Throwback Thursday: From Competitive Spaces to Cognitive Warfare—The Enduring Role of SOF

Throwback Thursday starts here, and we are returning to the Special Operations Journal archives to revisit hard-hitting ideas that still shape how we think about competition today.

In “SOF Utilization in Contemporary Competitive Spaces” (Special Operations Journal, 2020), Major Craig Thompson pushes beyond broad discussions of hybrid warfare and gets into the mechanics of how Russia actually competes and how Allied SOF must respond. He frames Russia’s approach as a synchronized application of diplomatic, informational, military, economic, and subversive tools, employed proactively in what he identifies as the “covert origin” phase of conflict. Moscow does not wait for a crisis; it shapes conditions early by leveraging influence networks, paramilitary actors, and information campaigns to create favorable political realities before conventional force ever appears. Thompson argues that Allied and USSOF must meet this approach with equal precision and persistence, grounded in a proactive, partner-focused, and whole-of-government campaign:

Do not underestimate the breadth and depth of Moscow’s influence via surrogate and proxy forces…Operational security and counterintelligence efforts are of utmost importance…Study the societal conditions…that allowed for Russian occupation…Be careful about targets. It is worth noting…that the first target of Russian operations is the Russian people…Investigate the extent of Russian ownership of media outlets…and more importantly, counter the narrative, expose the misinformation, and find a louder channel to broadcast the truth…Don’t lose sight of the forest…Russia ultimately applies conventional force…

U.S. forces must be prepared to counter Russian escalation dominance in its backyard…Numbers matter…capability matters, and they both build resiliency…Get ahead of the misinformation campaign…Understand Russia’s toolkit of unconventional warfare—don’t template it…‘Know everything’…Timing is a function of initiative and creativity. Decisive and imaginative steps must be taken to identify and establish a presence in today’s competitive spaces…In summary, calculated and proactive efforts by USSOF in Russia’s near abroad, those missions which focus on bolstering societal resiliency, deterrence, and resistance capabilities, will deny Moscow uncontested access…These collective efforts will guarantee Russia no quick or inexpensive victory.

This conversation carries forward in “Proxy Battlespaces: A New Perspective on Ukraine’s Use of Special Operations Forces in Syria, Sudan, and Mali” by Holger Lindhardtsen and William Mitchell, which shows how Ukraine employs SOF outside its primary theater to “impose strategic dilemmas” on Russia even while under direct attack . Ukraine extends competition geographically and operationally, demonstrating that SOF can create pressure across multiple fronts and force adversaries to react. At the same time, the Modern War Institute’s The Ukraine Papers: 2022–2025 highlights how the war demands constant adaptation, as professionals must “watch, assess, analyze, and derive insights” from ongoing conflict to refine how forces fight. These observations reinforce Thompson’s emphasis on persistent engagement and partner-enabled resilience as decisive factors in modern competition. Amos Fox’s “The Russia-Ukraine War: It Takes a Land Force to Defeat a Land Force” adds a necessary anchor to this discussion, arguing that despite technological advances, “wars of the future will remain fought for territory…by armies” and that “it will continue to take a land force to defeat a land force”. SOF shapes the environment, but conventional land forces secure and hold the key terrain.

This broader discussion also extends into the cognitive dimension of warfare. In “Cognitive Warfare: An Allied Blueprint and a Pentagon Opportunity,” Charles Cleveland, Daniel Brookes, and David Maxwell describe a fight for cognitive superiority that targets how populations “perceive, make sense, decide, and act.” Thompson’s focus on building societal resilience and countering malign influence aligns directly with this reality, where influence, narrative, and legitimacy shape outcomes alongside physical operations.

Across these works, SOF emerges as a force that operates before, during, and beyond conflict—expanding battlespaces, strengthening partners, and contesting adversaries across physical and cognitive domains. Land forces close with and defeat the enemy, but SOF ensures that the conditions for that victory exist long before the first engagement and persist long after it ends.