Q&A: Dr. Brian A. Maher
Written by Jeff McKaughan
SOF EDUCATOR:
Providing a Center of Educational Focus for SOF Leadership
Dr. Brian A. Maher
President
Joint Special Operations University
Providing a Center of Educational Focus for SOF Leadership
Dr. Brian A. Maher
President
Joint Special Operations University
Dr. Brian A. Maher is the fourth president of the Joint Special Operations University (JSOU), headquartered at Hurlburt Field, Fla. JSOU is the educational component of the United States Special Operations Command, a mainstay in the nation’s war on terrorism. In this position, Maher is responsible for the joint development of special operations forces personnel for strategic and operational leadership and the coordination of joint special operations and irregular warfare education for SOF units and schools, in professional military education, and for numerous interagency and multinational academic programs. He also directs research and publication on select national security issues that are critical to special operations.
A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Maher graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1970 with a B.S. in aeronautical engineering. He later earned a master’s degree in business administration and subsequently attended the Air Force Institute of Technology, receiving a Master of Science in aeronautical engineering. In 2005, he completed his Doctorate of Education at the University of West Florida, specializing in distance learning applications. He has been a life-long special operator assigned to a variety of joint and service special operations units. His academic assignments include faculty duty at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, commandant of the USAF Special Operations School, and vice president of the Joint Special Operations University, a position he held for over six years.
While on active duty, he served as an air operations staff officer in the newly formed USSOCOM at MacDill AFB, Fla., participating in command-level planning for Operation Just Cause. Later, he commanded the Joint Special Operations Command’s air component at Fort Bragg, N.C., where he participated in Operation Uphold Democracy, conducting SOF air operations from aboard the USS America. Throughout his academic career he has maintained operational credentials by serving during Operation Joint Forge as JSOTF to commander, San Vito, Italy; twice deploying as director, special operations liaison element to Joint Task Force-Southwest Asia during Operations Desert Thunder and Desert Fox; and more recently serving as chief of staff to a key special operations Joint Task Force in Operation Enduring Freedom at Bagram AB, Afghanistan.
Maher retired from active military duty on July 1, 2000 after 30 years of service as a command pilot with over 5,100 flying hours. His career in government civilian service began in the same year at the Joint Special Operations University. He was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in June 2007.
Dr. Maher was interviewed by SOTECH Editor Jeff McKaughen.
Q: Could you explain what the purpose and mission of the Joint Special Operations University [JSOU] is?
A: The USSOCOM commander activated JSOU in September of 2000, but even before that he had a commander’s future concept working group looking at where to take the command in the future. Sensing that the operational environment and the world situation overall was growing more complex—you might remember the series of bombings and terrorist activities of the 1990s—the commander [General Schoomaker] was very savvy to the fact that this new world would require more than just brute muscle. He understood there was going to be a need for intellectual solutions, a deeper analysis of complex situations, and in general, thinking well beyond the conventional application of force that we were used to doing.
He understood that, as special operations had always been at the forefront of innovation and adaptability, primarily in tactical operations, this was a challenge in which they would excel. But he also knew we would need to think outside the boundaries of convention and interpret the strategic and operational environment from a joint special operations perspective. In this way we would find new solutions to these very complex problems.
Once he conceptualized the idea that focused education was the key element , he took the initiative to activate it.
We started here at Hurlburt Field, Fla. The Air Force Special Operations Command, already had an academic or education function in its Air Force Special Operations school. That school had been around since 1967. The Air Force set it up to address the growing response committed to Southeast Asia that became the Vietnam War. We were sending our aircrews and teams out to a very strange environment, in an unfamiliar part of the world, to perform a very new mission of unconventional warfare. So the task of the schoolhouse in those days was to make the airmen smarter so they would adapt more rapidly to Southwest Asia.
Obviously, that school had grown over the years and was doing a number of good things in the joint community, especially in the joint special ops community. With this background, it became a natural association for us to co-locate with them and launch this new joint education endeavor. It was expected that we would enhance their programs by bringing a greater level of jointness into their classrooms, and they would provide us the logistics, administrative and facility support we needed. Even today that is really where we are. Since that time JSOU has grown substantially as it has taken on new missions, direction and guidance from USSOCOM.
