{"id":46287,"date":"2021-05-20T21:57:37","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T21:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2021\/05\/20\/the-future-of-sof-exclusive-interview-with-socom-commander-richard-clarke\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T09:55:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T09:55:47","slug":"the-future-of-sof-exclusive-interview-with-socom-commander-richard-clarke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/interviews\/2021\/05\/20\/the-future-of-sof-exclusive-interview-with-socom-commander-richard-clarke\/","title":{"rendered":"The future of SOF: Exclusive interview with SOCOM commander Richard Clarke"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After 20 years of constant deployment as a key element of U.S. military response around the globe, special operations forces are at an inflection point. There are fewer commandos deployed, spending less time downrange that at any point in years. Yet the force continues to be plagued by incidents<\/a> like the December slaying of a Delta Force NCO at Fort Bragg. And with President Joe Biden ordering all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by Sept. 11, the question becomes: What now for special operations forces in an era of increasing tension with China and Russia?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, during the annual Special Operations Forces Industry Conference, Military Times sat down with Army Gen. Richard Clarke, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command and talked about the future of SOCOM and SOF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the 30-minute interview in his office at SOCOM headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, Clarke talked about the state of the special operators in the ranks \u2014 op-tempo, the threat of extremism, mental health during the COVID-era, and high-profile incidents of misconduct. He also talked about SOF\u2019s role in a potential conflict with Russia and China and, possibly, in Afghanistan after the troop withdrawal later this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some questions and answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MT:<\/b> What do you anticipate the role of SOF will be when it comes to challenges from both China and Russia?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RC:<\/b> Access. Placement. Influence. And the ability to influence because of that access and placement of ours is critical. And so today, while you and I are sitting here, we\u2019ve got about 5,000 members of SOCOM that are deployed globally in 60 nations around the world. Because we have great allies and partners that we work with, that\u2019s providing us influence, and so that\u2019s our asymmetric advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MT:<\/b> Will SOF return to doing the kinds of things the 10th Special Forces Group did back in Europe during the Cold War?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RC:<\/b> Security force assistance. Foreign internal defense. We\u2019re working with allies and partners. But today\u2019s environment is a little bit different. And I think the other part that I put in there is the informational space. We have military information support operations professionals, that, 20 years ago, worked in radio and print. And today, they still work in radio and print as it\u2019s appropriate in the environment that they may be operating. But they also work on the internet. They work and use the social media platforms that exist in the countries and work with the embassies in specific regions to help with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MT:<\/b> Talk about how to compete in the Information Operations space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RC:<\/b> I think we have to work at the speed of relevance. And we have to be first with the truth and not be wrong. And if we\u2019re able to do that, and not allow potential competitors a free pass \u2014 that they can just put out whatever they want that may not be truthful \u2014 that we can compete in that space, I think that is critical. And working at that speed of relevance \u2014 where individuals hear something, and if it\u2019s not true \u2014 we want to make sure that the proper message is out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MT<\/b>: Do you have any recent examples of that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RC:<\/b> I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MT:<\/b> Talk about how, in the final months of the Trump administration, you and then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper sought to speed up the military\u2019s messaging efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RC:<\/b> Secretary Esper and I personally spoke about speeding it up. He agreed with the need for that speed of relevance and truthful message but I think an important part of this, as I spoke about earlier, is it also needs to be coordinated within a broader interagency and particularly with our Department of State. So we still continue to do that and will continue to push for the relevance and speed but also the proper coordination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MT:<\/b> Are there tensions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RC: <\/b>I truthfully have seen no tension of late. I haven\u2019t seen any issue with it thus far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MT<\/b>: Are you able to talk specifically about some of these efforts? I want to drill down a little bit about what SOF can do with China, which it can do with Russia and Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RC: <\/b>I don\u2019t want to get into the operational details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MT<\/b>: But what about the broad sense of things?