Mission or Meaning? Rethinking the Identity Crisis in U.S. Army Special Forces
Authored by:
Siamak T. Naficy, PhD, and W5 Maurice "Duc" DuClos
The U.S. Army Special Forces (SF) are not suffering an identity crisis; they are experiencing a strategic fracture of meaning. Originally designed to fill a niche no other force could—operating with and through indigenous partners in denied or politically sensitive environments—the Green Berets are now often celebrated for their kinetic capabilities, indistinguishable from other direct-action Special Operations Forces (SOF). This shift is more than mission creep—it is meaning creep: the erosion of the shared narrative, internal coherence, and incentive structures that once unified the Regiment.
This article synthesizes arguments from Colonel Edward Croot and Sergeant Major (Ret.) David Shell with insights from organizational theory, anthropology, and history to argue that SF’s core challenge is not one of confusion, but of existential drift.
Access as a webpage by clicking here or on the image below.
https://jsou.edu/Press/PublicationDashboard/280
