{"id":24983,"date":"2021-09-09T16:43:07","date_gmt":"2021-09-09T16:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/09\/09\/less-door-kicking-more-resistance-inside-army-sofs-return-to-unconventional-warfare\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T02:24:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T02:24:32","slug":"less-door-kicking-more-resistance-inside-army-sofs-return-to-unconventional-warfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/your-army\/2021\/09\/09\/less-door-kicking-more-resistance-inside-army-sofs-return-to-unconventional-warfare\/","title":{"rendered":"Less door-kicking, more resistance: Inside Army SOF\u2019s return to unconventional warfare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For much of the past two decades, the American public has associated the Army\u2019s special operations forces with counterterrorism, often conjuring images of night-time direct action raids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as the Global War on Terror draws down in scope and scale, and as senior Pentagon leaders and White House officials turn their attention towards the next potential conflict \u2014 ARSOF is shifting its priorities. Their new mission: Create resistance networks that make invasions by Russia or China too costly for those powers to even attempt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many of the Army\u2019s special operators, that means a return to their unconventional warfare roots, which stand in contrast to conventional forces\u2019 own renewed focus on large-scale combat operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Army Times reviewed new publications, spoke with forward-deployed leaders and caught up with other SOF officials to provide a look behind the curtain at how the Army\u2019s most elite forces are embracing the new \u201cResistance Operating Concept.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the Army\u2019s top leaders are signaling their support for the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are rethinking our overall strategy for the special operations community,\u201d Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told lawmakers in a June 29 hearing. \u201cI think you\u2019ll see us\u2026putting an emphasis on unconventional warfare.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur special forces are uniquely suited to do that,\u201d said Gen. James McConville, the service\u2019s chief of staff, in agreement with Wormuth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want the Baltics to present a deterrent to Russia. And part of what we can do in the Army is have our special operations forces work with the Baltic militaries to help them in terms of\u2026developing what I would call resistance capabilities,\u201d Wormuth later explained, referring to the small countries on Russia\u2019s western border adjacent to the Baltic Sea. \u201cI think the Baltics can do that relatively inexpensively, but they would benefit quite a bit from our expertise and deep [unconventional warfare] knowledge base with our special forces.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the ROC?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Resistance Operating Concept centers around building up the capacity of friendly countries to mount an effective civil and military resistance if they were to face invasion and occupation from a hostile great power, such as Russia or China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ROC is \u201ca planning guide\u201d for the U.S. and potentially vulnerable partner nations that ensures \u201ceach side speaks the same [operational] language, and they can go ahead and plan together for resistance,\u201d according to its primary author, Dr. Otto Fiala, who explained it in a July podcast released by 1st Special Forces Command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Estonian and U.S. special operations forces conduct a combined direct action mission during exercise Trojan Footprint 18 near Moe, Estonia, on June 2, 2018. (U.S. Special Operations Command Europe\/Twitter)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fiala, who is also a retired Army Reserve civil affairs officer, led the drive to codify the ROC while working at Special Operations Command-Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The published book-length version of the ROC is available online through Joint Special Operations University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ROC \u201cbridge[s] the understanding between unconventional warfare and resistance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nations supported under the ROC are encouraged to establish the legal and organizational framework for a resistance and bring it under the official control of their armed forces. One such example is the Estonian Defence League, a volunteer paramilitary organization whose 16,000 members are organized under Tallinn\u2019s defense ministry and receive training from U.S. special operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resistance movements \u2014 especially when coordinated and organized under the authority of a county\u2019s legitimate government \u2014 have historically made it difficult for invading forces to consolidate and secure their gains. And U.S. forces have supported such efforts in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The French Resistance from World War II, which features as a case study in Fiala\u2019s book-length ROC, inflicted casualties and sabotage on occupying Nazi forces for years. Their network also played a pivotal role in enabling the successful D-Day invasion of Northern France in 1944. These efforts, though, took years to organize and bring under coordinated control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. and NATO forces also conducted clandestine preparations for \u201cstay-behind\u201d guerilla networks across Western Europe, such as Italy\u2019s Operation Gladio, in the event of Soviet invasion and occupation. But those efforts trained and empowered right-wing paramilitaries, critics said, and their clandestine nature resulted in politically-explosive public revelations during the 1990s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key lessons from these scenarios, according to Fiala and other SOF thought leaders, is the need to coordinate and prepare for such resistance movements ahead of time \u2014 unlike WWII France \u2014 while also working within the legal frameworks of partner nations to provide public-facing preparatory support, unlike secretive Cold War-era \u201cstay-behind\u201d efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Focusing on building resistance capabilities allows the nations to \u201cput their own face on their national defense,\u201d said Master Sgt. Frank Miller, a decorated Green Beret and Army Special Operations Command staffer, on the podcast. \u201cThey\u2019re not a puppet \u2014 their defense is that country\u2019s defense, and we\u2019re just assisting with their own project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One experienced civil affairs officer, Lt. Col. Matt Quinn, described the role of SOF in competition and resistance preparation as a Venn diagram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne circle is U.S. military objectives, and the other circle is U.S. [diplomatic] objectives, and the last circle is the host nation objectives,\u201d Quinn, commander of the Europe-focused 92nd Civil Affairs Battalion, said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd then where they overlap,\u201d he added, \u201cthat\u2019s where we operate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frozen conflicts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to the national objectives of countries in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region, the threat of invasion and occupation isn\u2019t just real \u2014 it\u2019s their lived reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia sponsors a number of so-called \u201cfrozen-conflicts\u201d in post-Soviet states where pro-Moscow separatists have managed to hold off the legitimate government thanks to support from Russia. Moscow\u2019s troops currently occupy territory internationally recognized as belonging to Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Georgian special operations forces and a notional Georgian guerrilla force navigate to an objective during the 10th Annual Agile Spirit Multinational Exercise in Senaki, Republic of Georgia, Aug. 1, 2021. A goal of Exercise Agile Spirit is to promote a whole-of-society approach to resistance. (Army\/Spc. Preston Hammon)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The reality of the Russian threat makes many of those nations \u2014 and other Western-aligned states in the region \u2014 eager to develop a \u201ctotal defense\u201d strategy, to include planning in advance for resistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTwenty percent of [Georgia] is currently occupied by Russia, and the people here are very cognizant of that,\u201d a Green Beret officer told Army Times on background during Agile Spirit 21, a recent exercise that included a resistance-driven special operations training scenario. \u201cThis concept of total defense is not new to Georgia, and they\u2019re very proud to embody it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Setting the conditions for total defense and resistance requires gaining and maintaining the support of the civilian population by \u201cinoculat[ing] and hardening\u201d them against enemy disinformation, 4th Psychological Operations Group commander Col. Christopher Stangle told Army Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\t