Delta Force, nuclear forces, and SEALs

Something does ring correct about the recent Delta Force mission to capture Benghazi mastermind abu Khatallah;

The Obama administration has come under withering criticism because the whereabouts of abu Khatallah have been generally known. Journalists in Libya were able to interview him, critics asked, so why couldn’t American special operators track him down, too?

But other U.S. officials, who spoke to The Daily Beast anonymously because they were not authorized to talk to the press, said the mission to grab abu Khatallah had been planned for more than a year. Indeed, the Benghazi ringleader had been in the sights of Delta Force operators at the end of August, according to these sources, but no order was given at the time. A senior administration official told The Daily Beast that the delay in apprehending the suspect was due in part to requests from the Justice Department to gather appropriate evidence to prosecute him in criminal court. --The Daily Beast

Unlike the way missions are portrayed in the movies, special ops missions are well planned out and yes, I believe Delta Force had abu Kallah in their sites for months.  What I don't buy is the timing of when the "green light" was given to capture Khatallah despite quotes to the contrary in the same article:

While Benghazi has been an issue that has bitterly divided Democrats and Republicans since the attacks in 2012, none of the officials who spoke to The Daily Beast suspected the timing of the mission this week was political. “This is a great win,” the contractor said. “These kinds of things take a long time, you can’t put this on politics.”--The Daily Beast

Too many things have been going wrong for the White House lately.  Syria, Crimea, and Iraq have not worked out well for the administration.  The negotiated release of Bowe Bergdahl has basically backfired for the White House.  It needed a win to take some of the heat off of it.  

Up until the release of the five prisoners from GITMO, the Obama administration killed terrorists.  The change to apprehending and arresting is extremely suspect. Remember, this is the same Department of Justice and Attorney General that gave us Operation Fast and Furious.  This the same administration that had the NSA wiretap the New York Times.  

President Obama has ruled out air strikes for now in Iraq.  Not surprising as the situation in Iraq really isn't the thing for air strikes to solve.  The best hope for the White House is their enemy, Iran.  Unfortunately, the current occupants of the White House have not shown the ability to see what's coming.  If Iran is successful in helping Maliki stay off a Sunni takeover, it will in effect marginalize the Sunnis even further in the future and Iran will have in effect taken over Iraq.  The White House will be on the sidelines trying to explain this away.

The events in Iraq and with the capture of Khatallah are playing out just in time for Hillary Clinton's anticipated run for President in 2016.  First Monica Lewinsky came back on the stage and then Hillary's book is not doing well.  One would imagine this means Hillary won't run but don't be so sure.  She has thus far avoided any entanglements from Benghazi and if Khatallah is put on trial, she most likely will take credit for his capture and/or conviction.  I'm not prepared to count her out of running much less winning in 2016.

There's part of me that wants to believe we are avoiding World War III by containing most conflicts to local regions.  But then if that is the case, and the evidence strongly suggests that it is, why then does our nuclear forces continue to make headlines?

"The United States is falling behind potential adversaries, such as Russia and China, in modernizing its nuclear deterrent, and the bills for that modernization are coming due at the worst possible time," said Maj. Gen. Garrett Harencak, strategic deterrence chief on the Air Staff. "Almost everybody else is modernizing, certainly at a pace beyond ours," he said during a Capitol Hill speech on June 17 sponsored by AFA, the Reserve Officers Association, and National Defense Industrial Association. "Part of the problem is a lot of these things should have been taken care of 25 years ago. We took a procurement holiday when it comes to strategic nuclear modernization" while our rivals have, in many cases, kept a steady pace since the end of the Cold War, he said. Now, with budget sequestration in force, and money becoming scarcer, the United States is saddled with having to upgrade or replace everything from ICBMs, bombers, and submarines, to warheads, cruise missiles, and command and control infrastructure at once, said Harencak. "It's just a fact," he said. Air Force Association Daily Newsletter

The United States relied on nuclear weapons to end the war with Japan and keep the Soviet Union at bay during the Cold War.  Nuclear weapons have never been part of the Counter-Insurgency (COIN) doctrine.  It is worrisome that this administration keeps focusing on the readiness of our nuclear forces, specifically those employed by the USAF.  The old Strategic Air Command (SAC) lead the way in the USAF for readiness and adherence to regulations (often the SAC supplements to USAF regulations were better and more comprehensive).  But the end of the Cold War and Gen Merril McPeak combined to destroy that benchmark.  Perhaps the readiness of nuclear forces had been diminishing all along but it seems the Obama administration is more concerned of late.  The new emphasis on nuclear readiness just seems too coincidental with increased tensions with Russia.

