Because of the breadth and importance of those assignments, and because SOF teams usually consist of no more than a handful of people, SOF leaders face a daunting challenge in selecting, training, and developing their units: How do you create teams of people who can deliver results anytime, anywhere? How do you create an organization of 46,000 members, all of whom are as adept at saving civilian lives as they are (when necessary) at taking enemy lives? The principles and practices of General Schoomaker, and of several other current and former SOF leaders, provide a sophisticated arsenal of testing and teaching methods. Together, those methods have resulted in a new version of an old military organization -- and a new breed of highly trained, highly skilled military leaders who operate at all levels of the organization.
If SOF members are no longer fierce warriors and daring espionage agents, then what are they? "SOF has always been mission-focused," says Schoomaker. "But now that mission has changed. We've had to change along with it and to develop new types of capabilities to fulfill it."
"We had to communicate to our own force, and to the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and Congress, both how we saw the world changing and how we saw ourselves fitting in," adds General Wayne Downing, 59, who served as SOF commander from 1993 to 1996 and who is now retired. "We had our unique military strengths, and we combined them with language capabilities, cultural capabilities, negotiation skills, problem-solving skills, and a creative ability to deal with very delicate situations."
Today, SOF members view themselves as "warrior diplomats" and "quiet professionals" -- terms that describe how SOF carries out its new mission. "Back in the time of World War I and World War II, we had simpler, more concrete experiences," Schoomaker says. "When a war was over, you'd come home, have a parade, and then get back into a state of readiness. In our world, the so-called battlefields may not be battlefields at all. They may involve a situation like the one we had in Somalia, or a mission to set up a demining-training program, for example. In the past, the terms of our assignments were set by [Karl von] Clausewitz, whose views of battlefield warfare were very traditional. Today, we're operating more in the tradition of Sun Tzu, whose approach was more indirect. Sun Tzu said, 'To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.' That view of military engagement opens up many more possibilities. In the Special Operations Forces, we're always looking for the center of gravity of any issue. There may be 10 options available to you that don't bring out your enemy's strengths. We need to see what those options are and to move quickly and efficiently to implement the best one."
In 1980, Schoomaker was one of the youngest officers to take part in Desert One, the failed attempt to rescue the Americans held hostage in Iran. Today, Schoomaker keeps a photo on his desk of one of the downed helicopters from that mission -- a reminder to himself of a core principle: Never confuse enthusiasm with capability.
"This isn't about pretty recruiting posters and fancy stripes down your pants," he says. "This is about being able to do what we say we can do. If you're General Electric and you say that you're going to create a lightbulb that will burn for 100 years, then your lightbulb had better burn for 100 years. If you're the Special Operations Forces and you say that you have people who can carry out complex missions that no one else can carry out, then you had better have those people."
Delivering on that promise requires a relentless focus on picking the right people -- and on instilling in them the right understanding. "You've got to select people with the highest likelihood of success," he says. "Then you've got to train, educate, and assess them constantly. You've got to keep upgrading the quality. We have a set of four 'SOF truths': Humans are more important than hardware. Quality is better than quantity. SOF cannot be mass produced. SOF cannot be created after a crisis occurs. These truths guide how we think about building our force. They're simple, and we repeat them over and over, and we make it every commander's responsibility to make sure that his people understand them."
According to Downing, who helped initiate the transformation of SOF, changing the organization's mission and identity began with changing the way its commanders were assessed. Traditionally, commanders were judged on their military efficiency. In the new SOF, they are also judged on how well they deal with U.S. ambassadors in the field, with officers of other countries' armies, with local civilians, and with guerrilla fighters. "We put people into various situations, and we saw how they did," Downing says. "Just because you were great at the old mission didn't mean that your performance in the new mission would be judged acceptable. When we found out that someone didn't fit the new mission, we eliminated that person from our force. Our people are smart: They figured out why it was important to behave differently. And we were clear about what the consequences would be if they failed to live up to the new standards."
Email
Digg
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Buzz Up!
LinkedIn
