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The special operations forces of the 21st century must be tailored to help the U.S. “prevail in a high-end conflict” and designed to thrive in environments that could define an American clash with a powerful adversary such as China, a top Pentagon official said Thursday.
Speaking at the Special Operations Forces Week, Colby Jenkins, the acting assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, told an audience here that the military’s most elite units may operate in future scenarios without the advantages that U.S. forces have traditionally enjoyed.
Colby Jenkins, performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, outlined his priorities for the future of the special warfare community while delivering remarks today during Special Operations Forces Week 2025 in Tampa, Florida.
Army Gen. Bryan Fenton, Special Operations Command commander, described how research had showed that the organization’s predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services, “had shortened World War II by five months.”
“But what if it had been there in 1939? How much shorter would the war have been? Would there have been a war at all?” he asked.
More than just historical trivia, the question comes loaded with implications for today.
If there was a single word that defined the opening day of SOF Week 2025 in Tampa, it wasn’t one that the average American keeps in their vocabulary. It was SOF-Peculiar—a term that sounds like a Pentagon punchline but is actually a legal authority and a worldview. It’s how the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) navigates the defense bureaucracy—not around it, but through it, with speed, trust, and an unapologetic devotion to mission.
The role of special operations forces in global conflicts has steadily increased amid what the U.S. Special Operations Command's top leader called the most complex security environment the United States has faced in decades.
In a not-so-distant future, the United States may face a combination of National Defense Strategy competitors in a shooting war while still holding terrorist groups at bay and responding to yet more crises across the globe. It is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which things go badly, quickly.
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