The Future of Special Operations Forces

Posted: September 10th, 2015

By Chris Fussell

Chris Fussell is the Chief Growth Officer at McChrystal Group. Fussell spent 15 years on US Navy SEAL Teams, first on SEAL Teams Two and Eight, then in the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. He was selected to serve as Aide-de-Camp to then-Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal during General McChrystal's final year commanding the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Chris is an author of Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement in a Complex World.

On September 11, 2001, I was a newly-appointed SEAL platoon commander. My platoon was on an urban warfare training trip in the south east United States when we received word that a plane had struck one of the twin towers. We were literally reloading weapons, when one of our platoon-mates turned on a television just as the second tower was struck. Stunned, we knew our lives as SEAL operators had just changed, but we had no idea the extent to which that was true. In the decade ahead, everything about our force would transform.

Physically, we were runners, swimmers, and weight lifters, training ourselves to carry large loads through heavy-terrain for extended periods. Neither our gear, nor our physiques, nor our tactics were designed to move with fluidity. On the news that day, we’d seen the future.

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