The United States' special operations forces (SOF) have come a long way since their post-Vietnam War decline in doctrinal prominence. During the 1980s, the U.S. defense establishment chose their "national wars of liberation" more carefully. The United States stayed closer to home, targeting mainly Central America, and Army Special Forces enjoyed some success in bolstering El Salvador's defense capabilities in a way that they had not done for South Vietnam's. Yet the emphasis remained on firepower rather than on training indigenous forces and the small-unit patrol operations favored by other counter-insurgency practitioners. In any case, the 1990-91 Gulf War-a high-intensity, high-technology blitzkrieg-extinguished any residual institutional enthusiasm for hands-on involvement in messy third world conflicts. "Fighting the nation's wars" again became the national military priority, with "low-intensity conflict"-later rebranded the even more soporific "military operations other than war"-strictly subordinate. As of 2001, the Army's principal field manual devoted only two of 313 pages to counter-insurgency.

Then came the September 11 attacks. The first salvo in the global counter-terrorism coalition's response to the attacks was the U.S.-led takedown of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in late 2001. That essentially military effort was distinguished by the central role that primarily American SOF played. SOF differ from regular combat soldiers in that they are highly trained to perform a wide variety of tasks and use a broad range of equipment, operate in small units-frequently behind enemy lines-and sometimes act covertly. Most professional militaries incorporate SOF capabilities. In the U.S. military, they include Army Special Forces (i.e. Green Berets) and Navy seals, as well as Air Commandos and now some Marines. Their rough UK counterparts are the Special Air Service and the Special Boat Service. In Afghanistan, American sof led and coordinated the indigenous anti-Taliban Northern Alliance fighters, which minimized the adverse political impact among Afghans from the presence of foreign troops. They also acted as forward observers and thus facilitated more accurate air strikes. SOF's admirable performance in such a successful operation thus appeared to augur an increasingly prominent role for them in what the U.S. government soon dubbed the "War on Terror."

At the same time, the very elimination of Afghanistan as a physical base for the global jihadist network has forced it to disperse and further decentralize. At this point, Al-Qaeda's core leadership may often do little more than inspire, rather than command or facilitate, operations by local "self-starter" terrorist cells that have fully infiltrated urban areas. This circumstance would appear to make the blunt and relatively indiscriminate instrument of military power less suited to countering Islamist terrorist threats than civilian intelligence and law-enforcement means. Yet the Department of Defense (DOD) has continued to stress the importance of SOF and devoted a rising share of the U.S. defense budget to special-operations capabilities.

The Pentagon's Bullishness

The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and the National Military Strategic Plan (NMSP) for the War on Terror, both released earlier this year, broadly embody the view that the War on Terror integrally involves the military, in that aggressive intervention abroad is necessary to forestall terrorist operations on U.S. territory. The DOD's principal counter-terrorist instruments are special operations forces, which "will possess an expanded organic ability to locate, tag and track dangerous individuals and other high-value targets globally." The fact that after 9/11 U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) became a "supported" as well as a "supporting" combatant command, received substantial budgetary and operational independence from the regional combatant commands, and was assigned the lead military counter-terrorist role under the 2004 Unified Command Plan, reinforces this mission. So does the 9/11 Commission's recommendation that the military take over the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) paramilitary division, as well as Congress's decision in 2005 to provide SOCOM with $25 million annually in discretionary money that can be used to buy foreign allegiances-a function previously the CIA's alone. In turn, the NMSP tasks SOCOM with preparing a "Global Strategic Plan" for the War on Terror that will become the centerpiece of the American counter-terrorist enterprise. Consistent with this plan, SOCOM is now the only supported command with a geographically unlimited remit.

