SOF and Law Enforcement Counterterrorism Partnerships

Introduction

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 will never be forgotten by the millions of people who witnessed them—whether live or on television, whether American or foreign, whether old or young. This date has surely joined others as an infamous moment in American history. In addition to the palpable shockwaves of grief and shock that these attacks sent around the world, September 11 also ignited a sustained conflict between the United States and the forces that plot against it: the terrorist networks that exist around the world, hidden from sight. This conflict has been labeled by the United States government as a fight against terrorism, and numerous counterterrorism measures have been employed since 2001 in pursuit of success. Despite these various efforts, however, one important question remains: how should the United States government, more than a decade later, evaluate the success of its counterterrorism measures, and how should it improve upon them if necessary?

For this reason, this paper seeks to illuminate existing counterterrorism measures as well as proposed improvements, such as the potential for counterterrorism partnerships between Special Operations Forces (SOF) and Law Enforcement Agencies. The following sections will focus on governmental efforts that can enable agencies to work in complement with SOF and how such cooperation can be achieved. These issues are examined because SOF will never attain the efficiency and strategic utility necessary for combating terrorism if it disregards coordination, cooperation, and combined operations with Law Enforcement Agencies. More specifically, this paper also examines whether SOF units need to be trained in police and forensic investigative techniques in order to work with the interagency community—particularly law enforcement—to achieve mission success and, ultimately, a lasting victory for the United States.

Counterterrorism: Background and Introduction

Congress must, at some point, evaluate every governmental policy in order to determine its effectiveness and potential modifications for ensured future success. Such an evaluation came about in 2007, when the 110th Congress was presented with a report by Raphael Perl, a Specialist in the International Affairs division of the Department of Defense. This report focused on measuring the effectiveness of the country's counterterrorism policies—a very important topic in governmental debate, and one which Perl evaluated in exactly fifteen pages.

This report summarized quite succinctly how Congress should evaluate counterterrorism policies. It began by referencing not specific actions taken by the nation, but rather broad aspects of its efforts in combating terrorism, with equally broad criteria for evaluation. The report was therefore "not intended to define specific, in-depth, metrics for measuring progress against terrorism," according to Perl (2007, p. 2). Nor was it intended to expand upon or evaluate definitions, statistics, or country profiles in depth. Such issues were left to other reports, many of which are very difficult to locate. Indeed, one of the hardest reports to find is an update to Perl's 2007 overview. Counterterrorism is, thankfully, such a hotly debated topic that many others have written on it—often with more detailed analysis.

Despite its relative vagueness, the Congressional report did provide members with some background on the problem of counterterrorism and how it is addressed by the United States. Counterterrorism is defined by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as those efforts that protect "the American people from terrorist threats"—efforts that the Department has as its founding purpose (Department of Homeland Security, 2011, p. 1). Within this scope, the DHS undertakes "efforts to battle terrorism, [which] include detecting explosives in public spaces and transportation networks, helping protect critical infrastructure and cyber networks from attack, detecting agents of biological warfare, and building information-sharing partnerships with state and local law enforcement that can enable law enforcement to mitigate threats" (Department of Homeland Security, 2011, p. 1). Though the report did not examine these definitions in depth, it did mention discrepancies in measurement mechanisms and current strategy. One of its most important sections—though brief—was that which commented on the problem of "Describing and Measuring Progress against Terrorism" and improving counterterrorism measures in the future.

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