The functions of the JPOTF J5 are not
currently well-addressed in the 4th POG
PSOP, FM 33-1 or FM 33-1-1. JPOTFs and
PSYOP battalions conducting routine operational support are typically organized
along the lines of a conventional Army battalion task force. But that organization
often results in a less-than-ideal relationship between the JTF or theater-CINC staff
and the JPOTF, because the higher-level
staffs have clear and distinct organizational
functions for operations and planning, while
the PSYOP battalion does not. The creation
of a dedicated planner/future-ops element
is a key ingredient to the successful integration of PSYOP targeting into the overall
campaign plan.

Conclusion
In operations for the foreseeable future,
the JPOTF will function as part of a joint
task force, and PSYOP training and plan-

Winter 1998

ning must be focused on joint operations.

The current system used by JPOTFs to
derive missions, analyze targets, develop
PSYACTs, deliver PSYOP and assess
effects is fundamentally a closed circuit.
While the basic principles of PSYOP campaign development are well-understood
within the PSYOP community, the PSYOP
campaign remains largely a mystery to
other JTF components.
Unless PSYOP planners can understand
and contribute to the planning and the operations of the JTF, they risk being seen as
irrelevant. It is time for PSYOP to move out
of isolation and begin to work within the
framework of the JTF and the JTCB. PSYOP
has a place at the table with the other components, but to be effective, it must bring the
appropriate tools. The PSYOP targeting
matrix is one such tool.

Major Fletcher Crews is

the executive officer of the 6th
PSYOP
Battalion,
4th
PSYOP Group. He recently
returned from Bosnia, where
he served as the C/J3 of the
Combined/Joint Information Campaign Task Force. In previous
assignments he served as a platoon leader,
company executive officer, battalion S3 air,
and battalion adjutant in the 101st Airborne Division; and as a rifle-company
commander and headquarters-company
commander in the 3rd Armored Division.
His PSYOP assignments include detachment commander, 9th PSYOP Battalion;
assistant S3 (Plans), 4th PSYOP Group;
assistant S3 (Ops), 4th PSYOP Group; and
Battalion S3, 1st PSYOP Battalion. Crews
served as a commander in Desert Shield
and Desert Storm, as a commander in
Restore Hope, and as an operations officer
in Operations Provide Promise, Uphold
Democracy and Joint Guard. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He holds a B.A. in European history and an M.S. in international
relations.

21

OPMS XXI: Implications for SOF

by Lieutenant Colonel (P) Frank Pedrozo

any changes have occurred since

the U.S. Army reviewed its personnel management system 14 years
ago. The nations operational and political
environments have seen dramatic changes.
The Army itself has experienced a turbulent
period involving base closures; considerable
downsizing; and increases both in its operating tempo, or OPTEMPO, and in its personnel tempo, or PERSTEMPO.
Additionally, the Army is preparing to
assimilate 21st-century technology and
high-end equipment that will allow its soldiers to deploy faster; that will enable
them to better detect the movement, size
and capabilities of enemy forces; and that
will enable them to outmaneuver and overpower any adversary. Special-operations
forces, or SOF, must keep pace with these
changes, and SOF officers must have the
comprehensive knowledge, skills and
attributes that will be needed under many
different circumstances in the next century. As we look ahead, we must ask ourselves whether our officer corps, as it is
currently structured and managed, will be
able to lead high-tech soldiers into the
coming millennium.
In July 1996 the Army expanded its
overall Force XXI review to include a thor-

Graphics used in this article are taken from

the OPMS XXI briefing that can be found at
the OPMS XXI web site (http://www.
army.mil/opms). Editor
22

ough assessment of the Armys Officer Personnel Management System, or OPMS.

General Dennis J. Reimer, chief of staff of
the Army, chartered a task force to conduct
the assessment and selected Major General David H. Ohle, the Armys assistant
deputy chief of staff for personnel, to direct
the year-long efforts of the OPMS XXI Task
Force.
OPMS XXI represents the third major
study since the Army War Colleges 1970
study on professionalism. The other two
studies OPMS I and OPMS II were
conducted in 1971 and 1983.
OPMS I recommended the centralized
command-selection process, designated
command tours, assigned primary and secondary specialties for officers, and abolished the Chemical Corps. The changes
were fully implemented by July 1974.
OPMS II recommended single-branch
development; functional areas not related
to any branch; multiple career tracks; and
a revised officer-classification system. The
changes recommended by this study were
approved in 1984. Implementation of these
changes, which began in 1985, is still taking place.
The starting point for the OPMS XXI
study was the Precursor Study Group, or
PSG. Composed of seven officers, the PSG
examined approximately 60 issues related
to active-component officers and warrant
officers. The PSG considered issues that are
of major concern today and those that have
Special Warfare

potential ramifications for the Army of the

21st century. These issues covered the spectrum of OPMS responsibilities from
questions about manning and inventory to
questions about assignment management
and leader development. The PSG organized these issues into three groups: structure and distribution, leader development
and training, and career management.
Using the groupings established by the
PSG, Ohle organized the task force into
three divisions: the Structure and Distribution Division, the Leader Development
and Training Division, and the Career
Management Division. The task force also
included an operational-research and system-analysis cell, an operations and plans
cell, and an administrative-support team.
The TF spent its first three months

thoroughly reviewing previous studies, the

hot issues surfaced by the PSG, and getting up to speed on the current system,
Ohle said.
They worked closely with their counterparts in the field and at the schoolhouse,
and with a council of colonels, to address
those issues and determine what changes,
if any, the Army should make to prepare its
officer corps for the requirements of the
21st century.
We want to ensure our recommended
changes are on-track with developments in
the current officer personnel management
system, and we are taking the best
approach for our officer corps, our Army
and our nation, Ohle said.
After briefing the CSA in October 1996,
the task force began developing the char-

Architecture of OPMS XXI Study

OPMS
XXI

Vision for OPMS

Competent Officers of character
Leading the finest Army in the world
Serving the Nations best interests

Vision
Mission

Mission
Tasks:
Determine required changes to OPMS
Recommend an implementation plan
Purposes:
Satisfy Total Army Reqmts into XXI Century
Develop officers with the right Skills, Knowledge,
and Attributes
Develop officers whose behavior reflects
Army values

Goals

Better for the

Nation
Army
Officer

Characteristics

(Broad Enduring Outcomes)

Objectives -

Officer Development Action Plans

OPMS XXI Goals

Better for the Nation
Better for the Army
Better for the Officer

Initial Implementation Plan &

Subsequent Action Plans
(Timelines and Measures of Effectiveness)

...Leaders for the 21st Century Army

Winter 1998

23

OPMS XXI Concept

Four Career Fields

OPMS
XXI

Four Career Fields established to develop and manage Field Grade officers

Current
ACC & AAC

OPS

OPNL
SPT

INFO
OPNS

INST
SPT

COL

COL

COL

COL

COL

MEL 1
LTC

MEL 1
LTC

MEL 1
LTC

MEL 1
LTC

MEL 1
LTC

MEL 4
Select Career Field
MAJ

MEL 4
Select CF
MAJ

MEL 4
Select CF
MAJ

MEL 4
Select CF
MAJ

MEL 4
MAJ

Transition

Nominative or FA Training & Assignment

Post Command Performance Review and Career Field Counseling

Company Grade Troop Time

and Schooling

Company Command
OAC and CAS3
Lieutenant Time (includes Branch Detailing)

Current ACC becomes 4 distinct Field Grade Career Fields based on Army functions in 2010.

...Leaders for the 21st Century Army

acteristics for OPMS XXI, defining potential problems, and designing the options for
the new officer-development system.
In January 1997, Ohle briefed the Chief
of Staff of the Army, or CSA, on options for
revising the system. The options ranged
from simply tweaking the current system
to organizing the Army Competitive Category into four distinct career fields, aligned
with the battlefield functions outlined in
Army Vision 2010. (A career field is an
administrative grouping of similar functions and disciplines.)
Once the CSA submitted his recommendations, the task force began to develop the
options. After further briefings and more
work, the task force briefed the CSA in
June, and he approved the majority of the
recommendations. After developing a strat24

egy for the Army to use in implementing

the changes, the task force presented its
final briefing to the CSA in early July. The
final OPMS XXI report will be published in
the near future. Additionally, an informational OPMS XXI chain-teaching kit, composed of a VHS videotape, a CD-ROM disc,
a floppy disk and several viewgraphs, will
be sent to officers in the field so that commanders can ensure that their officers are
familiar with the new system.

Career fields
OPMS XXI consists of four career fields
that group branches and functional areas
for promotion purposes. An officer who is in
a specific career field competes for promotion only with other officers in that same

Special Warfare

field. A brief description of the four career

fields follows.
Operations Career Field. The OPCF is
composed of the 16 officer branches and two
functional areas, FA 39, Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs; and FA 90, Logistician Program. Officers in this career field
will serve in branch-specific positions
throughout the Army. All SF commands and
FA 39 commands are in this field. SOF officers who are selected to remain in the SF
Branch or in FA 39 will serve in the OPCF.
Information Operations Career Field.
The IOCF responds to the information
requirements of the 21st century. The
IOCF brings together functional areas FA
46, Public Affairs; FA 53, Systems Automation; and FA 57, Simulation Operations. It
also creates several new FAs: FA 30, Information Operations; FA 34, Strategic Intelligence; and FA 40, Space Operations.
Institutional Support Career Field. The
ISCF focuses on the increasingly technical
and complex task of running the Army. It is
responsible for managing, planning and
programming Army resources, both for the
near term and for the long term. Included
in this career field are FA 45, Comptroller;
FA 47, U.S. Military Academy Permanent
Associate Professor; and FA 49, Operations
Research/Systems Analysis. The ISCF also
contains some new functional areas: FA 43,
Human Resource Management (similar to
the old FA 41); FA 50, Strategy and Force
Development (includes parts of the old FA
54); and FA 52, Nuclear Research and
Operations.
Operational Support Career Field. The
OSCF includes the Army Acquisition Corps
and its associated FAs, and FA 48, Foreign
Area Officer, or FAO.

Implications
What does OPMS XXI mean to the SOF
community? Officers in Special Forces,
PSYOP and Civil Affairs will be affected to
some extent, but not greatly. The procedures
used in accessing officers into SF will
remain the same, and some officers will
receive functional-area training once they
are branch-qualified. In all probability, the
procedures used in accessing FA 39 officers

Winter 1998

will also remain the same.

