As they prepared for the ongoing drawdown in Southwest Asia and expected deep budget cuts in 2011, SOCOM and component leaders looked back to the history and current status of special operations and formulated plans to further evolve the force in 2012 and beyond:

SOCOM (2,500 command personnel) – Adm. William H. McRaven

“As we look to the future security environment,” McRaven said before the House Armed Services Committee Emerging Threats And Capabilities Subcommitee, “we see emerging technologies that empower populations and non-state actors to challenge traditional nation-states. Gaining fundamental understanding of the underlying causes and conditions of conflict in this emergent landscape, beyond the specific threats and ideologies, is central to anticipating and deterring costly conventional military engagements. …

“SOF’s decade-long partnership in Colombia assisted that democracy in the effective security force development necessary to reclaim its sovereign territory from narcoterrorists. Similar outcomes continue today via work with partner-nation security forces throughout Central and South America, Europe, Asia, the Pacific, and across Africa and the Middle East. These under-reported, yet vital, contributions are prioritized and targeted in support of the collective security requirements outlined in national policy,” he said.

NAVSPECWARCOM (8,900 personnel) – Rear Adm. Sean A. Pybus

“… We’ve evolved from maritime warriors armed with KA-BARs, fins, and explosive charges,” Pybus said during an interview commemorating the SEALs’ 50th anniversary, “to SEALs using sophisticated technology to confirm the identity of enemy combatants or employing unmanned aerial vehicles in the middle of a landlocked country to locate and target terrorist elements. … I am expecting that while the conventional forces are drawing down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the demand for SOF – and NAVSOF – will continue to increase, the Department of Defense has had to take some significant budget cuts and is bracing for more. This reduced resourcing environment will obviously make further growth challenging. … There will be tough decisions ahead with regard to what does and does not get funded. …

“For the past decade, NSW has devoted much of its resources to supporting land warfare capabilities in the CENTCOM AOR at the expense of our surface and undersea platforms. … Ultimately, I envision a family of craft for NSW, much like the family of special operations vehicles used for SOF ground mobility,” he said.

USASOC (28,500 personnel) – Lt. Gen. John F. Mulholland

“Regardless of where along the range of capabilities one points,” Mulholland states on a USASOC fact sheet, “be it the ability to execute the most lethal, highly complex and sensitive special operations, wage unconventional warfare, conduct special operations rotary wing operations or prosecute civil military and influence operations and tailored sustainment to it all – the world standard is found within our Army’s special operations force.”

“On any given day, elements of three of the five active duty Special Forces groups, one Ranger battalion, some 34 special operations aircraft, more than 35 Civil Affairs teams, 35 Military Information Support Operations teams and numerous supporting logistics units are deployed around the world.”

AFSOC (15,000 personnel) – Lt. Gen. Eric Fiel

“I cannot imagine any other command in the Air Force that is more forward postured and forward deployed than AFSOC,” Fiel stated in the July 2011 Hurlburt Warrior. “We usually provide one hell of a punch to any combatant commander. There’s not much a SOF team can’t solve. We are a relatively cheap organization with high payoff … But I think we need to focus on quality, not quantity, because the bigger you get, the harder it is to maintain that quality edge.

“Today, AFSOC is changing. AFSOC will continue to change. We will continue to focus on who we are and what it means to be the specialized air arm of the SOF team. We will stay committed to the high standards that have made us who we are.”

MARSOC (2,600 personnel) – Maj. Gen. Paul E. Lefebvre

“We have made great progress in our contributions to SOCOM in the last five years,” Lefebvre said in a recent interview. “The commander of SOCOM has assigned MARSOC focus areas that have allowed us to tailor the pre-deployment training for MARSOC operators in order to maximize our capabilities in languages and become more culturally attuned to the areas we believe are key today and for the future. We have established great relationships with a host of individuals and established superb rapport with a number of host- and partner-nation militaries. …

“Although we are relatively young, we bring 235 years of ethos that has thrived in chaos and friction and is comfortable in the uncertainty of combat. We will never be happy with the status quo – we are fixers and innovators and we must keep pressure on the system. Our goal will never be to merely participate, it will be to lead the effort.”

A quarter century after becoming the nation’s first congressionally created major military command, SOCOM not only has grown from its original few adopted units to four full-service components, but has accomplished a major turnaround from SOF’s darkest moment in the ill-fated 1980 hostage rescue attempt in Iran. As a result, although 2011 ended with a reduced defense spending bill, forcing even deeper cuts by all the services than those already being planned for, SOCOM and its components remained on a growth path.

Without a major turnaround in the U.S. – and global – economy, even more budget cuts are expected. Eventually, the special operations community is likely to come under the knife as well.

However that may play out as the decade progresses, it began with both the highest and lowest moments in SOCOM history. But 2011 also validated the broad expanse of SOF activities, including the Japanese tsunami relief efforts and multiple combat and civil interactions, large and small, on nearly every continent.

McRaven ended 2011 as runner-up to an amalgamated global protester as Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” – but claimed the title of Dallas Morning News’ “Texan of the Year.” While his life largely has been spent in the shadows, quietly doing jobs he could not talk about, the publicity that sought him out in his first few months in command of SOCOM did help his effort toward a unique goal – winning public attention, understanding, and support for his special operators.

“Do we wear different uniforms? Do we have beards? Do we ride horses? Absolutely. That’s part of what the special operations guys do. But they do it all within a framework of good order and discipline, because everybody knows that as soon as that breaks down, then your ability to get the mission done breaks down,” he told the Dallas newspaper, reflecting the six basic principles to success outlined in his book – simplicity, security, repetition, surprise, speed, and purpose.

“We can’t afford to be cavalier. We can’t afford to be cowboys. You have to plan meticulously. You have to make sure that everything you do is tactically sound. So if you’re cavalier or loose about something … if you don’t do the small things well, you won’t do the big things well.”

And as he told Time, “All in all, a pretty good year.

“This is what we do,” he said. “We do raids. We fly in by helicopters, we assault compounds, we grab the bad guy or whatever is required and we get out. Admittedly, that particular operation [bin Laden] was a lot sportier, a lot further, a lot more political ramifications, a lot riskier for a lot of reasons, but, basically, similar to things that we do every night.”

This article was first published in Defense: Winter 2012 Review Edition.