(U) ROCKY SHOALS

Novel Ideas (I)

Clinton described … the same “smart power” that she’s been advocating for years — only now it’s smarter, and more powerful, than ever before. “Special Operations Forces exemplify the ethic of smart power,” she said. “Fast and flexible. Constantly adapting. Learning new languages and cultures. Dedicated to forming partnerships where we can and acting alone when we must.”

Played Like A Piano

The indispensable Information Dissemination brings to our attention a quintessential Hill staffer brain fart:

The request includes $38,000,000 for the advance procurement of items for the Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB). The AFSB is envisioned by the Navy to act as a mobile at-sea platform that will provide flexible mission support and sustainment. This platform will fulfill a very longstanding (at least 20 years) but never fulfilled mission need for sea-based support for a variety of missions.

In the past, this mission need has been filled by a variety of ad-hoc methods to include the use of available surface combatants or amphibious ships. The closest dedicated platform to fulfilling a similar mission need was the conversion of the Navy’s amphibious assault ship, USS Inchon, to a mine countermeasure command and support ship in 1995. This was done at a time when the Navy was shifting the fleet from an organic mine warfare capability embedded on surface combatants to a more dedicated mine warfare capability of mine hunting ships and aircraft.

Similarly, the Navy plans to fill this mission need in the very near term with the conversion of the USS Ponce in fiscal year 2012.

Further, the Committee notes that the AFSB is planned for construction in the National Defense Sealift Fund, whose purpose in ship construction is for strategic sealift acquisition. The Committee is struggling with placing the mission of the AFSB into a strategic sealift area and directs the Secretary of the Navy to accomplish any AFSB tasks in the traditional Navy appropriation accounts. 

The Committee applauds the Navy for finally attempting to satisfy such a longstanding need, but it is confused as to the timing of satisfying this need in an era of decreasing budgets and when two combatants were pulled out of the fiscal year 2014 shipbuilding program. The Committee believes this mission need can continue to be satisfied as it has been satisfied to date.

The Committee directs the Navy to apply the fiscal year 2014 funding currently projected for the construction of an AFSB toward fully funding an additional submarine to help achieve cost savings and industrial base stability in that program.

Accordingly, the recommendation provides no funding for the AFSB.

Awesome.

Okay. So…Congress wants to cut the Afloat Forward Staging Base from the National Defense Sealift Fund because:

a) it doesn’t understand what it does

b) it didn’t bother to ask

c) asking is hard

d) admitting you don’t know what to ask is even harder

e) even when briefed they still wouldn’t understand

f) they’re comfortable publicly capitulating to industry instead of resourcing

g) because they can. 

Anyways. The Afloat Forward Staging Base has been in the offing for some time:

USS Ponce will serve as an Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB), instead of its original plan to decommission in March. Ponce will deploy this summer in order to fulfill a long-standing request for an AFSB in the USCENTCOM AOR.  “This really is an excellent opportunity for Sailors step out of their comfort zone and be a part of something really unique. The AFSB is a concept that has been floated for quite some time now and the Sailors who volunteer for this mission are going to be the ones who have the greatest impact on the future of this program,” said Womble. “In today’s very competitive environment this type of assignment could make a difference in a Sailor’s career options and promotion opportunities.” 

As AFSB(I) 15 (I for “Interim”), the warship will be commanded by a Navy captain and manned by a combined crew of officers, enlisted Sailors, and Military Sealift Command (MSC) government civilian mariners. Ponce will remain homeported at Naval Station Norfolk, with volunteer officers and Sailors serving on the ship under Individual Augmentees (IA) orders. Tour lengths will be 12 months. 

While deployed, Ponce will support Mine Counter Measure and Coastal Patrol (PC) ships, and aircraft operations with the capability to support multiple mission packages as detachments when requested by USCENTCOM and/or U.S. 5th Fleet.

