In Focus with Curtis Fox: Rethinking Training and Career Progression

Editor’s Note: Welcome back to our weekly column with former Green Beret Curtis Fox, where we explore the evolving role of Special Forces. This week, Fox discusses the challenges of the Army’s career path for Special Forces, where he proposes reforms to better develop officers, retain non-commissioned officers (NCOs), and enhance mission effectiveness.

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The Special Forces Regiment is bound to the Army’s career management protocols. In the days of old, Captains leading Special Forces Operational Detachment Alphas (SFOD-As) in austere environments like Vietnam were expected to rotate out of the Regiment and back to the Army. Commanding an SFOD-A was a career distraction, and a young Captain was expected to take an infantry company in order to continue his progression upward. Special Forces qualified officers would always have the opportunity to rotate back into the Special Forces Regiment, but they were encouraged not to homestead.

Alternatively, the NCOs of Special Forces became known for establishing clannish relationships. It wasn’t uncommon for a Green Beret to stay on the same SFOD-A for 12 years before he was tapped to go teach at the Q-Course at Ft. Bragg. Because of this paradoxical relationship, it really was the NCOs who ran the Special Forces Regiment. The company Sergeant Major might very well have more real influence than the battalion Commanding Officer (CO).

However, in the aftermath of the establishment of the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), Special Forces was codified as an official branch of the U.S. Army. This meant establishing a separate Special Forces MOS for officers and a legitimate career pathway for their advancement.

The Army Isn’t Doing Special Forces Officers Any Favors

Unfortunately, the Army mandated that Special Forces officers must follow a career pathway that resembles the rest of the Army. The Army prioritizes tactical experience in its promotion process, and top performers are kept close to the battalion or brigade HQ for advancement. The top company Captain is likely to take over the battalion S5 Plans shop. He will write the training concepts and deployment plans for the unit, and then he will take over the battalion or brigade S3 Operations shop and implement the plans he drafted as the S5. In his journey to battalion CO, he will rotate out of the S3 to other staff billets at brigade or division, but eventually, he will become the battalion XO, and then he’s primed to become the CO when he’s promoted to lieutenant colonel.

This development process works very well in the conventional Army because the battalions S3 and S5 offer important experiences regarding the maneuver of the battalion and its line companies. However, in a Special Forces battalion, the S3 and S5 have very different roles.

In support of the unconventional warfare (UW) mission, SFOD-As write their own training concepts, deploy independently of the mother company and battalion, conduct the Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP), and even forecast and execute their own budgets. Special Forces battalions (SFOD-Cs) don’t really maneuver subordinate formations in combat. Neither do Special Forces companies (SFOD-Bs). The line teams actually maneuver themselves.

A Special Forces battalion S3 primarily tracks metrics and makes battalion (or JSOTF) resources available to missions as they are approved by the CO. The kind of experiences that enable officers to understand strategic effects or to set tactical objectives that support the campaign end-state are not found in a Special Forces battalion.

Of course, Special Forces battalion and group staff officers do rotate through the TSOCs, and the TSOCs provide command-and-control for all SOF units in the theater and write SOF Plans to support the Geographic Combatant Commander’s theater intent. These are not trivial developmental experiences, but USASOC fills these billets as mandated by USSOCOM. USASOC follows the check-the-box approach of the Army Human Resources Command, rotating officers between billets every 2-3 years. Some go to USSOCOM or the TSOCs (regardless of regional specialization), a few are often lost to some general’s pet project, a few are sent to get educated, but the best are held close to home. Little consideration is given to long-term career management based on talent or regional expertise.

USASOC also does not place a high priority on graduate-level education for its officers. In fact, it’s not uncommon to hear quips that, “If the Army wants you to get educated, they’ll send you to get educated.” This is a poor attitude for SOF’s leading proponent of Irregular Warfare. Training prepares troops and officers for the challenges they expect to face on the campaign. Education creates the mental dexterity to adapt in the face of those unpredictable, unexpected challenges. Wild Bill Donovan, George C Marshall, Matthew Ridgeway, William T Sherman, and George Patton all felt that education was foundational to their success in war.

This does not mean that all Special Forces NCOs should take online community college courses until they have an Associate Degree in Business. Nor should USASOC prioritize sending 18As to Harvard to get their Masters of Business Administration (MBA). These degrees don’t really add value to the primary Special Forces mission: Unconventional Warfare. At best, they amount to meaningless credentialism.

Advanced degrees from places like Harvard also open the door for talented Special Forces officers to leave the Army in pursuit of enviable careers in lucrative fields like investment banking, financial services, and consulting. So not only does the Army bear the expense of the degree program, but the degree itself facilitates an exodus of the Army’s top talent. Worse, this kind of credentialism also indoctrinates officers in the du jour group think of the Ivy League and/or Washington DC beltway.

