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Unmanned Systems and Army Special Forces

 

Maj. John W. Kowalski, US Army National Guard

 

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As the United States shifts away from the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) into strategic competition, all military services are, rightly, evaluating how they man, train, and equip themselves for a near-peer conflict. Army Special Forces (SF) are no exception. Army SF operational detachment-alphas (ODA) delivered strategic effects from the first days and across multiple theaters of the GWOT.¹ However, much has changed about the character of war since the “horse soldiers” rode into Mazar-i-Sharif.² Nowhere is this character change clearer than in the evolution and availability of unmanned technology. Technology that was largely the realm of intelligence agencies at the start of the GWOT is now accessible in bulk and at low cost to hobbyists around the world.³ Given the increasing prevalence and impact of unmanned technology in multiple active combat zones, US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) should acknowledge that their units of action must change as well. Increasing integration of unmanned systems (UXS) into ODAs will help posture Army special operations forces (ARSOF) to support joint operations and deliver strategic effects in future strategic competition through unconventional statecraft, maritime trade warfare, and distributed maritime operations. This increased integration should include the addition of an unmanned systems NCO to the ODA task organization (bringing the doctrinal size from twelve to fourteen), and the growth of the Remote Unmanned Systems Integration Course (RUSIC) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, into a center of excellence (COE).

Contemporary Unmanned Warfare

Drone warfare has evolved quickly in the twenty-first century. The United States first deployed lethal munitions from a drone in Afghanistan on 4 February 2002, targeting Osama bin Laden but instead killing one of his top lieutenants.⁴ Seven months later, the Central Intelligence Agency killed the mastermind of the USS Cole attack with a Predator drone strike in Yemen, the first lethal strike outside Afghanistan.⁵ By 2016, the Islamic State was dropping munitions on coalition forces in Iraq from commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) drones.⁶ Today, UXS feature prominently in multiple conflicts and are increasingly employed at scale by both state and nonstate actors. Examining their use is instructive for ARSOF to prepare to employ and defend against UXS in future conflicts. Insights can be drawn from the war in Ukraine, Iranian-backed militias, and the Myanmar civil war.

In 2024, Ukraine built two million drones; America currently has the capacity to build one hundred thousand a year.⁷ Russia has largely kept pace; Ukraine observes one thousand Russian drones in the air every hour.⁸ All of this indicates that for maneuver forces in a UXS fight, quantity may be more important than quality. Defending against a threat of this volume is challenging, if not impossible. Not surprisingly, most damage and casualties on both sides of the war in Ukraine are now inflicted by UXS. “A medic working around Pokrovsk said roughly 70% of the Ukrainian casualties in the area come from drone strikes.”⁹ And the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) recently stated that tactical drones “are now responsible for 60-70% of damaged and destroyed Russian systems.”¹⁰ Further, Ukraine has become a proving ground for the latest UXS tactics. In December 2024, Ukraine’s 13th National Guard Brigade Khartiya launched an all-UXS attack on a Russian position north of Kharkiv. The attack featured unmanned aircraft (UA) dropping munitions and unmanned ground vehicles with mounted machine guns or packed with explosives.¹¹ Though further development is needed, especially to the unmanned ground vehicles, conducting combined arms operations without exposing soldiers to direct fire could be a differentiating advantage in a conflict, especially for a country with a five-to-one disadvantage in manpower.¹² Thus the war in Ukraine has shown how rapidly the drone problem will scale up in a state-on-state conflict, how deadly the threat will be to manpower and materiel, and how quickly the tactics will evolve with the technology.

Iran-backed militias’ use of UXS offers lessons about the strategic impact nonstate actors can have when armed with UXS. Since November 2023, the Houthis have attacked more than 130 ships, sinking two and hijacking one.¹³ These attacks have come despite intense and ongoing US efforts to stop them, including downing more than 450 Houthi drones.¹⁴ Not surprisingly, the volume of cargo passing through the Red Sea has fallen by two-thirds since the attacks began. However, ships are not targeted at random, and the economic impacts have not landed evenly. Chinese shipping through the Red Sea has increased from less than 15 percent to over 20 percent since the attacks began, and Russia sends over two million barrels per day of crude oil through the Suez Canal.¹⁵ The common factors here are not only both countries’ ties to Iran, but that both Russia and China also provide targeting data to the Houthis.¹⁶ The relevant lesson is the asymmetric impact the Houthis have. From a ragtag group of rebels that barely existed at the start of the twenty-first century, they have grown into a regional threat drawing support from all three of America’s primary global rivals.¹⁷ This growth of influence was largely enabled by Iran training and equipping the Houthis with UXS. To Iran, the Houthi’s value proposition is clear. For relatively low cost, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has effectively denied Western shipping access to the Red Sea and Suez Canal.¹⁸ Herein, the Houthi case offers value for the future UXS fight. For minimal cost, a proxy force equipped with relatively basic UXS can deny access to vital shipping routes despite significant efforts from advanced militaries to counter them.