Contrary to press reports, AFSB, or Afloat Forward Staging Base(s), are not a new idea. Still, it’s always fun to read the breathless reporting of the Washington Post:

The Pentagon is rushing to send a large floating base for commando teams to the Middle East as tensions rise with Iran, al-Qaeda in Yemen and Somali pirates, among other threats.

In response to requests from U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, the Navy is converting an aging warship it had planned to decommission into a makeshift staging base for the commandos. Unofficially dubbed a “mothership,” the floating base could accommodate smaller high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by Navy SEALs, procurement documents show.

Special Operations forces are a key part of the Obama administration’s strategy to make the military leaner and more agile as the Pentagon confronts at least $487 billion in spending cuts over the next decade.

Lt. Cmdr. Mike Kafka, a spokesman for the Navy’s Fleet Forces Command, declined to elaborate on the floating base’s purpose or to say where, exactly, it will be deployed in the Middle East. Other Navy officials acknowledged that they were moving with unusual haste to complete the conversion and send the mothership to the region by early summer.

 Adding the mothership would do relatively little to bolster U.S. maritime power overall, but it could play an instrumental role in secretive commando missions offshore.

Instead, the ship will be modified into what the military terms an Afloat Forward Staging Base. Kafka said it would be used to support mine-clearance ships, smaller patrol ships and aircraft.

 A mothership can stay in one spot for weeks or months, effectively serving as a floating base for commandos as they monitor coastal areas or prepare for amphibious operations.

The U.S. Special Operations Command has sought a transportable floating base for several years, saying that a mothership would expand the range of commando squads operating from small speedboats, particularly in remote coastal areas.

It’s been a thing and it’s still a thing. A thing USCENTCOM demanded twice already and USSOCOM has lusted after for years. For over half a decade, the National Mission Force has utilized USS HARRY S TRUMAN as a staging platform and as the command-and-control node of a Joint Interagency Task Force. Even before that, though, 160th SOAR(A) embarked on the USS KITTY HAWK.

Yeah, baby. That’s right:

The aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk was recently deployed from its home port in Japan with only a partial complement of fixed-wing aircraft, and observers speculate that the ship will go to the Northern Arabian Sea to serve as a launch and recovery platform for helicopter-borne special forces units.

Yes, Hill people, I linked to a Congressional Research Study. And I enjoyed the irony. Every. Delicious. Word. Besides, the KITTY HAWK and TF-x did a damn good job:

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. – Just over seven years ago, Soldiers from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) boarded the USS Kitty Hawk underway to launch Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan.

Immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America, a contingent of Night Stalkers and their unique special operations helicopters were among the first American troops and equipment headed to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility.

Aviators and crews went on to conduct numerous strategic missions in Afghanistan supporting special operations ground forces in those next few weeks. Though the mission is still classified, the 160th SOAR(A) executed the longest helicopter air assault in history during this initial deployment from the deck of the USS Kitty Hawk. The mission was an outstanding success, requiring the crews to conduct a 1,300-mile assault while enduring an astounding 15 continuous flight hours.

More recently, the SAN ANTONIO prosecuted national-level missions and conducted maritime security operations as COMFIFTHFLTs AFSB. And, lest we forget, sometimes we use the ships filling in for AFSB in the interim to be floating forward detention sites. Which is brilliant, really.

But facts are so hard. I mean — fuck facts, right? Who needs facts when you can be worthless obstructionists with money? Okay. Whatever. DoD can do stuff just because they can, too. Which is equally awesome.

Congress has budgetary control; the power of the purse, and all that.

That’s cool, I guess. But Congress doesn’t have operational control over the Navy.

Or the Army.

Wait — what?

Yes. The Army. You know, the Army with their very own amphibious base on the eastern seaboard. Wait, the Army has a base? For, like, ships and stuff? Yeah:

Formerly a sub-installation of Fort Eustis, Fort Story (now known as Joint Expeditionary Base East) is a sub-installation of the United States Navy and Little Creek Amphibious Base. Located in the independent city of Virginia Beach, Virginia at Cape Henry at the entrance of the Chesapeake Bay[2], it offers a unique combination of features including dunes, beaches, sand, surf, deep-water anchorage, variable tide conditions, maritime forest and open land. Fort Story is the prime location and training environment for both Army amphibious operations and Joint Logistics-Over-the-Shore (LOTS) training events.