Perhaps the most significant change,
and the one that will affect SOF most
directly, is that all officers, after promotion
to major, will be assigned to one of four
career fields. This will mean that officers
who are chosen to work in a career field
other than the OPCF will not work in their
branches again.
Dual tracking, as we know it today, will
not exist. An officer will serve in a branch
or functional area, and in branch-immaterial assignments, for the duration of his or
her Army career. These officer assignments
will be located throughout the Army. For
example, after career-field designation, an
11/39 will serve either in Infantry operational assignments or in PSYOP/CA
assignments, but not in both. The 11/39
will rotate those assignments with branchimmaterial ones. The same will apply to
Special Forces: An 18/48 will serve either
as a Special Forces officer or as a FAO, but
not both.
About 20 percent of the officers accessed
into the Special Forces Branch will later be
required to leave the branch to work in one
of the functional areas. FA 39 will access
fewer officers than it does currently, but
otherwise, it will remain unchanged.
Officers will compete for promotion only
with other officers from the same career
field and functional area. The number of
officers who are selected for promotion will
count against the ceiling established by DA
for their functional area and career field
only. This process will eliminate the current system of dual counting, in which
officers selected for promotion are counted
against their branch and against their
functional area.
This new system for promotion will have
important implications. Although the total
number of promotions will not increase,
the potential for officers to attain the rank
of colonel without having served in command positions will increase. This does not
mean that promotions in all four career
fields will be equal, but promotion opportunities for those officers who are outside the
traditional command track will greatly
improve. Promotion opportunity to lieutenant colonel will be roughly equal in all
25

OPMS XXI Concept

More Functional Areas

OPMS
XXI

OPMS XXI: Develops officers in additional skills required by future Army

OPMS Functional Areas

OPMS XXI Functional Areas

39 PSYOP and Civil Affairs

30
34
39
40

Informations Operations Officer

Strategic Intelligence Officer
PSYOP and Civil Affairs
Space Operations Officer

43
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53

Human Resource Managers

Comptroller
Public Affairs
USMA Permanent Associate Professor
Foreign Area Officer
Operations Research/Systems Analysis
Strategy and Force Development
Research, Development, and Acquisition
Nuclear Weapons
Systems Automation Officer

41 Personnel Programs Management

45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54

Comptroller
Public Affairs
USMA Permanent Associate Professor
Foreign Area Officer
Operations Research/Systems Analysis
Force Development
Research, Development, and Acquisition
Nuclear Weapons
Systems Automation Officer
Operations, Plans, and Training

90 Logistician Program
97 Contracting and Industrial Management
Deleted or Revised Functional Area

57 Simulations Operations
90 Logistician Program
97 Contracting and Industrial Management
New or Revised Functional Area

...Leaders for the 21st Century Army

four career fields.
All captains who are selected for promotion to major will receive some form of resident MEL-4 education. The details for
implementation are pending.
Officers will receive their career-field
assignment through the career-field designation process. During their sixth year of
service, officers will receive a functional
area in much the same way as they do
today. They will serve in branch-qualifying
positions as captains and may receive functional-area training.
Prior to the majors promotion board,
captains will submit a career-designation
preference statement to PERSCOM.
26

PERSCOM will develop a profile on each

captain after assessing the officers performance, assignments, education and
aptitudes for the various career fields.
Using the information in an officers profile, along with the recommendations of the
chain of command (received as part of the
new officer-evaluation report) and the officers declared preference, a formal careerfield-designation board will designate the
officers career field. The board will forward
its recommendation to the office of the
Army Chief of Staff for final approval.
By now, every officer should have received
a pamphlet in the mail that addresses frequently-asked questions. The chain of comSpecial Warfare

mand will receive additional information

and guidance about the new system. The
implementation team will also continue to
update the OPMS XXI home page
(http://www.army.mil/opms) during 1998.
The reasons for implementing OPMS XXI
should be clear: War-fighting must remain
the No. 1 job for the U.S. Army, but the system must also be able to develop skilled and
highly qualified specialists who will be prepared to take the Army into the 21st century. As we develop those specialists, we must
also create alternative career paths to success for those officers who have demonstrated the necessary skills, knowledge and
attributes.
Because of the number of officers who will
be affected and the number of personnelpolicy changes that will be required, the
task force has recommended a phased
implementation strategy for OPMS XXI.
Key pieces of the new system will be implemented almost immediately; other facets
will take place later, either because the time
required for implementation is lengthy or
because the exact direction the Army should
take has not yet been determined.
To account for the longer-range objectives
and for the decisions that must be made
over the coming year, the task force is building an adaptable plan. A key element of the
plan will be officer-development action
plans, or ODAPs. Each ODAP will combine
sets of related issues for further development, for a decision, or for implementation
in a logical sequence that is synchronized
with other affected ODAPs.
Each ODAP will have its own proponent,
who will be charged to execute that ODAP
and to monitor its progress. Further,
ODAPs will include long-range provisions
for identifying potential events or actions
that could trigger the Army to change the
manner by which it implements an ODAP
or to completely alter the nature of the
ODAP itself.
Underpinning all these plans will require
the Army to conduct an annual review to
monitor the progress of each ODAP and to
address whether an ODAP needs to be
changed. A transition team, formed from the
members of the task force, will oversee the
implementation of the new system and
Winter 1998

ensure a smooth hand-off to proponents.

Our goal is to develop a win-win system
for the Army and its officer corps. Reaching
that goal demands that we achieve a balance between the Armys diverse personnel
requirements and the need to provide
Army XXI with a technically and tactically
competent officer corps one with leaders
who can create learning organizations
focused on excellence in all that they do.
One thing is certain: The officer-development system approved by the CSA is effective and flexible. It is a system best-suited
not only for the officer corps but also for
the Army and for our nation.

Lieutenant Colonel (P)

Frank Pedrozo is a Special
Forces staff officer assigned
to the U.S. Army Special
Operations Agency, Washington, D.C. He has served as an
SF detachment and company
commander in the 10th Special Forces
Group and as a company commander and
battalion executive officer in the 7th SF
Group. He was also an infantry brigade
adviser and MILGROUP training and
operations officer in El Salvador during
that countrys civil war. Pedrozo commanded the V Corps Special Troops Battalion
and deployed that unit to Hungary in support of Operation Joint Endeavor. More
recently, he served as the special-operations
representative to the OPMS XXI Task Force.
He holds a bachelor of science degree from
the U.S. Military Academy and is working
on a masters degree in international relations from Salve Regina College in Rhode
Island.

The JFK Special Warfare Center

and School has requested that FA 39
officers be allowed to serve in both
branch and FA 39 assignments in the
operational Army. At press time, the
proposal was being staffed at Department of the Army. Editor

27

Terrorism, Law and Special Operations:

Legal Meanings for the SOF Commander
by Louis Ren Beres

he legal meaning of terrorism

has become exceedingly broad
and obscure. Encompassing
forms of guerrilla or irregular warfare1
against military targets and criminal
attacks on noncombatant2 urban populations, the term terrorism is losing
all operational precision.
As a result, planning and executing counterterrorism operations
could become excessively confused
and difficult. To improve these circumstances, we must recognize the
central importance of definition.
Before our special-operations forces
can be expected to cope effectively
with terrorism, they must be able to
identify what terrorism is.
Despite the growing volume of academic writing on the subject, little
progress has been made in clarifying
the concept of terrorism or in distinguishing terrorism from various other
uses of force and from other related
crimes under national or international
law. Indeed, judging from the standard
definitions of terrorism now in professional use, the term has become so

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do
not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government. Editor
28

vague that it sometimes embraces

even the most divergent and unintended activities. For example, according to the definitions of terrorism that
have been adopted by some U.S. government agencies and by some scholars, the American Revolution, the Gulf
War (Desert Storm),3 the contra insurgency in Nicaragua, and the anti-Castro insurgency supported by the U.S.4
could all be classified as examples of
terrorism.
Typical of these definitions are the
following:
The unlawful use or threatened
use of force or violence by a revolutionary organization against individuals or property with the intention of
coercing or intimidating governments or societies, often for political
or ideological purposes. Department of Defense
The unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to
intimidate or coerce a government,
the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. FBI
Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against
noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine state
agents.5 Department of State
Violent criminal conduct apparently intended: (a) to intimidate or

coerce a civilian population; (b) to

influence the conduct of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(c) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping. Department of Justice
The unlawful use or threat of violence against persons or property to further political or social objectives. It is
usually intended to intimidate or
coerce a government, individuals or
groups or to modify their behavior or
policies. The Vice Presidents Task
Force on Combating Terrorism (1986)
Terrorism is the deliberate
employment of violence or the
threat of the use of violence by subnational groups and sovereign
states to attain strategic and political objectives. Terrorists seek to create overwhelming fear in a target
population larger than the civilian
or military victims attacked or
threatened. Acts of individual and
collective terrorism committed in
modern times have introduced a
new breed of extralegal warfare in
terms of threats, technology, targets,
and impact. Yonah Alexander,
Middle East Terrorism (1994)6

Legal criteria
What is wrong with these definitions? Why are they troublesome?

Special Warfare

First, although a few do attempt to

distinguish between lawful and
unlawful uses of force, they leave it
entirely to the individual decisionmaker to determine which particular criteria of legality should be
applied national law criteria?
international law criteria? Both?
What constitutes pertinent criteria
under national and international law?
Under national law, pertinent
penal provisions (murder, assault,
theft, illegal detention of persons,
hostage-taking, arson, etc.) normally
contain no actual reference to terrorism, and they are applicable irrespective of any such reference.7
Under international law, criteria of
lawfulness are more or less present
in pertinent treaty provisions, but
these criteria are one step removed
from judgments regarding terrorism;
i.e., the analyst must first understand that terrorism is a conglomerate crime under international law,8
and then understand which particular penal components terrorism comprises. Even if the analyst has an indepth understanding, analysis may
still be confounded by contradictory
expectations, especially in regard to
standards of just cause.
Americans will be quick to understand the overriding rationale of such
standards in general. After all, this
countrys origins lie in the inherent
right of individuals to express insurgent force when their unalienable
natural rights are trampled upon.
Nevertheless, in particular circumstances, the just-cause standards will
be problematic, depending upon such
things as the prevailing geopolitical
objectives of both the president and
the Congress. Moreover, just-cause
decisions are certainly not normally
made at the tactical level.

