The SOCOM budget has been frozen since 2019. Yep - you read that right! SOCOM has been asked to do more and they have not been funded to a level consistent with inflation and the growth of contingency operations. Every time SOCOM deploys forces without the resources they have to take funding from Training, Readiness and Force Modernization. That leads to a less trained force with poorly maintained and old equipment. Congress need to restore the $5B they have taken from SOCOM's budget.
Interesting post. How much does SOCOM need? For what, and over what time period? Since GWOT is over and the optempo is much lower, there should be significant funds available and more efficiencies to leverage.
Fantastic article. When ASD/SOLIC and the SOCOM CMDR take the time to write an article, it should get major attention. I can speak primarily to the Joint CBRN space, but from my understanding, other capability areas are similar in structure. SOCOM can leverage it's authorities to engage industry and the R&D government organizations to jump start and shape ground breaking technologies, but the only way to get across the transition gap of death is an actual program line with Procurement assigned. Traditionally this PROC has come from Joint funding lines within the DoD as a recognition that the efforts will pay some form of benefit to the joint forces when transitioned. If the SOCOM budget doesn't get addressed and the Joint Procurement lines keep drying up, then all the good will to industry and R&D funding will quickly go away. The end state being much slower adoption of technology and less good will engagement with the commercial sector. Think about 5-10 year fielding programs run by larger services with SOCOM just a part of a larger fielding plan (probably at the end due to size). SOF equipment will trickle down from forces designed for large land campaigns with SWaP requirements to match.
Josh S.
3w
There is enormous waste there, just like every government agency. So basically they have been asked to do more with less - this is called “productivity”. This is a very good thing.
Do more with less has been around for over 20 years. This leads to false readiness reporting and LCSP not being addressed. But when it comes to no-fail missions and critical training these can lead to bad things. It takes a lot longer to grow an SOF member than a conventional SM.
I couldn't agree more. I served in the military as both a SOCOM SAM and PM and lived this first hand. It felt like every other week, we were told to do more with less and another 10% budget cut drill would come our way. Our products became stagnate and we could not keep pace with the missions we were meant to support. I retired last year and have spent my time on the other side of the coin, working as an Account Executive, trying to get SOCOM to purchase a product that they wrote requirement documents for and that would close a significant cyber vulnerability capability gap. They decided it was unaffordable. Not because we ramped up the price but because SOCOM was worried about having the funds to keep vehicles and kits operating, let alone upgrading them.
Andrew E.
3w
But that $40 million dollar check hits the Taliban's bank account, on time, EVERY WEEK. 😏
And that $5 billion needs to be spent strategically on troops, missions and inovationations in equipment and not wasted.
Fund SOF fully. Man, train and equip them fully. The world is a mess and they will be called on again, and again, and we won't even know it.
Cybersecurity Evangelist | Nerd | Champion for Automation and Orchestration | Learn-it-all | Veteran | Retired Warrant Officer | Opinions are my own | SOC Transformation
3wSOF Truth #3 - Special Operations Forces cannot be mass produced. By the time leaders realize that they need capabilities only SOF can deliver, it will be too late to rapidly produce qualified and trained SOF operators and support staff.