Military Review English Edition May-June 2014 | Page 69

P E R S I S T E N T CO N F L I C T
Salvador, the initial force cap was 55, although
various add-ons eventually swelled the number to
150.26 In Colombia, Congress has prohibited U.S.
personnel from participating directly in combat
and has mandated a personnel cap of 800. In an
acknowledgement of the growing role of contractors, Congress capped their number in Colombia
at 600.27 The growth of the force cap between the
two cases is reflective of each country’s conflict
and military capacity. The U.S. Military Group,
El Salvador, was training an infantry-based force
armed with simple weapons and using relatively
simple tactics. In Colombia, the higher force cap
reflected the need to train the Colombian navy
on drug interdiction tactics and the Colombian
air force in the use of sophisticated Blackhawk
helicopters. In the Philippines, the United States
created the Joint Special Operations Task ForcePhilippines in 2002 to train the armed forces of
the Philippines and to combat militants with ties
to al-Qaida. The average force strength was 500

to 600, but there were surges in personnel, mostly
in support of a large, annual exercise called
Balikatan.28
Despite the dilemmas force caps have posed
to the military planners and commanders on the
ground, they do not seem to have impaired DOD’s
ability to achieve its mission. The idea that using
more personnel might be more effective by allowing forces to achieve objectives more quickly
has two major flaws. First, Congress must weigh
continuing commitments of personnel and money
against future unknowns—and the certainty that
increasing the number of personnel would also
increase public scrutiny. Second, tens of thousands
of U.S. service members in a country feed negative perceptions of invasion and occupation, as
happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The emphasis on checks and balances in the
interagency approach has meant that the purely
military element could not overwhelm planning
and resources. Moreover, it appears successes

Competitors conduct a static line jump from a C-130 aircraft during Fuerzas Comando 2012, a special forces skills competition at the Colombian
National Training Center on Fort Tolemaida, 13 June 2012.
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