For years, members of Congress and outside experts have derided the U.S. government’s lack of information prowess, which atrophied after the Cold War. For the military, kinetic action typically takes precedence over non-kinetic information activities. And the interagency process can bog down information campaigns.

“There’s a sense of you may not win a war with information operations like you could with artillery, [but] you can certainly lose it if you’re not a key part of that putting out the messages,” Gen. Bryan Fenton, commander of SOCOM, told lawmakers at a Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities hearing Tuesday.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., noted that China spends more than $1 billion on information operations to include disinformation and misinformation activities.

When pressed, Colby Jenkins, who’s performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, told Shaheen that the Pentagon spends significantly less than that on info ops.

“We don’t have anybody in charge of information operations across, as far as I can [tell] … Defense, State and the administration. And the president just fired Gen. [Timothy] Haugh, the head of Cyber Command … We’ve dismantled our Global Engagement Center at the Department of State. We’re dismantling Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, all of the media that we’ve relied on really since the Cold War to get messaging across, to accurately reflect the position of the United States against our adversaries,” Shaheen said. “Help me understand how we’re able to compete in the information arena when we don’t have anybody in charge and when we’ve lost a lot of our people who are doing that work? … Should we be doing more to resource those information operations?”

Fenton, agreeing with other experts, articulated at a conference in February hosted by NDIA that the national security community should receive the grade of “F” strategically when it comes to information operations.

At the same conference, Jonathan Schroden, research program director at CNA, noted that his colleagues at the research organization conducted the information operations posture review required by Congress a few years ago. One of the findings was there’s no shared understanding of what an information-related capability is across the DOD, and there were around 15 different definitions of what constitutes that type of capability.

“If you can’t even speak the same language between the Navy and the Army and Air Force, my god, how do you expect to do anything effectively?” he said.

Others noted small successes but said they need to do more.

“We’ve had a couple of successes where we’ve been able to connect information operations with the kinetic operation, and we’re high five and slap ourselves in the back. But what was noteworthy is, why aren’t we doing that at scale? And there’s just one example amongst 200 strikes that that’s not sufficient,” Lt. Gen. Sean Farrell, deputy commander of SOCOM, said at the NDIA event. “It’s a drop in the bucket. We need to be better in information operations.”

In congressional testimony before Senate and House panels this week, Fenton noted that a void has been created due to the lack of such activities.

“My sense is that there is a void. You mentioned misinformation, disinformation by any adversary — there’s a void out there that’s not being filled by our message,” Fenton told senators Tuesday.

At a House Armed Services Subcommittee on Information and Special Operations hearing Wednesday, speaking specifically on operations in Africa, Fenton said: “That information operation void, in many ways, I think, allowed adversaries to get in there and [with] mistruths, untruth, falsities, put a different narrative based on their view of the world, what they wanted, and mostly the great work we’ve done for years.”

Fenton told lawmakers the U.S. has good narratives and should be using that to its advantage.

“As United States of America, we’ve got a great message to tell … We take it, certainly in Special Operations Command, with our information ops professionals, to really work at that in concert with … our country teams, our embassy country teams, to put those messages out that assure populations or reassure — and also at points in time, deter adversaries,” he explained.

Fenton wants to flip the military’s mentality. Instead of having kinetic activities followed up by information operations, it should be the other way around, he said at the NDIA event in February.

Delegation of authorities has to go lower as well in order to enable greater speed, he suggested.

“If we’re going to do something, we’re usually swinging behind the 8-ball,” he said. “I think that the delegation probably has got to go to a lot lower level. In many cases, not doing it and the decision to say ‘no’ is probably actually accruing more risk than actually doing it, even if it had a modicum of not getting out there just right.”

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During Senate and House subpanels, military leaders and members of Congress outlined force cuts and budget reductions that have led to risks in missions for special operations forces because, in many cases, the head of Special Operations Command has been forced to tell combatant commanders “no” when they request capabilities.

Headlining the details outlined on Capitol Hill in recent days is the fact that SOCOM has had a flat budget since 2019, leading to a 14% decrease in purchasing power and a 5,000-person reduction in forces across the command over the last three and a half years. That includes reducing roles in communications, logistics, intelligence, civil affairs and psychological operations, and specifically a reduction of 3,000 personnel for military information support operations.    

“SOCOM has operated under stagnant budgets. The limitation of SOF end strength was a very short-sighted decision at a time when SOF capabilities are needed more than ever. We must change course now,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, said during a hearing Tuesday afternoon. “That is why I intend to work with the DOD to rebuild SOCOM’s budget. Given SOF’s critical role in national security, this is a wise and cost-effective investment.”

That view was shared among other members of the panel, as well as their counterparts in the House.

“I would like to plus them up … A big bump up in funding for the SOF community,” Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, a retired Navy SEAL, told DefenseScoop in an interview Tuesday. “I know for a fact that they are hurting for funding lines, for pots of money in certain places, through discussions with the leadership. My stance is: Hey look, I’m going to work as hard as I can with the members in [House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations] and with the committee to get you what you need, which we are having those discussions.”

