By Ann Roosevelt
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.–A balanced approach to warfare carefully blending different military capabilities–conventional, nuclear and irregular–is necessary moving into the future, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command said.
“We’re living in a ‘new normal,’ the world not going back to pre-9/11,” Adm. Eric Olson said May 13 at the Joint Warfighting 09 conference, co-sponsored by AFCEA International and U.S. Naval Institute.
Olson wasn’t offering the audience revelations, but reinforcing what other speakers–Marine Gen. James Mattis, who commands of U.S. Joint Forces Command and NATO’s Supreme Allied Command, Transformation, and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the Training and Doctrine Command, said at the conference here.
The threats we face now are not new, and the greatest threat is that of enduringly fractured states, he said. “Sovereignty is simply not what it used to be.”
For example, borders are more porous. There is global networking, regional instability–all things discussed in detail in the U.S. Joint Forces Command’s Joint Operating Environment (JOE) produced in December–which sets the problem the joint force faces in the future.
“There’s a misperception that peace is the norm and war is temporary problem, with a pre-supposed military solution,” Olson said.
However, territorial sovereignty can be developed over time, while cultural sovereignty cannot, he said. He pointed to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who recently wrote that there’s a struggle between the forces of violent extremism and those of moderation.
To deal with the variety of threats the joint forces need to be responsive to surprise, evolving threats and be able to adjust rapidly and with agility.
To do this, the joint force must have a balanced operational focus and a balanced force structure, he said. Operational requirements should shape the force structure, which is built to respond to what is needed, and that would include security assistance.
DoD strategy, Concept Plan 7500, sets a two-track, direct and indirect approach to global concerns, he said. The direct approach is kinetic, attacking those who wish to do us harm. The indirect approach takes longer and means working with counterparts internationally to help them gain greater capability and capacity. This effort works to eliminate the fundamental causes that trigger terrorist activity.
While the direct/indirect approach is easily defined in theory, Olson said it’s another challenge to get them into practice.
The military leads the direct approach, while it is in a supporting role for indirect activities.
“In application, the balanced approach can have powerful effects,” Olson said. In the special operations world, balance is a way of life. For Army special forces, in Afghanistan and Iraq, they are working 100 percent with and through partner security forces.”The surest means of winning against an irregular enemy is to defeat him before the shooting starts.”
For example, during one seven-month special forces deployment, “well over 5,000 operations were conducted, of which about 3,000 were kinetic, and about 2,500 operations were non kinetic, he said. That meant perhaps 3,000 enemy forces might be killed, but more than 50,000 people and animals treated in special clinics, food was delivered, radio stations aided, and the team partnered with USAID for simple things, such as culverts, bridges and schools were constructed, leading to larger local impacts.
Olson said the last data he saw showed some 1,300 meetings with local leaders, leading to kinetic operations, that stimulated other assistance.
The troops conducting these operations “are the face of the United States, the face of coalition,” Olson said. Threat isolation and increased freedom in the environment is the proof of the value of balance and the direct/indirect approach. And the key to success in balanced warfare is persistence.