Special Operations: SOCOM Shrinks And Adapts
Ezoic
June 22, 2024: U.S. SOCOM (Special Operations Command) is shrinking again and must lose 5,000 personnel over the next five years. Instead of just reorganizing units to include fewer people, SOCOM is retraining its remaining personnel to handle more technology as well as new weapons and equipment. SOCOM is also noting how Ukrainian special operations forces have adapted during more than two years of fighting the Russians.
SOCOM does not have any personnel in Ukraine and the number of active combat zones where SOCOM once operated has diminished. There are no longer SOCOM personnel in Afghanistan and far fewer in Iraq and Syria than in the past.
Most of the reductions are taking place through attrition. As existing SOCOM operators retire or resign, they will not be replaced. Over the last decade SOCOM has greatly reduced its spending on counterterrorism and that alone greatly reduced expenses. More importantly, SOCOM personnel spent less time overseas in combat zones. This was good for morale and necessary so training for new tasks can take place. SOCOM is returning to its traditional (pre-2001) missions that included training foreign special operations forces and developing relationships with military forces and civilians in foreign nations. This often involved working with the CIA and Department of Defense intelligence agencies. The SOCOM personnel spoke the local language and had learned about local customs. SOCOM personnel were often the best source of what was going on in nations where SOCOM was invited in to help with training and organizing forces to carry on the fight if that country was overrun by an enemy. After 2014 this applied to Ukraine and as is customary in such situations, details of SOCOM assistance in Ukraine were not publicized. It was understood that the SOCOM assessment of Ukrainian readiness for a war and willingness to fight the Russians was the most accurate available to NATO nations. SOCOM also passed on assessments of Russian forces in Donbas and the Russian military in general. SOCOM shared and compared assessments of Russian forces. All of this was done quietly, as was customary for this sort of thing since the 1950s when SOCOM did not exist yet. There was just the U.S. Army Special Forces component.
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsf/articles/202406220549.aspx#google_vignette
