SOF in Competition: Establishing the Foundation of Strategy (v1.3)

SOF in Competition: Establishing the Foundation of Strategy

Joe Miller and Monte Erfourth

The U.S. national security community has shifted its focus to deepening competition among rival actors but has struggled to drive strategic and cultural change.[1]  As a recent RAND study notes, “If the assertion that international politics is entering a new period of strategic competition has been widely accepted, there is no consensus about what this shift means” – particularly for the military. [2]   Against less capable and sophisticated adversaries, the U.S. military has compensated for lack of strategic coherence through material advantages in technology and resources.  As adversaries that are more formidable contest U.S. interests, the Department of Defense has drawn attention to the continuous and infinite competition – a shift that demands change in strategic thinking as well. 

Within current U.S. strategy, a military approach to competition begins with the 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) and 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS), which lay out U.S. interests and expectations for the Joint Force.  The NSS encourages the broader Joint Force to “consider ways to apply the military instrument differently to enable diplomatic, information, and economic elements of power” while also maintaining its more traditional functions.[3]   On the one hand, these documents direct the Joint Force to build and sustain readiness for large-scale combat and strategic deterrence.  On the other hand, they direct the military to evolve “with the changes in the character of competition,” specifically citing the failure of the Joint Force to “keep pace with emerging threats or technologies.”[4] Adopting a compound approach – one in which conventional and unconventional forces “conduct operations that give full expression to [their] own capabilities” – may allow the Joint Force to balance these obligations, buttressing deterrence and readiness with more unorthodox military applications to compete short of armed conflict.[5]     

While the Joint Force balances current commitments with the necessity for change, USSOCOM must develop a clear understanding of how the special operations forces (SOF) enterprise evolves to meet its array of duties and contributes in competition.[6]   Strategist Colin Gray observed, “Special operations should function in ways tactically distinctive within national policy and military strategy.”[7] SOF’s unique qualities have led the Department of Defense (DoD) to place certain demands on the enterprise which include: organizing, training, and equipping forces; leading the Department’s effort in the fight against violent extremist organizations, providing national crisis response units; leading efforts to counter the spread of weapons of mass destruction; countering threat finance; and messaging and counter-messaging, have all shaped SOF’s identity in recent years and will remain an enduring priority well into the future.  The Command must master and sustain these tasks.

However, as the Command seeks to meet the Department’s obligations and expectations it must also place a like effort in adapting itself to meet tomorrow’s challenges – those driven by highly capable and focused states which seek to displace the current world order by competing without fighting. This is one of the most pressing challenges in the present moment, and for the foreseeable future. We can reasonably expect that rivals will continue to hold the United States and its allies at risk through selective military modernization, designed to defeat our very specific and linear approach to war. As they invest, they have calculated that the US will continue to invest in maintaining its hegemonic superiority while our rivals’ primary focus is pursuing their goals, competing to win short of war.  If we are not vigilant, the war might be lost before it is fought.   

As a result, the concept of competition short of armed conflict has increasingly spread through the SOF enterprise and driven discussion around three questions: 

• What role might SOF play in competition?
• How can competition keep us from conflict and protect and advance our interests?
• How can we assure, in the event of conflict, the U.S. has established the necessary advantage to dominate militarily before conflict is joined? 

In short, SOF can play a complementary role that supports the Joint Force and Interagency by applying its unique capabilities in unorthodox ways to advance and protect American interests.  However, to fully answer these challenging questions, this paper proceeds from a working definition of competition to offer a clear case for SOF in competition, a strategic frame to develop theories of success for SOF applications, and a view of how SOF supports integrated campaigning in competition.  First, a case for special operations in competition draws on existing doctrine to develop a forward-looking perspective on how SOF contributes to a broader national effort.  Strategic framing helps build theories of success for SOF in competition, as well as identify implications for USSOCOM, the Joint Force, and the various SOF partners.  By developing a case for SOF, providing strategic framing, and understanding the consequences for the enterprise, USSOCOM can articulate and shape the role of SOF in competition.  

STRATEGIC FRAMING IN COMPETITION

States create and maintain militaries to protect interests from threats, a reality that may lead militaries to look for threats when no threats are apparent.  When decoupled from interests, a threat-centric strategy can mischaracterize competing actors as categorical adversaries or misidentify local security challenges as threats to U.S. interests.  The U.S. has developed a threat-centric culture, focused on the development of capabilities, defined within individual warfighting cultures.  When paired with the different institutional cultures and interests of the military services, threat-centrism risks the development of capability-driven strategy rather than strategy-driven capabilities.[8]  To be successful in the future, the military must become interest-based to develop options and capabilities designed to create outcomes needed to secure U.S. interests over time.  Interest based operations ensure our actions match our objectives providing a strategic validity to our efforts, while a focus on our strategic and enduring interests ensures a commitment to durable outcomes over time. 

