The so-called cyber-special operations forces-space triad or “irregular triad,” is a partnership between the three disciplines to deliver capabilities and outcomes greater than the sum of its parts, leveraging the unique access and authorities of each contributor. While officials explained this fusion of capabilities came about in tabletop exercises years ago, the Army began putting it into practice with its relevant components and it’s now making its way to the joint four-star combatant commands.

The strategic environment for the U.S. military is significantly more complex now than it has been in years past, requiring more and different options to deter adversary activity around the globe.

“Some of our adversaries are demonstrating a degree of skill and effectiveness in their employment of irregular warfare that the United States has difficulty matching and the United States has difficulty dealing with,” Mike Nagata, corporate strategic advisor at CACI and a retired three-star general with decades of special operations experience, said Thursday during a panel at the Special Operations Symposium hosted by NDIA. “Many of our competitors and many of our adversaries are adopting modern, powerful digital technologies faster than the United States is. They are not hesitating to use it.”

Experts explained that America’s adversaries have sought to use unconventional, irregular and hybrid tactics as a means of combating the conventional strength of U.S. forces. Much of this is taking place below the threshold of armed conflict.

“Our adversaries, particularly the Chinese but really all of them, are pursuing irregular strategies … It’s a combination of political warfare, economic warfare and irregular warfare. They are pursuing strategies to achieve objectives without having to go to conventional conflict,” said Ken Tovo, president and CEO of DOL Enterprises and a retired three-star general. “Our challenge is, are we ready to play on that field? While we have talked about irregular warfare, and especially in this community for many years, the reality is there’s a lot of things that have actually inhibited our execution of effective irregular warfare strategies around the world to achieve our objectives.”

Current officials explained that the modern triad provides an existing operational concept that is operating currently and can act as a deterrent capability.

“The irregular triad that we’re talking about here is an operational concept,” said Lt. Gen. Richard Angle, commander of Allied Special Operations Forces Command at NATO and Special Operations Command Europe. “It brings together multi-domain capabilities. This concept can, in fact, enable deterrence, because that’s what we’re talking about.”

Officials explained that the three disciplines aren’t as siloed as they may seem, noting inherent integration currently exists.

For example, the Marine Corps and Navy cyber service components to U.S. Cyber Command are also their service components to Space Command. Additionally, Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command serves as the coordinating authority for cyber for U.S. Special Operations Command under Cybercom’s Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber enterprise. Similarly, 16th Air Force/Air Forces Cyber, a service cyber component to Cybercom, is the coordinating authority for cyber for U.S. Space Command under its Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber.

“The area that I’ve been most proud of is the fact that we have aggressively taken this from a conceptual discussion to one where we’re doing operational activities together and doing it routinely and how we are able to come together to bring our respective strengths,” Gen. Timothy Haugh, commander of Cybercom, said. “Overall, where we’ve come together has been driven by we can produce better outcomes together in those situations, particularly on really hard problems, and the fact that the initial investments we’ve made to do that have produced outcomes just reinforces the need for us to be able to collaborate in our planning and also in how we approach problems together. Because it gives different options to the secretary than we would have been able to do independently.”

Angle, who also has cyber experience having previously served as deputy commanding general for operations at Army Cyber Command, explained that through deterrence by denial, the triad can make it difficult for adversaries to achieve objectives below the threshold of war.

But, he said, it has to be employed more often if it is to be successful in the future for deterrence, or if deterrence should fail, for managing escalation and crises.

“You need to employ this capability now if you want options later. You can employ it now at low cost, at fairly low risk with potentially high payoffs. By doing so, you can actually lower the risk later because you’re now holding critical adversary capabilities at risk,” Angle said. “The conversation we have to have is here’s also the risk of not taking action. Because if you don’t employ these capabilities, you won’t hold that critical adversary capability at risk when the time comes. We are doing a lot of things inside of this triad, but we have to find a way to do more. We have to find a way to get to the point where we’re doing things and the adversary is reacting to what we’re doing and we’re not reacting to what they’re doing.”