Oh, dear. Looks like Congress jumped the shark and then imposed sanctions on it.

Awkward, that.

Now, you’re saying to yourself — Rob, the…Army? What the what? What on earth would the Army have to do with resourcing a CCDR request, sending a ship or ships to the USCENTCOM AOR? Well, let’s look at the facts: It’s an Army amphibious base, on a predominantly Naval installation, with USSOCOM and USMC tenant commands and Army ships controlled by an Army service component command.

Yeah. Facts. They’re so, like…hard to understand spin awkward and stuff:

SDDC is the Army Service Component Command of the U.S. Transportation Command and is a major subordinate command to Army Materiel Command.  This relationship links USTRANSCOM’s Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise and AMC’s Materiel Enterprise.  The command also partners with the commercial transportation industry as the coordinating link between DOD surface transportation requirements and the capability industry provides.

Let’s examine SDDCs utility for a moment, shall we? SDDC, which is not beholden to the committee that controls the National Defense Sealift Fund (fucking geniuses), controls all the over-the-horizon logistics for the joint force when we move on somewhere like, I don’t know, Kuwait. Or Djibouti.

Hark! What have we here? An entire directorate of SDDC, solely devoted to leveraging the solutions private industry can provide at cost, without seeking Congressional approval first? Egads! Perish the thought! Or…we could read about the directorate that does exactly that! Let’s do so:

The Strategic Business Directorate (G9) is SDDC’s business liaison in partnering with Department of Defense (DoD) shippers and commercial industry to provide reliable, cost effective, global surface deployment and distribution transportation services in support of national defense objectives.

Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle (or a Hill staffer, one is worse than the other).

So — wait. We have a Army base that has ships. We have an emergent — nay, urgent — requirement from a combatant command for a specific capability. The capability in question cannot be retrofitted because %SOMEPARTISANEXCUSE%. Meanwhile, while Congress plays politics and fellates the big shipbuilders, the AOR suffers and the personnel that need this platform do, too.

Gee. This is terrible! I hope nothing like this ever happened before!

Letter to Secretary of Defense Gates from Senators Joe Biden and Kit Bond, dated June 28, 2007

“We are concerned that the Department is failing to respond to urgent warfighter requirements because of unconscionable bureaucratic delays in Washington.”

Subsequently, Congress required an independent review of DOD responses to urgent needs submitted by combatant commands by July 11, 2009 (Section 801 of the 2009 National Defense Authorization Act, signed October 14, 2008)

Inexusable!

If we only we had a conduit — nay, a Congressionally-approved mechanism — some recourse for combatant and joint task force commanders to request things they urgently need and receive them urgently…

Oh, wait:

A Joint Urgent Operational Need (JUON) is an urgent operation need identified by a combatant commander involved in an ongoing named operation. A JUON’s main purpose is to identify and subsequently gain Joint Staff validation and resourcing of a solution, usually within days or weeks, to meet a specific high-priority combatant commander need. The scope of a combatant commander JUON will be limited to addressing urgent operational needs that: (1) fall outside of the established Service processes; and (2) most importantly, if not addressed immediately, will seriously endanger personnel or pose a major threat to ongoing operations. 

Sounds like you can justify asking for pretty much anything with a JUON, huh?        

Imagine that. And Congress can’t stop that? Gee. That’s awkward.

So Army ships can take the place of the solitary ship a combatant commander and his deputy already asked the Navy for? The same ship Congress wants to stop retrofitting in favor of dropping to their collective knees for big shipbuilding, Handiwipes at the ready?

Well, yes. And there are a variety of ways to do it, if you’re crafty enough.