Recent changes in the environment and defense priorities suggest that the military must evolve its strategic thinking.  The U.S. military has allowed threats to dictate its direction in recent years, often failing to relate those threats to national interests.   “The United States is developing a reputation much like Germany had in the twentieth century of being tactically and operationally superb but strategically inept.”^[9]  Particularly given the Department’s renewed focus on competition, its development of strategy must likewise adapt to orient on interests rather than threats. 

The military has often framed strategy by “ends, ways, means, and risks” since the publication of COL Arthur Lykke’s work in 1989.^[10]   This approach remains a critical tool for the development of concepts and can yield success when applied against appropriate objectives.  However, within the described threat-centric culture, this model allows leaders to set targets without alignment to more strategic outcomes that advance U.S. interests.  Furthermore, this framework algebraically suggests that an increase in means directly correlates with an increase in ends – an interpretation that likely contributes to resource orientation.  Instead, the military should look to strategic framing that, by design, counters this threat-driven and resource-oriented culture.   

Framing Strategic Thinking

Founded on the idea that the U.S. can initiate and exploit a change in a complex strategic environment to create the advantage necessary to advance U.S. interests and influence, this proposed structure for strategic thinking suggests that:

• Physical, cognitive, or virtual variables in the environment have persistent but malleable relationships – favorable, neutral, or unfavorable – with U.S. interests;^[11]   
• Through observation and the development of concepts for change, the U.S. can alter the relationships between particular variables and interests in specific environments;
• The U.S. can apply resources to implement ideas, as well as identify and enable opportunities for collaboration with partners, to change the relationships between variables and interests; and
• In conclusion, by applying concepts and resources against variables that relate to interests, the U.S. can change an environment to protect and promote those interests. 

This framing suggests that to achieve a more favorable environment for U.S. interests, leaders must identify variables within the current environment that present threats or opportunities to advance U.S. interests, develop concepts for change directed at these variables, and identify applications of resources towards those concepts.^[12]   Three assumptions inform the key concept within this proposed framing of interest-driven change.  First, the environment is complex and continuously changing, which demands that leaders continually assess the shifting relationships among variables and U.S. interests.  Second, based on a full appreciation of that environment, leaders can develop reasonable concepts to shape change in a manner that produces more favorable conditions in the environment.  Third, in addition to change driven by systemic patterns and external actors, any interaction with the environment will provoke more change, further demanding that the application of this strategic framing support not only the initial development of strategy but also continuous evaluation and refinement.

Concepts for Change

Concepts for change address identified variables to influence more favorable conditions for interests.  Rather than orienting precisely on a threat, ideas focus on interest-oriented changes, offering a broader range of more cost- or risk-sensitive options.  When considering how to create change, leaders should explore a variety of vectors that include targeting the primary threat activity, third-party behavior, the physical, virtual, and cognitive terrain itself, and U.S. policy – any change that might address the challenge.  To develop these concepts for SOF, the enterprise must cultivate and leverage its understanding and relationships with populations, key actors, and local instruments of power.  Time also represents a critical factor in concept development, as variables change at different rates and actors often operate on different timelines than the U.S.  Consequently, concepts may seek to advance change in the present, refrain from disrupting change underway, or allow conditions to develop for future exploitation. 

Application of Resources

As the U.S. seeks to implement concepts for change, the various instruments of national power, as well as those of like-minded partners, come into play.  For SOF in particular, the application of resources includes a wide range of stakeholders available to influence change in the environment.  Internally, SOF currently conducts operations under authorities from the Secretary of Defense, with diverse competencies to affect the physical, virtual, and cognitive domains, supported by a robust Joint Force logistics and operations backbone.  Externally, SOF operates in support of other authorities across the U.S. government and boasts a robust network of foreign allies and partners, as well as surrogate forces.  While leaders may only be able to direct those forces under its operational control, they must inclusively consider who in the strategic environment may benefit from change and how these potential collaborators might go about affecting the change.  Just as the military has mastered combined and joint operations in war through supported and supporting command relationships, so too must it realize the full potential of similar complementary and coordinated relationships during competition.

