U.S. Army Special Forces Operational Interoperability with the U.S Army's Objective Force

Operational interoperability, the ability of units to provide services to and accept services from other units or forces and to use the services so exchanged to enable them to operate effectively together, is critical and central to effective joint operations. Liaison and coordination elements are central to ensuring operational interoperability between branches of the Army. Current US Army Special Forces (SF) doctrine addressing liaison and coordination elements has evolved over the past decades to meet past requirements for interoperability. However, higher degrees of interoperability, both technical and operational, are critical to enabling the Army and SF Objective Forces. The SF Objective Force must transform its liaison and coordination elements to ensure that it can maintain the high levels of interoperability required for future operations with the Army Objective Force. The monograph provides recommendations to transform SF liaison elements in light of the transformation characteristics and requirements of the Army and SF Objective Forces. The paper does this by first examining the definition and current importance of interoperability for the Army as a whole and then specifically for SF. The paper then describes how the Army and SF are transforming their forces and how SF transformation concepts support the overall military transformation campaign. The monograph then examines how interoperability is an essential enabler in that process and how SF liaison and coordination elements are key to achieving the levels of interoperability required by the transformation concepts. Last, the monograph describes how the SF liaison and coordination elements should change to achieve the required levels of interoperability.