SHAH ALAM: Joint Special Operations Command. Months after the National Special Operations Force (NSOF) was quietly disbanded, the Armed Forces chief Gen.Zulkifli Zainal Abidin today announced that the military will set up a Joint Special Operations Command (JSO) tasked with duties of national and strategic interest.
He did not say when the new command will be stood up and where but it will work together with the Joint Force Headquarters and Armed Forces Headquarters. It is likely the three special forces units in the military – GGK, Paskal and Paskau – will work together under a single command much like NSOF though without the police’s own UTK and MMEA Star team.
NSOF personnel conducting a Hostage Rescue demonstration at the launch of the unit in Oct 27. 2016
The new command will likely come under direct control of the Armed Forces chief instead of the National Security Council like those of NSOF. GGK is likely to lead the command as it is the biggest SF unit in the military though it is likely the chief’s post will be rotated among the units.
Paskal range of HK firearms displayed at the NSOF launch in 2016. The XM8 carbine is the one nearest with the HK417 next to it.
Zulkifli also said 2019 will see the military work to develop its joint-ness capability. He said towards this,the Armed Forces is in the process of creating regional joint command to better integrate the three services in conducting operations.
An exercise called Ex Pahlawan will be held in October to test the joint ness of the three services and the new JSO.
Last October, Malaysian Defence had reported that NSOF was disbanded but the story was made off line following several requests of those involved. People were not keen to confirm the disbandment as the NSOF was launched by the then Prime Minister himself and would like to have the current Prime Minister, who ordered the disbandment, to announce it officially. The story was also reported on Shephard Media so you can see it here. You can also find my story on the disbandment by searching for it on Google.
Some of the firearms of NSOF at the launch ceremony
I apologised to anyone who was offended by my decision to take the story offline but I am not a big media publication which can write anything on the military and still get invited, not only to cover their events but also paid to give pep-talk to military big-wigs themselves.
It is interesting to note that as our comments section are talking about the need for the military to relook of its priorities due to fiscal difficulties they actually want to increase the expenditure further.
–Malaysian Defence
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View Comments (16)
A good decision to ensure the best unit to use to deal with the incident. But to be more effective the PDRM n MMEA should be invited to join in . This is to prevent duplication of effort n blue on blue.
So bsically the NSOF minus other "special forces units"? I don't get it. Why? Then where's the joint-ness in that new outfit?
All the SOFs has their unique roles and can complement each other but only if there is an oversight chain of command that can identify and use these resources. Having the UTK in the loop, the JSO would able to allocate them for urban & low level terror response.
@ Marhalim
"It is interesting to note that as our comments section are talking about the need for the military to relook of its priorities due to fiscal difficulties they actually want to increase the expenditure further"
Right now of course we need to relook out priorities. Things such as
MPA (probably convert our existing CN235 to MPA)
LCA/LIFT
LMS (the ship is fine but the price is not)
Kedah Class (forget about building new kedah class and pass this task to APMM with their cheaper Damen 1800 OPV)
NCO (IMO this is needed for the whole of navy and airforce, but only selected army formations like SF, PARA, MECH, armor, artillery, air defence, risik and signals)
The increased expenditure is for the next Rancangan Malaysia, starting 2021 Rancangan Malaysia ke 12. Im looking at just 10% increase from what we have now, and to be constant for 20 more years to come. That would not give us unlimited buying powers, but enough to get our basic needs.
What i am looking at is for the development expenditure for each 5 year Rancangan Malaysia to be:
Navy USD2billion
Air force USD1.6billion
Army USD1billion
That number will need the budget to be increased by around 10%. Still it would be very tight to get any big ticket items (like MRCAs, which clearly need to suck the budget of at least 2 rancangan malaysia)
With such a limited resource, even my previous TUDM plan needs to be pared down further.
@joe
Reason is so that people like ah jib gor can't use the military to get rid of his enemies.
Restore the chain of command away from that ridiculous NSC in other words.
@...
10% yoy increase is a lot
Reply
That's why they disbanded NSOF to get the NSC out of the loop of command.
@Neb
Cute but really, having a partial SOF means the rest doesn't know what is happening. They might be deployed as well and, because special forces teams are usually all black and unmarked, the chances of friendly fire is very real and very likely.
Having 2 management of SOFs means a duplication of activities and wasteful resources (that includes lives). I thought PH is about eliminating this, not create their own wastages?
JSO should have been mirrored to US JSOC where all SOFs are under a singular command regardless to which branch of US military their joint commander comes from. In our context, a low-medium threat response would be tricky, whether to use GGK, UTK, or Renjer. With clear oversight like JSOC and good intel, an appropriate response can be taken without duplication of effort and risk of friendly fire.
On paper it’s a good move but in reality will the establishment of this new command really lead to an improvement in policy and how SF operations are conducted? Will it really lead to more “joint ness” and less service infighting and will the right people be posted to this command? Or will it be like the Joint Forces HQ in which those waiting retirement or placed in cold storage ended up?
How will this new command ensure that the unit best suited for the job be selected for a particular op? Will another unit, despite not being suited for a particular op, be selected because it has stronger backing and needs to justify funding? Even in Tier 1 militaries despite all the “jointness”, tri service issues can still be a major problem with the various services still not fully understanding how their sister services operate and with turf guarding still prevalent.
@ chua
It is not 10% YOY. It is 10% of 2019 budget, and to be maintained for at least 3-4 rancangan malaysia's
@ Joe
US JSOC also did not include police teams. UTK is clearly a police force, not military. So what is your complaint exactly??
Lee,
What added value is there in having the police and MMEA join? At it is, having 3 different services to work alongside each other is a problem and here we are talking about the police and MMEA.
To really make a difference this joint command has to have as little bureaucratic red tape as possible and it has to have the right people in place, that know what they’re doing and can make the needed decisions, in line with a flexible and clear chain of command, with a clear and realistic understanding of what our SF unit’s can and cant do. On top of that the 3 armed services have to put their own interests/agendas aside to achieve a common goal: much easier said than done.