Special Operations Forces in Great Power Competition:

For almost two decades, defence policy discussions on the employment of special operations forces (SOF) have focused on their role in the irregular fight typified by places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and regions farther afield. More to the point, SOF has been the proverbial “force of choice”[i] for the type of conflict countries like Canada and the United States found themselves embroiled in during the opening two decades of the 21st Century.[ii] However, the situation is changing.

More precisely, what was old is new again. The United States is stepping back from global leadership, China is testing the waters (every pun intended) and Russia is executing a continuous spoiler role in international politics. These features combine to create a condition of renewed competition between powerful countries; what is now being called ‘great power competition’.[iii] Given this shift, does SOF still enjoy the central role it did during the opening decades of the 21st Century? What considerations are needed to adapt SOF employment concepts to these new realities?

Disentangling Warfare Terms: Unconventional, Irregular, or both?

History’s most recent analogy for great power competition is the Cold War and during that period, unconventional warfare (UW) and irregular warfare (IW) were integral features of great power activities. If history is any indication, UW and IW will continue to feature heavily in the decades to come. Despite their persistence, actually defining such terms has proven difficult. Indeed, simply knowing it when you see it – as postulated in a 2012 article in Small Wars Journal – is unhelpful. [iv] Put simply, they are confused concepts in need of clarification. From a doctrinal standpoint, Canada has not officially defined either concept. Neither term appears in the capstone doctrinal publication Canadian Military Doctrine, nor do they appear in Operations or in CANSOFCOM’s latest publication Beyond the Horizon. Moreover, there is no reference to either term in operational-level Army doctrine. Recent services papers from the Canadian Forces College have in fact leaned on US military definitions when these topics arose.

Within the US military, IW and UW are viewed as related, but different terms. In short, UW is a subset of IW.[v] More precisely, IW is defined as “a struggle among state and non-state actors to influence populations and affect legitimacy”[vi] and that struggle will favour indirect approaches that will involve varying degrees of military capability. Moreover, this definition, which now appears in the Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defence Strategy holds that stability operations, counterterrorism operations, counterinsurgency operations, foreign internal defence, and unconventional warfare are the various missions that make up the IW space.[vii] So with this in mind, what then is unconventional warfare?

UW – as a part of IW – is “a broad spectrum of military and paramilitary operations, normally of long duration … who are … supported, and directed in varying degrees by an external source.”[viii] In essence, UW is a form of political warfare that supports groups attempting to overthrow an occupier. The support of the French resistance during the Second World War by the Allies – in particular the OSS – is a classic example of UW. For this series, we will use the term IW, assuming that UW is a subset of it. More importantly, IW is something that all branches of a military have role in while UW is within the purview of SOF.

What’s New About Competition?

Counterintuitively, SOF may have an even more significant role in great power competition than it has had in the counterterrorism (CT) and counter-violent extremist organization (C-VEO) struggles that typified the past two decades. Great power competition is characterized by vague boundaries and amorphous definitions. Indeed, there is a lack of consensus among policy-makers and international relations experts on what great power competition means for Canada, the United States and other like-minded powers in confrontation with both Russia and China. Despite the blurred contours of great power competition, irregular warfare (IW), its application and usage, is an acknowledged and significant element of this activity. As the U.S. Department of Defense noted in its Summary of the Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy, “The Department must institutionalize irregular warfare as a core competency for both conventional and special operations forces, sustaining the ability to impose costs and create dilemmas for our adversaries across the full spectrum of competition.”[ix] Within this setting, national SOF often represent the only military entities that consistently train for and conduct unconventional warfare (UW) operations, and they maintain a significant portion of most state military IW capabilities for engaging in great power competition.[x] As stated in the 2020 Canadian Special Operations Forces Command  (CANSOFCOM) strategy entitled Beyond the Horizon, SOF work at the gaps and seams of not only the “national defence and security architecture”[xi], but also at the gaps and seams between competition and conflict.  Moreover, Beyond the Horizon argues that Canadian SOF “will focus on enabling the development and implementation of strategic solutions within the grey [sic] spaces of conflict.”[xii] It is in this grey (or gray, depending upon the nation using it) zone that SOF will find familiar operational terrain. However, the opponents (and their capabilities) will be new.

These so-called “Gray zone operations are actually a form of coercion that mix conventional and unconventional military with other forms of security forces and non-military actions — like diplomacy, influence operations, and economic pressures….”[xiii] In order to add value in this context, SOF must reorient and diversify their collective expertise in unconventional warfare as well as their skillsets in the broader IW realm to compete against state adversaries like China and Russia and ultimately prepare for potential warfighting.[xiv] Where the threat was once irregulars, insurgents, and criminals, it is now peer and near-peer adversaries. The Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS have now been complemented with Russian and Chinese formations.

