How SOF amplify the effectiveness of hard power by doing things like leveraging infrastructure and using their ability to exploit actions/successes.įinally, this essay will review SOF’s potential as a bridging capability during this time of strained resources.
How SOF enable hard power by providing conventional forces a “warm start” and create options not otherwise possible, and.How SOF provide strategic warning and prepare the environment,.This essay will address numerous issues regarding Special Operations Forces while attempting to answer several questions, including: Getting this balance right is the key challenge for the military and policymakers.
In fact, SOF can and should be a major enabler for other elements of power as well as a shaper of security conditions that can minimize the need for larger deployments of conventional military forces. Given America’s current fiscal difficulties, there is a growing danger of overutilizing or misapplying SOF, but this is not to say that SOF should not be used. This vision of a “surgical” capability that is made up of mature, “hard” professionals who make the right choices at the right time and that avoids the need to deploy larger formations of citizen soldiers at great expense can be very compelling. How, then, should this nation think about these compelling and often mythologized warriors and their role in supporting America’s vital national interests?ĭuring times of austerity, the government often looks for ways to get “more bang for the buck.” 1 When this budgetary philosophy is applied to the military, SOF, with their reputation for doing great things with fewer troops and resources than large conventional forces, seem like a bargain. If utilized correctly, they bring great benefit to the nation used poorly, their capabilities and sometimes their lives are wasted. SOF are neither a panacea nor an insignificant oddity. One of the most flexible and useful instruments in America’s national security toolbox, SOF are regularly referred to incorrectly, incompletely, and with little depth of knowledge by policymakers. In the post-9/11 period of war and subsequent military drawdown, Special Operations Forces (SOF) appear likely to grow in numbers, funding, and importance-but not necessarily in general understanding.
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