The evolution of special operations joint fires

Conventional forces frequently suspect that special-operations forces, or SOF, consider themselves to be strategic assets that do not need to be integrated with conventional forces. SOF leaders, however, recognize that they support other forces--land, sea, air and space--just as those forces support special operations and one another. This realization and SOF experiences in Afghanistan led to the improvement of special-operations joint fires integration in Iraq.

SOF made great progress in integrating joint fires in three distinct battle-spaces during Operation Iraqi Freedom, or OIF. The use of joint-fires elements and air-coordination elements in OIF should provide a model for the future.

Prior to Operation Enduring Freedom, or OEF, in Afghanistan, SOF understood the need to integrate joint fires. Doctrine indicates that SOF headquarters should include joint-fires expertise in mission planning and execution. But even after Sept. 11, those headquarters, seeking to keep operations small, light and quiet, were reluctant to seek the support of outside joint fires, and they did not fully understand what they were missing. Initially, they resisted joint-fires assistance at the tactical and operational levels, either planning operations without qualified operational planners on their staffs or deploying teams without terminal attack controllers.

However, based on a battlefield assessment in Afghanistan, SOF realized their errors and took corrective action: They organized a small but effective team to integrate operations with the air component. That cooperation became the model for OIF.

But OIF was much more complicated than OEF because SOF assets operated in three environments, each with unique integration issues. The various supported and supporting relationships required unique solutions to joint integration, and each can serve as a model for future joint-fires integration.

Although SOF were successful in meeting the challenges of joint-fires integration in OEF and OIF, the challenge now is to institutionalize that success. The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq were fought with the same land, sea, air and special-operations components. While forces in other theaters are aware of the successes in OEF and OIF, they require details on SOF joint-fires advances if they are to adapt the lessons.

SOF play an important role in the Global War on Terrorism that transcends conventional boundaries and that will require increased personnel, some of whom should be used to reinforce the joint-fires capability. One aspect of that capability is the link between SOF and conventional forces. The United States Special Operations Command, or USSOCOM, and the Air Force should institutionalize the relationships formed among their subordinate commands during OEF and OIF in order to better respond to the next crisis.

Planning and coordination

The Army has an extensive approach to linking its organic fires (artillery, missiles and helicopters) with Air Force close air support and interdiction, using tactical-air-control parties attached to units down to the battalion level. The Marine Corps has a similar arrangement for connecting its air and ground fires. The Navy links its strike aviation and missiles with the other services. Each service's path goes through a joint air-operations center to ensure that campaigns are synchronized.

But for years, joint doctrine did not list the duties or responsibilities for the fire-support element of a joint special-operations task force, or JSOTF. SOF were doctrinally connected only to each other, reinforcing a perception that they are fighting their own war.

Between 1998 and 2001, that began to change. Joint Publication 3-09, Joint Fire Support, published in May 1998, integrated SOF into joint fires in the theater air-ground system. Prior to the war in Afghanistan, during joint exercises, some headquarters realized the shortfall in operational fires expertise and tried to address it, but their efforts proved to be insufficient. Joint Publication 305.1, Joint Tactics, Techniques and Procedures for Joint Special Operations Task Force Operations, was being revised as the conflict in Afghanistan began. Revisions included details on the fire-support element, including coordinating boundaries, representing special operations to agencies such as the joint targeting and coordination board, and preventing fratricide. JP 3-05.1 also recommended the addition of a fire-support annex to the task-force operations order and the establishment of fire-support standard operating procedures. However, none of the doctrinal revisions were in place when operations began in Afghanistan, and service members were forced to learn the lessons through experience.

Task Force Dagger, the initial JSOTF for Afghanistan, was built around a Special Forces group headquarters. It faced problems using joint fires on the tactical and operational levels. Teams deployed without terminal attack controllers--Air Force troops trained and certified to control close air support. Unsuccessful close air support during the first few days of combat indicated the need for greater expertise, leading the task force commander to request trained ground controllers. Within days, the SF team had qualified terminal attack controllers, and they had an immediate positive effect on the campaign.

At the operational level, problems occurred when the air-savvy ground controllers sent air-support requests to the task force. No one in the headquarters could handle the tasks of integration: incorporating joint fires in campaign planning, collating or submitting requests for subordinate fires, and deconflicting operations. There was a special-operations liaison element at the air-component level, and the task force relied almost exclusively on the liaison element for deconfliction and integration. The liaison element had limited success, but it was not the complete solution. Because the liaison element was located with the air component in Saudi Arabia, the task force had no resident expertise for incorporating fires in the campaign planning.

Fortunately, the air-component commander deployed a small Air Force element of the same type used to support maneuvers of conventional Army forces. This element, known as the joint air-component element, provided what SOF lacked--the ability to plan and coordinate joint air fires. This initiative dramatically enhanced coordination and integration with the air component. Teams on the ground noticed a great improvement in their missions when close air support became readily available.

Operation Iraqi Freedom

As operations continued in Afghanistan, the U.S. Central Command, or USCENTCOM, focused on planning for Iraq. USCENTCOM's land, air and special-operations components--Third Army, Ninth Air Force and Special Operations Command Central, or SOCCENT--created a joint-fires architecture.

In Iraq, SOF units fought in the north, west and south. They stopped the enemy in the north, which had fortified the unofficial boundary with the Kurds, from reinforcing Baghdad. To the west, they assisted the air component in preventing the launch of SCUDs and other theater ballistic missiles. In the south, they supported the campaign of the land component to take Baghdad and eliminate elite forces, such as the Republican Guard.