For Haugh, while there have been positive discussions among the relevant stakeholders and good operational applications, he’d like to improve upon what opportunities exist for tighter linkage.

“Today, we have started to put the right pieces in place. Much of what we could also talk about is, when we miss opportunities, why do we miss them? In many of those cases, it’s about the kit that’s available to us at that moment and are we fully using the opportunity for us to be innovative from a technical solution standpoint that fits the timeline of the opportunity of placement and access and the ability to come together around a specific problem,” he said. “I think there’s some things we could talk about what we’re each doing in that area where we could be also more purposeful to be able to fully leverage our respective authorities and how we innovate and how we acquire.”

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With the conclusion of the Global War on Terror and the return to great power competition in 2018 — prioritizing nation-states over non-state actors for the first time since 9/11 — U.S. Special Operations Command has been asked frequently what its role in this new paradigm will be.

Socom was the workhorse during those early 21st century conflicts, pioneering new tactics, perfecting how to hunt down individuals and terror networks, and ultimately, conduct deadly raids.

With the shift to great power competition, outside commentators and lawmakers alike have wondered how these skills and this force will translate in a new geopolitical era.

“We’re looking increasingly to be focused on really shaping the environment so that if there is a fight against a near-peer adversary or an adversary like a China or a Russia, we’re able to shape the conflict before it even occurs, and in many cases, hopefully establish deterrence to ensure it does not occur — or if it does occur, it occurs to our advantage,” Christopher Maier, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said Thursday at the Atlantic Council in Washington.

While this shaping effort will still have applicability within the traditional kinetic realm of warfare where bullets fly, Maier empathized that it will mostly be in the non-kinetic space where special operations forces will have a big impact in setting up the joint force for success, namely, in what officials term placement and access.

“Of course, there’s the physical domains, the sea, land and air, but increasingly SOF is a key player in the non-physical domains — be that space, be that cyber, the information space, the electronic warfare space,” he said. “It’s having that placement and access to be able to sense when, at times, things are going in a negative direction, being able to know that and then having the capability to respond if need be.”

Placement and access refers to the unique ability of SOF to be on the ground and close to hard targets given their unique ability to be forward in an undetected manner.

“I think if you take the case of, say, cyber or space — and we spent a lot of time in recent years talking about a nexus between SOF, cyber and space — the effects, the incredible exquisite capabilities that space and cyber in our [combatant commands] bring, is sometimes challenged by the lack of proximity. SOF can really help with that last tactical mile, being in that right place at the right time to really unleash some of this capability,” Maier said. “SOF has ability to close kill chains, i.e. solve problems for the joint force to gain placement and access in areas that maybe isn’t as easy to do from a conventional standpoint either because the platforms and assets they’re bringing or are going to attract a lot of attention or they’re just unable to access certain areas because of the defenses that [an adversary] potentially has.”

The Army has pioneered a vision of what it deems the modern triad — which is much different than the nuclear triad of bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missile submarines geared toward strategic deterrence that emerged during the Cold War era — that combines special operations, cyber and space. This new triad aims to also contribute to deterrence by combining these capabilities to be more than the sum of its parts.

Officials have begun talking more about its applicability at the joint level with closer partnership between Socom, U.S. Cyber Command and U.S. Space Command.

“When I talk about SOF helping to fill some of the gaps that the conventional force is really struggling with, I see it in some of these ability to gain closer, more proximate access to targets or to key points of military objectives that we’re going to need to affect and hold at risk,” Maier said.

As part of being able to gain unique accesses to targets, SOF forces will have to invest in new capabilities and tactics to hide from sophisticated nation-state threats that were not needed as much during the counterterrorism fights. The environments in Iraq and Afghanistan were relatively permissive. However, high-tech foes will have sensors and integrated air defenses that will make it easier to detect and thwart SOF action.

