Operation Red Wings As A Multi Phase Joint Military Operation

The purpose of this paper is to identify the uses and application of mission command within Operation Anaconda. Operation Anaconda took place in the Shahikot Valley of eastern Afghanistan in early March of 2002. The ground commander selected to lead the operation was Major General (MG) Hagenbeck of the 10th Mountain Division, and for the purpose of this operation, Coalition and Joint Task Force (CJTF) Mountain. Due to the limited number of troops under his command currently available in Afghanistan, MG Hagenbeck was given command in addition to one of his own organic battalions, the 3rd Brigade, 101st Air Assault Division, some Special Operations Force (SOF) units, and Coalition Forces. This paper will identify MG Hagenbeck’s, his staff’s, and higher command’s use of the mission command principles during this operation. The principles of mission command are accept prudent risk, use mission orders, exercise disciplined initiative, provide a clear commander’s intent, create shared understanding, and lastly, build cohesive teams through mutual trust (Mission Command, 2014).

In June 2005, Operation Red Wing, Marcus Luttrell and three other Navy Seals, Matt Axelson, Mark Murphy, and Danny Dietz, set out to stop the Taliban from taking over an Afghan village of innocent Afghan citizens. “After mentioning Luttrell and his survival story, a woman from the crowd screamed, “You’re a hero, Marcus!”.” (“Conservation Post”) Marcus Luttrell is great friends with a former Governor,

In keeping with the U.S. intention to keep the footprint in Afghanistan small and allow the Afghans to do as much of the fighting as possible, TF DAGGER was directed to develop plans for an operation to clear out the Shahi Kot valley (Fleri, Howard, Hukill, & Searle, 2003, p. 8).

In the beginning of Lone Survivor, four men undertake a mission to take down the leader of the Taliban. They finally reach the mountain above where the village is located, and immediately spots the Taliban leader. Mike Murphy, their lutenaint, says to move up higher into the trees. While resting, they awake to the sound of goat bells, and take the three Taliban sheepherders as prisoners for the moment. They find a walkie talkie, and Mike, and his men, start arguing over the right thing to do, to kill the men, tie them up and let them die on their own, or to release them and move up. They argue as to whether or not to follow their rules of engagement, and not kill unless fired upon, or do just kill them. Finally, they decide to let them go, and follow the rules of engagement. “If we kill these kids, it’s International news. CNN doesn’t care about Rules of Engagement. SEALs kill kids. That’s the story. Forever. Let them go. Shut it down.” (Berg52)

Operation Anaconda was a subordinate joint combat operation, during Operation Enduring Freedom, (Lyle 2012) to be carried out in the Shahi Kot Valley located in southeastern Afghanistan. Operations planning took place in February of 2002 and was executed from 2-16 March. The operational purpose was to capture or kill, what was reported to be, “The largest concentration of al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan”. Operation Anaconda Case Study (2003) In order to undertake a mission of this magnitude and scope, unity of command would prove critical. The task organization of Operation Anaconda involved both joint and multinational assets. Operation Anaconda lacked unity

On July 13, 2008, Taliban fighters launched a major assault on a small U.S. Army outpost in Afghanistan, killing nine soldiers and wounding 27. The story of Wanat is more then just one small group of commanders’ mistakes; it is a window into how the war in Afghanistan went awry and how we can learn from these mistakes to better future missions and future leaders.

Operation Anaconda was the first major joint combat operation against the war on terror that the US was committed to winning. This operation would test our military’s readiness for joint operations against a hardened and willing adversary. The primary mission was to kill/capture Taliban/Al Qaeda forces occupying towns and villages in the vicinity of Shahi Khot in order to gain control of the valley.1 The US needed the towns, villages, mountains, and more importantly, the intricate and hard to access caves cleared of enemy fighters. Units participating in the operation included elements of the 101st Airborne Division, 10th Mountain Division, Special Operations Forces (SOF), and Coalition forces from seven nations

This paper was written by Dr. Richard L. Kugler from the National Defense University, Center of Technology and National Security. Operation Anaconda was a success, but taught many lessons for modern-era force operations and defense transformation that deserves to be remembered (Kugler, 2007). Even though the battle plan was complex and sophisticated, it was not followed by the Afghan forces, which left US ground troops to do the battle alone. US forces had to replan the battle at a moment's notice.

had thought out their plan carefully. Together they had 4 guns with them when they

   Only a few days into the mission, the men awoke to an attack.  All five were speared to death by these tribesmen.  When the men couldn’t be reached,

Others just refused the orders from their commander. Some were given orders to kill women, adolescents, and geriatrics. But people like Hugh Thompson refused orders from his commanding officers to kill the villagers. He said “Don’t follow the villagers into the bunker… If they follow the villagers shot them, if they try and shot me shot them.” This is the command he gave his crew members Glenn Andreatta and Larry Colburn. The soldiers that were following the villagers did not open fire on Hugh Thompson or the people My

In February 2002, Special Forces intelligence agents along with Advanced Force Operations (AFO), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), were starting to make a connection between an increase presence of high-value targets (HVT), the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda fighters in an area called Shahi-Kot Valley (Neville, 2005). Shahi-Kot is located in Afghanistan, just southeast of a town called Zormat. A plan was devised to eliminate the enemy threat in that area. Major Franklin L. Hagenbeck was to command the mission called Operation Anaconda. This operation was the first large-scale battle in the United States War in Afghanistan since the Battle of Tora Bora (Call, 2007, p. 57-86). Operation Anaconda was also unique in the fact that it would involve a great number of Afghan militia, U.S. and coalition Special Operations, and conventional forces (U.S. Army, n.d.),

As they began to clear the routes in the AO the casualties starting occurring. After some time had passed all the platoons had experienced many deaths and were starting to lose a lot of their platoon leadership. The mounting pressure of combat combined with the pressure coming down from LTC Kunk communication between the company and battalion level leadership began to digress. With morale lowering with every day and casualty that went by the men began to run the tactical checkpoints that they had set up ruthlessly. They weren’t treating civilian harshly and would even harass them physically. This gave them a notorious record among the Iraqi civilians. Going into December 2005 the men had begun to relax on their own standard operating procedures along the

Iran took 52 Americans hostage on November 4, 1979. The resulting failed rescue attempt, Operation Eagle Claw, was an international embarrassment for the United States. No single event or decision resulted in the mission’s failure; instead, the failure resulted from a chain of poor decisions. This single operation highlighted the need for a dedicated special operations aviation unit dedicated to the rescue of American citizens and their repatriation. This paper discusses the global situation and some of the poor decisions that were made throughout the entirety of the mission from planning through the crash at Desert One.

Following their success in North Africa, the Allied decision to invade Sicily was an appropriate next step towards defeating Axis powers. Operation HUSKY, the first phase of the Italian campaign, supported the Allied strategic goals of opening Mediterranean shipping lanes, diverting German forces off of the Eastern front and encouraging Italy to exit the Axis. HUSKY resulted in Allied Forces securing the island, despite leadership failures and the ineffective coordination of joint functions at the operational level. A two part analysis of the Allied Force operational level joint functions during Operation HUSKY follows. The first will evaluate the joint function of command and control using the three attributes of mission command from joint doctrine: commander’s intent, mutual trust, and understanding. The second will evaluate the integration of two of the remaining joint functions using the definition of integration from joint doctrine.