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Banner illustration for An Institutional Home for ARSOF Robotics: Establishing a SORD-Training Company for Standards, Training, and Doctrine (Illustration by Special Warfare Journal staff.)An Institutional Home for ARSOF Robotics:
Establishing a SORD-Training Company for Standards, Training, and Doctrine

ARSOF requires a dedicated institutional organization to develop, standardize, and sustain robotics training, doctrine, experimentation, and Special Operations Robotics Detachment (SORD) support. Currently, these functions are scattered across schools, MOS pipelines, ad hoc initiatives, and unit-level efforts. Each group builds SORD capabilities independently with its own standard and its own assumptions, which means the force has many versions of "trained" and no agreed definition of it. Standardization of institutional training is an explicit role at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (SWCS). A SORD Training and Integration Company (SORD-T) within SWCS would provide the missing connective tissue between MOS pipelines, advanced robotics courses, operational detachments, and emerging technology. This article is not focused on any singular course it presents a force-design proposal, focusing on a sustainable, neutral, institutional home for robotics capability generation.
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Tag: Space

Banner image of the U.S. Army Master Space Badge (top). (U.S. Army photo by Carrie David Campbell)

Jan. 7, 2026

Supporting the Army Special Operations Forces-Space-Cyberspace Triad: Selection Criteria for Army Space Officers Supporting U.S. Special Operations Command

The preponderance of special operations forces (SOF) missions requires non-SOF support. There is only one Army Space officer (Functional Area 40) at every theater special operations command (TSOC) and Special Forces Group (SFG). These officers have an outsized impact on what commanders and units of action can accomplish operationally, or when preparing units of action to deploy forward (organizing, training, and equipping). At a TSOC, developing and directing lines of effort against an adversary’s communications architecture demands as much analytical rigor as ensuring units of action are properly equipped and trained to successfully contribute to a TSOC’s campaign support plan. While the Army’s talent management system has made positive strides in recent years, screening Army Space officers for service at SFGs or TSOCs warrants additional scrutiny. The suggestions below are scoped to Army Space officers due to the backgrounds of the authors, but this model could be applied to other low-density jobs in SOF, such as cyberspace or electronic warfare.

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