Other examples of UXS use offer valuable insight as well. In Myanmar, the “military ousted the country’s elected government in a coup” in 2021.¹⁹ Since then, a civil war has raged as pro-democracy advocates joined “with ethnic militias that have been battling government forces for decades and launched an insurgency against the ruling generals.”²⁰ By May 2024, the military junta controlled less than half the country, and some analysts assessed its downfall was imminent.²¹ Much of this ground was gained during “Operation 1027,” which began in October 2023 when “the Brotherhood Alliance, a rebel coalition of three ethnic militias, dropped some twenty-five thousand munitions using drones.”²² Given the force multiplier effect UA provide, this is not surprising. However, the lesson is in the junta’s response. They quickly adapted, ordering two thousand to three thousand agricultural drones from China in early 2024, and reconnaissance and kamikaze drones and jamming devices from Russia. Further, their “Drone Force Directorate” recently unveiled homemade loitering munitions.²³ Their more prescient, if not more effective, tactic was to target the rebels’ drone supply. The junta leveraged its ties to China who, at the junta’s request, “tightened its export controls, choking off rebels’ supply of parts and off-the-shelf drones.”²⁴ All this has allowed the junta to grind much of the rebels’ progress to a halt. This example highlights the impressive ability of UXS to quickly change the momentum of a conflict once introduced. More importantly though, it underscores the criticality of building redundant supply lines when designing a drone-warfare campaign or training a partner force to design one. Lastly, it shows there are currently nonstate actors fighting against China-aligned enemies, who would welcome, and benefit from, access to UXS training and equipping.

In summary, several emerging trends and opportunities indicate that UXS employment on and off the battlefield is changing the character of warfare. In a future war, technology will appear and scale up rapidly, produce most of the loss to maneuver units, and require quick adjustment of tactics to match the technological evolution. Regional nonstate actors with no naval force can achieve partial sea denial against world-class militaries. Finally, opportunities exist today for ARSOF-provided UXS warfare training to create challenges for China-aligned and supported governments.

History of ODAs and UXS

Before examining the details and benefits of UXS integration into ODAs, one should understand the history and force design of the ODA as USASOC’s unit of action and how USASOC has already begun to address the need for further UXS integration. Specifically, this section will detail the ODA structure’s evolution over time, and more importantly, how it has become undersized for a future conflict. Further, encouraging trends are emerging that indicate USASOC understands changes are needed.

The current doctrinal ODA composition has been unchanged since 1984.²⁵ It includes a commander, assistant commander, operations sergeant, intelligence sergeant, and two of each of the following: weapons sergeant, engineer sergeant, medical sergeant, and communications sergeant. Between the creation of the first Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Operational Group in 1943 and the adoption of its current structure, the ODA has ranged in size from twelve to fifteen people, “depending upon era and contemporary doctrine and force structure requirements.”²⁶ Given this relatively small size, the ODA’s primary value proposition is as a force multiplier to a partner force on missions that fit within SF’s principal tasks including unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, counterinsurgency, and security force assistance.²⁷ This value was rooted in the regional and technical expertise organic to the ODA because that expertise enabled it to train and enable partner forces to complete missions they otherwise could not.²⁸ For that expertise to remain relevant, USASOC must ensure its ODAs are adapted to the current battlefield.

The current ODA was well built for its time and enabled USASOC to deliver significant effects throughout the GWOT. However, the ARSOF community has recently acknowledged that a new force structure may be needed. In 2022, USASOC piloted the “convergence” ODA concept, realigning SF companies to comprise four 16-man ODAs.²⁹ Though ultimately abandoned, this experiment encouragingly indicates a willingness to change at the senior ranks. This willingness was captured succinctly when then–USASOC commander Lt. Gen. Jon Braga, discussing the convergence ODA, said, “If we have deployed for 20 years—never as is—is our force design correct? I think [the question] answers itself.”³⁰

Rarely during the GWOT did ODAs deploy without attachments and enablers.³¹ These enablers, like military information support operations (MISO) and civil affairs specialists, Air Force joint terminal air controllers (JTAC), and various signals intelligence military occupational specialties (MOS), were necessary because the twenty-first-century battlefield is more complex than in 1984. However, their primary task was supporting the ODA, not a partner force. While all members of an ODA are selected for their physical strength and mental acuity, and they are highly trained in foreign cultures and language, small unit tactics, and (most importantly) the ability to train others, enablers are not. Simply, this is because partner forces during the GWOT did not need to be JTACs or MISO experts, and enabler packages could be tailored to the ODA’s need based on individual deployments.³² However, UXS expertise does not fit the same mold as GWOT-era enablers because partner forces will need the same caliber training in UXS that they receive in weapons, engineering, medical care, and communication. Given the changing character of war, UXS expertise is, and will remain, necessary at the ODA level.