By the end of the 2006 fiscal year, SOF are expected to number 52,846-the troop strength of three or four infantry divisions. SOCOM's baseline budget has increased by 81 percent since 2001, and for fiscal year 2006 will come to $6.6 billion. Over the next five years, the DOD plans to increase its personnel by more than 13,000 (15 percent), and to add $9 billion to SOCOM's budget. The DOD will also increase the number of active-duty U.S. Army Special Forces battalions by a third; expand psychological operations (PSYOPS) and civil affairs units by 3,700 personnel, or 33 percent; establish a 2,600-strong Marine Corps Special Operations Command; establish an sof unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) squadron; and enhance sof capabilities for insertion into and extraction from denied areas from strategic distances. The latter could occur, for example, via deployment of sof mini-submarines from converted Ohio-class ballistic-missile nuclear submarines, otherwise armed with Tomahawk conventional cruise missiles. Underlining socom's institutional significance is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's inclusion of the socom deputy commander on the twelve-person Deputies Advisory Working Group, which was made a permanent part of the DOD's senior management structure in March 2006. No other combatant commander was so privileged.

According to the QDR, defeating terrorist networks will require, among others, several capabilities calling for SOF: first, "special operations forces to conduct direct action, foreign internal defense, counter-terrorist operations and unconventional warfare." Second, "persistent surveillance to find and precisely target enemy capabilities in denied areas." Third, "the ability to communicate U.S. actions effectively to multiple audiences, while rapidly countering enemy agitation and propaganda." Fourth, "broad, flexible authorities to enable the United States to rapidly develop the capacity of nations to participate effectively in disrupting and defeating terrorist networks." And fifth, "special operations forces to locate, characterize and secure wmd."

This array of tasks conjures visions of SOF darting willy-nilly across the globe, from one hot spot to another, smashing terrorist cells wherever they arise. But with the possible exceptions of civil affairs and foreign internal defense, SOCOM's missions, though all broadly applicable to counter-terrorism, contemplate action mainly in lieu of-rather than in concert with-civilian law enforcement and intelligence bodies. These missions would be most feasible, from both an operational and a political point of view, in failed or weak states that lacked the rule of law. Current evidence, however, suggests that terrorists are not gathering in such states.

Mismatch?

At present, the global jihad appears less likely to hijack failed or weak states than to metastasize through cities. Despite fears that jihadists would re-congregate in such states-e.g. Somalia or Yemen-after their expulsion from Afghanistan, thus far they have not done so. While some foreign jihadists have entered Iraq and opposed coalition forces there, the overriding fear is that they and Iraqi jihadists will apply what they have learned in Iraq elsewhere. Indeed, the intensification of militant Islamism in Europe suggests that terrorists will sometimes find at least workably comfortable enclaves in cities and countries with high levels of governmental control and first-rate civilian security structures. Overall, therefore, the most likely eventuality is for terrorists to remain dispersed in cities and states in which sovereign authority in varying degrees still operates. In those places, military operations of any kind-including the irregular variety associated with sof-will be exceedingly difficult to sustain. Most Western governments-including those hit hardest by Islamist terrorists-have an entrenched reluctance to allow the integration of state military power into homeland security. Even stronger reservations would logically extend to the armed forces of a foreign country.

Nevertheless, even if the jihadist network continues to favor dispersal rather than coalescence, special operations forces still could occasionally serve as counter-terrorist assets of early resort. Terrorists will still need at least small training camps and will find countries with weak law enforcement, intelligence and military capabilities the easiest operating environments for establishing the necessary sites. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), for instance, is running a handful of small, mobile training camps for Jemaah Islamiya militants in an area of the Philippines-Mindanao-over which the Philippine government has flimsy control, and American sof have helped curtail the terrorist activity of both the MILF and Abu Sayyaf. If the ascendant Islamic Courts Union movement in Somalia has allowed terrorist camps to be established, as was reported in August 2006, the 1,200-strong Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa in Djibouti could be dispatched to take them down.

