News & Briefings
Get the latest news and SOF commentary here. Your source for all news SOF since 2017.
Defense Health Agency team wins program management award for securing FDA clearance of canine plasma
A critical medical breakthrough for military working dogs earned top honors during the Military Health System Research Symposium, Kissimmee, Florida, Aug. 3, 2026.
The Canine Freeze-Dried Plasma (cFDP) Integrated Product Team earned the MHSRS Program Management Award in recognition of its exceptional collaboration in securing the first-ever Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for a cFDP product.
Since 9/11, Special Operations Forces (SOF) have often been cast as the United States’ sharpest instrument: they hunt high-value targets, train partners, and operate at the seams where conventional forces cannot reach or persist. Thriving in permissive skies and largely uncontested electromagnetic spectrums against weaker foes, those conditions are waning if not already gone. The trends remaking warfare—saturated sensors, democratized precision, machine-speed competition below the threshold of war—are dissolving the advantages SOF have enjoyed. The question this raises is not whether SOF will survive the transition, but whether the qualities that made them indispensable during the War on Terror are the same ones that future conflicts will demand.
It is conceivable that in one blistering campaign, the People’s Republic of China could invade, occupy, and forcibly annex Taiwan. One question would dominate the post-occupation debate: “What more could have been done?” The obvious answers will be better intelligence, bigger exercises, more weapons. One underexamined answer is a different model for U.S. special operations forces advising.
On my first deployment to the Middle East with 5th Special Forces Group, I was tasked with setting up a notoriously complex tactical SATCOM node on a rooftop. I was the team’s 18D (Medical Sergeant), and most of the team, including our 18E (Communications Sergeant), was on the other side of a mountain. Getting that terminal to acquire a satellite, with nothing but my Echo talking me through it over the phone, was next to impossible. The equipment worked. The knowledge existed. It just lived in one man’s head on the wrong side of a mountain.
Central to our arguments throughout this four-part series, we propose “adaptive performance” as a central organizing SOF performance construct, encompassing cognitive, behavioral, and interpersonal adjustments under changing demands. To thrive in the turbulence highlighted in Parts 2 (The Two Trinities and the Human-Domain Advantage) and 3 (The Technology Layer – Cyber, Space, and Human-Machine Teaming in 2040), SOF assessment, selection, and qualification (ASQ) systems must screen for at least three pillars of adaptive performance: mental adaptability, the ability to shift thinking frameworks quickly when mission parameters change; stress adaptability, maintaining metabolic and cognitive composure as information volatility increases; and interpersonal adaptability, fluidly integrating on the fly with diverse teams, including foreign partners, inter-agency civilians, and autonomous systems. A wealth of prior research has solidified the need for such adaptive requirements in SOF missions, and we believe these requirements will only increase due to the factors discussed above. Importantly, not all performance-relevant attributes are equally trainable. This distinction carries direct implications for selection design.
PANAMA CITY, Panama –
Joint Task Force-Bravo concludes operations for their annual, bilateral exercise PANAMAX-Alpha in Panama on July 27, 2026. PANAMAX-Alpha, sponsored by U.S. Southern Command, serves as a critical training platform for U.S. and Panamanian forces.
The exercise focuses on bilateral cooperation with Panama, allowing both nations to refine their security capabilities, streamline logistics, and coordinate humanitarian support efforts.
“This year PANAMAX-Alpha focused on preparing forces for the higher tempo that will take place during the multinational exercise, PANAMAX, in August,” shared U.S. Army Capt. Mac Michael, JTF-Bravo lead PANAMAX planner. “With every mission and training scenario, we are building the muscle memory and tactical interoperability required for shared security challenges across the hemisphere.”
No results found.
Stay Up To Date
Subscribe to Our Newsletter and Stay Up to Date with the Latest Special Operations Forces Support News and Events