The Carrier Debate

The following contribution is from Claude Berube, Director, USNA Museum.

“Why is the Naval Academy Museum hosting a debate on the future of aircraft carriers?”

It’s a question I was asked earlier this week about the debate between Jerry Hendrix and Bryan McGrath at USNA’s historic Mahan Auditorium.  So let’s break down that question and answer it.

First, why is the Museum hosting this?  Part of the Naval Academy Museum’s mission is to educate Midshipmen and the general public on the history of the Navy.  While this debate is about the future of aircraft carriers, both debaters and the moderator are extremely well versed in the utility of carriers for much of the past century.  In addition, the event was promulgated with additional information about the historical debate on aircraft carriers from the pages of Naval Institute Proceedings since 1922.  In conjunction with the debate, the museum also has a special exhibit during January on the history of aircraft carriers.  We’ve also produced through LTjg Christopher O’Keefe, the History of the Navy in 100 Objects which includes many videos on aircraft carriers. Our mission also includes demonstrating to the public the contributions of Academy graduates.  It would be difficult to imagine today’s utility of aircraft carriers without the contributions of graduates such as Admirals Halsey, Mitscher, and others during World War II or nuclear propulsion guided by Admiral Rickover.  This debate is open to the public.

Second, why a debate format?  That’s simple.  We are very fortunate at the Naval Academy to host a number of informed and recognized guest speakers and lecturers.  The Museum, for examples, has a regular lecture series throughout the academic year. Although it may have happened in my ten years teaching at the Academy, I don’t recall a debate about a national security issue.  It’s a great format to get to issues a single presenter might not.  And, historically, there’s a real periodic tradition of debating naval issues among officers and civilians at least as far back as the Naval Lyceum and Naval Magazine in the 1830s.  Both Jerry Hendrix and Bryan McGrath are well-versed in our naval history, articulate, and serious informed navalists whose voices are important in our greater concepts about national security.  I, for one, look forward to learning from each side.

Third, why is the Museum involved in a debate on the future?  That’s simple.  We’re a teaching museum.  Ideas about the future, whether they’re about operations, platforms, or strategies, simply don’t occur out of a vacuum.  As they say, you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.  At the museum we’re trying to bridge the gap between our naval heritage and the future.  For example, we try to integrate our artifacts in applied history projects with the midshipmen such as with the recently-acquired Mount Suribachi field glasses.  In addition, our moderator is Captain CC Felker, USN, Chair of the History Department at the Naval Academy.  He’s the author of “Testing American Sea Power”  and holds a doctorate in history.

Finally, I owe mention to our partnership with the United States Naval Institute on this event.  For those interested and unable to attend, the United States Naval Institute is livestreaming the event.  The Museum and the Institute have a long history going back to when Preble Hall was built in 1939 and housed both the Museum and USNI.  USNI left the building in 1999 for Beach Hall at Hospital Point but we have an excellent working relationship.  We rely heavily on their photographic archives for some of our exhibits and they take photos of some of our collection for their book catalogues and Naval History Magazine.

Members of the Naval Institute will be familiar with the phrase for "To provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write.”  Now it’s time to debate.  We hope you’ll listen and join in on the discussion in the pages of Proceedings, elsewhere, or on Twitter (#CarrierDebate).


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Claude Berube is Director of the Naval Academy Museum and teaches in the History Department.  He is the immediate past chair of Naval Institute Proceedings.  The views expressed are his alone and not those of the Naval Academy or the Navy.

The Enduring Myth of the Fragile Battlecruiser

The first battllecruiser HMS Invincible

     The repetition of the myth of the fragile battlecruiser continues even as the greatest victory of the class is now just over 100 years in the past. This particular capital ship has been on the receiving end of the naval world’s harshest criticism since three of their British number met untimely ends at the May 31-June 1, 1916 Battle of Jutland. In fact, the battlecruiser was a hybrid, cost saving platform designed specifically to support a mature British strategic concept of seapower. Its heavy losses at Jutland were more to do with early 20^th century capital ship design and poor British tactical doctrine than the thickness (or lack thereof) of its armor belt. That particular myth was constructed in the wake of Jutland for good reasons of operational security, but there is no reason to continue to repeat it in the present day. The experience of the battlecruiser still has important lessons for contemporary warship designers. Every warship is a compromise of weapons, protective features, speed, and operational range. Operational employment is as important as physical design and construction in determining a warship’s vulnerability. Time marches forever forward and today’s invincible front line combatant can become tomorrow’s proverbial fighter with a glass jaw if not modernized to reflect technological change. Warship designers seeking lethal, high speed and survivable platforms on a limited hull would do well to consider the battlecruiser’s performance in their deliberations on how much of these qualities can be achieved in a single class. Sometimes operational employment and tactical doctrine can be just as deadly to a ship in battle as its lack of speed, armament and robust construction.

