Christopher J. Lamb

Global SOF and Interagency Collaboration

The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has emphasized the importance of international SOF collaboration, or what USSOCOM refers to as a “global SOF network.” It is difficult to achieve requisite levels of collaboration even among departments and agencies within a single country, much less on an international basis. Yet USSOCOM has been rightly praised for its trailblazing collaboration efforts in counterterrorism operations, so perhaps it can extend successful collaboration to its “global SOF network.” This article argues collaboration lessons from the past decade of counterterrorism operations can be used to facilitate better international SOF collaboration. Even if the lessons are well recognized they will be hard to act upon, especially when USSOCOM is using its indirect approach to SOF missions managed out of U.S. embassies overseas. But the first step in solving any problem is recognizing the nature of the problem and what is required to solve it. The rest is all disciplined, aggressive and intelligent implementation, which Special Operations Forces do well. Erratum P. 10: Figure 1 in the published version shows an adapted diagram from the US Army Field Manual (3-60) with notations inserted in red to reflect the notations made on a hand drawn diagram that appeared on p. 153 of Stanley A. McChrystals book, My Share of the Task: A Memoir (Portfolio/Penguin, 2013). The author originally inserted in the manuscript a captured image of the diagram that appeared on p. 153 of Gen. McChrystals book. The notations were McChrystals, not those of author (Christopher Lamb), and their representation in the published diagram was not intended to suggest otherwise. This article is available in Journal of Strategic Security: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol7/iss2/3