Therein lies the rub, though. USCENTCOM issuing a JUON — thus sidestepping this lame attempt to block AFSB — is a short-term solution, and ultimately a solution the Army would have to pay for. Sure, if the Army was bossed around by a CCDR or CDRUSSOCOM or one of those equities got the Secretary’s office behind them, that would work. But there are better ways. 

While washing the funding thru the Army addresses the resource issue in the short-term, the long game would be to tap the Navy’s N851 shop, perched atop the Chief of Naval Operations staff. Populated by full-time representatives of the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command and Naval Special Warfare Command, N851 has the access and latitude to tap not only Navy monies, but also USSOCOMs PEO-Maritime monies.

Now let’s say, for sake of argument — this is DC, after all — staffers amend the language in final markup in a lame attempt to block what I just laid out.  Jokes. Straight jokes. Not only do the combatant commanders not have to answer Congress before issuing JUONs, they could always just flip the proverbial middle finger and contract out for a barge — or barges, plural.

The barges can be obtained from their pick of a veritable smorgasbord of contracting and program executive offices — even, when done correctly, thru a university grant. I won’t point out which ones, because I’ve grown fond of watching over-entitled and often developmentally-challenged Hill staffers try — and fail — to outsmart me.

I should point out, if only for levity’s sake, that JUONs were created after complaints from a sitting Vice President and a United States Senator (page 2) — some dude named Bond.

So, you know, no big deal.

It’s not like we need these kind of platforms, anyway, right? It’s not like, oh, I don’t know, we have emergent needs for force projection closer to shore. Or, to stop basing Remotely Piloted Vehicles and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles on land and start basing them on floating sovereign US territory we control, so we can dictate where our ISR platforms do and do not go and when they can and cannot fly.

Because, you know, there aren’t better alternatives to basing RPAs & UAVs in worthless countries like Pakistan. 

Oh. Wait: 

The proliferation of small remotely piloted vehicles is going to provide unique opportunities to test some of these operational concepts. For example, the Marine Corps and Army will soon have more than 400 RQ-7 Shadows in their inventories.  This interesting article discusses the utility of these 100lb payload class platforms to drop Shadow Hawk precision guided munitions. Yes, these platforms are small, and their lethal payloads are even smaller. Though there is significant tactical value in being able to provide very precise yet low yield munitions from a small persistent drone, that isn’t the point. This platform is ideal for relatively low cost experimentation on concepts of distributed operations at sea. Following pending draw-downs of Army and Marine Corps forces in Afghanistan, these assets will be available for other tasking…

Nope. That doesn’t sound useful at all. 

Basically, even if it wanted to, Congress cannot block the stand-up of a combatant commander-requested Afloat Floating Staging Base. The workarounds are legion — and none are illegal. Solutions make people uncomfortable. This is primarily because people refuse to understand solutions owe their very existence to mechanisms many who fancy themselves practitioners in this field are unaware of. Partisan hackery, ideological bias, aversion to all things SOF, feelings and personal comfort are irrelevant. Operational success, however, is supremely relevant.

Even if Congress scraped together the six people who might be able to counter the solutions I laid out and moved to block them, the combatant commander can just rent barges. Like we’ve been doing for years. In Kuwait. And Oman. And Djibouti. And Manda Bay. And Karachi. 

Man. These facts are annoying. 

What if USCENTCOM don’t want just any old barge? Well, MAERSK has you covered. And if that doesn’t work: wash the barges thru USSTRATCOM.

But, hell, since Congress decided to be so asinine (it’s not like Yemen is disintegrating and may necessitate involvement in the green- and brown-water or anything) the Joint Interagency Task Force commanders may not want to wait for USCENTCOM to gift them a barge, or wait for the PONCE. And that’s perfectly okay. Impatience pays. All you gotta do is fill out a Special Mission Funds voucher, justify the cost, and you’re renting barges from host nations and NATO partners in no time. In cash.

Yeah. You can do that. 

The Vickers Doctrine called. It didn’t leave a message; it just muttered something about wanting its spokewheel back.

I look forward to Congress trying to stop what I (irrefutably) outlined. They can’t. 

