On 1 June 2022, JSOU participated in the 17th International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology (DESRIST). President Dr. Isaiah "Ike" Wilson presented an introduction on the Future of the SOF Profession, the complexity of the Compound Security Environment we operate in, and how design science can help us understand, frame, and ultimately engage the puzzles we are faced with. The JSOU Team then participated in the DESRIST Conference's Industrial Workshop, facilitating two discussions on the topic of Illegal, Unreported, Undocumented Fishing (IUUF), a topic chosen by JSOU as an ongoing research effort in the context of influence and great power competition. Finally Peter W. Singer gave a Keynote Address on the topic of narrative storytelling to influence decision-makers and thereby decisions. Various breakout sessions and panels took place simultaneously, and many interesting and useful papers were submitted for discussion in the DESRIST Conference, all of which are available at the link found in the Executive Summary included in this Forum Page under Documents. The JSOU Forum herein, titled "Reimagining the Compound Security Environment and the Future of Special Operations: Enhancing Understanding by Using Design Science Research", is a virtual forum presented digitally by JSOU at jsou.edu. This means that the Forum itself includes all the materials found here at this website, all materials are presented digitally, either in the form of papers or recordings. We believe there is something of use for everyone in the SOF Enterprise here, so check out the JSOU President's Opener, the Executive Summary, and the Keynote Address from Peter W. Singer first, and explore from there if you are particularly interested in design science. The DESRIST 2022 web page can provide further information on related topics.  

As far back as its origins in World War II, support to National Resilience and Resistance Operations has long been a core competency of Special Operations Forces (SOF). As expansionist authoritarian powers threaten U.S. partners who resolve to push back against subversion and aggression, SOF must be prepared to support partner resilience initiatives. Furthermore, in the event of armed aggression, Joint SOF must be prepared to transition from support to resilience to support to resistance operations. Such operations will likely be carried out in denied or contested environments and require support from the services and collaboration with joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational partners.

This Forum will provide a platform in which to consider, debate, and explore bold and innovative joint SOF-supported trans-regional approaches to resilience and resistance in the context of compound threats, most especially at key geostrategic locations that are consequential for the preservation of the liberal international order.

The imperatives of diplomacy and alliances are again of central focus, and the status of the underlying strategic logic of the United States, China, Russia seeking relative advantage is once again, and still, quo. If anything, the recently released Interim National Security Strategic Guidance highlights that strategic competition is centered more specifically on an increasingly assertive China than a disruptive Russia and that U.S. foreign policy needs to focus on Europe, the Western Hemisphere, and the Indo-Pacific, and be viewed and approached through the lenses of intersectionality, convergence, and compound security. In this, JSOU's third forum on Great Power Competition, we turn our attention to the way strategic competition is playing out in the Indo-Pacific in particular, and neighboring and inter-linked areas more generally. This examination focuses specifically on the ways that risks are being anticipated, calculated, and managed in order to prevent competition from leading to conflict.

This event combines the strategic insight and experience of senior leaders from our strategic, operational, and tactical JSOF formations with the theoretical, analytic, and emerging research perspective of top scholars from the DoD. Key topics for the upcoming November 2020 GPC Forum include discussion panels exploring the geostrategic nature of the GPC environment as being distinct from, as well as possibly similar with, many assumptions from the Cold War. Furthermore, the upcoming GPC Forum will explore the role that Westphalian state actors and non-state and sub-state actors play as both adversaries and partners in the compound security environment. The forthcoming forum will explore the emerging challenges to the current global order to better understand the myriad strategic intents of partner forces and adversaries as part of a broad network of international actors. The forum will also analyze varying approaches for gaining "intellectual overmatch" in GPC and understanding how emerging complexity and subsequent paradigm shifts will challenge the global strategic future. Lastly, the upcoming GPC Forum will allow senior leaders, scholars, and stakeholders to apply the newly uncovered knowledge about the GPC environment into the integrated campaign of practice and drive options for future strategic designs, from a combination of thinking-to-know and thinking-to-do innovative design and applied research techniques.

THIS THREE-DAY EDUCATION SEMINAR will provide students with a comprehensive understanding of China’s and Russia's strategic interests and subsequent rise as a recent near-peer competitor that challenges United States international security interests. Over the course of 3 days, participants will cover the following topic areas:
• Historical overview of great power competition and the rise of China and Russia to great power status and possible regional or global competitors to US international security interests.
• Political and economic systems of China and Russia affecting their great power status. • More aggressive Chinese and Russian national security policies that challenge U.S. interests around the world.
• Legacy philosophical Chinese and Russian doctrines that impact strategic aspirations. • Chinese and Russian political and economic structures and ambitions affecting great power status.
• Chinese and Russian accelerated military modernization programs that compete with US and its allies security arrangements.
• Chinese and Russian habitual theft of intellectual property and heavy investment in artificial intelligence (AI). • Chinese and Russian "Gray Zone" operations. • Expansion in the Indo-Pacific region and Africa.