“We weren’t dealing with advanced conventional capabilities [in the counterterrorism fight], things like integrated air defense systems. We’re going to have to be able to penetrate those systems, and a lot of that’s going to be low visibility or hard to spot or moving fast enough that it can’t be acted on by the adversary set,” Maier said.

He also noted SOF forces must be able to operate more stealthily in the maritime environment from seafloor to subsurface and low-visibility surface — or else they won’t be filling needs for the joint force.

Officials are looking more and more at SOF-peculiar needs, capabilities separate from the conventional force that apply to special operators and their requirements, with low visibility being a top priority.

In addition to low visibility, SOF forces must be better at operating in a challenging electronic warfare environment, something they got a taste of in Syria operating alongside Russian forces.

A prior commander of Socom in 2018 called Syria the “most aggressive” electronic warfare environment on the planet.

“Some of the things we’ve had to deal with [in Syria], again, in primarily a defeat ISIS and counterterrorism context, have fast forwarded our ability to think about this in a contested environment where access is denied and we’re not able to gain the type of proximity we feel like we need,” Maier said.

The key to shaping and having that placement and access is the partnerships U.S. SOF have around the world. By partnering with other nations, these forces will already be present on the ground in theater where they’re able to shape the environment ahead of time.

“Being in the right place at the right time working through allies and partners, of which we have far more than any of our adversaries, we’re at any given point in 70 to 80 different countries around the world as an enterprise,” Maier said.

A spokesperson from Socom in written responses to DefenseScoop said in the last year there has been an increased demand from combatant commands for SOF capabilities in support of campaigning in the gray zone, or the threshold below armed conflict. This builds upon the relationship U.S. special operators have with partner nations, “which facilitate the placement and access necessary for SOF to prepare the operating environment daily, across the globe, below the threshold of armed conflict.”

“After 20+ years of primarily focusing on counterterrorism, SOF is returning to its roots as a force that prevents and prepares, transregionally, to enable the Joint Force to prevail in the event of conflict. SOFs value in these earlier phases ultimately provide options to our senior leaders with agile and tailored capabilities. SOF continues to deliver the best force possible for the personnel and budget provided,” the spokesperson said.

Information operations

Integrated deterrence is a key pillar of the Department of Defense’s national defense strategy that envisions a layer of policies, partnerships and capabilities to dissuade adversaries’ malign behavior.

Information ops will serve as a key enabler of realizing that type of deterrence, Maier said.

“When you think about integrated deterrence, that’s about the cognitive space and that’s about foreign leaders, our adversaries thinking that they don’t want to go to war with us or the cost will be exorbitant and they shouldn’t do that. Information operations plays a key role in amplifying and accelerating some of that,” he explained.

However, recent cuts to Army SOF, namely in psychological operations and civil affairs, will hurt the joint force’s ability to be successful in conducting information ops.

“Within the joint force, Army Special Operations brings a lot of that capability. We’re talking about psychological operations. They’re the real experts in crafting messages, doing these type of information activities in the information environment for military effects. That’s going to be effective of some of the cuts we will take in Army SOF,” he said.

The Army chose to make cuts — roughly 3,000 SOF personnel — as it is making hard choices about modernizing its force to better posture itself for great power competition and make investments in other capabilities and troops. In the Army’s thinking, these psychological operations and civil affairs personnel aren’t as needed in a great power competition fight as other needs — such as indirect fire protection, counter-small drone batteries and maneuver short-range air defenses.

“The Army overall felt the need for a whole host of reasons to draw down into its force structure. Army Special Operations is the largest component of the joint special operations enterprise. From the SOF perspective, we’re going to have to pay our dues, to some degree. We’re going to have to take some cuts because the bigger Army required it,” Maier said. “My concern as the ASD for SO/LIC is when you lower the overall denominator of what you can bring in, you’re going to have a hard time growing to future challenges. I think we haven’t talked about as much here, but we talk a lot of time in the department about the information environment being so critical. Army psyops, Army, civil affairs are among the best capabilities we have across the joint force.”