—-

Robert Caruso is a veteran of the United States Navy, and spent time with both the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He specializes in mitigating emergent operational, physical, personnel and information security concerns.

The Vickers Doctrine

For too long, those driving the national security discourse have conflated pie-in-the-sky idealism with American interests. They are not one and the same. Not every revolution is worthy of American intervention; nor does every potential failed state necessitate a costly and ultimately counterproductive conventional American presence.

With each endeavor, policymakers have struggled to identify national imperatives and responsible transparency on one hand, while balancing real or imagined strategic deficits and responsible secrecy on the other. Further complicating the pursuit of this nations adversaries has been a spate of both willful and inadvertent leaks of classified information. In at least one instance, the leak in question directly contributed to the disruption of an on-going operation — and led many of this nations partners to reconsider established conduits and personal relationships that have proven beneficial to both parties.

Which brings us to what I’ve taken to calling “The Vickers Doctrine”. In light of the strategic environment, I propose that instead of Secretary Powell’s eight questions, only seven need inform policymakers decision-making:

1.) Is the campaign plan clearly telegraphed to both allies and adversaries alike?

2.) Do we embody the agility, resourcefulness and ingenuity of the enemy and, if not, why?

3.) What is the requisite level of secrecy required to facilitate operational and strategic success?

4.) Are we aware of the customs, languages and tactics of our adversaries and are we reasonably proficient in their use and if not, why?

5.) The enemy is cellular, decentralized, geographically dispersed and inherently secretive. Do we have the means to infiltrate, disrupt and deceive such an adversary and if not, why?

6.) What is the ultimate strategic aim?

7.) Does the action align with stated or unstated American national security objectives?

Distilled in its purest form, the Vickers Doctrine would not eschew the use of conventional military force to shape the global commons — rather, it would rest atop three discrete pillars necessary to combat violent extremism globally by truly taking the fight to the enemy. The aforementioned seven questions, when adhered to, would inform the policymaking process and ultimately enable this nation to deter any adversary, disrupt any sanctuary and defeat any foe.

First, the United States must train and equip a confederation of allies and synthetic capabilities to contain their dangerous neighbors –- and do so without American interests taking a backseat to the political environment of the moment. Serious consideration should be given to the establishment of regional security coordination centers to further integrate such a campaign on a global scale. These centers would not be encumbered with any command-and-control responsibilities, instead focusing on education, networking, and coordination. Policymakers should leverage regional solutions to regional problems.

Second, the United States must recruit, return and retain a proactive, multicultural cadre of paramilitary operations officers and human intelligence collectors. While a return to pre-Church Committee human source operations may be morally questionable to some, one would be remiss if they did not see the tactical advantage this affords both the military and intelligence community. We can no longer rely exclusively on intelligence graciously provided to us by varied partner nations and foreign intelligence services. Targeting is driven by intelligence. Our operations cannot solely be driven by foreign intelligence services, nor should a dearth of human intelligence lead to civilian casualties.

Third, we must realign our force posture around the globe to take into account both present and emergent threats to the homeland. While the aforementioned partner nations take the lead in countering the very groups policymakers have pledged to defeat, the United States should exert an equal or greater level of effort to place time-sensitive targeting & strike platforms across the globe. We must use actionable human intelligence and area knowledge to inform our force posture.

Detractors of such an approach may point to the perils of thrusting an all-volunteer force into an actual –- rather than perceived –- state of persistent warfare a la the Barbary Wars. This would be unwise. Such an approach is preferable to the large-scale counterinsurgencies of late.

Modern-day counterinsurgency — predicated on something colloquially referred to as “graduate-level warfare” — purports among other things that the only way to deter, disrupt and defeat extremism is to unnecessarily put hundreds of thousands of Americans, their materiel and soccer balls in harms way for negligible — indeed, even non-existent — returns. The men and women of our special operations forces are uniquely qualified to prosecute a global campaign of a far smaller magnitude. When paired with an august cadre of human intelligence collectors cognizant of their respective areas of focus, we can gain a decisive and unfair advantage over our adversaries.

