Relentless Strike : The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command (9781466876224) (72 page)

In response to the Islamic State's expansion, which soon threatened Iraqi Kurdistan, the United States deployed a Delta-led task force to the region. Split between Irbil, where it was headquartered, and a town in southeastern Turkey, its missions included working with the Peshmerga and manning a targeting center that identified and tracked Islamic State fighters for JSOC's fleet of Predator and Reaper drones to kill. On September 10, 2014, President Obama spoke to the nation about his administration's plans to counter the Islamic State. He was at pains to emphasize that his strategy did not “involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil,” but he also compared the approach he intended to take to the campaigns waged in Yemen and Somalia, in which case there appeared to be plenty of work ahead for JSOC. (Much of this work would likely fall under authorities granted by Section 1208 of the defense budget, which provided money for U.S. special operations forces to support regular and irregular local forces that were facilitating U.S. counterterrorism missions. What that meant in practice was that by Obama's second term, JSOC forces, including the premier direct action operators of Delta and Team 6, were increasingly likely to be found training and directing foreign forces, rather than conducting the direct action missions themselves. In addition to Delta's work with the Peshmerga, other examples included Team 6's work with indigenous security forces in Somalia's breakaway Puntland region, African Union troops in Somalia proper, and Yemen's counterterrorism force.)
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But the rise of the Islamic State also held lessons about the limits of JSOC's utility. Through the efforts of countless operators and analysts, and the force of personality of leaders like McChrystal, Flynn, and McRaven, among others, in the years since September 11 JSOC had made itself the go-to force for the National Command Authority for a range of missions far broader than was ever envisioned when the command was established in 1980. But no matter how brilliant the plan, or how accurate the shooters, an elite raiding and intelligence force like JSOC can conduct tactical missions that achieve strategic effects, but it cannot hold ground. It will always rely on the combination of speed, surprise, and violence of action that was the original Delta mantra. In many ways McChrystal, Flynn, McRaven, and their subordinates had designed and built the perfect hammer for the National Command Authority. The risk was that as a result, successive administrations would continue to view too many national security problems as nails.

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On July 29, 2014, JSOC underwent its fourth change of command since September 11, 2001, when Lieutenant General Tony Thomas succeeded Joe Votel, who in turn received his fourth star and replaced McRaven as head of U.S. Special Operations Command.
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(Votel's new position continued the stranglehold that JSOC alumni had on the top position in U.S. special operations. No career Special Forces officer had ever held the job, despite the fact that there were more Special Forces soldiers than any other type of special operations personnel in the military, a fact that spoke volumes about how the Pentagon weighted the perceived, tangible benefits of direct action against the more patient approach of indirect action that Special Forces embodied.) Thomas's thirty-three-year career appeared to have prepared him perfectly for command of JSOC: he had spent more than two thirds of it in the Rangers, Delta, or on the JSOC staff.
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(His five years at Delta meant Thomas was the first JSOC commander in eighteen years to have spent any portion of his career as an operator in the unit.)

A little over four weeks after Thomas took command, JSOC-controlled manned and unmanned aircraft took to the skies just south of Mogadishu. (The drones might have been Reapers flying from Arba Minch in southern Ethiopia, which JSOC began using in 2011.) Intelligence indicated that a truck in a three-vehicle convoy headed to a facility just south of Mogadishu on September 1 was carrying Ahmed Abdi Godane, the overall leader of al-Shabaab. It had been Godane who formally allied al-Shabaab with Al Qaeda and who had authorized the attack on the Westgate Mall. The aircraft fired a series of Hellfire missiles and other precision-guided munitions, destroying two of the vehicles, but it took several days to confirm the identities of those killed. Meanwhile, Somali and Western experts predicted the group would have difficulties replacing Godane, as he had ruthlessly eliminated any obvious successors and done away with the council that had appointed him. On September 5, the Pentagon announced that Godane had died in the attack.
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The hammer had hit the nail. Tony Thomas was off to a good start.

 

NOTES

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Prologue

 

Chapter 1: A Phoenix Rises

 

Chapter 2: JSOC Gets Its Feet Wet