The situation in South Sudan was dire enough to call for the
deployment of a 150 Marine quick reaction force from Spain. (See: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/2013/1224/US-rescue-operation-in-S.-Sudan-to-test-post-Benghazi-Marine-reaction-force
- which is also the photo source).
At the moment (1715 Pacific Time on 26 December 2013), the
mission is billed as a NEO + security mission. The Marines are charged with
protecting the American and other citizens as well as the American Embassy.
They are also tasked with providing security to any non-combatant evacuation
operation (NEO).
Unlike the similar scenarios I’ve worked on for exercises,
this one promises not to be a totally permissive environment with a clear
potential for combat operations.
Today’s post is more of a question than a posting – what sort
of MISO support should this task force have? Is Marine MISO robust enough to
insure that the task force can be a pure play Marine operation? If not, will
the Army have to deploy MISO support and if so – has the mechanism for the
assessment and subsequent manning been sufficiently developed and tested?
I don’t have an answer and am hoping that one of my readers
can help out.
Other complications such as allied nations, the UN and
perhaps even a security force composed of forces from several African States
will muddy the operational waters. However, I believe it is fair to say that
this kind of incident certainly typifies more of the ‘rule’ in the 21st
Century than the exception.
This will be my last posting for 2013, may you all be
blessed with a healthy, happy and rewarding 2014.
3 comments:
This may be interesting: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/01/06/measuring-hearts-and-minds-in-afghanistan/
Excellent discussion. One of the key issues at hand is that there has been a consistent move from active MISO forces to move away from supporting USMC forces. Since the 2003-2004 this has been an ongoing issue and even today is hard to get SOCOM MISO support for Marines. It is for this reason why the Marine Corps had to source their own organic solution, albeit still working within the MISO Series, programs, authorities and coordination channels. Therefore, why should Sudan be different than any other worldwide commitment. It seems like SOCOM must determine if it has the willingness to make a full time commitment to supporting USMC requirements, otherwise, they should at least help steward the efforts of the USMC MISO community, as they are supplementing, not competing in any way shape or form with SOCOM MISO assets
I've trained Marine at the MCIOC, and NEO's are a task they're specifically trained on. What we need are some metrics on their performance operationally.
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