The ever-combative Admiral Sir John Fisher

    The battlecruiser was the brainchild of mercurial British technological innovator and strategist Admiral Sir John Fisher. Fisher’s well documented “need for speed” so denigrated in the battlecruiser myth was actually just one part of a well thought out plan to create a hybrid, cost effective, modern capital ship in support of British strategic interests. Fisher was appointed to a series of high level naval positions culminating in that of First Sea Lord in 1904 following his command of Britain’s Mediterranean Fleet from 1899-1902. While in that billet, Fisher became convinced that the high speed armored cruiser and the torpedo boat would prove significant threats to Britain’s fleet of slow, conventional battleships, still known in the late 19^th century as “ironclads”.

      Fisher was appointed not so much for his ideas on naval warfare, but rather that Lord Selborne, the First Lord of the Admiralty and civilian head of the Royal Navy, recognized that Fisher “was the only admiral on the flag list willing and able to find economies in naval expenditure.”[1] His challenge was to reduce naval expenditures whilst combating the threat of armored cruisers to the Empire’s trade routes, meeting the threat of torpedo-armed small craft and submarines, and still maintaining a force of battle-worthy combatants to destroy hostile enemy fleets. Fisher’s elegant solution to these problems was what he called the “large armored cruiser” and massed flotillas of torpedo-armed destroyers and submarines. The large cruisers would protect British trade routes and carry the war to remote enemy colonies and bases. Destroyers and submarines would form the ideal defense for the “narrow seas” that Fisher defined as the Western Mediterranean basin and the English Channel.[2] The team of Fisher and his civilian superior Selborne was very successful in that their overall program of cutting old warships, geographic re-balance of the fleet, and introduction of new types of vessels kept British naval spending at or below the levels of 1906 for five years.[3]

     Unfortunately the British civilian and naval leadership did not buy into Fisher’s full scheme. While the feisty Admiral seems to have regarded his famous all big gun creation HMS Dreadnought as a mere interim step toward a high speed, high endurance heavy combatant, successive First Lords of the Admiralty from Selbourne through Winston Churchill hedged their bets by investing in both concepts. They refused to regard the traditional battleship as obsolete, and built successive “Dreadnoughts” as well as Fisher’s large armored cruisers which by 1911 were labeled as “battlecruisers” by the Royal Navy. Given that they were the same size as contemporary battleships, it is not surprising that naval traditionalists assigned them to capital ship duties within the British fleet. The balance of power in Europe also shifted in the period from 1905 to 1911 as Britain reached accommodations with its former imperial enemies of France and Russia, and the German Empire became a more significant threat. Rather than roam the sea in defense of colonial trade, the battlecruiser became the naval equivalent of heavy cavalry and found employment as the principle heavy scouting arm of the British battle fleet in home waters. These changes would place the battlecruiser in an environment not anticipated by Fisher and expose significant faults in British tactical doctrine.

Invincible explodes during the battle of Jutland

     The outbreak of the First World War at first saw the battlecruiser performing as Fisher had intended. The crusty admiral had returned to the office of First Sea Lord at the behest of an admiring Winston Churchill and immediately set about finding ways to use his creations for the intended purpose. Two of the original battlecruisers fulfilled their mission exactly as designed when they were dispatched from home waters to the South Atlantic on short notice to intercept the commerce-raiding squadron of German cruisers commanded by Vice Admiral Maximilian von Spee. HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible destroyed Spee’s flagship the armored cruiser SMS Scharnhorst and her sister SMS Gneisenau on 08 December 2024 with little damage and few British casualties in return. In combat in home waters, however, Fisher’s creations faced more significant threats. During the 1916 Battle of Jutland, three British battlecruisers exploded and sank with heavy loss of life. This is the starting point for the myth that the battlecruisers were destroyed because their combination of high speed, heavy guns and thin armor made them extremely vulnerable to German shellfire.

