Assessing Special Operations Forces (SOF) 2040 (Part 2): The Two Trinities and the Human-Domain Advantage

Anchoring the Criterion Space in the Two SOF Trinities: An Example

Part 1 (The Operator Is the Platform) established that the SOF operator is the platform and that the validity of any SOF assessment, selection, and qualification (ASQ) system depends on the criterion space the system is built to predict. The logic, that ASQ systems are only as valid as the criterion they predict, carries a specific implication for Army SOF. For the majority of U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), and particularly for Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations, the criterion space must be anchored in the force’s foundational missions: unconventional warfare (UW), irregular warfare (IW), and support to political warfare. We refer to these collectively as the first SOF trinity. Among them, UW warrants primacy in selection design, because it most fully exploits the comparative advantage of Army SOF and most clearly reveals the kind of human the force must identify: one capable of organizing, advising, and operating through resistance organizations, undergrounds, auxiliary structures, and indigenous partner forces in denied areas, often for extended duration with minimal external support. Indeed, only Army Special Forces has been organized, trained, equipped, educated, and optimized to conduct UW, and that fact should weigh heavily in how selection criteria are prioritized for the bulk of Army SOF.

These missions are executed through what we describe as the second SOF trinity: influence, governance, and support to indigenous forces and populations. This is the human-domain advantage of Army SOF. It is not a set of generic soft skills adjacent to “real” operational competence; it is the operational competence. The ability to assess local legitimacy, build trust across cultures, read political terrain, advise surrogate actors, and help partners contest narrative and governance space is a direct determinant of mission success in UW and support to political warfare.

Accordingly, future assessment systems for the Special Warfare enterprise should prioritize the attributes most predictive of success in human-centered competition: political judgment, cross-cultural persuasion, narrative acuity, legitimacy assessment, partner-force development, governance literacy, and the ability to create effects through and with people rather than through stand-off lethality alone. A central selection trait, often underspecified in contemporary models, is the innate disposition to live and work among indigenous populations for long durations with little external support. Secondary, though increasingly important, is the ability to employ and integrate the advanced technologies and data capabilities discussed in the remainder of this paper.

Evidence of a Shift: Key Drivers Shaping SOF Work Through 2040

A 2040 SOF will shift from the post-9/11 focus on counterterrorism (CT) and counterinsurgency (COIN) to mission capabilities defined by human-centered competition across multiple spectrums (e.g., cognitive, social-cultural, political, economic). Here, SOF will operate in semi- or fully-contested, information- or data-driven environments dominated by peer- or near-peer competitors, irregular threats, and hybrid threats increasingly using advanced technology (e.g., AI-enabled surveillance and weaponry; AI-generated misinformation or disinformation campaigns). Accordingly, the 2040 SOF operator will require cognitive-behavioral-social-cultural adaptability, “unknowable” invisibility, the ability to operate as a distributed node in a contested network, and the capability to conduct multi-domain operations (air, sea, land, cyber, space).

Evolving Mission Demands of a 2040 SOF:

1. Adaptability: Missions demanding human-centered competition across multiple spectrums will demand adaptability from individual SOF operators and teams. Indeed, adaptability will be core to conducting irregular, unconventional, or grey zone warfare.
2. Unknowable & Hidden Nature: SOF operators and teams will be required to blend into the surrounding social, cultural, or political ecosystem of the operating environment, physically, behaviorally, or digitally. Similarly, to survive in a mission space filled with advanced surveillance (including ubiquitous and persistent surveillance) and other technology, SOF must operate with near-total invisibility to modern sensors, making them unknowable to adversaries.
3. Data-Driven Decision Making: Operators will need AI-assisted, real-time analytics to manage, interpret, and act upon massive amounts of information without suffering from information overload. Similarly, SOF will need to be proficient in using information or data to affect the decisions of others in environments saturated with information.
4. Contested Communication & Autonomy: Secure, jam-resistant communication is required. When disconnected, SOF teams must act autonomously, using intelligent robots and unmanned systems to carry out missions.
5. Scalable & Non-Kinetic Weapons: The need for weapons that can shift from non-lethal to lethal capabilities will be essential for neutralizing threats while minimizing risks to non-combatants. Emerging capabilities, including non-kinetic and directed-energy systems, may further expand the range of effects SOF operators must understand and integrate.
6. Cross-Domain Mastery: SOF must seamlessly bridge physical and virtual environments, including leveraging cyber- and space-based capabilities for intelligence and targeting or influence and persuasion.
7. Reverse Security Force Assistance (SFA): Specialized, regionally aligned expertise, such as in the Arctic, will be needed, where elite forces may provide training to conventional forces on how to operate in extreme, unconventional environments. However, in modern regional conflicts, reverse SFA may also become prominent, where the recipient actively shapes and adapts donor assistance to align with its own strategic needs and operational realities, and in some cases, the advisor may become the advised. This again aligns with our broader argument that performance criteria must reflect strategic interaction and adaptability, rather than narrow technical tasks.