Not all university education adds value. Not all degree programs are equal. Higher education does not necessarily facilitate learning. In encouraging and financing continuing education, USASOC (and the Army) needs to consider how the curriculum fosters empiricism, lateral thinking, and structured problem-solving. Military history programs and STEM degrees are worthy of prioritization.

It might also be beneficial for USASOC to create its own degree program. Retired Special Forces Generals could be tapped to build a practical curriculum of battlefield surveys. Applying officers would be granted a 12-month sabbatical to survey several battlefields, frame the strategic importance of the engagement or campaign, document insights into how commanders arrived at key decision points, and then write a dissertation. Such a simple program would go much further in teaching officers to frame tactical actions in terms of their support for the strategic end-state, to recognize emerging trends, and to understand key decision points as they emerge on the battlefield—the art of generalship.

Looking across the aisle at the Navy SEALs, their best and brightest officers are pushed out to positions of influence in the hierarchy of USSOCOM, the TSOCs, the National Capitol Region, the Naval Postgraduate School, and everywhere else imaginable. The Navy understands that not all officers are going to command guided missile destroyers, and it has innovated to accommodate career development that recognizes specialization. Top officers are also given opportunities to rotate into a special missions unit (SMU), not only for the benefit of the SMU, but also so they can bring best practices back to the SEAL line troops. The SEALs certainly have their own challenges, but they offer the best broadening experiences for young officers in the U.S. Armed Services.

The Special Forces Regiment needs to have a hard internal discussion about what characteristics they are looking for in a battalion commander and what experiences would polish those features into a shine. Then, USASOC must be prepared to have a very necessary fight with the Army Chief of Staff and the Secretary of the Army.

Given the mission portfolio of Special Forces, I am of the opinion that Green Beret officers should resemble Ranger-qualified career foreign service officers—diplomats and spooks who know how to lead a patrol.

USASOC needs to canvas the State Department for U.S. Embassy billets so that Captains and Majors can rotate through to build regional expertise. USASOC also needs to prioritize sending good officers to the TSOC J5s where they can get experience interpreting the Geographic Combatant Commander’s theater intent, scrubbing GCC’s intent against the political-diplomatic priorities of the theater’s Embassy Country Teams, and then writing a regional SOF mission portfolio that satisfies this framework of requirements and benchmarks achievement of the end-state over a 5-year horizon.

USASOC should also work with the State Department to establish foreign exchange programs. For example, the 7th Special Forces Group’s top-performing officers should be offered opportunities to work as brigade operations officers in the Columbian Army for 12 months. 3rd Special Forces Group’s top-performing officers should be rotating into Kenya as operations officers for Kenya’s 40th Rangers Strike Force or 30th Special Forces. These are precisely the kinds of experiences that a Special Forces battalion commander should have.

Even before a new Special Forces Captain takes over an SFOD-A, USASOC could task them to work for a Defense Attaché as an adjunct Foreign Area Officer (FAO). Working in the Attaché’s office in a foreign country for 6 months, exercising foreign language skills, and learning the sensitivities of diplomatic relations, would be an extraordinary development opportunity. FAO work would not only build goodwill with the Embassy Country Teams in whose domains these officers will soon be deploying on line teams, but it would breed precisely the kind of thinking the Regiment needs in its Officers.

USASOC could also foster extraordinary regional expertise by requiring all 18As to continuously rotate back to the same areas where they did their FAO work and SFOD-A deployments. In between command and staff positions around the company, battalion, or group, Special Forces officers could take 6-month rotations to U.S. embassies as direct liaisons to allied militaries. Imagine the value of a Special Forces battalion CO who has years of experience working with a host nation’s senior officers, speaks their language at a collegiate level, has a solid professional understanding with the U.S. Embassy Country Team, and truly understands the region’s challenges and strategic paradigm.

At present, none of these broadening experiences would add an iota of value to an 18A’s resume. He is bound to the career timeline set by the Army, and he must tag the bases the Army has specified. USASOC needs to come up with a better process for developing its officers, and it needs to articulate to the Secretary of the Army and Army Chief of Staff why the Special Forces mission requires a unique career pathway.

Finally, USASOC needs to communicate to the Army Chief of Staff that those 18As destined to return to conventional forces are not only amongst the Army’s top-performing 2 percent, but they are ideal thinkers for brigade or division staff. Their diverse overseas experiences and regional expertise will ensure that they have had comparative developmental experiences to their conventional forces counterparts and are fully qualified for battalion command.

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Stay tuned for next week’s continuation of “Practice of Unconventional Warfare,” where Fox continues to discuss the Army’s career path for Special Forces, addressing enlisted leadership and development in the Special Forces Regiment.

You can read the previous column here.