In Plain Sight
Covert and deniable military/paramilitary activities continue to be one of my main interests. While I spend most of my research and writing time on historical operations, I do try to keep abreast of contemporary activities, especially changes in practices and emerging trends. As Stu Wexler and I described in Shadow Warfare, one of the most dramatic trends over the last couple of decades has been the moves by both the United States and the Russian Federation to conduct paramilitary operations in the open. That includes operations both to support favored regimes and activities designed to overthrow or otherwise bring about regime change.
The U.S. began that trend in its response to the 9/11 attacks, sending covert/deniable CIA paramilitary personnel to Afghanistan in an effort to oust the Taliban regime. Extensive pains were taken to covertly infiltrate the CIA officers, later joined by only a handful of regular military when it became clear that forward air control and target illumination would become key to the air campaign that emerged.
Of course initially no one anticipated what would become a decade’s long war, one fought by conventional, uniformed military forces using a truly immense amount of combat air support. And it has to be noted that the CIA went into Afghanistan at a time when the Bush Administration was still advocating a purely tactical hunt and kill type response to Al Qaeda, and swearing that it would never enter into regime building or policing in that nation.
The next stage in what became a move towards overt practice came with the decision to actually hire American contract paramilitary – Backwater – personnel to provide personal security for the new Afghan government leadership. Objectively it seems that it would be a bad sign if the designated leader has to have foreign military security – it seems to echo the practices of the European global empire era. Now with decades worth of Afghan experience that might now be truly viewed as having been a leading indicator to future problems.
Using contract paramilitaries to provide leadership security is one thing, deploying them as a security force to deal with protests and insurgency is another – and of course that was the next phase in Afghanistan, prior to full scale American military deployment. After a number of high profile examples of the risks associated with private military contracting firms, the weaknesses of such practices (perhaps “temptation” is a better word) would seem to be pretty apparent – however as recently as 2018 a serious effort was made within the Trump Administration to actually turn over the war against the Taliban to a Blackwater like private contractor.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/world/asia/afghanistan-erik-prince-blackwater.html
While that 2018 effort appears to have failed for the present, events soon demonstrated that Russia was more than willing to implement the same model – in Syria – as a counterpoint to their conventional military presence there.
https://www.csis.org/npfp/russian-private-military-companies-syria-and-beyond
While the Russian contractor experience in Syria appears not to have proved nearly as effective as it had the Crimea, there is no sign that President Putin has any intention of abandoning it as an option. Its 2019 and the private Russian military contractors remain a tool for the Russian Federation – reported arriving in the Sudan and most recently in Venezuela.
https://defence-blog.com/army/russian-private-military-contractors-spotted-in-sudan.html
Its obvious that Russia has increasingly turned to the private contractor model (with financial relationships protected by a network of shell companies which make the CIA fronts of the Cold War look like elementary school ventures by comparison). However the United States has moved to a primary reliance on its Joint Special Operations Command, its Military Assistance Groups and on joint military exercises. All with the stated intent of preserving regimes that it feels are vital to national security – and in pushing back against terrorist groups prior to their gaining an international reach.
https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/04/244657/exercise-african-lion-morocco/
https://www.africom.mil/about-the-command/2019-posture-statement-to-congress
On one hand all this openness seems like a good thing. Activities that were once done under cover are now in view in plain sight, announced in American news releases. Or with Russia at least tracked though the movement of unmarked aircraft and the appearance of “little green men” in camouflage uniforms.
Of course being “in plain sight” doesn’t seem to have the impact that it once carried. Statements and actions that would have amazed us during the Cold War are making routine appearances in political campaigns and presidential news conferences. It seems clear that the public has come to accept things that would have shocked it into action in earlier decades – or perhaps its just that nobody cares that much about reality as compared to the internet?
Still, there remains a possibility that there are still covert things going on behind the scenes. In fact some rather “old school” practices may still be in play on occasion.
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Agreed, and beyond that it allows the President to initiate such operations unilaterally and push back against any Congressional effort to exercise authority over them. Which is the current state of affairs in Yemen...seen in this current policy statement from the White House. http://www.airforcemag.com/DRArchive/...
I think in this case supporting the host nation already worked in as much as Congress was not able to come up with any questionable actions U.S. forces particpated in. There were neither allegations nor investigations to my knowledge, but I might have missed it. Had Congress been able to even provide allegations of lets say collateral damage of U.S. airstrikes in Yemen, the current resolution had a much better foundation. Thus Congress had to resort to the argument, being associated with the conflict already threatens U.S. interests and had to stop, to which the government might counter, it was not responsible for the consequences of the conflict, but supporting local governments with ISR products and targeting actually minimized collateral damage. In this argument the government is in the better position.
