Operation Shining Hope Owes Somalia
By Commander Donald Hornbeck, U.S. Navy
In less than two months, approximately one-and-a-half million Kosovars were forced to abandon their homes. More than 700,000 people were driven across the borders into the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Albania, and Montenegro, straining the capacity and capability of the international community to provide assistance.
Displaced persons are nothing new in the annals of warfare, and each crisis shares a common theme: the requirement to provide the most basic necessities—food, water, shelter, and security. In Kosovo, the longer-range challenge is to return the refugees to their homes while guaranteeing the safety and security of both Serbs and ethnic Albanians.
Joint Task Force (JTF) Shining Hope was formed "to conduct foreign humanitarian assistance operations in support of USG [U.S. government] Agencies and Non-Governmental and International Organizations in order to provide humanitarian relief to Kosovar refugees in Albania and FYROM." Crises can be envisioned on every continent. The reaction of the international community to the breakdown of civil order is predictable, and the dedication of military resources to assist various non-governmental, private, and international organizations will continue.
In light of the increasing likelihood of such missions, some reflection on the lessons learned from U.S. efforts in Somalia, as detailed by General Anthony Zinni, U.S. Marine Corps, may be of benefit. The Marines' involvement in Operation Restore Hope, led by then-Lieutenant General Zinni, was a humanitarian assistance success story. Routes from Mogadishu to outlying villages were established and secured. Food distribution points were defined and operated efficiently in conjunction with various nongovernmental organizations. All humanitarian crises have some common features, and General Zinni came up with 20 suggestions for dealing with them shortly after his experiences in Somalia (see next page).
The earliest signs of potential Serbian intent may have been present as early as 1990, but they seemed so inconsequential that they hardly could be viewed as direct precursors to what happened to the ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo in 1999. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Kosovars who left the country, hundreds of thousands more became internally displaced persons within Kosovo itself. The majority of the U.S. humanitarian assistance effort, however, was directed toward assisting the refugees in Albania, Joint Task Force Shining Hope enjoyed its greatest successes in the areas where it adhered to tenets outlined by General Zinni. Specifically, they were:
The earlier the involvement, the greater the chances of success. America's involvement and timeliness in providing assistance to the refugees in Albania was remarkable. NATO began its air campaign on 24 March 1999. By 3 April (Easter Sunday), the first Americans were en route to establish a humanitarian assistance logistics site at Tirana-Rinas, Albania; U.S. Air Force C-17 and C-130 supply deliveries began shortly thereafter. The USS Inchon (MCS-12), with ten MH-53 helicopters embarked, was turned around only hours before passing through the Suez Canal en route to the Middle East, redirected to the Adriatic Sea, and directed to use its minesweeping helicopters to lift humanitarian assistance supplies within Albania. By 10 April, the HM-12 helicopters were lifting supplies to Kukes, Albania, near the Kosovo-Albania border.
Every mission has its own version of [the Vietnam War's] "body count" [of enemy casualties]—and usually it is the worst possible measure of effectiveness. The very early indications were that daily ration numbers were going to be the Shining Hope body count. Other yardsticks were numbers of refugees moved to U.S. sponsored refugee camps and tons of supplies delivered. While these are valuable metrics, a better measure might be a " body count" of a different nature: the number of refugees who are still alive as a result of U.S. efforts in Albania. A truer measure of our success may be that we did not see widespread refugee hunger and death in Albania. It is not a number that can be easily quantified. Qualitatively, the United States without doubt made a positive difference in the lives of the refugees.
Gain and maintain the initiative/momentum. Beginning with the arrival of the first U.S. military personnel at Tirana, all efforts were focused on providing assistance to the refugees. The airport had to be improved to facilitate the amount of cargo that was being delivered. Roads and other infrastructure within Albania had to be examined and their capabilities established. The initial decision to build a refugee camp capable of sustaining 20,000 Kosovars was followed shortly by the decision to build three refugee camps with a total capacity of 60,000 refugees. By 13 May, the first refugees were moving into Camp Hope at Fier, Albania. While we are accustomed to nearly instantaneous results, when one considers the size of the task of providing humanitarian assistance, for more than 400,000 refugees in Albania alone, the results achieved are quite remarkable.
