Educating Special Forces Junior Leaders for a Complex Security Environment

: While the original target research group was too large, the operational environment as initially defined (terrorism, insurgency, and other forms of irregular warfare) was much too limited. In truth, the operational environment all SOF officers will face in the coming decades will include much more than irregular warfare, which greatly complicates the training and education requirements for the entire officer corps, but particularly for Special Forces officers. This study contains six parts: List of assumptions that will impact Special Forces officer 1. education and training; 2. Best guess at what the "future international security environment"; will look like 3. Recommendations -based on the assumptions and the "future operational environment"-of several knowledge-based education competencies-some familiar, some not; 4. Survey of graduate programs teaching these competencies; 5. Statistical analysis and discussion of the "gap" in graduate education between Army Special Forces and non-Special Forces; 6. Suggestions for providing Special Forces officers with a viable, tailored, and quality master's degree that will enhance their operational performance, accelerate their capability for senior-level and joint staff billets, and increase their opportunity for successful command in increasingly difficult command situations.