Small Wars Journal recently published an article written by Special Warfare CW4 William Bryant. It lays the ground work for an Army SOF initiative to create an IWAR branch within the Army, presumably under their control. My comments below were originally published in Vol 5, Issue 51 of Soldier Systems Weekly. It has been slightly expanded by mentioning the intersection of IW and IW (explained below).
You can read CW4 Bryant’s article at smallwarsjournal.com/2025/12/16/transforming-and-modernizing.
I’m glad someone finally published something public about this. My critique of the concept casts no aspersions on CW4 Bryant’s paper. I really enjoyed it and it plugged several holes I had regarding some of the thought processes behind this effort. The article is well written and sets the stage well, yet I continue to question the inclusion of Civil Affairs in this proposal.
Reality has a vote and that vote has already been cast from my understanding. ARSOF’s appetite was allegedly much bigger than what we see here, although it is alluded to. Along the lines of the SOF-Cyber-space triad, ARSOF attempted to create something which intertwined themselves with communities who quite frankly don’t need their help.
Word is that ARSOF wanted to shoot for the moon and absorb Cyber along with FA 30 and combine it with PSYOP and CA. Apparently, Cyber was having none of it and basically went radio silent in order to wait this silliness out. Remember, Cyber and its little brother element Electromagnetic Warfare are ascendant in the Army. Purportedly, the Army leadership was unconvinced of this power grab and suggested SOF reexamine its scheme. I’ve heard that there was even some pushback on integrating both PSYOP and CA into a new IWAR branch as CA was too big of a stretch.
Despite the fairly recent move to align CA and PSYOP Bns with the numbered SF Groups, a move akin to recreating the Special Action Forces of the 60s, ARSOF has long treated PSYOP and CA as red headed step children. Both are SOF core tasks and I don’t know a Green Beret who wants to conduct either one of them but they have consistently made decisions that diminish those two mission sets. Unfortunately, they’ll continue to neck step them across the enterprise in the future no matter how well intended decisions at the GO-level are.
In the mid-aughts USASOC made the regrettable decision to cut reserve component PSYOP and CA forces away which resulted in different capabilities and training programs from their active duty counterparts which remained in SOF. The Command is still trying to recover from that decision made so that USASOC was no longer responsible for preparing its reserve component PSYOP and CA troops, which were in high demand at the time, for deployments during the GWOT.
Eventually, they were organized under 1st Information Operations Command (Land) along with active duty Cyber and FA30 IO personnel. Unfortunately, 1st IO Command was deactivated earlier this year to make way for the Theater Information Advantage Detachments. What I believe we are seeing here is an attempt to recreate the 1st IO Cmd capability but under USASOC.
No one is going to deliver cyber effects at the tactical level because of authorities combined with a laborious targeting process. I’m sure you’d hear the same argument made regarding the use of PSYOP. It’s difficult to get permission to do and even more difficult to measure effectiveness. Consequently, we will continue to see these capabilities used at the operational and strategic levels of war.
Conversely, at the tactical level, EW is where it’s at. Every commander will want it once he understands that he gets geolocations for threat emitters and non-kinetic fires aka Electronic Attack aka jamming of signals or use of kinetic fires on the emitter. That’s stuff he can use to close with and destroy the enemy. He isn’t going to let it go.
Within a decade, every time a commander says “Cyber” he’ll mean “EW” and he’ll use that term simply because that’s the branch they are in. Regardless, he’s got EW on his mind. He’ll rarely ever encounter actual cyber operations and if he has Cyber personnel in his formation, he’ll wonder why they can’t deliver something useful like EW effects.
There is no way Big Army is going to let ARSOF absorb EW, so that means Cyber isn’t going anywhere either. Likely, they’ll decouple once Congress finally directs the Department to establish a separate Cyber service. Like the creation of USSOCOM Congress will eventually weigh in and through public law force the military stop messing around and create a uniformed service.
If Functional Area 30 officers are moved under this new branch, does this mean that ARSOF will assume responsibility to fill all of those billets in J39 shops as well as other assignments? To be sure, it has its own issues, but it’s a small yet very specialized force. Read more here. Perhaps finding a home in ARSOF will allow it to gain the identity it needs.
What does ARSOF need to do? I’d say, what has been proposed here. It’s a foot in the door, but they also need to grow PSYOP and integrate SOF EW and Deception capabilities into their repertoire. Those are capabilities that will be useful at the tactical level and help them better integrate across the formation.
They should also collocate those CA and PSYOP units with the numbered Groups and actually integrate their senior NCOs and officers across the formation, including at the SF Group level and above. I still find it odd that the first non-SF or Ranger to serve as Senior Enlisted Advisor for USASOC was a crypto-linguist and not a CMF 37 or 38 NCO.
I’d like to wrap this up by point out the ARSOF desire to create a new term, “IWAR” instead of the doctrinally established “Information Warfare.” It’s interesting and unacceptable, yet understandable. ARSOF engages in Irregular Warfare which they abbreviate as IW. They don’t want any confusion amongst their ranks, but the confusion has already been happening for quite some time. I know I regularly find myself initially confused during conversations regarding IW, listening for cues as to whether others are mentioning Irregular Warfare or Information Warfare. Having practiced both, often simultaneously, it leads my mind to wander in various directions. It will for others as well; hence, “IWAR.” As I’ve mentioned in the past, one of our biggest issues within the defense establishment is terminology, partially when it comes to anything cyber or information related. Until we get this fixed, we are going to talk past one another.
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