[Warrior-Mentor]

O'Connell was more receptive to anything proposed by Lambert, who he called "a brilliant officer," but like other critics, he said that UW forces already have operational advocates of flag rank in the form of each regional combatant command's special operations commander. "Combatant commands are learning to use their SOCs more effectively, and if you look at the success in the Philippines and in the Horn of Africa, I think those are models for the way forward. And those things have worked perfectly well."

IMPROVING ODDS
Despite continued skepticism from O'Connell and others, some observers say that the creation of a UW command is becoming increasingly likely. There is now "a better than 50/50 chance" of the Pentagon establishing a UW command inside SOCom, said the retired SF colonel, adding that his assessment was based on the personalities involved and his "reading of the goat entrails." He was not alone in singling out changes in leadership at the Pentagon, SOCom and Congress as a major factor.

Despite his criticism of the proposal from Tucker and Lamb, Adm. Eric Olson, the new SOCom commander, is presumed by many observers to be more willing than was Brown to consider some form of UW headquarters. "Olson has been the champion in DoD for irregular warfare for over a year now," said the retired SF colonel, who noted that Olson has appointed Lt. Gen. David Fridovich, a Special Forces officer, to run SOCom's Center for Special Operations. As the special operations commander for Pacific Command, Fridovich earned high marks for successes achieved using classic UW methods against terrorists and insurgents in the Philippines. Olson's deputy, Army Lt. Gen. Frank Kearney, "certainly comes from a Ranger background, but he is a convert to the indirect approach from his time at [Special Operations Command, Central Command]. He has surrounded himself with people that have not drunk the [direct-action] Kool-Aid, or if they did drink the Kool-Aid, they've recovered from it. Olson himself, look at his background — you would never believe that he would be a believer in the indirect approach, but he's been championing the indirect approach now for two years. I think Kearney is another convert, and Fridovich never drank the Kool-Aid. So it's a pretty powerful message when you take a look at who the three senior-ranking guys in the command are right now."

But despite the perceptions that the current SOCom leadership has a more enlightened approach to UW, many observers said a UW command will be created only if Congress forces the issue. Without such a move, Rothstein said, "it's not going to happen — you're asking SOCom and you're asking DoD to do a significant rearrangement when they don't see the problem."

Key figures on Capitol Hill are now wading into the debate on the side of change. "It makes some sense to me to have [an] ... unconventional warfare command, similar to JSOC, within SOCom," said Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat who chairs the House Armed Services subcommittee on terrorism and unconventional threats. "What we've done within the House authorizing bill is that we've asked for some feedback on this from DoD and SOCom, so I haven't 100 percent said, 'Yep, we're going to do it and I'm pushing the policy.' I'm exploring and talking to people, trying to hear are there counterarguments that I haven't thought of. ... I'd be interested in getting some further feedback from [SOCom leaders] on whether or not setting up this separate command within SOCom that I talked about is the best approach. But to me, it makes a lot of sense and it's something I want to pursue."

BIPARTISAN SUPPORT
Smith added that his subcommittee contains "a lot of bipartisan support for this notion" and that he "absolutely" would be willing to add money to SOCom's budget to stand up such a command, which he said would fit into the geographic combatant command structure "similar to the way JSOC does, with a similar mission."
"I don't think the larger committee at this point is as focused on" the issue of establishing a UW command, "but I suspect we'd get the same kind of positive feedback from them as well," Smith said.

Meanwhile, O'Connell's replacement in the newly renamed job of assistant secretary of defense for special operations/low intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities, Michael Vickers, is a former SF officer who raised the possibility of converting SF Command into a UW command in his written answers to policy questions in advance of his confirmation hearing. The idea, he said, merits "further study."

If Vickers decided to push the idea, it would be very difficult for SOCom to resist, according to a Senate staffer sympathetic to the idea of an unconventional warfare command. "If they come and squawk to us about this, personally, I'm not going to be all that sympathetic," the staffer said. "Something like this, I would be predisposed to listen [to] with a friendly ear."


Even if establishing a UW command required funding, "we wouldn't have a problem with it," the staffer added. The only thing that might derail such an initiative was "some real hard-core opposition in the JSOC community and they actually lobbied behind the scenes on the Hill against it," the staffer said. "That might have an effect on some members."

There is little doubt that the creation of a UW command to rival JSOC would risk increasing the friction between the direct- and indirect-action communities. A principle argument made by the advocates of a UW command is that it would even the playing field somewhat between "white" (unclassified) special ops and the JSOC's "black" (classified) operators. Advocates of this approach say it would give UW a headquarters that would be the equivalent of JSOC.

"I attribute some of this to professional jealousy within the ranks," said the recently retired Army special operations general.

"There's a tendency for those that have not been inside that command at Fort Bragg to believe that their value is questionable, that they get everything they want and that they're prima donnas, and that's just not the case," said O'Connell, a former Army intelligence officer, adding: "I've been on both sides of the fence."

The retired SF colonel said he expected that senior leaders would assure JSOC commander Lt. Gen. Stan McChrystal that JSOC would not lose resources in the event of a UW command being stood up.

"The message that would be sent to McChrystal is that this will not be done at your expense," the retired SF colonel said. "The solution is not to tear down his unit and reallocate its resources. The solution is to bring the unconventional warfare people up to a similar level of resourcing. ... So I think the answer will be that he will be told by the right people that he's not threatened, his organization is not threatened by this. He's going to have another complementary capability standing next to him."

There have also been longstanding rumors that JSOC has designs on the Special Forces units. But that might be a case of be careful what you wish for, according to a Fort Bragg source.

"A growing minority view" among SF personnel regarding JSOC is "if we can't beat 'em, we join 'em," he said. "There's some people who say, 'Hey, just put us over there and let us work the UW piece under that [JSOC] headquarters,' which in a lot of ways would probably be a lot more efficient, a lot more effective, than trying to stand [something] up from the get-go, 'cause we're always going to have to do it on the cheap. We're not going to get the resources that those guys get over there."

If the military's guerrilla warfare experts were let loose inside JSOC, it might never be the same. "We'd get over there and do what SF guys do — get a [guerrilla] base," he said. "If you could get us over there, we could take it down from the inside."