Strategic Framing: A Review

This proposal for strategic framing calls attention to five essential points.  First, any concept for the application of the military instrument is based on interests and oriented to change in the environment, rather than driven by threats and adapted to seek change in resources.  Second, it emphasizes inclusivity to enable holistic strategic decisions; leaders must consider all stakeholders – both internal to the SOF enterprise and external – that have ability, interest, suitability, and position to affect the desired change.  Third, with variables in constant flux in a complex environment, it demands adaptability to ensure that new solutions fit problems, rather than challenges made to fit solutions.  Fourth, although pacing threats motivate the Joint Force to build readiness in periods of relative peace, this structure mitigates the risk of conflating the capabilities and intentions of peer-like rivals.^[13]  Finally, as competition demands that leaders reconsider how “means and ways” are applied, this framing provides tools to leverage all available resources through innovative concepts of change that adjust the environment to protect and promote U.S. interests at acceptable risk and cost. 

THE CASE FOR SOF IN COMPETITION

While the Joint Force must maintain strategic deterrence and continue to prepare for high-end conventional conflict, it must simultaneously leverage orthodox and unorthodox applications of power through a compound approach to achieve outcomes in competition short of war.  Historically, cases abound where by diplomatic, economic, and social forces undermine militarily superior forces.[14]   These cautionary lessons suggest that winning military battles but losing the war often manifests from decisive non-military effects, generated by leveraging asymmetries between systems and strategies rather than forces.  Simply put, the ultimate victors employed asymmetric strategies that “[transformed] an adversary’s perceived strength into a vulnerability, often by revealing one’s own perceived vulnerability as a strength.”[15]   While asymmetric approaches are typically associated with weaker parties seeking to mitigate an adversary’s advantage, the U.S. should seek its own asymmetric strategies that comprehensively undermine a rival’s strengths. 

The methods of action and conditions during execution define Special operations.  Special operations require unique methods of employment defined by tactical techniques, equipment, training, and are often conducted with and through indigenous forces, leveraging personal relationships and regional expertise. Special operations occur under conditions that are often time-sensitive, clandestine, require low visibility, and involve a high degree of risk (political, mission, or force); they take place in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments.   Special operations are not often war winning but when combined with the many and varied capabilities of our interagency partners and the other globally oriented combatant commands – space, cyber, strike and transportation – they provide a range of options that offer the Joint Force significant advantages in competition and conflict. 

Currently, great power competitors are making gains in areas such as information warfare, economic competition, political influence, and advancing military goals through non-military means in multiple domains (e.g., space, cyber).  While conventional deterrence is necessary, adversaries are finding ways around these Cold War-era models of hard power.  Special operations contribute to, and amplify, the actions of the Joint Force as they always have, through application of unique capabilities applied in unorthodox ways in unusual contexts. Examples include working within and among populations to develop operational capabilities and amplify perceptions; providing support interagency efforts; and assisting in influence operations to complement the joint force. Specifically, SOF can best support global efforts to compete by:

• Supporting the development of favorable foreign relations utilizing access and placement to create influence in support of National objectives;
• Providing military or defense advantage over any foreign nation, group of nations, organizations, or actors to deter, preclude or preempt them from resorting to the use of military force;
• Enabling a global defense posture capable of successfully resisting hostile or destructive action, overt or covert, and aid in enhancing opportunities;
• Supporting and enabling other authorities globally to create leverage and advantage;
• Operating below actors’ “red lines” to avoid unwanted large-scale violence or create U.S. disadvantage; and
• Developing access and options that allow the Joint Force to rapidly and decisively transition to conflict, should it be required.

This approach builds on doctrine and proposed theories to describe special operations in competition through the ways they contribute to U.S. interests and influence, as well as concepts and resources to achieve them.^[16]    

These concepts have several implications for the SOF enterprise and how it interacts within a broader national effort.  The next step to bring this case for SOF in competition to life is codifying the case and strategic framing in USSOCOM guidance.  In its role as the institutional leader of the SOF enterprise, the command can provide Geographic Combatant Commands and assigned Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOC) with decision rules for employment of SOF in competition based on prioritized interested-derived objectives.  The command should also develop clearer guidance for Service Components, set limitations derived from risk, legal, and ethical considerations, and provide insights derived from return on investment analysis.  USSOCOM should also establish resource allocation and force employment processes that best supports a global competition strategy the coordination and integration efforts.  In addition, USSOCOM should distill from national policy and strategy how SOF can support the hierarchy of U.S. interests – "vital," "extremely important," "important," and "less important or secondary interests.”  The diverse capabilities and cultures across TSOCs and Service Components will remain an asset to the SOF enterprise, but USSOCOM guidance that establishes a unifying sense of purpose among these different identities would likely prove to be a valuable contribution.