That is basically our mission. We look at developing the strategic and operational leadership and intellectual ability in our special operation forces and those that routinely support SOF—those we call SOF enablers—like comms, intell, logistics, personnel, etc. These are people who are working with SOF all of the time, and they need to have enough insight into what we do to understand their role and support like one of our own. This is a very important piece of what we do because it is beyond the tactical. We don’t teach unit tactical or best practices on the battlefield, we are the educational piece—the cognitive or intellectual piece to make our forces better at the operational, planning and visionary aspects of what they do.
Once the curriculum for our force is in place, as it is now, we can take those same lessons, make some changes as needed and reuse it for a whole new set of academic requirements aimed at our conventional forces—like the 82nd Airborne Division or an Air Force Predator unit we find ourselves fighting side-by-side with.
We will now talk about the interoperability with all of those other forces. We also look at the civilians within the DoD all the way to the senior decision-making leadership and build some courses and make them aware of the capabilities and limitations that special operations forces can bring to any situation. This would include combat type scenarios but also for indirect approaches and stability operations.
We also look at and address the interagency realm and the international partners that we have in this global war on terror. We have just developed a series of courses for the interagency in which we bring the ideal mix of students—special operators sitting side-byside with a like number of State Department, CIA, FBI, Departments of Justice, Treasury and other agency contemporaries that have a connection to the ongoing fight. This is a great opportunity to discuss the necessary interaction and interrelationships of our various departments and begin to open a better understanding of the culture, values, methods and practices unique to each so that, when we are in a deployed situation, there is greater familiarity and some level of trust.
Bottom line is that because we reach SOF itself and a broader audience, our curriculum has become so robust.
There is a third element to the mission and that is a research and publication capability. Our analysis of complex situations lets us not just recycle knowledge but to actually expand the domain of knowledge and take on the challenge of thinking new thoughts, applying new concepts to existing situations or being able to extrapolate where we may be going. Just like any university expands the boundaries of the body of knowledge that is their specialty, we do the same for special operations. We tackle some of the tougher problems and at the very least have various experts to write on those issues and have their ideas challenged in return by their peers. This opens up the dialogue and discussion where we refine those complex concepts and present more focused solutions or a clearer direction on the path forward.
The research piece puts the “U” into JSOU—it makes us a true university. We are not just covering the same material, we are actually developing new knowledge and seeking feedback that we can be placed back into the knowledge building process.
Q: When the commander of USSOCOM stood up the university was there then or any thought as to do we actually need a separate institution for SOF or could/can we do the same thing by incorporating our needs into other institutions?
A: Great question. One of the age-old discussions has always been should SOF be its own service, and that would imply having its own service schools and unique track for education. Because we are not a separate service but act like it…this led to the unique solution of the Joint Special Operations University. One of the very first mandates we received was to not invent new programs if suitable education already exists.
So this led to us working with all of the professional military education institutions and complementing their existing programs by increasing the amount of special ops topics and lessons in their classrooms while supporting them in their academic exercises. In some cases, JSOU even runs full SOF electives for them. We also add irregular warfare capability and other specialized topics that special operations generally has a very strong understanding of and may be outside the mainstream expertise of these institutions.
In fact, in our classrooms you will see that broad list of students I talked about earlier, made up of people who hail from other federal agencies, the military services and at various levels of understanding. We certainly are not SOF-exclusive.
So, it was decided early on that we would not become a formal professional military education institution but would provide a value-added effect that leverages and enhances those schools or adds programs that are not available anywhere else.
The reality is that that SOF officers, and in many cases our NCO’s, are performing joint duties and responsibilities earlier in their career than their conventional counterparts. They are being asked to do things and know things that they haven’t been exposed to in the military education system so JSOU fills the gap by designing our courses to bring this knowledge to them sooner so they will have a fundamental understanding of the operational doctrine, processes and strategic perspectives they need to succeed in those critical duties.
Q: How would you characterize the student body as far as the rank and general level of experience when they come to you?
