How Should SOF Be Organized?

Special Operations Forces (SOF) today provide policy makers with Economy of Force and Expansion of Choice options. Unfortunately, not all countries are well positioned to capitalize on SOF as a strategic asset. Not all SOF organizations are appropriately structured at the national-level for the SOF system to be a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Organizational structure does matter. Against this backdrop, this thesis addresses: how military SOF should be organized to ensure that they can be an effective and relevant national instrument? To answer the question, the thesis examines four different organizational models used by SOF—Service-centric (Israel), National Military Staff Element (Norway), Component Command (France), and Service (Australia)—to elucidate their strengths and weaknesses. Implications are weighed and recommendations then made. These should be particularly pertinent to countries contemplating or having just begun to transform their SOF.