Decapitation Operations

This monograph establishes criteria for targeting enemy leadership during decapitation operations. It analyzes United States operations targeting strategic individuals over the course of the Twentieth Century. This discussion creates a list of recommended standards for the military commander to consider while planning decapitation operations. The paper addresses the following subquestions in order to answer the primary research question: When are decapitation operations beneficial to achieving the desired end state? 1) What is a strategic individual? 2) What types of political or military frameworks are susceptible to decapitation? 3) How does United States military doctrine address decapitation operations? 4) What decapitation operations has the United States conducted in the past? 5) What was the result of these past operations? 6) What criteria must be met for a campaign to benefit from targeting enemy leadership? Five US decapitation operations conducted over a ninety-two year span provided historical precedence to answer the above questions. The five case studies are: 1) General Emilio Aguinaldo, Philippines 1901 2) Francisco "Pancho "" Villa, Mexico 1916 3) Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Japan 1943 4) General Manuel A. Noriega, Panama 1989 5) Pablo Escobar, Colombia 1993. These strategic individuals were chosen for this study because they represent a century of US activity targeting enemy leadership. The occurrences are evenly distributed over the course of the past one hundred years and involve some of the most recent developments in the conduct of warfare and the influence of global mass communications relative to manhunting. Also affecting the choice of these cases was the availability and quality of unclassified information. Not all of the chosen cases were conducted for military reasons and not all were completely successful. These variances in outcome, timeframe, and motive add variety and validity to the paper 's conclusions found in the final chapter. The