Army Special Operations Forces’ Maritime Operations
By Major Brandon Schwartz, Special Forces Underwater Operations commander
Article published: on April 1st, in the spring 2024 issue of the Special Warfare Journal
Read Time:
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U.S. Army Special Forces Soldiers and Navy SEALs prepare to swim long distance beneath the
water’s surface during the 2023 U.S. Army Special Operations Command Best Combat Diver Competition at the
Special Forces Under Water Operations School at Naval Air Station Key West, Florida, on Sept. 26, 2023. The
USASOC BCDC engages in friendly competition while enhancing camaraderie and esprit de corps.
U.S. Army photo
by Spec. Cody Williams
CHANGING TIDES
The Army Warfighter Concept: 2030-2040 coined the term air ground-littoral zone 01 to describe the coastal areas,
brown and green waters, and near-Earth space upon which the Army and joint force operational and contingency
plans rely. Through a geographic and economic lens, this term encompasses all nations’ territorial waters,
seventy percent of the megacities, and the column of airspace above them. 02 the converging megatrends of “rapid population
growth, accelerating urbanization, littoralization (the tendency for people and infrastructure to cluster on
coastlines), and globalization,” 03
are making these zones more unstable, networked, ripe for malign infuence,04 and thus more complex albeit essential to
operate in. To this end, the United States and its rivals are engaged in a maritime arms race to gain the upper
hand in influencing and projecting power into air-ground littoral zones.
Still engaged in the epilogues of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), the U.S. military is in the unenviable
position of trying to reinvigorate its maritime capabilities—the domain most atrophied over the past two
decades—for both high-end conflict and asymmetric threats while simultaneously downsizing and adjusting
to new fiscal constraints. Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of China, the United States’ designated pacing
challenge, 05 is aggressively
investing in its maritime capabilities—anti-access, aerial denial (A2AD) systems, peer-capable naval
platforms, and maritime proxy forces—with the “stated intention of exceeding the capability of the U.S.
military in the Western Pacific in the next decade.” 06
In short, mounting insecurity within and increased competition over the global littoral necessitates a shift in
focus for U.S. special operations forces (SOF), who must keep pace with rival behavior and the “seismic changes
in the character of war, largely driven by technology.” 07 As the proponent for irregular warfare, Army special operations forces
(ARSOF) must improve its maritime operations (MAROPS) baseline capabilities and develop irregular approaches to
address emerging challenges. Explicitly, ARSOF must develop a MAROPS capability that can (1) enable our allies
and partners to counter sources of maritime insecurity through capacity building, (2) extend U.S. influence, and
(3) enable the Army and joint force to succeed in crisis and conflict in air-ground-littoral zones. ARSOF should
not view this deviation from recent experience as an aberration, but rather as a means to see, sense,
and affect this increasingly important battlefield.
JOINT FORCE ADAPTION TO MARITIME THREATS
The U.S. military is at a strategic infection point, repurposing the joint force to support the 2022 National
Security Strategy threat prioritization and the associated need to dominate the air-ground-littoral zone. the
much-discussed “Pacific Pivot” of the Obama Administration is finally underway, as evidenced by the influx of
units and war stocks into United States Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) and emphasis on Pacific military
partnerships. 08 Since the U.S.
withdrawal from Afghanistan, the joint force executed dozens of integrated battle problems focused on solving
the challenges of reception, staging, onward movement, and integration; joint forcible entry; very shallow water
obstacle identification and reduction; and logistics in a peer-contested, maritime environment. 09 These exercises signal America’s
commitment to countering Chinese maritime investments and inform stakeholders of the ways and means the military
must develop to overcome assessed gaps to ensure America can fight its preferred way of war in a theater
predominately covered by ocean.
LITTORAL (DOD)
The littoral comprises two segments of operational environment:
- Seaward: the area from the open ocean to the shore, which must be controlled to support
operations ashore.
- Landward: the area inland from the shore that can be supported and defended directly from
the sea.
JP 2-01.3
Although MAROPS is most associated with INDOPACOM, each combatant command is witnessing changes to its maritime
environments. In United States European Command, the Russo-Ukrainian conflict in the Black Sea demonstrates a
fundamental shift in how militaries “see, shoot, move, communicate, protect, and sustain” 10 in this decisive terrain. Ukrainian MAROPS,
characterized by small, remote-controlled unmanned surface vessels that target enemy infrastructure and Russian
naval vessels, as well as Russia’s manned and unmanned countermeasures, is greatly influencing joint force
wargames and capabilities development.
