Special Operations Forces' Biggest Problem -- and a Fix.

American Special Operations Forces (SOF) have a problem, one not of their making.  Quite simply, they are regularly misemployed.  They are employed at the tactical, not the operational level.  This means that, despite their special weapons and techniques, they are not likely to have much impact on the outcome of a conflict unless the enemy is very small.  The reason is numbers: there are not enough SOF to affect the results in a major conflict even if they win every tactical engagement.  To change a conflict’s outcome they must be used at the operational, not the tactical level.

The operational level of war, or operational art as the Russians call it, a term I like because it is an art, lies between the tactical and strategic levels.  Unlike them, it is not a “thing.”  Rather, it links the tactical and strategic levels.  At root, it is making tactical decisions, especially when and where to fight and not fight, and using tactical outcomes, with a view towards striking as directly as possible at an enemy strategic center of gravity, a “hinge” in his defense which, if struck, can bring the whole thing down.  Understood this way, it is a meta-level economy of force tool.  You seek to fight only when and where you must to get at that strategic hinge.

Normally, you see operational art at the campaign level, in large actions by corps, armies or army groups.  But in a true special operation, a small group of men, very well trained and equipped, directly strike an enemy strategic or campaign level center of gravity.  The old German Army focused on the operational level of war and, not surprisingly, pioneered special operations.  Examples abound: in the 1940 campaign against France, the Germans had to neutralize the most modern fort in the world, the Belgian Fort Eben Emael guarding the Albert Canal, quickly or their campaign plan could not unfold.  They did so with a special operation by a company of combat engineers that took the fort in a few hours.  Later in the war, German special operations rescued Mussolini and abducted the regent of Hungary, Admiral Horthy; both actions kept meaningful axis forces fighting for a while longer on the German side.

So why are American SOF used almost exclusively at the tactical level?  Because the people employing them, the staffs of major commanders, don’t understand operational art.  Some service schools claim to teach it but they don’t.  They reduce it to processes, as Second Generation war does with everything.  But an art reduced to process results in crap.  One U.S. military school goes so far as to say that all you have to do is write a paragraph where this is a noun, that is a verb, and presto!  You know what to do at the operational level.  That’s operational art for dogs.  As General Hermann Balck said, “It is an art; only a few can do it, most can never learn.  The world is not full of Raphaels either.”

So what can SOF do to try to improve the way they are employed?  They can form within every Spec Ops unit a small German general staff made up of operators who do understand operational art.  They will have a few, all self-educated, many of them war gamers.  Rank doesn’t matter.  Then, when the unit is about to be employed, its little general staff works out the best way to employ it at the operational, not just the tactical level.  They push their plan up the chain but also around the chain by using the strong back channels most SOF units have, seeking to get their plan to the senior commander.  At that point it is a crap shoot as to whether he grasps operational art or not and is willing to buck his staff who don’t get it.  But that is true of every military operation.  If the senior commander is incompetent, failure is likely no matter what his subordinates do.

If we ever get military reform, we will have service schools that teach operational art, the real kind, to the few capable of learning it.  In the meantime, for SOF a self-help approach is better than nothing.  It would at least give them a chance for correct employment.  Even a crust of bread is better than none.