This year marks the first iteration of the ARSOF Writing Competition. As a professional-development publication, it is the job of Special Warfare to give the members of our regiments a forum to share their ideas and opinions with their brothers-in-arms. It is also an opportunity for them to challenge ideas and ways of doing things in order to improve our regiments.

The topic of the ARSOF Writing question begs an answer to the following question: Who will prevent us from doing what we want at the expense of what is needed and why can’t we have both? The right answer is that we can, we will and we truly must in order to remain an effective military force and deterrent against sub-state actors seeking to globalize any number of local insurgencies. A healthy balance between lethal and non-lethal operations must be sustained by discipline, patience and a very sharp sense of timing. As we are stalking and tracking the enemy across the terrorist Diaspora, our understanding of his motive, morale modus operandi will shape not only the enemy area of operations but our own lethal operations conducted to eliminate his sanctuaries and base areas.

The commander’s vision communicates core purpose and values. It inspires, motivates and suggests expectations for behavior. For external audiences, it helps shape their understanding of what the organization is all about. Some say that the best way to introduce ideas, especially on controversial matters, is to tell a story rather than to offer an argumentative case. This article is written to advance the development of vision for Army special-operations forces’ senior leadership and describe how the community might maintain a healthy balance between the tactical and technical skills needed for lethal operations, while maintaining SOF’s unique ability to work in the Human Domain.

Third Place: ARSOF Way Forward

Over the past several years, Army special-operations forces have learned a number of lessons and have recognized that:
“Army Special Operations Forces have become tactically proficient. Some would say that this proficiency has come at a cost of the forces’ language and cultural skills. For ARSOF to successfully fulfill its role in building capacity and shaping the battlefield, the force must maintain a balance in its proficiency to conduct lethal and non-lethal operations. While ARSOF’s tactical and technical skills dominate the battlefield, it is often its skills in the Human Domain that have the greatest effect.”
The question posed to the community is this: “How do we maintain a healthy balance between the tactical and technical skills needed for lethal operations while maintaining our unique ability to work in the Human Domain?”

"We are widely employed throughout the continent. The majority of the missions assigned to the ODAs are designed to build partner-nation capabilities to counter the specific threats that they face. The continent is very diverse and the challenges that face individual nations and regional organizations are equally diverse. In the Horn of Africa, we man Special Operations Command and Control Element–Horn of Africa. This organization is very focused on assisting in the preparation of African forces that support the African Union Mission in Somalia."

On Oct. 14, 2011, the President of the United States stated that approximately 100 Special Forces advisers were arriving in Uganda, to advise and assist in the removal of Joseph Kony from Central Africa. While Kony’s name is not well known in the United States, the conflict he has furthered and the war crimes he and his Lord’s Resistance Army have committed over the past 25 years have gravely affected life in four central African nations. One recent observer noted: “The most disturbing aspect of this humanitarian crisis is the fact that this is a war fought by children on children — minors make up almost 90% of the LRA’s soldiers. Some recruits are as young as eight and are inducted through raids on villages. They are brutalized and forced to commit atrocities on fellow abductees and even siblings. Those who attempt to escape are killed. For those living in a state of constant fear, violence becomes a way of life and the psychological trauma is incalculable.”

The purpose of this article is to share the experiences and lessons gleaned from the first deployment of U.S. Army Special Forces advisers to Central Africa in support of the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009. Having deployed as the initial advisory force in support of a newly established named operation, the advanced operating base and its subordinate Special Forces operational detachment alphas broke new ground and challenged existing doctrine in an austere and complex operating environment.

Democracy and human rights have long been promoted as the ideals of U.S. foreign policy, with the rule of law being the glue that holds democracy and human rights together. But law can be a means of tyranny in the wrong hands, and democracy can produce a tyranny of the majority, as our founding fathers warned and as we are now witnessing in the Middle East and in North Africa. Human rights are what give legitimacy to democracy and the rule of law. Human rights protect the freedoms of minorities in a democracy, but they are meaningless without the rule of law.

In the 21st century, China and Tanzania have exchanged senior-level military delegation visits, on average, every year. In addition, Chinese naval vessels have made port-of-call visits to Dar es Salaam on repeated occasions. The visits themselves were symbolic representations of the bilateral military relations between the two countries. Furthermore, in the context of the dynamic changes in the post-Cold War international political environment, the visits demonstrated the continued political importance each placed in the other.

U.S. Army Civil Affairs units conduct veterinary civic-action projects in order to influence civilians in an area of operations. During a VETCAP, CA units team with military veterinarians to provide or supervise the provision of basic care to herds, farm animals and pets. The Army has incorporated VETCAPS and other civic-action programs, such as medical civic-action and dental civic-action programs into its civil-military relations efforts as far back as the Vietnam conflict.1 They continue to be a part of military operations in conflict and peacetime.