Have a headquarters where everyone is represented. Consider a civil-military operations center. There should be a logical division of labor. Army Civil Affairs personnel were in touch directly with the vital coordination among the various nongovernmental agencies and Albanian officials involved in the process. Since these other organizations have a loosely structured coordination among themselves, an operations center was crucial to the selection of suitable sites for refugee camps and for the coordination with the various involved organizations and among various Albanian government ministries.
Success in such operations, as described, remains difficult to define; often it can be measured only in comparison with an idealized standard of assistance capacity. To achieve this standard, humanitarian efforts must be focused to achieve optimal results, following the same tenets.
The civil-military operations concept is good, but did not eliminate all inefficiencies. The center at Tirana took some time to get up and running. Given the size and scope of Operation Shining Hope, of course, some level of inefficiency was to be expected. If we compare it with a perfect system, however, there was significant room for improvement. From a military perspective, efficiency in Albania reflected that of any large joint operation. It was the interface between the military and the various non-military organizations, none in particular, that inevitably caused these inefficiencies—which can be mitigated by applying General Zinni's next principle.
Seek unity of effort and unity of command. Centralized planning and decentralized execution is a military norm. In the realm of humanitarian assistance, however, competing agendas preclude this level of planning. Consensus often is the key to success, although it still may not yield the greatest results.
The Navy's helicopter assets, which were not used well in delivering bulk supplies to the refugee camps throughout Albania, provide a case in point. Individual camps, often sponsored by a particular government or non-governmental organization, were supplied by that country's helicopters even though efficiency could have been achieved by removing stovepipes and looking at the bigger picture. Although the operation achieved relative success—provisions were delivered to where they were needed—the operation could have been completed with fewer sorties and at a greater cost savings, had assets been pooled under a central authority.
In addition, very important persons (from congressmen to ministers to flag officers) required helicopter transportation. From a big-picture perspective, it was important for these leaders to see for themselves what was happening, and many had legitimate reasons to visit the camps. Every pound of VIP, however, meant one less pound of resupply, and some of the VIP lift provided by the MH-53s probably could have been carried out by less costly assets. In Albania, food shortages never materialized to the point of starvation. Had this problem materialized, however, far better coordination of assets would have been critical.
With a cold Balkan winter upon us, the key to continued success will be to maintain the initiative and momentum. Adherence to time-proven tenets will be crucial to the success of future operations in Albania.
Humanitarian assistance operations in Albania were difficult enough to coordinate; as conditions in Kosovo improve and more refugees are reintroduced to their homes, the difficulties will increase exponentially. We will have to provide the same levels of food, water, clothing, and shelter, and assistance will be required over a larger area in a potentially hostile environment. Some tenets to consider are:
Stay focused on the mission. The nature of Shining Hope's mission was very clear throughout its tenure in Albania: "Conduct foreign humanitarian assistance operations . . . to provide humanitarian relief to Kosovar refugees in Albania and FYROM." As the ethnic Albanians are repatriated to Kosovo, care must be taken to avoid the mission creep that will strain the capabilities of the military and civilian organizations involved. To that objective, a clear end-state must be identified.
Open a dialogue with everyone. Be careful whom you empower. Do not make enemies (but if you do, do not treat them gently). All of General Zinni's points will come into play as options for repatriation of the Kosovars; are considered. What is the culture? Who is legitimate? How do we deal with the Kosovo Liberation Army, in light of reports of ties to the drug trade? How do we deal with a resentful Serbian population and a revenge minded ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo?
Start or restart the key institutions early. How do we establish a police or security force that will be viewed as legitimate by those it is designed to serve? Given the recent events and enormous degree of bad blood between the Serbs and ethnic Albanians of Kosovo, what is the best course to follow in reestablishing civil order? How can, or how should the United States be viewed as an impartial peacemaker in Kosovo following offensive actions aimed against the Serbs?
Start planning as early as possible and include everyone. Planning is a continuous and iterative process. Again, what is the desired end-state in Kosovo? How must we proceed, and, even more important, how will we know when we've attained it?
More than 2,400 years ago, the Greek historian Thucydides observed that "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." In Operation Shining Hope, however, the strong did what they could so the weak would not have to suffer the cruelties of others. The success of Operation Shining Hope is owed, in large part, to applying lessons learned from the past.
Refugee crises will continue, and the pros and cons of U.S. military involvement in such crises will remain debatable. The fact is, in one way or another, that the military is likely to be employed to assist in alleviating such calamities singly, jointly, or as part of coalitions or alliances whose overarching objectives will be defined by the National Command Authority. Careful planning and preparation will be required. As a precursor, General Zinni's "Twenty Points for Military Operations Other Than War" should be reviewed thoroughly.