Alongside the development of guidance for the enterprise, USSOCOM must reconsider how to structure command and control to implement integrated campaigning for SOF in competition.  In integrated campaigning in competition, SOF must coordinate across geographic boundaries with other SOF elements, as well as across organizational boundaries with the Joint Force and interagency partners.  Some of this infrastructure exists at present, either in name only or tailored to specific mission sets, such as against violent extremist organizations.  This latter effort leverages a trans-regional synchronization process, which provides a vehicle for the global alignment of SOF against a particular array of threats.  Perhaps the SOF enterprise might apply this model to other problem sets to enable that global alignment.  Against actors that demonstrate both the capability and intent to operate globally in ways that challenge U.S. interests, the need to build and empower such a coordination vehicle is increasingly pressing.

Through integrated campaigning, SOF can contribute to the Joint Force within a compound approach both by supporting conventional forces in executing their core warfighting competencies and by doing what the conventional forces cannot.[17]  As the Joint Force continues to deter ascendant rivals and force adversaries to operate short of war, SOF can leverage its access, placement, capabilities, and networks of relationships both to ensure that the Joint Force maintains its advantage and to advance U.S. interests in competition.  In competition, SOF can provide leaders with better escalation-sensitive options that operate around actors’ “red lines.”  SOF offers the Joint Force a dynamic range of capabilities for unorthodox activities to advance U.S. interests, mainly through its competencies in illuminating, understanding, and exploiting relationships among actors and populations in the strategic environment.  In addition to prolific precision strike capabilities, SOF can contribute more as a part of the Joint Force through counter-threat finance, messaging and counter-messaging, and other population-based solutions, which may become more prominent functions in competition after serving primarily as enablers in a counterterrorism context. 

As U.S. partners seek to advance the country’s interests and multinational partners collaborate toward shared interests, SOF can cultivate a better understanding of how the enterprise might support these partners’ efforts.  Concerning interagency partners, SOF should strive to communicate its capabilities more effectively to mitigate potential friction in two broad areas.  First, SOF may prioritize its role in advancing U.S. interests differently than its partners, based on mandate, competencies, and culture.  Second, SOF should provide education and training to interagency partners to foster improved understanding. [18]  A better understanding of SOF capabilities and priorities within the interagency community may enable a more effective division of labor that leverages organizational advantages within a comprehensive national effort.  In general, SOF will maintain close relationships with the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of State, and U.S. Agency for International Development, which operates globally in similar environments as SOF elements.  For specific missions, SOF will work more closely with relevant interagency specialists.[19]  In competition, SOF may seek to deepen relationships with other partners, such as the Departments of Justice, Treasury, and Commerce, as functions previously viewed as enabling efforts to become more prevalent.  Ultimately, a deeper understanding between partners should help to identify relative strengths and expose opportunities for mutual support.

SOF should also better align efforts with allies and partners to pursue shared interests.  The U.S. has constructed broad coalitions in support of its engagements abroad, but often coalition priorities fail to reflect the interests of allies and partners.  SOF should proactively build a dialogue with its allies and partners to understand their interests, recognize where their interests align with those of the U.S., and explore opportunities for collaboration in planning and execution. [20]

When done correctly, competition should achieve U.S. policy objectives while avoiding conflict. However, in great-power competition, the Joint Force must be prepared to act in the event of strategic miscalculation or premeditated hostility that triggers high-end conflict.  In peace, SOF can lay a foundation of support through global access and placement and specialized skills to support the Joint Force in conflict.  Through illumination, area access and denial, sabotage, support to populations, partner collaboration, precision strike, special reconnaissance, and a host of other capabilities SOF can create an advantage that supports the larger conventional force should a major conflict be joined.  In peace and war, the SOF enterprise is the utility force of choice to advance and protect U.S. interests, whether through hard or soft power. 

CONCLUSION

With a clearer understanding of competition and the role of SOF within that context, USSOCOM can begin to shape its approach to the strategic environment.  To support the advancement of U.S. interests, USSOCOM should provide guidance and prioritization for the global application of SOF to capitalize on opportunities that provide an advantage, promote favorable foreign relations positions to create influence, enable global defense posture, support diplomatic and intelligence actions globally, and help manage escalation.  Bringing this case into practice requires evolving how SOF thinks strategically about the complex global environment, focusing on interests and the risk inherent in not protecting those interests rather than resolving threats.  USSOCOM can drive a dialog among the Joint Force, interagency, and multinational partners on the appropriate application of SOF capabilities shaped around shared interests to drive unified, integrated action across the globe.