Invincible sinking

   On the conclusion of the first day of the Battle of Jutland, the exhausted British battlecruiser commander Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty collapsed on the bridge of his flagship HMS Lion and uttered the famous quote to his flag Captain Ernest Chatfield that “something is wrong with our damn bloody ships and our damn bloody system.”[4] Beatty was actually right on both counts, but not for the reasons the mythologists suggest. The supposedly thin armor belts of British battlecruisers were not penetrated in battle. Instead, their turret roofs (17% of the total surface area of some warships’ decks) with relatively thin armor were the locations of German hits.[5] The explosions that sank the ships however were more the result of British tactical doctrine rather than thin armor. The Royal Navy had extensively experimented with director-firing of heavy guns at medium range as a method of achieving critical hits on opponents early in battle. Admiral George Callaghan, Admiral Jellicoe’s immediate predecessor as Grand Fleet Commander, did not fully trust the new system, and decided to mitigate its potential failings by significantly increasing the ammunition supply aboard British capital ships.[6] British doctrine called for high rates of fire to smother an enemy before they had a chance to effectively respond. The battlecruisers were carrying 50% more ammunition then their designed capacity on the day Jutland was fought to accomplish this goal.[7] British gunners also failed to close safety hatches in their turrets designed to protect ammunition magazines from explosion. This was done to achieve the high rates of fire demanded as integral to British tactical doctrine.

Burned out turret of HMS Lion which narrowly avoided Invincible's fate

   Contrary to other parts of the myth, the British Admiralty reacted within days of Jutland to remedy these faults. One report by British inspectors submitted immediately after the battle found “magazine doors were left open, lids were off powder cases, and all (turret) cages were loaded (with propellant charges).[8] The First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Henry Jackson, who had replaced Fisher in the wake of the Dardanelles disaster in 1915,   ordered immediate changes. By the spring of 1917 all of the faults in material condition of readiness, and doctrine were corrected. The battlecruisers under construction at this time, including the large Admiral Class warship that would become the HMS Hood were substantially modified with additional armor and protective measures designed to prevent further disasters such as those that befell HM ships Indefatigable, Queen Mary, and Invincible. Why then the false myth that thin armor caused the demise of the battlecruisers at Jutland?

The short path from turret roof to magazine

     When the after action reports were gathered and submitted to the First Sea Lord for approval and action, the occupant of that office had changed. The former Jutland commander Admiral Sir John Jellicoe suppressed the findings of the report, but left the changes it made in place. He repeated the false claims that the battlecruisers were built with inadequate armor and flash protection on numerous occasions. His unofficial reasoning was that fleet morale had suffered enough in the wake of the battle, but it was instead clearly a cover-up to protect the reputation of the Royal Navy in the midst of war.[9] John Jellicoe can probably be excused as it could be argued that it was prudent to avoid the disclosure of a deficient tactical doctrine in the course of an ongoing conflict. They story should not, however, be repeated a century on as gospel when it is clearly false. When historian Arthur Marder first began a systematic, independent investigation of the RN’s operational history during World War One, he turned to retired senior RN officers, some of whom had been on active duty during the First World War, as his first sources. They repeated the myth to Marder, he repeated it to the world, and it remained until the late 1980’s/early 1990’s when RN insiders / scholars such as David K. Brown, John Sumida, and Nicholas Lambert began to unravel and expose the false myth. 

     Why refer to the events of a century ago in conjunction with present U.S. naval strategy and operational and tactical doctrine? Every warship is a compromise in multiple characteristics including armament, survivability, endurance, and speed. A warship might be perfectly suited to perform in one strategic environment, but less effective in future situations. Continued modernization is vital to tactical success. HMS Hood was perfectly suited to the combat conditions of the 1920’s, but failure to modernize her as scheduled placed her in grave danger when exposed to 1940’s naval ordnance. Improper operational employment can be just as dangerous to a ship and her crew as lack of armor, or the active and passive defenses modern warships utilize in lieu of armor protection. Having an offensive ethos, like that of the battlecruiser, sometimes makes its advocates less observant of necessary defensive measures. The battlecruiser force was so concerned with rate of fire that they ignored their ships’ installed safety measures. If the U.S. Navy intends to transition to a concept of “Offensive Sea Control”, it might be tempted to omit or ignore defensive capabilities in order to achieve the perfect first salvo of cruise missiles against an opponent. Small concerns perhaps, but worth noting since the British battlecruiser force lost over 3000 sailors in one battle in large part because its offensive mindset blinded it to necessary defensive actions.