Recent developments suggest USASOC is moving in the right direction. The first of these is the creation of the Remote and Unmanned Systems Integration Course at the Army’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. This six-week course began in 2023 and intends to train ninety-six students per year. The topics covered include Federal Aviation Administration drone regulations, flying in electronic-warfare-contested environments, counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS), homemade drone construction, and practical exercises.³³ The second encouraging development is the creation of a robotics and autonomous systems warrant officer MOS. This new warrant officer will “possess technical expertise when it comes to robots and autonomous systems,” and will “be dedicated to incorporating robots and autonomous systems into military operations.”³⁴ Both of these steps are encouraging, and when asked during Senate Armed Services Committee testimony what he is doing to “integrate high tech capabilities like AI, cyber, and electronic warfare more effectively,” then–USSOCOM commander Gen. Bryan Fenton pointed to these two USASOC efforts.³⁵ Still, opportunities remain. RUSIC’s six-week duration and ninety-six students per year capacity are not sufficient to produce the number of qualified UXS experts needed. The robotics and autonomous systems warrant officer may be recruited from SF-qualified personnel, but the MOS designator “390A” indicates it is not restricted to SF-qualified applicants. Further, neither the press release nor Fenton’s testimony state USASOC’s intent is to institutionalize the expertise on every ODA. Therefore, these developments are necessary and encouraging first steps, but more work must be done.

In conclusion, ARSOF and the ODA have undergone a myriad of changes since their inception owing to political, economic, social, and technical changes.³⁶ As the character of warfare changes, units of action must change with it. USASOC has begun to move in the right direction, but as the following section will detail, further integration of UXS into the ODA is necessary.

Benefits of ODA UXS Integration

Increasing UXS knowledge, experience, and tactics integration into ODAs will benefit the joint force by providing additional options to commanders and policymakers. These additional options will enhance ARSOF’s ability to deliver strategic effects in strategic competition. UXS-proficient ODAs provide additional options for unconventional statecraft, maritime trade warfare, and distributed maritime operations.

“Unconventional statecraft” is a nebulous term by design. The United States does not doctrinally define activities that constitute unconventional statecraft, but it is generally understood to include things like influence campaigns, private-sector engagement, cyber tools, certain economic sanctions, or special operations.³⁷ Unconventional statecraft may take place during armed conflict but should certainly take place in competition below armed conflict, and in so doing supports the Joint Concept for Integrating Campaigning.³⁸ Simply put, effective unconventional statecraft creates challenges for our competitors. ODAs do this around the world every day. However, to effectively create challenges for competitors, ODAs must maintain proficiency in the latest technology. UXS technology now affords ODAs new opportunities to support the joint force with unconventional statecraft against our primary strategic competitor, China.

As previously discussed, pro-democracy groups and ethnic militias are currently resisting the military junta in Myanmar. With the loss of access to Chinese-supplied UAS parts and now losing ground to the junta’s effective UAS use, the rebels present an excellent opportunity for ODAs to provide C-UAS training and assist in establishing new durable and redundant supply lines. In isolation, assisting rebels fighting a military junta may be of limited strategic value, but China has not welcomed a growing pro-democracy movement in a border country. Further, as will be discussed, a UXS-proficient proxy force provides other options as well.

A second opportunity to leverage a UXS-trained proxy force to create a challenge for China is by targeting their deep-water fishing fleet and their illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing. “With about 3,000 ships, China has built the world’s largest deep-water fishing fleet which allows it to operate in international waters and to encroach on other countries’ territorial waters.”³⁹ In addition to decimating fisheries and the economies of the littoral states that rely on them, Chinese IUU “fishing vessels are often used to smuggle people, drugs, and weapons, and to conduct spy missions and gather intelligence, which is particularly concerning given the widespread presence of China’s fishing fleet.”⁴⁰ “In 2020, the commandant of the US Coast Guard (USCG) proclaimed ‘IUU fishing has replaced piracy as the leading global maritime security threat.’”⁴¹ This IUU fishing goes on largely uncontested because the nations impacted are often incapable of preventing it. However, if ODAs could train navies, coast guards, police forces, and militias in affected states to target the Chinese fleet with basic COTS UAS (as well as surface and subsurface vehicles), China would be forced to choose between providing additional security for their fleets or abandoning certain fishing grounds. Local forces, historically unable to match the Chinese coast guard ships that often escort the fleets, would benefit from the relative safety and anonymity of targeting IUU fishing vessels from miles away. Given the importance of fishing to the Chinese population and economy, and by extension to the Chinese Communist Party, any degradation of the fleet would be a significant strategic challenge.⁴²