11 Moreover, observed Russian and Ukrainian struggles to execute wet gap operations is
renewing the U.S. Army’s focus on this old-but-new challenge as evidenced by the activation of
multi-role bridging companies.12
In United States Central Command, Iranian-backed Houthi drone attacks and interdiction of
commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea demonstrate the impact asymmetric maritime threats can have on the
global economy. 13 To date, the
U.S. Navy’s response to secure this strategic sea line of communication has been effective, albeit costly, while
also creating opportunity costs elsewhere. Concurrently, in the global south, partner nations are increasingly
requesting assistance to secure their economic exclusion zones from malign and substate maritime threats like
piracy, drug trafficking, and illegal and unregulated fishing. 14 In aggregate, these actions signal a rising demand for conventional and
special operations maritime solutions across each combatant command.
Adapting to this future reality, United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) drafted Directive 350-24,
Maritime Infiltration (MI), as an essential step in reshaping the trajectory of joint SOF maritime capabilities.
The current draft states that maritime infiltration “is a fundamental skill across all USSOCOM Components,” 15 and mandates that the entire
SOF enterprise increase its baseline MAROPS capabilities while becoming increasingly interoperable. Tis
directive may shock many within ARSOF who view this as encroaching on traditional Navy SEAL and Marine Raider
territory; however, increased demand for SOF MAROPS requirements will likely exceed the capacity of the United
States Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) and require partnered, irregular approaches that are
not the forte of Naval Special Warfare (NSW).
NSW predominance in the maritime domain is well documented and respected. Tey are the Nation’s “premier maritime
SOF and are uniquely positioned to extend the feet’s reach and deliver all-domain solutions to the joint
force.”16 During the twilight of
the GWOT, (then) NSW Commander, Read Admiral Wyman Howard, smartly embraced a “return to sea” mentality and
reoriented NSW from land-based, partnered operations through the modernization of its subsurface and surface
MAROPS capabilities. The results are superb; however, this organizational orientation—focusing “on the things
that only [NSW] can do for the joint force”
17—comes with a tradeoff. Concentrating on developing a tailored Deep Blue capability left
many of the “lesser” littoral maritime challenges unaccounted for. For example, NSW SEAL Delivery Vehicle Teams
can conduct exquisite combat swimming operations, but they are also inextricably linked to some of the U.S.
Navy’s most strategic and precious platforms—like Columbia-class submarines—whose role in high-end conflict will
be tightly controlled. This is not to say that NSW is no longer capable of partnered operations, but their
charter is feet support and high-end, technical maritime special operations.
Covering the SOF littoral gap created by the NSW post-GWOT pivot, MARSOC developed a new operating concept called
Strategic Shaping and Reconnaissance (SSR). SSR, grounded in the Marine Corps’ amphibious roots, is “focused on
special reconnaissance, preparation of the environment, and the employment of kinetic and nonkinetic effects in
contested, near shore environments.”18 MARSOC is progressively developing capabilities for information and
influence operations aimed at the locations where “half of the global population will live by 2050.” 19 Tis potent irregular warfare
instrument—designed to bring people into the United States’ influence column—is essential during competition and
may help prevent conflict from occurring. However, recognizing that the entire Marine Raider Regiment is smaller
than even one of the five active-duty U.S. Army Special Forces (SF) groups is an immutable reality. Marine
Raiders cannot address the increasing volume of maritime partner building or littoral irregular warfare without
extensive assistance. Moreover, SOF’s value to the Nation is maximized when its units of action are already at
the crisis point with developed flexible response options and flexible deterrence options for policymaker
decisions. To this end, combining ARSOF’s global presence with the SSR model provides an excellent blueprint for
addressing the current limitation of USSOCOM’s littoral SOF capabilities.
BUILDING MAROPS NEXT
Building upon these recommended joint SOF component “swim lanes,” ARSOF should embrace USSOCOM’s directive to
increase its baseline MAROPS capability to prepare for assessed requirements across the competition continuum.
