How will SOF – in this case Australia’s Special Air Service Regiment – conduct operations against a “peer”, or “near-peer”, adversaries when all the previously enjoyed advantages of technological superiority no longer exist. What competencies will provide out future Special Operation Forces (SOF) the edge?
This essay is to focus heavily on assymetric / irregular / hybrid warfare against adversaries that significantly outmatch Australia’s current and future Defence capability. As per Defence Strategic vision – adversaries such as China.
While I have stated I would like 15 sources – this list is not verbatum. The more the better, but understand if limited on resources.
Journals (eg. smallwarsjournal.com), academic writings, podcasts (eg. irregular warfare podcast), etc, are all permitted.
Happy to use coalition SOF models as examples (eg. UK/US/CANSOF), however please relate to Australia’s strategic outlook where, and as much as, possible.
I expect frequent back and forth, and happy to provide additional resources and/or context should you need.
831096
37 minutes ago
You would have noticed that the essay has a number of drafts. These are from writers that misunderstood the guidelines and provided inaccurate information. Happy for you to use them as required, as with the sources, however make sure you fact check.
This is to be regarding Australian SOF.
The three focal areas I would like to approach are:
1. Acquisition and procurement – specifically how it has failed and put Australia on the back foot. If there is to be any way of staying on the heels of our peer adversaries, we need to reevaluate and restruction our procurement guidelines in order to streamline acquisition. This can be related to relationship building with allies (AUKUS for exmaple) and how information sharing, amongst technology and equipment can enhance this area.
2. Irregular Warfare – specifically persistent international engagement and relationship building at strategic level (country to country), and at the lower (tactical) levels. Specifically, capability strengthening and development not just through traditional means (room floor combat), but also through robotics and automated systems, cyberspace exploitation and even the space domain. while these capabilities are necessary, it should be understated that the human domain (the personnel behind these capabilities and the human-human engagement) is of most importance.
3. Cyberspace operations – traditional / conventional means of war has changed. Australia no longer has the luxury it once enjoyed of technical overmatch. Peer competitors like China, Russia, North Korea and Iran all have technical superiority in military equipment, technology and budget. Australia must focus on asymmetric modelling to achieve maximum results with minimal effort. This can be achieved through irregular warfare (as above), and also through Cyberspace Operations. (Eg. Russia-Ukraine case study, Stuxnet, Operation ARIES). By investing personnel and resources into cyberspace capability development, and the integration of remote and proximity utility from a special forces unit, Australia can influence adversaries and populations through information warfare and offensive cyberspace operations.
I would like to explicitly say that I want the resources I have provided utilised – specifically the AARC Occasional Paper 9, the AUSSOF paper, Dragons and Snakes – David Kilkullen’s book, War 2.0 book, JSOU Paper.
Additionally, there are a number of podcasts from Irregular Warfare podcast that would be of use.
Thanks
DO NOT WASTE TIME ON HISTORY OF SPECIAL FORCES OR SASR – this is where most of the inaccuracies arise. Leave it out. Relate past success with the necessity to adapt.
831096
34 minutes ago
“The military model pioneered by US Forces in the 1991 Gulf War – the high-tech, high precision, high cost suite of networked systems that won the Gulf War so quickly and brought Western powers such unprecedented battlefield dominance in the quarter century since then – is no longer working. Our enemies have figured out how to render it irrelevant, have caught up or over-taken us in critical technologies, or have expanded their concept of war beyond the narrow boundaries within which our traditional approach can be brought to bear. They have adapted, and unless we too adapt our decline is only a matter of time.” – David Kilkullen, ‘Dragons and Snakes’
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