Team Resistance – SOF in Competition
To launch the Project the Resistance Team will take center stage! Welcome to the Resistance strand within the SOF in Competition project, we are setting out an initial agenda for the global IW community of practice. We want to drive debate around issues that range from how we integrate resistance activity into geopolitical strategy, to how resistance happens in different contexts (and SOF’s role as a catalyst or enabler of different types of resistance), to how resistance campaigns are executed and evaluated on the ground and online.
As a first step, we want to frame our engagement with the community of IW practitioners, policymakers, and academics on SOF’s approach to resistance. The following inter-connected topics are offered to provoke thought and debate, and we encourage you to take them as inspiration to build out whatever arguments you think are most compelling for your peers.
- Resistance as a Strategic Lever: Strategic competition plays out on a global scale, wherein we seek advantage against our rivals in multiple theaters using multiple levers. What is the role of SOF-enabled resistance activity as we compete with the Russians in the Caucuses, for example, or the Chinese in Sub-Saharan Africa, or the Iranians in the Levant? How might we integrate the actions of resistance movements—violent and nonviolent alike—as lines of effort within strategic campaigns to disrupt our rivals’ roots in the human terrain?
- Building on the ROC: NATO SOF’s Resistance Operating Concept (aka “the ROC”) sets out a strategic framework for the role of resistance activity in national defense strategy. Since its publication in 2020, it has become a foundational document for scholars and practitioners of resistance around the world. What comes next? What tools, authorities, and programs currently exist, or need to be created, to better implement and scale resistance activities? Are they adequately resourced and synced across the SOF and security cooperation/security force assistance (as well as interagency) communities? How should national (government-led) resistance approaches differ from non-state-led efforts? How does support to national resistance activities happen, and under what conditions—not only in the defensive European-centric context of NATO’s ROC but worldwide for both offensive and defensive purposes across the competition continuum?
- Ethics & Effects: How do SOF manage our obligations to the resistance networks that we want to support? What are the pros and cons of direct engagement between SOF elements and local resistance movements, concerning the balance between enhancing capability while preserving authenticity—especially when dealing with nonviolent civil resistance networks? Concurrently, academic literature on nonviolent resistance argues for strict boundaries vis-à-vis armed guerrilla activity. What is the strategic, legal, and ethical view of the SOF enterprise on the operational realities of merging or coordinating violent and nonviolent resistance? How do we compensate and calibrate for our perception of moral, ethical, and legal boundaries in contrast to our adversaries’ employment of concepts like Unrestricted Warfare?
- Engaging the Private Sector: What is the role of the private sector in enabling resistance activity? From logistical and financial support to the provision of equipment and innovative technology, how can SOF build bridges between the private sector (in the West, in the AO in question, or elsewhere) and a given resistance movement? For the SOF enterprise, how does the CIV-MIL interface function in support of different types of resistance activity at varying levels of risk and conflict, and what does/should this look like in practice?
- Resistance in Total Defense: Within Europe, there is growing enthusiasm around the “Total Defense” concept, which combines whole-of-government action with whole-of-society support to achieve an integrated, comprehensive defense posture. This concept, which is embedded in the ROC, places civic mobilization and civil resistance (and guerilla or asymmetric/partisan warfare as well) as subordinate lines of effort within an overarching government-led campaign. To what extent is this model transferrable outside of Europe to the AUKUS alliance and beyond? What is the optimal way to align top-down government-led action with bottom-up civic initiative and resilience? How can governments best harness the potential of civic action and operationalize societal resilience without subsuming or degrading civil society itself?
- Transformative Technologies: How might emerging technologies transform or enhance the practice of resistance? What is the potential of digital resistance movements, and what are the limitations? How can online engagement be synchronized with real-world action? To what extent is the SOF community trained, equipped, organized, and empowered to leverage technology within resistance activity?
Take all of this as inspiration—and send your papers to nkrohley@frontlineadvisory.com with “Resistance Article Submission” in the subject line.
Editorial guidelines can be found here.
Nicholas Krohley, Ph.D. Adam ‘Monster’ Darnley-Stuart
Resistance Team Lead Director
SOF in Competition SOF in Competition
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official position of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, the Modern War Institute at West Point, or the United States Government.
Main Image: Military training of Ukrainian border guards from “Stalevyi kordon” (Steel border) brigade in the Dnipropetrovsk region. April 2023. (Petro Zadorozhnyy, the Collection of war.ukraine.ua)
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