While competition – that area on the proverbial spectrum beyond cooperation but short of conflict – remains well-suited to SOF, it does offer new challenges. As echoed in Robert Spulak’s theory of special operations, SOF, as opposed to conventional forces, has the most important role in the spectrum of conflict short of war where the military needs to meld with the “other” elements of national power.[xv] As well-suited as it is, SOF employment requires some necessary refinement and recasting by decision makers. Understanding this change is the goal of this Centre for International and Defence Policy (CIDP) SOF project.

            To explore the high relevance and unique value-added nature of SOF in great power competition, the CIDP aims to produce a multi-author series of policy papers and podcasts on SOF in great power competition to both educate and inform a broad national security stakeholder group concerned with these themes on the roles, missions, capabilities, and application of SOF in great power competition. Drawing on both theory and practice, this series will err to the pragmatic side and seek to provide operational‐level ideas and concepts for the employment of SOF in great power competition, highlighting where things might need to change, and equally, what should be retained in terms of employment concepts. At a conceptual level, SOF have three attributes that set them apart from conventional forces (CF). First, SOF are able to span institutional – and indeed national – boundaries; second, they enjoy significant autonomy; and third, they are composed of what are referred to as specialized generalists.[xvi] These three attributes are the conceptual foundation upon which the series centers its analysis regarding SOF and great power competition. All told, there are seven thematic areas identified as notable foci for this exploration.

SOF Attributes and Issues

The first issue area relates to the question of integration. At the conceptual level, this subject most closely aligns with the attribute of boundary-spanning. Successful military contributions to irregular warfare require a deliberate and sustained integration of conventional and special operations capabilities.[xvii] While noted in doctrinal publications such as Beyond the Horizon,[xviii] the importance of successful integration – especially as SOF shifts to become the supporting rather than supported effort – demands continued engagement. For example, in Europe, many partner nations realized that they possessed an insufficient SOF institutional framework for sustaining forces and organizing for national and coalition operations in an emerging near-peer threat environment. This SOF situation reconfirmed a recurring problem within the broader security force assistance framework; there being a tendency to build a force without first establishing the necessary institutional framework for sustainment.[xix] In creating these strategic organizations, the European SOF counterparts aimed to achieve a mix of four general institutional objectives. These goals included recognition that SOF acts best in a flattened hierarchy with comparatively more autonomy than their conventional counterparts. However, this autonomy needs to be balanced against improved integration to ensure collaboration and maintenance of the broader strategic objective at both the national and coalition or alliance levels.

Continuing in the boundary spanning theme is the issue of thinking unconventionally in terms of conflict and to this end, the topic of counter-threat finance comes to the fore. The financing of threats – and the role SOF have in countering them – touches on military information support operations, cyberspace operations, countering threat networks, civil-military operations, and security cooperation. Dual-pronged counter threat finance activities against proxies employed by peer state adversaries like Russia and China would deter malign activity, compel behavior change, and assure allies and partners. Put simply, threat finance – as part of the boundary spanning attribute of SOF – also shapes the information environment and other population-focused arenas of competition.[xx]

As a last area of exploration within the boundary spanning attribute, we have identified an underdeveloped topic of resistance as a subset of unconventional warfare. The study of a constructive role for SOF in resistance movements has its roots in smaller, central European nations, but within the context of great power competition, such explorations are warranted for larger entities as well.[xxi] In short, we ask, how can SOF help improve domestic resistance to foreign intervention and occupation?

While related to the attribute of boundary spanning, the issue of foreign internal defence (FID) advisory also touches on the attributes of specialized generalists as well as autonomy. The fact that SOF have myriad expertise and the ability to learn quickly is the reason why FID is a classic SOF task alongside UW. FID constitutes the fourth issue area of focus.

In keeping with the attribute of specialized generalists, SOF can also play a key role in peace support operations, which is a fifth issue area, whether in the form of classical peacekeeping or more contemporary peace enforcement operations. In 2015, the United Nations in fact released a doctrinal document entitled The United Nations Peacekeeping Missions Military Special Forces Manual[xxii] in which it laid out a framework for employing SOF within the context of peace support operations.[xxiii] How this works in the context of great power competition needs further examination.

            Related to this subject is SOF’s role in Arctic operations, which is the sixth issue area. As a region of increasing interest and indeed significance for the circumpolar states such as Canada, the United States, and the Nordics, this territory is attracting attention from many states seeking to exploit new transportation routes and untapped resources. In short, any competition between the major powers will have an Arctic dimension to it, and there appears to be minimal focus to this environmentally challenging region by those who study SOF and its employment.

