SOCOM to host first-of-its-kind exercise to inform multi-domain task force

U.S. Special Operations Command is gearing up for its first ever live, virtual and constructive exercise, which will help inform forthcoming changes to how it provides forces to combatant commands.

Sonic Spear, beginning in April with elements peppered into other exercises throughout the year, will be SOCOM’s first opportunity as a combatant command to host such an event as opposed to tabletop exercises. The gathering will test the command’s ability to synchronize joint special operations effects from seabed to low-Earth orbit in support of the joint force and integrate those to support a joint task force commander, according to a command spokesperson.

Overall, the event will help validate how service components to SOCOM provide forces to it and geographic combatant commands, exercising those offerings and integrating them into a truly joint special operations force presentation, they added.

Special ops forces, much like the conventional units within the U.S. military, are taking a harder look at how to integrate capabilities seamlessly across all the domains of warfare. Commandos and conventional forces have historically been too siloed in their approaches to employing capabilities, looking at single domains rather than a more integrated arrangement.

The exercise will also help SOCOM look at different technologies, such as robotics, and the future investments it might need in those areas.

“Let’s look at our investments. We have a lot of autonomy investments happening across the force. We want to hold ourselves accountable … Robots can do what we told them to do. They can drop track quality data into the Joint Fires Network, theater agnostic, and then all those actions put together can support, again, the SOF effects that support joint SOF maneuver,” Lt. Gen. Francis Donovan, vice commander of SOCOM, said Feb. 20 at the Special Operations Symposium hosted by NDIA. “Sonic Spear 25 is our first go at this. That’s where we’re going to look at again, seabed to low-Earth orbit, what are our gaps and seams? Let’s push our autonomous investments, some other investments we’re making … and what do our forward forces need to be able to control ourselves, control our robots and then link in with the joint force.”

This all builds towards SOCOM’s eventual model for an emerging O-6 — colonel or Navy captain — level multi-domain special operations task force.  

Special ops historically has integrated multiple O-5 — lieutenant colonel or Navy commander — and O-6 forces from individual components under a general or admiral. The new model under development will look to integrate those joint special operations forces at the O-6 level to enable them across each domain, to include space and cyber.

With the need to integrate capabilities seamlessly across domains, combined with adversary actions that will disperse friendly forces, the forthcoming task force will allow commando formations to conduct synchronized operations at levels historically held at higher echelons, the SOCOM spokesperson said.

“That is our first step to moving forward of a SOF force presentation model that looks a little different from the past. We’ll eventually have a multi-domain special operations task force at the O-6 level that can synchronize SOF effects, seabed to low-Earth orbit in support of the joint force. Yes, that’s what we’re building towards. But we have to start somewhere,” Donovan said of Sonic Spear 25.

While this year will be relatively rudimentary as the first instantiation, he said officials hope to evolve it — adding in electromagnetic interference, for example — culminating in 2027 with “a joint SOF force offering.”