INTERNATIONAL SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES SOF’s Strategic Shift Toward State-on-State Unconventional Warfare
the international special operations forces (ISOF) commuq With nity still heavily engaged with countering violent extremist organizations (VEOs) around the world, senior commanders are growing increasingly concerned with maintaining the tactical advantage over near peer and high capability adversaries across more contested areas of operation. Nowhere is this threat more prevalent than across NATO’s eastern border with Russia, where an ISOF community remains on high alert following Russia’s 2014 incursion into Ukraine. Indeed, Russia’s ongoing employment of information warfare across this particular area of responsibility continues to drive ISOF developments regarding how best to operate in command and control denied and disrupted environments (C2D2Es). Multiple concepts aimed at enhancing such capabilities across ISOF continue to be led by the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) through its increasingly capable “Global SOF Network,” which includes NATO’s Baltic partners of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as well as Poland, Georgia, and non-NATO entity Ukraine. Concerns regarding this emerging operating environment in Eastern Europe were clearly defined by USSOCOM’s outgoing commander, Gen. Tony Thomas, as well as members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services (SCAS) during a committee hearing on Feb. 14, with officials highlighting “growing focus on competition with China and Russia – our peer competitors.” The committee heard how Russia, as well as China, continued to create military advancements that pose “new and increasingly complex challenges” to U.S. national security, with Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (SO/ LIC) Owen West proclaiming: “This is a unique time to serve the SOF
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enterprise because it is an inflection point. … The National Defense Strategy has challenged all of the Department of Defense to increase focus on long-term strategic competition with Russia and China. … In November, Gen. Thomas and I issued the first-ever joint vision for the SOF enterprise, challenging professionals to innovate relentlessly in pursuit of decisive competitive advantage.” Highlighting the importance of ongoing collaboration with the ISOF community, Thomas disclosed: “Our SOF network, integrated with interagency and international partners, is focused on producing unorthodox yet complementary capabilities and solutions in support of U.S. policies and objectives. We continue to maintain strong, enduring international partnerships while leveraging authorities and core expertise to convert indigenous mass into combat power to deter, deny, disrupt, and ultimately defeat our adversaries. “To build a more lethal force, strengthen our alliances and partnerships, and reform for greater performance and efficiency, we are reshaping and focusing our current forces and capabilities while simultaneously developing new technological and tactical approaches to accomplish the diverse missions that SOF will face in the future,” he explained. Much of USSOCOM’s focus – in partnership with ISOF partners – remains on its three major mission sets, which include counterterrorism; countering weapons of mass destruction; and the most recent addition, messaging and counter-messaging designed to negate U.S. airmen assigned to the 321st Special Tactics Squadron, 352nd Special Operations Wing conduct freefall airborne operations near Kiruna, Sweden, Feb. 24, 2017. The Arctic winter training included four weeks of basic winter warfare exercises.
U.S. ARMY PHOTO BY CPL. RACHEL DIEHM
BY ANDREW WHITE
