ABSTRACT This article explores the degree to which Russian Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) are similar to Special Operations Forces (SOF) in terms of their characteristics, their capabilities, and their efforts. First, it recognizes that like the US example and experiences in other Western countries, Russian PMSCs often rest on a SOF pedigree too. This is due to the SOF cachet and the desired skill sets of personnel. Second, the article contends that Russian PMSCs are indeed more SOF-like in some of the tasks they perform. This is especially because of their proclivity, compared to PMSCs from other countries, to employ offensive violence. Nevertheless, and finally, Russian PMSCs do deviate from expectations in terms of their varying strategic impact regarding deniability and their documented usage of crewed weapons systems.

ABSTRACT The U.S. Government’s decision to establish a Train and Equip (T&E) Program for Moderate Syrian Opposition (MSO) forces to fight the ISIS terrorist organization came to fruition in the third year of the Syrian Civil War. This article examines the Train and Equip Program, a small but important chapter in the overall post – Sadaam and post Arab Spring societal upheaval in the Middle East. The analysis employs a broad tool-kit that includes: three hypotheses, the multi-causal model for conflict analysis, theoretical grounding in both Groupthink and Lay-epistemics, and an interpretivist lens provided by critical hermeneutics. The aim is to use this discrete unconventional warfare campaign as a platform activity to examine how decision-making and actions at the executive levels of government influenced the overall outcome. The findings of this examination will show that the greatest outcome of the Syria Train and Equip Program may be to serve as a cautionary tale and a guide for policy makers – especially when considering Unconventional Warfare as a policy option.

ABSTRACT The Ottoman Special Organization made its way into the literature of historical studies during the 1960s in the United States through the work of Philip H. Stoddard. Stoddard’s doctoral dissertation resonated so powerfully within academic circles that his approach to the organization, albeit flawed, was adopted extensively and thus echoed by later researchers. This also holds true for Turkish academia, where the nature, origin and historical course of the Special Organization in particular, and unconventional warfare and intelligence in general, was and remains largely misunderstood due to Stoddard’s fallacious analysis of the organization coupled with the uncritical character of conventional history-writing in Turkey. Through a critique of the paradigms and referential points Stoddard based his study on, as well as the conceptual and terminological aspects of his work, this study offers a more sound approach to both the organization and the units that fulfilled intelligence duties at the institutional level.

ABSTRACT Whether the mission is Unconventional Warfare, Foreign Internal Defense, or Counterinsurgency, success is often dependent on an individual’s and/or unit’s ability to both understand the vulnerabilities of their foreign counterparts on psychological, cultural, and operational levels, and to influence those counterparts in a manner consistent with US military and political objectives. While many of the criteria for assessment and selection, training, and employment of Special Operations Forces (SOF) supporting Special Warfare are skill-based, the conduct of Special Warfare is often relationship-based. In fact, ARSOF Next lists not only empathy as a characteristic of an Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) unit but also love as a desired trait of an ARSOF soldier. These psychological constructs are applicable both internally (toward one’s in-group) and externally (toward one’s out-group) and are measurable, albeit not easily, and therefore capable of being evaluated in assessment and selection and cultivated during training. However, the spectrum of today’s assessment and selection arguably misses the most valuable psychological characteristic, emotional intelligence. For the past 2 years, the Paul Ekman Group (PEG) has provided a specialized version of the Evaluating Truthfulness and Credibility (ETaC) seminar to Special Forces soldiers. These facial micro-expressions, or “micros,” are proven to be both cross-cultural and involuntary, and are thus an ideal fundamental skill for ARSOF soldiers. ETaC focuses on understanding the five channels of communication (face, body language, voice, verbal style, and verbal content) and their behavioral manifestations to better assess the credibility of another. The seminars were not only well received by the participants but also, despite a relatively high baseline competency, demonstrated statistically significant performance improvement in a matter of hours. Not only do such results begin to validate the emotional intelligence of this specifically chosen audience, but it helps to demonstrate the capacity of these unique soldiers to develop their cognitive processes to effectively influence their environment. While the sample size is small, the results are promising and are worthy of additional research. This paper presents the background and summary of these seminars, as well as some recommendations for incorporating more emotional components of Special Warfare.

ABSTRACT The U.S. has spent the last two decades, during its short time as the singular superpower, engaging relatively successfully in counterterrorism. However, we have now entered a new era of Great Power Competition (GPC) with adversaries; Russia and China. In the last decade, these nations have either caught up to the U.S. or have gained a slight edge in several types of warfare, while they challenge the international order created and dominated by the U.S. In particular, Russian threats loom over our NATO Baltic allies, while Chinese threats loom over the South China Sea and Taiwan. The U.S. has inadequate conventional deterrence forces ing each of these theaters and likely could not respond to crisis in each area simultaneously. Concurrently, though not allied, Russia and China have increased cooperation. It will take many years for the U.S. to build adequate conventional forces to prevent each of these adversaries from asserting their will and taking and holding the sovereign territory of our allies or partners. Yet history reveals a type pf warfare for which we and our allies and partners can prepare for immediately at little cost to add a layer of deterrence to assist in denying ultimate victory to our adversaries with scarce dedication of resources. It is a type of warfare that can asymmetrically impose costs on an occupier by forcing him to devote substantial resources to his own security while also making his political consolidation of the occupied territory very difficult if not impossible. Its methods range from violence led by an authorized organization fighting to reclaim sovereignty, to passive and peaceful activities by the general population. This method of warfare, which must be organized, trained and equipped immediately, is resistance.

ABSTRACT The area of special operations doctrine offers a number of research avenues for exploration in order to provide broader context and understanding of special operations and special operations forces (SOF) to both scholars and practitioners. In this spirit and to add to the body of existing special operations literature, this article delivers an overview to published UN, NATO, and EU SOF doctrine and compares and analyzes these documents for similarities and differences. The exploration of the SOF doctrine of international organizations is germane to states committing SOF units to missions abroad under UN, NATO, or EU mandates. While the SOF contingents will deploy guided by national military doctrine, they will need to align their operational approach with the SOF doctrine published by the multilateral organization leading the operation. SOF deployments to Afghanistan under the auspices of NATO, to Mali under the EU, and to Sudan under the UN demonstrate the real-world necessity of doctrinal understanding for multinational SOF interoperability. The conclusion offers some thoughts to follow-on areas of SOF doctrinal research that would contribute to an increased understanding of SOF.

ABSTRACT This article addresses the formal introduction of military design into the 75th Ranger Regimental organizational form and function over the last few years by leaders and design facilitators through creative destruction and willingness to experiment in paradoxical and potentially radical ways for emergent Special Operations Forces (SOF) needs. This article presents the core concepts behind Project Galahad, including the need for its formation, the context in which it exercises thought and action, and its structure and form as a disruptive engine of designing for novelty in warfare. This effort demonstrates military design “success” within lofty conceptual goals such as “fostering innovation” or “disrupting legacy systems to provide novel opportunities.” Furthermore, this article shows how a broader design movement is simultaneously appearing in various incarnations and similar applications across the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and international special operations community.

ABSTRACT Special operations forces regularly take part in strenuous trainings and operations. In the following article and geared toward the German situation, we identify knowledge as the central resource and challenge for furthering the development of police and military special operations forces. While the complex requirements of deployment and training create a strong need for knowledge, the reference of special operations forces to science not only provides solutions but also poses potential problems. By presenting proposals for medium- and long-term solutions for organizational knowledge management, this article provides orientation for the further development for (inter-)national special operations forces in the police and military sector.