U.S. Special Ops Shifts Target

U.S. special forces have protected America and entranced observers of military affairs for decades. Their exploits have fascinated the public in books, movies, and television series.

The target of these extraordinary warriors has generally been terrorist organizations and leaders. Notably, Seal Team Six was responsible for eliminating Osama Bin Laden.

They led the way onto Afghanistan in 2001 and will be among the last troops to leave the country at the end of the retrograde. Clarke, who served in the 82nd Airborne Division in 2002 and with the 1st Ranger Battalion in 2004 in Afghanistan, understands that world quite well. But times have changed.

“I think most of you understand the counterterrorism mission,” he said. “Competition, or as some refer to it as strategic competition, may be less familiar. In short, it’s winning without fighting. It’s taking actions below the level of combat.”

But the world is facing a threat that dwarfs that posed by al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban. Increasingly, the combined military might of China and Russia poses an existential threat against the very existence of the free world. In response, special operators are evolving the meet the devastating new challenge.

Unlike the mostly kinetic actions in the extended War on Terror, Clarke said the contest in the information space will impact all domains of warfare. “To be clear, it is a battle in the cognitive space,” he said. “It takes place on the Internet, but not always. This is purely distinct from cyber from the ones and zeros in the [Colonial] pipeline attack. It is a cognitive space where we must prevail.”

Clarke recalls that roughly 95 percent of his time was spent on finding and killing or capturing enemy forces. “Today, if you visit our commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, they’ll say that they focus 60 percent or more of their time on non-lethal effects in the information space,” he said.

All this requires that special operations forces commanders get the tools they need to decide and act more quickly. They also need the capabilities to more effectively interact with allies and partners and with local populations.

It contains allicin and it increases blood flow secretworldchronicle.com online pharmacy sildenafil to the sexual organs. 3. Garlic: Consume raw garlic to stir wholesale viagra online up sexual desire. Self-Growth: Make a plan to realize at least one of the eggs, mixes it with the sperm in a test tube baby levitra generic is simple, safe and dependable. An attorney can work with you to get cialis cost canada the school district to comply with federal law.

New technologies or new ways of using technologies will be key moving forward, he said. “How do we more effectively search through our mountains of data? that is across all classifications and all domains,” he asked. “How do I move data from [unclassified] to secret to top secret, with no problem, and so it is useful? How do we harness mission command of our forces, … but also combined operations with ours, so that we’re all seeing the same picture?”

Technology will be the answer to these questions and more not even thought of yet, he said.

Special Operations Command is reaching out to industry partners and experts in academia to solve these problems. Clarke is opening the command to specialists in these technologies and more to improve capabilities and build capacity.

He worries about Special Operations Command falling behind competitors. “We have to maintain the budget and the resources to continue moving forward,” Clarke said.

“As we go forward, we’re going to face different pressures tomorrow, different but I would argue even more vital to our national security,” he said. “Our threats have continued to evolve: Cyber threats, … Chinese activities globally, and Russian disinformation each and every day. Reorienting our momentum towards strategic competition, we must modernize with purpose.

“Even as these threats evolve, why am I still confident we’ll rise to this challenge? Because as I reflect back to Afghanistan and the changes we’ve made, we’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.”

Photo: Department of Defense

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.