Forward Operating Locations: Plan Colombia Experiment Moves to Afghanistan

Loring Wirbel works with Citizens for Peace in Space in Colorado Springs, CO.

When is a US military base not a military base? When it's a "Forward Operating Location" (FOL), the Pentagon's latest exercise in virtual warfare. FOLs, launched last year as part of Plan Colombia, are being used as a model for setting up small bases in the nations surrounding Afghanistan.

Marching in Boston, Oct. 14 © Ellen Shub

Activists who are old hands in opposing US actions in Central America could say that the FOL is nothing new. The US, after all, went to great lengths to say that its Palmerola air base in Honduras was not a base, even though it served as the primary staging area for El Salvador and Nicaragua operations. Similarly, the National Security Agency (NSA) listening post on Tiger Island between Honduras and El Salvador played the same type of role.

Nevertheless, today's FOL represents something new and different, because lessons in space-based, real-time warfare, developed since the Gulf War, are being applied. The FOL relies on portable intelligence platforms, small airfields for unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicles, and real-time links to the Space Warfare Center at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, to provide a "virtual" military base.

The common image of Schriever's Space Warfare Center is that it simulates battles in space using space-based weapons. But since the mid-1990s, Schriever has moved towards regional counterinsurgency. It conducted a series of classified tests in the mid-1990s, collecting real-time intelligence from a variety of ground-based and space-based sources; collating that intelligence; and sending it immediately to fighter jet cockpits, the bridges of naval carrier groups, and mobile Army support vehicles. One experiment, Talon Knight, even sent real-time intelligence information to individual receiver units of Special Operations force troops in the field.

Talon uses networks such as the Global Broadcast System, a multimedia distribution network for the military; Binocular, a secret NSA intelligence distribution program; and SIPRNET, the Secret IP Router Network. Additional classified networks are being developed in the aftermath of September 11th.

In the Bosnia and Kosovo conflicts, Space Command set up experiments on FOLs, linking space intelligence and unmanned aerial vehicle bases on islands off the Dalmatian coast to provide immediate intelligence for Kosovo bombing.

Plan Colombia, however, represented the first time that bases were planned in advance to implement "real-time intelligence to the warfighter." Although several radar bases had been established in advance within the Putamayo region, as well as in Peru and Bolivia, the US created four dedicated FOLs specifically for handling counterinsurgency in Colombia, in Comalpa, El Salvador; Manta, Ecuador; and on the islands of Aruba and Curacao. These posts had small airfields for unmanned aerial vehicles, portable signals intelligence equipment and satellite dishes, and contact points for contract companies providing additional information.

When President Bush announced the open-ended war on terrorism, units were immediately sent to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The temporary and portable nature of these bases allowed them to be accepted by the leaders of these Central Asian nations, as well as by the Russian leadership, which continues to wield a strong influence in these states.

For support to the east, the US has existing NSA bases in China's Xinjiang region which could be expanded for FOL. While China's disputes with the US in recent months had almost led to their closure, China's concern over a restive Uighur population has made the country's government more willing to allow the US to expand the use of these bases.

Pakistan has a US NSA base near Peshawar, and the US has convinced Musharraf to allow a second air base in a small western town suitable for raids into Kandahar--though continued anti-US protests in Pakistan make it questionable how useful these bases will be. For larger-scale regional staging and intelligence coordination, the US can rely on its huge Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean, and a smaller naval base offshore in Bahrain, neither of which face fundamental opposition.

It is not surprising that Colorado-based space units, like the 21st Space Wing and the 193rd Army Space Support Battalion, are playing key roles in establishing the new Asian FOLs. In addition to being the home of Schriever and the Space Warfare Center, Colorado plays host to two critical bases (besides the aging NORAD headquarters underneath Cheyenne Mountain): Peterson Air Force Base, adjacent to the Colorado Springs Airport, is the headquarters of the Space Command that declares itself to be "Master of Space," and Buckley Air Force Base, in Aurora, is home to a joint NSA/National Reconnaissance Office intelligence processing center, the largest such intelligence base in the Western hemisphere.

Some might say that the real-time pinpoint warfare allowed by FOL deployment represents a perfect way to "get Bin Laden" with a minimum of civilian casualties. It certainly is a more finely-honed tool than widespread aerial bombing. But the fact that the FOL had its trial run in Colombia indicates that the Pentagon wants to use this model in a variety of regional counterinsurgency theaters. The fact that Bush has declared this war to be against more than just the al-Qaida network, and virtually endless in its nature, is a warning for activists that the FOL may be used again and again in different regional conflicts. Using real-time intelligence in pre-emptive warfare may prove to be less palatable in the West Bank or the Aceh province of Indonesia than it is in Kabul.

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