Maritime trade warfare and distributed maritime operations are distinct topics that, in certain contexts, would merit separate analysis. To explore how UXS-integrated ODAs can support these concepts, it makes sense to examine them together. Maritime trade warfare has evolved in practice over time. However, the best definition may come from Milan Vego, who states, “The principal objective in an attack on the enemy maritime trade is to destroy or neutralize the enemy’s ability to use its military and commercial shipping […] in support of the war effort.”⁴³ Certain states are more vulnerable to maritime trade warfare than others, based on their economic reliance on seaborne trade. Given China’s economic reliance on exports and dependence on foreign fossil fuels, parts of their economy are exposed to maritime trade warfare.⁴⁴

As the Navy and Marine Corps explored distributed maritime operations and expeditionary advanced based operations (EABO), respectively, the Army enhanced its doctrine to better consider maritime, littoral, and archipelagic environments.⁴⁵ In the western Pacific, all services recognize that dispersal of land and maritime forces will increase survivability, but the Marine Corps’ EABO offers the best theory to enable maritime trade warfare against China.⁴⁶ “EABO are a form of expeditionary warfare that involve the employment of mobile, low-signature, persistent, and relatively easy to maintain and sustain … expeditionary forces from a series of austere, temporary locations ashore or inshore within a … potentially contested maritime area in order to conduct sea denial, [or] support sea control.”⁴⁷ This offers an excellent framework for UXS-integrated ODAs to engage in maritime trade warfare.

As the Houthi case demonstrates, loosely organized militias armed and trained with rudimentary UXS technology can achieve partial or full sea denial at critical choke points.⁴⁸ Applying this same concept at the Straits of Malacca, Lombok, and Sunda (and other key chokepoints) would significantly disrupt maritime trade into and out of China. If UXS-integrated ODAs build partnerships and train forces to resist juntas and disrupt IUU, those forces could be rapidly employed to target Chinese maritime trade in and around the South China Sea. These forces must be built at scale, distributed, and kept current on the latest UXS hardware; tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs); and procurement options. To achieve this, UXS-integrated ODAs must be deployed at scale.

The above is not an exhaustive discussion of the benefits of increased UXS integration into ODAs. Rather, it sought to demonstrate that viable use cases currently exist for partner forces, trained by ODAs, to employ low-tech COTS technology to support the joint force with strategic effects both in competition below armed conflict and above the threshold of armed conflict. Given the current trajectory of UXS technology in cost, availability, and utility, it is a virtual certainty that potential use cases will increase. While the Army and USASOC are making significant efforts to increase UXS proficiency and integration, at present, USSOCOM could not deploy large numbers of UXS skilled trainers nor support them with doctrine and lessons learned from other theaters.⁴⁹ This critical shortfall must be addressed.

Recommendation

The two best ways that USASOC can address the issues raised in this paper are to create an unmanned systems NCO (18G) and add the MOS to the ODA task organization (bringing the doctrinal size from twelve to fourteen), and grow RUSIC into a COE.

The concept of an 18G on an ODA is not new. Braga and Maj. Gen. Gil Ferguson (1st Special Forces commander) have both discussed the idea publicly.⁵⁰ Further, with near prophetic foresight, retired Col. Mark Mitchell, former horse soldier and future assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, proposed it in an academic paper in 2008.⁵¹ The necessity for the new MOS is simple. In the same way that partner forces require training and expertise in weapons, engineering, medical care, and communication, they will all need training in UXS. When an ODA deploys, it brings certain tactical and technical core competencies by virtue of the MOSs that comprise the team. Some SF soldiers and ODAs today have significant UXS expertise. However, others have none, and there is no mechanism to ensure every ODA carries the same baseline level of UXS knowledge when it deploys. This must be rectified by adding UXS as a core competency and MOS to all ODAs.

Centers of excellence provide the Army and the joint force centralized locations to study, produce, and refine TTPs and doctrine to ensure service members learn and employ best practices in their fields. RUSIC has already begun the process, and as Fenton indicated in his recent testimony, USASOC is leading the way in UXS integration into SOF.⁵² Given this, USASOC should expand RUSIC into a joint special operations unmanned systems COE. This COE would serve several functions. First it would provide basic MOS-qualifier training for 18G soldiers during the MOS phase of the Special Forces Qualification Course. Second, it would provide advanced training to senior 18Gs in the same way that other MOSs attend advanced skills training in their assigned tasks. These advanced skills training opportunities should be open to SOF soldiers across the joint force. Third, it will collect and analyze instances of novel UXS technology and tactics observed by SOF elements deployed around the world. This repository will ensure ODAs stay current on the latest UXS technology in their areas of responsibility but can also reveal previously unknown links between threat networks, as similar technology and doctrine is a strong statistical indicator of networked violent nonstate actors.⁵³ Fourth, it will produce the doctrine needed to enable USASOC and USSOCOM to maximize the effectiveness of UXS across the competition continuum. Lastly, it would provide subject-matter-expert exchanges with similar schools in allied and partnered militaries, like the one recently opened in Taiwan.⁵⁴ All these functions are vital to enable USASOC to better integrate UXS into ODAs. RUSIC is an excellent foundation to build on, but given the growing scope of UXS warfare, significantly more resources must be allocated to understanding and training for competition and conflict in a UXS-saturated environment.

