Mass Atrocity Prevention Operations: A SOF Core Activity in Support of Great Power Competition

ABSTRACT

Preventing mass atrocities is a core national security objective. Despite a series of broad statements in strategy documents, there is a dearth of operational doctrine. This article suggests that mass atrocity prevention operations should be designated as a Special Operations Forces (SOF) Core Activity. This would operationalize long-standing strategy, prevent competitors from capitalizing on power vacuums where mass atrocities are taking place, and provide a direct link between SOF capabilities and great power competition. SOF have the appropriate skill set to engage in mass atrocity prevention. Designation of this Core Activity would not place significant burdens on special operators.

KEYWORDS:

• SOF
• mass atrocities
• great power competition

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

DISCLAIMER

The views expressed in this publication are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy, or position, of the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Justice, or the United States Government.

Notes

1. I prefer the term “Mass Atrocity Prevention Operations” to “Mass Atrocity Response Operations” because a response suggests the atrocity has already occurred. A Mass Atrocity Response Operation is the business of an international criminal tribunal, not special operations forces.

2. The comparison of SOF to diplomats is not an exaggeration. As one diplomat has written, operators “function in a dimension that shadows traditional diplomacy” (Kashkett, 2017). Like foreign service officers, SOF personnel are often trained in languages and cultures, some are assigned as liaisons and work out of embassies, and: [l]ike the ethos of career diplomats, the SOF philosophy recognizes the value of nurturing ties to foreign cultures, and acknowledges the stability value of addressing the critical needs of civilians. As a result, U.S. special operations units around the world carry out a much broader civil affairs mission, which can include providing medical and public health services in underserved areas, assisting with agricultural and economic development at the village level, delivering disaster relief and furnishing humanitarian aid (Kashkett, 2017).

3. This is part of a broader need to realign SOF doctrine generally to reflect less emphasis on Direct Action and greater emphasis on Unconventional Warfare in support of gray-zone activities and other types of political warfare. “In order for DOD, particularly SOF, to successfully fulfill its mission in a US Political Warfare Strategy to be fully integrated as an SOF, Army, and larger Joint Force capability, the family of Joint Operations Concepts (JOpsCs) as well as existing relevant Joint Operating Concepts (JOCs) require review.” (U.S. Army Special Operations Command, 2015a, p. 30). The future of SOF operations is largely those that are currently undefined by doctrine (Jones, 2020).

4. Although the legal authority delineating special operations activities, 10 U.S.C. § 167(k), largely overlaps with the SOF Core Activities defined by Joint Publication 3-05, the two are not coterminous. Section 167(k)(10) allows the President or Secretary of Defense to designate additional activities. Additionally, there is no prohibition on defining additional Core Activities in doctrine so long as they fall within existing statutory legal authority. MAPOs surely fall within Section 167(k)(8) which authorizes USSOCOM to conduct “humanitarian assistance,” in addition to the legal authority for the specific techniques employed by the MAPO.

5. The United Nations has described two types of safe areas: de jure safe areas agreed to between the belligerent parties and recognized as such by international humanitarian law, and those that are de facto safe because they are defended by a credible military presence (United Nations, 1999). The term “safe area” as used in Sewall et al. refers to the second approach.

6. To the extent that SOF is experiencing an “identity crisis” (Croot, 2020), designation of MAPOs as a SOF Core Activity would also assist, in some small way, in resolving it.