A culture that rewards risk-adversity coupled with overly restrictive rules of engagement have led many of this nations adversaries to assume America can longer assert herself. Our adversaries believe we have conceded victory –- and with it, hegemony over the global commons and that detestable American exceptionalism. That need not be the case. The approach of the past does not bode well when coupled with the strategic environment of the future — a near-term future, where extremists target US interests with impunity and we are faced with a dearth of human, area and signals intelligence.

The approach of the past is no longer applicable. It has resulted in a Navy that has forgotten it’s there to fight, not meander thru the Mediterranean for a long string of port visits while dispatching the submarine escorting it to execute the occasional missile strike. Air planners dislike utilizing naval assets due to the Air Force’s institutional bias. The Army, meanwhile, insists on an entrenched presence ashore vice a more balanced, expeditionary posture and only now is being forced to send a brigade to the USAFRICOM AOR in 2013. The only consistently forward-leaning and proactive branch isn’t –- it’s called the Marine Corps. Nations raise armies and navies to fight and win, not languish on the sidelines.

It is time to realign our force posture and operational security concerns, bringing them more in tune with operational realities. As operational tempos increase, the consequences of not resourcing varied areas of responsibility such as the Horn of Africa increases. The employment of specialized capabilities must be responsibly coupled with partner nation capabilities whenever feasible. The media should be apprised of the scope of the effort and the tools that are to be used, but not the men and women present or the manner in which they fulfill their mandates. The employment of specialized platforms — remotely piloted aircraft and submarines among them — and a confederation of partner nations special operations forces are not true secrets, and can be responsibly disclosed to responsible media organizations.

Blanket classification is no longer excusable nor effective. With the advent of proven mechanisms, like alternative compensatory control measures and synthetic containers, America need not deceive the public as to the size and scope of our efforts to ensure their safety. Instead, greater focus should be placed on preemptively detering and disrupting emergent counter-intelligence threats, and denying both our adversaries and sympathetic nation-states our tactics, techniques and procedures.

The constellation of Cooperative Security Locations hosted by permissive and semi-permissive partner nations and the wide array of specialized capabilities — including remotely piloted aircraft, the National Mission Force and elements of the intelligence community — can be responsibly disclosed to responsible media organizations in an effort to preempt the disclosure of classified information.

Forward-deployed and horizontally integrated to leverage their respective capabilities, the future force must be truly joint and exceptionally capable of fufilling any mandate articulated by the national command authority — anywhere, and at any time. The width and breadth of this campaign must be commensurate with operational realities, innovative in both its inception, and its execution. Single points of failure are inexcusable and should rectified by the establishment of organic capabilities to augment, inform and, if necessary, supplant existing constructs.

One need not pare back America’s responsibility on the world stage, nor do we need to concede defeat by radical Islamists and the violent extremist organizations they call home. America can forge a new way forward. A Vickers Doctrine could accomplish just that.

—-

Robert Caruso is a veteran of the United States Navy, and spent time with both the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He specializes in mitigating emergent operational, information and physical security concerns.

Guest post: Michael Ross: as the Defense Clandestine Service takes shape, look to the Mossad for a proven model

With the creation of the new Defense Clandestine Service, the Defense Department has also created an opportunity to get back to the basics of providing foreign intelligence that will defend the United States and its allies. Unlike their civilian counterparts, the military’s fundamental motivation is to win wars, protect its personnel, and stay on the mission for which it has been tasked. These strengths combined with the military’s clearly defined and flatter command structure can also make for a more secure service by avoiding the burdening overlap and stultifying layers of bureaucracy and management.  
 
The fine art of collecting human source intelligence in this era of irregular warfare has in large part become lost in the relative comfort of relying exclusively on intelligence gathering technologies. Unfortunately, this reliance has been coupled with the tendency to rely on practices and procedures that ostensibly reduce the inherent risk of seeking out and engaging potential sources for human intelligence recruitment.  Clandestine HUMINT makes up only about 20% of the Department of Defense intelligence collection effort and it’s not imprudent to link this lack of human source intelligence collection to terrorist outrages against the U.S. and allies as well as the unchecked proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Near East and South Asia.
 
