10 years after the end of Osama Bin Laden, the SEALs prepare for a new era

Ten years after finding and murdering Osama bin Laden, United States Navy SEALs are undergoing a major transition to improve your leadership and expand your command capabilities to better combat threats world powers like China and Russia.

The new plan reduces the number of SEAL platoons by up to 30% and increases their size to make teams deadlier and capable of dealing with sophisticated sea and submarine adversaries. And there will be a new and intensive selection process for elite naval warriors, to build better leaders after scandals that rocked the force, including allegations of murder, sexual assault and drug use.

Rear Admiral Hugh Howard, the senior commander of SEAL, laid out his plans in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press. He said that The Navy’s special operations forces have focused on counterterrorism operations, but now they must begin to evolve beyond these missions. Over the past two decades, many of them have fought in the Iraqi deserts and in the Afghan mountains. Now they are focusing on getting back to the sea.

This decision reflects the larger Pentagon strategy of prioritizing China and Russia, They are rapidly expanding their armies and trying to expand their influence across the world. U.S. defense leaders believe two decades of war on militants and extremists have depleted resources, causing the United States to lose ground against Moscow and Beijing.

The anti-terrorist fight had its advantages, because enabled SEALs to hone their skills in developing intelligence networks and in the seek and hit targetssays Howard, who heads Naval Special Warfare Command, which includes SEALs and Special Fighting Ship crews. “A lot of these things are transferable, but now we have to put the pressure on ourselves to operate against similar threats ”.

As a result, Howard is add personnel to SEAL platoons to build cyber and electronic warfare capabilities and unmanned systems, honing their skills to gather information and deceive and defeat the enemy.

“We strive to evolve and understand our capability gaps and our true survivability in the face of these threats” posed by global competitors, he said.

Admiral Mike Gilday, chief of naval operations, said the objective is to better integrate SEALs into naval missions at sea.

“As the Navy’s Special Warfare community increasingly returns to its maritime roots, further integration of the entire fleet – above, below and at sea – will unequivocally enhance our unique maritime capabilities to help us compete and win against any opponent, “Gilday said in a statement to AP

Increasing the size of SEAL platoons will add high-tech capabilities. And reducing the number of units will allow Howard to rid the force of toxic leaders and be more selective in choosing commanders. This decision is a direct result of the erosion of character that Navy officers have seen within the force.

During the last years, SEALs have been implicated in a series of scandals of great repercussion. One of the best known was the arrest of Navy Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, for a fee of war crimes, including the murder of a captive ISIS activist and attempted murder in shootings against civilians during a deployment to Iraq in 2017.

Gallagher was acquitted of all counts except one, poses for photos with the dead captive. A jury recommended that downgraded him, reducing his pension and benefits as he was about to retire. But President Donald Trump intervened and ordered that Gallagher be allowed to retire without losing his SEAL status.

More recently, A platoon of Team SEAL was pulled from Iraq in 2019 amid allegations of sexual assault. Members of the SEAL 10 team have been implicated in cocaine use and tampering with drug tests. And Navy SEAL Adam Matthews was sentenced to one year in military prison for his role in the 2017 hazing-related death. of a green beret from the army in Africa.

Navy leaders were also shocked when The Navy SEALs have broken with their “discreet professional” ethics, publicize his involvement in the Pakistan raid that killed Bin Laden, the head of Al-Qaeda in charge of planning the September 11 attacks. Two SEALs wrote books about the mission, prompting a rebuke from then-Special Naval Warfare Commander Rear Admiral Brian Losey.

“A fundamental principle of our ethics is “ I don’t advertise the nature of my work, nor do I seek recognition for my actions‘”, He said.

Since taking command last September, Howard has reached out to the Army and Marine Corps for ideas on how to improve the selection of his command forces and assess them as they progress through the ranks. . Almost immediately, instituted a “double-blind” process for interviewing candidates used by the military, so that neither party is influenced by actually seeing the other.

In addition, it intensifies the selection process with more psychological assessments to assess personality traits. And it expands on other assessments made by subordinates and peers of candidates taking the exam. The increased control, Howard said, will extend to all ranks and help leaders better understand the character of each member of the service. The process, he said, will provide more information to individuals so that they can improve and also help senior ranks to match commanders with the right teams.

In some cases, says Howard, Sailors who had already undergone the initial SEAL screening had to do it again with the new process. Not everyone did so well the second time around.

“We found that some of the officers who got average marks are officers who I think would have got much higher marks,” he said.

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