Command and Control of the Joint Commission Observer Program U.S. Army Special Forces in Bosnia

摘要

In December 1996 U.S. Army Special Forces relieved the volunteers from the British Army in the Joint Commission Observer (JCO) mission in Bosnia. The JCO program provides the SFOR Commander with a means to gain access to local, regional and even national level leaders of the warring factions and other influential actors. Initiated during the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) period, these military observers gave the Commander a flexible force that could act as informal emissaries or call in air strikes. For U.S. Army Special Forces (SF) the JCO mission was a doctrinally new role. Their success in Bosnia was later affirmed by their subsequent deployment to Kosovo. The development of a JCO planning methodology was key to their success. Developed over the course of five battalion rotations, this JCO planning methodology had as its cornerstone a process that translated the CINCs operational requirements into mission guidance to the SFJCO teams. The SF experience in Bosnia also identified weaknesses in the current training regimen for Special Forces battalion commanders and staffs. SF groups and battalions should conduct Unconventional Warfare (UW) exercises periodically to ensure operations and planning procedures required in protracted special operations campaigns are improved.