In the case of emulating existing successful models currently under deployment, the Defense Clandestine Service could resemble in many ways a self-contained and strictly compartmented operational division within the Mossad known as “Caesarea” (Kay-sar-eah). Originally a military intelligence unit within the Israel Defence Forces, this unit was re-structured and enhanced by other versatile components already existing within the Mossad’s operational and non-operational infrastructure. To this day, Caesarea still maintains much of its military character in both command and capability while operating as an elite intelligence collection entity.
 
As a means to avoiding the pitfalls of the CIA’s mission drift and excessive U.S.-focussed activity (estimates vary but according to reports almost 90% of CIA officers operate domestically), the Defense Clandestine Service should adopt the following guiding principles and practices:
 
1. Reject the temptation to operate on a geographical station model. Terrorist networks and non-conventional weapons proliferators do not operate geographically.  The station system is analogous to fiefdoms in a feudal system and only encourages turf wars and a culture of conflict between command and the field.  Hierarchical constructs and regionalism cannot effectively combat networks.
 
2. Abandon the State Department cover system. Embassy-based intelligence collecting entities are counter-productive. Operations should be conducted overseas through deep cover operational platforms that are in no way connected to any diplomatic or official USG entity.
 
3. Focus case officers exclusively on gathering human intelligence overseas.  The U.S. military has a large number of officers trained by the CIA that can be deployed globally in operational platforms. These platforms can operate autonomously with tasking, intelligence, and logistical support from HQs representatives.
 
4. Devote resources to status and operational cover possibilities and promote a culture of innovation, conception, flexibility and imaginativeness in this regard.
 
5. Tasking functions should focus on high quality targets for human source intelligence that can provide information on strategic intent and not exclusively on trivial sources that only provide tactical and capability-based intelligence.
 
6. Defense Clandestine Service personnel should reside in a culture of the highest levels of compartmentation and operational security. Officers should have rare interaction with other operatives and not have connection with HQs where possible.
 
7. Training should be conducted at a separate facility to which no other agency has access.
 
8. A proactive and autonomous CI component with clear mandates should be integrated into the service.
 
9. Career advancement and promotion should be tied directly to operational success in the field. Lengthy service at HQs should not be regarded as a means to advance in the organization. All senior management up to and including the heads of operational divisions in the Mossad, are veterans of lengthy service in operational assignments overseas.
 
10. Co-ordinate national-level HUMINT efforts. Inter-agency cooperation and deconfliction protocols should be established early on to avoid a redundant collection effort. Working relationships and understanding mutual objectives and mission mandates is critical for success.
 
11. The requirements and tasking process for the Defense Clandestine Service should shift from war zones and areas of conflict to epicenter target countries such as Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and China.
 
Human source intelligence collection is as much a psychological and emotional construct as it is a political, military, or national security one.  When broken down to its lowest common denominator, HUMINT is not an academic exercise that can be understood by rote formula or analyzed by a linear thinking process. This new defense intelligence enterprise should readily adopt an organizational culture that rejects parochial perspectives while fostering continual adaptation and innovation.
 
Typical defense intelligence priorities must undergo a conceptual shift. The tradition of providing tactical intelligence to support military commanders is extremely important; but only understanding our adversaries’ capabilities without knowing their intentions means we’re only winning half the battle.

 
Michael Ross is the author of The Volunteer and an expert on intelligence and terrorism and a former Mossad officer who served in the Near East, Africa and Asia for eleven years, and was the Mossad’s counterterrorism liaison officer to the CIA and FBI for two-and-a-half years.
 
E-mail: mrossletters@gmail.com
Twitter: @mrossletters
 
 

Natural (Levels Of) Progression (III)

On April 20th, the Secretary of Defense signed a series of initatives and realignments that directly affect the office of the Undersecretary of Defense of Intelligence and the broader defense intelligence enterprise.

