Grass declined to speculate on where MARSOC and SOCOM will be through the rest of this decade and beyond, noting all of the variables involved could bring about major unexpected developments, just as was the case with the end of the Cold War and the start of combat in Southwest Asia.

“It will be interesting to see where SOCOM vectors us in the next five to 10 years. In the near term, we will maintain the focus of our training somewhat the same as we have – and the most important part of that is the multi-dimensional operator and leadership development. The better capable guy we have who can understand the battlefield and make important decisions on the battlefield will be able to survive in any environment,” he said. “As we re-task globally or regionally or within SOF skill sets, we will tailor our training pipeline and final exercises to ensure a team or company or battalion is individually capable and capable as a unit.

“Our current pipeline takes us through an MRX – mission rehearsal exercise – called the RAVEN, which prepares us for Afghanistan, or an operational readiness exercise that prepares us for other parts of the world. These training pipelines are tailored to the operational environment we expect to go to and the readiness exercise is the graduation exercise that says we’re ready. It’s likely in the future we’ll be preparing for more security force assistance missions and to maintain our capabilities for global crises.”

MARSOC was the last of SOCOM’s service components, created specifically for that joint command in 2006. By incorporating existing SOF-like elements and capabilities, along with MAGTF structure, the Marines were able to adapt quickly to SOCOM’s operational and C2 requirements, including taking on more responsibility, at headquarters and in the field.

“For now, we plug in operationally at the team level and provide companies and SOTF at the battalion level which are expeditionary and task-oriented. We have focused on intel and ops integration, which is critical to the major fight we’re in right now. From a C2 perspective, we have SEAL platoons and ODAs working under our companies and we, in turn, work largely for Army-based SOTFs and will continue to do that as tasked.

“The most sweeping change will be as we progress out of Afghanistan to a more globally oriented force that will have to develop cultural and regional expertise. That probably will include a realignment of our language training and more operational flexibility in our TTPs. However, 60 percent of our skill set does translate to other environments, and individual operators at the grassroots level have reaped huge benefits that are translatable to many other missions and requirements.”

In a post-Southwest Asia environment, evolving the SOCOM-wide AOB concept to work with local villages and leaders anywhere in the world, combined with more MARSOC JCETs and training exercises with the big Corps, the Navy, other service SOF components and allies, will help MARSOC capabilities grow, both internally and within SOCOM. It also will help make the best use of additional funding and personnel approved for MARSOC and SOCOM as a whole – the only part of the U.S. military scheduled for growth as the overall defense budget declines and regular forces are reduced significantly through the rest of this decade.

“Every location has something to teach us. In Brazil, as they get ready for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, for example, the security challenges they face internally from criminal gangs are often akin to the insurgencies we have faced in Southwest Asia. So we talk to them about what we’ve learned there while they tell us about how they are dealing with the criminal organizations,” Duke said.

“In Africa, when you combine a desert with the unique way each ethnic group and culture has adapted to it and the particular threats operating in each environment, you find there are some real differences from Southwest Asia and we can learn a lot from those. The dynamics of West Africa and between the states there, with the Islamic Arab north and mostly Christian sub-Sahara, is a lot different from operating in the Shia-Sunni split in Iraq.”

While a primary focus of a JCET is to train and increase the knowledge and skills of U.S. warfighters, it also provides an opportunity to teach the host nation military in whatever areas that government – and especially the TSOC and Combatant Command (COCOM) – believe important.

“I think JCET is invaluable. You can’t replace it with a classroom or even a simulated environment. It also gets us into other nations, with partners who gain a better appreciation for what SOCOM is and develop long-lasting relationships that turn into cooperation in other areas. We can see from past years that they are beginning to benefit from JCET training, as have our people, giving both a deeper understanding of local and regional needs and security goals,” Duke added.

“During JCETs, in many places we are working to promote human rights. They also often ask us about our combat experiences, especially in nations without a lot of that. We talk about how we handle prisoners and treat non-combatants, which are great opportunities to expand on the area of human rights. For our part, language and cultural expertise do not develop overnight; they are hard-won, so the JCET effort is vital to our special operators being able to learn those and how to operate in these areas.”

As for the future of AOBs outside Afghanistan, Christian sees similar benefits, especially in terms of giving those with little true knowledge of America or experience with the U.S. military a better understanding of both, and as a significant factor in promoting peace and stability, both within individual nations and among neighboring states.

“We are a big bang for the buck, putting a small number of personnel on the ground – partnered with our [host nation] partners – and working with the local populace to make changes at the grassroots level,” he said. “We do a lot of bottom-up planning, because no one knows these villages better than the special operators working in and around them. That supports not only expansion of governance, security, and development, but also the objectives of the TSOCs and COCOMs.

“I think this is a model that can be applied to just about any situation we confront in the future. The ability to synchronize intel, the unique C2 capabilities, and combat service support, all in a task-oriented unit, bring both kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities that are difficult to replicate in a traditional force. So having a tremendous amount of capability employed by a small group of individuals often leads to a tactical organization having a strategic impact.”

For MARSOC overall, the near future in Afghanistan looks little different from the past few years, according to Grass.

“In a very general sense, we’re still preparing, deploying, and redeploying roughly the same forces, in terms of battalions and companies working in Afghanistan. The coming drawdown of regular forces [in Afghanistan, but also the post-Afghanistan size of the U.S. military] means a greater demand in Afghanistan and across the globe in the future for SOCOM. So I expect our role will continuously expand,” he concluded, adding six years of inland desert operations for MARSOC has not meant abandoning their traditional role as Marines.

“As Marines first, we’ve never left our roots. Specifically, some of our mission sets around the globe still have us in the littorals and are still utilizing historic skill sets. As one area of focus for the future, we will continue our ability to be maritime, with the Marine Corps or maritime SOF with SOCOM. The bulk of our training is based on the mission, but we’re always looking for ways to keep those skills alive. We recently have done amphibious exercises with the MEFs [Marine Expeditionary Forces] to maintain those and worked in partnership with Navy SEALs, and as we stay somewhat wed to the [regular] Marine Corps, we will look for ways to maintain that training for maritime and amphibious capabilities.”

This article was first published in The Year in Special Operations: 2012-2013 Edition.