Counterargument: An Already Understrength Force

Some would argue that adding more capability to the ODA sounds great in theory but is infeasible in practice. The obstacles to implementing this idea include an already overstretched SOF population and persistent recruiting shortfalls for the current force. Creating a new MOS, and a requirement to add two soldiers to each ODA, would place undue stress on the formation, add to the existing manning shortfall inside ARSOF, and fail to produce the effects described in this article.

USASOC has long been plagued by the same recruiting shortfalls that have bedeviled the conventional force. “The service [Army] has come up hundreds of Special Forces soldiers short of its goals each year since at least 2018, with one exception, based on the internal data.”⁵⁵ Additionally, SF applicants are failing at a higher rate today than in the first decade of the GWOT, according to the same data.⁵⁶ This persistent recruiting shortfall manifests itself in the form of understrength teams, or “ghost teams,” where an entire ODA is cannibalized to fill out the other five ODAs in an SF company. This shortfall also helps explain how roughly one-third of the recent SOF personnel reductions were to positions that were already vacant.⁵⁷ SOF should focus on solving its current recruiting and retention crisis before it adds new positions to its formations.

Despite having largely wound down the majority of GWOT missions, the operational tempo for USASOC and ODAs remains unchanged, if not accelerated. This demand, coupled with the years of missed recruiting quotas, places an increased burden on ARSOF and prevents the United States from deploying ODAs everywhere they are needed. During his recent congressional testimony, Fenton highlighted this critical shortfall and the risk incurred from USSOCOM’s inability to meet theater special operations commanders’ requests for ODAs. He indicated that at least forty-one times in the past year, he could not fill a request for ODAs because USSOCOM did not have the forces available to meet it.⁵⁸ Given the existing operational tempo and strain on the formation, now is not the right time to create a new schoolhouse and pull experienced Green Berets from the formation to staff it.

Rebuttal

It is true that ARSOF, like the conventional Army and other branches, has failed to meet recruiting goals recently.⁵⁹ It is also true that USASOC formations are understrength and overworked. Finally, enacting the recommendations made in this article would be resource intensive and time consuming. However, no one should conclude from these facts that adding an 18G to the ODA and expanding RUSIC are the wrong decisions. While the above counterargument correctly identifies important challenges, it draws the wrong conclusion in two critical ways. The first is that the United States should design its military to address the demands of the current threat landscape rather than as a function of the current size of the formation. The second is that adding a pathway into SF for UXS and tech-interested candidates will generate a pipeline of high-caliber individuals into the growing body of non-SF UXS MOSs the Army will need to fill over the next few years, and thus it will serve as a recruiting enhancer.

A nation builds a military to fight and win its wars. As the nation’s understanding of current and future conflicts evolves, the military should evolve with it. ARSOF’s recent force reduction reflected an understanding that it needs to pivot away from GWOT-era counterterrorism missions and devote resources to be better postured for strategic competition.⁶⁰ Throughout history, formations, technology, and platforms have been added and removed from the military as their relevance and impact evolved. At several points in our history, the need for manpower was so great that America resorted to compulsory service. At no point in our history has a service forgone a critical capability simply because it would be challenging to recruit for. To adopt that rationale at this juncture would be a grave error. The conventional Army recognizes this and will begin adding UXS-operators to its units of action as soon as 2026.⁶¹ ARSOF should also be increasing UXS integration into its units of action. Manning shortfalls will be difficult to overcome, but they should not govern the composition of the force USASOC designs for the next challenge.

The Army’s 18X program expanded rapidly during the GWOT. It allowed enlistees to have the option to attend Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS) written into their enlistment contract, provided they met certain physical and other standards. Today, 18X enlistees “make up over 50% of the force.”⁶² This program also has a high attrition rate. However, soldiers who failed to meet all the standards of SFAS or Special Forces Qualification Course still provide value to the Army in many other MOSs, and they usually can attend SFAS again. Given the variety of tactical-level UXS skills needed across the force, the Army should be looking for every possible opportunity to attract technology-focused recruits. An 18G hopeful who fails SFAS could still offer the Army a high-quality UXS soldier, like any other 18X-program failure. Further, a new SF unmanned systems NCO could be a creative way to attract more young people to ARSOF and the Army writ large.

Conclusion

Given the increasing prevalence of UXS in multiple active combat zones, USSOCOM and USASOC should acknowledge that their units of action must change. This article advocated for increasing integration of UXS into ODAs to help posture ARSOF to support joint operations and deliver strategic effects in future strategic competition through unconventional statecraft, maritime trade warfare, and distributed maritime operations. As part of this integration, this article recommended adding an unmanned systems NCO to the ODA task organization (bringing the doctrinal size from twelve to fourteen) and the growing RUSIC into a COE. Finally, increased integration, implemented through these recommendations, will help USASOC support recent secretary of defense, secretary of the Army, and chief of staff of Army directives regarding Army transformation and acquisition reform, and the “Army Transformation Initiative.”