Specifically, ARSOF should develop a threat-informed, partner-centric capability that augments MARSOC’s littoral
irregular warfare and operational preparation of the environment capacity and interoperates with NSW’s exquisite
Deep Blue capabilities.
ARSOF should also modernize to extend its combat diving capability’s operational reach to account for
21st-century standoff requirements in conflict. Moreover, ARSOF should emphasize upgrading its surface MAROPS
capabilities to provide more significant opportunities for access, placement, and partnerships in strategically
important air-ground-littoral zones before the crisis. Paying close attention to lessons learned in the Black
Sea, ARSOF must also integrate robotics to ensure MAROPS operators are able to sense and shape the environment
to increase survivability and lethality. Finally, ARSOF should partner closely with the Army to answer their
hydrographic and river reconnaissance needs to enable their wet gap operations and joint logistics
over-the-shore (JLOTS). Thankfully, the 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne) (SFC[A]) is committed to this
cause.
SF Regimental Command and Staff are developing a new 1st SFC(A) Operating Concept to articulate its value
proposition across the competition continuum, in all domains, and in every sector of the battlefield. Tis
soon-to-be-published Operating Concept will also emphasize how Special Forces groups can leverage surface and
subsurface MAROPS capabilities to extend U.S. influence into littorals during competition and provide direct and
general support to the Army and joint force during a crisis or conflict.
BENEFITS OF A NEW BASELINE
During competition, an improved ARSOF MAROPS capability creates opportunities for increased access, placement,
and influence that add to the Nation’s deterrence capabilities. ARSOF must enable indigenous solutions to the
problems of overfishing, piracy, smuggling, crime, pollution, and threats to commerce that cost even the most
developed countries like South Korea billions of dollars each year. 20 Cooperating to increase partner maritime
security and conducting littoral influence and information operations can help retain these countries in the
United States’ corner. Should a crisis occur in the air-ground-littoral zones, and ARSOF are there, they can
enable the joint force’s unfettered access to bases, ports, and airspace for mission accomplishment. In addition
to strategic shaping, ARSOF littoral operational preparation of the environment can help pre-position war
stocks, develop human networks, and generate flexible and scalable response and deterrence options that provide
U.S. policymakers innumerable means to overcome unforeseen challenges.
In crisis and conflict, ARSOF MAROPS has a role in each battlefield sector. In the close area, ARSOF and their
partners can utilize surface and subsurface MAROPS to enable multidomain breach of the air-ground-littoral zone
in support of joint forcible entry operations and reception, staging, onward movement, and integration of the
joint force. Tasks could include the kinetic and nonkinetic targeting of A2AD systems, hydrographic surveys to
mark and reduce obstacles in very shallow waters, and military deception to enable the Army to perform joint
logistics over-the-shore.
“We must develop the tactics and technologies to dominate the Air Ground-Littoral, which is the
near-earth space, up to thousands of feet. Formations that are organized, trained, and equipped to exploit the
Air-Ground Littoral can sense and strike further and faster […] The emergence of these formations may drive the
biggest change in how [the Army] fights on land since armies learned to exploit the potential of
mechanization.”
Army Futures Command Army Warfighting Concept: 2030-2040
Once ashore, the joint force could sustain operations utilization of activated subsurface caches. ARSOF can also
utilize maritime infiltration techniques to gain access to the deep area and enable joint force land component
commanders to see and sense farther and shape the environment to allow ground forces to maintain operational
tempo. Specifically, ARSOF targets enemy long-range precision fires, logistics, and “kill chains,” 21 and conducts river
reconnaissance of wet gap crossing sites. Outside the theater of armed conflict, ARSOF MAROPS can create
multiple dilemmas on their peripheral or strategic flanks. Leveraging their global presence, ARSOF can hold the
enemy’s sea lines of communication, ports, assets, and proxies at risk to create comparative advantages for the
joint force through attrition. Across all battlefield sectors, ARSOF must embrace the policy trend of remote
advisement and assistance of a MAROPS-capable partner force while leveraging unmanned surface or underwater
vessels to target enemy naval and littoral-based assets. In a crisis, ARSOF must provide combatant commanders
and policymakers with low-cost, asymmetric solutions to counter maritime proxy forces like the Houthis. SOF
maritime solutions will free up the U.S. Navy for other global requirements that bolster the Nation’s strategic
deterrence value, reduce the risk of horizontal escalation, and avoid the depletion of high-end war stocks.
