The Politics of Special Forces

For our tenth and final episode in this series, Kevin and I have a fascinating chat with two retired American Special Forces operators who now lead projects on technology, organizational culture, and decision making. Derek Jones and Dan Leaf join us to discuss the implications of a potential over-reliance upon technology within the special operations force community. They suggest that the idea of a hyper-connected operator will be challenged by the realities of peer and near-peer conflict and that we all need to become far more comfortable with operating without the comforts of constant communications. Indeed, we will see ourselves returning to a reliance upon initiative and trust. Are we ready?

This episode serves a primer of sorts for the role of special operations forces within the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). While the episode begins with a reflection and updated of the analytic framework that the guests first introduced in 2016, it turned into an incredibly valuable discussion on the origins of IDF SOF as well as the challenges facing this organization in the future. Indeed, this episode – for those who are not familiar with the IDF – provides a unique perspective to the way in which SOF is generated and employed today.

In this episode, Kevin and I sit down with Erin Yantzi, a graduate student from the University of Waterloo who is conducting a unique sociological and anthropological examination of SOF culture. In this conversation, we discuss both the shaping effect of culture upon SOF organizations as well as how the concept of culture can be operationalized by leaders to improve unit – and indeed individual – performance.

In this episode we have a fascinating discussion on the evolution of Belgian Special Operations Forces. In this episode, we pull out several key take aways to include the importance of having and maintaining a national, integrated SOF capability, as well as the idea that SOF never works alone, both in terms of working with other SOF units from around the world as well as within a national, joint context.

n this episode we have a wide-ranging discussion on the concept of counter-threat finance. We are joined by the US Army Special Operations Command Comptroller, COL Sara Dudley, who explains the security implications of finance and the role the SOF can play in this space. In particular, COL Dudley explains how threat finance is part of the broader intelligence function within defence and security.