ON THE FIGHT
The Pentagon’s top lawyer sketches the rough contours of what the fight will look like going forward into Obama’s second term.
SOCOM’s request for broader powers to fight terrorism has stirred controversy inside the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. It was the topic of a House Armed Services Committee emerging threats subcommittee hearing in July. Linda Robinson, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on special operations forces, told the panel that SOCOM’s proposal had merit. McRaven has proposed that TSOCs become sub-unified commands of U.S. SOCOM. He has argued that this is not a power grab by the command, but rather an attempt to better support geographic commanders.
“It does create for the first time a coherent connection between TSOC and mother SOCOM,” Army Lt. Gen. John Mulholland said. He insisted that McRaven’s plan will allow SOF to respond to crises in a timely manner. When the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was attacked Sept. 11, a SOF company assigned to U.S. Africa Command — known as “cinc in-extremis” force — was located at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Sigonella, Italy. “Those forces worked as advertised. They were in position,” Mulholland said. But they were physically too far from the action to be able to intervene quickly enough. Mulholland declined to discuss the particulars of the events in Benghazi but he did suggest that if SOCOM were given more discretion to move forces around based on anticipated threats, SOF quick-reaction units could be far more effective.
“To be relevant in this security environment, you have to be ahead of the crisis,” he said. If a geographic commander needs SOF assistance today, he has to submit a request for forces to the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. “That takes time,” said Mulholland. McRaven wants to be able to short-circuit that process and provide immediate help. If necessary, he would move forces horizontally from one theater to another.
For a long time, the CIA ruled the intelligence cycle of collection, aggregation, analysis, and dissemination. But in 2004, the 9/11 Commission recommended the United States unify the intelligence community. Thus, the DNI was born. Today, according to its website, the DNI "serves as the head of the Intelligence Community, overseeing and directing the implementation of the National Intelligence Program and acting as the principal advisor to the President, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council for intelligence matters related to national security." But, however noble and sensible the intent, the DNI has done very little to remedy the coordination issues — and Benghazi is a perfect example.
ON THE FORCE
The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin reached an agreement in principle on Friday on the price of a fifth batch of F-35 fighter jets after a year of tense negotiations over how to lower costs.
The Senate voted to authorize a 1,000 person increase in the size of the Marine Corps to provide additional protections for U.S. embassies and consulates, a direct response to the Sept. 11 attack on the a diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the death of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.
The Marine Corps took a key step in November with rebuilding its capability to command deployed crisis-response forces by reactivating 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The 2nd MEB’s command element became a permanent unit Nov. 20 with Brig. Gen. John K. Love as its commander.
10th Mountain Division, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) are all deploying to Afghanistan.
ON PETRAEUS
The affair that forced CIA Director David Petraeus to resign from the CIA in early November has done more than send him to an unexpected, early retirement. It has prompted a head-snapping reassessment of the general’s entire record in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once-smitten reporters have penned lengthy mea culpas of how they fell prey to Petraeus’s myth-making, claiming that his considerable charms blinded them to his battlefield shortcomings. Some historians, rushing to rejudgment, are asking whether he produced victory in Iraq or merely a palatable stalemate. A headline on a New York Times opinion piece went so far as to brand him “A Phony Hero for a Phony War.”
ON TECH
The Democratic Republic of Congo, which erupted in violence again earlier this month, ought to be one of the richest countries in the world. Its immense mineral reserves are currently valued by some estimates at more than $24 trillion and include 30 percent of the world’s diamond reserves; vast amounts of cobalt, copper and gold; and 70 percent of the world’s coltan, which is used in electronic devices.
Robert Caruso is a veteran of the United States Navy, and has worked for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Business Transformation Agency and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
