Paramilitary Covert Action: An Optimization of CIA and USSOF

Abstract

Increasingly since October 2001, U.S. intelligence operations have resembled traditional military operations and U.S. Military operations have appeared to be historically intelligence operations. Informed elites categorized this apparent merger as the convergence of Title 10 Military operations and Title 50 Intelligence operations. Most often within this debate on convergence, the Department of Defense is accused of overreaching into Intelligence line of responsibilities by executing stealthy USSOF operations. Commonly but to a lesser degree, the CIA is accused of serving as a Geographic Combat Command conducting traditional military activities such as training and advising indigenous forces or conducting drone strikes. Decades of precedence, cloudy or outdated U.S. legal framework, contradicting statutory definitions, and the fact that current enemies are non-state actors each fuel the discussion. This study determines the risk of leaving the CIA as lead agency for Paramilitary Covert Action and reviews the case against USSOF's assumption as lead executor for Paramilitary Covert Action.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 03, 2012
Accession Number
ADA600537

Entities

People

  • Joshe E. Raetz

Organizations

  • Marine Corps University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy
  • Counter WMD
  • Cyber
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Asymmetric Warfare
  • Congress
  • Department Of Defense
  • Employment
  • Foreign Policy
  • Governments
  • Green Berets
  • Intelligence Community (United States)
  • Law
  • Military Operations
  • National Politics
  • National Security
  • Personnel Management
  • Special Operations Forces
  • Unified Combatant Commands
  • United States Government
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Irregular Warfare and Special Operations Cyberspace Operations against Adversarial Threats.
  • Strategic Security Studies

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy
  • Autonomy - UAVs