How Does SOF Conduct Deliberate and Dynamic Targeting as a Function in Large-Scale Combat Operations

Historically, SOF have been required to plan both strategic and mobile targets that require a different approach or set of conditions beyond the capability of conventional forces. Historic examples include the Office of Strategic Services’ use of partisan forces in WWII to target key lines of communication and the use of SOF during Operation DESERT STORM to target SCUD transporter-erector-launcher systems conducting strikes against Israel with the intent to fracture the alliance. What is SOF’s role in LSCO for the conduct of fires to achieve effects on priority targets in JADO and the JWC?

• Bañez,, Col. Justin, "Evaluating Air Force Special Warfare for the Contested Fight: Kill Chain Advantages as a Stand-In Force," AF Fellows (Institute for Defense Analysis), 2025.
  • Addresses this by proposing that AFSPECWAR shift from its post-9/11 counterterrorism focus to become a prominent asymmetric capability in Great Power Competition against peer adversaries like China and Russia. He asserts that SOF's utility in strategic competition lies in their ability to penetrate adversary defenses, provide persistent forward sensing, and act as the connective tissue for multi-domain (air, ground, space, cyber) integration independent of established airbases. To research and validate these capabilities, he evaluates AFSPECWAR's recent performance in large-scale combat exercises—such as Bamboo Eagle, Emerald Warrior, and Weapons School Integration—which demonstrate how these ground elements successfully provide durable, resilient tactical battle management and target acquisition to support the broader joint force strategy,
• Cumming, Maj. Evan A., "Unleashing Air Force Offensive Ground Operators in Ace against Near=Peer Adversaries," AFGC thesis, 2025.
  • Cumming addresses this question by exploring how Air Force Special Warfare (AFSPECWAR) operators must pivot from their traditional counterinsurgency and close air support roles to conduct deep penetration, infiltration, and sensing operations in a near-peer, large-scale combat operations (LSCO) environment. He argues that these specialized ground operators serve as forward enablers who infiltrate behind contested lines to proactively sense, target, and sabotage critical adversary anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) nodes, such as mobile surface-to-air missile sites and radar networks. By leveraging their low physical signature and providing "on-the-ground" reconnaissance, AFSPECWAR teams can feed precise, near-real-time targeting intelligence into the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) network, effectively shortening the kill chain and generating dynamic targeting opportunities for joint strike assets even in denied or degraded environments.
• Reddy, B. Karthik Narayan, "Reformulating the Center of Gravity from Airpower's Perspective: Understanding Airpower's Quest for Credible Operational Effect through Targeting," SAASS thesis, 2025.
  • Challenges the classical military myth of a singular, magical COG, arguing that modern, multi-spectrum conflicts are too structurally complex to hinge on a single knockout blow. Instead, Reddy advocates for a multiple-COG framework, treating the adversary as an interdependent system of physical and moral power nodes. By applying a recursive, structured model of Joe Strange’s critical capabilities, requirements, and vulnerabilities (CC-CR-CV), joint planners can systematically map the enemy's system across the strategic and operational levels. This methodology successfully translates high-level operational vulnerabilities into concrete, tactical Designated Mean Points of Impact (DMPIs), enabling parallel and synchronized strikes that bypass traditional physical defenses to induce systemic collapse.