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[1] Nicholas Lambert, Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution, Columbia, SC, University of South Carolina Press, 1999, p. 91.

[2] Lambert, p. 116.

[3] David K. Brown, The Grand Fleet, Warship Design and Development, 1906-1922, Annapolis, MD, Naval Institute Press, Reprint Edition, 2010, p. 13.

[4] Nicholas Lambert, “Our Bloody Ships or Our Bloody System, Jutland and the Loss of the Battlecruisers, 1916”, The Journal of Military History, Vol. 62, No. 1 (Jan., 1998), p 29

[5] Brown, p. 30.

[6] John Tetsuro Sumida, “The Royal Navy and the Tactics of Decisive Battle, 1912-1916”, The Journal of Military History, Volume 67, No. 1 (Jan 2003), p 110.

[7] Nicholas Lambert, “Our Bloody Ships or Our Bloody System”, pp. 29-55.

[8] Brown, p. 168.

[9] Brown, p. 169.

In Somalia, We Have a Problem

Events over the weekend that included the capture of an al Qaeda operative in Libya and a raid in Somalia are the focus of military conversations I've been involved in since Friday night. I have nothing to add to the news in public regarding the operation in Libya. Well done to all on that action. My focus, as it has been since the early days of the blog, is with Somalia.

By now everyone has likely heard a story regarding events Friday evening local time in Somalia, but because the story has been told many different ways and the media has been running a stealth auto-correct campaign to virtually every news article posted as new facts become known, allow me to tell the story as I know it to have happened so you are keen on the details as of October 8, 2013.

In the late evening of Friday October 4, 2024 local time Navy SEALs belonging to the now famous DEVGRU, or SEAL Team 6 depending upon your preference, inserted into Somalia by small boat near the coastal village of Barawe, Somalia. The objective of the SEAL team was to capture, alive, a Kenyan insurgent named Abdukadir Mohamed Abdukadir, known by the nickname “Ikrima.” As the SEALs approached a seaside villa, the target house, they came under fire from security posted near the villa. A firefight broke out almost immediately and the SEAL team came under heavy fire. Rather than fighting a frontal assault, the team withdrew under cover of helicopter gunships back to their boats and returned to a US Navy ship offshore.

Intelligence

One of the most interesting aspects of the action in Somalia on Friday is that the intelligence appears to have been very good. First we have the target, Abdukadir Mohamed Abdukadir (Ikrima), who appears to be a very smart target for the US in the context of a 'capture alive' operation. Ikrima is a foreign militant in Somalia with ties to al Shabaab Central leadership including Ahmed Godane, ties to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and ties to al-Hijra - a terrorist organization in Kenya with ties to al Shabaab that is believed to have executed the recent Westgate mall attack. As a central figure he represents an intersection between foreign fighters in al Qaeda, local Somali insurgents, and al-Hijra operating in Kenya. His escape from capture Friday night means he is basically a walking dead man.

The intelligence of the location was also very good, because it turns out the reason for high security was because not only was Abdukadir Mohamed Abdukadir at the villa, but Mahad Mohamed Ali, known as “Karate,” was also there. Mahad Mohamed Ali (Karate) is the leader of Al Shabab’s Amniyat division, the intelligence wing of al Shabaab. According to the Toronto Star, there was a third leader there as well, but the name is not given. The journalist only describes the 3rd individual as Abu Hamza, which is not a name and simply means kunya or "father of," which is not helpful in identification.

Regardless, the presence of three major figures - one of which was the head of al Shabaab's intelligence wing - suggests the intelligence regarding the target villa was good. It is worth pointing out that presence of both Abdukadir Mohamed Abdukadir (Ikrima) and Mahad Mohamed Ali (Karate) in the same place would appear to validate suspicions that the Westgate attack was not only well financed, well planned, and well executed but also demonstrates some coordination between al Shabaab Central leadership and expertise across other organizations in the al Qaeda network. It certainly should trouble folks that multiple large, well resourced al Qaeda organizations were potentially coordinated in the attack at a detailed level, even if the details themselves weren't disseminated widely prior to the attack. Combining expertise and resources from across the various al Qaeda associated groups not only increases the likelihood of attacks, but increases the lethal potential of those attacks.

