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Future Challenges for Special Operations Forces

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Posted: May 8th, 2018

The U.S. Special Operations Command has about 67,000 troops and an annual budget of around 14 billion dollars.  That may not seem to be a huge dent in the overall DoD budget (about 2%), but it greatly outnumbers the special operations budgets of other U.S. allies around the world.  With deployments operating at high frequencies today and with operations increasing in places like Syria, what should we be thinking about in terms of the impact on U.S. Special Operations in the coming decade?

The Cipher Brief’s Brad Christian talked with Former Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence (and Cipher Brief Expert) Dr. Michael Vickers recently about this increasingly important instrument of American power, and the shifts in missions and operational challenges that lie ahead for ahead for SOF.  The conversation has been edited for print.

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