Shifting SOCOM’s Focus to China, Russia Starts With People: Leaders

• The U.S. military is adapting to what it sees as the two most pressing threats to national security: China and Russia.
• United States Special Operations Command emphasizes the importance of people rather than materiel in its operations.
• Special operators focus on new threats but must nevertheless maintain a counterterrorism posture.

China and Russia. In that order, these two rivals constitute the two most pressing national security threats facing the United States today. Taking note, the U.S. military is adapting to a new era of near-egalitarian warfare against these adversaries after more than 20 years of counterterrorism operations in the Middle East.

As the Army’s spearhead, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is also evolving to adapt to this new era of warfare.

In a conversation earlier this year with the Defense Writers Group, Army Gen. Bryan Fenton and Army Command Sgt. Maj. Shane Shorte, SOCOM commander and senior enlisted advisor, respectively, shared his perspective on how the special operations community is evolving and adapting to a new era of warfare.

What they emphasized most is that during this time of change, some things remain constant.

The special operations community tries to live and die according to its five core values. Perhaps the most important of these is the adage that “people are more important than materials.”

At the heart of any special operations unit is the idea that it is the operators and support personnel who make the difference. Equip them with swords and spears, and they’ll probably somehow manage to complete their mission, or so the argument goes.

“People are more important than materials”

“The most important line of effort we have at our headquarters remains our people,” Shorte said. “We are not a platform-centric organization, we are a people-centric organization.”

This core value is one of the many reasons special operations units place so much emphasis on their selection and evaluation processes. Eliminating unsuitable or incompatible candidates leaves a small group of physically tough and mentally tough commandos who have the right attitude to achieve the objective.

The selection and training processes for special operations are arduous because, as Fenton said, they only want people who “really want to be at the cutting edge.”

Fenton emphasized that SOCOM’s successful transformation into a new era of warfare will depend on its people. Today’s and tomorrow’s special operators must be prepared to face a changing operational environment.

“If we have an extra dollar to spend, we spend it on our employees, and then we spend the technology on them,” Fenton said.

Before becoming head of SOCOM, Fenton led the secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Nominally part of SOCOM, JSOC is comprised of the Tier 1 units of the special operations community: Army Delta Force, Navy Naval Special Warfare Development Group, 24th Special Tactics Squadron the Air Force, as well as the Army Intelligence Support Activity. Fenton comes from the intelligence side of JSOC and also has experience in the Indo-Pacific area of ​​operations.

Special operators think about “how we’re going to be prepared, not just in terms of equipment or a certain level of technology to take on the world, but also how we think about the world differently,” Fenton said.

“We must keep these different ideas in mind and continue to carry out the mission, even if it is no longer the same as 20 years ago. But the result must still be the same. We must succeed for the nation,” added the head of Special Operations Command.

Both men said the bulk of U.S. special operators are focused on threats posed by China and Russia and studying those potential adversaries. Additionally, they are closely monitoring the war in Ukraine because it provides invaluable lessons on how warfare evolves with modern technology like drones and also provides the opportunity, at least indirectly, to experiment with new concepts of war due to their very close relations with the Ukrainian armed forces. commandos.

Changing focus is not easy, however, as the ongoing challenge of other persistent threats continually pushes the United States backwards. Although China and Russia currently pose the greatest threats to U.S. national security, counterterrorism remains an ever-present danger. As the Islamic State terrorist attack in Moscow in March demonstrated, terrorists around the world possess the means and desire to carry out large-scale violent attacks against soft targets., and rogue actors like the Houthi rebels have shown they can threaten things like the trade routes that the global economy relies on.

Thus, the SOCOM of tomorrow will always have to maintain a credible anti-terrorism posture that will make it possible to anticipate and counter terrorist threats throughout the world.

Changing and adapting to something as complex as a new era of warfare or a rapidly evolving battlespace is never easy. And it’s even more difficult for a large organization with tens of thousands of people. But SOCOM depends on just that – people – to ensure it is ready to meet the challenges of tomorrow.