Congress requests Special Operations Forces support report

Washington, D.C. – Congress has asked the Secretary of Defense to submit a written report next year detailing enabling support each service provided to special operations forces.

The report is required within 180 days of when the Fiscal Year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act becomes law. Congress passed the $619 billion measure Dec. 8, and it now awaits President Barack Obama’s signature.

Congress required within the NDAA that the Defense Secretary report on several items related to enabling support for SOF. Those include:

• A definition of the terms “service-common” and “special operations peculiar.”
• A detailed accounting of all of the resources allocated by each military service to support SOF;
• An assessment of the specific effects the budget request for the fiscal year 2016 are likely to have on the services’ abilities to support SOF;
• An identification of any change in support provided by each of the services to SOF;
• A description of the factors and process used by the Department of Defense to determine whether any kinds of support are service-common or SOF-peculiar
• And any other matters the Secretary deems relevant

The request comes amidst amid a time of fiscal constraints upon the Defense Department created by budget sequestration in 2013 – which mandated cuts across the department.

Although funding for SOCOM has remained steady – at approximately $10 billion annually – during that same time, budget cuts to the services still impact the command because they provide many of its resources.

Featured image courtesy of the United States Department of Defense.