There is an entire unit at U.S. Special Operations Command dedicated to lessons learned.
But those who don’t work there can learn a lot about commando actions via a new book — “Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command,” by Sean Naylor, who has long chronicled the special operations community.
The book opens with the efforts to create a unified special operations command structure in the wake of the disastrous attempt to rescue 52 hostages held by Iran — Operation Eagle Claw, on April 24, 1980. The deeply reported, richly sourced, heavily footnoted tome tells the story of the creation of the world’s most effective and lethal manhunting organization.
But publishing the book was neither easy nor smooth, with opposition from service chiefs, interpersonal squabbles, special mission unit rivalries, baptisms by fire, and a lack of understanding by even senior most military leaders about what special operations forces do. One paragraph in particular, on the penultimate page of Naylor’s 439-page opus, explains the importance of “Relentless Strike” when it comes to lessons learned.
Looking at the organization known as JSOC, pronounced Jay-Sock, through the prism of the current battle against Islamic State, and referring to former high-ranking JSOC leaders Stan McChrystal, Mike Flynn and Bill McRaven, Naylor lays out the risk that JSOC could become a victim of its own success.
“But no matter how brilliant the plan, or how accurate the shooters, an elite raiding and intelligence force like JSOC can conduct tactical missions that achieve strategic effects, but it cannot hold ground. It will always rely on the combination of speed, surprise, and violence of action that was the original Delta mantra. In many ways McChrystal, Flynn, McRaven, and their subordinates had designed and built the perfect hammer for the National Command Authority. The risk was that as a result, successive administrations would continue to view too many national security problems as nails.”
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Many people already know something about what JSOC has done. Think of the SEAL Team 6 raid that took out Osama Bin Laden. Think of the Delta Force missions that captured Saddam Hussein and killed his sons. Think of the stealthy, fatal stalking of the Al Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (whose organization, in his death, ultimately morphed into the Sunni jihadi group known as Islamic State). Think of the rescue of Capt. Phillips. And so many more missions known and unknown, successful and otherwise.
What makes “Relentless Strike” an indispensable history and a hell of a read is how Naylor uses his tremendous access to the community, a treasure of existing literature and documents on the subject, and superb insight to craft a book that informs and entertains. Along the way, no punches are pulled as members of special operations forces community, especially those connected to JSOC, often chafe at their own leadership.
Folks here in Tampa will appreciate the story of how Socom took the lead in synchronizing the fight against jihadis and their networks.
Up until 9/11, Socom, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, was a relatively sleepy, train-and equip organization created by law to coordinate commando efforts after Eagle Claw went wrong, in large measure due to the lack of commonality among the services.
Just 13 days after the attacks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called his Socom commander, Air Force Gen. Charles Holland, to Washington to help plan how to hit back at al Qaida.
Rumsfeld, according to the book, seemed unaware that while JSOC reported to Socom for administrative purposes, when it came to calling the shots on where it went and who it went after, it was up to the National Command Authority — aka he and President George W. Bush. After first telling Rumsfeld he didn’t know where the bad guys were, and that he needed CIA authority to send Green Berets into Afghanistan, Holland reluctantly had greatness thrust upon him. “This is a global fight, and I want you to be the global commander,” Rumsfeld told Holland, whom Naylor describes as a “mild-mannered, nonconfrontational officer, who wasn’t keen on the idea, which would have required him to go toe-to-toe with” the regional commanders.
“Holland also knew he had no real command authority over forces overseas,” Naylor writes. “But the SOCOM commander wasn’t about to correct his boss.”
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Relentless Strike is full of names familiar here in Tampa, many of whom played key roles in developing JSOC into an organization combining all-encompassing intelligence gathering with a relentless strike operational tempo and withering lethality to disrupt bad guy networks and hunt down their leaders. All while transforming JSOC from an organization overly reliant on plodding, set-piece responses into the nimble, quick-reacting force it has become.
Gary Berntsen, who was leading a team of CIA operatives into Afghanistan in the opening days of Operation Enduring Freedom, helped build a rapport with his military counterparts, creating a synergy that would lead to the dismantling of Al Qaida in Iraq and ultimately, the killing of bin Laden, among many other successes.
McChrystal, as JSOC commander, and Flynn, a former U.S. Central Command director of intelligence who played the same role with JSOC, built on that, working with the CIA and developing their own intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities to disrupt jihadi networks in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Army Gen. Joe Votel, now commander of Socom, was a colonel in Iraq, commanding a Ranger regiment at the beginning of the invasion and teaming up with Delta’s Task Force 20 to attack airfields and secure Haditha Dam — later, back in the news after it was captured by, then recaptured from, Islamic State.
Lt. Gen. Bennet Sacolick, who would later serve as Socom’s director of force management before his current assignment to the National Counterterrorism Center, was a colonel when he had an idea for giving JSOC “global resources, global reach, prepositioned forces.”
David Scott, now part-owner of The Bad Monkey, a popular Ybor City bar, is a retired Air Force major general who conducted a review of detainee abuse while serving as JSOC’s deputy commander under McChrystal.
And of course, former Socom commander McRaven, who was deputy JSOC commander when Hussein was captured and commander when bin Laden was taken out, is prominently featured for a role so well-documented it needs no elaboration here.
Obviously, former Socom commanders Pete Schoomaker, Doug Brown and Eric Olson, who still live in the area, also make appearances. Just as obviously, so too do several former Centcom commanders, like Tommy Franks, John Abizaid and David Petraeus.
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Much has been made about whether Naylor put lives or missions at risk with his book. And Socom has sent letters to the people named in the book, warning them about identity theft and other consequences of having their names publicly disclosed.
Socom “reminded” personnel “that they must follow the same protocols that govern sensitive material regardless of whether or not the information has been publicly released, and they are still bound by any non-disclosure agreements they signed,” said Army Lt. Col. Robert Bockholt, a Socom spokesman. “Aside from that, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further until we have had the opportunity to fully review the book.”
Naylor says that he kept quite a few names out of the book, often after talking with sources. A good deal of those quoted are vaguely described.
“I would never deliberately put at risk any U.S. service member,” Naylor says. “I’ve spent a lot of time, downrange in difficult circumstances with U.S. military personnel … dating all the way back to missions in Somalia in 1992.”
The book contains its own defense on that matter. There are 47 pages of footnotes, containing hundreds of citations (including one, way in the back, from one of my articles about a rare public conversation with Votel). There is also a 13-page bibliography, which includes many books and articles by the military and intelligence leaders mentioned.
I’ve heard no specific complaints about operational security or tactics, techniques or procedures divulged. Naylor says neither has he.
But the book’s only been out a few days. If you have any observations, let me know. It’s an interesting discussion.
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The Pentagon announced no deaths last week in support of ongoing operations.
There have been 2,347 U.S. troop deaths in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, seven in support of the anti-ISIS campaign Operation Inherent Resolve, and five U.S. troop deaths and one civilian Department of Defense employee death in support of the follow-up Operation Freedom’s Sentinel in Afghanistan.
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