I started with Delta Force let me finish today with another special ops group, the Navy Seals.  The Navy has their own version of the Gadsden Flag, known as the First Navy Jack.

Navy personnel closely associate the logo with the global war on terrorism because then-Navy Secretary Gordon England authorized it on May 31, 2002, as the official jack, or maritime flag, for the Navy for the duration of the global war on terrorism. The entire Navy began flying the Navy Jack on Sept. 11, 2002, the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It has been widely worn on the left shoulder by sailors deployed in war zones since then, including SEALs.

The Gadsden Flag has become associated with right-wing political movements such as the Tea Party.  More recently, thanks to the husband and wife psychopaths out in Las Vegas, the federal government will become associated with anti-government movements.  All of the reasons have caused some SEAL commanders no to wear the patch.  Special operators are notorious for not following the customs of other units and telling a SEAL in theater not to wear this patch is just asking for the opposite to happen.

The Navy has disavowed any knowledge of such a ban and the US Navy Special Warfare Contracting office has announced its intent to buy more patches.  I guess I won't have to remove the Gadsden flag from my range bag anytime soon.

A Culture of Perfection

Now the US Navy is facing a cheating scandal amongst its ranks.  Unlike the USAF, the cheating involves nuclear technicians versus nuclear launch officers.  The nuance may make little difference.

The military culture changes only when faced with irresistible forces that compel change such as war.  The USAF did not change basic training until many years into the Iraq an Afghanistan war.  Until those wars, new recruits at Lackland were still being trained to operate from fixed bases well away from the battlefield.  When a shortage of truck drivers by the Army occurred around 2003, USAF vehicle operators were brought in to help fill the need.  Air Force vehicle operators were never intended to work outside the wire before and as such required much training by the Army in order to work in convoys being attacked by the enemy.

The USAF basic training began to change the experience for new recruits getting them used to working in an expeditionary environment. but it took years for the change to occur.

The nuclear forces of the USAF and USN have not had the same tempering event.  They train the same way they did when the US and Soviet Union were at the height of the Cold War.  Nuclear forces have not had to re-evaluate their training against any real world experience (thank God!) to see if requiring memorization of answers makes the troops better.

The military and civilian sectors are moving quickly towards more automation, especially drones or unmanned vehicles.  We've seen reconnaissance/surveillance platforms that are virtually autonomous and now the British have unveiled the Taranis hunter/killer aerial drone that can perform its entire mission profile without human intervention. British Drone

Perhaps it is time to re-evaluate the number of tasks that truly require human intervention for nuclear weapons.  I am not an advocate for drones, I actually believe the opposite since having a large autonomous forces invites the potential for action without the risk of consequence.  But nuclear weapons have only been used once, by the US during WWII against Japan.  All other nuclear weapons sit and wait to hopefully never be used.  Efficiencies could be gained by looking at increasing automation in the nuclear career field.

That's why I don't agree with Secretary Hagel's comment, "take a step back and put renewed emphasis on developing moral character and moral courage in our force.”  If we insist on a zero failure rate on proficiency test for nuclear forces, then we pretty much have guaranteed to see cheating.  Why?  Because the emphasis is on the score and not the knowledge.

Hagel's comment fails to recognize the true culture of "cooperate and graduate" that permeates military technical training.  Every vet will tell you about how they all worked together to graduate, get ready for the final or to help someone that was lagging behind.  It is part of what bonds troops together and helps form unit cohesion later.

Troops in the nuclear side are no different.  They see the need to help each other master the mind-numbing questions that may have little to no relationship to how you actually perform the task.  Hagel should look to have a reevaluation of the testing, not more lectures on ethics and the need to change the culture.  Nothing I've read indicates a problem with the military culture, it seems to be a problem with the perceived lack of relevance of the proficiency tests.

Pentagon Cheating Scandal

Air Force officers cheat on proficiency exam

According to an article in the Daily Mail,  34 officers at Malstrom, AFB texted each others the answers to a proficiency exam.  Malstrom is one of three bases for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

The story does not go into detail but since these were officers taking a proficiency exam, we can assume they were most likely missile launch officers.  The one difference between the USAF and other branches are officers are the war-fighters (i.e. pilots, navs, weapon systems officers, missile launch officers, etc) with the enlists troops being the technical experts.  In the other branches, the enlisted troops or warrant officers are the war-fighters and the officers are the commanders.