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Notes

1. Doug Stanton, Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan (Scribner, 2009), 48; Nick Turse et al., “Exclusive: Inside the Secret World of US Commandos in Africa,” Pulitzer Center, 11 August 2020, https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/exclusive-inside-secret-world-us-commandos-africa; David S. Maxwell, “Operation Enduring Freedom—Philippines: What Would Sun Tzu Say?,” Military Review 84, no. 3 (May-June 2004): 20, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/Archives/English/100-Landing/Topics-Interest/Deployments/docs/Operation%20Enduring%20Freedom-2004.pdf; Christopher E. Howard, “To Baghdad and Beyond: ARSOF in Operation Iraqi Freedom,” Veritas 20 (February 2024): 50–54, https://arsof-history.org/articles/24feb_to_baghdad_and_beyond_page_1.html; Michael M. Phillips, “In Syria’s Hinterlands, the US Wages a Hidden Campaign Against a Resurgent Islamic State,” Wall Street Journal, 12 August 2024, https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/in-syrias-hinterlands-the-u-s-wages-a-hidden-campaign-against-a-resurgent-islamic-state-f22c44df?.
2. Stanton, Horse Soldiers, 252.
3. Roger Connor, “The Predator, a Drone That Transformed Military Combat,” Smithsonian, 9 March 2018, https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/predator-drone-transformed-military-combat.
4. “Predator a Lethal Eye in the Sky,” CNN, 5 November 2002, https://www.cnn.com/2002/US/11/04/predator.background/?utm_.
5. Mark Mazzetti, The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth (Penguin Press, 2013), 87.
6. Don Rassler, The Islamic State and Drones: Supply, Scale, and Future Threats (Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, July 2018), 1, https://ctc.westpoint.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Islamic-State-and-Drones-Release-Version.pdf.
7. Heather Somerville, “America Turns to Ukraine to Build Better Drones,” Wall Street Journal, 11 March 2025, https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-drones-american-defense-tech-startups-25f1fe92?.
8. “How Ukraine Uses Cheap AI-Guided Drones to Deadly Effect Against Russia,” Economist, 2 December 2024, https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/12/02/how-ukraine-uses-cheap-ai-guided-drones-to-deadly-effect-against-russia.
9. Ian Lovett and Nikita Nikolaienko, “It’s Russian Men Against Ukrainian Machines on the Battlefields in Ukraine,” Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2025, https://www.wsj.com/world/its-russian-men-against-ukrainian-machines-on-the-battlefields-in-ukraine-fcbe1592?.
10. “Ukraine’s Embrace of Drone Warfare Has Paid Off,” Economist, 12 March 2025, https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2025/03/12/ukraines-embrace-of-drone-warfare-has-paid-off.
11. Alistair MacDonald, “All-Robot Assault Opens New Chapter in Front-Line Warfare,” Wall Street Journal, 17 March 2025, https://www.wsj.com/world/all-robot-assault-opens-new-chapter-in-front-line-warfare-5f29d4ca?.
12. MacDonald, “All-Robot Assault Opens New Chapter in Front-Line Warfare.”
13. “America’s Strikes on the Houthis Could Whip Up a Regional Tempest,” Economist, 20 March 2025, https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2025/03/20/americas-strikes-on-the-houthis-could-whip-up-a-regional-tempest; Benoit Faucon and Thomas Grove, “Russia Provided Targeting Data for Houthi Assault on Global Shipping,” Wall Street Journal, 24 October 2024, https://www.wsj.com/world/russia-provided-targeting-data-for-houthi-assault-on-global-shipping-eabc2c2b?.
14. Carrie Keller-Lynn et al., “Israel’s Enemy in Yemen Proves Hard for US to Deter,” Wall Street Journal, 23 December 2024, https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israels-enemy-in-yemen-proves-hard-for-u-s-to-deter-33cad2f3?.
15. “Inside the Houthis’ Moneymaking Machine,” Economist, 18 January 2025, https://www.economist.com/interactive/international/2025/01/18/inside-the-houthis-moneymaking-machine.
16. Faucon and Grove, “Russia Provided Targeting Data”; Sudarsan Raghavan et al., “US Accuses China of Helping the Houthis Target Their Attacks,” Wall Street Journal, 18 April 2025, https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-accuses-china-of-helping-the-houthis-target-their-attacks-e56264da?.
17. “Houthis Take Over,” Economist, 27 September 2014, https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2014/09/27/houthis-take-over.
18. Defense Intelligence Agency, Iran Enabling Houthi Attacks Across the Middle East (Defense Intelligence Agency, February 2024), 3, https://www.dia.mil/Portals/110/Documents/News/Military_Power_Publications/Iran_Houthi_Final2.pdf; Benoit Faucon et al., “Shippers Wary of Red Sea Routes Despite Houthi Pledge to End Targeting,” Wall Street Journal, 27 January 2025, https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/shippers-wary-of-red-sea-routes-despite-houthi-pledge-to-end-targeting-4dde35c2?.