A: The student body is really formed from our aiming at the operational through strategic levels of warfare. We are not teaching at the tactical level. When someone comes into a military service, they are trained to perform the mission of that service, often out in the field learning their new profession—the Green Beret is learning about unconventional warfare and working with indigenous forces. The same is true for the Navy SEAL or combat boatman, or AFSOC’s aircrews and special tactics teams in their unique specialities. They learn these skills from their service component schools and bring them into their assigned units. As they progress in experience and ability, about the company-grade officer or mid-level of the NCO, is where we would first start seeing them.
It is also at this point that they will first start to be assigned to joint staff positions. They are starting to perform those kinds of command and control duties that are outside their team experiences. It is here that they are also coming in direct contact with the joint operational environment where that SEAL lieutenant is working side-byside with the Green Beret captain and perhaps the young major from an air commando unit. These three are doing the joint planning, the strategic visioning, and force integration to solve a theater-level problem or an operational issue confronting a joint task force.
This is one of JSOU’s main education focuses.
At the other end of the spectrum, where you might look at the more senior staff or command positions, we see SOF O6s and select E9s, regardless of component, being assigned into billets that are almost general or flag officer requirements and performing duties with broad areas of responsibilities—executing very complex missions that range from intensive direct combat operations to the more indirect scenarios of stabilization and nation building.
This means that JSOU tailors its curriculum from the mid-grade officer and NCO, right up to the senior military grades. In fact we are currently planning to conduct our first general/flag officer course in fiscal year 09. This will be our first attempt at the executive level, primarily aimed at special ops leaders but including conventional counterparts and selected interagency equivalents positions. The academic concept remains the same: to engage in higher-level thought and discussion of broader theater or regional issues that apply where a special operations solution might be appropriate.
Q: How do you go about finding or attracting students and letting the interagency leadership know about what you are offering? What is your outreach to these people?
A: Special operations forces have always interacted with certain interagency organizations and establishments. There is little SOF can do in the world without encountering or being aware of how the ambassador and the country team work in any given region.
Therefore, a natural affinity exists between many of the non- DoD agencies and special operations units and personnel, so when we established JSOU, we really already had some connections with those agencies. There is also a very robust cadre of interagency liaison officers currently assigned to USSOCOM headquarters itself as well as throughout the special operations system and its component organizations.
So the interchange is almost on a daily basis. We were tasked about two years ago to get a more in-depth interagency education program up and moving. The headquarters realized that we needed to take that existing fundamental level of interaction to a more engaged level.
As staff assignments were being exchanged, we developed a series of interagency courses that started at the mid-grade up to an executive level that would address the academic needs of our people and their interagency peers to make them more comfortable in those environments that they were now expected to operate. So we do courses with interagency personnel to help them understand how special ops works and, conversely, for SOF assigned to or working with those agencies to be able to better perform duties that support their mission and the agency.
This was all a natural progression of what the USSOCOM staff was already doing.
As we do that—one thing leads to another—your initial cadre completes the courses and subsequently return to their workplace; they see better the advantages and benefits that come from what they learned at JSOU. They now encourage others in their area to attend so that we have never really had any trouble filling our courses.
Now you also have to understand that we are not running these courses day in and day out. We conduct most of our courses within three to five days, running them three or four times a year. Most of JSOU’s interagency courses are conducted where the student base might be, some at MacDill [USSOCOM headquarters] and others up in Washington, D.C., to make it easier for our interagency partners to attend.
All of our instructors are thoroughly vetted, not only for their expertise and knowledge, but also for their understanding of the broader strategic vision and their ability to effectively deliver their message. This is important because we present material of importance that must keep the instructor and student engaged.
Along those same lines, we configure all of our courses as seminars. We don’t have large auditoriums full of people where we are trying to instruct 100 or more. We limit the class size to create a more dynamic atmosphere for engagement and debate among the students, which is where you will find a great deal of knowledge with those personally involved. This is where the learning takes place as the students provide their insights into the collective group rather than a single instructor presenting a limited point of view.
Q: Do you have international participation?
