121
MILITARY REVIEW Space & Missile Defense 2024
Reframing the Special
Operations Forces-
Cyber-Space Triad
Special Operations’
Contributions to Space Warfare
Maj. Brian Hamel, U.S. Army
SOF has a culture of decentralized combat operations with
a focus in the human domain.
—Col. Mark Orwat
Humans are always in the loop of spaceowe.
—Dr. Bledyn Bowen
I
n November 2021, the commander of the U.S.
Army Special Operations Command, Lt. Gen.
Jonathan Braga, articulated a new deterence
framework to his sta.
1
is emergent framework
included the space, cyberspace, and ecial operations
communities having symbiotic relationships to con-
verge eects throughout the competition continuum.
As a homage to the nuclear Triad (intercontinental
balistic missiles, submarine-launched balistic missiles,
and strategic bombers), this “ecial operations forces
(SOF)-cyberspace-space Triad” provides policymakers
aditional options to campaign against our adversaries.
While the Triad has made substantial headway, no ex-
isting literature delineates the nexus of the SOF-space
relationship. Joint Pulication 3-14, Space Operations,
and Field Manual 3-14, Ary Space Operations, are
both quick to point out that SOF receives eects
from space, but only a few student theses and authors
tangentialy describe how SOF can create eects in
the space domain.
2
In this study, the author elucidates
the SOF-space segment of the Triad and recommends
that the joint SOF enterprise conduct preparation of
the environment, ecial reconnaissance, and military
information suport operations to set the conditions
to inuence, deceive, or degrade adversarial terestri-
al-based, space-enaling infrastructure.
Unfortunately, SOF has not clearly dened how
it can generate eects in the space domain. Failure to
prescriptively delineate eects ensures that our adver-
saries wil continue to hold positions of relative advan-
tage and predisposes any eorts to failure due to their
inability to be accurately measured and war-gamed
prior to execution. is sharply increases risk to force
and risk to mission. Curent unclassied literature ex-
plains that SOF receives eects from the space domain
through services such as satelite communications;
positioning, navigation, and timing; and inteligence,
surveilance, and reconnaissance. is article expounds
on how SOF core aivities, normaly conducted during
ireular warfare (IW), can create eects in the space
domain to advance concepts within the Triad and pro-
vide exile response options to counter the People’s
Liberation Army Strategic Suport Force, which was
created in 2015.
3