Lieutenant Commander Hornbeck is the Commanding Officer of the USS Sentry (MCM-3). He was the humanitarian assistance coordinator for the USS Inchon (MCS-12) task group during Operation Shining Hope.
Special Operations Require Special Intelligence Officers
By Lieutenant Tony Brock, U.S. Navy
Intelligence is the key to special operations—and yet the intelligence billets within the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) community are manned today by a passing parade of new officers who, regardless of rank, lack formal training and experience in special operations.
Intelligence is important in any military operation, but particularly so in maritime special operations—where we cannot afford mistakes. The intelligence requirements for mission planning are distinctive because the operations themselves are unconventional. They are inherently dependent on detailed operational intelligence because of the physical and political risk involved and their independent nature—far from friendly support.
The face of the enemy has changed since the Cold War ended. There are many potential adversaries, and we face a real challenge from the unconventional players; the most dangerous threat, for example, may came from the non-government players—terrorists or organized crime.
While we maintain our traditional naval missions, we are now expanding into roles involving the counter-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, counter-terrorism, and others. These modern Military Operations Other Than War cover a broad spectrum. Success in this non-conventional end of the operational continuum requires the unique skills, rapid response, and politically attractive small footprint of special operations forces.
SEAL activities are characterized by guerrilla operations launched against a defended enemy. More important, they almost always require a critical inversion of physical strength to win. The core of a SEAL unit's strength is its ability to affect the critical node of a target defended by a numerically superior enemy, and do so with an extremely high probability of success. Proper targeting is essential; gaps in intelligence cannot be overcome on the scene by overwhelming firepower or reinforcements, for neither exists. Mission success, therefore, requires a focus of energy at a particular time and space in a particular method to give the SEAL platoon relative superiority.
Even when executed perfectly, an operation will enable the platoon to gain relative superiority for a tiny window of time—wide enough to accomplish the mission and get out. Operations rely on surprise, speed, purpose, security, and simplicity, and it is to these factors that specific intelligence support must be applied. Rear Admiral Thomas W. Steffens, U.S. Special Operations Command's Director of Intelligence and Information Operations, put it this way: "The SEAL's standing requirement of his intelligence element is a deep understanding of the special operations mission environment, to include its strengths and, maybe more important, its limitations. He requires production of mission-planning resources that meet two main criteria: first, that they have significant relevance to the task at hand and second, that they exhibit penetrating granularity in content. In the end, intelligence is a combat function."
Some history is in order. The U.S. Special Operations Command was created at the advisement of the Holloway Commission Report, which detailed lessons learned from Operation Eagle Claw—the attempt to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran. The failed operation brought to light, among other points, that the United States had no special operations forces that routinely trained and operated jointly. Congressional leaders took the report's results so seriously that they created what some have called a fifth military service.
Nevertheless, special operations missions within major campaigns continued to fail. In Urgent Fury (Grenada, 1983) and Just Cause (Panama, 1989), for example, lack of tailored intelligence support to special operators contributed to these failures. Following each, operational improvements were made. Changes in equipment, training, command and control structure, and tactics were made that enabled the successes of Operation Desert Storm (Iraq, 1991).
Tailored intelligence support requires a personal relationship with the customer. It requires that the intelligence officer deeply understand the mission and the role of intelligence in the mission-planning cycle. The war fighter must trust his intelligence officer. He must be absolutely confident that from all available information, his intelligence officer has gleamed only the relevant data that qualify as intelligence. The importance of trust cannot be overstated.
Yet how can an intelligence gap exist in this age of information overload? In recent years, quantum improvements have been made in technology, which have driven significant intelligence collection, production, and dissemination advancements. The full reward of this information revolution, however, cannot be realized without reorganizing the information brokers. Upgrading the gear is a waste of precious financial resources if we do not change the way we interact with it. Within our intelligence system, people remain the key to quality. People change information to intelligence, and it is our failure to train and organize them properly that has created the gap in quality.
Despite the gloomy tale of special operations failures, there are many examples of intelligence support in which the fundamental factors of credibility, trust, and experience have produced quality; the best is intelligence support to naval aviation. The model relied on pilots and navigators to fill intelligence billets and provided the most depth in operational experience; it probably fell short in intelligence tradecraft, however. Later, as both the intelligence network and naval aircraft became more complex, intelligence became its own professional designator. The traditional career path called for tours in aviation squadrons, carriers, and air wings. It was a path designed to create a hierarchy of rank with increasing depth of experience.
