New ways to remain relevant and prepare for near-peer warfare against China or Russia are being developed by the US Navy Seals.
After two decades of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia, the US Naval Special Warfare Command is going back to the drawing board to come up with new or updated tactics.
The naval component of US Special Operations Command is called Naval Special Warfare Command.
The Naval Special Warfare consists of 10 regular teams, eight active duty teams, and two reserve teams.
The Naval Special Warfare Development Group is operationally under the Joint Special Operations Command.
Three Special Boat Teams specialize in maritime direct action, maritime special reconnaissance, insert and extract other special-operations forces, and Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure operations.
In a recent article for the US Naval Institute's Proceedings magazine, Rear Adm. Hugh W. Howard III, commanding officer of Naval Special Warfare Command, described how his Navy SEAL Teams and Special Boat Teams carrying out this shift.
Naval Special Warfare units are usually deployed overseas.
The head of Special Operations Command decided to hold about one-third of combat-ready Navy SEAL platoons and SWCC boat detachments in reserve for experimentation, concept development, and high-return deploy-for-purpose.
The reserve elements in deploy-for-purpose status increase our agility to respond to crises around the globe and provide combat- ready forces to experiment and generate new concepts at lower training risk.
Allowing combat- ready forces to experiment with new tactics, techniques, and procedures for the most stressing hard targets and environmental conditions is helping answer the Navy's and joint force's key operational problems.
Naval Special Warfare Command has continued some missions related to counterterrorism and counter violent extremists, but it is shifting more attention to great-power competition and to counter the critical systems and capabilities of China and Russia.
Reflecting that shift, Navy SEALs and SWCC operators have worked more with the conventional forces of the Big Navy to help them survive and be more effective in combat.
We are learning how to integrate our capabilities to complement the F-35 Lightning II, littoral combat ships, Zumwalt-class destroyers, Military Sealift Command assets, and Navy drones.
Naval Special Warfare and the Big Navy are working together to test new concepts, technologies, and tactics. Howard told Congress that Naval Special Warfare was committed to a closer relationship with its parent branch.
Naval Special Warfare has a closer integration with the Big Navy that promotes technological and conceptual advancement, including strike, mine, undersea, and seabed warfare, strategic sabotage against critical infrastructure, and deception.
Naval Special Warfare is working with the Navy's submarine force to hone its underwater special-operations capabilities. The Virginia-class nuclear fast-attack submarine was in the eastern Mediterranean last year.
Howard wrote that Naval Special Warfare has enjoyed a special relationship with the submarine force for decades and that the command's clandestine capabilities coupled with advanced stealthy submarines create an asymmetric advantage.
During World War II, the first sub-launched raid was carried out by the US military, and in the decades since the creation of the SEALs, they have often been used with US submarines to get closer to them.
The first sub-launched raid was carried out by the Marine Raiders. Howard wrote that the Special Boat teams are partnering with the Marine Corps on expeditionary sustainment and staging for inside force operations.
The US military is concerned about a new environment of competition and potential conflict with capable adversaries that are able to challenge it at every level, something the US hasn't faced for much of the past 30 years.
Howard wrote that leaders are responsible for understanding their organizations strengths and weaknesses and the changes in the landscape around them.
A defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran, and a graduate of the University of Baltimore, are some of the things that Stavros Atlamazoglou is.
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