A New Era for Special Forces: By, With, Through American Surrogates in Great Power Competition

Abstract

As the United States emerges from almost 20 years of war against terrorism, security and defense strategy has shifted to Great Power Competition. This paradigm shift is focused on reorganizing and rebuilding the nation s defense architecture to compete with global powers. However, the United States must be able to do two things simultaneously, as the threat of terrorism and non-state actors is not disappearing. Moreover, the same global powers, whether established or rising, are sponsoring, operating, and competing through a variety of surrogates. Additionally, as anti-access, area denial systems(A2AD) become more sophisticated and the willingness to cross the threshold of open hostility is less tenable, future warfare will become increasingly focused on non-attributional and hybrid methods. Competition using militias, private military companies, technology, and other non-state actors, including terrorist organizations, is a manner through which nation-states will achieve security and economic objectives. USSF is uniquely manned, equipped, and possesses the mission, UW, to develop American surrogates to achieve success in the new operating environment.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 10, 2021
Accession Number
AD1177935

Entities

People

  • Brett T Bonanni

Organizations

  • Marine Corps University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Asymmetric Warfare
  • Combat Areas
  • Combat Operations
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Department Of Defense
  • Employment
  • Gray Zone
  • Information Operations
  • International Law
  • Military Operations
  • Military Organizations
  • National Security
  • Neural Networks
  • Private Military Companies
  • Robotics
  • Russia
  • Space Force
  • Special Forces
  • Terrorism
  • Terrorists
  • Unconventional Warfare
  • United States
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Defense Technology Research and Development.
  • Irregular Warfare and Special Operations Cyberspace Operations against Adversarial Threats.
  • Strategic Security Studies