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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: SOF

Aug. 7, 2025

Going Above and Beyond the Battlefield: Elevating Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations in the SOF-Space-Cyber Triad

This article emphasizes the critical role of Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations within the evolving SOF-Space-Cyber Triad, a strategic framework designed to enhance U.S. military advantages across multi-domain operations. Civil Affairs units provide vital insights into civil environments, counter adversary influence, and support governance while Psychological Operations influence perceptions and shape narratives in the information environment. When integrated with cyber and space capabilities, these units create a comprehensive approach to modern warfare, especially against near-peer competitors.

July 16, 2025

Understanding and Mitigating Subterranean Operational Threats on Human Health and Performance: The Fatigue-Hormone-Mood Triad

With the advent of large-scale combat operations (LSCO) and contemporary threat groups’ use of underground tunnels, it is essential to understand the impact of subterranean military operations on human health and performance. Subterranean operations are not rapid in execution. Rather, warfighters can expect to spend days, weeks, and possibly months operating underground with limited access to sunlight, potable water, food, medical evacuation, and the resupply of rations and other military equipment. In brief, subterranean operations directly challenge human endurance, physiologically and psychologically. While subterranean operations are predicted to acutely strain and chronically suppress most, if not all, physiological systems of the body, this article focuses on the fatigue-hormone-mood triad.

July 10, 2025

Book Review: Patton’s War: An American General’s Combat Leadership, Volume 1

George S. Patton, Jr. remains one of the most renowned leaders in American military history. This is the narrative any student of history will find, emblazoned by Patton’s own memoirs, the seminal works of Martin Blumenson, Carlo D’Este, and Stanley Hirshon, and autobiographies of Patton’s peers and superiors. Historian Kevin Hymel seeks to contextualize this narrative through the lens of another Patton, “the man mentioned in the letters and memoirs of the many soldiers he led into battle.”

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