To be sure, a U.S. capacity to apply military force quickly and covertly may facilitate the discreet cooperation of some governments that are politically constrained from overtly cooperating. Such situations, however, are likely to be comparatively few and far between. The strike by a Predator UAV-killing six Al-Qaeda members in Yemen in November 2002-though actually executed by CIA officers, may remain a stark example of the effective use of special operations to neutralize terrorists. Yet so far it has not been repeated. The Istanbul, Madrid and London bombings, and the recently thwarted plot by British jihadists to blow up several U.S.-bound airliners departing from the UK, suggest that the jihad's epicenter is moving to Europe, where mature and broadly U.S.-friendly democracies are the norm. In that theater, even the most covert and discreet military activity would carry prohibitive risk. So, indeed, would a heavy-handed civilian operation, as demonstrated by the criminal investigations that Germany, Italy and Sweden have undertaken of the CIA's alleged abductions of terrorist suspects in the execution of "renditions." These episodes reinforce the infeasibility of even low-visibility military operations in what is becoming a critical field of jihad.

The discrepancy between the Pentagon's vision for SOF and facts on the ground tends to support suspicions that that vision actually reflects an attempt by the DOD's civilian leadership to ensure that it retains primary bureaucratic authority over the prosecution of the War on Terror-in spite of the Iraq problems that have lowered its stock and the loss of some dod intelligence authority to the new national intelligence directorate. Whatever the motivation, the Pentagon has in fact begun to use sof aggressively and problematically.

Especially since the Iraq insurgency arose, the dod's enthusiasm for special operations as a counter-terrorism tool has led to an emphasis on direct action on the part of SOF. This has occurred mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan, the two locales in which about 80 percent of active American sof are presently deployed. One conspicuous example of its success was the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, in June 2006-an air operation made possible by intelligence developed by SOF. Some of the more novel SOF activities in friendly countries with functioning civilian security apparatuses have had more unfortunate consequences. In late 2004, a covert American sof team (known as a "military liaison element") authorized by the Pentagon had to be withdrawn from Paraguay after killing a street criminal and causing the United States-which had not disclosed the team's deployment to the host government-diplomatic embarrassment. The teams now operate under more restrictive guidelines, but CIA officials view them as conducive to unilateral U.S. military activity that could ultimately impair operational as well as diplomatic relationships with other governments. Moreover, clandestine U.S. civilian collaboration with authorities in countries harboring terrorists-e.g. in the arrest of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Pakistan and that of Al-Qaeda-Jemaah Islamiya liaison Riduan Isamuddin (known also as Hambali) in Thailand-have yielded more frequent and durable gains.

Highly Selective Engagement

There remain a couple of areas in which robust sof activity stands to make a substantial and positive difference. Both are essentially non-kinetic. The first area is foreign internal defense (FID), which in practical usage is shorthand for the SOCOM mission of training SOF in other countries to better secure their respective territories. U.S. Central Command, for example, established an FID program for providing counter-terrorism training to allies and partners in the Middle East. The program was conceived in early 2001, formalized after the September 11 attacks and set in motion in January 2002. The first foreign SOF trained were Yemeni Special Forces, and their initial targets were the Al-Qaeda bombers who attacked the USS Cole in 2000. While American sof have operated in Philippine territory to assist indigenous forces, political sensitivities over American impingement on Philippine sovereignty bar extensive direct U.S. military involvement. The same considerations apply even more acutely to Indonesia and Malaysia. Thus, if the U.S. military is to effect better counter-terrorism in the Philippines, the most promising avenue is through training Philippine SOF. In fact, U.S. Navy seals have trained their Philippine counterparts in maritime special operations and intelligence collection, and the Filipino seals subsequently had greater success against Abu Sayyaf and the MILF.