Permissible insurgencies
Second, the definitions of terrorism that make no explicit reference
to legality also omit the essential ele-

Winter 1998

ments of just cause9 and just

means.10 Under international law,
these elements distinguish permissible insurgencies from impermissible
insurgencies.11 Moreover, in view of
the supremacy of certain international laws over national or domestic
law,12 these elements are relevant no
matter which realm of law or combination of realms is under consideration. Without the just-cause and justmeans elements, a definition of terrorism necessarily includes permis-

The October 1983 suicide truck bombing in

Beirut and the shootings that same year at a
caf in San Salvador
were considered acts of
terrorism when they were
committed. Today, under
the terms of the Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention Act of 1995, these
same acts could not be
construed as terrorism.
sible and impermissible forms of
insurgency and is altogether useless.
The Comprehensive Terrorism
Prevention Act of 1995 is founded
upon a definition of terrorism that
includes just-means criteria but not
just-cause criteria. According to the
act, The term terrorism means
premeditated, politically motivated
violence, perpetrated against noncombatant targets.13 It follows
from this definition that all considerations of motive are extraneous to
defining terrorism, and that any
instance of premeditated, politically
motivated violence that is not per-

petrated against noncombatant targets is not terrorism. Hence, any

such instances that are altogether
lacking in just cause cannot be identified as terrorism.
Is this really the meaning intended by the framers of this act? The
October 1983 suicide truck bombing
in Beirut that left more than 200
Marines dead, and the shootings
that same year at a caf in San Salvador that killed U.S. soldiers, were
considered acts of terrorism when
they were committed.14 Today, under
the terms of the Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention Act of 1995, these
same acts could not be construed as
terrorism. Such actions could be considered instances of terrorism if the
operational definition were extended
to include both just-means criteria
and just-cause criteria.
Under international law, not all
resorts to insurgent force are terroristic. Just cause for the inalienable right to self-determination
and for the enjoyment of peremptory human rights is an integral part
of customary and conventional
norms. The right of insurgency is
affirmed in the first part of the second paragraph of the Declaration
of Independence. But insurgency is
unlawful, irrespective of just cause,
whenever the means fail to satisfy
the just-means criteria; i.e., whenever the use of force is indiscriminate, disproportionate or beyond
the codified boundaries of military
necessity.
In order to distinguish permissible insurgencies from impermissible insurgencies, we should place
our primary emphasis on the question of just means. Although considerations of just cause can be especially difficult to sort out, the standards of just means are substantially
straightforward. Codified in the
laws of war, which are binding upon
insurgent forces as well as on regular armies, these standards should
become the operational determi29

nant of authentic terrorism.

There is an important flip side:
Not only is the just-means standard
essential to the identification of terrorism (and every insurgency that
violates this standard is terroristic),
but the standard also applies to the
permissible limitations of effective
counterterrorism. Like the insurgents themselves, military forces
that are used to oppose terrorists
are constrained by certain restrictions of the laws of war. Failure to
comply with such restrictions does
not make these military forces terrorists, but it does make them guilty
of war crimes and possibly even
crimes against humanity.15
The Comprehensive Terrorism
Prevention Act of 1995 [Title II,
Sec. 201(4)] stipulates : The President should use all necessary
means, including covert action and
military force, to disrupt, dismantle and destroy infrastructure used
by international terrorists, including terrorist training facilities and
safe havens. But the limitations
on necessary means that are
binding upon the SOF military
commander are codified in other
parts of U.S. law and under international law (which in turn forms a
part of U.S. municipal law). It follows that although counterterrorism may enjoy, from time to time,
exceedingly broad support, the military commander must be governed not by momentary political
sentiments but by operative expectations of national and international law. Means that are necessary
must always be consistent with
long-standing principles of just
means.
On occasion, the war against terrorism may even involve forcible
abduction of terrorists to ones own
judicial jurisdiction for trial and possible punishment.16 For the pertinent SOF commander, there will
likely be little effective need to ascertain the legality of such abductions.
30

These judgments will have already

been made at the very highest operational levels and by political leaders
in the National Command Authorities. Yet, in our post-Nuremberg
world legal order, ultimate responsibility is diffuse, and all levels of military participation should know (and
are expected to know) what is right
and what is wrong.
Forcible abduction is not an
unknown remedy in international
criminal law. Although great care
must be taken not to violate fundamental human rights, in situations

in the Achille Lauro affair. In 1987,

again in international waters, the
U.S. FBI lured Fawez Younis, a
Lebanese national, onto a yacht
and transported him to the U.S. for
trial. And on April 2, 1990, Humberto Alvarez-Machain, a medical
doctor and a citizen of Mexico, was
abducted from his office by persons
answerable to the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency, or DEA, and
flown by private plane to Texas to
face charges of kidnapping and
murdering a DEA agent and the
agents pilot. The charges were
related to narcoterrorism.17

Under existing customary international law, if

the threat is sufficiently
imminent in point of time,
states can choose to
strike first, providing
that the strike is within
the parameters of discrimination, proportionality and military necessity.

Threshold of threat

where extradition is not a viable

option, the only alternative may be
to leave terrorist crimes unpunished.
Here, forcible abduction may represent the only way to prevent future
terrorist crimes and to give needed
effect to the expectation no crime
without a punishment.
There are several relevant examples of forcible abduction: In 1960,
Israel abducted Nazi war criminal
Adolph Eichmann from Argentina
on charges not of terrorist crimes,
but of Nuremberg-category crimes.
In 1985, a U.S. military aircraft
forced down an Egyptian aircraft
over international waters on the
grounds that the Egyptian plane
held persons accused of terrorism

The third problem is that the definitions referencing the threatened

use of force or violence or the threat
of violence never establish needed
and identifiable thresholds of
threat.18 When is the threat sufficient to argue convincingly for the
presence of terrorism? In the
absence of settled, unambiguous
thresholds, inclusion of threat
within the definition can serve propagandistic or political purposes.
How, then, might definitions of
terrorism that would be useful to
the SOF commander incorporate
precise and essential thresholds,
and distinguish authentically terroristic threats from nonterroristic
ones? One way might be to focus on
the hardness of the prospective
target. Here, drawing upon the
previously identified rules of just
means, threats directed toward
noncombatant populations would
be expressions of terrorism. Of
course, such threats would also
have to be embedded in political
demands; otherwise, they would
merely represent ordinary forms of
criminality.
Another way would be to focus on
the degree of anticipated harm. Thus,
for example, threats above a specified
level of destructiveness could be con-

Special Warfare

strued as terroristic, while those

below that level might not be. But
here, too, irrespective of the level of
expected harm, a threat would be terroristic only if it was directed at soft
targets and if the just-cause argument were manifestly political.
Although it is true that violence
above certain thresholds would be
patently violative of the laws of war
(because such violence would be
inherently indiscriminate, disproportionate and/or beyond the boundaries
of military necessity), it is not true
that such violence would necessarily
be terrorism. Still, in keeping with
the twin criteria of just cause and
just means, threats made by insurgents without just cause would be
terroristic, regardless of the levels of
intended harm.
Finally, it is worth noting that terrorist threats of special urgency,
because of the softness of intended
targets or because of the level of
intended harms, could elicit anticipatory self-defense attacks by states.
Under existing customary international law,19 states do not always
have to wait until after an attack to
undertake self-defense. Rather, if the
threat is sufficiently imminent in
point of time,20 states can choose to
strike first, providing, of course, that
the strike is within the parameters
of discrimination, proportionality
and military necessity.
In extremely rare circumstances,
even assassination can be construed
as a permissible expression of anticipatory self-defense. Operationally,
this means that if terrorist threats
are sufficiently credible and ominous, assassinating certain terrorist
targets pre-emptively may be lawenforcing. Although such assassination is itself normally a form of terrorism in times of peace,21 and
although it is prohibited explicitly by
U.S. law,22 various higher law and
international-law arguments could
conceivably support such extraordinary means. Consider the possibility
Winter 1998

of a plausible terrorist threat to

employ nuclear weapons against
American city dwellers. Would the
rights of terrorists to be absolutely
secure from extrajudicial remedies
override the rights of New Yorkers or
Washingtonians to survive?
The permissibility of pre-emptive
assassination to counter nuclear
terrorism derives from the logic of
international law, from the multiple
sources of international law identified at Article 38 of the Statute of
the International Court of Justice,
and from the frequently irreconcilable nature of competing norms. If
the world legal order were more
centralized, all forms of anticipatory
self-defense, including assassination, could be strenuously and correctly condemned. But in the
absence of a capable supranational
authority, self-help is often the only
available means of law enforcement
against terrorism including selfhelp via the use of force.23
The above arguments assume possible use of special-operations forces
for intranational counterterrorism
operations. Yet the U.S. Department
of Justice has stated that such use is
unlikely except in extreme cases of
highly sophisticated, paramilitary
terrorist operations that lie beyond
the capabilities of nonmilitary federal personnel.24 In an age of massdestruction weaponry, such cases
may become plausible. If they do,
military commanders engaged in
domestic counterterrorism will have
to balance effective operational measures with respect for constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties.
Contrary to widespread public
misunderstandings, the domestic
use of federal troops has been a feature of our government since George
Washington called out the militia in
1794 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion. Express constitutional authority for such use can be found at Article I, Sec. 8, which states: The Congress shall have the power to pro-

vide for calling forth the Militia to

execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions. Additional authority can be
found at Article IV, Sec. 4, which
imposes on the federal government
the obligation to protect each state
against Invasion, and on Application of the Legislature, or of the
Executive (when the Legislature
cannot be convened) against domestic Violence. Authority is also found
for the president in his Article II
powers to faithfully execute the laws
and to act as commander in chief of
the armed forces.25
These sources of authority must be
viewed against the background of the
Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (18
U.S.C., Sec. 1385), which provides:
Whoever, except in cases and under
circumstances expressly authorized
by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the
Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws
shall be fined not more than $10,000
or imprisoned not more than two
years, or both.26 Civilian rule is at
the heart of government in the U.S.,
and there is a long-standing interest
in limiting military involvement
within the country.27 This interest has
been expressed in the Declaration of
Independence, the Constitution, certain acts of Congress and certain decisions of the Supreme Court.
In the Declaration of Independence, a stated ground for severance
of ties with Great Britain is that the
King has kept among us, in times of
peace, Standing Armies without
Consent of our Legislature (and)
has affected to render the Military
independent of and superior to the
Civil power.
The Constitution limits the role
of the military in civilian affairs. It
calls for a civilian to serve as commander in chief of the armed services (Art. II, Sec. 2); it limits the
appropriations for armed forces to
two years; it grants to the Congress
31

the power to make the rules by

which the armed forces are governed (Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 14); and it
prohibits the involuntary quartering of soldiers in any house in time
of peace (Third Amendment).
Congress has enacted several
statutes limiting the use of the military in enforcing civil law. In addition to the Posse Comitatus Act, Title
10 U.S.C. Secs. 331-335 delimit the
circumstances under which the president may call upon the National
Guard or the military to suppress
insurrection or domestic violence.28
The Supreme Court has also recognized constitutional limitations
on military operations in civilian
law enforcement. Leading cases
here are Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S.
2, 124 (1866) and Laird vs. Tatum,
408 U.S. 1, 15-16 (1972). Laird vs.
Tatum involved U.S. Army intelligence surveillance of civilians
engaged in antiwar protests, for
the purpose of planning to quell
disorders under Sec. 331 of the
insurrection statutes.29