A bump in funding for SOF will provide more placement and access for units forward-deployed, Luttrell said. Their global footprint and ability to flex at a moment’s notice provide a defensive posture that exceeds traditional measures, he said, whereas if conventional forces are required to show up, “we are in trouble.”

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., ranking member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, noted that, like how Space Force was excluded from taking cuts, her hope was these high-demand mission sets would be taken into consideration as well.

“[I] just would hope that if there’s someone who’s picking and choosing missions that are going to be cut versus protected, I know you’re advocating, but that we realize that the units that are in highest demand should not be taking the same haircut as everybody else across the force,” she said.

Members of Congress led witnesses in talking about how the cuts to purchasing power and end strength have hurt special operations forces’ ability to meet the requirements of combatant commands, with SOCOM Commander Gen. Bryan Fenton explaining how it’s hurt his ability to offer support.

Combatant command requests are up 35 percent in the last three years due to the need for deterrence, Fenton said. Special operations forces bring a variety of capabilities in the way of building relationships, developing access, providing indications and warnings, closing kill webs or kill chains, and giving commanders options and opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have in the hopes of preventing a drawn-out conflict.

“Where we’ve had to say, ‘no,’ I’ll give you a number: Last December in one of the global force management tanks, I had to say no 41 times to request[s],” Fenton told members of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations on Wednesday. “It’s a high compliment that this SOF team is that value proposition to the entire department … [Why] we couldn’t do it, my sense, and I’ll wind this down for you, is two reasons: There’s certainly a capability and capacity piece against the great humans that do that work. And as you know, we’ve been reduced in the past couple years by up to 5,000. But there’s also now a fiscal constraint that’s pulling at us based on an increasingly decreasing top line that now comes into play.”

Others warned of the proposed eight percent cuts the Department of Defense is seeking across the board in a measure to reduce inefficiency and redundancy.

“I’m not a doctor, but if I was, it would be cutting into bone. We are already lean and efficient,” Colby Jenkins, the official performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said when asked by Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., what an eight percent cut would look like.

To that, Crow added: “There’s no fat in SOCOM. You’re lean and mean as you’re supposed to be.”

Jenkins replied that special forces leaders are doing their best to avoid the negative impacts of DOD-wide budget cuts at all costs.

Aside from deterrence, the cuts in personnel and resources have also hurt SOCOM’s ability to modernize, particularly as the character of war changes, slowing its ability to adopt new technologies such as uncrewed systems, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing and autonomy.

Fenton described that due to a 14 percent reduction in buying power, which equates to about $1 billion, his command is unable to acquire capabilities that might be able to provide asymmetry on the battlefield.

To stress the importance of that, he used the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine, where the Ukrainians have been outmatched in terms of legacy capabilities — tanks, missiles, airplanes and helicopters — against the Russians, but adopted asymmetric tools to impose costs on Russian forces and stay in the fight.

“From the modernization piece first, I think first and foremost, the risk is not winning, not being able to complete the mission in the future environment,” Fenton said. “We’re taking risks there, the inability to get after the things I think that are asymmetric, that are part of the changing character of war, to do it at speed. You could add anything uncrewed, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing, autonomy, all that. I think we’re accruing high risk because we as SOCOM are not able to get after that based on a flat top line.”

Fenton noted that, additionally, the acquisition system needs significant modernization to keep up with these emerging technologies driving the changing character of warfare.

He called the current system “outdated” and “glacial,” designed for the old world of aircraft carriers and airplanes, but not suited for the modern battlefield.

“But what we’re seeing through the lens of Ukraine needs to be an acquisition and procurement system that is hyperspeed, supersonic. Because over there, we’re watching the changes in minutes, hours and days,” Fenton told members of the House.

He added that requirements must be addressed and updated by reducing the number of people involved in them to enable a faster cycle between operator, commander and acquisition, such as allowing those downrange to directly inform requirements.

The cycles could also be faster.

“As I think about the requirements process, certainly the buckets of time give us an opportunity to think through multi-year processes,” Fenton said. “Two years might see multi-year. I think to all of us, multi-year probably needs to be five-to-10 years so we can move at the speed and evolution of what we’re seeing out on the battlefield.”

Fenton also advocated for consolidating the “colors” of money and compressing multiple funding pots. Within the DOD, funds are divided into separate categories of operations and maintenance, procurement, and research and development, and they must be used only for those purposes, negating flexibility to move around additional allocated funds if needs require more in another pot.

“I think there’s a way to take a lot of that off, compress the multiple lines to just a couple and really modernize there,” Fenton said.

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Officials have described this modern-age triad as a key aspect to integrated deterrence — a major pillar of the Biden administration’s national defense strategy — focused on combating malign adversary activity occurring on a daily basis. The U.S. military term “triad” has traditionally been a reference to the three legs of the nation’s nuclear forces, which consist of bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missile submarines.

Army officials with Army Cyber Command, Army Special Operations Command and Army Space and Missile Defense Command first unveiled the new triad concept in August 2022 and described it as combining each of their unique capabilities to provide better and more integrated options to policymakers.

Now, the joint combatant commands are beginning to look at how this partnership can apply across their areas of responsibility.