Although downsizing has diminished the opportunity for new intelligence officers to serve in aviation squadrons, conventional wisdom continues to argue that assignment from squadron to wing and beyond is the only path for career advancement. Certainly, these intelligence assignments are at the core of our naval power, but there are operations of increasing importance outside the conventional mainstream, which also require groomed intelligence support.
Comparing the naval aviation experience with that of special operations yields some similarities, but it is the differences that have created the quality gap. Like naval aviators, SEALs originally created and manned their own intelligence officer billets. A few years ago, driven by system advancements and manning shortages, SEALs, again like aviators, opened these billets to fleet intelligence officers, a change that brought dedicated intelligence support to the SEAL Teams. Benefits included the acquisition of new intelligence systems and fleet-compatible tactical-collection equipment. In addition, the billet conversion allowed SEALs to keep more operators in training departments or deploying elements.
Unlike the aviation community, however, the special warfare intelligence support billets were not restructured to allow a ranked hierarchy of increasing experience in depth. To replace the SEAL lieutenant, Naval Special Warfare designed the majority of its billets for lieutenants with the naval intelligence officer (1630) designator and failed to stipulate any requirement for special operations experience at any level of intelligence support. This includes billets at training commands, forward deployed units, theater special operation commands, or joint intelligence centers.
In its desire to inject fleet-experienced intelligence officers into the equation, the Naval Special Warfare community sacrificed special operations experience entirely.
It also indirectly created several additional problems. First, lack of hierarchical experience precludes training in lessons learned. Each officer, regardless of rank, is new to a community with a type of warfare far removed from the conventional fleet. Because he is unfamiliar with his own job, he is unable to train his brethren at lower echelons because they serve in billets he has never held himself. As such, basic mistakes are made more often.
Second, a model that offers only billets considered "non-competitive shore duty" without offering sea duty equivalent tends not to attract career-minded officers. This form originated because SEALs do not rotate between sea and shore, but between operational and nonoperational (support) roles. The traditional sea/shore intelligence rotation usually prevents intelligence officers with entry-level Navy special operations training from returning to Naval Special Warfare at the forward-deployed operational level. Faced with basic career survival, the experienced go back to the fleet and billets are filled with new officers.
Third, the model creates negative perceptions that drive down quality. In truth, within the intelligence community, a billet with special operations is widely seen as a job of little long-term value, in a non-traditional field. It is the kind of job that will not hurt you, but it is not really going to help you either.
The unifying justification for the importance of maritime special operations intelligence may be found in the credo of special operators. The four basic truths of special operations provide a standard:
- Humans are more important than the hardware.
- Quality is better than quantity.
- Special operations forces cannot be mass produced.
- Competent special operations forces cannot be created after an emergency has begun.
These tenets create the operational requirements vision. Beyond all the rhetoric, this is the standard to which all decisions within the organization must bend. The present intelligence support model, however, does not adhere to this philosophy. But it should—and these should be its tenets:
- Intelligence professionals are more important than intelligence equipment.
- Quality is better than quantity.
- Quality intelligence support cannot be mass produced.
- Competent intelligence support cannot be created after an emergency has begun.
Why all the rhetoric? Because change is always an unsettling experience that involves risk for our leaders. In the argument for restructuring, however, some of that risk already has decreased. Over the last few years, several newly graduated intelligence officers have been assigned to special operations billets coded for second-tour lieutenants. This may be caused by a glut of new accessions into a market that has fewer aviation squadrons and ships, but is still required to meet midgrade and senior intelligence billets. It may be caused by the vacuum left by eligible lieutenants—professionals who chose more "career-enhancing" duty. Regardless, it is an opportunity for positive change. It is an opportunity because it has created an influx of junior officers. A cadre of intelligence professionals, still junior enough to allow for proper training, entry-level special operations experience, and, most important, special operations force support reinvestment.
A new career path would allow officers to gain special operations experience throughout their careers. Under this model (Figure 1), direct intelligence support to both the fleet and Naval Special Warfare is possible, even given the natural time limitations of specific tour lengths and promotions. Selected officers would attend Naval Intelligence Officer Basic Coarse and the new Naval Special Warfare Intelligence Course, both located at the Navy-Marine Intelligence Training Center, Dam Neck, Virginia. Their first tour would be two back-to-back 18-month tours with same-coast SEAL Teams, SEAL Delivery Vehicle Teams (SDVs), or Special Boat Units (SBUs). This will provide the maximum exposure to the full range of maritime special operations. It also is provided at minimum cost—because all three are co-located at either Coronado, California, or Little Creek, Virginia.