State sponsorship
The fourth problem is that the definitions that do not exclusively specify insurgent organizations broaden
the meaning of terrorism to unmanageable and operationally useless
levels. As a crime under international law,30 terrorism cannot be committed by states. This is a most sensible
exclusion, because the alternative
would lead to unwieldy conceptual
expansion, blending with other
related crimes (e.g., aggression31)
and a consequent watering-down of
the crime. Moreover, in the simultaneous absence of precise justcause/just-means criteria regarding
the use of force, virtually all force
exercised by governments could conceivably be construed as terroristic.
Terrorism, of course, can be supported by states. Hence, counterterrorism measures may be directed at

32

various state sponsors of terrorism

as well as at insurgent forces. For
the SOF commander, conducting
these measures might involve various tactical considerations that,
more often than not, are inextricably intertwined with legal questions. If, for example, a decision is
made to strike certain targets within the sponsoring state, concern for
compliance with the laws of war
becomes far more comprehensive.
Faced with state and nonstate
adversaries, states seeking to fight
terrorism might need to assess the
correlations of forces on tactical,
operational and strategic levels.
Traditionally, the assessment of
such correlations in war has been
intimately tied to what Clausewitz
called the law of numbers; that is,
that superiority of numbers,
beyond a certain point, can overwhelm all other combat factors.32
But for todays military commander
engaged in counterterrorism operations, this law is almost always irrelevant. The essence of terrorism is the
capacity to inflict harm, even catastrophic harm, with extremely small
forces. Hence, the SOF commander
assessing correlations of forces in the
fight against terrorism will have to
look beyond numbers of troops to
more subtle sources of power. For
example, military planners must pay
particular attention to the diffusion of
intellectual and financial assets
among pertinent terrorist groups, and
to the associated proliferation of the
components of chemical, biological
and nuclear weapons.
From the standpoint of law, we
would have to monitor interpenetrations between states and terrorist groups in order to identify their
jurisprudential rights and responsibilities. We would also have to monitor our own rights and responsibilities concerning the control of
threatening forms of diffusion and
proliferation.
Of course, wars against terrorism

and traditional wars between states

need not be mutually exclusive. In
certain circumstances, to the extent
that terrorist groups are supported
or sustained by particular states, the
war against terrorists will have to be
fought, at least in part, as a war
against states. In these circumstances, Clausewitzs law of numbers
may be relevant. In the final analysis, the meaning of counterterrorism
for the SOF military commander will
be determined by the configuration
of the state and substate adversaries
that are involved, and by the mix of
enemy combatants that will have to
be countered by the appropriately
parallel mix of traditional and nontraditional remedies. Understood in
terms of law, this suggests that military commanders are obligated to
recognize the broad applicability of
humanitarian international law and,
at the same time, to differentiate
between state and substate terrorist
adversaries. Without such a differentiation, SOF commanders would find
it impossible to meet the essential
expectations of discrimination, proportionality and military necessity.

Political violence
The fifth problem is that definitions
referring to political violence and
objectives fail to clearly delineate the
boundaries of politics. What are these
boundaries? When is violence unambiguously political? What are the differences between political violence and
the violence of ordinary criminality?
These questions have been around for
a long time, especially in connection
with the international law of extradition33 and the pertinent criteria of the
political offense exception.34
Today, some states calculate that
politically motivated violence, by definition, cannot be terrorism. In their
view, acts of violence committed on
behalf of national liberation, selfdetermination or anticolonialism
fall outside the definition of terror-

Special Warfare

ism. As observed by John F. Murphy:

Under this approach, sending letter
bombs through the mails, hijacking
airplanes, kidnapping or attacking
diplomats and international business people, and indiscriminate
slaughter of civilians could never
constitute terrorism if the revolutionary groups committed them on
behalf of a just cause.35 From the
standpoint of international law, this
approach ignores that the criterion
of just cause36 is always augmented
by the criterion of just means. The
latter standard has been brought to
bear upon resorts to insurgent force
by both the common Article 3 of the
four Geneva Conventions of 1949
and by 1977 Protocols I and II.
Indeed, even if these authoritative
extensions of humanitarian international law had not been enacted, the
Martens Clause would pertain in relevant circumstances, confirming
that Civilians and combatants
remain under the protection and
authority of the principles of international law derived from established custom, from the principles of
humanity and from the dictates of
public conscience.37

Importance of natural law

It must also be understood that
all law is rooted in natural law, and
that natural law could never countenance violence against the innocent; that is, natural law would not
consider such violence to be outside
the boundaries of terrorism.
Recalling Ciceros classic expression of natural law in De Republica, we see clearly why politically
motivated violence by insurgents
must be unlawful whenever it
ignores the obligations of discrimination, proportionality and military necessity dictated by right
reason: True law is right reason,
harmonious with nature, diffused
among all, constant, eternal; a law
which calls to duty by its com-

Winter 1998

mands and restrains from evil by

its prohibitions. It is a sacred
obligation not to attempt to legislate in contradiction to this law;
nor may it be derogated from nor
abrogated.
For more than 2,000 years, the idea
of natural law has served as the ultimate standard of right and wrong, of
lawfulness and unlawfulness.Already
apparent in the Antigone of Sophocles
and in the Ethics and Rhetoric of
Aristotle, this idea tied closely to
theology for many centuries has
placed law above lawmaking. At the

Today, some states calculate that politically

motivated violence, by
definition, cannot be terrorism. In their view, acts
of violence committed
on behalf of national liberation, self-determination or anticolonialism
fall outside the definition
of terrorism.
same time, it is obvious that governments have not only been generally
indifferent to the law of nature but
have also coupled that indifference
with adherence to undiscovered
laws that reject justice. Such coupling is evident in the use of the term
political to excuse terrorism, and in
the exclusion (from the definition of
terrorism) of a number of resorts to
insurgent force that simply are not
excludable under natural law.
When Thomas Jefferson set to
work on the Declaration of Independence, he drew freely upon Aristotle,
Cicero,
Grotius, Vattel,
Pufendorf, Burlamaqui and John
Locke. Asserting the right of revolu-

tion whenever government becomes

destructive of certain unalienable
rights, the Declaration posits a natural order in a world whose laws are
external to all human will and discoverable through human reason.
Because reason is the only sure
guide for humankind, Jefferson
affirmed, reason is ultimately the
only true foundation of law. This classic American idea of natural law
an idea that is altogether relevant
in distinguishing terrorism from
permissible force, and is therefore
vital for the SOF commander can
be found not only in the Declaration but also in the Bill of Rights.
The Ninth Amendment, in stipulating that the enumeration of certain rights in this Constitution
shall not prejudice other rights not
so enumerated, reflects the belief
in a law superior for all time to the
will of particular states.

Scholarship vs. realpolitik

Even if the concept of terrorism
were suitably clarified and
improved, unless the states in
world politics especially major
states such as the U.S.38 begin to
take seriously their counterterrorism responsibilities, the scholarship benefits of clarification and
improvement will be moot. Scholars must assuredly do their part to
refine the terrorism concept, but
political leaders must also do their
part in honoring the incontrovertible expectations of national and
international law.39 Without such
efforts at both levels, military commanders will be caught in the middle: prepared intellectually to identify the terrorist enemy, but
restrained politically by civilian
authorities with more narrowly
geopolitical agendas.
Consider, here, the expectations
of the Middle East Peace Process.40 Although Title II (Combatting International Terrorism) of

33

the Comprehensive Terrorism

Prevention Act of 1995 stipulates
at Sec. 201: The Congress finds
that (1) international terrorism is
among the most serious transnational threats faced by the U.S.
and its allies, far eclipsing the
dangers posed by population
growth or pollution, the Congress, together with the president,
now recognize the PLO. Significantly, the PLO has refused to
amend its charter, which continues to call for the annihilation of
Israel in phases, and Yassir Arafat
continues to demand jihad for the
liberation of Jerusalem.
In the matter of Arafat, the
peremptory expectations of No
crime without punishment require
not only that he be excluded from
valid legal agreements, but also
that he be appropriately punished
for multiple terrorist crimes under
international law.41 Such punishment would be founded, in part,
upon the general principle of universal cooperation,42 and upon
various specific resolutions of the
U.N. General Assembly.43

Geopolitical definitions
During the Cold War, American
and Soviet leaders accepted narrowly geopolitical definitions of
terrorism. For Washington, any
insurgent force operating against
an allegedly pro-Soviet regime was
characterized as lawful (freedom
fighting was the operative term),
irrespective of the means used in
that insurgency. Reciprocally, any
insurgent force operating against a
pro-American regime was characterized as terrorism, period. In the
Soviet view, however, the U.S. was
using the term terrorism simply
to discredit what the Soviets
alleged were legitimate movements for self-determination and
associated human rights. To
Moscow, insurgent force against

34

what Washington freely called

authoritarian regimes (e.g., those
in El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile
and, for a long time, South Africa)
was not terrorism, as the U.S. had
maintained, but rather national
liberation.
For the future, the U.S., as the
sole remaining superpower, should
reject altogether such narrowly
geopolitical definitions of terrorism.
Aware that the Cold War is now
over and that jurisprudential criteria are consistent with our own

Scholars must do their

part to refine the terrorism
concept, but political leaders must also do their part
in honoring the incontrovertible expectations of
national and international
law. Without such efforts
at both levels, military
commanders will be
caught in the middle.
incontrovertible norms and traditions, our country should begin to
articulate and apply a single set of
standards whenever insurgents
resort to force. When such resorts
express both just cause and just
means, they should be recognized as
permissible. But when they lack
just cause or just means, they
should
be
recognized,
and
opposed,44 as terrorism.
When violence is directed toward
political objectives within the U.S.,
the legal imperative will not be to
distinguish permissible insurgencies from impermissible insurgencies (there can be no judgments of
just cause for insurgency within
this country), but to distinguish ter-

rorism from ordinary forms of criminality. As we have already noted, this

task is apt to be problematic, requiring at the outset an appropriately precise definition of terrorism. In the absence of such a definition, SOF commanders with counterterrorism responsibilities will
be unable to tell exactly who the
enemy is, and prosecuting authorities will not know for certain
whether captured insurgents
should be tried under long-standing criminal statutes or under the
terms of newly fashioned antiterrorism legislation.45
A precise legal definition will also
be vital in answering the antecedent
question: Should military forces be
employed in the first place within the
U.S. for counterterrorism? If there is
no precise legal definition of terrorism, it is conceivable that such forces
could be authorized wrongfully; i.e., to
combat forms of ordinary criminality
in ways that are inconsistent with
U.S. law. Here, the absence of definition could result in military commanders substituting for police agencies in wholly nonpolitical circumstances and resorting to forms and
levels of violence that are patently
unsuitable.

