General Session: The SOF Value in Strategic Competition
10 May 2023
Marriott Water Street - Floor 2 - Grand Ballroom
General Sessions
Today’s focus in the SOF Week agenda is “Win.” The many terms we hear for winning in peace – “left of conflict,” “left of bang,” “below the threshold of armed conflict,” “the gray zone,” and “to win without fighting” – recognize that our greatest competitors actually see peace as war. This panel will discuss how we achieve successful deterrence – achieving our foreign policy aims without risking escalation, lives, and other resources. How does our nation win in peace? How does our military in general, and our Special Operations Forces in particular, contribute to achieving and sustaining such a peacetime win? What does successful campaigning (i.e., “the conduct and sequencing of logically-linked military initiatives aimed at advancing well-defined, strategy-aligned priorities over time” according to the 2022 National Defense Strategy) look like? How do we best cooperate and collaborate with partners in order to deter armed conflict? When war comes, SOF will be ready; today’s panel is about how we help our nation succeed in peace.
Chairperson
Speakers