U.S. Special Operations Command “has been reviewing the work U.S. Army Special Operations Command is doing with Army Space and Cyber Commands to determine which elements they have developed have applicability at the combatant command level to ensure the entire Joint Force maximizes the SOF/Space/Cyber triad’s capabilities,” a Socom spokesperson told DefenseScoop.

This informal relationship of synching and integrating the capabilities of these three organizations stems from their global reach.

“At its heart is the ability to converge those capabilities, the SOF placement and access, the cyber work and certainly the space work in places for integrated deterrence effects that we would otherwise not get if we were doing it individually, and bringing certainly a bigger sum back to not only the mission, but any partner we’re working with,” Gen. Bryan Fenton, the commander of Socom, told senators in March.

Fenton noted the ties that exist between Socom and U.S. Cyber Command and said the organizations are looking at experimenting to advance the partnership.

“We’ve got a very close relationship with Gen. [Paul] Nakasone and Cybercom and it’s progressed into an area that we now call a capability: SOF, space, cyber triad,” Fenton said during a March hearing. “That’s been an incredible effort alongside Gen. Nakasone’s team. We’re very grateful for that and also in the [U.S. Space Command] arena. We are moving forward with exercises, experimentation, a number of senior leader huddles, and I think you’ll see that progress and we’d be happy to talk about the progress.”

Special operations forces are also at an inflection point of sorts. Following the heavy reliance on these troops during the global war on terror, many inside and outside the Pentagon have openly wondered what role they’ll play in the so-called great power competition with China.

Moreover, there have been talks of cutting SOF due to budgetary restrictions.

Some have noted that greater partnership — such as the triad — is a way to ensure the importance of these elite troops and thus negate cuts some find counterproductive.

“Special operations forces are our nation’s premiere force during peacetime and war. In the face of recruiting challenges for our military and growing threats around the world, cuts to SOF are not the answer,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said in a statement. “We should be increasing greater cooperation between Special Operations Command, Space Command, and Cyber Command to prevent conflict and protect the homeland. With the shift to peer competition, this integration will help us operate more effectively in the information domain.”

Ernst added that as ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, she will ensure cuts to SOF won’t risk operational security or pose a threat to missions, noting that the U.S. “must be prepared to take on the risks of the 21st century and deter aggression in the face of great power, and that means we need a fully operational SOF.”

Spacecom and Cybercom deferred to Socom regarding this triad, but pointed out the strong relationship they have with one another.

“U.S. Space Command contributes to integrated deterrence by preserving freedom of action in space and by providing critical support to the rest of the Joint Force. Our mission spans the spectrum of conflict and every domain. For example, we are creating concepts to further integrate space, cyber, and special operations to generate asymmetrical advantages around the globe,” Gen. James Dickinson, commander of Spacecom, told lawmakers in March.

The nominee to be the next Cybercom commander at his July confirmation hearing noted the “strategic competitive advantages” each of these combatant commands brings to the table.

“It offers us an opportunity to look at where each of us can come together to work in support of a geographic combatant commander’s needs and be able to do that more effectively together,” Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh told senators. “We’re looking for what are those hard requirements that a geographic combatant commander needs, and those are the areas that we’re focused on. How do we work together to achieve something that would have been more difficult independently, but when we partner with unique strengths of Special Operations Command and Socom components, with what our cyber mission force brings, that capacity tied together our goals to satisfy hard problems for the geographic combatant commands.”

Haugh, as well as Army officials, have noted that special operations forces provide Cybercom’s forces placement and access, which alludes to the notion that these forces are forward deployed in austere locations and provide proximal plug-ins to targets that Cybercom can then attack.

He also explained that when he was the commander for Cybercom’s Air Force component that oversaw cyber operations for U.S. European Command — from October 2019 to August 2022 — they were working with Special Operations Command Europe every day on meeting needs of the Eucom commander.

From a space perspective, Haugh described the relationship between Cybercom, Spacecom and the Space Force as “inextricable” when it comes to supporting the joint force.

“When we think about what those challenges are and we think about the resiliency that is going to be required, as we think about what potential future conflict could look like, how do we ensure both a redundant set of communications? Much of that is going to be built on space,” he said.

At the Army level thus far, officials have said there isn’t a desired end state for the time being. The immediate focus has been synchronizing and converging the capabilities of each organization to create an effect and delivering outcomes.

According to an article by three active-duty Army officers, an emerging partnership between special operations forces and cyber forces involving data integration and information capabilities has “demonstrated the value of the larger ‘Space, Cyber, and SOF Triad.’”

“Within three weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the combined SOF-cyber team developed seven new analytic approaches (including two new deep learning models and three new network science models) to support the unique requirements of the information dimension in Eastern Europe,” the officials wrote. “In addition to the seven models, the team also relied upon existing models that the team had already developed and deployed, including machine learning, network science, natural language processing, and image-analysis models and visualizations. These models were deployed into production in custom machine-learning pipelines and atop the unified SOF-cyber data to feed a daily product automatically produced and distributed to relevant Army, Joint, and SOF commands in Europe.”

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