NATO Special Operations Forces Study
NATO Special Operations Coordination Centre 2008
There is a common perspective among a variety of defence and security establishments around the world that the nature of the current and future security environment we face presents complex and irregular challenges that are not readily apparent and are difficult to anticipate. Governments are faced with “unusual” or “unconventional” threats that dominate the attention of their political and defence leaders. The diverse set of threats are interconnected and have the potential to undermine wider international stability by creating a state of low level persistent conflict for the foreseeable future.
Special Operations Forces (SOF) provide an inherently agile instrument ideally suited to this ambiguous and dynamic irregular environment while allowing national and collective defence establishments to retain freedom of action through employing economy of force. SOF are characterized as strategic assets because of their ability to achieve political, military, psychological, and informational objectives that represent the foundational instruments of national power. SOF operate outside the realm of conventional operations or beyond the standard capabilities of conventional forces, thus providing a solution to extraordinary circumstances of political interest when no other option is available.
To assure the feasibility of the alternative options SOF provide to decision makers, successful special operations require optimized performance beyond that found in conventional forces. Optimized performance is that which is made as perfect, functional or effective as possible to mitigate the inherent political and physical risk.
A trend is evident from the evolution within many nations that the critical ingredient to optimize SOF is a dedicated national special operations organisation to provide coherent, long term stewardship, authority, and direction over all aspect of special operations. Just as chiefs of the military services serve in a custodial role, the national level SOF organization ensures that SOF are appropriately designed, organized, trained, equipped, and employed to achieve success.
No short cut exists to create SOF when crises arise. Instead, years of training, education, and experience acquired through an investment in time and resources are necessary to prepare SOF units to successfully perform special operations. In comparison to other defence expenditures, such a SOF capability requires a comparatively minor expenditure of total defence costs, especially when compared to the potential return on investment.
As strategic assets, SOF are understandably viewed primarily through the lens of national interests. However, the increasingly prevalent security perspective indicates that multinational collective security arrangements are a prerequisite for confronting the disparate and complex security challenges of the 21st century. Multilateral and collective SOF solutions will enhance national as well as collective SOF capabilities while capitalizing on the strengths of some and compensating for gaps among others.
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