The SOE has renewed its focus on irregular and unconventional warfare. How can SOF better understand, articulate, and operationalize irregular and unconventional warfare campaigns? What is the relationship between irregular warfare, unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, security force assistance, and security cooperation? How can SOF and conventional forces best work together in these areas? Are there gaps in our knowledge of how to carry out irregular and unconventional warfare campaigning? Does current SOF training and education about these types of warfare need to be updated? Have new technologies like satellite and internet communication and inexpensive, highly capable weapons, such as remotely piloted vehicles, caused changes in the ways in which irregular and unconventional warfare can be carried out, or do operational and strategic concepts remain the same? Can SOF’s recent experiences with counter-violent extremist organizations (CVEO) operations provide ideas for how to disrupt adversarial actors?
Within irregular warfare, what is a ‘win’? Is ‘win’ the right framing term? What conditions will aid/impede winning? Is it possible to win without fighting? What is the SOF role within irregular warfare? How does that role vary based on geography, adversary, level of conflict, and other variables? Within an environment of strategic competition, how can SOF identify, train, and coordinate networks to deny, degrade, and influence adversary irregular warfare efforts? Historically, when has unconventional warfare been effective in coercing, disrupting, and overthrowing regimes? How does unconventional warfare campaigning interact, or conflict, with concepts of strategic competition and strategic patience? Does the time required for a successful unconventional warfare campaign hinder its ability to be coordinated with conventional warfare campaigns? If so, how can this be mitigated?
Security cooperation, to include security assistance and foreign internal defense, has a role to play within both irregular and unconventional warfare. What is SOF’s role in security cooperation, and how can SOF best integrate or coordinate with conventional forces engaged in security cooperation in the same theater? Are there changes required to security cooperation authorities and practices for SOF? What are ways in which adversaries have, or might seek to, hinder security cooperation efforts?
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.