The future of warfare will dictate how special operations forces operate, Army Gen. Richard Clarke, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, said Tuesday.
Warfare “is going to be multi-domain, it’s going to be partnered. And it’s going to be contested in every step,” he told the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa. “Our goal is to maintain a strategic advantage.”
Special operators will be in demand even as U.S. strategy moves to a world of near-peer competition with China and Russia, Clarke said.
Special operators shone in actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. They led the way onto Afghanistan in 2001 and will be among the last troops to leave the country at the end of the retrograde. Clarke, who served in the 82nd Airborne Division in 2002 and with the 1st Ranger Battalion in 2004 in Afghanistan, understands that world quite well. But times have changed.
A U.S. Special Operations Soldier, assigned to 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), U.S. Special Operations Command Europe, participates in a live fire training exercise at the Panzer Range Complex, Boeblingen, Germany, January 13 2021. Live-fire training enables the unit readiness and proficiency to be able to respond within the European area of operations whenever called upon. (U.S. Army photo by Jason Johnston)
“I think most of you understand the counterterrorism mission,” he said. “Competition, or as some refer to it as strategic competition, may be less familiar. In short, it’s winning without fighting. It’s taking actions below the level of combat.”
Strategic competition is different. There won’t be a victory parade at the end of a violent war like there was in New York at the end of World War II, he said. “Instead, our competition will endure and … it may be infinite because there’s no precise end; there is not necessarily a winner. Just nations seeking competitive advantages,” the general said. “And that advantage can ebb and flow.”
Our threats have continued to evolve: Cyber threats, … Chinese activities globally, and Russian disinformation each and every day. Reorienting our momentum towards strategic competition, we must modernize with purpose.
Army Gen. Richard Clarke, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command.
This has always been a part of the international system, but new tools and new technologies have given adversaries new avenues to compete. In the past, this competition played out on land, sea and air. Now it is contested in the cyberworld and space as well — extending the battlefield to infinity and beyond. And it is going to be contested in the information space as well, Clarke said.
A squad of U.S. Navy SEALs participate in Special Operations Urban Combat training. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Meranda Keller)
Clarke said the contest in the information space will impact all domains of warfare. “To be clear, it is a battle in the cognitive space,” he said. “It takes place on the Internet, but not always. This is purely distinct from cyber from the ones and zeros in the [Colonial] pipeline attack. It is a cognitive space where we must prevail.”
He noted that when he first went to Afghanistan, roughly 95 percent of his time was spent on finding and killing or capturing enemy forces. “Today, if you visit our commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, they’ll say that they focus 60 percent or more of their time on non-lethal effects in the information space,” he said.
All this requires that special operations forces commanders get the tools they need to decide and act more quickly. They also need the capabilities to more effectively interact with allies and partners and with local populations.
New technologies or new ways of using technologies will be key moving forward, he said. “How do we more effectively search through our mountains of data? that is across all classifications and all domains,” he asked. “How do I move data from [unclassified] to secret to top secret, with no problem, and so it is useful? How do we harness mission command of our forces, … but also combined operations with ours, so that we’re all seeing the same picture?”
An IV-solution bag attached by a metal plate is carried by a Joint Tactical Aerial Resupply Vehicle (JTARV) for transport from a simulated forward operating base to a Marine Special Operations Company in the field aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, July 7, 2017. The JTARV, which is in the developmental phase, is a lightweight autonomous vehicle that provides an aerial resupply capability for immediate support to operational units. It was being tested as a resupply platform for machine-gun sustainment training with a cargo unmanned logistics system during a tactical readiness exercise. (MARSOC photo by Sgt. Salvador R. Morello)
Technology will be the answer to these questions and more not even thought of yet, he said.
Special Operations Command is reaching out to industry partners and experts in academia to solve these problems. Clarke is opening the command to specialists in these technologies and more to improve capabilities and build capacity.
He worries about Special Operations Command falling behind competitors. “We have to maintain the budget and the resources to continue moving forward,” Clarke said.
“As we go forward, we’re going to face different pressures tomorrow, different but I would argue even more vital to our national security,” he said. “Our threats have continued to evolve: Cyber threats, … Chinese activities globally, and Russian disinformation each and every day. Reorienting our momentum towards strategic competition, we must modernize with purpose.
“Even as these threats evolve, why am I still confident we’ll rise to this challenge? Because as I reflect back to Afghanistan and the changes we’ve made, we’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.”