- MUST READS
- PRODUCTS
- RESOURCES
- MULTIMEDIA
- ENFACTLOPEDIA
- FSM AUTHORS
- ABOUT US
- CONTACT US
- FSM BLOG
- DONATE
- PRESS COVERAGE
SEARCH FSM
- IN THIS SECTION
April 16, 2009
Exclusive: Somalia Operations – Lessons Learned
Colonel Kenneth Allard (US Army, ret.)
Few things are more exhilarating than the skillful, precise use of American military power, especially when it resolves a hostage crisis by taking out the hostage-takers. The American sniper – Navy, Marine or Army – is the single deadliest weapon in the American arsenal, rightly feared by our adversaries in Iraq, Afghanistan or, last weekend, the Horn of Africa.
But now comes the hard part in an American drama as old as the Barbary pirates – but with terrorist linkages that regularly transform history into headlines. Like most Americans, I had trouble locating Somalia until a hundred American Rangers were savaged during an October, 1993 firefight – subsequently immortalized by the movie Blackhawk Down. Coming shortly after the triumphs of Desert Storm, those losses (18 killed, 75 wounded) shocked the professional military as much as newly appointed Clinton officials. The military reacted instinctively, commissioning a rigorous analysis of the lessons to be drawn from a peacekeeping operation that suddenly morphed into primeval combat. Serving at National Defense University, I got that mission, eventually producing a 100-page study, Somalia Operations: Lessons Learned.
The larger question is whether we ever really learn lessons – or just identify them. Many of my findings had to be re-learned later in Iraq; some are still at issue today in Afghanistan. For example: whatever the mission, the forces deployed should be deliberately overwhelming with their chain of command correspondingly lean: not the other way around! Years later and on other battlefields, soldiers grinned ruefully while reciting back to me the words of that finding, freely adapted from Murphy’s Laws of Combat: “If it takes longer than ten seconds to explain the command arrangements, then they probably won’t work.”
Ralph Peters, a trenchant observer of these matters, makes the sensible point that piracy has always been a military problem – not sociological or legal. Country-building is a dubious military mission, even if it could solve the social issues making piracy an attractive career option for Somali teenagers. But with both military operations and country-building, the trick is always knowing when to stop. In the words of the Somalia study: “Beware the temptation to do too much.” Somali society is an interlocking hodgepodge of families and clans that recognize only one common imperative: resist all outsiders. The American intervention had little impact upon those timeless realities, even after the Rangers imposed as many as 10 casualties for every one sustained (admittedly a conservative estimate). Would the U.S. be willing to be so ambitious again – even if the mission changed from UN-sponsored peace-keeping to the considerably more open-ended mission of eradicating piracy?
That debate – according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates – will shortly begin within Obama’s policy councils. So what future “lessons learned” might the latest protagonists usefully keep in mind?
1. The UN: Not entirely useless? Though utterly impractical at peacekeeping or at organizing anything more complex than the proverbial ham sandwich, the UN can nonetheless be maneuvered into providing occasional and somewhat useful international benchmarks (though of course conflicting strongly with the organization's most pusillanimous traditions). With pirate hijackings now an everyday occurrence, the rescue of the Maersk Alabama may have created a useful precedent for international law. Why not codify an international consensus equating piracy with slavery and racism as the sworn enemy of every peace-loving country? Why not first seize the moral high-ground?
2. Authorize the use of deadly force. Just as in the Age of Sail, we need to defend our merchant vessels with effective weapons and well-trained crews – if for no other reason than to deter low-tech, almost casual hijackings by teenagers with AK-47s. Equally important: rules of engagement that specifically recognize deadly force as a legally legitimate instrument when defending a ship and its crew.
3. Coalitions are a pain but work better at sea than on land. Because commercial interests are always involved, the protection of maritime shipping can clarify sometimes shaky international resolve. Especially under the protective camouflage of multiple nationalities and a loosely-worded mandate or two, all kinds of maritime operations can be carried out: convoys, shoot-on-sight maritime “sweeps, even “hot pursuit” into ports normally sheltering pirate vessels and their “prizes.”
4. Present as prologue. Last weekend, the civilized world took its first cautious steps to defend commercial interests against criminal syndicates whose reach now extends from the Indian Ocean to Laredo, Texas – the border town 75 miles south of where these words are written. Whether defending against pirates or narco-traficantes, leaders in government and business must understand that security can no longer be taken for granted.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Colonel Ken Allard (US Army, ret.) is a former MSNBC military analyst and an executive-in-residence at the University of Texas, San Antonio. Email: Warheads6@AOL.com.
Reader Comments: Submit Your Comment (0)
| Print This E-mail This |
|