Louis Ren Beres

was educated at
Princeton University,
where he received his
Ph.D. in 1971. He is
the author of 14 books
and several hundred
articles dealing with international
law and terrorism. His newest book
is titled Force, Order and Justice:
International Law in an Age of
Atrocity. Beres has published previously in Special Warfare as well as
in such journals as World Politics,
Strategic Review, Armed Forces
and Society, Comparative Strategy,
and Parameters.

Special Warfare

Notes:
Irregular warfare is a term covering a
broad area of military and nonmilitary
operations below the level of conventional
combat between regular military forces.
Terrorism is one of several possible manifestations of unconventional warfare.
2 Criteria for distinguishing between combatant and noncombatant populations were
introduced for the first time at the Fourth
Geneva Convention of 1949.
3 The official account of the Gulf War may
be found in U.S. Dept. of Defense, Conduct of
the Gulf War (1992). Appendix O of this document addresses the following pertinent
issues under the law of war: hostages; treatment of civilians in occupied territory; targeting; collateral damages and civilian
casualties; enemy prisoner-of-war programs; treatment of prisoners of war; repatriation of prisoners of war; uses of ruses
and perfidy; war crimes; environmental terrorism; conduct of neutral nations; and surrender in the conduct of combat operations.
4 The anti-Castro insurgency supported by
the U.S. is also in violation of this countrys
own Neutrality Act. See 18 U.S.C. Sec. 960
(1988).
5 An authoritative source seems to have
used this particular definition as the jumping-off point for a definition of international
terrorism. According to the authors of
Legal Aspects of Terrorism in the International Military and Defense Encyclopedia
(1993): International terrorism is the premeditated, politically motivated violence
perpetrated against noncombatant targets
in or from a second state by subnational
groups or individuals.
6 These definitions are found in R. Kidder,
Unmasking Terrorism: The Fear of Fear
Itself, in Violence and Terrorism 14 (B.
Schechterman & M. Slann, eds., 3rd ed.,
1993).
7 These sorts of penal provisions are tied to
the crime of terrorism in the Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention Act of 1995, yet
the act excludes the essential element of the
political in its enumeration of terrorism
activity.
8 This conglomerate crime is identified
and prohibited in several diverse sources
under international law.
9 The principle of just cause maintains that
an insurgency may exercise law-enforcing
measures under international law.
10 The standard of just means has been
brought to bear upon nonstate actors in world
politics by Article 3, common to the four Geneva conventions of August 12, 1949, and by the
two protocols to these conventions.
11 Although it may appear that definitional
references to political motives or objec1

Winter 1998

tives should satisfy the just-cause criterion,

antecedent definitional questions would
remain unresolved concerning precise
meanings and parameters of the political
and various associated issues of fact.
12 Under the supremacy clause of the U.S.
Constitution, international law forms part
of the law of the U.S. This incorporation is
reaffirmed and broadened by various
Supreme Court decisions.
13 See Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention
Act of 1995, 104th Cong., 1st Sess., U.S. Senate, April 27, 1995, S 735 PCS1S, pp. 36-37.
14 Another pertinent example is the April
1985 bombing of Libya by the U.S. in reprisal
for alleged Libyan terrorism. Here, President Reagan ordered the bombing of several
sites within the Libyan cities of Benghazi
and Tripoli, 10 days after a discotheque frequented by U.S. soldiers in Berlin was
bombed (killing two and wounding scores of
other U.S. servicemen). The U.S. bombing
was publicly and officially identified as a
legitimate retaliation against terrorism.
See W. Michael Reisman and Chris T. Antoniou, The Laws of War: A Comprehensive Collection of Primary Documents on International Laws Governing Armed Conflict (New
York: Vintage Books, 1994), p. 316.
15 Crimes against humanity are defined in
the London Charter, August 8, 1945, Art
6(c), 59 Stat. 1544, 82 U.N.T.S. 279, as:
namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts
committed against any civilian population
before or during a war; or persecutions on
political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime
within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal,
whether or not in violation of the domestic
law of the country where perpetrated.
16 The 1990 case involving forcible extraction
of Manuel Noriega from Panama an abduction involving U.S. military invasion of that
state centered on narcoterrorism. No
Nuremberg-category or ordinary terrorist
crimes were identified in justification of the
invasion. Only drug-related offenses by Noriega were alleged by the U.S. The trial of Noriega found, inter alia, that Noriega is plainly a
prisoner of war under the Geneva Convention
III. He is, and will be, entitled to the full range
of rights under the treaty, which has been
incorporated into U.S. Law. See: United
States of America vs. Manuel Antonio Noriega, 808 F. Supp. 791 (S.D. Fla. 1992).
17 See United States vs. Alvarez-Machain,
No. 91-712 (U.S., June 15, 1992), which held
that a respondents forcible abduction does
not prohibit his trial in a U.S. court for violations of this countrys criminal laws.
18 The inclusion of threat in the definition
of terrorism is derivative from U.N. Charter,

Art. 2(4), which deals generally with the use

of force.
19 Article 38(1)(b) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice describes international custom as evidence of a general practice accepted as law. 59 Stat. 1031, T.S. No.
993 (June 26, 1945). Norms of customary
international law bind all states irrespective
of whether a state has ratified the pertinent
codifying instrument or convention.
20 In response to the 1837 Caroline case,
which concerned the unsuccessful rebellion in
Upper Canada against British rule, then U.S.
Secretary of State Daniel Webster outlined a
framework for self-defense that did not
require actual attack. Here, military response
to a threat was judged permissible so long as
the danger posed was instant, overwhelming,
leaving no choice of means and no moment for
deliberation. See 2 J. Moore, Digest of International Law, 409-14 (1906).
21 Under international law, distinguishing
between conditions of peace and conditions of
war can be somewhat problematic. Traditionally, a formal war was said to exist only
after a state had issued a formal declaration
of war. In 1907, the Hague Convention III
provided that hostilities must not commence
without previous and explicit warning in
the form of a declaration of war or an ultimatum. See Hague Convention III on the
Opening of Hostilities, Oct. 18, 1907, Art. 1,
36 Stat. 2277, 205 Consol. T.S. 263. Currently, a declaration of war might be tantamount
to a declaration of criminality, because international law prohibits aggression. It follows
that a condition of belligerency may exist
without formal declarations, but only if there
exists an armed conflict between two or more
states and/or at least one of these states considers itself at war.
22 See Exec. Order No. 12333, 46 Fed. Reg.
59941 (1981), U.S. Intelligence Activities, Part
2, Conduct of Intelligence Activities, 2.11,
Prohibition on Assassination: No person
employed by or acting on behalf of the U.S.
Government shall engage in, or conspire to
engage in, assassination. See 50 U.S.C.A.,
War and National Defense, 1988, Cumulative
Annual Pocket Part, p. 66.
23 We may note also Ubi cessat remedium ordinarium, ibi decurritur ad extraordinarium.
Where the ordinary remedy fails, recourse
must be had to an extraordinary one. See
Blacks Law Dictionary, Sixth Ed., St. Paul,
Minn.: West Publishers, 1990, p. 1520.
24 See U.S. Dept. of Justice, The Use of Military Force Under Federal Law to Deal with
Civil Disorders and Domestic Violence 28
(1980). Cited in Stephen Dycus, et al., National Security Law (Boston: Little, Brown, and
Co., 1990), p. 452. In such an event, assuming
federal jurisdiction, the president could invoke

35

two of the insurrection statutes, 10 U.S.C.

Secs. 332 and 333(b), by signing a pre-positioned proclamation and executive order.
25 See Dycus, op. cit., p. 421.
26 The literal meaning of the Latin term
posse comitatus is power or authority of the
county. It brings to mind a body of persons
summoned by a sheriff to help preserve the
peace or to help enforce the law. These persons might be either civilian or military.
27 On the applicability of the Posse Comitatus
Act outside the borders of the U.S., see Siemer
and Effron, Military Participation in U.S.
Law Enforcement Activities Overseas: The
Extraterritorial Effect of the Posse Comitatus
Act, 54 St. Johns Law Review 1 (1979).
28 See Dycus, op. cit., p. 423. See also 32
C.F.R. Sec. 215 (1984).
29 These five statutes comprise an important exception to the Posse Comitatus Act.
Codified at 10 U.S.C. Secs. 331-335 (1988),
they authorize the president to provide military assistance to state governments upon
request, or, upon his own initiative, to use
the armed forces or the federalized militia
to suppress any rebellion that makes it
impracticable to enforce the laws of the
United States by the ordinary course of
judicial proceedings. Sec. 333 also permits
military intervention when the constitutional rights of any states citizens are
threatened by insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination or conspiracy.
Under the terms of Sec. 334, before the militia or armed forces can be called out, the
president must by proclamation, immediately order the insurgents to disperse; that
is, quite literally, to read them the riot act.
30 An authoritative listing of offenses that
constitute the crime of terrorism can be found
in The European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism, Nov. 10, 1976, Eur. T.S. No.
90, reprinted in 15 I.L.M., 1272 (1976).
31 See Resolution on the Definition of Aggression, G.A. Res. 3314, U.N. GAOR, 29th Sess.,
Supp. No. 31 at 142, U.N. Doc. A/9631 (1975),
reprinted in 13 I.L.M. 710 (1974).
32 See Clausewitz, On War (1984), pp. 194-95.
33 The extradite or prosecute formula,
which needs to be applied more systematically to crimes of terrorism, derives from the
peremptory norm of Nullum crimen sine
poena, No crime without a punishment.
Without punishment, there can be no distinction between a penal statute and any
other statute.
34 The principle of the political-offense
exception permits a state to refuse an extradition request from another state if the
offense charged in the request is of a political nature. For an excellent treatment of
this principle, see Christopher Blakesley,
Terrorism, Drugs International Law and the

