United States Army Special Forces Command Airborne

U.S. Army Special Forces Command (A)

Fact Sheet

On November 27,1990, the U.S. Army 1st Special Operations Command was redesignated the U.S. Army Special Forces Command (Airborne). The mission of USASFC (A) is to organize, equip, train, validate and prepare Special Forces units to deploy and execute operational requirements for the U.S. military’s warfighting geographical combatant commanders throughout the world.

Within USASFC (A), there are five active component groups and two U.S. Army National Guard groups. Each group has three line battalions, a group support battalion and a headquarters company. The companies within the line battalions have six Operational Detachment Alphas, or A-teams, assigned to them. The ODA is the heart and soul of SF operations.

Unlike any other divisional-sized unit, USASFC (A) components are not located in one place, but spread out from coast-to-coast and throughout the world.

Each Special Forces Group is regionally oriented to support one of the war fighting geographic combatant commanders (GCCs). Special Forces Soldiers routinely deploy in support of the GCCs of U.S. European Command, U.S. Pacific Command, U.S. Southern Command and the U.S. Central Command.

Special Forces units perform seven doctrinal missions: Unconventional Warfare, Foreign Internal Defense, Special Reconnaissance, Direct Action, Combatting Terrorism, Counter-proliferation, and Information Operations. These missions make Special Forces unique in the U.S. military, because they are employed throughout the three stages of the operational continuum: peacetime, conflict and war.

Special Forces Command’s Unconventional Warfare capabilities provide a viable military option for a variety of operational taskings that are inappropriate or infeasible for conventional forces, making it the U.S. military’s premier unconventional warfare force.

Foreign Internal Defense operations, SF’s main peacetime mission, are designed to help friendly developing nations by working with their military and police forces to improve their technical skills, understanding of human rights issues, and to help with humanitarian and civic action projects.

Often SF units are required to perform additional, or collateral, activities outside their primary missions. These collateral activities are coalition warfare/support, combat search and rescue, security assistance, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, humanitarian de-mining and counter-drug operations.

Coalition warfare/support emerged as a result of Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm and continues today in both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. This activity ensures the ability of a wide variety of foreign troops to work together effectively in a wide variety of military exercises or operations.

On an everyday basis, Soldiers of the U.S. Army Special Forces Command (Airborne) are deployed around the world, living up to their motto – De Oppresso Liber. “To Free the Oppressed.”