This old-but-new vision—a nod to the Office of Strategic Services maritime playbook22—will guide ARSOF in the future fight and shed
light on the endless albeit important role of MAROPS. However, ARSOF’s institutional and operational forces must
do more to realize this vision.
NEXT STEPS
The key to advancing ARSOF surface MAROPS is greater collaboration between the operational and institutional
forces to modernize existing program of instructions and develop a new training division of labor between
Special Forces Underwater Operation (SFUWO) School and the SF groups. The U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special
Warfare and School (USAJFKSWCS) is currently revamping SFUWO’s Water Infiltration Course (WIC) to account for
assessed future ARSOF MAROPS activities and threats. In support of this course redesign, SFUWO is actively
pursuing SF group input to ensure “WIC 2.0” meets the customers’ expectations and complements emerging
operational training guidance. The richer the collaboration, the better the outputs will be. If the course
redesign is approved, ideally SFUWO would exclusively teach the advanced surface MAROPS skills required to
operate effectively in assessed future operational environments (for example, air-to-water insertion, mothership
operations, hardshell boats, mission planning, and visit, board, search, and seizure credentialling) as early as
Spring 2025.
As the only joint SOF component that does not teach MAROPS in their initial training pipeline, SF groups must
assume greater responsibility for their units’ foundational MAROPS skillset. Only then can SFUWO focus on
developing the advanced capability required by the joint force as outlined in the USSOCOM Directive 35024
critical tasks list.
The key to modernizing ARSOF combat diving is additional resourcing and leader advocacy. Team-level innovation
and pockets of excellence cannot overcome underinvestment. As demonstrated during the 2023 USASOC Combat Diver
Competition, 23 SF combat divers
have the human capital to outcompete Navy SEALs; however, ARSOF units’ collective proficiency can only progress
with additional focus. Tere is no getting around the unavoidable costs of MAROPS equipment, but diver propulsion
and precision navigation are vital instruments for all joint SOF components’ subsurface capabilities. SFUWO
already revamped its Combat Diving Supervisor Course to teach seasoned divers how to echelon diver propulsion
devices and precision navigation to accomplish advanced profiles taught in the U.S. Navy’s Lead Combat Swimmer
Course. However, SF dive lockers need the manning, expertise, and resourcing to allow dive teams to maintain the
skillset in their pre-mission training and annual training requirements.
Concerning doctrine, the Army’s creation of an entire chapter— Chapter 7: Maritime Operations—in its recently
published FM 3-0, Operations, signals a requirement for ARSOF MAROPS inclusion and cascading doctrinal updates.
USAJFKSWCS must continue to leverage SFUWO—its MAROPS institutional center of gravity— to nest ARSOF MAROPS with
the Army’s vision for maritime and riverine operations. Furthermore, USAJFKSWCS and SFUWO should codevelop
MAROPS updates for its programmatic reviews of ARSOF doctrine. MAROPS detachments do not have codified
expectations for training requirements for combat dive or other specialty detachments. To this end, the
institutional and operational forces must create a USASOC Regulation 350-20 equivalent for MAROPS detachments to
guide the training and maintenance standard for the skillset.
SFUWO should evolve to become the MAROPS capabilities development directorate (CDD) and support USASOC’s Force
Modernization Center (UFMC) to ensure prudent force transformation. As a CCD-like entity, SFUWO could directly
support UFMC’s overhaul of ARSOF’s outdated MAROPS technologies and communicate future requirements to industry
partners. Moreover, if resourced as an innovation battle lab, SFUWO and its visiting units—an average of 600
personnel each year—could collaborate on complicated problems to spur new techniques, tactics, and procedures
that will help accelerate ARSOF MAROPS growth and simultaneously inform senior leader modernization decisions.
Finally, MAROPS is not just a dive detachment responsibility; it is an ARSOF leader responsibility. To this end,
the SF Regiment should conduct leader professional development to replenish its atrophied MAROPS intelligence
quotient and overcome the heuristic that MAROPS is singularly about combat divers infiltrating to a beach
landing site. A review of the SF Regiment’s rich history demonstrates that our third lightning bolt was
well-earned; it is worthy of continued stewardship. To that end, broadening ARSOF leader aperture to the nuances
of emerging MAROPS concepts, lessons learned, new technologies, and threat capabilities will benefit the SF
Regiment moving forward.