As lieutenants, officers should serve on a staff providing operational intelligence support for Naval Special Warfare, and also at a joint intelligence center or national agency. Follow on tours would rotate between operational and non-operational support with additional training and education.
Following tours at senior levels, officers would serve as a maritime intelligence element for theater special operations commands, joint special operations commands, or the U.S. Special Operations Command. A career path in maritime special operations intelligence would meet an intelligence requirement of Navy fleet commanders, Naval Special Warfare commanders, as well as joint and national organizations.
There are some arguments against this career path. Some maintain that personnel shortages would prevent it—even though these billets are being manned today with a parade of officers inexperienced in special operations. We can argue that it would prevent selection of some officers later as carrier intelligence center intelligence officers, which is true, but does not hold up well when we are willing to place air intelligence officers throughout Naval Special Warfare. The most compelling argument for changing the way we do business is that the present system does not work. We have the opportunity to increase the quality of maritime intelligence support before the next crisis occurs. Let's not wait for some after-the-fact blue-ribbon investigative panel to tell us we should have done it.
Lieutenant Brock is the intelligence officer for the forward element of the U.S. Central Command’s Special Operations Command in Bahrain. A 14-year Navy veteran, he served most recently as the intelligence officer for SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team Two.
We're Not Ready for the Javelin
By Captain John W. Hatala, U.S. Marine Corps
The new Javelin missile's advanced antiarmor capabilities—offensive as well as defensive—dictate a change in doctrine now.
For years, the TOW, Dragon, and AT-4 have provided the framework for antiarmor doctrine, which envisions engaging enemy targets sequentially at the limit of each system's range: TOWs would begin to engage heavy tanks as they approached within 3,750 meters; Dragons would engage light tanks and armored personnel carriers at 1,000 meters; and the AT-4s would begin firing at ranges of 300 meters.
The Javelin, which is scheduled to replace the medium-range Dragon beginning next year, actually is superior to the TOW in nearly every respect, except for its maximum effective range (2,500 meters):
- The Javelin, unlike the wire-guided TOW which requires the gunner to guide it to impact, is a true fire-and-forget weapon.
- Its arched trajectory makes it a top-attack missile—extremely lethal to enemy armor and relatively invulnerable to current enemy antimissile defenses.
- It incorporates a soft launch. The missile is gently propelled several meters ahead of the gunner before its main propellant ignites, a feature that produces negligible back-blast and allows it to be fired from covered fighting positions or from inside buildings.
- It is man-portable and does not require a vehicle as a launch platform (as does the TOW in nearly every situation).
The Javelin's self-contained passive imaging infrared guidance system provides extraordinary advantages. Certainly the fire-and-forget characteristic is foremost. Wire-guided missiles such as TOWs and Dragons require an engagement window that is clear of obstacles that might foul the wire while the missile is in flight. To use the TOW at its maximum effective range, for example, the flight path of the missile would have to be clear of trees, fences, power lines, water (which can create a short in the wire), and other obstacles common to most terrain. Except in the desert, it is very unlikely that one will find an area that offers more than two miles of clear ground. The Javelin, on the other hand, is immune to the effects of ground clutter because the missile flies independently well above ground level.
The TOW's tracking requirements dictate that, at maximum range, the gunner must keep the cross-hairs on the target for about 20 seconds. That is a long time for a gunner to remain in a precarious position. Javelin gunners, however, will be able to fire and then immediately displace to a safe location. New doctrine should recognize the practicality and effectiveness of missiles that are not wire-guided and planners should not underestimate the impact that this factor alone will have on the future of antiarmor warfare.
What exactly is maximum effective range—and is more necessarily better?
The Javelin's maximum effective range of 2,500 meters may fall short of the TOW's advertised 3,750 meters but, in practical terms, the TOW's advantage here is largely irrelevant because TOW gunners will have few opportunities to engage targets at maximum range. In addition to the wire-guided missile limitations listed earlier, many factors prevent target engagement at such long ranges-just over two miles. At these distances, target identification (enemy or friendly?) is just one of the problems. Most terrain will not permit a gunner to identify, engage, and track a vehicle at great distances—vegetation, hills, and buildings all will limit the range of any wire-guided weapon fired from the ground.
