This is the fourth and final installment of a four-part essay examining lessons learned from Ukraine for SOF in large-scale combat operations (LSCO). Authored by Erik Kramer and Paul Schnieder. You can read Part I, Part II, and Part III on SOFX.
Part IV
IX. Training & SOF Preparation for LSCO
Observations & Recommendations
Ukrainian SOF relies heavily on UAS and as mentioned above, UAS is often the main effort for direct action operations. All USSOF operators should be able to operate any organic UAS. The ability to put into operation, troubleshoot, and fly a drone should be as ubiquitous as operating a radio or shooting skills.
Air, ground, and sea drones, now and in the future, will serve many purposes on a SOF team to include reconnaissance, kinetic operations, antiarmor, breaching, and logistics. A universal understanding and comfort with using them are important. SOF already relies on stealth, intelligence, and technology to overcome deficits in manpower and firepower. Drones will be a natural extension of these principles.
Counter UAS tactics, techniques, and procedures, will be extremely important. Any soldier on a modern-day battlefield will encounter drones. SOF teams will encounter hostile drones and each operator must possess training and equipment to counter them. Technology will always be playing catchup in the counter UAS fight so SOF will have to become students of this emerging threat. Again, SOF teams are traditionally small and the ability to stop a drone attack needs to reside with all team members. It all starts with the basics, battle drills. In our travels training various U.S. Army units, most organizations are still grappling with how to address the UAS threat.
Most units have not fielded counter UAS equipment and those that have, only have one system with minimal training. We encourage these soldiers at minimum to develop and rehearse counter UAS battle drills. Counter UAS should be a critical part of any operational planning or base defense plans. A plan is better than no plan.
The U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery School teaches counter UAS courses for small UAS. In the same vein, SOF teams should become adept at electronic warfare deception and should incorporate those practices into their operations. The use of “white electronic noise” and devices such as electronic emitters have been successful in several training exercises that this article has discussed already.
One of the main strengths of SOF is the ability to be extremely proficient on the basics. In Special Forces training, there is an emphasis on land navigation skills. The community cannot allow these skills to atrophy, because the ability to go analog in a GPS-denied environment is real. We advised military units, during field exercises, to always include an “analog” repetition where the use of anything electronic is denied to include GPS, computers, radios, and cell phones for an extended period of time. Most simulated cyber and EW attacks during training exercises are of short duration and not “painful” enough to force participants to completely go analog. These “analog” skills are perishable so there needs to be a deliberate effort to include that in training.
Armor is not dead. Tanks will more than likely be part of ground warfare for the foreseeable future. As mentioned already, during the early part of the Russian 2022 invasion of Ukraine, SOF was very successful using hit and run tactics with ATVs and motorcycles coupled with anti-tank weapons like the Javelin. SOF soldiers must be trained on these systems and they should be included in any team’s “basic load” going into a LSCO environment. As mentioned previously, deployment with mortars should be standard for SOF teams. Of note, the U.S. Army’s Infantry School teaches a Mortar Platoon Leader Course.
The war in Ukraine has been waged online; especially popular messaging and social media apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. One of the hallmarks of SOF is to “understand your operational environment,” and constantly monitoring social media is part of that. It should be a team responsibility for everyone to check local social media multiple times a day. This effort should be started well before infiltration. It pays dividends in intelligence, force protection, targeting info, and just general atmospherics. The U.S. Army Asymmetric Warfare Group’s (AWG) developed an app called “Paint” that monitored local media. We mentioned the Dataminr product, which is available to anyone with a “.mil” email address, earlier as a way for SOF teams to fill that role.
The war in Ukraine has shown that speed is key in a LSCO when everything is “seen” by drones. Even though SOF traditionally works on the “seams” of a battlefield, speed equals safety. SOF which already uses ATVs (and used motorcycles in Afghanistan) should consider using other means of transportation to include electronic bikes and motorcycles which present a lower profile than HMMVWs or other vehicles. Using these nonstandard vehicles will require additional training as well as rehearsing mounted battle drills.
