Strategic Sabotage: Special Operations Forces Core Mission?

by Joey Middleton | Feb 13, 2026 | SOF Operations, SOF Policy

By Justin Clipson Introduction This essay argues that strategic sabotage must be a SOF core activity to win future conflicts. The Global War on Terror (GWOT) created a SOF community that is used to being the supported entity. SOF dismantled terrorist networks with...

Operation Absolute Resolve: Anatomy of a Modern Decapitation Strike

by Joey Middleton | Jan 5, 2026 | SOF and Strategic Competition, SOF Operations, Uncategorized

By Josh Luberisse Introduction At 0201 local time this morning, helicopters from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment—the Night Stalkers—crossed into Venezuelan airspace carrying Delta Force operators toward a target in Caracas. Less than three hours later,...

F3EAD: SOF Specific Targeting in the Intelligence Cycle

by Joey Middleton | Dec 23, 2025 | SOF and Strategic Competition, SOF Operations

By Gabriel Fanelli 1.0 Introduction F3EAD: Find, Fix, Finish, Exploit, Analyse, Disseminate. It is an acronym known and used widely within special operations. It’s kinetic and sequential, and that surface simplicity is its power: it bundles the life-cycle of a target...

A View from the CT Foxhole: Admiral Frank Bradley, Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command

by Joey Middleton | Nov 28, 2025 | SOCOM, SOF Operations

By Don Rassler Admiral Frank M. Bradley has been the Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) since October 2025. Originally from Eldorado, Texas, ADM Bradley is a 1991 graduate of the United States Naval Academy. He has commanded at all levels of...

Special Operations Forces in Large-Scale Combat Operations

by Joey Middleton | Nov 28, 2025 | SOF Operations

By Brig. Gen. Matthew J. Hardman, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ian M. McConnell, U.S. Army In large-scale combat operations, communication may be the most precious opportunity that we have. —Brig. Gen. Joe Wortham After a protracted war period from 2001 to 2021, the U.S. Army...

Setting The Force: 10 Steps for Resolving The Special Forces “Identity Crisis”

by Joey Middleton | Oct 29, 2025 | SOF and Strategic Competition, SOF Operations, SOF Policy

By Robert C. Jones If Special Forces has an “identity crisis,” it is because we misunderstood and mislabeled the problems we were sent to resolve, and applied solutions rooted in how the problems were labeled and defined, rather than for what they were. The world had...