A: Absolutely, in fact this is a new area for us. We only have a few courses at this time where an international officer or civilian equivalent is eligible to participate. However, we are looking to try and expand as many more of our classes as possible to be opened to international students.
This is the natural evolution of JSOU as we develop our programs to directly support the command’s mission. We’ve been around less than eight years working the SOF side of education and we are now ready to work toward a more global view.
We have a course that is designed for a mixed audience of U.S. and international officers at the mid-grade through senior levels. This is the lieutenant colonel, colonel, and commander levels but may include lower level civilian ministers or their assistants and deputies. We conduct the course for two weeks under a program called the Regional Defense Counterterrorism Fellowship Program. This security assistance-like program belongs to DoD and is intended to bring partners into the solution set of addressing world terrorism. The result is a very diverse student audience and has been going great.
Part of this success has been that we do not limit ourselves to strictly a U.S. faculty teaching or leading the discussions. We bring in adjunct faculty from Afghanistan, Israel, Hungary, Canada, South America, to name just a few countries and regions.
One interesting aspect of this is we recently had a student from Morocco who went back home and talked about the benefits of what he had been through. He then went through the appropriate channels and asked JSOU to develop a tailored portion of his original course to be presented to an expanded audience in Morocco. JSOU sent a team of four to go to Morocco and run a four-and-half day program for 30- some Moroccans, which included ministry-level individuals and high ranking military officers. This was a great opportunity for them and for us as well.
Q: About curriculum, where does your guidance come from as the topics and subjects that you will present? Do you also get into the teaching of more soft subjects like problem solving, analytical thinking, or thinking outside the box? Basically teaching them to perhaps think and act different than they may have been taught when with one of the “big” services?
A: As for the curriculum itself, we have a lot of flexibility as it is not really owned and subject to the legislative direction that the formalized war and staff colleges are responsible to. We also don’t issue degrees or develop long multi-semester programs so we are not constrained by the requirements that come with those formats.
JSOU operates more like a corporate university that develops specific academic programs aimed at the needs of the command. My guidance comes directly from Admiral [Eric] Olson, USSOCOM commander, and from his key staff. My point of contact at USSOCOM is Major General Steve Hashem, the director of the Center for Knowledge and Futures. His education team sets the agenda for joint SOF education.
My goal is to meet the stated needs of the command that improve their ability to do the mission. This mission requires the cognitive and intellectual sense to be thinking beyond the norm and into the sphere of complex operations. So we do include that kind of thoughtgenerating and analytical thinking into all of our courses. Our courses remain very dynamic in that we are constantly evaluating their content and adding or deleting material as events and experiences change.
We teach things like the military decision-making process, incorporating critical thinking elements to provide a foundation for addressing problems from a different perspective. We rarely offer a textbook or school solution but rather work the students through a methodology so that they will see various avenues of approach to a single issue.
We have an annual education conference that we run every summer for our expanded special ops education community. Our topic this year is critical thinking and making of the special ops warrior diplomat.
Q: In general, how do you measure success?
A: We are still a growing organization and as such have never had what we consider as a baseline year. About the time we get everything lined up and balanced, we find something new is emerging, a new course requirement or engagement strategy so it is somewhat difficult to measure actual success. The way I measure it is satisfaction in the force.
I just sent out a data survey that took us about two months to complete. This went to the field and engaged the theater special ops commands, the component commands and the headquarters staff, requesting feedback on JSOU. I wanted their view of “what” we should be doing and “how” they think we can do it best.
The responses were tremendous and based on this success I intend to do that same thing about every 12-18 months so our programs can always remain relevant and tied to the SOF warfighter in the field.
Q: You talked about holding seminars in locations other than at Hurlburt Field but do you take advantage of any distance learning technologies to reach people that you don’t have the time or resources to physically go to?
A: We do but not in the classic sense of distance learning; this is one of those resource-constrained issues.
One thing we understood very quickly after 9/11 was that our resident courses were not going to be in a single location. We knew we were going to have to take our courses to our audience because they were no longer able to come to us. To support this, we did two things right away.