36

Protection of Human Liberty (Ardsley-onHudson, New York: Transnational Publishers, 1992), pp. 75-89.
35 See John F. Murphy, Cooperative International Arrangements: Prevention of Nuclear
Terrorism and the Extradition and Prosecution of Terrorists, in Paul Leventhal and
Yonah Alexander, Preventing Nuclear Terrorism (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books,
1987), p. 361.
36 Moreover, it is by no means certain that all
politically motivated violence is necessarily
expressive of national liberation, self-determination and/or anticolonialism objectives
(the only objectives associated properly with
just cause), or even that national liberation,
self-determination and/or anticolonialism
are necessarily expressive of just cause in all
particular circumstances.
37 The Martens clause, named after the
Russian delegate at the first Hague conferences, extends the law of armed conflict to
all types of liberation wars. The clause is
included in the preamble of the 1899 and
1907 Hague conventions. In the 1977 Protocol I, it is included in the main text of Article 1, but in Protocol II, the clause is again
moved to the preamble.
38 This argument for special or enlarged
major power responsibility is based on codifications expressed in 19th- and 20th-century peace settlements and international
organizations, particularly the role of permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, and is deducible from the more or less
persistently decentralized authority structure of international law.
39 The generic imperative to punish crimes
under international law, crimes that include
terrorism, was reaffirmed at Principle I of
the Nuremberg Principles (1946): Any person who commits an act which constitutes a
crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.
40 The Madrid Process, which began with the
U.S.-Soviet Letter of Invitation to the Peace
Talks in Madrid of 18 October 1992, produced the Cairo Agreement of 9 February
1994. For a complete compendium of the documentary record, see The Palestinian-Israeli
Peace Agreement (Washington, D.C.: Institute
for Palestine Studies, 1994, Revised Second
Edition), 306 pp.
41 For a comprehensive narrative of these
terrorist crimes, see Louis Ren Beres,
International Law Requires Prosecution,
Not Celebration, of Arafat, University of
Detroit Mercy Law Review, Vol. 71, Issue 3,
Spring 1994, pp. 569-80.
42 The principle of universal cooperation is
founded upon the presumption of solidarity
between states in the battle against criminality, including terrorism. The case for universal

jurisdiction, which stems from the principle of

universal cooperation, is codified, inter alia, at
the four Geneva conventions of August 12,
1949. These conventions impose upon the high
contracting parties the obligation to punish
certain grave breaches of their rules, regardless of where the infraction occurred or the
nationality of the perpetrators.
43 See Resolution on Principles of International Cooperation in the Detection, Arrest, Extradition and Punishment of Persons Guilty of
War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity,
G.A. Res. 3074, 28 U.N. GAOR, Supp. No. 30 at
78, U.N. Doc. A/9030, 1973; G.A. Res. 2840, 26
U.N. GAOR Supp. No. 29 at 88, U.N. Doc.
A/8429, 1971; G.A. Res. 96, U.N. Doc. A/64 at
188, 1946; Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and
Crimes Against Humanity, adopted and
opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly Resolution 2391
(XXIII) of 26 November 1968, entered into
force, 11 November 1970.
44 Such opposition should go beyond tactical
measures involving armed force to criminal
prosecution within American national courts.
Regarding U.S. competence in such a prosecution, federal law confers jurisdiction of general court martial to try any person who, by the
law of war, is subject to trial by a military tribunal. 10 U.S.C. Sec. 818 (1988). In addition,
federal law grants jurisdiction to the federal
district courts for all offenses against the laws
of the U.S. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3231 (1988). Since its
founding, the U.S. has reserved the right to
enforce international law within its own
courts. The U.S. Constitution confers on Congress the power to define and punish piracies
and felonies committed on the high seas, and
offenses against the law of nations. U.S. Constitution, Art. 1, Sec. 8, Cl. 10.
45 Whether prosecution is based upon ordinary criminal statutes or upon special
antiterrorism law, defendants may assert
violations of the Posse Comitatus Act. Such
assertion was the case when Native Americans at Wounded Knee were charged with
interfering with a law enforcement officer
lawfully engaged in the lawful performance
of his official duties. (See 18 U.S.C. Sec.
231(a)(3) (1988). The defendants argued that
the federal marshals and FBI agents were
not performing their duties lawfully because
they enlisted military forces as a posse comitatus. (See United States vs. Jaramillo, 380 F.
Supp. 1375, 1379 (D. Neb. 1974), appeal dismissed, 510 F. 2d 808 (8th Cir. 1975); United
States vs. Red Feather, 392 F. Supp. 916
(D.S.D. 1975). For the future, defendants
could be barred from asserting violations of
the Posse Comitatus Act as a valid defense if
pertinent antiterrorism law were to incorporate legally binding exceptions to the act.

Special Warfare

Letters
Special Warfare

IO would not violate

sanctity of Civil Affairs
I read with great interest MAJ
Tim Howles article in the Spring
1997 issue of Special Warfare
about the relationship of information operations to Civil Affairs and
civil-military operations. Clearly,
we all benefit when professionals
like MAJ Howle help to further our
understanding of new doctrine by
expanding our horizons or by challenging our thinking.
As with all doctrinal discussions,
any given issue will have many
facets worthy of consideration. I
offer my response to MAJ Howles
piece in that vein.
The author has missed the
intended thrust of information
operations, or IO, in a couple of
places as he discusses the relationship between IO, Civil Affairs, or
CA; and civil-military operations,
or CMO. In his second paragraph,
he identifies the components of IO
as information warfare, or IW, and
command and control warfare, or
C2W. In fact, current doctrine, in
FM 100-6, identifies three interrelated components of IO: information systems, relevant information
and intelligence, and operations.
Operations consists of C2W plus
public affairs and Civil Affairs. I
suspect the author may have been

a victim of the lag time between his

writing the article and seeing it
published, which is always a problem in the face of rapidly emerging
doctrine.
A more serious deviation from
approved IO doctrine becomes evident as the article unfolds, specifically the inference that CA risks its
operational effectiveness by becoming too closely aligned with information operations or intelligence.
The author is justifiably apprehensive about the deception component of IO, but deception planners
go to extremes to ensure that elements like public affairs and Civil
Affairs do not become expendable
pawns in the deception process.
From an intelligence perspective,
there is a significant difference
between operating as an intelligence collector in response to an
intelligence tasking, and passing on
CA-type information to IO planners.
Keeping in mind that the overarching objective of IO is information
dominance, the fact is that any element of a deployed force may
become involved with and contribute to the commanders IO campaign plan. How actively each participates and how much each contributes will depend on the nature
of the operation and that elements
mission. CA is no exception.
Next, the author appears to

believe that the sanctity of CA will

be preserved by avoiding requests
to develop CA interface procedures
with IO. Arguing the counterpoint,
by taking the initiative and developing the IO-CA procedures, the
author would be better able to
achieve his separation of church
and state goal while meeting the
needs of IO. The absence of established IO-CA procedures simply
invites spontaneous, ad hoc
approaches in the heat of an operation, clearly not the best course of
action, given a choice.
Finally, the author addresses the
subject of trust, implying that
involvement with IO may result in
the severance of a vital link with
the civilian population. Let there
be no doubt, should a command
conduct itself in a manner that
destroys the civilian populations
trust, the chastity of our Civil
Affairs elements would be inconsequential. We are one Army!
COL Leonard G. Nowak
U.S. Army (ret.)
Annandale, Va.

Special Warfare is interested in receiving letters from its readers who would like to comment on articles
they have read in Special Warfare or who would like to discuss issues that may not require a magazine
article. With more input from the field, the Letters section could become a forum for new ideas and for the
discussion of SOF doctrinal issues. Letters should be approximately 250 words long. Include your full
name, rank, address and phone number. Address letters to Editor, Special Warfare; Attn: AOJK-DT-MDM;
JFK Special Warfare Center and School; Fort Bragg, NC 28307-5000.

Winter 1998

37

Officer Career Notes

Special Warfare

SF, CA get highest

promotion rates in Army
Reserve majors board

The FY 97 Army Reserve promotion-selection board for majors considered

9,421 officers and selected 3,405 for promotion. This was the first RC
majors promotion board to use the best-qualified method of selection
implemented by the Reserve Officer Personnel Management Act. Under
the best-qualified criteria, the board determines which officers are fully
qualified for promotion and then compares the records of fully qualified
officers to determine which ones have the highest potential for fulfilling
the needs of the Army Reserve. A fully qualified officer must meet time-ingrade requirements, must have completed civilian and military educational requirements, and otherwise be qualified for promotion. In FY 97, the SF
and CA branches had the highest and second-highest selection rates compared
with the other Army branches. Statistics are as follows:
Cons.
Sel.
% Sel.
Qual.
% of Qual. Sel.
CA
89
63
71
77
82
SF
67
51
76
65
78
USAR
9421
3405
36
5520
62
The 1997 board waived the requirement that officers be graduates of the
Combined Arms Services Staff School, or CAS3; however, those officers who
were selected for promotion must complete the CAS3 requirement. If they
fail to meet that requirement, they cannot attend the Command and General Staff Officers Course or be selected for promotion to lieutenant colonel.
For more information call MAJ James Berenz, Civil Affairs Branch Chief, at
DSN 239-6406/9002 or commercial (910) 432-6406/9002.

Plan details SF participation

in OPMS XXI

38

The commander of the Special Warfare Center and School has tentatively
approved a concept for SF participation in OPMS XXI. That concept forms the
basis of a detailed action plan, which is being prepared by the SWCS Special Operations Proponency Office. The plan, expected to be complete by mid-FY 98, will be
long-term and will require periodic revalidation as the specific provisions of OPMS
XXI become solidified. The desired end state is total branch integration Army
and joint coupled with two-year branch-qualifying assignments for all SF officers. The capstone for the branch will be a sufficient population of SF colonels in
the operations career field serving in branch and functional-integrator (branch
immaterial) assignments throughout the Army and the joint community.
As the SF personnel proponent, SWCS will achieve the end state by reaching
two goals: (1) Achieve an SF captain population of the proper size. (2) Achieve
the correct field-grade-officer inventory, by grade, for the branch.
For the first goal, success is defined as having a sufficient number of SF captains
to fill all the branchs captain authorizations, with the requisite level of participation by SF captains in functional-integrator and initial FA assignments. To
achieve the required number of captains, SWCS will ensure that the requisite
number of officers graduate from the SF Qualification Course each year.
For the second goal, success is defined as filling the SF field-grade authorizations at a percentage on par with that of the other combat-arms branches and
Special Warfare

providing the opportunity for all SF field-grade officers to serve two years in a
branch-qualifying assignment. The proponent will endeavor to create the right
field-grade inventory, by grade, for the branch by recommending instructions
to the Armys career-field designation, or CFD, boards. These boards will consider all selectees for promotion to major, after the release of the majors list
each year, in order to designate the selectees into one of the Armys OPMS XXI
career fields. The object of the SWCS recommendations to the CFD boards
would be the retention of the optimum number of majors in the SF branch.

SWCS seminar trains

warrant-officer advisers

The JFK Special Warfare Center and School recently conducted the Second
Annual Senior Warrant Officer Adviser Seminar to train unit SWOAs and to
identify MOS 180A-related issues to the chain of command. The seminar members recommended a diagnostic MOS 180A career survey and the creation of
additional senior-warrant-officer billets at SF battalion and group levels. Other
areas discussed were recruiting, assignments, utilization, pay and entitlements,
promotions, and professional development. MOS 180A will be recruiting highly
motivated NCOs to become Special Forces warrant officers in the accession year
1998-99. Senior warrant officers are encouraged to recruit proactively by identifying high achievers the potential warrant officers early in their careers so
they can best benefit the Army. Ideal candidates will be SFCs with fewer than
12 years active federal service (because of the DA cap), ANCOC graduates (after
October 1994), language rating of 1+/1+ or a DLAB score of 85, GT of 110 or
higher, a minimum of three years rated time on an SFODA, favorable recommendations from all commanders to group level, a solid performance history as
a conventional soldier, unquestionable character, and a distinct pattern of high
achievement as evidenced by honors in Army schools, civilian education and selfdevelopment. For more information call the MOS 180A manager, CW4 Shaun
Driscoll, at DSN 239-2415/9002 or commercial (910) 432-2415/9002.