The scandal is more pathetic than one realizes.  Proficiency exams are all part of any operational AFSC (air force specialty skill).  In order to maintain mission-readiness (MR) on a given weapon system, an officer is tested constantly via written every month and practical exams every 60-90 days (depending on the command and weapon system).

The officers above were most likely were taking a standard proficiency test to maintain their MR-status.  What makes the incident especially shameful is that all proficiency tests questions are pulled from what used to be called a Master Question File (MQF).  There term may have been replaced but the MQF is a bank of questions on a particular weapon systems.  You drill and drill the answers into your head because those questions (or very similar) are the ones you will be tested on either on the proficiency exam or your practical evaluation (think check ride).

When I was in mobile radar, we helped quiz each other before we had to take a proficiency test or go through a practical evaluation. It kept your skills sharp, helped identify areas you needed to work on and built a sense of unit cohesion.  There is sense of prestige of being able to claim you are "MR".

The utter lack of respect for what they are doing just seethes through every article I've read on this incident.  Thirty-four officers were so damn lazy they couldn't study for material on the very skills they are required to perform.  Thirty-four college educated, technically bright, psychological stable (based on testing they had to undergo to go into nuclear weapons) were still so unimpressed with their jobs they took the easy way out to passing a proficiency exam.

It is beginning to look like Maj Gen Michael Carey was the norm instead of the exception.

What really is most disgusting about this scandal is how it makes the readiness of our nuclear forces appear to the Russians and Chinese.  Not only have the Russians and Chinese been working on increasing their nuclear forces (along with their conventional forces), both Russia and China have leaders that will not back down from the United States.

Nuclear weapons have primarily been about deterrent.  What deterrence is left if the officers responsible for launching those weapons are seen as indifferent to their mission?

Putin is a trained KGB officers from the days of the Cold War.  He cannot be missing the implications of this and the Carey scandal for his own objectives.  Factor in the NSA scandals and Putin must see the United States as more vulnerable than ever.  The vulnerability does not mean an attack (at least not in a military sense) but certainly Putin can take a much stronger stance in the future with the United States.

China may already be planning ways to further exploit these lapses in judgement.  During the height of the Cold War, we were always cautioned about getting into excessive debt for fear this could be exploited by Soviet agents.  China is a much bigger economic power that ever was the Soviet Union so it is even easier for them to find a young troop that has over extended their credit line.

The obvious failure on the parts of the officers in the this scandal to realize their importance of their jobs is amazing.  Somehow, over the last 10 plus years of being at war we've become in many ways less combat-ready.  I've speculated before that the lack of involvement by nuclear forces have made them feel their mission is unappreciated.  But I'm not certain this is the complete answer.

Our culture is going through many changes, often glommed into the term "entitled".  The behaviors I've written about in my past few entries are seem to be related to that mindset.  The military in general and the USAF in particular needs to recognize this sense of entitlement and adjust internal procedures accordingly.  Be aware that it doesn't matter if the recruit is from an Ivy League school or from the inner cities, their is a sense of entitlement there that is subtle and different from anything we've dealt with in the past.

The state of nuclear forces

Back in 2007, a B-52 bomber was mistakingly armed with six nuclear air launched cruise missiles (ALCM) and flown from Minot, ND to Barksdale, LA.  The missiles were being sent to be decommissioned but why they were armed with live warheads was the beginning of the real state of our nuclear forces in the USAF.

The events back in 2007 led to the standard stand-down of forces and firing of all of the usual suspects (munitions squadron commander was summarily fired, ground crews and aircrews were suspended).  This led over the next several years for articles to appear questioning the readiness of our nuclear forces.

For those unfamiliar, US nuclear forces consist of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), manned bombers and sea-launched ballistic missiles.  Two of the three triads then are assigned to the US Air Force.  Nuclear forces really came to forefront because of one man, Gen Curtis LeMay who believed a war could be won by delivering all nuclear weapons in an overwhelming, decisive blow.  This belief allowed him to turn the Strategic Air Command (SAC) into the premier command of the United States Air Force during the Cold War.

LeMay's focus made SAC the benchmark for operational readiness inspections (ORI).  SAC units were constantly testing their readiness to support LeMay's (and subsequent SAC commanders) vision of an ability to decisively strike the enemy with no-notice.  LeMay very much was an advocate for a pre-emptive strike and designed SAC around that vision.  One of the core competencies of the USAF is air-refueling which was created specifically to support the long range bomber fleet.  To put this in perspective, at the height of his tenure as commander of SAC there were 2,000 manned bombers, 800 refuelers and 224,000 airmen just in his command!

