Indispensable but Insufficient: The Role and Limits of Special Operations in Strategic Competition
By David Ucko Sunday, February 19, 2023, 10:01 AM
Editor’s Note: After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, special operations forces (SOF) were often the point of the counterterrorism spear. As the United States shifts away from counterterrorism and focuses on the threats that Russia and China pose, SOF can play a vital role, according to David Ucko, a professor at the National Defense University. To do so, however, Ucko argues that SOF must recalibrate, changing their composition and their focus.
The United States finds itself in an era of strategic competition, as China, Russia, and other revisionist states challenge the norms and order that define American power. The U.S. government is now focused on how to respond, but that question is compounded by its adversaries’ diverse and global methods of attack. As America’s rivals privilege ambiguity and subterfuge, they deliberately avoid U.S. strengths, particularly in the military domain.
U.S. special operations forces (SOF) can contribute to strategic competition through their specialization in irregular warfare. In recent years, SOF have broadened their application of foreign internal defense and unconventional warfare—both irregular warfare missions and SOF core activities—to fit this new strategic setting. Foreign internal defense traditionally meant aiding a friendly government against an insurgency, but SOF now see it as a means of boosting a country’s “resilience” against foreign-sponsored interference. Unconventional warfare traditionally implied sponsoring an insurgency against an illicit or occupying government, but SOF now consider this work as supporting “resistance” capabilities for states facing foreign invasion or seeking to deter such a threat. Put differently, resilience protects against foreign subversion and resistance makes an invasion more painful—and therefore less likely.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/indispensable-insufficient-role-and-limits-special-operations-strategic-competition
