It is a familiar refrain: young, talented intelligence officers, having experienced the thrill of working as the intelligence officer of an Army special forces group, an Air Force special tactics squadron, or a SEAL team, face their worst nightmare-returning to the "real" military. Unlike their counterparts serving as operators, special operations intelligence officers cannot remain in this fast-paced niche of armed service and expect to achieve the rank of lieutenant colonel/commander or higher. I have heard the same chorus time and again: "I really enjoyed my time with the SEALs/ pararescuemen/MH-53 aircrews and don't want to do anything else." Moreover, these individuals are capable of achieving significant successes as civilians. There is no shortage of special operations intelligence officers at prestigious institutions such as General Electric, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey & Company, Yale School of Law, and Harvard Business School. There is, however, a way to retain this crucial talent pool.
Much like the Army's and, of late, the Air Force's foreign area officer programs, the military can offer select individuals the opportunity to pursue a track that keeps them in special operations, but imposes a ceiling on the highest rank these service members can expect to achieve. Foreign area officers understand this inherent quid pro quo, recognizing that the cost of a master's degree from a prestigious university and years of embassy duty is a future that will not include a flag officer's stars. The armed services always will need generalists, and special operations organizations always will need to include among their ranks those who have mastered conventional military doctrine. But the special operations forces also demand a select group of intelligence officers whose expertise can be attained only through time and experience. These demands are all the more daunting in light of the extreme hazards associated with special operations' priority-one mission since 11 September 2001: combating terrorism. National security arguably is degraded each time one of these special operations intelligence officers departs the active ranks and another has to be trained in his stead.
Offering select intelligence officers (up to 5% of the total career field) a special operations career track could stem the flow of those leaving active duty. Ensured of the opportunity for promotion, these career-track officers will know they will be able (if they want) to pursue a viable civilian career on retiring from active duty, all the while earning 40% to 50% of their base salaries plus benefits. With a genuine "spec ops" track and the potential for greater monetary compensation, these officers will no doubt find it difficult to leave one of the most rewarding and exciting areas military service has to offer for a position in the corporate sector. The good news is that between the various Special Operations Command elements, enough billets exist to bring this idea to fruition.
Here is how it might work. Young captains/lieutenants find their way to the special operations career field by virtue of their exceptional performance. On achieving the next rank, they would be screened by a board and those selected would be offered the opportunity to remain in special operations. Special Operations Command and the services would have to get the following four items right for the plan to succeed: professional military education (such as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict master's degree for special operators); exposure (joint, combined, or interagency); leadership opportunities; and a distinct, logical track, much of which is already in place and simply needs to be assembled into a coherent program.
There no doubt will be problems associated with creating a special operations intelligence career track, namely, an excessively high operational tempo and limited exposure to the conventional military. These drawbacks, however, will be mitigated by the improvements in both career-field retention and skills proficiency. If the idea takes hold, who knows, a Special Operations War College may not be too far off.
Major Howard is the former officer-in-charge of intelligence for the 24th Speeial Tactics Squadron. He holds a doctorate from Oxford University in politics and an MBA from Harvard. He served as the chief of human intelligence operations for the Defense Intelligence Agency at Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan, as a mobilized reservist during 2003.