In Focus with Curtis Fox: Bureaucracy Limits Special Ops’ Effectiveness – Curtis L. Fox

Editor’s Note: Welcome back to our weekly column with former Green Beret Curtis Fox, where we explore the challenges faced by Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOCs) and their bureaucratic hurdles, which often stifle the agility and innovation essential for effective Special Operations Forces (SOF). The article explores how slow decision-making, excessive oversight, and the overuse of Forward Operations Bases (FOBs) hinder SOF units from executing missions and engaging with local communities.

You can read the previous column here.

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Theater Special Operations Commands

The Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOC) is led by a 2-star CGO, who is responsible for supporting the Geographic Combatant Commander’s Intent by conducting special operations in the theater. Having a division-level command to support and advocate for the SOF missions in theater sounds wonderful in theory, but the reality is mixed at best.

The TSOCs are staffed with fine people—Green Berets, SEALs, Raiders, etc. The component commands of USSOCOM generally require officers to pursue professional growth and development experiences, and the TSOCs provide the opportunity to work in a joint command.

Typically, the TSOC will have several subordinate Joint Special Operations Task Forces (JSOTF) under the command of an O-6 (Colonel or Navy Captain). The JSOTF will manage SOF in one section of the GCC theater. JSOTFs often carry names like SOC Forward—East Africa or SOC Forward—Trans Sahara. Each JSOTF has its own joint command staff.

Unfortunately, the TSOCs and their subordinate JSOTFs have the handicap of being permanent bureaucracies.

Bureaucracies are good at managing the status quo, but they punish risk-taking and innovation—two principles that are supposed to underline all Special Operations. The officers staffing these bureaucracies also usually work in air-conditioned offices in Germany or Hawaii or even the continental United States (CONUS). This makes command-and-control of SOF in theater somewhat disconnected and often counter-productive.

When an SFOD-A or MSOT or SEAL Platoon wants to conduct a mission in a hostile or denied environment, they are expected to generate a power point presentation that communicates the Concept of Operations (CONOP) as well as a risk assessment. Depending on the TSOC’s risk appetite, approval for this mission can take days to months. Detachment commanders are often frustrated by repeated CONOP revisions from the JSOTF J3—revisions that have little to do with the mission itself (format policing and punctuation).

These exercises in micro-management are not designed to facilitate agile special operations. They are designed to control downside risks and maintain a paper trail. If something does go wrong, as sometimes happens, then TSOC staffers will be immediately hammered by a General who must now remediate the problem. Official inquiries will micro-analyze the CONOP, and officers who were involved in its staffing and approval will be forced to answer hard questions that will have a dramatic impact on their careers. See the aftermath of the Tongo Tongo Ambush for reference.

Casualties are a hard fact of armed conflict, and while every effort needs to be made to ensure that units have the proper training and have undergone a rigorous planning process, Generals should not be obligated to investigate subordinate officers when things go sideways.

Identify the mistakes that were made. Codify the lessons to be learned. But, there’s a difference between establishing “what went wrong” and establishing “who’s to blame”. War is unpredictable. Being incorrect is not a crime. Being in-charge when something unexpected happens is not a fireable offense. Assume good effort and good faith. Don’t crucify subordinates for anything less than clear negligence and incompetence.

Codifying these basic lessons would go far in fixing risk-avoidance in the TSOCs.

Requiring an SFOD-A or SEAL platoon or MSOT to function under this system of command-and-control is taking the nation’s most gifted soldiery, tying their hands behind their backs, throwing them in a river, and telling them to swim upstream to victory. SOF officers require the delegated authority to make decisions regarding how best to employ their troops at a much lower level (and preferably by a commander that is located down-range and close to the mission space).

In the decades prior to widespread adoption of satellite communications, the SOF enterprise was forced to defer to the officer on the ground. The advent of advanced information technology has enabled a decline in command-and-control practices and the appropriate delegation of authorities.

Moreover, SOF leaders have a moral imperative to move the ball forward when they send personnel abroad. Especially in the case of kinetic missions supporting counterterrorism or irregular warfare (127e and 127d authorities), the TSOC must allow teams to establish a regular Op Tempo.

If there is no risk appetite for missions outside the wire without a 3-5 week CONOP turnaround, then why are we separating these troops from their families? Clearly it isn’t to disrupt enemy activity, prohibit freedom of movement, or deny safe haven.

It would be better to send these men home so they can maintain their marriages and see their kids grow up.

Forward Operations Bases

Forward Operations Bases (FOBs) are staging points for missions within an area of operations. They may even include an airbase, hospital, machine shop, and supply depot. They serve not only as a base of operations but as a strong point in which U.S. forces can seek shelter and resupply.

FOBs were a staple in the employment of SOF during the War on Terror, but in the case of Special Forces they present a unique problem.

FOBs are essentially medieval towers. They are constructed to project hard power over a village or community, and their intrusive structures and high walls are a sharp indicator that these soldiers are foreign occupiers. Moreover, with cumbersome mission authorization procedures emanating from the TSOC, Green Berets cannot get out from behind these high walls to engage with the communities they are meant to understand and liberate. And if they can’t engage with the local populace, the insurgency has a free hand to shape the environment as it sees fit.

TSOCs also often insist on lodging SOF personnel behind secure walls even when they are deployed in a permissive Title 50 environment. Bunkering all deployed SOF elements in a nominal location like Dakar Senegal—SFOD-A, Civil-Military Support Element (CMSE), and Military Information Support Team (MIST)—briefs well and tells superiors that you are serious about protecting your personnel. However, putting 25 stocky military age males and several trucks with diplomatic plates in a single walled compound tends to draw attention.

Worse, during the relief in place/transfer of authority (RIP/TOA), not only will all of those personnel have to move out of that compound but they will have to load several pallets of gear and ship it to the local airfield. Pallets often weigh between 6,000-8,000 lbs, and shipping them to an airfield requires a forklift and heavy flatbed truck. Incoming SOF elements will land with their own pallets, all of which will have to be shipped from the airfield to the compound. To say that this is high signature is a gross understatement.

I encourage my readers to explore a book on the Marine Corps Commandant’s reading list: The Village by Bing West. The book detailed the exploits of a 12-man Marine detachment (under the command of a Sergeant) in protecting a village in Vietnam. Marine fire teams conducted multiple nightly patrols to hound the Viet Cong’s access points into the community. As the Marines increasingly proved to the village that they were protected from Viet Cong reprisals, the Marines won the community over. Their success is a story of constant harassment of the enemy, open access to the community, freedom of movement, level-headed conflict resolution, unrestricted presence patrols, violence of action, and delegated command-and-control to tactical leaders (a sergeant).

The FOB likely has some role in the future—primarily in logistics and supply. However, at present it is over-used. Its very existence hinders SFOD-As from establishing themselves as integral components of indigenous communities—because the SFOD-A does not have a real presence in the community. Big burly smiling Green Berets just walk through the community (armed to the teeth) and distribute food, generators, and soccer balls on a sporadic basis (whenever they can get a CONOP approved to leave the FOB).

For Special Forces, the traditional FOB has to go. It is anathema to the Unconventional Warfare mission.

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Stay tuned for next week’s continuation of “Practice of Unconventional Warfare,” where Fox discusses how Special Forces (SF) should better coordinate with conventional forces and suggests a more integrated approach with SFABs (Security Force Assistance Brigades) to improve long-term effectiveness while maintaining tactical capabilities.