Whatever the exact circumstances, the death of 283 passengers and 15 crew of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 attracted global condemnation and left the incursion at a stalemate, with the pro-Russian gunmen in control of much of the two eastern provinces.

Perhaps part of the reason the West was caught unawares by the events in Ukraine may have been the plethora of distracting small wars preoccupying SOF across the globe.

The Kremlin’s conflict with Kiev caught NATO by surprise, and appeared to cast Spetsnaz with a new strategic role – beyond its orthodox SOF mission of clandestine reconnaissance – of deniable engagement by companies of razvedchiki, or scouts, undertaking sabotage and other tasks in Russia’s “near-foreign” lands. The political impact of what had occurred would be profound, especially for policymakers contemplating the implications of a reappearance of old Soviet-style “active measures” for Poland and the Baltic NATO membership.

This perceptible change in strategy, from extending the Spetsnaz role far beyond a more familiar counterterrorism commitment, made so familiar by the FSB’s Alpha teams, could have far-reaching consequences.

Perhaps part of the reason the West was caught unawares by the events in Ukraine may have been the plethora of distracting small wars preoccupying SOF across the globe. The civil war in Syria had exacerbated regional tensions, and in August 2014, British and U.S. SOF were dropped into the Mount Sinjar area of northern Iraq as part of Operation Shader to report on the plight of Yazidi refugees fleeing sectarian persecution by Islamic State jihadis. Islamic State (also known as ISIL or ISIS) fighters had begun to claim huge swaths of Iraq and Syria, and along with air strikes, carried out first by U.S. forces and then an increasing number of other nations, the Obama administration lobbied Congress for permission to expand American presence on the ground. U.S. and coalition advisers went back to work training Iraqi troops, lending support to existing Iraqi units, and protecting key cities and bases, as even Baghdad came under threat. Wrangling continues today between the administration and Congress as to the scale of the American commitment on the ground.

Islamic extremism, manifested in West Africa, Libya, East Africa, the Arabian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, has become a familiar adversary to the African Union and the West’s coalition partners, but the development of new technology, such as drones and canopy-penetrating surveillance, has eased the burden on special operations forces, thereby allowing them to expand their training and mentoring activities in non-combat scenarios, and undertake quick in-and-out rescues, usually to secure the release of Western victims of abduction gangs. One of the last hostages, Serge Lazarevic, a tourist who had been grabbed in November 2011 while visiting Timbuktu, was freed in Mali in November 2014, the French government having negotiated an exchange in which several dozen Islamists were released.

Part of the change in posture has been brought about by the removal of many coalition assets from Afghanistan, where both the United States and U.K. administrations pledged to retain some limited SOF cadres, chiefly for training purposes under Operation Resolute Support to enhance the existing 14,000 Afghan SOF, National Directorate of Security (NDS), and 22,000 Afghan police. By the end of 2014, the internal security apparatus in Afghanistan had developed nine Commando Kandaks (battalions) to undertake combat operations, together with 11 specialized night-raid elements, and 19 provincial response companies acting in a role akin to SWAT teams.