Black Hawks Back to Somalia?
LOWE, CHRISTIAN
Black Hawks Back to Somalia? The Special Forces should fare a lot better this time. BY CHRISTIAN LOWE IS SOMALIA NEXT? Reports from the region suggest U.S. Special Forces teams have been in the...
...As one Defense Department strategist suggests, you don't take a sledgehammer to knock down a chair, you knock out one of its legs and render it useless...
...In Afghanistan this concept is best illustrated by the continuous bombing of entrenched al Qaeda and Taliban forces...
...Information needs to go directly to those who are hitting enemy forces...
...But the military—and their civilian leaders—appear to have learned the lessons of those failures and translated them into operational doctrine...
...Some of the U.S...
...David Deptula and retired Marine Corps Maj...
...In the new type of war, precision ground forces develop the intelligence needed to paint an accurate picture of who and where the enemy is and how to ferret him out...
...In Pentagon circles, this oblique approach is called Effects-Based Operations, and the Afghanistan war demonstrates its possibilities...
...Those fighting the Afghan war have benefited from the work of a small cadre of military thinkers who vowed that the mistakes leading to the carnage in Mogadishu would never be repeated...
...It's also a symbolic weapon that Clinton officials thought would "escalate" the Somali conflict more than was comfortable, so they pulled that punch and let the commandos fend for themselves...
...American forces toppled the Taliban regime and ferreted al Qaeda operatives out of their supposedly impenetrable caves, with only a few friendly fire casualties, in less than three months...
...Not since Vietnam had the United States lost so many in such a short engagement...
...The battle in Mogadishu nine years ago is considered by the ill-informed to have been a defeat of mighty America...
...The war in Afghanistan makes plain that 4th Generation Warfare thinking has begun to take hold...
...In Somalia, the commandos begged for the fearsome AC-130 Spectre gunship to help get them out of intense firefights in downtown Mogadishu...
...casualties—or Afghan antiTaliban casualties—in this fast-paced war...
...It showed us the future of warfare, and what we learned we're now turning against our enemies...
...It never happened, yet the enemy was defeated...
...More important, Allard suggests, the commandos must be free to decide how best to accomplish the mission and not have it decided for them by the brass...
...They call the murky conflicts of the future 4th Generation Warfare...
...They know that for every American killed, more than 30 Somali guerrillas perished...
...Perhaps the biggest change since the Somalia operation is a better understanding of the still-evolving concept of Effects-Based Operations...
...It wasn't the destruction of the forces themselves that was the goal, it was their defeat—a telling distinction...
...military's most seasoned and best trained troops took a beating in Mogadishu during the U.N...
...Well trained, aggressive, and resourceful, Special Forces operate best when given leeway to get a job done on their own terms...
...But troops who were involved in the fight know better...
...With its precise and overwhelming firepower and hours-long loitering time, the Spectre is a ferocious weapon...
...September 11 worked like a slap in the face to concentrate all military minds on the new realities...
...The bombing rattled the enemy to such an extent that they gave up without much of a fight...
...Nope...
...For the last eight years, special operations forces and strategists in the Pentagon and elsewhere—notably Maj...
...But the commandos did, on occasion, need to call in air support to pound them out of a pinch...
...Contrast that with the 18 elite Rangers and Delta Force commandos killed and 84 wounded in just 17 hours of furious fighting in the crowded streets of Mogadishu...
...These forces had no effective air support, and help on the ground arrived too late...
...Allard of the National Defense University, have minutely analyzed the Somalia operation...
...Fourth-generation adversaries often strike in unexpected ways, and it's best to counter them from unexpected directions and to think preemptively...
...Special Forces teams have been in the Somali countryside scouting possible al Qaeda sanctuaries and drumming up local support...
...Remember the predictions that a bloodbath would ensue when antiTaliban forces entered Kunduz...
...At least as important, virtually everyone involved in military planning has read and taken to heart the book about the tragic events in Somalia by Philadelphia Inquirer investigative reporter Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down...
...And the cave to cave fight to knock al Qaeda out of Tora Bora...
...Rather than using a sledgehammer to take the enemy down, these operators acquired intelligence and fostered working relationships with anti-Taliban fighters to help do their work...
...famine-relief mission in 1993...
...They also know that Mogadishu taught Pentagon thinkers powerful lessons...
...Yet the mere suggestion our troops could go back into that wasp's nest provokes anxiety...
...From the moment the war began, precision ground forces such as Army Green Berets, British Special Air Service troopers, Navy SEALs, Rangers, and Delta Force commandos—and even covert CIA operatives—were employed to strike at the heart of al Qaeda and the Taliban...
...And when our forces slip back into Somalia to finish off al Qaeda cells and camps, gunships will be covering their backs...
...But a nervous Clinton defense secretary, Les Aspin, never made the gunship available...
...In Afghanistan, Spectres regularly strafed enemy forces and swept the ground ahead of Special Forces' escape routes...
...Researchers at the services' war colleges, notably Kenneth Christian Lowe is a reporter for Marine Corps Times...
...The terrorists were defeated without a bloody assault on the ragged mountain stronghold...
...Images of dead Americans dragged through the streets by drug-crazed Somali bandits will forever color thoughts of our military's involvement in that lawless land...
...Now that's changed...
...These forces need support, on the ground and from the air, when they get into trouble...
...Paul Van Riper—have been pushing the services to change the way they train for and fight wars...
...This, coupled with massive and precise bombing, explains why there have been so few U.S...
Vol. 7 • December 2001 • No. 16