Environment and Geography

When Kenyan military forces invaded Somalia from the south in October 2011, the offensive was a disaster. Invading during the wet season, the Kenyan Army soon found themselves, literally, stuck in the mud. After slogging their way through the mud for eight months, Kenyan forces were formally integrated into the UN sanctioned AMISOM force in Somalia. That's another discussion for another time, but basically Kenya was granted political cover by the rest of the world for invading Somalia. Finally, in September of 2012 the Kenyan force under the AMISOM flag liberated Kismayo from al Shabaab control. The loss of Kismayo represented the recapture of the last major city stronghold al Shabaab had in Somalia.

The AMISOM military leadership projected expectations that with the loss of control of major cities by al Shabaab, Somalia was at a turning point. The reality is, over the past year AMISOM has done little outside of skirmishes near the towns of Burkakaba, Dinsoor, and Tieyglow - small inland towns north and west of Mogadishu. The lack of offensive military activity by AMISOM since the fall of Kismayo has been matched by a lack of offensive action by al Shabaab, which has spent the last few months in an internal power struggle that appears to have been resolved with Ahmad Godane consolidating his power over al Shabaab in Somalia.

Somalia in October 2013 looks very different than Somalia in 2011, before the Kenyan Army invaded Somalia with the objective of seizing Kismayo. The most important feature change from a military perspective is how the posture of al Shabaab's forces has changed from one of a mobile force roaming the rural country in the exercise of establishing local control to one of consolidated control in a more garrison posture. When US special forces went to Barawe, they basically ran into a garrisoned force that had fortified the city, and it is important to understand that nearly every town under the control of al Shabaab is likewise a fortified town with a garrison force.

It is very important to understand what Somalia is today compared to what Somalia was prior to the AMISOM success of liberating Mogadishu and Kismayo. Westerners often describe Somalia as an ungoverned, lawless territory with an insurgency, but on the ground in southern Somalia it is more akin to a dispersed collection of independent city states loosely affiliated with the Federal Government of Somalia in Mogadishu or a collection of smaller, independent villages under local tribal control under a very strict al Shabaab rule.

In the north with Somaliland and Puntland - both territories are officially unrecognized but self-declared sovereign, autonomous but not yet officially independent states, and are not the focus of this discussion.

Obviously Somalia is much more complicated than I can summarize in a few paragraphs, but I feel this background is necessary for discussing the broader points below that are more relevant to this audience.

US Military and Somalia

In the last week of September, USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) was sent to Djibouti to offload all elements of the 26 MEU and take on board special operations forces including the SEAL team that executed the raid this previous weekend. When a US Navy ship has it's command authority switched over to SOCOM, there are a number of details involved, particularly when it involves an amphibious ship. First, all Marine Corps equipment is offloaded - air, sea, land - everything Marine Corps is taken off the ship. Special operations forces bring it's own everything - including aviation, and there is no such thing as "Joint" in the context of terminology used elsewhere when discussing the US military. There is no such thing as a traditional COCOM command structure for these type of military operations either. Basically, when SOCOM needs something from a COCOM for assistance in situations like Somalia, they tell the COCOM what to give them. It is a one way street, and the COCOM that is supposed to run military operations is often just lucky to get a memo after the fact regarding what happened. It shouldn't be this way, but this is the way counter terrorism policy under the Obama administration works when it comes to special operations forces, some drone activities, and Cyber warfare sourced from DC.

Command authority for special operations off Somalia are directed by the Joint Staff in DC and the National Security Council, with SOCOM integrated throughout. The COCOM is a sideshow when it comes to command authority of these kind of operations.

SOCOM is bringing the tactical and operational lessons learned from Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond to Somalia, with step one being grab some bad guys for intelligence purposes. It would be a mistake to call the events of last Friday evening a failure, because failing a primary objective is not the same as a failure. The reaction by al Shabaab since the Friday night raid suggests the impacts have, in fact, been anything but a failure.

In response to the raid by US special forces it is noteworthy al Shabaab Central leadership has been remarkably quiet, despite some in western media describing the US Navy SEAL action as a failure. You would think if they saw the events of Friday night as a victory they would be out shouting as much as loud as possible. Not so, none of the major players are doing any such thing. When US special forces hit the villa with some of al Shabaab's top people inside, considerable fear and doubt was injected into the organization. The population in Barawe, through Tuesday morning in Somalia, remains in lockdown with a curfew being enforced. Reinforcements have been sent to increase the garrison there. US intelligence was ultimately too good for al Shabaab's comfort level, and it is a good bet they have spent the last few days turning their own organization inside-out trying to plug security leaks.