Maier also noted that the DOD has been playing catch up in the information operations space, given it was not as necessary in the counterterrorism fight.

“We have not invested as a department nearly as much as probably I would like or compared to some of the other domains like cyber and increasingly in space. I think there’s reasons for that — some has been because it was focused on the counterterrorism fight principally and it was really hard to discourage true believers from coming off their ideology,” he said. “As we reflect forward to an environment where we have adversaries who invest far more than we do and see it as a comparative advantage for themselves and operate by much different rules, we tend to try to be truthful when we do things. They have no compunction to do so.”

While competitors have a higher risk calculous to put out misinformation and disinformation, the U.S. should be more targeted when choosing to apply information capabilities to greater effect, he said, adding that he’d love to see more information capability in the conventional force and other parts of the department.

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The traditional term “triad,” in U.S. military parlance, refers to the air-, land- and sea-based legs of the Pentagon’s nuclear arsenal. The Army began conceptualizing a new triad over a year ago as a partnership between the unique — and global — capabilities of space, cyber and SOF.

“I think we’re beginning to explain it better. I think it’s still largely a concept at this point. And while I give huge credit to [Lt. Gen.] Jon Braga and [Army Special Operations Command] for really leading within the Army, I think Special Operations Command at that kind of joint SOF level, is increasingly demonstrating leadership in this space,” Chris Maier, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said at the NDIA SO/LIC Symposium Tuesday.

“I think we are going to need to fill out more of what we mean by this and … really show what this means and show how [it] closes kill chains or solves problems for the joint force beyond just something that is unique,” he said.

Officials had discussed the notion of the triad beginning to blossom at the joint level between U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Cyber Command and U.S. Space Command. However, Maier noted that although the SOF and cyber relationship is well established, space might be harder to integrate.

“I think we have more success in a lot more places we can point to on SOF-cyber, because, frankly, cyber has been around longer and it’s more user friendly,” he said. “Space is, I think, from my perspective — and I say this as humbly as I can, because I’m certainly not a space expert — but I think that’s going to be the harder piece of this triad to bring in.”

Special operations forces have long utilized cyber and related signals intelligence capabilities to track targets by gaining access to their cell phones and other devices as well as using other cyber tools to perform various tasks.

There is an appetite to flesh out the new triad concept at the joint level, Maier said, noting that leadership of each community is on board with it.

The Army, for its part, has said it aims to double the amount of experimentation with the triad over the next year, advancing the model and techniques to inform future doctrine for operations and the service’s warfighting concept for 2030-2040.

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The triad consists of a partnership between the unique — and global — capabilities of space, cyber and special operations forces.

“The [Army] chief and the secretary talked about the character of war changing. I would also say the nature of deterrence is changing,” Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, commander of Army Special Operations Command, said during a presentation at the annual AUSA conference. “The tools that the adversary is using are changing and we need to stay ahead of the adversaries by converging these three disciplines right here for a larger holistic asymmetric advantage against our adversaries. You better believe our adversaries are investing in these types of capabilities.”

First imagined over a year ago, this partnership began informally to deliver more options to commanders in an integrated fashion. But it has now blossomed into an integrated package with wide joint and international contribution, potentially leading to a formal triad at the four-star combatant command level between Special Operations Command, Space Command and Cyber Command.

“This is not just an Army thing. We’re working on this to really be a thought leader for the joint force, by the convergence of these three different capabilities in front of you,” Braga said.

One of the key pillars of the National Defense Strategy is integrated deterrence. And this modern triad aims to provide options for commanders to deter activity below the threshold of conflict in a manner that likely won’t escalate into actual hostilities.