Even with respect to places in which the United States lacks an effective state counter-terrorism partner, political constraints arguably make FID a preferable instrument to direct action insofar as it can improve the security capabilities of regional allies with minimum political turbulence. In Somalia, for example, the secular Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is friendly to the United States, though it wields little or no power on the ground. The Ethiopian government, however, is a strong U.S. counter-terrorism partner, a staunch opponent of Islamism and an ally of TFG President Abdullahi Yusuf. In the 1990s, with the United States' blessing, Ethiopia defeated Al-Ittihad Al-Islami, a pre-existing Somali radical Islamist movement that had established terrorist training camps. Ethiopia strengthened its troop presence on the Somali border after the Islamists took control of Mogadishu last June. The United States could probably ask Ethiopia to eliminate any terrorist enclaves that might arise in Somalia. Ethiopia's capacity to do so swiftly, efficiently and discreetly should be considered an asset in the campaign against Islamist terrorism, given that conspicuous and indiscriminate U.S. military action is prone to antagonize radicals and produce fresh terrorist recruits. And the United States can enhance that capacity-as well as that of other partners in the region, like Kenya-by bolstering FID through training provided by U.S. SOF. It goes almost without saying that SOCOM's FID training in Iraq, which has been extensive and reportedly quite effective, will be a key determinant of whether Iraq is able to control civil unrest and become politically viable and functionally self-sufficient.

The second area in which American and other SOF are liable to constitute a useful counter-terrorism tool is intelligence collection. Civilian agencies are generally best suited to the traditional methods of human intelligence and intercepting communications. In hostile or unruly environments where it is difficult to establish the usual civilian espionage apparatus, however, SOF can add UAVs and, for urban environments, close target reconnaissance-which involves the collection of real-time intelligence on terrorist targets by covert operatives-to the menu. Both means would yield intelligence that could be shared with government officials of the host country or, if they do not (yet) have sufficient operational capability to act on it, used by American SOF as a basis for direct action.

SOF activity along these lines could improve the ability of counter-terrorism allies and partners or the assisting country directly to deny terrorists access to, and freedom of action in, the territory in question. But the likelihood that jihadists will continue to operate mainly in cities in which civilian agencies retain primary authority over security, coupled with the negative effects that the Western application of military force can have on Muslim perceptions and the "war of ideas", suggests that the utility of SOF in the domain of counter-terrorism will probably remain limited, even if the generally greater deniability of special operations makes them more attractive than conventional warfare.

The Future of SOF

There is no doubt that direct action by sof can produce notable tactical successes, as it did in Afghanistan. And to the extent that counter-terrorism on a global scale involves military action, SOF-style direct action may well be more important and appropriate than the often overwhelming force applied by the conventional military-which is geared to fight the large armies fielded by states rather than non-state groups applying asymmetrical methods and frequently causes extensive collateral damage that hurts the United States politically. But the United States' strategic endeavor to counter transnational terrorism will not pivot on direct military action of any kind-conventional or unconventional. Rather, it will critically involve diplomatic alliances, operational cooperation and coordination among civilian law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and effective strategic communications with Muslim populations that portend a more agreeable relationship between Islam and Western governments perceived as inimical to it. All three elements indicate that extensive U.S. military activity is unwise.

In this light, and given the expected rise of China's military along with its economic clout, American military priorities-stated as well as real-will probably revert to a focus on fighting the nation's conventional wars. Despite the grand verbiage about the role of sof in the QDR and the NMSP, the lion's share of the U.S. defense budget, including its post-9/11 increases, is devoted to new or legacy large-scale platforms that are geared primarily to executing conventional military missions. But while SOCOM is not likely to grow any larger than the level contemplated by the QDR, residual terrorism concerns may preclude any reversal of SOCOM's status as a supported command. This would not be a bad thing. But SOF's steady role in the age of sacred terror should center on firming up the capacities of partner states to manage their own security by providing them with training and, when the opportunity arises, actionable intelligence. They should not be regarded primarily as a global swat team.

Jonathan Stevenson is a professor of strategic studies in the Strategic Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College. This article reflects only the views of the author and not the official position of the Naval War College, the U.S. Navy, or the Department of Defense.