A recently released report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) highlighted the need for improvements regarding civilian oversight of the Special Operations community.
To understand the report, it is important to underline a semi-obscure Pentagon bureaucracy called Assistant Secretary of Defence for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (ASD-SO/LIC), a small office created in 1986 to ensure civilian oversight and control of Special Operations Command (SOCOM) which trains, equips, and provides Special Operations Forces for combatant commanders around the globe.
The GAO report highlights a number of shortcomings, many of them related to staffing issues. For instance, ASD-SO/LIC does not have enough senior staffers to attend all of the service meetings in the Pentagon where Special Operations should be represented, but ASD-SO/LIC also does not have the authority to hire more staffers.
Other shortfalls are technical in nature. While officially in an oversight and supervisory role over SOCOM, ASD-SO/LIC has limited access to SOCOM computer networks forcing them to find work around and more often than not just email officials at SOCOM, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, to obtain the information they need.
Interestingly, ASD-SO/LIC has not just oversight, but "cognizant authority" over Special Operations Command's most classified programs since 2020, striping this role from the SOCOM commander. ASD-SO/LIC created a Special Access Program (SAP) Central Office to coordinate the various SAPs being run by Special Operations. However, with limited staffers, ASD-SO/LIC has been forced to relinquish this role over some SAPs and hand them back to SOCOM.
The GAO report recommends implementing its strategic workforce principles and that ASD/SO-LIC hash out a document that clearly delineates the roles between their office and that of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.