19. Feliz Solomon, “The Brutal War Complicating Myanmar’s Quake Response,” Wall Street Journal, 2 April 2025, https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/the-brutal-war-complicating-myanmars-quake-response-bc810459?.
20. Solomon, “The Brutal War Complicating Myanmar’s Quake Response.”
21. “The Military Dictatorship Controls Less Than 50% of Myanmar,” Economist, 16 May 2024, https://www.economist.com/asia/2024/05/16/the-military-dictatorship-controls-less-than-50-of-myanmar.
22. “Myanmar’s Battered Junta Embraces Drone Warfare,” Economist, 27 March 2025, https://www.economist.com/asia/2025/03/27/myanmars-battered-junta-embraces-drone-warfare.
23. “Myanmar’s Battered Junta Embraces Drone Warfare.”
24. “Myanmar’s Battered Junta Embraces Drone Warfare.”
25. Troy J. Sacquety, “The Evolution of the Special Forces (SF) Operational Detachment-Alpha (ODA),” Veritas 19, no. 1 (2023): 26, https://arsof-history.org/articles/v19n1_evolution_of_the_special_forces_oda_page_1.html.
26. Sacquety, “The Evolution of the Special Forces,” 23.
27. Field Manual (FM) 3-18, Special Forces Operations (US Government Publishing Office [GPO], May 2014), 3-4.
28. FM 3-18, Special Forces Operations, 4-23.
29. Davis Winkie, “Army Special Operations Rethinking Force Structure, Tech,” Army Times, 28 December 2022, https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2022/12/28/army-special-operations-rethinking-force-structure-tech/.
30. Davis Winkie, “Exclusive: Inside the Ongoing ‘Evolution’ of Army Special Operations,” Army Times, 9 November 2022, https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2022/11/09/exclusive-inside-the-ongoing-evolution-of-army-special-operations/.
31. Winkie, “Inside the Ongoing ‘Evolution’ of Army Special Operations.”
32. Eric S. Mann and Max L. Soto, “Special Forces Operational Detachment-A in 2035” (master’s thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, December 2019), 59, https://calhoun.nps.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/adc8f8a1-9e3a-42ff-bc01-a4053d78a0ca/content.
33. Sam Skove, “Army SOF’s New Drone Course Teaches Gamer and Maker Skills,” Defense One, 19 April 2024, https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2024/04/army-sof-use-video-game-skills-launch-drones-strikes-and-more-new-course/395917/.
34. Patty Nieberg, “The Army Is Planning for a New Robotics Technician MOS,” Task & Purpose, 31 October 2024, https://taskandpurpose.com/news/robot-tech-warrant-officer/.
35. United States Special Operations Command in Review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2026 and the Future Years Defense Program, Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities of the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, 119th Cong., 1st sess. (statement of Gen. Bryan P. Fenton, commander, US Special Operations Command), 15, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/4082025etc.pdf.
36. Mann and Soto, Special Forces Operational Detachment-A in 2035, 13–17.
37. Michael N. Schmitt and Andru E. Wall, “The International Law of Unconventional Statecraft,” Harvard National Security Journal 5, no. 2 (2014): 353, https://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Schmitt-Wall-International-Law-of-Unconventional-Statecraft.pdf.
38. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning (Joint Chiefs of Staff, March 2018), 8, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/joint_concept_integrated_campaign.pdf?ver=2018-03-28-102833-257.
39. Frederic Grare and Manish Reuter, “The Battle for the Indian Ocean: How the EU and India Can Strengthen Maritime Security” (European Council on Foreign Relations, 3 August 2023), https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-battle-for-the-indian-ocean-how-the-eu-and-india-can-strengthen-maritime-security/.
40. Grare and Reuter, “The Battle for the Indian Ocean.”
41. Scott C. Apling et al., “Pivoting the Joint Force: National Security Implications of Illegal, Unregulated, and Unreported Fishing,” Joint Force Quarterly 107 (4th Quarter 2022): 94, https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-107/jfq-107_93-101_Apling-et-al.pdf?ver=0QGcidY5V5ChDVHZ6t9pgA%3d%3d.
42. Apling et al., “Pivoting the Joint Force,” 95.
43. Christopher J. McMahon, “Maritime Trade Warfare,” Naval War College Review 70, no. 3 (Summer 2017): 11, https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol70/iss3/3/.