The transfer of existing authorities from the Defense Intelligence Agency to the Undersecretary’s office was necessary. It is not appropriate nor responsible to expand on the extent of that transfer; that’s the Undersecretary’s and the incumbent Directors perrogative.

However, it is absolutely possible to explore — responsibly — the plausible ramifications of these changes. How they materialize is, as always, in the eye of the beholder.

Let’s take a cursory look at the field activities and entities in need of greater (or less) proponency and/or a new home:

— the Human Terrain System. Headquartered in Hampton, Virginia, HTS has had a controversial history and a rocky, at best, relationship with academia. However, the collection and aggregation of atmospherics and ‘AI’, or area intelligence, is a critical enabler of SFA/UW, so-called ‘village stability operations’ and the persistent manhunting campaign we’ll be embarking on as a nation for the next two to five decades. Chief of Staffs/special assistants to policymakers and the transition team(s) should take a hard look at how HTS’ relevant skillsets, manpower and MTF can be absorbed by existing Defense Intelligence Enterprise entities, up to and including the Defense Clandestine Service.

— recent counterintelligence failures on behalf of the Department of Defense, and the wider intelligence community, are unacceptable and wholly preventable. The development, resourcing and retention of a proactive counterintelligence cadre independent of the Department of Justice is a national imperative. Chief of Staffs/special assistants to policymakers and transition team(s) should closely examine the existing responsibilities and identify any possible overlaps. Our adversary’s collection efforts have only intensified, while our own capabilities and collection efforts have atrophied and fallen further down the list of resourced programs. This can no longer be tolerated, nor can the dischord amongst otensibly synchronized entities organic to the Department of Defense. If DoD LEAs are unwilling to fully resource counterintelligence requirements for Special Access-ed or compartmented Programs and national-level initatives, serious consideration should be given to a cross-service, inter-departmental CI corps, administratively and operationally responsible to the Defense Intelligence Agency.

— There is no enduring requirement for either the Defense Program Support Activity nor JUIAF-Rivanna to be geographically segregated from the national capital region. There is plenty of space and SCIF/SAPF real estate on Fort Belvoir. If NGA can consolidate in one place, so can DIA and USAINSCOM. With the impending cuts to NGA alluded to by Director Clapper — rumored to be as high as 40% — there will be additional real estate onboard Fort Belvoir and other DoD installations.

— USAINSCOMs 1st Information Command (Land) has been at the tip of the proverbial spear when it comes to offensive operational security programs coupled with innovative and proactive information and special technical operations. This capability is in great demand by combatant commanders, sub-unified commands and standing joint task force commanders. During this transitional period, consideration should be given to fusing the existing mandate of OSD/DPAO with the missions, tasks and functions of 1st IO(L). A robust information and special technical operations capability that integrates with existing combatant and functional commands is preferable; having a cadre of individuals working in a proactive manner in a cohesive fashion to deceive, deny & disrupt the enemy is imperative. We must keep the enemy off balance, unsure of our true intent and core competencies, while working in a proactive manner to elicit their shortcomings and operational and physical security deficiencies. Ensuring such an entity had operational flexibility to work hand-in-glove with the wider IC, support CJCS-directed exercises and national-level objectives, up to and including prosecuting NCA-directed missions, is of the utmost concern.

- The advent of the Defense Clandestine Service has raised equal amounts of concern amongst a set of vocal critics in academia and the popular media, as well as the defense attaché community, who have asserted their personal safety is directly threated by this shift and the subsequent media coverage. In order to assauge these and other emergent PERSEC concerns during this transitional period, serious consideration should be given to the issuance of a series of RFIs to private industry. The fielding of synthetic entities, coupled responsibly with 1) persona management 2) a proactive CI capability and 3) an equally proactive MILDEC capability would address any operational considerations, in addition to enabling the Defense Clandestine Service to prosecute its mandate alongside the National Clandestine Service.