Sabotage for strategic purposes is SOF’s role in large-scale combat operations (LSCO) and can be used to deter conflict. The ability to create a cost-imposing dilemma to oppose adversary coercion or covert/clandestine activity is increasingly relevant. Ultimately, the goal is to set conditions proactively to dictate the terms of an adversary’s next move and/or improve the global security posture of the U.S. around the subject of strategic sabotage. How can SOF effectively employ strategic sabotage to create cost-imposing dilemmas for adversaries below the threshold of armed conflict? What legal and ethical frameworks should guide the use of strategic sabotage as a tool of persistent competition? How can SOF leverage interagency partnerships and foreign proxies to enhance the effectiveness of strategic sabotage operations? How does SOF proactively interdict peer adversary capabilities across diplomatic, information, military, and economic national power in a way that is time sensitive, non-attributable, and below the threshold of conflict? How does SOF, as part of the joint force and in coordination with the interagency and foreign persons and proxies, engage in persistent competition with peer rivals to proactively set conditions to impact adversary decision-making in a way that is time-sensitive, non-lethal, and non-attributive but below the level of armed conflict?
- Bendokas, Maj. Jehon N., "OA-1K SKYRAIDER II: How AFSOF Airpower Will Redefine the Strategic Environment," AFGC thesis, 2025, 32 pgs.
- Bendokas explains that the OA-1K can be used for precision strikes to create cost-imposing dilemmas for adversaries without causing full escalation. By using the aircraft's scalable firepower to precisely target critical infrastructure nodes—such as an adversary's radar systems, weapons caches, or a non-state actor's communication and propaganda facilities—SOF can disrupt enemy operations and send a message of superiority while carefully avoiding the threshold of conventional war.
- Evans, Capt. Stephanie, "Exploiting the Alliance: Identifying Methods for the U.S. to Counteract the Advantages of the Russia-Iran International Partnership," AFGC thesis, 2025, 37 pgs.
- Evans answers this by recommending that the US actively operate within the gray zone to fracture the Russia-Iran alliance using non-attributable cyber and information operations below the threshold of conventional war. To interdict diplomatic and information ties, she suggests utilizing anonymous social media campaigns to highlight the historical distrust and conflicting regional goals between Russia and Iran. To interdict military and economic power, she recommends launching offensive cyber-attacks against the critical infrastructure that supports their military equipment production and economic trade routes. Evans argues that executing these strategies requires the US to shift its policy away from a binary view of war and peace, and instead embrace the conflict continuum to expand its response options.