Because the three fronts required unique approaches to the integration of joint fires, Third Army, Ninth Air Force and SOCCENT developed a tailored package for each front. In the north, where the SOF commander was supported, the air component deployed a joint air-component element to the JSOTF (subordinate to SOCCENT), which developed its own joint-fires element. While the joint air-component element and the joint-fires element worked together closely, they had separate identities. The joint air-component element focused exclusively on air operations, and the joint-fires element focused on lethal and nonlethal effects.

In the west, where SOF supported the air component in the counter-SCUD mission, the joint air-component and joint-fires elements were fused into a single body. This worked because operations in the west focused on one mission, and there was no need to distinguish between them.

In the south, integration in the land battle presented unique challenges. First, the two units subordinate to Third Army were organized differently for fires. The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and V Corps had distinct processes for deep operations in which SOF would be supporting them. Rather than seeking a one-size-fits-all solution, SOCCENT and its subordinate commands organized a flexible system of command and control, as well as liaison elements, to ensure that SOF capabilities supported Third Army and its subordinate commands.

SOCCENT and Third Army exchanged liaison officers to ensure that there would be conduits for information. By mutual agree-merit, special-operations command-and-control elements, or SOCCEs, were attached to V Corps and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. The SOCCEs took tactical control of teams operating with ground forces to ensure that SOF operations were fully integrated. The SOCCE at V Corps also recognized the need for a presence in subordinate divisions to keep supported commanders informed by deployed liaison elements. This integration was effective as SOF assets supported Third Army in front of and behind a nonlinear operation. Using this scheme, SOF reconnoitered lines of communication in advance of the 3rd Infantry Division en route to Baghdad and supported the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force with AC-130 gunships in rear areas, targeting the fedayeen fighters.

Although Operation Iraqi Freedom was a unified effort, SOF's role was far from unified. Fighting on three fronts, SOF units captured the northern oil fields, which contain one-third of the Iraqi oil reserves; helped prevent the launching of theater ballistic missiles; and captured the southern oil-distribution point so that it could be turned over to custody of conventional forces. In all, SOF units nominated more than 5,200 targets. Their success was largely the result of innovative thinking by the joint-fires architects from Third Army, Ninth Air Force and SOCCENT, whose integration methods were tailored to the battlespace.

The Future

SOCCENT learned painful joint-fires lessons in Afghanistan and Iraq. The challenge now is to institutionalize them. By improving joint-fires expertise in SOF headquarters, by formalizing the link between SOF and the Air Force, and by updating doctrine, SOF can see to it that those lessons will endure. The lessons should be folded into training so that successive generations of special-operations warriors will understand joint fires without learning the hard way.

No theater special-operations commands have standing joint-fires elements that would better prepare them to make the leap in ability. Theater headquarters are small and lightly staffed, and they have little joint-fires expertise. Moreover, that is also true of the SOF headquarters that formed many of the recent JSOTFs. By organizing standing special-operations joint-fires elements in each theater, we can ensure that there will be resident experts during planning and during exercise development. Such an asset would ensure that each theater special-operations command establishes and maintains links between sister components and rehearses integration processes during operational battle-staff exercises and field-training exercises.

Standing joint-fires elements need not be as large as those deployed in Iraq--with as many as 21 personnel in one command. With resident expertise in four areas--Army fire support, Navy and Air Force close air support/interdiction, and Marine Corps artillery--each SOF command could develop standard operating procedures, incorporate joint fires into operational and concept plans, and include joint-fires concepts in routine exercises.

USSOCOM is preparing to absorb a large number of new positions for fighting the Global War on Terrorism. Moving some assets to theater special-operations commands as joint-fires elements would improve joint-fires integration and significantly help combat terrorism. The Marine Corps is also working with USSOCOM to integrate some of its forces, providing an opportunity for them to lend their joint-fires expertise to SOF headquarters. With a three-legged joint-fires effort, SOF can ensure the long-term survival of the process that brought success in Iraq without the lengthy learning process that preceded it.

The other joint-fires success story from recent operations is the Air Force tactical air control party--particularly the joint air-component elements. For years, SOF have been augmented by Air Force enlisted terminal attack controllers, including some who have been permanently attached. But a direct-support relationship by these elements to a JSOTF headquarters, as in Afghanistan, was new. USSOCOM and the Air Force should formalize this arrangement for tactical and operational training purposes as well as for contingencies. Linking specific headquarters with tactical air control, perhaps geographically, would create a standing relationship with common tactics, techniques and procedures before contingencies erupt. Without a formal agreement, these recent successes will fade from memory and need to be revived during future operations, with the same risks as those experienced by the U.S. Central Command.

Lessons learned must also be incorporated into doctrine as proven methods for integration. Joint special-operations doctrine is being revised, and joint-fires support is scheduled to be included. Related joint doctrine must eventually be revised as service doctrine is modified in this collaborative effort.

Progress should be institutionalized by extending joint-fires expertise to SOF headquarters, formalizing the links between the U.S. Army Special Operations Command and the Air Force and updating joint doctrine for the next conflict.

By the end of combat operations in Iraq, SOF had made dramatic progress in the integration of joint fires. Although SOF had lacked adequate joint-fires doctrine only six years earlier, they overcame that challenge through painful mistakes and innovative thinking. No longer seen as fighting their own war, they were fully integrated with other forces as both supported and supporting OEF campaign assets. The challenge now is to preserve those hard-won advances by incorporating them into the training of future special-operations warriors and the doctrine that will guide future operations.

Major Eric Braganca is an Air Force special-operations MH-53 pilot who has experience in various flying and staff positions in PACOM, EUCOM and CENTCOM. He was a staff officer in Special Operations Command-Central during OEF and served during OIF in the Joint Special Operations Task Force-North as a liaison officer with the combined forces air component command. He has also served a joint assignment as a joint-fires trainer with the Special Operations Command-Joint Forces Command.

This article was adapted from Major Braganca's article that appeared in Joint Force Quarterly, Issue 35.--Editor

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