The Special Operations Enterprise has renewed its focus on irregular and unconventional warfare as a critical tool within the realm of strategic competition. How can Special Operations Forces (SOF) better understand, articulate, and operationalize these campaigns, and what are the specific SOF activities that could support the overall Joint Force in the deterrence of large-scale armed conflict or the escalation of crises? Ultimately, what are the different ways SOF can have utility in strategic competition, and how can they be effectively researched? As part of this, what specific roles should SOF prioritize developing within the current strategic environment with respect to strategic competition and integrated deterrence?
Within this framework, how can SOF and conventional forces best work together to achieve these objectives, and what conventional military capabilities—such as theater-level engineering or cyber operations—offer disproportionate strategic effects against an adversary’s core vulnerabilities? To fully integrate these efforts, what specific command-and-control relationships and authorities would enable the use of these conventional capabilities alongside SOF to maximize their combined effectiveness? Furthermore, what is SOF’s role in security cooperation, and does the time required for a successful unconventional warfare campaign hinder its ability to be coordinated with conventional warfare campaigns?
Expanding upon these integration efforts, USSOCOM maintains ties to allied and partner SOF, but does that SOF partner network require transformation and adjustment for better effectiveness in strategic competition? SOF have a unique capacity to build relationships with allies and partners. How can SOF best leverage those partnerships? What can SOF do to enable a coalition fight, and how can they communicate that with conventional forces? How can SOF better collaborate with the Joint Force in areas such as helping to build resistance and resilience in the host nation, preparing an environment for potential future conflict, and integrating a host nation into coalition operations?
In assessing these campaigns, what is a ‘win’ within irregular warfare, and is it possible to win without fighting? How does the SOF role vary based on geography, adversary, and level of conflict? To inform these assessments, can historical case studies of Cold War-era unconventional warfare help shed light on the current situation, or must researchers use their imaginations to conceive of ways new technologies—including artificial intelligence, cyber, satellite communications, and remotely piloted vehicles—may be employed both in operations below the level of armed conflict and in inter-state conflict? Ultimately, have these new technologies caused fundamental changes in the ways irregular and unconventional warfare are carried out, or do traditional strategic concepts remain the same?
- Belcher, Brandon, "Special Operations in Somalia: Strategies for Success in the Horn of Africa," AFGC thesis, 2025, 36 pgs.
- Belcher clearly delineates how these SOF mission sets should be applied in Somalia. Currently, SOF heavily utilizes Foreign Internal Defense (FID) to train elite counter-terrorism units like the Somali Danab brigade against internal threats. However, he recommends transitioning to broader Security Force Assistance (SFA) to train the larger Somali National Army once stability improves. Furthermore, he advocates for Unconventional Warfare (UW) to enable local, covert resistance movements against al-Shabaab, effectively treating the terror group as an occupying power at the local level.
- Belcher, Maj. Drew, "From Star of the Show to Supporting Cast: How to Prepare Special Operations Airpower for Great Power Competition," ACSC AO 2025.
- Addressed by Belcher's central argument that SOF must transition from being the primary "supported" force to acting as a strategic enabler for conventional forces in great power competition. He highlights Operation Anaconda in 2002 as a historical example where initial planning failed to integrate airpower, but the rapid deployment of AFSOC AC-130 gunships and the coordination of SOF combat controllers and air liaison officers ultimately enabled a massive, precision-strike fires campaign that saved conventional ground troops. Belcher argues that to maximize SOF's utility in strategic competition, the military must move away from the highly independent SOF-centric operations of the post-9/11 era and foster deep integration between the entire special operations community and conventional forces. This joint integration will allow the military to leverage unique SOF capabilities—such as information gathering, strategic raids, and crisis response—to directly support and multiply the effectiveness of conventional operations in contested, near-peer environments.
- Bendokas, Maj. Jehon N., "OA-1K SKYRAIDER II: How AFSOF Airpower Will Redefine the Strategic Environment," AFGC thesis, 2025, 32 pgs.
- Bendokas highlights the OA-1K's unique suitability for Counterinsurgency (COIN) and Counter-Violent Extremist Organization (C-VEO) operations. He details how the aircraft can be leveraged to persistently target insurgent logistical routes, arms caches, and training camps, thereby inflicting continuous economic strain and disrupting insurgent activities globally.
- Caudill, Dylan Lyle, "Blood in the Boondocks: American Counterinsurgency Strategy in the Philippine War, 1899-1902," SAASS thesis, 2025, 110 pgs.
- Caudill provides insights into the operational and strategic concepts of irregular warfare, specifically addressing the conditions that aid or impede winning. He asserts that success in irregular warfare is not guaranteed by adhering to a fixed, doctrinally pure model, but rather by demonstrating strategic agility and the capacity to adapt to the shifting character of the insurgency on the ground. In the Philippine campaign, winning was aided by the US military's ability to pivot from a conventional campaign into a decentralized effort, operating from small, vulnerable outposts across archipelagic terrain to disrupt insurgent networks at their roots. Conversely, he notes that winning is impeded when militaries succumb to political or institutional restraints that discourage intimate community engagement, demonstrating that the fundamental strategic concept of establishing and maintaining control over an insurgent population remains as relevant today as it was in 1899.
- Davenport, Maj. Tyler, "Winning without Fighting: Lessons from China's Irregular Warfare Strategy," AFGC thesis, 2025.
