“Throughout our internal wargame series, four discrete concepts or themes consistently emerged. Each theme describes a distinct aspect of a vision for MARSOC, but at the same time each built upon the others, such that the four are interconnected and mutually supporting,” said Mundy. “Together, they provide a strong conceptual basis for a future MARSOC force that outpaces changes in the operating environment and remains a reliable force across warfighting and Title X functions.”

Collectively, these themes have come together to form Mundy’s “four core pathways of innovation”:

1. MARSOF as a Connector – capturing MARSOC’s facility in building cohesive, task-organized teams to become the ideal integrator and synchronizer of U.S. capabilities with USSOCOM and partner-nation actions
2. Combined Arms for the Connected Arena – recognizing the need to “sense” and “make sense of” what is happening in diverse and multidimensional environments, using cyber and information domains as potential venues for conflict now and in the future and becoming as comfortable operating in those virtual domains as in the physical
3. The Cognitive Operator – touching all other pathways and priorities, the future “requires a SOF operator with an equal amount of brains to match brawn, foresight in addition to fortitude,” presiding over expanded capabilities that include influencing allies and partners; understanding complex problems; applying a broad set of national, theater, and interagency capabilities to those problems; and fighting as adeptly in the virtual space as the physical
4. Enterprise Level Agility – leveraging MARSOC’s small size as an advantage; having its own component headquarters, for example, allows the command to rapidly reorient to confront new challenges as they emerge, an organizational dexterity that can provide USSOCOM with an agile, adaptable force to meet unexpected or rapidly changing requirements

“The training environments we create are dynamic. Not only do they prepare our Raiders for the current operational challenge, but they also evolve based on emerging threats and our expected participation in support of standing operational plans.”

The second priority is providing a bridge for routine capabilities integration with SOF and the deployed MAGTF to fully maximize the complementary capabilities of each formation, especially in light of near-peer/emerging competitors.

“Given the threats present on contemporary battlefields and considering those we expect to face in the future, it has become increasingly important for SOF to be able to integrate ‘seamlessly’ with the conventional forces and vice versa,” he told lawmakers. “Conventional forces offer capabilities and a capacity that simply do not exist in our small formations. In today’s complex operating environment, the extent to which we, across the joint force, are able to leverage one another’s strengths, and thereby offset our vulnerabilities, could determine the difference between success and failure.”

Capabilities MARSOC and its sister SOF service components partially rely on conventional forces to provide include cyber- and space-based capabilities, intelligence exploitation, mobility, fire support, logistics, and medical support, especially in scenarios involving high-intensity combat.

“As the operating environment evolves and more complex threats emerge, MARSOC must adapt its force to meet these new challenges. Constant and deliberate innovation and evolution [are] critical to our success,” he testified. “Our concept for development is based on both a bottom-up-driven process that incorporates immediate battlefield feedback into our training curricula, equipment research, testing, [and] procurement, and a top-down approach that combines more traditional capability acquisition processes with longer-term future concept and wargaming efforts.”

He continued, “We have already taken steps to bring our vision to fruition with regard to capability development in particular technology areas. These include freeze-dried plasma, semi-autonomous seeing and sensing capability, organic precision fires, counter-UAS [unmanned aerial systems] rapid self-defense, unmanned cargo UAS and ground systems, rapid fusion of big data analytics and machine assisted learning, broadband tactical edge communications, and specialized insertion capabilities. As we research and improve our warfighting capabilities, we must keep in mind that our near-peer/emerging competitors are also making similar advances and investing in emerging technology. It is critical that we ensure the technological capabilities we opt for are able to operate, communicate, and self-heal in a signals-degraded environment.”

The fourth priority – Preservation of the Force and Families [POTFF] – reflects what Mundy calls the “SOF Truth that people are more important than hardware.” MARSOC’s force and families program provides Raiders and their families with access to resources promoting personal resiliency to increase longevity in service.

“Although listed as my fourth priority, preservation of the force and families is equally as important as the previous three priorities because people are at the heart of all we do. Currently, MARSOF special operators average 1 day overseas for every 1.9 days at home. Our capability specialists that enable communications, intelligence, air support [and] explosive ordnance disposal and our canine handlers vary by occupational specialty, but average between 1 to 1.7 and 1 to 1.2 days deployed as opposed to days spent at home station,” he told Special Operations Outlook.

“Because of this high operational tempo, POTFF has become an integral tool for maintaining the overall health of our force through programs that are focused on improving human performance, providing resources for behavioral health, developing spiritual fitness, and offering other family-oriented opportunities that are designed to strengthen the family unit.”

Mundy said the biggest event of the past year for MARSOC was winning approval of and beginning to move forward, in the Future Years Defense Program, with finally completing the build-out of the command after several years of falling short of its original proposed size.

“Although listed as my fourth priority, preservation of the force and families is equally as important as the previous three priorities because people are at the heart of all we do.”

“In 2011, it was decided that 3,100 was the right number for MARSOC, so we were constrained, as was everyone else, by budget constraints and sequestration. We feel there were some artificial constraints, especially in our combat services support capacity, so the major event this year is we have been approved to grow,” he noted, adding they would start filling 368 frozen billets in October (the start of FY19) and hope to complete that build by 2022, “the vast majority of that within the first three years.”