In era of great power competition, U.S. Special Operations Forces to play key role

U.S. special operations forces are positioned to do more than the high-risk, high-profile counterterrorism missions of the post-9/11 era.

With a focus on their Cold War-era roots, America’s elite units could be key to preventing war between the U.S. and its chief adversaries, China and Russia.

Stu Bradin, CEO of the Global Special Operations Forces Foundation, made that case.

The retired Army Special Forces colonel, who has more than 30 years of experience and has toured worldwide, said in an exclusive interview with The Washington Times that U.S. special operations forces, such as the Army Rangers, Green Berets and the highly secretive Delta Force, have been on the front lines of great power competition throughout history.

He said their role is more vital than ever, given the vulnerability of traditional ground formations in the era of hypersonic weapons, long-range artillery fire, drone swarms and electronic warfare.

“I believe that we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars on legacy items that will not survive modern warfare,” Mr. Bradin said on The Times’ “Threat Status” weekly podcast. “We have a force that cannot deploy. And once it’s deployed, it cannot be employed. It can be detected. If you mass a force anywhere in this world, you will get annihilated. You will be absolutely annihilated.

“Nowadays, with long-range fires, the distances, they can impact you … all of this has changed. I believe you’re in a stage of irregular warfare, where SOF, cyber, intelligence, information and commerce/economics are the five big things that will stop a major theater operation. And so I think SOF [is] in a position to prevent a major theater war versus allowing it. If you stop someone from massing, the probability of there being a major war is very low.”

The Global Special Operations Forces Foundation has organized the SOF Week convention in Tampa, Florida, this week. It is one of the largest gatherings of elite military units worldwide and of the leading defense contractors researching, developing and manufacturing the tools that special operations forces need.

The roles of special operations forces in a rapidly evolving U.S. military are expected to be among the key topics of convention programming and in the high-level, behind-the-scenes discussions.

The Trump administration is making significant structural changes to the Army and other services and to the U.S. force posture in key regions such as the Middle East and the Pacific. It is also undertaking an ambitious endeavor to reimagine the homeland missile defense system.

Those efforts will respond to renewed threats from America’s great power rivals, primarily Russia and China. To meet those threats, the budgets for special operations units across the military are expected to rise in the coming years as they form central components of modern-day American power projection.

Specialists say special operations forces could be central to the broader U.S. military and geopolitical strategy. Those elite units became virtual household names during the war on terror, with high-profile missions such as the 2011 raid in Pakistan that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Still, analysts are quick to point out that their roots are much broader. Dating to the most dangerous periods of the Cold War, special operations forces were often on the front lines of the American fight against communist forces, working on the ground with resistance forces and undertaking other specialized missions around the globe.

Analysts say special operations forces are uniquely positioned to perform various missions crucial to U.S. national security, including counterterrorism raids.

“For the past two decades, USSOF achieved critical operational successes during the global War on Terror, primarily through counterterrorism and direct-action missions. However, peer and near-peer competition now demands a broader application of USSOF’s 12 core activities, with emphasis on seven: special reconnaissance, foreign internal defense, security force assistance, civil affairs operations, military information support operations, unconventional warfare, and direct action,” Clementine G. Starling-Daniels and Theresa Luetkefend, researchers at the Atlantic Council, wrote in a recent analysis.

They argued that special operations forces should return to their roots. In years past, the units thrived with unconventional warfare, supporting resistance groups in Europe, covert intelligence operations in Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America, evacuation missions of civilians in Africa, and guerrilla and counterguerrilla operations to combat Soviet influence, they wrote.

Although the global landscape has changed in some ways since the days before 9/11, Mr. Bradin argues that many broad strokes remain the same.

“As far as great power competition, we were all over the world confronting the Chinese, Russians through their surrogates, which is what they mainly use. That is what special operations was actually built to do,” Mr. Bradin said. “It’s the same damn actors. You can add in Iran and North Korea now, and those are the big four out there trying to stir stuff up.”