SOCOM wrestles with role under new National Defense Strategy

By Justin Doubleday / February 15, 2018 at 5:18 PM
The Defense Department is struggling to define the role U.S. Special Operations Command will play under a new National Defense Strategy that focuses on "great power competition" with China and Russia, while the department continues to rely on SOCOM to execute global counterterrorism operations. A "key question" about the new strategy is whether SOCOM will shift from countering violent extremist organizations to roles that more directly focus on the capabilities of peer nations, Owen West, the assistant secretary of defense...

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