Analogical reasoning strikes again

I know that Daniel Klaidman’s Newsweek cover story on the Navy SEALs is supposed to make me feel all warm and safe because of the uber-competence of SEAL Team Six and President Obama’s comfort with using them adroitly: 

This is a Special Ops moment. The Navy SEALs, in particular, have never appeared so heroic and effective. They killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last year, and just last month rescued two aid workers held hostage in Somalia. At a time when many Americans think their government is incompetent, the SEALs are public employees who often get the job done. They’re a morale booster, and they know it.

The thing is, one of Klaidman’s more detailed anecdotes actually gives me great pause about the decision-making process within the Obama administration about the use of force:

The CIA and military had been hunting Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan for years. He was a suspect in the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and had been directly implicated in other deadly terrorist attacks in East Africa, including a suicide bombing of an Israeli-owned resort in Mombasa. He was an important link between al Qaeda and its Somalia-based affiliate, and a potential wealth of information on how the jihadist networks operate. Killing him would have been a significant victory, but capturing him alive could have been even better.

After months of patiently watching him, American intelligence officers suddenly learned that Nabhan was preparing to travel along a remote desert road in southern Somalia….

McRaven told the group that Nabhan’s convoy would soon be setting out from the capital, Mogadishu, on its way to a meeting of Islamic militants in the coastal town of Baraawe. The square-jawed Texan and former Navy SEAL crisply laid out the “Concepts of Operation” that had been developed in anticipation of this moment. Several options were spelled out, along with the military hardware that would be required for each, as well as collateral-damage estimates:

The military could fire Tomahawk cruise missiles from a warship off the Somali coast. This was the least dangerous option in terms of U.S. casualties but not the most precise. (Missiles have gone astray, hitting civilians, and even when they strike their target, they don’t always take it out.) Such missile strikes had been a hallmark of the Bush administration. For all of its “dead or alive” rhetoric, the Bush White House was generally cautious when it came to antiterrorist operations in anarchic areas like Somalia. The second option was a helicopter-borne assault on Nabhan’s convoy. There was less chance of error there: small attack helicopters would allow the commandos to “look the target in the eye and make sure it was the right guy,” according to one military planner. The final option was a “snatch and grab,” a daring attempt to take Nabhan alive. From a purely tactical standpoint, this was the most attractive alternative. Intelligence from high-value targets was the coin of the realm in the terror wars. But it was also the riskiest option.

Unstated but hanging heavily over the group that evening was the memory of another attempted capture in Somalia. Many on the call had been in key national-security posts in October 1993 during the ill-fated attempt to capture a Somali warlord that became known as “Black Hawk Down,” after a book of the same name. That debacle left 18 dead Army Rangers on the streets of Mogadishu, and inspired al Qaeda leaders to think they could defeat the American superpower. As Daniel Benjamin, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, said during the meeting: “Somalia, helicopters, capture. I just don’t like the sound of this.”

As everyone left the meeting late that evening, it was clear that the only viable plan was the lethal one (emphasis added).

The mission was a success, and I’m sure that there’s more to this decision than is in Klaidman’s story.  That said, based on the story, this decison-making process seems flawed.  The deciding factor appears to have been that the more aggressive option had echoes of the 1993 Black Hawk Down fiasco.  Because the situations seemed analagous ("Somalia, helicopters") the worst-case outcome — a botched raid — also seemed likely. 

Here’s the thing though — as analogies go, this one seems somewhat ill-suited.  The most obvious difference was that this raid wasn’t going to take place in a city but a remote desert road.  It was extremely difficult and bloody for U.S. forces to battle their adversaries in the urban anarchy of Mogadishu.  In the open, with no civilians to use as shields, I would think JSOC has the advantage.  Even if the snatch-and-grab option was the riskiest option, it does not seem as risky as U.S. efforts to rescue the downed Black Hawk crew back in 1993.  In this instance, the worst-case scenario would have been some JSOC soldiers killed — but given the terrain, the lack of civilians and cover, and the likely firepower advantage held by the Americans, a Black Hawk Down II outcome sounds unlikely. 

Despite these differences, analogical reasong triumphed.  The mission succeeded in taking out Nabhan, but it sounds like the slightly riskier option would have yielded greater rewards.

Let me stress, yet again, that I’m not an expert on special ops.  I’d welcome commenters explaining to me why I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.  Still, based on this story, the guiding factor in this case appears to have been a poor analogy.  I hope this is the exception and not the rule for the current administration. 

Am I missing anything?