The list of skills that SOF is required to possess has increased exponentially and continues to grow. We understand that the SOF training pipelines are always under pressure to produce operators as quickly as possible, but these authors recommend that these initial entry courses should be lengthened to reflect the plethora of new skills required. Waiting to train operators for the first time on skills such as UAS operations when they are fielded to their unit is hit or miss and the training competes with so many other requirements. Also, SOF has often relied on augmentation from enablers for some of these niche capabilities and skills. Many of these technical skills to include cyber and electronic warfare are needed at the team level now.
SOF should consider adding a specialty ‘multi-domain” operator or even two. This may not be possible currently given the significant force generation pressures and manpower restrictions but an alternative in the near-term could be to offer courses that are tailored and truncated to SOF missions like the Special Operations Terminal Air Controllers Course (SOTACC), that provides most of the capabilities of the more time intensive high-end capability of a Joint Terminal Air Controller that a SOF team would need. Courses that specialize in operating and integrating these new systems to include cyber, social media operations, electronic warfare, unmanned systems, and the Internet of Things(IoT-integrating and synchronizing all of these various systems) into tactical operations are necessary at the team level.
X. FID/UW
A special note on foreign internal defense and unconventional warfare. Many of the Ukrainian SOF personnel that these authors worked with attended training led by U.S. Special Forces in locations outside of Ukraine. The universal theme upon their return was that much of the training was not tailored to what the Ukrainians needed nor was it designed to take into account their lack of resources. Furthermore, much of the planning taught was based on U.S. doctrine and training templates which has an inherent assumption that the planners have had years of schooling on troop leading procedures, NATO standard operational orders, and the mission decision making process.
For example, just think how much time is spent teaching basic terms such as a mission essential task or specified or implied tasks in U.S. officer professional development courses. Ukrainian staffs are much smaller than U.S. staffs and staff officers might have had no formal training. For example, a battalion staff in Ukraine might only consist of a chief of staff who is triple hatted as the executive officer and the operations officer, no S1/adjutant, an intelligence officer who might also be the reconnaissance company commander, and a supply officer who might or might not be school-trained. Staff communications officers and artillery officers are not a certainty either.
One other example of a disconnect between “what is taught vs. what is needed” is instruction on urban operations. Teaching room clearing techniques can require a lot of time and is not always useful when the Russians just use a thermobaric bomb and rubble any building that Ukrainian forces enter. More useful is: teaching how to move through an urban area using the buildings for cover; how to avoid booby traps and IEDs; how to plan for the use of drones to avoid compromise and take into account urban canyons that can interrupt communications between drones and operators; how to plan medical evacuation and resupply; and how to establish and maintain radio communications when most radios are FM so limited to line of site. The actual room clearing skills that are necessary are more akin to Stalingrad or World War II tactics that are basically using grenades and operating in two-man teams. Instructions on how to wear and modify personal kit should be mandatory.
Foreign armies often try to replicate U.S. kit setup which is more focused on SOF close quarters combat and operating from vehicles. Try low crawling with magazines, radios, and grenades attached to the front of body armor. The three biggest killers in Ukraine are drones, artillery, and landmines. Furthermore, trench clearing is an essential skill (it was the number one requested training from units).
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, USSOF that are mentoring and advising indigenous forces in LSCO must first understand how the partner force operates and the “why” before they can even begin to develop a program of instruction. Many of the AFU soldiers have been fighting for years so have developed tactics, techniques, and procedures that the U.S. military can learn from. During training of partner forces, whether it is in a permissive or non-permissive environment, trainers should conduct “azimuth checks” on training at least one or twice a day amongst the cadre and students to make sure what they are teaching is applicable and is being understood. We spent three days teaching a staff on planning and discussed breaching in almost every scenario. At the end of three days, we realized that our interpreter was translating “bridging” instead of “breaching.” Regular “checks up” on how students are receiving (or not receiving) training is critical.