The traditional triad, in U.S. military parlance, consists of ground-, air- and sea-launched nuclear weapons,

“This triad’s a different triad. Okay, this one’s a modern-day triad. I think it’s baked in irregular warfare and all three of our formations contribute to assuring and coercing … to provide asymmetric, non-attributable options, flexible deterrent [and] flexible response options for the joint force. That’s what we’re trying to do as we experiment here going forward,” Braga said.

The power of the triad, officials say, is it is greater than the sum of its parts.

Army Special Operations Command provides unique access at the tip of the spear for both space capabilities or cyber access. Space and Missile Defense Command provides missile defeat and other unique space capabilities. And Army Cyber Command provides cyber capabilities as well as data analytics to better inform operations of the other two legs.

While Army Special Operations Command is in charge of conducting psychological and information operations, Army Cyber Command can help inform where threats and messages are coming from to inform those efforts.

“What I’m going to tell [Braga] is, where is it coming from, how is it coming, how is it being delivered, who is doing it, is it automated, can we target it depending on what the operation is and what kind of effect we’re trying to have,” Lt. Gen. Maria Barrett, commander of Army Cyber Command, said. “This is at the layer that becomes 1s and 0s at some point and we can give you that feedback in terms of to shape what it is that you’re doing. And this is why this comes together, this threesome comes together really well.”

Officials said they plan to double the amount of experimentation with the triad concept over the next year, advancing the model and techniques to inform future doctrine for operations and the Army warfighting concept for 2030-2040.

Officials described how the synergy between each component has grown extremely close the more they’ve worked together and exercised.

“I call this structured collaboration. It is structured because we do plan what it is that we’re going to be doing in advance and what types of innovation we want to do. There’s a charter between us. We rotate it. Then we are working with the respective theaters in terms of the activities that we’re going to be doing,” Barrett said.

Others noted the “automatic” collaboration.

“Two years ago, if we were doing an exercise and we were doing our mission analysis and running up to the exercise, we never would have thought about how do we organize space, cyber and SOF. Now, it’s automatic,’ Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, commander of Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said. “Mission analysis within my team is, hey, how are we leveraging the triad capabilities as part of our mission analysis? How do we leverage that? That is at the forefront now where two years ago, we didn’t think that way necessarily. We might have cobbled it together, but now it’s really a part of the formal mission analysis.”

Last year, the three organizations saw seven events collectively from field experiments to technology exchanges. Over the next year, the goal is to have more than 14.

“That’s led to identifying gaps, capabilities, equipment, TTPs — tactics, techniques, procedures. We’re informing doctrine in our schoolhouse, we’re doing educational exchanges out there. This is happening at the tactical to the strategic level,” Braga said.

Braga noted last year they deployed for the first time a two-star level task force to fit into a combatant command exercise for Pacific Sentry through a Special Operations Joint Task Force contingency.

He also explained they’ll be embedded in the Army’s Project Convergence experimentation.

“A lot of great lessons learned last year, both with our international partners that contributed towards this, that actually provided some unique lessons learned as we integrated them into the Army Project Convergence run by Army Futures Command,” he explained.

Braga also described three key mission threads they sought to game out with 89 partners across interagency, joint and international partners.

The first is multi-domain operational preparation of the environment. This will be critical for enabling operations if a wider conflict breaks out, as accesses and targets need to be developed and identified ahead of time.

Second is enabling network access either from the human dimension, the cyber realm or the space layer.

“All these things we’re talking about still come back to the terrestrial layer where the land force component, the special operations component, the cyber and the space and missile defense component have a nexus there,” Braga said. “It all has to come back down to the Earth and all has to be tied back to a human. [It] provides opportunity for us.”

Third is defeating enemy networks.

“Together, we have an outsized impact against the adversary’s capabilities when you’re talking about their capabilities in SOF, space and cyber, which is why it’s inherent we have to work together, why we’re experimenting together, we’re learning together,” Braga said. “Again, we’re changing it from the form and function of equipment to how we interoperate downrange.”

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