HQ$History - United States Special Operations Command

COMMANDER’S TOP
PRIORITIES FOR FY07
1. Take care of SOF Soldiers,
Sailors, Airmen, and Marines;
DOD civilians; and their
families.
2. Synchronize the GWOT.
3. Manage SOF capabilities
for 7500.
4. Implement QDR and programmed
resources for FY07.
5. Improve joint SOF interoperability.
6. Ensure continued health
of the SOF Force.
7. Immediately implement
SOCOM’s Information
Strategy.
8. Reduce SOCOM bureaucracy
by streamlining staffing
processes and rapidly staffing
actionable items to the
appropriate decision maker.
Brown captured the new vision in USSOCOM’s
Global SOF Deployment Posture. The first
annual Global SOF Deployment Order
(DEPORD) was published in 2006 and covered
FY 2007, but only addressed GWOT and named
operations. The FY 2008 DEPORD was expanded
to cover all SOF deployments overseas, both
operations and training missions. The GCCs
could still submit RFFs to meet operational
requirements.
By 2007, USSOCOM had the authority and
plan to fight and win the
GWOT and was “growing”
the force structure to
do so. However, Admiral
Olson and the rest of
USSOCOM knew that as
the United States continued
to fight an adaptive
30
enemy in a world full of uncertainty, requirements
would change. The SOF community
would have to remain flexible and prepared to
change plans and force structure as new challenges
appeared.
The IW JOC and its Implications
for USSOCOM
The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review
(QDR) identified Irregular Warfare (IW) as
one of the main threats facing the United
States in the twenty-first century.
Secretary Rumsfeld assigned USSOCOM
the lead in crafting DOD’s response to the
IW threat. Within USSOCOM, Special
Operations Knowledge and Futures (SOKF)
took the lead in developing IW concepts.
In conjunction with the services, USSO-
COM authored an IW Joint Operating
Concept (IW JOC), and Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates signed it in September 2007.
The central idea of the IW JOC was that
U.S. military forces, in conjunction with
other instruments of national and international
power and influence, woul conduct IW
operations in protracted regional and global
campaigns designed to subvert, attrite, and
exhaust an adversary rather than defeat
through direct conventional military confrontation.
The IW JOC also provided a
basis for force development guidance for doctrine,
organization, training, materiel, leadership
and education, personnel, facilities,
and policy changes.
Using the IW JOC as a framework, an
IW capability-based assessment was underway
to determine the ability of both SOF
and the general purpose forces to execute
long-term IW operations, and identify gaps
in IW capability and capacity. Additionally,
SOKF was developing a Joint Integrating
Concept for Defeating Terrorist Networks
IW is a violent struggle between state and
non-state actors for legitimacy and influence
over the relevant populations. IW favors indirect
and asymmetric approaches, though it
may employ the full range of military and
other capabilities, in order to erode an adversary’s
power, influence and will.
(DTN JIC) that
would be subordinate
to the IW JOC
and could provide
guiding principles
to joint force commanders.