The authors of this report assess the role of U.S. Army special operations forces (ARSOF) in great-power competition, focusing on the types of activities the United States will need to conduct in competition with Russia and ARSOF's effectiveness in conducting them, as well as ARSOF's advantages and disadvantages relative to conventional military forces and the efforts of nonmilitary agencies. The authors find that, under steady-state conditions, ARSOF can help to strengthen the resilience of allies and partners while improving the United States' situational awareness. When the risk of armed conflict is high, ARSOF can help to defend against proxy forces used by U.S. adversaries and can be used to disrupt adversary operations in denied environments or to impose costs on adversaries. However, unconventional warfare intended to overthrow adversary governments has historically had low rates of success. Finally, ARSOF can be used to better target U.S. operations in the information environment and work with local surrogates to strengthen the impact of such efforts.

Title from PDF document (title page; viewed October 15, 2021) "Prepared for the United States Army."

Chapter One: Introduction -- Chapter Two: ARSOF Capabilities for Strategic Competition -- Chapter Three: The Potential Effectiveness of ARSOF Operations in Strategic Competition -- Chapter Four: Conclusion and Policy Recommendations -- Appendix: Technical Discussion of Statistical Modeling of FID.