As a final theme, our investigation will examine the notion that SOF is an early adopter and catalyst of new and emerging technologies. While important, the idea of innovation receives but a single page in Beyond the Horizon.[xxiv] With one of the attributes of SOF being the inculcation of specialized generalist capabilities in their personnel and their resultant ability to learn quickly, SOF’s inherent ability to maximize innovation demands a deliberate approach to experimentation and more than just acknowledgement of a willingness to try new ideas.

            While many of the issues will touch on more than one attribute, we have presented here a basic framework that will guide our exploration in this series going forward. As we develop each of these issues, further reports and more detailed recommendations will follow. For now, we hope to have spurred some thoughts and discussion on these important, and often underexamined, implications for SOF due to the return of competition between the major powers.

The opinions expressed are based on the research of the participants and does not reflect official policy or positions of any government agency.

Colonel Kevin D. Stringer is a Fellow at the Centre for International and Defence Policy and a Eurasian Foreign Area Officer assigned to Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR). His research interests are special operations, unconventional warfare, strategy, and multinational military operations.

H. Christian Breede is an associate professor of political science at the Royal Military College of Canada and the Deputy Director of the Centre for International and Defence Policy. He has researched and published on the topics of military culture and security policy analysis.

End Notes:

[i] Bernd Horn, John de B. Taillon, and David Last, eds. Force of Choice (Montreal and Kingston, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004).

[ii] Christian Leuprecht and H. Christian Breede, Beyond the Movies: The Value Proposition of Canada’s Special Operations Forces (Ottawa; Conference of Defence Associations Institute and MacDonald Laurier Institute, December 2016), see also Erin Yantzi, “Initial Insights: Understanding Canada’s Special Operations Forces,” WIIS Canada (poster, 2020) online at https://wiiscanada.org/research-posters

[iii] Uri Freedman, “The New Concept Everyone In Washington is Talking About,” The Atlantic (August 6, 2019), at https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/08/what-genesis-great-power-competition/595405/, accessed October 26, 2020, and Ali Wyne, “Need to Think More Clearly About Great Power Competition,” Rand Corporation (February 11, 2019), at https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/02/the-need-to-think-more-clearly-about-great-power-competition.html, accessed October 26, 2020.

[iv] Army Irregular Warfare Centre “Irregular Warfare: A Clear Picture of a Fuzzy Objective,” Small Wars Journal October 22, 2013, online at https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/irregular-warfare-a-clear-picture-of-a-fuzzy-objective#_ednref10

[v] Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States (Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 25 March, 2013), X.

[vi] U.S. Department of Defense. Summary of the Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy (Washington, DC: Dept. of Defense, 2020), 3.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] United States Department of Defense, JP 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Washington D.C.: Department of Defense, 2010).

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Claire Graja. SOF and the Future of Global Competition (Arlington, VA: CNA, May 2019).

[xi] CANSOFCOM. Beyond the Horizon: A Strategy for Canada’s Special Operations Forces in an Evolving Security Environment, (Ottawa, Department of National Defence, 2020), 20.

[xii]Beyond the Horizon, 16.

[xiii] James M Dubik and Nic Vincent, “America's Global Competitions: The Gray Zone in Context,” Institute for the Study of War, February 2018.

[xiv] Emma Moore and Stewart Parker, Adapting the Image and Culture of Special Operations Forces, War on the Rocks, July 22, 2020, at https://warontherocks.com/2020/07/adapting-the-image-and-culture-of-special-operations-forces-for-the-missions-of-the-future/, accessed July 24, 2020.

[xv] Robert G. Spulak. A theory of special operations: The origin, qualities, and use of SOF, Joint Special Operations University Report 07-1 (McDill AFB, FL: The JSOU Press, 2001), 22.

[xvi] Eitan Shamir and Eyal Ben-Ari “The Rise of SOF,” Journal of Strategic Studies 41, no. 3 (2016), 21, see also H. Christian Breede “Special (Peace) Operations,” International Journal 73, no. 2 (2018), 229.

[xvii] U.S. Department of Defense. Summary of the Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy (Washington, DC: Dept. of Defense, 2020).

[xviii] Beyond the Horizon, 25.

[xix] Jahara Matisek and William Reno, “Getting American Security Force Assistance Right: Political Context Matters,” Joint Forces Quarterly 92, 1st Quarter 2019, 65-73, specifically 66.

[xx] U.S. Department of Defense. Summary of the Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy (Washington, DC: Dept. of Defense, 2020).

[xxi] Kevin D. Stringer and Glennis F. Napier, eds. Resistance Views (Florida: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2018), see also Stringer, “Building a Stay-Behind Resistance Organization,” Joint Forces Quarterly 85 (Q2 2017), 109-114.

[xxii] UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and UN Department of Field Support. United Nations Peacekeeping Missions Military Special Forces Manual (New York, NY: United Nations, January 2015).

[xxiii] Breede, “Special (peace) Operations.”

[xxiv] Beyond the Horizon, 31.

Authors: