AI and autonomy are being integrated into special operations “at every level,” the leader of U.S. Special Operations Command told lawmakers on Tuesday—an indication that SOCOM, like smaller organizations everywhere, is well-poised to take advantage of disruptive technologies.
They are “critical” to sensing the battlefield, continuously surveilling adversary forces and targets, and “the ability to project violence, should that be required,” Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. He added that they are also key to improving international partners, underscoring their particular value to special operations.
Bradley’s testimony underscored a larger phenomenon playing out in boardrooms as well as on battlefields: small and nimble groups—whether non-state actors, software startups, or militaries like Ukraine’s—derive greater return on their AI investments than do more established or incumbent players. The boom in market valuation of small AI-focused defense startups like Anduril, Shield AI, or Swarmer versus slower growth of traditional players tells that story, as does Ukraine’s use of drones and autonomy to withstand Russia’s invasion.
SOCOM is better positioned to adopt AI than, say, the U.S. Navy, which is also trying to fund and sustain multibillion-dollar aircraft carriers and other maintenance-thirsty warships. Even the Navy’s forays into autonomy tend to be on the larger side, like its plan to spend $6 billion to acquire 70 Medium Unmanned Surface Vessels. At a hearing last week during a hearing, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., responded with clear disapproval at spending that amount of money to get 70 surface craft—good value compared to the cost of a destroyer but not compared to the Ukrainian robot boats that have corralled the Russian Navy.
Meanwhile, SOCOM has launched a broad request to industry for new ideas for maritime autonomy, human performance, command-and-control technology, and “scalable effects”—as in technologies that can be increased in number or intensity, such as directed energy, electronic warfare, cyber-enabled effects, and precision engagement tools. The request bespeaks flexibility in a way that the Navy’s 70-MUSV order does not.
AI enables asymmetric warfare—SOCOM’s specialty—more than traditional warfare, and the special operations command has fewer obstacles than the service branches to fast implementation. A case in point is Maven, an Air Force Special Operations Command tool for video and data analysis that has become a widely used program of record
“From the battlefield to the back office,” SOCOM is ‘finding ways to be able to bring autonomy, attritable, mass autonomy, to bear is a very important part of how we on the edge can leverage our placement and access,” Bradley said.
Partners
But SOCOM also plays a key role in helping partner militaries develop new capabilities quickly. Bradley described how SOCOM is seeking to use AI and autonomy “not only to serve our own interests, but to be able to help our partners who generally don't have the same budgets we do, to be able to buy that kind of capacity to give them asymmetric advantages… I think that's critical, because it is not just about what we bring, but it's about enabling those partners.”
Bradley, similar to other military leaders, pointed out the unique relationship that the U.S. military has forged with Ukraine. Special operations forces were critical to helping Ukraine stand up new concepts and tactics to thwart Russia’s advance in 2022. Today, that relationship provides key knowledge and training benefits back to U.S. Special Operations Forces. “Frankly, we learn from them,” he said.
That partnership is especially critical in finding real-world and relevant data to inform SOCOM training, concepts, and buying, namely testing new gear under spectrum-warfare conditions and real-world threats. Meaningfully testing new equipment for use against an actual modern adversary “requires more exquisite ranges that have the ability for us to be able to practice, train and rehearse in increasingly contested electromagnetic spectrum environments. Those are difficult to be able to produce inside the United States,” he said. “We have to be able to bring together our standard, exquisite weapons systems now with teamed and collaborative autonomy, and there are very few places inside the United States where that is an easy thing to do, in many places where it needs to be done, and we are working to do that.”
Industry, however, has the most to gain from longstanding military-to-military partnerships with Ukraine and its innovative forces and companies.
“I will say that many of our business, our defense industrial base partners, are watching this as well,” he said. “And of course, the Ukrainians are driven by the existential need for that cycle of adaptation. As we watch that, I have great confidence that our industrial base here can do the same.”