The initial evaluation of the unit and discussions with the chain of command are essential to ensuring quality and useful training. Spending time with junior officers, NCOs, and soldiers is just as important. Sometimes there is a disconnect between what the chain of command says their strengths and weaknesses are versus what the soldiers will tell you. The first time we taught planning, we realized that not everyone could read a basic map and there was not an AFU-wide standard for providing location coordinates. The AFU used a variety of methods to include: a Soviet/Russian equivalent to the U.S. Military Grid Reference System (MGRS), latitude/longitude, U.S. MGRS, and Google Maps.
The less time in the classroom the better. Even if classroom work is unavoidable, try to break it up with outside activities or have practical applications in every hour block of instruction. Almost every day during planning instruction, we would teach a block, demonstrate it based on their task organization, equipment, and tactics, then have them do a verbal abbreviated planning session or conduct a terrain walk in various environments (urban, rural, open plains, and village) to discuss what was learned in class and how to apply it on the ground.
Stick to the basics. For example, internalizing an understanding of troop leading procedures is better than half a day spent on the operations order format. The old Soviet way of planning that still permeates the AFU, is much more centralized and culturally different from Western planning methods. It takes time to change the attitude and ingraPlanning at the brigade, battalion, and company levels should just focus on two missions, attack and defend. Repeat planning exercises on these events over and over again. We recommend a simple five phase attack format for the offense: planning and reconnaissance; movement; assault/breach; exploitation/consolidation; and preparation for an immediate counterattack.
For the defense, we recommend a simple four phase plan: reconnaissance and observation; occupation; preparation; and engagement. If the partner force becomes comfortable and confident with those two basic missions, they can branch off on their own for more complex missions such as movement to contact or forward passage of lines. Platoon and squad training should focus on: basic soldier skills (shoot, move, communicate), and medicate; basic small unit leadership to include roles and responsibilities of all leaders (especially the officer/NCO relationship); fieldcraft (various topics to include camouflage, proper fighting position construction, field hygiene, footcare, how to pack a rucksack, kit setup, cold weather layering, noise and light discipline, radio/cell phone discipline); movement and battle drills.
A special note on fieldcraft. U.S. SOF operators take for granted many of our common practices in the field, but that is based off of years of experience. Never assume your partner force knows something. We started incorporating fieldcraft into every training venue and it was very well received. Finally, pre-mission training should include an emphasis on foreign weapons and equipment training. It is a loss of credibility when you are teaching a partner force to zero their AK-74 assault rifles if you do not understand how to use the special site adjustment tools and have not mastered the fundamentals of operating their weapons.
XII. Remote Advise Assist and Over The Horizon SOF Support to Partner Nations
A critical consideration given the current mission of SOF is expanding the capability to remotely advise and assist partner and allied SOF/resistance forces; especially in the midst of a conflict. Given political considerations, remote advise and assist is the only feasible course of action in some cases such as in the final months of the Afghan conflict and of course the current Ukraine war. There have been several advantages to this type of advising but also significant challenges. If USSOF conducts the necessary preparation and can build a credible partner force capacity along with developing information and intelligence sharing systems, remote advising can be highly effective. If not, it is minimally effective and could cause more harm than good for partner elements.
Observations
Initial AFU SOF, partisan and resistance efforts of Ukraine were very effective as a result of a long and Initial AFU SOF operations against the Russian military were very effective as a result of a long and extensive relationship with various NATO SOF training over the last decade. Current USSOF and British SOF remote advise and assist efforts with the Ukrainians include; support through using tools like Remote Advise Assist Video Accompany Kit (RAA-VAK) and DELTAcop (a Ukrainian developed common operating picture platform); building organic capacity both in Ukraine and abroad; training on various foreign weapons; employing asymmetric capabilities against Russian advanced technology and numerical advantages; facilitating the dissemination of information through phones, metadata encryption applications; and extensive use of satellite targeting information.