1997 command-and-staffcollege selection board

selects 29 SF officers

The SF selection rate for the 1997 command-and-staff-college selection

board approximated the Army average. This was to be expected because
the Army manages CSC selection rates to ensure an approximately equivalent percentage of officers are selected from all branches. The raw number of SF officers selected will increase as larger year groups enter the
zone of consideration. Board results were:
Considered
Selected
% Selected
SF
183
29
15.8
Army
4567
756
16.6
For more information call LTC Daniel J. Adelstein at DSN 239-2415 or
commercial (910) 432-2415.

Colonel promotion board

selects 7 FA 39 officers

Winter 1998

The FY 97 colonel promotion-selection board considered 18 FA 39 officers for promotion and selected seven. For the second year in a row, the FA 39 selection rate
was competitive with the Army average. Of the officers selected, six are former battalion commanders, none are senior-service-college graduates, one is attending a
senior service college, four have been selected to attend a senior service college, and
four are joint-specialty officers. For more information call Jeanne Schiller, SOPO
FA 39 manager, at DSN 239-6406 or commercial (910) 432-6406.

39

Foreign SOF
Special Warfare

40

Communist-era officers
staff Polish security firms

Many former intelligence and police personnel from Polands communistera security establishment have made a smooth transition into private
security firms, and that transition has been a notable feature of the post1989 period. A recent Polish assessment judged that many officers of the
old Security Service, the Citizens Militia (police), and the Internal Military
Service quickly set up or joined private security organizations. These
organizations have engaged in a variety of activities ranging from providing personal and physical security to selling arms and equipment. In the
1989-1993 period alone, more than 5,000 organizations were set up in
Poland as the old communist-era security establishments were being reorganized or disestablished and as a host of new political, economic and
security problems were facing the state. These firms have continued to
evolve, recruit and grow in number since that time. By the end of 1997,
more than 7,000 Polish private security firms had been established. The
Interior Ministry, or MSW, estimates that more than 100,000 security
guards now work in Poland, while according to other sources, the number
could be 250,000. These organizations have no doubt performed some useful and legitimate services. Nevertheless, the negative dimensions of this
development in terms of terrorism and criminality are many in the view of
Polish security specialists. That is, the private security agencies are poorly monitored, if at all; private guards have been involved in a multitude of
criminal acts; firms have been involved in paramilitary assaults on behalf
of criminal organizations, sometimes in collusion with active law-enforcement personnel; on at least one occasion, former Polish security officials
now in a private firm were arrested for smuggling radioactive substances
(1 kg of powdered uranium oxide); some firms have established business
ties with other former eastern-bloc security officers and sometimes serve
foreign intelligence purposes; and some may constitute obstacles to continued reforms and integration with the West through their direct opposition or through the criminal nature of their activities.

Paraguay forms police

antiterrorist unit

A special police antiterrorist unit has been established in the ParaguayanArgentine-Brazilian tri-border area to deal with criminality in Ciudad del
Este. The units creation was hailed as an important contribution to security in the region, which is a center of drug trafficking, illegal immigration,
other forms of criminal activity, and even purported activity by pro-Iranian Party of God Hizballah members who are thought to be present in
Ciudad del Este and elsewhere. Hizballah terrorists are thought to have
carried out two major terrorist attacks in Argentina: one that in 1992
destroyed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires; and another in 1994 that
destroyed the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association. The creation of this
antiterrorist unit is one of a number of measures being taken by Paraguay,
Argentina and Brazil. Other actions include increased border checkpoints,
greater airspace control and efforts to locate clandestine drug-trafficking
airfields, and better joint planning and information-sharing.
Special Warfare

Russian roles possible

in Latin American
cocaine trafficking

Since at least the early 1990s, cocaine has been shipped to and through Russia and the former Soviet Union by Latin American traffickers and their
associates as well as by Russian criminals operating from the United States.
A growing Russian criminal presence in south Florida, for example, has been
well-documented. Recent Russian reporting, however, suggests that Russian
cocaine-trafficking criminals established bases, bought property, and set up
bank accounts in Costa Rica beginning in the mid-1990s. A role in facilitating this activity was allegedly played by officers of the Russian General
Staffs Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU said to be specialists in
Latin American national-liberation movements as well as by former
Cuban intelligence officers who maintain links with revolutionary groups
having a role in coca cultivation. This setup reportedly became fully operational by the end of 1996 and is thought to have involved substantial maritime shipments of cocaine to northern Europe and to northern Russia.

Home guards may be

forming in Caucasus

Unsuccessful efforts by Russian Internal Troops and police to control the

administrative border between Chechnya and other Russia territories
have allowed kidnapping, cattle rustling, robberies, drug trafficking, and
other criminal acts to continue at high levels. As a consequence, residents
have begun to leave the area, and the formation of local armed home
guard detachments in Dagestan, Ingushetia, and affected Cossack areas
is being considered. This development has not been well-received by Russian Internal Troops charged with area security. The regional Internal
Troop commander notes that the resources to arm these new provisional
units could be better spent on the Internal Troops themselves, whose heavily used light armor is 10 years old and whose logistics situation is less
than satisfactory. He suggests that these personnel could better be incorporated on a contract basis into existing troop or police units to help fight
the criminal free-for-all in the region.

Greek Militant Guerrilla

Formation damaged

European terrorist groups continue to form, split and combine. One of the
recently formed leftist urban terrorist groups the Militant Guerrilla
Formation appeared in 1996 and has since claimed credit for a series of
bombings against businesses, national targets and foreign targets in
Greece. The most recent of these was the December 1997 bombing at the
Greek Development Ministers private office in Athens. Prior to the bombs
detonation, a warning was evidently made in a successful effort to hurt
antiterrorism police forces, since a police specialist was injured as he prepared to defuse the device. The groups leader had at one time been a member of the long-established Revolutionary Popular Struggle, which reportedly serves as an umbrella organization for a number of small groups like
the Militant Guerrilla Formation. Early in 1998, Greek antiterrorist police
launched a series of successful raids against Militant Guerrilla Formation
houses in the Athens area, arresting eight members and seizing explosives
and detonators from a number of the 10 houses raided. These kinds of
recent experiences underscore Greeces continuing problem with enduring
and newly emerging terrorist groups.

Articles in this section are written by Dr. Graham H. Turbiville Jr. of the U.S. Armys Foreign Military Studies
Office, Fort Leavenworth, Kan. All information is unclassified.
Winter 1998

41

Update
Special Warfare

Museum rededicated
to Bull Simons
The John F. Kennedy Special
Warfare Museum was rededicated
to the late Colonel Arthur D. Bull
Simons Dec. 9.
The facility is the official museum for the Special Forces Branch
and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. It focuses on the
history of Special Forces and special operations.
It is fitting that Bull has a
museum dedicated to the history of
special warfare, said Major General Kenneth L. Bowra, commander
of the Army Special Forces Command. So much of his military
career was centered around special
warfare, and so much of special
warfare was centered around him.
Simons entered the Army in 1941
after having been commissioned
through ROTC. During World War
II, he commanded a field artillery
battery in the South Pacific and
later commanded a company in the
6th Ranger Battalion. He left the
Army after World War II, only to be
recalled in 1951, during the Korean
War. He joined the 77th Special
Forces Group in 1958 and later commanded the 8th SF Group in the
Panama Canal Zone. Simons is
probably best remembered as the
leader of the Son Tay Raid, the 1970
attempt to liberate American prisoners of war held in North Vietnam.

7th SF Group dedicates

Fronius Language Facility
The 7th Special Forces Group
remembered one of its fallen soldiers
during a rededication and award ceremony Dec. 12 at Fort Bragg.
42

went into harms way because he

was a Special Forces soldier and
because El Salvador needed the help
of calm, dedicated, selfless men who
counted duty above personal gain.
Following Phillips speech, Fronius
was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, the fourth highest medal in
the U.S. Army. The medal was accepted by Fronius son, Gregory, 16.
SFC T. Anthony Bell, USASOC PAO

Information on SFQC, SFAS

on-line

Simons Hall, home of the Special Warfare Museum

The 7th SF Group Language

Training Lab was renamed the
Fronius Language Facility in honor
of SFC Greg Fronius, who was
killed in El Salvador in 1987.
Fronius was assigned as a military
adviser in El Salvador. On March 31,
1987, El Salvadoran guerrillas penetrated the installation where Fronius was assigned and launched an
intense offensive. Fronius immediately engaged the enemy with rifle
fire and was seriously wounded.
Despite his wounds, he continued to
fight and to offer encouragement to
his fellow soldiers. Fronius died
assaulting the attackers.
Colonel Edward Phillips, the 7th
SF Group commander, described
Fronius as a warrior who was willing to go beyond the call of duty in
defense of freedom.
Greg did not go there for personal advancement, or recognition,
or decorations, Phillips said. He

Information on the Special

Forces Qualification Course and on
Special Forces Assessment and
Selection is available at a new site
on the Worldwide Web.
The web site, developed by the
1st Battalion, 1st Special Warfare
Training Group, SWCS, includes a
physical-training handbook, packing lists for SFAS and the Robin
Sage field-training exercise, a
directory of points of contact, and
course dates for SFAS and SFQC.
The
web-site
address
is
http://usasoc.soc.mil/qcourse.htm.
For more information call Captain
Ronald Green at DSN 239-3453 or
commercial (910) 432-3453.

