Not a Magic Bullet

WEST POMFRET, Vt. —  At the U.S. Special Operations Command in Florida, two new interagency centers, one for operations and one for intelligence, are up and running. Under Gen. Bryan D. “Doug” Brown, the SOCOM commander, they oversee a growing cadre of clandestine anti-terrorism commandos and intelligence operatives.

A highly classified field unit called Joint Task Force 121 has been activated to coordinate the hunt for “high-value targets.” Its organization and structure have been streamlined to improve its ability to concentrate on real-time hunter-killer missions against terrorist leaders and cells. A three-star command is also being designed to oversee the most clandestine elements of U.S. special operations, according to senior officers close to the community. And everywhere, final preparations are being made for the much-whispered-about “spring offensive” to kill or capture Osama bin Laden along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

This is the heart of the Bush administration’s strategy for the war on terrorism -- centered in the Pentagon, and on the deadly magic of special operations. “Hunt them down and kill them one at a time” is the strategy in a nutshell.

It’s an approach that has born fruit. It is also deeply flawed, not least because it offers neither a comprehensive strategy nor a long-term solution to a problem that is unquestionably both broad and deep-rooted. Beyond better airport screeners, tighter monitoring of border crossings and other such “homeland security” measures, the administration’s principal response has been to develop ever-faster, ever-more-lethal special operations capabilities to destroy individual terrorists and terrorist organizations.

Enormous effort has gone into transforming the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command -- which was little more than a low-profile training and coordinating operation prior to 9/11 -- into the lead force for conducting anti-terrorism operations worldwide. Information now flows faster from intelligence gatherers to analysts to strike forces. Decision times are shorter. Strikes can be launched in hours or minutes, not days or weeks as before.

Saddam Hussein was rooted out of his spider hole in Iraq as a result of improved intelligence capabilities and new levels of coordination between Joint Task Force 121 and the regular occupation troops in Iraq. Yet despite high-profile success, the administration’s approach is a ticket to nowhere. For one thing, despite all the reorganization and improvement, despite better tools and a lot more money, special operations have serious limitations in just how much they can cover and do. For another, U.S. officials have labored to perfect an instrument that will almost certainly prove insufficient.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, whose love for special operations is legendary, may soon have “the fastest gun in the West.” But the problem of terrorism is not going to be solved just by winning the gunfight at the OK Corral.

Rumsfeld’s obsession with being able to pull the trigger faster and faster creates a blind spot: The administration continues to neglect other military and nonmilitary weapons in the national arsenal -- including the kinds of diplomatic and economic pressures that helped bring victory in past wars.

The very secretiveness of special operations makes it hard for the public, or even members of Congress charged with oversight, to keep informed about the new tactics or to measure their effectiveness. That’s not good.

Policy decisions stand up best and longest if the public and its representatives have some idea what’s being done and what costs and benefits to expect. Almost none of this has been provided on the decision to put so many of the country’s anti-terrorism eggs in the gunfighter basket.

“Though most Americans may know little about your truly remarkable exploits, they do take comfort in knowing that you’re in the fight,” Rumsfeld said at Brown’s assumption of command last September. “That same knowledge, which so comforts the American people, at the same time strikes fear in enemies.” That may be good stump rhetoric, but such talk serves no purpose other than expanding the ranks of the terrorist fighters wanting to show they’re not afraid to take on America. And “trust me” is a slender reed to lean on in a world of weapons of mass destruction.

In addition, Rumsfeld himself relies on the mystique of special operations and the secretiveness to cover the cool reality that there are far fewer American trigger pullers than his macho rhetoric suggests. And that their status is by no means as healthy as it looks at SOCOM’s fabulous headquarters.

Since the events of Sept. 11, special operations forces have shouldered a disproportionate share of the burden, but they are fewer in number than you might imagine. And they are stretched exceeding thin.

Though the budget increased 35% in 2004, SOCOM consists of only about 47,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen in a variety of highly specialized units. Less than one-third are actual fighters. In special operations, as in other military formations, logisticians, communicators, medical teams, headquarters staff and other support personnel outnumber spear carriers by a large margin. Only about 1,500 “black” special operators are assigned to clandestine units at any one time, including JTF 121 and the so-called Gray Fox intelligence unit.

At the peak of combat operations in Iraq, 7,270 special operations personnel were deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, a record number for any modern-day operation. Today, Iraq continues to command the largest portion of deployed special operators, followed by those deployed to Afghanistan and its surrounding neighbors. About 8,000 Army special operators are deployed in those two countries alone and in other locations in the Middle East and South Asia. About 1,000 special operations personnel are deployed in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Moreover, the majority of those deployed are “white” special operators, largely engaged in routine training and liaison, in counter-narcotics and nonterrorist-related missions, and in civil affairs projects and psychological operations.

The “black” counterparts in JTF 121 bear the brunt of conducting the small, clandestine strikes against what Brown calls a highly “adaptive and elusive” enemy. Out in the field, they number in the hundreds at most.

What is more, the increasing reliance on special operations has had a profound effect on a force that one would think was otherwise highly motivated. The Army is slated to add more than 4,000 special operators to its ranks over the next five years (an almost 20% increase from the present 26,000), but the Special Forces career field is still staffed at only about 92% of its authorized strength.

One of the realities is that you can’t just manufacture a Green Beret, much less a Delta Force commando, who is acknowledged by all to be head and shoulders above other elite fighters. The current Army goal is to graduate 750 Special Forces soldiers annually, but even then it will barely cover attrition.

According to internal documents, Army Special Forces anticipate a “larger than average annual loss” in 2004 because of mass retirements. A significant portion of the senior Special Forces cadre is “retirement eligible,” that is, already has more than 20 years of Army service. What is more, an unexpectedly high number of special operations personnel are choosing not to reenlist.

Serious as these personnel and other internal problems are, they can be solved.

What is more serious -- and not so easily fixed by officials not noted for their flexibility -- is the fact that the Bush administration has devoted so much time and energy to perfecting an instrument that is ultimately inadequate to carry the burden.

Brown says his mission is to “specifically focus on the war on terrorism -- empowered to coordinate all elements of our national power against it.” Success, he says, “depends largely upon our ability to quickly employ -- with little advance warning.” The evidence suggests that the Pentagon is doing a remarkable job of giving Brown and his operators the tools to do just that. And some Americans may feel safer. Certainly they should feel proud of those who risk their lives on the front lines.

Yet a strategy that assumes the U.S. can hunt down and neutralize every last terrorist cannot succeed. There are just too many of them. And there is just too much else that needs to be done, both to put the war on terrorism in proper perspective and to integrate “national power” so that we can focus on the nonmilitary as well.

Even if Bin Laden is killed or captured in the coming spring offensive, the question will still remain: When will we learn that being able to pull the trigger faster than the other guy does not constitute a long-term strategy for a democratic America?