Should Special Operations Be Given More Autonomy? >
Red Tape No Excuse for Giving Special Ops Autonomy
First, fix the bureaucracy, then the real debate over secretive U.S. military operations can begin
February 17, 2012
About Mackenzie Eaglen:
Mackenzie Eaglen is a resident fellow at the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. She has worked on defense issues in the U.S. Congress, both House and Senate, and at the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and on the Joint Staff.
Special operations forces should not be given more autonomy. Current law already grants authority to the president and secretary of defense to designate U.S. Special Operations Command as the supported commander. Specifically, Title 10 of the U.S. Code allows special operations activities (the mission) to be conducted under the command of the regional unified combatant commander.
[Pentagon Budget Ends Post-9/11 Era, Ushers in Pacific Era.]
Special operations forces are a small, elite community of warriors who operate mostly in the shadows. They have been granted ever greater responsibilities for planning and conducting counterterrorism operations around the globe by the current administration and the one before it.
The temptation to grant them more autonomy grows increasingly seductive as President Obama has dramatically escalated U.S. counterterrorism operations in countries like Yemen and Somalia and increasingly leans on this community to help facilitate a speedier exit from Afghanistan. It sounds reasonable enough: Just grant the commander authority to maneuver forces across geographic lines of authority established by the Pentagon's unified command plan.
But instead of a knee-jerk, blind approval of more authority or autonomy, civilians should not give away more control to the U.S. military without serious debate. Congress should be carefully examining the growing other special operations forces that have traditionally fallen under the purview of the CIA.
[U.S. Official: 'No Out of the Ordinary' Military Moves on Syria, Iran.]
In fact, a recent report by the Congressional Research Service has already suggested that Congress examine "the conditions or rules that apparently enable U.S. special operations forces to operate more secretively and more rapidly under CIA control than under U.S. Special Operations Command control." The report goes on to state that another "possible concern is whether U.S. SOF are operating under CIA control in order to 'get around restrictions placed on military operations.'"
While no one disputes that the Department of Defense is a big bureaucracy—slow in its decision-making processes—giving this community even more autonomy to go around rather than fix the bureaucracy is the wrong solution.
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- Other Arguments
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#1265
Yes — A little leeway from regular Pentagon channels could well enhance U.S. security
THOMAS HENRIKSEN, Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and at the U.S. Joint Special Operations University
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#2255
Yes — Of course, granting increased autonomy should not mean giving SOCOM carte blanche
MICHAEL P. NOONAN, Director of Foreign Policy Research Institute's Program on National Security
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#3223
Yes — Budgetary realities dictate a strategic shift toward more efficient and effective means of national defense
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR, Combat Veteran and Author of Warrior’s Rage: The Great Tank Battle of 73 Easting
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#41618
No — Missions that require limiting democracy should be minimized
BENJAMIN H. FRIEDMAN, Research Fellow in Defense and Homeland Security Studies at Cato