528th breaks ground

for logistics facility
The 528th Special Operations
Support Battalion held a groundbreaking ceremony at Fort Bragg
Oct. 22 on the site of the future Special Operations Logistics Facility.
Located adjacent to the intersection of Gruber Road and the AllAmerican Freeway, the facility will
serve as the support center for all
units in the U.S. Army Special
Special Warfare

Operations Command. The new

facility will allow the 528th, which
currently operates from five locations at Fort Bragg, to consolidate
its operations into one area.
The $11-million project, begun in
September 1997, will include a
headquarters building, two directsupport maintenance facilities, and
a medical warehouse, as well as
housing and maintaining sections
for parachute operations, water
purification and transportation. It
is scheduled for completion by the
end of 1998.
This facility will be the premiere combat-service-support facility in the command, a virtual onestop shop for all support needs,
said Lieutenant Colonel Albert E.
Ballard Jr., commander of the
528th. From this facility, we will be
able to support and deploy our combat-service-support assets anywhere
in the world. SPC Daniel L.
Savolskis, USASOC PAO

ARSOF capstone manual

undergoes revision
The capstone publication for
Army special-operations forces doctrine, FM 100-25, Doctrine for
Army Special Operations Forces, is
being revised to reflect changes in
the global-security environment
and in joint war-fighting doctrine.
Since the last revision of FM
100-25 in 1991, many of the organizational changes brought about
by the Goldwater-Nichols Act and
the Cohen-Nunn Amendment in
1986 have been integrated into
joint doctrine and do not need to be
addressed, according to Steve
Cook, a doctrine analyst in the Special Warfare Center and Schools
Joint and Army Doctrine Division.
There have also been changes in
ARSOF missions and collateral
activities since 1991, Cook said.
Accordingly, some information in
the current FM 100-25 will be
deleted, condensed or reapplied:
The chapter on strategic environWinter 1998

ment will be deleted. Chapters on

the fundamentals of special operations and on mission planning and
targeting will be consolidated, and
the chapter on ARSOF missions will
be expanded. The chapter on command and control will incorporate
new material about the specialoperations coordination element
and the the special-operations command-and-control element.
Chapters on the SF groups,
Ranger Regiment, Army Special
Operations Aviation Regiment, Civil
Affairs, and PSYOP will be consolidated into one chapter that will give
an overview of each component and
provide references for more information. A chapter on ARSOF logistics
support will contain the previous
chapters on the theater Army special-operations support command, on
combat-service support, and on other
forms of support.
The revised FM 100-25 is scheduled to be published in the fourth
quarter of FY 98, Cook said.
The SWCS Directorate of Training and Doctrine is also developing
or revising three field manuals
dealing with combat support and
combat-service support for ARSOF
operations.
FM 34-31, Intelligence Support
for ARSOF, is a revision of FM 3436, SOF Intelligence and Electronic
Warfare Operations. This manual
will provide a reference for Military Intelligence personnel who
support ARSOF units. It will also
help commanders and operators to
understand intelligence-support
requirements and to better plan
and execute ARSOF core missions
and collateral activities. Applicable
joint and service fundamentals, as
well as emerging ARSOF XXI doctrine, will be included. For more
information call Captain Wilcox at
DSN 239-5393/8689 or commercial
(910) 432-5393/8689.
FM 24-31, Command, Control,
Communications, and Computers
(C4) for ARSOF, will describe the
information flow and the com-

mand-and-control
architecture
from operational units up to the
level of theater special-operations
commands and theater or national
command-and-control systems. For
more information call Captain
Steele at DSN 239-5393/8689 or
commercial (910) 432-5393/8689.
FM 63-31, Special Operations
Combat Service Support, is a revision of FM 63-24, Special Operations
Support Battalion. FM 63-31 will
include the future structure of
ARSOF combat-service support and
will integrate the Force XXI and
focused-logistics concepts. For more
information call Captain Walls at
DSN 239-5393/8689 or commercial
(910) 432-5393/8689.

Rangers looking
for enlisted volunteers
The 75th Ranger Regiment is
seeking motivated enlisted soldiers.
The Regiment has openings for
soldiers in the following MOSs: 11B,
11C, 11Z, 13F, 31C, 31U, 31Z, 35E,
54B, 63B, 71D, 71L, 71M, 73D, 74C,
75B, 75H, 79S, 88N, 91B, 92A, 92G,
92Y, 96B, 96D and 97B. Soldiers
already assigned to the Regiment,
regardless of their MOS, are eligible
to attend the Ranger Course contingent upon their unit commanders
approval. All soldiers must pass an
orientation program prior to assignment to the Regiment.
Volunteers must be active-duty,
male, U.S. citizens who are airbornequalified or willing to attend airborne school. They should send a
copy of their DA Form 2A, DA Form
2-1, DA Form 705 and DA Form 4187
to Commander, PERSCOM; Attn:
TAPC-EPMD-EPK-I (Ranger Team);
Alexandria, VA 22331. For more
information call PERSCOMs 75th
Regiment liaison at DSN 221-5566
or commercial (703) 325-5566.

43

Book Reviews
Special Warfare

Unconventional Warfare: Rebuilding U.S. Special Operations Forces. By Susan L. Marquis. Washington, D.C.: Brookings
Institution Press, 1997. ISBN: 08157-5475-2 (paperback). 319
pages. $19.95.
Today, U.S. special-operations
forces, or SOF, are directed by a special-operations combatant command.
The regional combatant commands
have subordinate special-operations
subunified commands for SOF planning, preparation and employment.
The special ops forces themselves are
in good shape: SOF are heavily committed, and although that causes
considerable individual and family
hardship, the commitment is evidence of a high level of regard at the
theater and national levels.
There may be some who view these
facts as evolutionary or even
inevitable, reasoning that as warfare
became more joint in execution, the
Department of Defense recognized
the need for a joint special-operations
command structure and that either
in appreciation of SOFs long and valorous service or in recognition of the
growing probability of operations
other than war, DoD initiated programs to rejuvenate SOF. If there are
such believers in inevitability or in
bureaucratic wisdom, they should be
protected from unscrupulous individuals who would sell them bridges.
There was nothing inevitable
about SOF revitalization. Every one
of the facts enumerated owes its existence to the Nunn-Cohen Amendment to the Goldwater-Nichols Act,
and every one of them was strongly
resisted by the armed services and by
many senior members of the DoD.
44

The overall DoD attitude was neatly

summed up in 1984 by one of the central figures in the battle to rejuvenate SOF, Noel Koch: I have discovered, in critical areas of the Pentagon, on the subject of SOF revitalization, when they say no, they mean no;
when they say maybe, they mean no;
when they say yes, they mean no.
Unconventional Warfare is the
story of how a few determined individuals made a difference: how they
struggled to get adequate funding,
equipment and manning and a better command structure for special
operations. Those waging this struggle were not a large group, nor did
they all have extensive special-operations backgrounds.
In DoD the principals were Noel
Koch and Lynn Rylander. Koch was
principal deputy assistant to the Secretary of Defense. Lynn Rylander
was an analyst in the Office of International Security Affairs. Ted Lunger,

who had served in SF, was the third

principal player. He was a staffer for
the House Armed Services Committee. Although this trio provided the
direction, they were not alone. A
number of others provided critical
assistance for long or short periods:
Retired Lieutenant General Sam
Wilson provided expertise, advice
and entre; Senate Armed Services
Committee staffer Jim Locher
labored diligently crafting the legislation; Representative Dan Daniels of
Virginia generated House support.
Many other officials, Congressional staffers and Washington-area special-operations staff officers assisted
or provided expertise and information. Their contributions were important, at times critical, but it was the
central trio who provided the continuity necessary for the six-year
struggle.
Those three eventually pursued
the legislative path when every
other attempt foundered on the
rocks of service opposition. Tenacity
and the refusal to recognize defeat
were their primary characteristics.
Like the American revolutionary
army
described
by
General
Nathaniel Greene, they fought, got
beat and rose to fight again. And
like that army, they won but one battle: the last and decisive one.
Marquis has provided an extremely readable account of this struggle
from its early motivations, its development, its many failures and its
ultimate success. She projects an
understanding of the culture and
mores of the SOF community that
could come only from close contact
with and keen observation of those
who knew it. Unlike many books on
the inner workings of government,
Special Warfare

Unconventional Warfare flows well

and maintains the readers interest.
The author has included extensive
end notes that should not be missed:
they contain many gems.
The book is not without flaws.
There are about a dozen mistakes in
the sections on SOF history that
grate. For instance, former members
of the 5th Special Forces Groups
Bluelight counterterrorism organization will be surprised to read that
that effort is attributed to the commanders desires rather than (as it
was) to the competent orders of higher headquarters. The Gettys will be
equally surprised to learn that their
soldier son is named Kevin. And
the SOF experiences that are attributed to a couple of general officers
are more colorful than accurate.
But these are minor flaws in an
outstanding work. Despite the nits,
Unconventional Warfare is good SOF
history, and it is a good look into the
often contentious workings of government. It should be read by those who
have an interest in either of these
areas before the passage of time
makes all that was accomplished
appear evolutionary or inevitable.
COL J.H. Crerar
U.S. Army (ret.)
Vienna, Va.
Civil Military Operations in
the New World. By John T. Fishel.
Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1997. ISBN: 0-275-94797-1.
269 pages. $65.
In Civil Military Operations in the
New World, John T. Fishel examines
a recently acquired skill for the U.S.
military: planning for civil-military
operations, or CMO. Fishel was the
chief CMO planner in the U.S.
Southern Command prior to and
during Operation Just Cause in
Panama. He is one of the Armys
leading experts on CMO and on

transition-operations planning.
Fishel begins the book with a solid
introduction to CMO and their application to transition (or postconflict)
operations. He then goes into a thorough discussion of CMO planning
conducted during recent U.S. military operations.
Using his in-depth knowledge of
Just Cause, Fishel discusses the intricacies of CMO planning, task organization, and reserve-component
involvement during that operation.
He also conducts a detailed analysis
of the operations various planning
functions.
Fishel describes how planners
revising a 1987-88 plan repeated
erroneous assumptions that were
later magnified by the geographical
separation of staff elements and
headquarters. Security classification
was another issue: Classification
complicated planning even more,
because rotating teams of reservists
could neither receive advance briefings nor discuss the plan while in
transition at the reserve center.
Reviewing interagency participation in the planning of Just Cause,
Fishel finds that the classification of

the plan and a lack of interagency

planning between DoD, the State
Department and other agencies were
a major deficiency one that made it
difficult for DoD planners to involve
critical elements from other agencies.
Fishel discusses other Just Cause
CMO issues that are still being
debated: Who is responsible for CMO
planning and execution? Should we
mobilize Reserve Civil Affairs units?
If so, how many units, and for whom
should they work? Fishel discusses
the establishment of the civil-military operations task force and its
relationship to the Civil Affairs task
force.
Fishel next examines CMO planning during the Gulf War, Provide
Comfort, operations in Somalia, and
Uphold Democracy. For each operation, he shows the application of
lessons learned from CMO planning
in previous operations.
Tying the various operations
together, Fishel examines the strategic impact of CMO and a number of
critical CMO issues well-defined
end states; task organization of CMO
assets; establishment of a CMO task
force; command and control of a CMO
task force; and the relationship
between CMO and national policy
objectives.
Any officer assigned to or anticipating a role in CMO planning or transition planning will benefit from reading
Civil Military Operations in the New
World. John Fishel has produced a
book that is not only sound professional reading but also a great resource for
CMO planners and operators.
LTC George Pogge
CGSC
Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Special Warfare is available on the Worldwide Web at www.usasoc.soc.mil/swcs/dotd/sw-mag/sw-mag.htm.

Winter 1998

45

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