Implications for SOF ASQ:

1. Cognitive Ceiling over Physical Floor: Historically, ASQ focused on physical attrition to find an indisputable will to survive. In 2040, physical fitness is merely a baseline (the floor). Selection will likely prioritize fluid intelligence, the ability to solve novel problems in real-time without prior instructions. Moreover, candidates may be tested on their ability to filter “signal from noise” while under extreme physical fatigue, simulating the management of a multi-domain data feed during a firefight.
2. From Loner to Networked Node: The 2040 operator must be comfortable as a distributed node. This requires a specific psychological profile, which balances both high autonomy and high alignment, individuals who can make high-stakes decisions that align with strategic intent without constant higher headquarters’ supervision. In addition, ASQ may move toward evaluating how well a candidate integrates with non-human teammates (AI agents and autonomous systems). An operator who “fights” the AI or distrusts the data stream may become a liability.
3. Digital Literacy and Signature Management: “Invisibility” in 2040 is as much about code as it is about camouflage. ASQ may incorporate Digital Survival phases. Candidates might have to demonstrate their ability to minimize their electronic signature or navigate a spoofed global positioning system (GPS) environment. Similarly, assessment will look for high emotional intelligence (EQ) and cultural adaptability. The ability to blend into a foreign digital and social ecosystem is a selection criterion for those tasked with unknowable invisibility.
4. Psychological Resilience to “Glass House” Warfare: Advanced surveillance means the 2040 operator is always on camera (via satellite, drone, or facial recognition). This will require ethical hardiness, which may require assessments that place candidates in complex moral dilemmas where there is no right answer, only least-bad outcomes. The psychological toll of being hunted by persistent AI-driven weaponry requires a level of metabolic and mental resilience that goes beyond traditional grit.

Note that each of these are inseparable from accelerating technological transformation, which alters not only how operators fight, but how performance itself is expressed.

A Special Note on Cognitive Warfare: The Contest for Perception, Legitimacy, and Political Will

Cognitive warfare should not be treated merely as an information-age complication of traditional operations or as a technical subset of human-machine teaming. It is a central feature of contemporary and future conflict, recognized as such in recent U.S. policy guidance, including 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) language on cognitive warfare and narrative intelligence. Cognitive warfare is competition to shape perception, legitimacy, decision-making, social cohesion, and political will, among relevant populations, partners, adversaries, and external audiences.

Cognitive warfare competence overlaps with, but is not reducible to, social intelligence, cross-cultural competence, or political acumen. We define it here as the capacity to recognize and act on narrative, legitimacy, and decision-making vulnerabilities in a contested information environment, with three distinguishing features: (a) it operates at the intersection of perception, legitimacy, and political behavior rather than interpersonal relations alone; (b) it requires integration of tactical action with strategic political effect across multiple audiences with conflicting interests; and (c) it presupposes an adversary actively contesting the same cognitive terrain. Construct validation will need to demonstrate incremental predictive validity beyond established measures of social intelligence, cultural intelligence, and political skill.

This domain is much closer to the daily operating reality of Psychological Operations, Civil Affairs, and Special Forces, particularly those operating in denied and politically contested spaces, than a framing centered on data saturation alone conveys. If the battlefield is a contest over human cognition and political behavior as much as physical terrain, then SOF selection must prioritize those who can operate effectively in that space: candidates who can read narrative vulnerabilities, persuade without coercion, assess legitimacy across fractured political environments, and design influence activities that align tactical action with strategic political effect.

This point is given additional institutional weight by a consistent focus on Psychological Operations and Information Operations. Such a focus necessitates a selection science that supports a broader talent-management challenge, beyond tactical operators to practitioners of influence, information confrontation, narrative warfare, and political effects. The criterion space for this population is different from direct-action-focused formations, and the assessment system must reflect that distinction. Accordingly, cognitive warfare competence should be treated as a core component of the criterion model, not as an adjunct to digital literacy or human-machine teaming.

Conclusion

Part 2 has anchored the 2040 criterion space in the two SOF trinities and argued that cognitive warfare competence, the capacity to recognize and act on narrative, legitimacy, and decision-making vulnerabilities in a contested information environment, belongs in the criterion model as a core component rather than an adjunct. The evolving mission demands of SOF 2040 surveyed here, from operating as a distributed node to enduring the psychological toll of persistent surveillance, point consistently toward cognitive and adaptive attributes rather than physical ones, a cognitive ceiling rising above the physical floor. Yet none of these demands is separable from the accelerating technological transformation that is reshaping not only how operators fight but how performance itself is expressed. SOF operators will still succeed or fail on human-domain grounds, but increasingly while managing electronic signatures, contesting AI-enabled surveillance, and integrating autonomous systems.

Part 3 of the series (The Technology Layer – Cyber, Space, and Human-Machine Teaming in 2040) turns to that technology layer directly—cyber integration, space-denied operations, and human-machine teaming—and asks how technological demands should be weighted relative to the trinities: as the contemporary medium through which the foundational missions are conducted, not as a competing criterion that displaces the human-domain attributes at the model’s center.

Author affiliations

David Dorsey, PhD, HumRRO; Col. David Maxwell, U.S. Army, Ret., Center for Asia Pacific Strategy; Mike Ingerick, HumRRO; Mick Crnkovich, former Director for Irregular Warfare in OSD, and CEO Stratagem Consulting.

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