These remote advisor activities have enabled stay-behind forces to operate at reduced risk behind enemy lines and are an important case study for future LSCO. Challenges still exist. Initially information/intelligence sharing agreements did not facilitate joint operations with non-conventional forces and lacked a secure information sharing platform like RAA-VAK or Battlefield Information Collection and Exploitation Systems Extended (BISES-X) which is a platform that facilitates intelligence sharing with partner forces. This shortfall limited our ability to enable them at the onset of the Russian offensive. Equipment and capability gaps have also severely limited their ability to conduct operations. For an effective remote and advise mission, it is imperative that SOF focus on preparing resistance forces by establishing caches, developing ample power generation systems, and establishing networks prior to the start of a LSCO.
The Afghan conflict provided examples of “advisor disconnect” where USSOF employed RAAVAK, but did not create unilateral capabilities to plan and conduct operations without significant assistance. Most SOF units did all the planning and intelligence operations, and would then just notify the partner force at the last minute where and when to provide soldiers for the mission. They would not be told the location of the mission usually until right before departing the base and the partner forces phones would be taken from them to prevent spillage or compromised partner soldiers from communicating the intended target to the Taliban. While it increased security for USSOF, it prevented partner force elements from learning all of the necessary steps for unilateral employment once USSOF withdrew. It is imperative that if U.S. Special Operations Command forces are to be successful in remote advise and assist missions in the future, we must build resilient partner capacity to conduct unilateral operations with issued advise and assist platforms.
Recommendations
Based on these observations, recommendations for USSOF include establishing clear partner and ally integration mechanisms and policy to support kinetic and non-kinetic operations. Also USSOF should invest in robust and resilient command and control systems that talk to the host nation and international partners like (BISES-X), metadata applications, domestic secure partner network systems that provide a shared common operations picture (like DELTAcop) to facilitate operations and information sharing.
Additionally, training on how to employ the various adversarial and foreign weapons and technology that partners and allies use will be important. It is also important to build organic capacity through developing schoolhouses with dedicated cadre that can rapidly train other instructors to build forces prior to crisis and during crisis. This capability has to be built well in advance of crisis or conflict. The U.S. and Canada as well as several other NATO countries helped develop schools and planning courses for the Ukrainian National Guard inside of Ukraine prior to the 2022 invasion and it paid long-term dividends. Of note, when USSOF relies on training their partner force outside of their country, it creates manpower shortages in the middle of a war.
The partner force could also start to rely on U.S. high-end equipment that is not going to be widely available to them in conflict or equipment they will not use at all. Some of the AFU units training in Germany are using M16s instead of AK-74 assault rifles which are not standard issue in the AFU (also some AFU SOF units are being issued M4 assault rifles). USSOF should encourage their partner forces to rely on their local economy for sustainable resourcing. SOF should also prioritize the development of local leaders and the establishment of organizations like the National Resistance Center of Ukraine to facilitate resistance prior to the start of a conflict.
SOF should continue to leverage technological advancements and asymmetric capabilities, to provide a strategic advantage to partner force’s SOF and resistance forces. Easy to use, low cost, high payoff capabilities that do not require long kill chains should be the norm. The ability to employ joint fires is also a critical partner force capability. Finally, SOF should prioritize developing partner force ability to garner international support through journalism courses and translation resources to rapidly amplify the success of operations and highlight adversary failures and non-legitimate actions. If this detailed preparation is not done prior to conflict or not done in a sustainable organic matter we risk repeating the same remote advise and assist critical errors in Afghanistan, and the limited information, intelligence, and joint fires that was provided to Ukraine at the onset of Russia’s “Special Military Operation.”