Putting doubt into the enemy force is a feature of US special operations.

But the core problem still exists, and someone in the DoD needs to speak up. Somalia under al Shabaab in October of 2013 is a distributed garrison. In the history of special operations in Somalia, I am unaware of a single special operations incident in any area controlled by al Shabaab that took place in a populated town or city that didn't result in a major battle. Jessica Buchanan was in a secluded rural area nowhere near a town. Warsame was taken offshore. Indeed, every reported special operations action by every country that has been reported in the last several years took place outside a populated town or city. There should be no expectation that US special forces will successfully conduct any major operation without a major battle inside an al Shabaab controlled population center, because it has never happened.

And yet, that's apparently the new policy of the Obama administration. The US is apparently going to attempt to conduct low level military operations inside Somalia against al Shabaab forces that are postured like traditional Army forces with an expectation of success and a low profile. To protect SOCOM rice bowls, we are not going to use military forces in the region that operate under COCOM control, because SOCOM is not a joint force and in this case, insists it should not operate with the joint force. There will be no heavy forces provided by the Marine Corps available to help SOCOM if things go bad, and that is an intentional choice that the Command authority for Somalia operations - the Joint Staff in DC and the National Security Council - endorses.

It is policy to discard lessons from 1993 learned in blood in Somalia, but good luck trying to get an explanation from Susan Rice why this policy makes sense, because she is probably completely clueless smiling and nodding to her SOCOM handler oblivious to the details. The lack of experience on the President's National Security Council really does matter, and this is yet another example. Maybe General Dempsey should be asked that question, although given his leadership record, expect him to simply punt the answer to someone not picking up the phone at SOCOM.

I have long believed US special operations forces are incredible, intelligent, and always make good choices, but I have to admit I'm struggling with the policy that has been developed and is being executed by the Obama administration in Somalia in October 2013. From the outside looking in, this looks like SOCOM defending rice bowls for no reason other than defending rice bowls, and while I understand the political reluctance to use Marines in Somalia, it is very hard for me to believe the US is making the best use of Special Forces in Somalia when all of the targets of value are postured in military garrisons.

That isn't going to work.

Looking Ahead

It is going to be interesting to watch Somalia unfold over the next few weeks. I do not see a scenario where special forces find much success trying to grab useful intelligence sources from the fortified town areas al Shabaab controls, because al Shabaab knows we are coming and will have a huge numerical advantage in every fight. Does that mean President Obama will do nothing? Unlikely. The question is, how far is the President willing to go to achieve a meaningful strategic victory against al Shabaab?

Let's be honest, a drone strike on that villa Friday night would have been a huge victory for the US. It is unclear if we would have known how effective the drone strike would have been, but had the US killed Abdukadir Mohamed Abdukadir (Ikrima) and Mahad Mohamed Ali (Karate) that would have been a huge counter terrorism win for the US against al Shabaab.

Some of the instant analysis following this past weekends events suggest the President is moving away from a drone centric counter-terrorism strategy. Not so fast, because in Somalia his preferred alternative of using special operations forces on the ground isn't likely to work out well against garrisoned military forces. That is going to force a decision by the President:

1. Increase the use of Drones in Somalia.
2. Use the rest of the Joint Force as designed to augment special operations on the ground.
3. Nibble ineffectively around the edges of towns and in rural areas with SOF.

If the US tries to operate SOF in the fortified, garrisoned towns al Shabaab has control of, don't expect things to go well, because history consistently says it will not. The US faces significant operational problems in Somalia if the nation is indeed serious about increasing counter terrorism operations against al Shabaab. The celebrated option this week is using special operations forces on the ground, but the reality is, Somalia is the wrong place to send in lightly armed military forces, and US history in Somalia is a story why that approach to al Shabaab is a bad idea. In Somalia to use special operations forces on the ground effectively the options are either to heavily increase the use of drone strikes to wither down enemy force, or use heavily armed Marines to augment special operations forces in reducing the threat from the garrisons.

The use of Marines and assets of the Joint Force has the potential to significantly increase civilian casualties and the likelihood of US casualties, although used in hit and run operations also give the US a much higher potential for success in significantly damaging al Shabaab. That option may not be politically possible or desirable though.

Which takes us back to contemplating the use of drones, whose demise in recent days has been widely overstated.