Today, America's special operations forces (SOF) are confronted with a moment of critical importance and personal reflection at the crossroads of important inquiries: How has the character of global international rivalry changed? What are the implications for future SOF jobs, missions, and power structures (i.e., future usefulness) from the 2020s through the 2050s? Indeed, as the United States enters this century, it must shift its focus from battling psychological warfare, violent extremist organizations (VEOs), and insurgencies during the last two decades to adjusting to the hazards of confrontations between purported Great Powers. The future extraordinary activities and SOF should follow suit.

Illustrations amassed but not yet learned? In the middle of the relative abundance of contemporary uncertainties and greyness notwithstanding, including and guard things, maybe the one apparent thing is that we should draw lessons from the past and make adjustments now to better meet what lies ahead. Furthermore, one example emerges from such a "back to our prospects" survey: SOF is and has always been, a fantastic promise for our nation.

We truly want to get back to fundamentals as we continue to contemplate and work through this inquiry of (re)characterizing SOF's value in the Great Power competition (GPC). Success in this competitive environment is, as it has always been in the course of outstanding endeavors, "left-of-blast." Dr. Isaiah (Ike) Wilson III is a Political Science Professor and the President of the Joint Special Operations University.

Green Berets assigned to the first Battalion, tenth Special Forces Group, intend to break as part of Close Quarter Battle training in Germany on May 5, 2020 (US Armed force/Thomas Mort) 2022 tasks, exercises, and guesses 38 Special Feature/Rediscovering the Value of Special Operations.

The key is comprehensive, coordinated prevention. As such, success is achieved by putting the joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and global power in a positional advantage over competitors and enemies through access, arrangement, and vital impact, thereby setting the conditions for the possible outcomes of winning before or even without the battle. As the United States and the West educated in the twentieth century, preserving the Cold War from escalating was a critical component in the concept of victory in the basic fight between tyranny and socialism on one side and a majority rule government and free capitalism on the other.

The United States and its allies gained geostrategic benefits during the Cold War without directly confronting the Soviet Union in open armed conflict, and a similar logic might apply in the twenty-first century. GPC is the pinnacle of a growing number of worldwide relationships that stem from partnerships of participation, contest, struggle, and exemplary conflict. The expected effect of SOF's utility in a contest climate will interest, as it has in the past, anticipating, discovering, and establishing ways and open doors that allow the Nation and its partners and accomplices to all accomplish two things at the same time: reduce the abundance and temperature of rivalry and struggle among contenders and stop and prevent a next Great Power battle from taking place at.

SOF should compete in the digital space and not give in to its adversaries. The current new compound security typical for SOF will be to work in remote, denied, and disturbed conditions under omnipresent knowledge observation, with the danger of focusing on top-of-the-line military abilities, including weapons of mass annihilation, where the digital and electronic fighting spaces are challenged and extensive examination is normal. We should return to the ideas of extraordinary task usage and usefulness that engages SOF as Sentinel, establishing the climate as the cutting edge envoys of the joint power and as the "first three feet" used in every rivalry or conflict zone.

A "Back to the Future" Approach to Rediscovering SOF for a New Age. To understand it and cherish SOF as a representation of what is to come, we must grasp SOF from then to today. According to a hierarchical perspective, there have been three previous times of extraordinary US missions, beginning with the "Wild Bill" Donovan years and the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. The 1960s may signal the beginning of the second phase of SOF authority. President John F. Kennedy was imaginative in his efforts to broaden his capability.

SOF Varieties:

MISO; Military Information Support Operations:

Military information support tasks are required to pass selected data and pointers on to unfamiliar crowds to influence their feelings, thought processes, objective thinking, and, finally, the way unfamiliar legislatures, associations, gatherings, and people behave in a way that is beneficial to the originator's targets.

UW; Unconventional warfare:

Whimsical fighting is defined as efforts that enable an opposition development or rebellion to put pressure on, disturb, or defeat an administration or governmental power.

CAO; Civil affairs operations:

Common concerns activities strengthen the link between military forces and regular citizen specialists in areas where military forces are accessible.

SFA: Security force assistance:

Security force assistance comprises exercises based on planning, preparing, preparing, redesigning, and teaching various parts about unfamiliar security powers.

FID: Foreign internal defense:

Foreign interior security includes exercises that support a host country's internal security and development methodology, as well as projects designed to protect against disruption, rebellion, uprising, psychological oppression, and other threats to their internal security, stability, and authenticity.

HRR: Hostage rescue and recovery:

Prisoner rescue and recuperation are hostile actions designed to prevent, halt, appropriate, and respond to psychological oppressor hazards and occurrences, including the recovery of US offices, establishments, and sensitive material in other countries.

CT: Counterterrorism:

Counterterrorism efforts include direct actions against psychological militant groups as well as indirect actions to influence and supply global and territorial circumstances hostile to fear-based oppressor organizations.

C-WMD: Counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction:

Counter-multiplication of weapons of mass annihilation depicts exercises to assist the United States Government in its endeavors to reduce the conceptualization, development, ownership, multiplication, use, and consequences of weapons of mass annihilation, as well as related mastery, materials, advances, and methods of conveyance by state and nonstate entertainers.

CI: Counterinsurgency:

Counterinsurgency is a combination of normal citizen and military efforts aimed at putting a stop to extreme barbarism and re-establishing peaceful political cycles.

DA: Direct action:

Direct activity includes short-duration attacks and other limited-range hostile activities that employ particular military skills to seize, annihilate, capture, exploit, recover, or injure designated targets.

FHA: Foreign humanitarian assistance:

Unfamiliar helpful assistance is the extent of DOD compassionate exercises intended outside the United States and its territories to alleviate or reduce human affliction, disease, appetite, or deprivation.

The Department of Defense was clearly in the lead of counterinsurgency and erratic warfare, which was oriented at the time, as President Kennedy stated clearly, "against the battle against oppressive insurgency."  The so-called third era was characterized by a global battle based on fear, with China and Russia testing the boundaries of their previous and, to some extent, past influence circles. Key events indicating the transition from this third to this fourth era may be found in escalating occurrences dating back to "spring developments" as early as 2006. These advancements began with the orange and green developments of the Republic of Georgia, Ukraine, and Iran, and progressed via Arab variants, including Egypt (2010 and the second wave in 2013), Syria (2011), and the ongoing Syria-Iraq complex battle (which began in 2014), to name a few instances.

The withdrawal of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from Afghanistan in early 2021 may stall the conclusion of the third age. In any event, the fourth age is distinguished by reasonable double-dealing of traditional Western foundations and effect, particularly at sensitive geographic and sectoral nexuses, and with the Russians and Chinese done playing by established norms and standards. China's island-building exercises and Russia's "little green men" regional incursions serve as excellent examples.