CONCLUSION
The world’s littoral populations continue to grow at an aggressive pace. Of the 513 cities having a population
above 1 million in 2015, 271 (52.8 percent) were located less than 100 kilometers from a coastline. Tis accounts
for 59.4 percent of the global urban population. 24 A failure to invest in ARSOF MAROPS capabilities ignores these clear
population shifts and generates indisputable operational and mobility challenges for future ARSOF leaders.
ARSOF MAROPS needs USASOC leader advocacy to become operationally viable once again. USASOC should embrace a
programmatic capability review process that encourages divestment at the same rate of investment. Although
MAROPS may not achieve top billing over other ARSOF capabilities, this critical capability is well above the cut
line because the risk of the status quo is too significant. USASOC should continue to build upon the 1st SFC(A)
operating concept and carry their water when advising USSOCOM on how ARSOF complements the joint SOF maritime
capabilities. ARSOF should strive to become interoperable with NSW capabilities to extend their reach from the
Deep Blue into the air-ground-littoral zones, which are decisive to joint force contingency and operational
plans. USASOC should partner closely with MARSOC to augment SSR on a global scale and validate near identical
requirements to ensure each combatant commander has enough capacity to conduct influence and information
operations and be poised to respond to crises in increasingly contested littorals.
Concerning the costs of MAROPS resourcing, both USASOC and MARSOC are on the outside looking in at the exclusive
relationship between NSW and USSOCOM Program Executive office—Maritime (PEO-M). 25 If MARSOC and USASOC were to buy into PEO-M
together, it would open avenues that could lessen the fiscal burden of ARSOF institutional and operational force
modernization efforts. Lastly, USASOC should adopt the Army’s maritime and riverine-centric challenges as their
own and collaborate through experimentation to overcome them. Doing so would signal that ARSOF recognizes the
Army as the supported entity and is committed to successfully navigating its strategic infection point across
all domains. In sum, a genuinely all-domain ARSOF will enable the joint force to succeed in future contested
maritime environments. And for that reason, we should “give way together.”
Endnotes
01. Department of Defense, “Draft White Paper: Army
Warfighting Concept: 2030-2040,” (Austin, TX: Army Futures Command, September 2023), 10.
03. David Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains: The Coming
Age of the Urban Guerilla (London: Hurst, 2013), 25.
04. Joshua Tallis, The War for Muddy Waters: Pirates,
Terrorists, Traffickers, and Maritime Insecurity (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2019), 13-35.
07. GEN Mark Miley, “Strategic Inflection Point: The
Most Historically Significant and Fundamental Change in the Character of War is Happening Now: While the
Future is Clouded in Mist and Uncertainty,” Joint Forces Quarterly 110, no. 3 (Spring 2023): 7-8.
08. areed Zakaria, “The Self-Doubting Superpower:
America Shouldn’t Give Up on the World it Made,” Foreign Affairs 103, no. 1 (January/February 2024), 47.
10. Miley, “Strategic Inflection Point,” 8,
15. Department of Defense, “Draft USSOCOM Directive
350-24: Special Operations Forces Baseline Interoperable Training Standards—Maritime Infiltration,”
(Tampa: US Special Operations Command, 2023), 6.
18. Andrew Eversden, “MARSOC’s New Operational
Concept a Departure from Iraq, Afghanistan Strategies,” Breaking Defense on the Web, May 11, 2022,
MARSOC’s new operational concept a departure from Iraq, Afghanistan strategies - Breaking Defense
(accessed February 15, 2024).
21. Christian Brose, Kill Chain: Defending America in
the Future of High-Tech Warfare (New York: Hachette Books, 2020), 3.
22. Benjamin H. Milligan, By Water Beneath the Walls:
The Rise of the Navy SEALS, (New York: Bantam Books, 2021), 173-183.
25. CAPT Kate Dolloff, “Expanding the Competitive
Space: Special Operations Forces Industry Conference,” [Power-Point presentation], SOF Week, Tampa, FL
sofweek.org/tuesday/peo-maritime-overview (accessed January 07, 2024).