Conclusion
USSOF has been the lead in the American wars over the past 20+ years. Our country has been fighting terrorists and combating insurgencies. These missions are SOF’s bread and butter. The paradigm, however, has shifted to Great Power Competition which could lead to LSCO or a traditional nation-state vs. nation-state war. SOF has an essential role in full scale combat to include strategic missions, working with partner forces, and supporting conventional force operations. While SOF is agile, moving towards this type of fight takes a mental shift. Many of the capabilities, control, and coordination of operations that the U.S. military takes for granted and that have become pillars of SOF operations in places like Afghanistan and Iraq are no longer the case. These include rotary wing aircraft for medical evacuation and CSAR; reliable, uninterrupted communications; and uncontested logistics.
As evident by the battlefield in Ukraine, war has changed. It has sped up and it’s deadlier. Unmanned systems are now the king of battle. USSOF will have to make these systems part of their “culture” and integrate them into all facets of their operations, including mitigating that threat as well. From the outside looking in, it appears that USSOF (and U.S. military in general) has not fully realized the fundamental revolution and changes that unmanned systems are bringing to warfare. That paradigm needs to change now before the U.S. faces its first near peer adversary on the battlefield. Drones need to be plentiful, expendable, modifiable, and easy to use; NOT treated as a sensitive item, a separate planning annex, or the domain of only specially-trained personnel.
All operators will need to have a strong baseline knowledge of drones, demonstrated competence in their use, and treat them as essential as a rifle or radio. Technologies such as AI, cyber, and EW are changing at a breakneck pace and it is not always possible to stay ahead of the curve. Expecting a U.S. Army Special Forces communications sergeant, or a SEAL or Marine Raider communications specialist to be the expert on all of these systems to include operating and maintaining them is too much for one person. All SOF formations should consider adding mandatory specialized courses or another military occupational specialty that can employ and integrate all of these systems; a multidomain operator organic to the team, who is not just an enabler. The Marine Corps just added a “squad systems operator” to each squad to manage the various sensors and firing systems now organic to a squad.
Finally, SOF will have to adapt to integrate more with conventional forces whether its Green Berets working with brigade combat teams, Marine Raiders supporting Marine infantry regiments, or Navy SEALs in a supporting role during a traditional Navy operation. There have been great strides to integrate SOF and conventional forces.
LSCO is traditionally a conventional force fight with SOF as a supporting effort. SOF must embrace that reality or the after-action reviews of the next war will include accounts of friction and missteps between the two forces (like it did with Afghanistan and Iraq). Throughout our combined 40+ years in and around SOF, we have seen our community easily integrate and become brothers with itinerant Afghan tribesmen but barely be on speaking terms with a U.S. Army infantry battalion operating in an adjacent area of operations. Integrating with conventional forces is not a new position for SOF. Until the 2000s, that was the norm as discussed in this article. SOF likes to state that it is a Swiss Army knife so we cannot turn our noses or ignore missions that do not fall under the purview of Irregular Warfare. As seen in Ukraine, SOF can easily be misused when conventional force commanders do not understand their mission, capabilities, and capacities and the SOF commanders do not understand their roles in LSCO.
The next fight will potentially be a very costly one and will require all hands working together. Remember the SOF Imperative: ensure legitimacy and credibility of Special Operations. SOF must possess the ability to adapt to the revolution in modern warfare. Unlike past wars, USSOF will not have the luxury of time to adjust and change from initial disasters due to poor training, integration, or a lack of understanding of the battlefield. As the Ukrainian drone operator, callsign “Darwin,” stated in one of the videos below (and embedded here), the way to survive and succeed on the modern battlefield is the ability to quickly adapt. Remember the SOF Imperatives: understand the operational environment, apply capabilities indirectly, and develop multiple options.