Even if passed the resolution was a paper tiger I think. As Congress explicitly only adressed the armed forces and explicitly left out operations agains al Qaeda and its associates, the resolution could be circumvented easily. As covert operations against al Qaeda in Yemen would go on and these had to be deconflicted with operations of Saudi Arabia in Yemen, someone would have to talk to their targeting cell - just for deconfliction of course. And the U.S. could still share intelligence on Iranian operations with Saudi Arabia, which of course would not be used for targeting purposes.
Keeping this in mind the resolution looks more like Washington powerplay between Congress and the White House than an attempt to effectively influence the situation in Yemen.
My view is a bit different, For almost two decades Congress as a whole has simply not engaged in any serious effort to exercise any level of control over American military activities overseas. We have simply become used to the President acting at will in the use of military force - even without a formal declaration of war or any specific Congressional definition of who we engage with militarily and for what purposes. Its been that way since the Congressional resolution authorizing force in response to the attacks of 2001.I don't think anyone expected this particular resolution to actually change that relationship, at best its one of only a handful of moves over recent years to reassert any type of Congressional authorization for foreign military actions. Certainly there is a political element, however not since the 1970's have we seen Congress move as a body to involve itself in decisions to deploy either covert or overt force overseas. Personally I think its about time to restore a bit of balance to the process.
If Congress wanted to get more involved in the deployment of forces that is their right. My concerns are whether Congress had the will and the unity to do so effectively and could withstand the temptation to use this topic for political power games. When the story on CIA "enhanced interrogation methods" went public many members of Congress were shocked to learn of these methods they had never heard about. Michael Hayden was irritated how many members of oversight committees could not remember having been briefed by the CIA on these methods and nodding their heads. So has Congress or better its members really the will to get involved in these decisions and sign their name and take the blame to them, when things go bad?
Also how often does it occur that Congress actually has the necessary unity to seriously challenge the president on foreign policy decisions? Either it would take one party to hold the majority in both houses or a bipartisan agreement was necessary to challenge the sitting president. Both does not occur often and even if it does, there is the problem of the presidential veto, which is hard to overcome.
Especially bipartisanship in the interest of the nation is something sadly uncommon these days when apparently every topic can be utilized to divide the people and attack the political opponent as arguments today are not about the interpretation of the facts anymore but the facts themselves.
Considering these factors I am not at all sure, whether having more Congressional oversight on force deployment was a good idea.
I would rather like to see Congress to concentrate on its traditional function and exercise the power of the purse to leverage oversight of the Department of Defense. This might also be a good way to show the average citizen what it meant financially to conduct prolonged operations around the globe and ask why such an expenditure was actually necessary and what was the benefit of U.S. operations in Yemen.
The Russian solution was to deploy privately organized “volunteers” in Eastern Ukraine and private military contractors in Syria alongside its own forces. Thus it could exercise direct influence on the situation on the ground, publicly deny any involvement, while still clearly communicating its involvement to other actors and truthfully state not to lose soldiers or equipment in combat, which would have been quite embarrassing domestically.
The same did not work out well for the U.S. as scandals about Blackwater et al. generated public outrage against the DoD, although it could truthfully state, not to have operational control over these forces. As the formally effective insulation from the actions of private security contractors did not work to quell public outrage the government fell back on a less effective but better insulated method, which is the cooperation with host nation forces through Special Forces and military advisors. As generations of military advisors can testify, the advisors usually have no authority over the host nation military but have to rely on personal authority, personal networking and some leverage resulting from training, logistics and combat support for the host country the advisors can increase or decrease. These means may result in virtually no authority at all or effective tactical control of operations of the host country unit. Although effective influence or even control might be exercised the advisor is still insulated from all actions of the host country unit. So the next time questionable activities become public and oversight committees start to demand answers, the DoD can truthfully state to have protested the questionable activities of the host nation country. As training programs and support are designed to steer host countries away from questionable actions, these should of course not be abandoned not despite but especially because of too brutal tactics or the like.
In summary the Russian use of volunteers and private security contractors provides a means for covert as well as deniable use force, whereas the U.S. cooperation with host nation forces is not covert but provides deniability of responsibility not only against public allegations but against Congress as well.