A MONTH IN 2022: USSOCOM COMMANDER OUTLINES GLOBAL OPTEMPO

BY SCOTT R. GOURLEY

In his keynote address to the May 2022 Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa, Florida, Gen. Richard D. Clarke, commander of United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM), provided a glimpse into the operational tempo and mission sets being conducted across his command on a daily basis.

“I want to go back three months, to February 2022,” Clarke began. “And I’m going to share four vignettes that capture the range of challenges our special operations forces [SOF] face today, but I also believe will face in the years to come.”

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The first of Clarke’s vignettes occurred on Feb. 3, 2022.

“Under the cover of darkness in the deserts of northwest Syria, our forces successfully removed the ruthless ISIS leader alongside with our partners, the Syrian Democratic Forces, in a precise, high-risk counterterrorism mission,” he said. “Our operators had executed yet another surgical operation, one that was even more complex than the UBL [Osama bin Laden] raid that had taken place a decade earlier, using exclusive capabilities honed over two decades in combat. The operation further degraded ISIS, the region’s most capable, violent extremist organization.”

A Ukrainian special forces soldier provides security for a joint raid exercise between Ukrainian special forces and U.S. Navy SEALs during Exercise Sea Breeze 21 on Pervomays’kyy Island, Ukraine, July 2, 2021. Exercise Sea Breeze 21 was a U.S. and Ukraine co-hosted multinational maritime exercise held in the Black Sea designed to enhance interoperability of participating nations and strengthen maritime security within the region.

The second representative activity took place a couple of weeks later, in the Arctic at two different places on the globe.

“Our SOF were training in the most austere conditions on the planet: one group in Alaska, above the Arctic Circle; while at the same time, others were conducting training in Norway in similar conditions in Europe. In this extreme cold weather exercise, our forces pushed their warfighting capabilities to their limits. All of these temperatures were sub-zero, sometimes reaching minus 30 and minus 40 degrees.”

Naval Special Warfare members on the ice after performing a high-altitude low-opening jump over the Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Pasadena (SSN 752) in ICEX, which happened concurrently with the 2022 Arctic Edge Exercise, March 12, 2022. Arctic Edge is a U.S. Northern Command biennial defense exercise designed to demonstrate and exercise the ability to rapidly deploy and operate in the Arctic.

He said that the first event involved Navy SEALs conducting a free-fall operation onto the ice, nearly 200 miles offshore, to rendezvous with a U.S. Navy submarine that had broken through the ice cap. In the second event, Army Special Forces were inserted and extracted after many days and over 100 miles, traversing the Arctic wilderness by skis and snowmobiles. Additionally, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) elements supported the exercise under the world’s most unforgiving conditions.

“All of these successful exercises prove that our forces can operate, and most importantly, prevail, in any environment,” Clarke said.

He stated that the same month that those two events occurred – one involving a non-state actor and one representing a potential near-peer capability – a third unique operation was undertaken thousands of miles away in West Africa, where U.S. SOF were partnered with more than 10 African nations and allied countries for the annual “Flintlock” exercise, which builds cooperation around a common cause.

He added, “Finally, as I was traveling, and personally there in Flintlock in the Côte d’Ivoire, Gen. [Mark A.] Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called me at 4:00 a.m. on the morning of Feb. 24. In those early morning hours, a fourth event was underway. Russia had begun its unprovoked and brutal invasion of a sovereign nation. That act was shocking. It was reckless. But it was not unexpected. We all knew that this was going to take place. We saw it and it had been reported. This act of aggression has threatened stability in Europe and has directly challenged the rules-based international order.”

A Ghana special forces commander and his soldier communicate via radio while conducting a raid during Flintlock 2022, in Côte d’Ivoire, Feb. 27, 2022. Flintlock is a multinational exercise consisting of 11 nations training in Côte d’Ivoire. This exercise helps strengthen the ability of allies and partners to counter violent extremism and provide regional security.

“In the largest SOCOM exercise in the African continent, our partners and allies hone their capabilities to counter the persistent threat of violent extremism that continues to threaten regional stability,” Clarke said. “And those partners and allies do so alongside the full spectrum of U.S. special operations, our Green Berets, our SOF aviators, our civil affairs, and our psychological operations professionals.”

Clarke continued, “Russia set the stage for that morning with a focused campaign of disinformation, cyberattacks, and with irregular forces. These were all tactics that we had witnessed before. Ever since the world first witnessed Russian aggression in 2014 in eastern Ukraine, our special operations forces have trained with the Ukrainian special operations. While little has changed, mostly playbooks since 2014, the intensity this time was far different. And we’re witnessing on the news every night the consequences of which I speak. All four events took place in the month of February; four very different challenges faced by our forces in places across the world.”

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Clarke summarized, “We faced threats from nations and nonstate actors. We faced increasingly contested and challenging environments. We undertook operations that challenged our communications, that challenged our ability, and that challenged our interoperability with the joint force and with our allies and partners. Our adversaries test our resolve, but we continue to test ourselves.”

He added, “I chose February, but I could have chosen any month over this past year. At this very moment, over 6,000 men and women are operating overseas, alongside of partners and allies, in over 80 countries globally. In today’s dynamic environment, this fact remains: Special operations forces provide strategic, asymmetric advantages for our nation across the spectrum of conflict.”