The first was to invest in a video teleconferencing system. The second was to tailor our courses into smaller bite-sized modules that could be taken to different locations.
The special ops community is busier than ever with no sign of letting up, so we realized that the likelihood of many of them having the time to come into a classroom would be very hard to do and would take them away from family and operational responsibilities.
So while it may not be distance learning, we will, at the minimum, take a team out and go where the warfighters are.
The VTC is working wonderfully for us. Similar to how we do command and control, we actually broadcast a class to multiple sites, usually where a facilitator at that site continues the engagement with the students and not just students watching a monitor. Through this technology we are able to integrate everyone into the discussions and dialogue.
The part we have not made as much progress on is putting courses online. We’ve conducted some experiments using online courses but the investment of time and dollars really precluded us from doing that on a larger scale. I see us re-engaging in this area at some time in the future. What we have done in the meantime is defaulted to a robust portal system where you still use the broadband technology, establishing a full time Web presence to get information out to our students wherever they may be. We need to do everything possible to be as effective at Bagram Air Base or Balad, as we are at Hurlburt Field.
The next steps we see when we look to the future is developing a distributed or satellite campus for JSOU. This would place our central or main location in MacDill AFB at USSOCOM headquarters, but would develop or maintain, as at Hurlburt Field, small JSOU detachments associated with the component commands’ headquarters and schools. This would give JSOU a dependable connection to all SOF component commands, allowing a shared academic benefit throughout the community.
This is something that we will grow in the next three to five years as JSOU will now take on a more aggressive role to be not just a single one-building institution but to have a presence-for-purpose across the SOF community.
Q: What does your FY09 budget look like?
A: For us the FY09 became an extrapolation of FY08. We made a fairly strong case for joint education to USSOCOM when we were working on POM [program objective memorandum] 08-13.
In fact there are several key features already approved that we expect to remain. One is that we will go to a higher stabilized baseline that allows us to support all the joint and service military war and staff colleges, allowing us to make long-term commitments that we could actual live up to.
We are also able to stabilize our faculty and staff at approximately 50, providing further capacity for recurring programs and academic relationships. Part of our baseline is a major military construction project at MacDill for JSOU that leverages our growing technological opportunities and makes the satellite campus possible. This would give us our own dedicated building connected very close to the headquarters. From this centralized location, we can move forward on the plans for satellite locations as I mentioned earlier.
FY09 was a slight plus-up to bring us in line with these plans.
Q: Looking down the road, what does the next 12 months hold for JSOU?
A: My primary goal over the next 12 months is to add several courses. The one course is the general/flag officer course which I mentioned earlier. Each service conducts a course for its senior warfighters. There is a course called the JFACC—joint forces air component command course—that the Air University runs. There is a maritime component command that the Naval War College sponsors as well as an Army equivalent at the Army War College.
These are all specified courses in the officer professional military education policy that the chairman of the joint chiefs approves. Special ops, despite its service-like connotation, has no similar course. We felt the time was right and that we had matured to the point that JSOU was ready for such an enterprise. We are also developing several certificate programs. We already have an operations certificate and are now developing a staff certificate. When I use the word “certificate” I mean a series of courses that are connected by subject matter and learning outcomes. They may be taken all at once or spaced over time to accommodate student availability. After completion of all program requirements, the awarding of the certificate assures a student’s organization that the promised learning has occurred and the student has mastered the material to the level specified in the JSOU syllabus. This will obviously come along with rigorous testing and study requirements that go along with these certificates.
The staff certificate is aimed at making a special operations member, primarily officer but key NCOs as well, able to work efficiently and effectively in a staff position, and understand the joint staff procedures. We are also evaluating what education JSOU can provide in the international engagement arena and, I believe, this will become a major focus for us in the years to come. I think this will be the next major step for us.
Q: Any final thoughts?
A: I would like to say that JSOU is a very unique institution. It is not a war or staff college and never should be—but yet it is also not a training institution like the JFK Special Warfare Center. We really focus on something that is unique and we owe it to the vision of General Schoomaker who saw that the intellectual capability was going to be as important as our tactical ability. ♦