Included is a list of relevant resources, vignettes, and videos:
Training/Fieldcraft
U.S. Military Training Assistance to Ukraine, academic assessment of U.S. military training of the Ukrainian military in 2022: U.S. Military Training Assistance to Ukraine | START.umd.edu
Article on NATO Training not Tailored to the Needs of Ukraine: https://kyivindependent.com/here-are-the-flaws-in-ukraines-new-brigades-and-foreign-training-programs/
Individual Fighting Positions Construction, a good refresher and primer-11 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iClE3AdKJH8&authuser=0
Perimeter Defense, Early Warning Detection Traps-28 minutes: Perimeter Defense | Early Warning Detection Traps – YouTube
Field Expedient Explosive for Making Hasty Trenches: Boom! A One-Meter Hole in Seconds!! #shorts #usa
Signature Reduction 101-38 minutes: (1179) Signature Reduction 101 | How Modern Equipment Can Compromise You – YouTube
Ukraine
*highly recommended reading* Royal United Services Institute Study: Meatgrinder: Russian Tactics in the Second Year of Its Invasion of Ukraine | Royal United Services Institute
*highly recommended reading* Royal United Services Institute Study: Tactical Developments During the Third Year of the Russo–Ukrainian War | Royal United Services Institute
Ukraine Purgatory (strategic, operational, tactical assessment of the current situation in Ukraine-18 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDRjughhXMg&authuser=0
USSOF Doctrine & Operations
Article titled, “The Two Special Operations Trinities” by David Maxwell, retired Special Forces lieutenant colonel and a well-known scholar of Irregular War. It discusses SOF operations across the spectrum of Great Power Competition in future warfare. The Two Special Operations Trinities | Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University
FM 6-06 (Army, USMC, Navy, Air Force) CF-SOF Multi-Service TTPs for Conventional Forces and SOF Integration, Interoperability, and Interdependence, January 2022, CF-SOF (of note, you will need a U.S. DOD CAC card to open)
Article on SOF-CF Integration in LSCO: 21-652 – SOF-CF Interoperability in Large-Scale Combat Operations | Article | The United States Army
U.S. Army Center for Army Lessons Learned list of SOF/CF integration publications and documents: https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2023/01/31/3b224e71/21-632-sofcf-interdependence-interoperability-and-integration-jun-21-public.pdf
Recommended Sources of Information about the Ukraine War
The Kyiv Post (popular English language newspaper from Ukraine) Get the Latest Ukraine News Today – KyivPost
The Royal United Service Institute studies (the best detailed studies at the strategic, operational, and tactical level of the Ukraine War-two articles listed above) Ukraine | Royal United Services Institute
Deep State Telegram channel (gold standard for up to date maps of the Ukraine War) DeepStateMAP | День 1111 | Map of the war in Ukraine
The Institute for the Study of War (daily free newsletter with detailed updates on the Ukraine iWar, broken down by sections of the battlefield) Institute for the Study of War
Center for Defence Strategies (respected Ukrainian Thinktank) Daily Brief – Centre for Defence Strategies
Tass (English version of the official Russian News Agency-the Russian perspective on the war) TASS Russian News Agency
The Jamestown Foundation (daily free newsletter with unparalleled scholarly analysis of the Ukraine War and related topics from original Russian source documents) The Jamestown Foundation
Ukraine Ministry of Defense (daily battlefield updates from the Ukrainian perspective) Ministry of Defence of Ukraine
About the Authors
Erik Kramer is a Senior Fellow with the National Center for Urban Operations and co-founder of the Ukraine Defense Support Group. With over 33 years of military and government service, including time as a Special Forces officer, Kramer has been in Ukraine since 2022 advising the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He recently published his first book, American Dystopia: A Cautionary Tale, which uses fictional interviews to depict the United States two years after a societal collapse, exploring its impact on culture, the economy, education, international relations, and politics.
Paul Schneider is a former U.S. Special Forces Green Beret who volunteered to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. He has worked with nearly every type of Ukrainian Armed Forces unit, from Special Forces teams on tactical operations to Ukraine’s National Service Academy at the strategic level. Schneider is currently a senior foreign policy analyst and planner at Special Operations Command Pacific, where he develops plans for security cooperation, Special Operations campaigns, and Whole-of-Society Resistance Operating Concepts.