44. “Can Anything Get China’s Shoppers to Spend?,” Economist, 17 March 2025, https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2025/03/17/can-anything-get-chinas-shoppers-to-spend; Jeff Barron, “China’s Crude Oil Imports Decreased from a Record as Refinery Activity Slowed,” Today in Energy, US Energy Information Administration, 11 February 2025, https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64544.
45. FM 3-0, Operations (US GPO, 2025), 180–84.
46. Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Pamphlet 525-3-1, The US Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028 (TRADOC, 2018), 31, https://adminpubs.tradoc.army.mil/pamphlets/TP525-3-1.pdf.
47. US Marine Corps, Tentative Manual for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations, 2nd ed. (Headquarters, US Marine Corps, 2023), 1-2, https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Docs/230509-Tentative-Manual-For-Expeditionary-Advanced-Base-Operations-2nd-Edition.pdf.
48. Geoffrey Till, Seapower: A Guide for the Twenty-First Century, 4th ed. (Routledge, 2018), 193.
49. Michael R. Gordon, “US Army Plans Massive Increase in Its Use of Drones,” Wall Street Journal, 30 April 2025, https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/us-army-drones-shift-20cc5753?.
50. Fran Racioppi, The Jedburgh Podcast, episode 145, “Today’s SOF Challenge—US Army Special Operations Commanding General LTG John Braga,” 4 October 2024, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/145-todays-sof-challenge-us-army-special-operations/id1558608802?i=1000671769658; Fran Racioppi, The Jedburgh Podcast, episode 142, “Lethality, Audacity, Creativity—Leading the Special Forces Regiment—MG Gil Ferguson, Commanding General, 1st Special Forces Command,” 20 July 2024, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/142-lethality-audacity-creativity-leading-the-special/id1558608802?i=1000662815917.
51. Mark E. Mitchell, “Special Forces and The Challenge of Persistent Conflict,” unpublished manuscript, 2008, 6.
52. Matt Mollering and Alyssa Laffer, Irregular Warfare Podcast, episode 106, “Drones, Automation, and How ARSOF Is Adapting,” 30 May 2024, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/drones-automation-and-how-arsof-is-adapting/id1514636385?i=1000657357549.
53. Kerry Chávez and Ori Swed, “The Empirical Determinants of Violent Nonstate Actor Drone Adoption,” Armed Forces & Society 50, no. 4 (2024): 898.
54. Lo Tien-pin and Jake Chung, “Army Inaugurates New Facility for Drone Training,” Taipei Times, 19 January 2025, https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2025/01/19/2003830477; Joyu Wang, “Taiwan’s New Strategy: Make China Fear the Pain of an Invasion,” Wall Street Journal, 10 May 2025, https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/taiwans-new-strategy-make-china-fear-the-pain-of-an-invasion-dfe28815?.
55. Steve Beynon, “Green Berets Have Struggled for Years with Recruiting, Internal Data Shows,” Military.com, 8 June 2023, https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/06/08/green-berets-have-struggled-years-recruiting-internal-data-shows.html.
56. Beynon, “Green Berets Have Struggled for Years.”
57. Lolita C. Baldor, “US Special Operations Leaders Are Having to Do More with Less and Learning from the War in Ukraine,” Associated Press, 12 May 2024, https://apnews.com/article/army-special-forces-troops-cuts-ukraine-lessons-ac7c41d5d9f299fadc96f2c2520c2abf.
58. Fenton, testimony.
59. Lolita C. Baldor, “The Army Is Launching a Sweeping Overhaul of Its Recruiting to Reverse Enlistment Shortfalls,” Associated Press, 3 October 2023, https://apnews.com/article/army-recruiting-overhaul-college-job-hunting-cc2d8200467f3920e333197e42eee2ea; Rikki Schlott, “Military Faces Recruitment Crisis Thanks to ‘Unpatriotic’ Gen Z, Obesity, Therapy Ban,” New York Post, 7 September 2023, https://nypost.com/2023/09/07/military-faces-recruitment-crisis-as-unpatriotic-gen-z-fails-to-join-up/.
60. Baldor, “US Special Operations Leaders Are Having to Do More with Less.”
61. Peter B. Hegseth, memorandum for senior Pentagon leadership, “Army Transformation and Acquisition Reform,” 30 April 2025, https://media.defense.gov/2025/May/01/2003702281/-1/-1/1/ARMY-TRANSFORMATION-AND-ACQUISITION-REFORM.PDF.
62. “Mission, Purpose Drive High Special Operations Retention,” Association of the United States Army, 10 March 2025, https://www.ausa.org/news/mission-purpose-drive-high-special-operations-retention.
63. Hegseth, “Army Transformation and Acquisition Reform”; Randy A. George and Dan Driscoll, “Army Transformation Initiative” (Headquarters, Department of the Army, 1 May 2025), https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2025/05/01/c4c9539c/letter-to-the-force-army-transformation-initiative.pdf.

 

 

 

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May-June 2026