The champions of the 21st century

Considerations on the political use of special forces today. Without a doubt, the Great War of this century is the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), which will be ten years old next year. 

The social consequences of this are being experienced on a daily basis: security checks at airports and increased surveillance either openly with security cameras or discreetly with data collection. 

Politically, this conflict has led to chaos in the Middle East, with Afghanistan and Iraq as prime examples and, more inri - as seen in Afghanistan - with the "bad guys" being recognised as interlocutors in peace processes. 

Militarily, this conflict brings two novelties. The first is that, for the first time, a war of global dimensions is being fought not between states but between states and non-state actors. From the Philippines to the Sahel, the groups to be beaten are not characterised by control and management of territories. In the Sahel, for example, the various Salafist groups operate over a large area of land, moving from one place to another. The only exception was the Caliphate of the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq between 2014 and 2019. As a result, what we might call the Third World War is not characterised, unlike its predecessors, by precise front lines. 

The second concerns the soldiers fighting on them. If in the case of terrorists we distinguish those who fight in groups, whether al-Qaeda, the Taliban or Daesh, and lone wolves, in the case of the "free world", this war is not being fought by fleets or divisions but by groups of highly trained soldiers who are few in number: the Special Forces (SF). 

Popular culture has taken it upon itself to mythicise these soldiers, who in the collective imagination are associated with Rambo and the A-Team. However, when we talk about them, either because of the death of one of their members or because of the delivery of the highest military reward to one of them (as happened recently in the United States), we see that these soldiers look like any other physically and are parsimonious in describing their actions. As a result, it could be concluded that there is nothing relevant about these soldiers that merits popular and expert consideration. 

But before deciding whether this is true or not, we must answer the following questions: What are special forces? What are their missions? And perhaps most importantly, what role do they play on the political and military chessboard?

It would be good to begin by saying that, in the theoretical field, there is no standard definition of what these units are. If anyone reads the literature on the subject, they will find that there is no harmony of thought. From those who advocate that it is missions that define these units (as William McRaven, former Seal and commander of the US Operations Command during the operation that killed Bin Laden, advocates), to those who argue that it is the soldiers and technology that use what defines them as "Specials". 

Another school of thought, of which Alastair Finlan - professor of War Studies at the Swedish Defence University - is the leading exponent, argues that the impact these units have on the battlefield needs to be studied in order to define them. 

For Finlan, the Special Forces play an important strategic role. This is made possible by their ability to cripple the political leadership of belligerents by assassinating their leaders: "States that suddenly lose their leadership suffer more than a temporary loss of leadership.¹ As a result, their political impact is relevant, as eliminating enemy leaders has the potential to shape the future of war: "Special forces have the ability to get to the source of war, bring the political back onto the battlefield and directly influence the highest levels of decision making and their constituencies.² 

What we find when we look at the use of these units is that the operations in which they have excelled most have been the elimination of the heads of terrorist groups. The best-known examples are the United States' elimination of Osama Bin Laden and al-Baghdadi. In both cases Finlan's theory of the role of special forces as executioners of the ringleaders is true: both al-Qaeda and Daesh have been weakened as a result of the loss of their main leaders. However, both organisations have not been dissolved. As a result, we may question the extent to which Finlan's idea of the strategic use of special forces as paralysing agents is fulfilled. If the special forces units act as executioners of leaders and by extension paralyse the enemy, it is to be expected that the final result will be the dissolution of the enemy. However, both groups continue to be present, with the potential to inspire lone wolves to commit attacks or to reorganise themselves for group attacks. 

This can be observed when analysing the evolution of the insurgency in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. In this theatre of operations, the special forces have arrested and neutralised or helped neutralise (as in the case of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of al-Qaeda in Iraq) terrorists and their acolytes. This did not prevent the insurgency from worsening, mutating into Daesh. Although it is true that other factors contributed to the situation in Iraq getting out of control (sectarianism, inability to create a unity government and abuses by Western forces), it is no less true that the special forces did not play the decisive role Finlan attributes to them as paralysing agents, as if they had fulfilled their role, al-Qaeda in Iraq would have been dissolved, which did not happen.

The same may be said of Afghanistan. In 2001 the intervention of the US special forces was key to driving the Taliban from power. Since then, despite the capture and execution of several of their leaders, the Taliban have ended up being recognised as interlocutors in a peace process. Once again, this weakens the argument that attacking leaders weakens and by extension ends the terrorist groups. The case of the Taliban shows that resilience and reorganisation are key to the survival of terrorist groups. 

In conclusion, the Global War on Terrorism is being fought by Special Forces, which are few in number but highly trained. Academically, there are discrepancies in how to define them, ranging from those who claim that it is missions that define these units to those who argue that it is the training and equipment of these units that makes them special. Alastair Finlan argued that the metric for defining these units is their role in the war. In this case, these units play a crucial strategic role, as they are capable of neutralising the enemy's leadership, achieving (theoretically) their paralysis, which results in their collapse. Applied to the GWOT, we have seen the advantages and limitations of this definition, as although al-Qaeda and Daesh have been weakened by the elimination of their leaders, the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan show that this theory has not achieved its goals, as terrorist violence continues to plague both countries.

¹ Finlan, A. Special Forces, Strategy and the War on Terror: Warfare by other means (London, Routledge, 2007) p.18. 
² Finlan, A. `A dangerous pathway? Toward a theory of special forces’, Comparative Strategy, 38:4 (2019), pp. 255-275.