TAMPA (Realist English). Special operations forces are no longer a tactical niche within the U.S. military. Under reforms accelerated during Donald Trump’s presidency and now formalized by the Pentagon’s leadership, they are rapidly becoming the model for a broader transformation of America’s armed forces — reshaping how the military responds to crises, acquires technology, and projects power abroad.
At the Global SOF Foundation conference in Florida, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and newly appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine outlined a vision rooted in the operational culture of elite units: small, agile teams; rapid procurement cycles; decentralized decision-making; and mission flexibility.
“Special operations forces have long operated like a tech startup,” Hegseth said on May 6. “You’re agile and nimble, lean and lethal. You leverage innovation in ways conventional formations just cannot.”
Gen. Caine — a career special operator — told attendees from more than 60 countries that his years in the SOF community had shaped his leadership philosophy. “You taught me how to integrate. You taught me the importance of relationships. You taught me the importance of being an entrepreneur,” he said.
This mindset is now driving a strategic pivot at the Department of Defense, as the U.S. military seeks to contend with a wider spectrum of threats — from non-state actors to proxy warfare — at a faster pace than traditional structures allow.
The White House connection
Though the trend began earlier, it gained momentum under President Donald Trump, who frequently praised special operations missions in vivid public detail. He lauded the 2017 Navy SEAL raid in Yemen, the 2019 killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the 2020 hostage rescue in Nigeria. Simultaneously, Trump criticized the leadership of conventional forces, accusing them of promoting endless wars to benefit defense contractors.
While Trump’s rhetorical style was unique, his reliance on SOF mirrored practices dating back to the Obama administration. Presidents, analysts note, are drawn to the speed, flexibility, and low-profile nature of special operations missions — particularly for short-term geopolitical gains.
In his second term, Trump designated several transnational drug cartels as terrorist groups, opening legal pathways for potential military action. He publicly floated the idea of deploying U.S. special forces to Mexico — a proposal that raised concerns about legality and sovereignty but reflected his preference for fast, targeted interventions over long-term deployments.
In February, Trump removed Air Force Gen. CQ Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, appointing Gen. Caine in his place. Caine, during Trump’s first term, had advocated for greater operational autonomy during Operation Inherent Resolve, leading to an intensification of U.S. airstrikes against ISIS. A 2021 RAND Corporation study concluded that this acceleration may have “slightly expedited” the Islamic State’s territorial collapse.
A new pace of war
For many within the defense community, the shift toward a SOF-style force structure is less ideological than practical.
“The pace of modern conflict has outstripped our ability to deploy traditional forces,” said a retired Army Special Forces colonel. “Deploying an armored division from El Paso to Kuwait takes months. That doesn’t deter adversaries like China.”
The retired officer described in detail the slow mobilization process: medical checks, legal paperwork, convoying equipment to ports, roll-on/roll-off shipping, and constructing base infrastructure upon arrival. “By the time they’re ready, the world has already changed,” he said. “And China knows that.”
Near-peer adversaries like Russia and China now possess the ability to disrupt such deployments via cyberattacks, long-range missiles, and electronic warfare. The Pentagon is responding by exploring more dispersed, self-sufficient unit configurations — a model pioneered by SOF over the past two decades.
A second former defense official emphasized that this evolution reflects the changing character of threats. “We’re not fighting conventional wars. Our adversaries don’t want to escalate to that point,” they said. “A brigade combat team isn’t going to solve a proxy conflict in Africa or cyber interference in Taiwan.”
Reform through procurement
Special operations units are also reshaping how the Pentagon buys weapons and technology. Unlike the larger services, SOCOM uses smaller-scale purchasing and streamlined legal authorities to acquire “mature” systems more rapidly. These include off-the-shelf equipment, modified platforms (like C-130 gunships), and non-traditional contracts such as Other Transaction Authorities (OTAs).
“With smaller programs, the statutory and regulatory barriers are significantly lower,” former SOCOM acquisition chief James Geurts explained in 2016.
SOCOM’s lean acquisition model allows rapid experimentation, iteration, and fielding. In his SOF Week address, Hegseth called this approach “acquisition reform in action.”
“You adopt advanced technologies early. You make them better and spread them to the rest of the joint force,” Hegseth said. “You are willing to fail and learn. That is the model we need.”
However, multiple defense officials caution that SOCOM’s methods are not directly scalable. “SOCOM doesn’t build from scratch. It modifies,” said the second former official. “It’s apples and oranges to expect the same from the Army or Navy.”
The cost of being elite
The rising demand for SOF capabilities — from kinetic raids to crisis response — has not been matched by proportional increases in funding or strategic planning. Gen. Brian Fenton, current SOCOM commander, testified in March 2024 that global taskings have increased. Lt. Gen. Michael Conley confirmed that this trend has continued through 2025, particularly in the Middle East.
But with that increased role comes risk. “SOF has become a victim of its own success,” said a former official. “Because they can do more with less, they’re expected to do everything — with even less.”
The broader concern is that elite forces are being typecast as tactical problem-solvers, deployed for direct action missions that generate headlines but fail to address root causes. This dynamic was visible in Afghanistan, where SOF conducted high-volume raids with limited strategic effect.
“We never lost a battle in Afghanistan,” said one official. “But we lost the war. That’s the problem with mistaking tactical wins for strategic success.”
The case for irregular warfare
Many within the community argue that SOF’s greatest value lies not in “door-kicking” raids, but in long-term, low-visibility missions: training partner forces, conducting psychological operations, and building resilience against gray-zone threats.
From Russia’s hybrid tactics in Ukraine to China’s harassment in the South China Sea, irregular warfare is becoming the norm. Yet successive U.S. administrations have underfunded this capability, favoring quick, visible results over patient strategy.
“Tell a president, ‘I need 10 years,’ and they’ll say, ‘What can you do by Saturday?’” said a former defense official.
Proposals to elevate the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations to a more senior undersecretary role have circulated for years. But without a clear national strategy for irregular warfare — with objectives, funding, and interagency coordination — officials warn that such reforms would be symbolic at best.
Diplomacy through force
Despite political turbulence, SOF has emerged as a cornerstone of U.S. global engagement. While White House diplomacy has frayed — marked by aid cuts and diplomatic retrenchment — military-to-military ties have endured.
At the SOF conference, the presence of dozens of allied delegations — including the King of Jordan — testified to those enduring bonds. “These relationships go beyond politics,” said one former official. “We have U.S. and foreign officers who’ve trained together for decades.”
Such connections are now doing double duty, filling gaps left by reduced State Department and USAID presence. “In some regions, military cooperation is the only functioning channel,” said the second former official.
That reality was dramatized in Jim Mattis’ 2018 resignation from the Trump administration, citing the abandonment of U.S. Kurdish partners in Syria. For many in the SOF community, those alliances are sacred — and enduring.
Strategic uncertainty
Yet as the U.S. leans further into SOF as both tool and symbol of American military power, the risks of overreliance remain unresolved.
“There’s a belief that SOF can do anything,” said one official. “But if you only reach for the hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”
Absent a clear shift in strategy, experts warn that the U.S. may repeat the pattern of Afghanistan: relying on elite forces to manage complex political crises, without addressing their causes through diplomatic, economic, and cultural engagement.
As one senior figure put it: “SOF is our sharpest tool. But tools don’t win wars — strategies do.”