We began this essay with three questions.  Given the discussion, we believe they can be answered simply as follows:

What role might SOF play in competition?

SOF’s primary role in competition is developing the access and placement to support and enable our partners in creating the influence required to support the creation of favorable foreign relations in support of national interests.  The greater SOF enterprise of globally distributed people, capabilities, and international partnerships represents the means to  understand emerging local, regional, transregional threats and identify where opportunities exist for advancing U.S. objectives.  Persistent global engagement allows the SOF enterprise to cultivate long-term partner nation relationships and nuanced understanding of complex environments. This engagement provides the capabilities needed to influence outcomes in a campaign and especially during the competition short of overt war. Using its presence and influence, SOF is uniquely positioned, across the globe to thoughtfully combine intelligence, information, space and cyber operations to affect an opponent’s decision making, influence diverse audiences, and unmask false narratives. Furthermore, SOF can coordinate operations, activities, and actions in the information environment with those across the other operational domains and, as a matter of routine, fuse “cognitive” and lethal effects to obtain favorable outcomes.  The SOF enterprise can inform more comprehensive understanding of adversary global operating systems and develop options that exploit vulnerabilities in those systems.  Especially when paired with capabilities in the cyber and space domains, special operations allow the Joint Force to gain positional, political, or informational advantage in competition and enable a rapid transition to combat operations should the need arise.

How can competition protect and advance our interests while keeping us from conflict? 

We defined competition in terms of influence, leverage, and advantage.  We build and use influence to develop the global posture and military advantage required to deter, preclude, or preempt any foreign nation, group of nations, organizations, or actors from resorting to the use of military force.   In a compound approach with enabled partners, SOF and conventional forces help the U.S. to compete with a suite of options designed to deter, preclude, or preempt unwanted behavior.  Within the context of the Joint Force, SOF can complement traditional deterrence by utilizing partners to build indigenous capability and assisting in force employment to protect and advance shared interests.  Within the context of the Interagency, SOF can leverage access and placement to exploit or hold at risk rival political objectives through unconventional and unorthodox methods (both overt and clandestine), creating the time, space, or influence required for effective diplomacy.  These options exploit opportunities to advance U.S. interests while maintaining an acceptable level of political stability without escalation to a costly conflict.

For SOF specifically, conditions in competition require that forces operate below an opponent’s “red lines” to avoid unwanted large-scale violence while pursuing U.S. advantage.  In crisis, SOF can generate decision space for leaders to build and refine options.  SOF can prepare to “hold at risk” the political objectives of an adversary by applying unconventional and unorthodox methods, as well as seek “off ramps” to prevent escalation into larger conflict. The precision and discretion of SOF ensures minimal risk of strategic miscalculation.  Special operations can create unexpected dilemmas for a competitor, allowing commanders to maintain the initiative, control the tempo of operations, and manage escalation in a competitive campaign. 

How can we assure, in the event of conflict, the U.S. has established the necessary advantage to dominate militarily at the outset of the conflict?  

During competition, SOF develops access and options that allow the Joint Force to rapidly and decisively transition to conflict, should it be required.  In times of war, SOF enables the Joint Force to execute decisive operations, through special operations tailored to disrupt opposing systems and allowing the conventional force to deliver overwhelming combat power across the depth and breadth of an opponent’s attack surface.  These operations also have the potential to impose operational dilemmas across the opponent’s area of operations and larger set of strategic interests.  Done well, these dilemmas can create friction and induce strategic miscalculation, further eroding the opponent’s capability to operate and resist.   To create the access and capabilities needed to enable the Joint Force, special operations require preparation and persistent presence during competition, as well as a keen sense for emergent opportunities presented by both the environment and opponents. 

If USSOCOM is to provide value to America’s competitive position, change must come for the institution, its current strategy, and culture of the organization.  Structural changes should enable more dynamic and distributed decision-making.  Strategic changes should reflect the empowerment of the SOF enterprise to advance U.S. interests in the context of a comprehensive national effort to compete using all elements of national power.  Finally, special operations culture should embrace its innovative and disruptive heritage, leading the Joint Force into the future through experimentation, adaptation, and innovation.  Change is rarely easy, but failure to adapt to the increasingly competitive security environment would likely bear an even higher cost: America’s ability to safeguard and advance its interests in a dynamic and dangerous world.

End Notes