The fundamentals of antiarmor employment are seldom conducive to maximum-range TOW engagements. The U.S. Army's FM 71 -1, Tank and Mechanized Infantry, Company Team, offers the following six guidelines:
- Provide mutual support.
- Provide security.
- Strive for flank shots.
- Use standoff range.
- Use cover and use concealment.
- Employ in depth.
Thus, it is apparent that antiarmor teams must Consider many factors while attempting to gain maximum standoff. Positioning for flanking fire, for instance, is vital to missile effectiveness because many vehicles are most vulnerable to such attacks; their profiles are larger and their sides are less heavily armored than their fronts. Cover and concealment cannot always be created; gunners may have to accept what the terrain offers. This is especially true when considering the requirement for mutual support. Positioning, therefore, depends on many factors—and rarely will any given firing position yield maximum effective TOW range. The competing issues of position and range, combined with the limitations imposed by the terrain, make it unreasonable to assume that the TOW will be used at ranges that far exceed the Javelin's 2,500-meter maximum effective range. Doctrine based on the Dragon's 1,000-meter range should not be applied to the much more capable Javelin.
Any new doctrine, then, should clarify the role that the TOW and Javelin play because both are capable of hitting targets at the maximum practical range at which targets can be located and identified.
Javelin's distinctive top-attack capability makes the weapon as deadly as any existing antiarmor weapon. The Javelin gunner has the option of firing his weapon in two modes: direct fire (flat trajectory) or top-attack (arched trajectory). When used in the top-attack mode, the Javelin targets the most lightly armored and defended part of tanks and armored vehicles. The Javelin, traveling along a high, parabolic flight path, flies well above the battlefield. As a result of the top-attack feature, Javelin gunners no longer must position for flank shots, and will be able to exploit the weapon's maximum range more often. The Javelin's flight profile counters effectively the Russian KAZT tank active-defense system and the Shtora electronic-defense system, which were developed to counter low-flying missiles such as the TOW and Dragon. The Javelin's tandem warhead also can defeat reactive armor, should designers decide to employ that as a defense.
The Javelin's soft-launch characteristic will make it the primary urban antiarmor weapon. In the direct-fire mode, the Javelin can be fired from inside buildings—firing positions that TOWs, Dragons, and AT-4s cannot use because of the dangerous back blast that each weapon produces. Currently, antiarmor weapons such as TOWs and Dragons are used primarily on the periphery of built-up areas, in relative open spaces, and usually along major avenues of approach. Javelin gunners will be able to move into built-up areas to take advantage of cover and concealment. When used on the periphery of towns and cities—areas usually saturated with obstacles that would otherwise render a wire-guided missile useless—the Javelin's combined characteristics render it the first choice.
Tactics for antiarmor engagements in urban areas must be adjusted to reflect the enhanced ability of Javelin gunners to fire in an urban environment, Any new doctrine also must provide a framework upon which sound tactics can be built.
The Javelin has great offensive potential also. It would be the ideal weapon for the hunter-killer mission against armor. Each weapon system weighs about 50 pounds and can be carried, along with two extra missiles, by two Marines. The weapon's portability, combined with the characteristics mentioned above, suit it well for such missions. The Dragon, on the other hand, is suited only for defensive operations because of its short range and the need for well-prepared engagement windows. The TOW is limited, for the most part, to areas suitable for vehicles, whereas the Javelin can be taken anywhere a man can move. Javelin gunners will live longer because they can take advantage of the weapon's increased standoff distance and its fire-and-forget capability to evade an effective enemy response.
If doctrine does not change, however, Javelin teams will not be imbued with the offensive spirit, and the weapon's offensive potential will remain unrealized.
The time to change doctrine is now. The Javelin's impressive characteristics and capabilities demand a new doctrine that will exploit its remarkable technology. Relying on current doctrine for antiarmor engagements will stifle the potential of the Javelin team to take on offensive missions. The Marine Corps must promote the Javelin's considerable potential with a new doctrine reflecting the inherent aggressiveness and boldness of Marine infantrymen.
Captain Hatala, an infantry officer, recently graduated from Amphibious Warfare School. He has served as a platoon leader and weapons company executive officer with the 2d Battalion, 2d Marines, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and as a company commander at the School of Infantry at Camp Lejeune.