- Answered by Davenport's finding that the U.S. military has historically underutilized irregular warfare (IW), remaining anchored in a conventional, kinetic warfare model while failing to sustain population-centric campaigns due to a lack of long-term strategic planning and a focus on short-term results. To address this strategic vulnerability, he recommends that the United States proactively implement a whole-of-government IW doctrine that integrates diplomatic, military, economic, and informational tools. He explains that the Joint Force can leverage its unique advantages, such as partner-led "advise, train, and equip" missions and private-sector collaborations, to conduct asymmetric, non-attributional operations below the threshold of open conflict. This approach allows the U.S. to achieve its strategic objectives while maintaining international legitimacy and minimizing the risk of escalating into direct peer-to-peer military confrontation.
- Fritz, Maj. Matthew H., "China's Irregular Mace: An Undetected War with the US," GCPME paper, 2024, 38 pgs.
- Johansen, Lt. Col. Andreas (Norwegian AF), "Doctrine: For the Command or the Commander?" AWC Strategic Studies Paper, 2020, 28 pgs.
- Moreno, Maj. Aaron M., "Reprioritizing the Special Operations Force to Face the Global Power of China," AFGC thesis, 2025.
- Moreno answers this by arguing that SOF must transition away from its two-decade focus on counterterrorism (CT) and direct action to reprioritize irregular warfare (IW), unconventional warfare (UW), and gray-zone tactics for Great Power Competition (GPC) against China. He asserts that the current SOF culture and training are too entrenched in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) mindset, and SOF must adapt its doctrine to act as a supporting element that uses irregular warfare to create time, space, and relative superiority for conventional forces, rather than acting as the primary leading force in a kinetic fight.
- O'Gwin, Lt. Col. Christopher W., "Any Challenge, Any Time, Any Place: Special Operations Forces and Full Spectrum Competition," AWC Strategic Studies Paper, 2020, 31 pgs.
- Portele, Lt. Col. Christopher M., "Light Attack: A Platform for Air Force Special Operations Command," AWC Strategic Studies Paper, 2018, 27 pgs.
- Roman, Lt. Col. Karri A., "Counterinsurgency Is Here to Stay," AWC Strategic Studies Paper, 2020, 17 pgs.
- Thiam, Lt. Col. Babacar (Senegalese AF), "How to Improve Security Assistance for the Sahelian Countries Using Lessons Learned from Previous U.S. SOF Engagements in the Region, Case Study Mali," AWC Strategic Studies paper, 2017, 40 pgs.
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- Belcher, Brandon, "Special Operations in Somalia: Strategies for Success in the Horn of Africa," AFGC thesis, 2025, 36 pgs.
- Belcher notes that while SOF's historic utility in Somalia has relied heavily on direct action missions and remote drone strikes for decapitation strategies, these methods cannot solve a long-term insurgency alone. Instead, he suggests SOF should utilize Civil Affairs Operations (CAO) by engaging directly with trusted clan leadership. Because Somalis prioritize clan identity over national identity, Belcher argues that a bottom-up approach—treating each region as its own entity to establish local governance—has a higher utility for rooting out al-Shabaab than trying to force a westernized central government upon the population.
- Bendokas, Maj. Jehon N., "OA-1K SKYRAIDER II: How AFSOF Airpower Will Redefine the Strategic Environment," AFGC thesis, 2025, 32 pgs.
- Bendokas argues that SOF and the OA-1K play a decisive, cost-effective role in the "gray zone" (below the threshold of armed conflict). By utilizing the aircraft's modular payload capabilities for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), close air support (CAS), and psychological operations (PSYOPS), SOF can deter adversaries and manage crises without escalating to large-scale confrontation. Furthermore, employing the OA-1K in this manner frees up the military's expensive, niche conventional aircraft to focus solely on pacing threats and high-end conflicts.
- Brewer, Capt. Jonathan T., "Beyond the Endgame: Sustaining SOF Success with Infinite Game Tactics," AF Global College, 2025, 46 pgs.
- Flori, Alexander D., "'Back to the Future': Using History to Define the Key Characteristics of Special Operations Aviation," SAASS thesis, 2025, 114 pgs.
- Flori answers this by directly analyzing Cold War-era conflicts—specifically the Korean War and the Vietnam War, alongside World War II—to establish the "value proposition" and "strategic utility" of SOF aviation. He answers the question of utility by concluding that SOF aviation historically provides policymakers and joint force planners with two master claims of strategic utility: "economy of force" (achieving significant results with limited forces) and "expansion of choice" (broadening options without escalating to total war). He demonstrates that this utility is achieved by operating from austere fields, tailoring capabilities to specific missions, and working interdependently with allies and partners.
- Lutz, Conrad, "Next Generation ISR Dominance: Utilizing Lessons Learned from SOF ISR TTPs in the Global War on Terror for a Near-Peer Conflict," SOS AUAR 2021, 11 pgs.
- Roman, Lt. Col. Karri A., "Counterinsurgency Is Here to Stay," AWC Strategic Studies Paper, 2020, 17 pgs.
- Towal, Maj. Erik, "A Rheostat of Utility: The Value Proposition of Special Operations in Past, Present and Future Conflict," SAASS thesis, 2022, 121 pgs.
- Moreno, Maj. Aaron M., "Reprioritizing the Special Operations Force to Face the Global Power of China," AFGC thesis, 2025.
- Moreno answers this by stating that SOF must prioritize strategic influence, foreign internal defense (FID), and special reconnaissance over its legacy counterterrorism missions. He highlights that SOF's ability to maintain a far-reaching global footprint and secure influence with partner states is crucial for ensuring access and placement in the Indo-Pacific region, which directly enables the joint force to project power, conduct training operations, and deter Chinese expansion in the gray zone.