Since particular missions often (and historically) require the use of both military and intelligence assets, and since the intelligence community performs paramilitary activities under its own authorities, the challenge of such operations is less about the law, per se, than it is about perception and force fielding. It is in the interest of the United States to have a robust National Clandestine Service (part of the CIA) as well as a strong defense intelligence capacity. To the extent that presidents and policymakers can play chess with available resources, they ought to do so knowing that efficiency and effectiveness do not come without a price of conflating what are, and will remain, two separate functions of the state. With the new Defense Clandestine Service (DCS) coming online, and the consolidation of analytical functions into the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Congress will be pressed to provide clarity and understanding of SOF in the years ahead.

The operation that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 demonstrated the need for this fusion to the world, but at an operational level, the CIA and SOCOM assets have never before worked more closely and with less friction. In Yemen, where SOF has several overt missions, including FID and training, its unacknowledged (at least officially) special reconnaissance (SR) and direct action (DA) pallettes are so closely coordinated with the agency’s pursuit of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) that the two entities literally trade off resources; one day, the CIA might be responsible for an ISR asset, the next day, “white” SOF could use the same asset. Clearly, such deconfliction is an important priority of both SOCOM and the intelligence community.

McRaven in particular wants SOCOM to achieve dominance in three areas: information warfare (IW); family support; and “jointness” with the other services and allies. All are conventional concepts that previous SOCOM commanders have struggled to get their arms around, but McRaven is in a position to make lasting changes. Information warfare, broadly defined, involves the collection, utilization, aggregation, visualization, and prioritization of all-source intelligence, made available to virtually everyone, at one time. Every time a Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF) pushes forward, McRaven wants to make sure that it never lacks for real-time intelligence reachback, communications spectrum bandwidth, and even a capacity for computer network defense (CND) and computer network exploitation (CNE).

The U.S. Cyber Command recognizes that SOCOM hungers for an advanced and command-wide integrated cyber capacity. At the moment, this type of support to the warfighter is rather intermittent, owing to the lack of policy guidance and the relative lack of an advanced cyber warfare strategy. Tactically, the next evolution in this field will be to bring sensor and tracking technology, which iterates about once a year, to any unit that requires their use. JSOC has been using tiny, unattended ground sensors that can be monitored by mini-satellites and feed data to operating units or tactical commands to track terrorists; the technology is relatively cheap, but the bandwidth and backbone are complicated and require command direction to sort out.

In a world where every explosion is “tweeted,” and everyone gives off an electromagnetic signature by way of their mobile phones and tablets, keeping SOF missions covert or clandestine will be challenging. And given SOCOM’s central role in national security, public and press interest in the way the command works will only increase. It is SOCOM’s job to tell the public the story of itself. The command’s global reach is both a pride and a limitation, as Americans are wary of war and have seen the effects of imperial meddling (even if the intentions were otherwise). JSOC’s true nature remains officially unacknowledged, but that’s more a nod to tradition. Its high-profile missions are dissected, sometimes instantly, in public, jeopardizing tactics and even, on occasion, operational security. In the future, “white” SOF and “black” SOF units will operate jointly even more frequently than they did in Iraq and Afghanistan, which means, in essence, that SOF units will be constantly revising and adapting rapidly, and often field testing the results. McRaven personally believes that the large blanket of secrecy that shrouds SOF missions ought to be thinned a bit. Secrecy often creates shadows that are unnecessary, and successes can be celebrated and brought to light in a way that protects the assets and operations that need protection without re-blacking the force.

Readiness is also an obvious and perennial obsession of SOCOM commanders. McRaven has added his personal endorsement: He has appointed his long-time Command Sgt. Maj. Chris Faris to head a task force that will develop standards for determining when formerly deployed personnel are ready to return to the battlefield. In essence, if a soldier or a sailor isn’t ready, if his or her family situation has deteriorated, if there is evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder or psychological stress, SOCOM will cancel or postpone deployments, doing so with the intention of helping the individual in question work his or her way back to full fitness.

Then there is “jointness.” The next several years will see a consolidation in SOCOM of information technology backbones, acquisition platforms, and program offices. And the command will encourage commanders in the field and back at headquarters to resist the temptation of service and cultural constraints, and develop a greater situational awareness of what other commanders are doing.

But at the same time, McRaven wants each part of the SOF community to retain and enhance its own core competencies. Leadership and reliable, stable promotion schedules, along with more thoughtful resource deployments and pre-mission planning, will allow, in theory, each unit to do best what it does best, while playing even better with others.

For example, with the expanded Army Special Forces, and the slow transition away from DA missions in Afghanistan, the Navy SEALs may slowly be able to concentrate more on the sea and their maritime missions. A big test for McRaven will be the integration of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC), the three battalions of which will be fully stood up by 2014. Today, MARSOC performs primary FID missions (they’ve been in about 40 countries) and are slowly synchronizing their training with SOCOM’s tactics, techniques, and procedures.

A truly joint force can leverage the particular niches of each SOF tribe (the phrase is national security professional Michele Malvesti’s) in a way that a unit-based focus can’t. Instead of treating deployments as “activities,” Malvesti, the former senior director of the National Security Counsel’s Office of Combating Terrorism and the daughter of a legendary SOF warrior, has argued that they ought to be seen as components of a mission set, be it counterinsurgency or counternarcotics. Virtually every SOF competency can be used against a target, but in-lane thinking will reduce SOF’s ability to be a force multiplier. McRaven endorses this thinking, and conceives of SOF less as a set of discrete tools and more as a multi-faced (but single) entity performing a defined mission.

SOCOM at 25 Part 1: The Battle for Capitol Hill

SOCOM at 25 Part 2: Desert Storm to Allied Force

SOCOM at 25 Part 3: USSOCOM Since 9/11

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