“The flexibility of the command structures and the adaptability in the organization of the staff will represent significant challenges. In the future, the ever-evolving operating environment will create situations where strategic surprise will deny us any break or time in our reflection process,” he continued.
According to Isnard, the capability of the COS to adapt and overcome challenges across the battlespace will be achieved through a careful blend of personnel, partnerships, and technology.
With all these operational and training requirements in mind, the COS continues to evolve as a force in terms of both character and composition.
On Jan. 11, 2018, French MOD officials described how the air force’s SOF Commando component – CPA 10 – would now accept the direct entry of civilian recruits into combat roles in order to optimize specialist skill sets from across the private sector including information technology, for example.
But, as Isnard explained, the COS does not need to retain ownership of all its capabilities. Instead, he highlighted how the COS must rely more upon its “unique ability to integrate the actors and means necessary for operations as much as necessary, without necessarily being the owner.”
“Developments in the operational environment require special forces to master more and more skills and know-how. The challenge will be to strike a balance between the acquisition and maintenance of our own skills and the possibility of using additional means from conventional armies or specialized organizations of French and foreign origin,” he explained.
International SOF
Meanwhile, Isnard described to Special Operations Outlook how the individual capabilities of the SOF operator must also be augmented with increasing levels in cooperation of both national and international partners. Such cooperation, he proclaimed, could take the form of exchanges in intelligence, joint operational commitments, or capacity building missions, as has been most recently demonstrated across the Middle East.
FORFUSCO teams rely upon the ECUME rigid hull inflatable boat to conduct maritime counterterrorism exercises with support from larger vessels from across the French navy. PHOTO COURTESY OF COS
“With the U.S. special forces, we approach all these areas with a level of trust in trade and sometimes integration in the field, which has become remarkable over time. We share a common culture of SOF employment patterns and this bilateral cooperation is by no means exclusive. We maintain, on a case-by-case basis, many bilateral cooperations, especially with our Western counterparts,” Isnard acknowledged.
“Even if each of our countries needs to retain the capability to conduct operations in a discreet and unilateral way, we nevertheless retain the need to be able to share the financial and political cost of certain operational commitments. Cooperation cannot be decreed; it is cultivated over time,” he continued, while promoting the strategic importance of the NATO Special Operations Headquarters (NSHQ).
Isnard described to Special Operations Outlook how the individual capabilities of the SOF operator must also be augmented with increasing levels in cooperation of both national and international partners.
Headquartered in Mons, Belgium, NSHQ feeds the international SOF community with a baseline in doctrine and the employment of materiel across a diverse operating environment, with multinational interoperability of forces a major focus area.
“The NSHQ plays a vital role as a platform on which Western cooperation is built on a daily basis. This is why France will continue to get involved and support its projects,” Isnard added.
Technology
However, no matter how capable the manpower and wider collaboration of the COS, force components continue to rely heavily upon legacy and next-generation technology types capable of providing personnel with the ability to retain tactical overmatch over near-peer adversaries.
FORFUSCO’s Jaubert Commando unit conducts special insertion/extraction drills as part of a maritime CT exercise. PHOTO COURTESY OF COS
Addressing delegates at the Special Operations Forces Innovation Network Seminar (SOFINS) at Camp Souge, France on March 28, 2017, Isnard underlined the importance of access to intelligence across the battlespace, urging, “We are witnessing easier access to information and knowledge is being shared extremely fast. If we are late, it’s already being used by the enemy and we have to find a way to counter it.
“This technology is here and being mastered by some people. We have to take advantage of that and gain some seconds on the enemy. We need some early warning to deal with them before they deal with us.”