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RC:<\/b> We maintain some really important partnerships, both in Europe, but also in the Indo-Pacific, which we have had and will maintain going into the future. But it would be inappropriate for me to go into specific ones and specific activities. But suffice it to say that those relationships remain really strong. Some are treaty allies. And but some are partners. And in some cases, I think that the aspect that I would mention, it is that we\u2019re there at the behest of those countries, but in some cases, it\u2019s there\u2019s also counterterrorism threats. And we\u2019re there primarily to help them with their counterterrorism threats. But because they\u2019re partnered with us, it also ensures that we remain a partner of choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MT:<\/b> Through a contract, the Joint MISO WebOps Center (JMWC) recently hired someone to monitor Chinese social media. How important is it in understanding an adversary to know their social media?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RC: <\/b>I take it beyond just the JMWC, in understanding another culture. That\u2019s why SOF, in particular, are really valuable in this competition, because of the of the understanding of both language but more importantly, probably, the culture. We train our people to do that. As to your point on the JMWC, as well, yes, we want to bring folks that are native, that understand the nuances of specific parts to a language but also the culture, if they\u2019re actually going to be assisting in military information support operations. But it\u2019s more important than anything for them to make sure they understand the environment we\u2019re still working in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MT: <\/b>Let me shift things to Afghanistan for a minute. Do you anticipate a QRF in the CENTCOM region for Afghanistan if something goes wrong?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RC:<\/b> There will always be contingency plans for quick reaction forces that we maintain globally. So I wouldn\u2019t put it just to the CENTCOM area of operations. But as you as you know, SOCOM is always on tap for crisis response. As I\u2019ve stated many times: It\u2019s our number one mission that we have to be able to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MT:<\/b> Let\u2019s talk about the comprehensive review of the force in the wake of numerous problems involving accusations of war crimes, drug running, murder and other misbehavior<\/a>. That report was released in January of 2020, yet what happened in December at Fort Bragg with the killing of a Delta Force operator shows problems still exist. Where are you with addressing these issues and are you comfortable with the progress?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Navy SEALs and Iraqi troops look at a young Islamic State fighter prosecutors say was murdered by Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward \u201cEddie\u201d Gallagher. He says he was framed. (photo provided)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

RC:<\/b> I put a couple of points upfront on the comprehensive review. Number one, we self-directed this. No one from the outside said, \u2018Hey, SOCOM, go do a comprehensive review.\u2019 We took this on ourselves for the purpose of making our force better. You conduct after-action reviews after every operation, but occasionally you have to take a pause and look at the force. The last time that a really hard look had been done on the force was 2011. It goes to 2019, 2020, it\u2019s time to look again. So am I satisfied that we\u2019re complete with all the things in the comprehensive review? The comprehensive review was not a final destination. It\u2019s actually a journey. And you may know that, after the comprehensive review and the findings, and the recommendations were complete, we put a three star in charge with teams at all the components to continue to ensure that we make progress. So to that end, a couple things are probably worthy of note. <\/b>First, as you look at the findings, because of the over-focus on mission accomplishment, and employment, it came to the leadership detriment of discipline and accountability. And so our focus has been on ensuring that our employment model and who was forward deployed, and what command elements were forward deployed we took a hard look at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so we actually have less O-6 headquarters deployed today than we had in 2019, and 2020. We have less forces deployed than we did in 2018 2019, or 2020. Because we looked hard at the prioritization of the forces and looked at the sustainability, we now have all of our forces next year, for the first time, at a two-to-one \u2014 or better \u2014 dwell-to-deployment ratio. And that\u2019s pretty significant. Before, we were one-to-one or less than one-to-one. It\u2019s giving our force time to build readiness, to modernize, and for that leadership to oversee their people. And then, second, we looked hard at our professional military education, and our professional military assessments of our leaders. All of our components are now taking on mid-grade level assessments of their people and ensuring that we\u2019re also training our people on the moral, ethical and the foundational things that we must do to ensure that all of our people have the right value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MT:<\/b> What is the status of the follow-up report?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RC:<\/b> Congress asked for it and it\u2019s still due in the spring some time.<\/p>\n\n\n\t