The Vietnam War, and the noticeable lack of nuclear weapons, did not take away from the power SAC held in the USAF because of the nuclear weapons and the tankers (which even C-141s and later C-5s of the Military Airlift Command depended on the tankers in order to accomplish their global mission.  The fighters of the Tactical Airlift Command absolutely could not move without SAC).  As the Cold War continued, SAC would continue to have dominance in the USAF and in the national defense strategy.

Then several things changed that made the events in 2007 almost inevitable.  First, the Soviet Union fell and with it the perceived need for a pre-emptive nuclear strike.  Second, the tankers were taken from SAC (something unthinkable in LeMay's day) and given to the new Air Mobility Command (formerly  the Military Airlift Command).  Strategic Air Command ended in 1992 with it other resources being sent to the other commands (including Air Combat Command which did not emphasize nuclear readiness over its other missions).  The HQ remained under the US Strategic Command.

Finally, Desert Storm brought back the "antiquated"notions of desert warfare with large tank units maneuvering in the desert and the intense use of pre-emptive "conventional" strikes.  Nuclear forces were thought of as a legacy from the Cold War days.  Many people don't understand that at the same time as Desert Storm was being fought, then President Bush had already started a huge drawdown of forces.  Those cost-cutting measures also translated into fewer and fewer dollars to be spent on readiness for nuclear forces.

Airmen assigned to missile units don't deploy as part of the expeditionary forces.  Same for nuclear ground crews, their skillets just aren't needed in theater.  Imagine then when you are competing against other airmen for assignments or promotions but keep falling short because your mission isn't valued anymore (i.e. you don't get campaign ribbons and medals for sitting at home station).

It was inevitable then that something like the B-52 flying with live warheads would happen.  In response, the USAF in 2009 resurrected SAC under the new banner "Air Force Global Strike Command".  The mission of Air Force Global Strike Command is to "Develop and provide combat-ready forces for nuclear deterrence and global strike operations --Safe --Secure --Effective to support the President of the United States and combatant commanders."

Then on Dec 20, 2013 the USAF Inspector General's Office found the former commander of 20th Ai Force (the Numbered Air Force under AFGSC), Maj Gen Michael Carey,  had violated Article 133-conduct unbecoming an officer-during a trip to Russia back in July 2013.

According to Air Force Magazine: While having drinks with his team in the executive lounge of the Marriott lobby on July 15, Carey boasted “of the importance of his position” and complained “that his group had the worst morale and that the leadership wasn’t supporting him,” according to a chronology of events included in the report. 

Carey and a civilian member of his team left the Marriott around midnight that night, heading to the Ritz Carlton where they “met two foreign national women.” Carey stayed out with the women all night, returning to his own hotel room as late as 5 a.m. Consequently, he was 45 minutes late to the initial briefing with the Russian Federation, states the report. 

During a lunch banquet on July 16, Carey made inappropriate comments about Syria and National Security Administration leaker Edward Snowden “that were not well received.” 

During a tour of a local monastery, also on July 16, Carey was so drunk he was slurring his words, interrupting the tour guide, and even attempted to give the guide a “fist bump” at one point. 

The rest of the article you can read here.

It is beyond comprehension how a general officer in charge of nuclear deterrence could behave like that, especially in the one country that was the genesis for his command!  Furthermore, I doubt that the general's behavior was anything new.  The ease with which he drank and hung around the ladies is not a one time event.

The general was rightly relieved of command but it is the aftermath that is most interesting.  Almost without fanfare, the Congressional Budget Office announced upgrades and expansions to the U.S. nuclear arsenal could cost as much as $355 billion over the next 10 years.  According to an article on the Motley Fool website, the nuclear upgrade spending will take place over a 10-year span, from 2014 to 2023 at a rate of around $35 billion per year.  The spending will go into maintaining nuclear warheads, maintaining the nuclear reactors that produce weapons grade material, Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs, and command, control and communications systems.  Read the rest here.

Perhaps this is why Vice Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has warned that Russia will use nuclear weapons if it comes under an attack, adding that this possibility serves as the main deterrent to potential provocateurs and aggressors. “One can experiment as long as one wishes by deploying non-nuclear warheads on strategic missile carriers. But one should keep in mind that if there is an attack against us, we will certainly resort to using nuclear weapons in certain situations to defend our territory and state interests”  Source:  Russian Times

The refocusing on our nuclear deterrence may also be why North Korea has restarted it's nuclear reactor and why Iran continues to pursue its nuclear enrichment program.  It would also mean that President Obama's effort to reduce nuclear weapons isn't so sincere.