What began as a military exchange has turned into an expanded partnership pairing U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers and the British Army Special Operations Brigade.
Initiated by the British Army’s Capt. Mark Bennett, one of this article’s co-authors, in July 2020 when he began a military exchange at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana, now known as Fort Johnson, a nascent relationship between American and British special operations soldiers began to solidify.
During four rotations in September 2021, May and July 2022 and January 2023 either at the Joint Readiness Training Center or the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, special operations units from the United Kingdom’s Ranger Regiment trained with U.S. special operations troops. Now, the combined training at the U.S. combat training centers has expanded to six rotations a year, providing soldiers from both countries with richer training, improved integration and the essential key ingredient: trust.
Lessons learned and reflections from this partnership indicate that more leaders and soldiers from both armies should strive to attend one another’s combat training events and professional military education opportunities. They also offer valuable insights for other foreign allies and partners.

Train as You Fight
The U.K. and the U.S. have had a “special relationship” prior to Winston Churchill’s pronouncement in 1946. The formal alliance between the two countries is bound by blood from World War I to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars—and future wars, by design, will be fought as a coalition. Purposeful and deliberate integration and interdependence cannot occur at the line of departure. Allies and partners should train as they shall fight—together.
The training between U.S. and U.K. special operations troops at the combat training centers at Fort Johnson and Fort Irwin made each unit better. U.S. Army special operations trainers found the British Army Special Operations Brigade to be particularly strong in reconnaissance and operations-intelligence fusion. In turn, the U.K. elements learned key skills for force projection and sustainment in the deep battle space.
At times, British Ranger and American Special Forces units developed effective task organization to layer capabilities effectively, enabling the exploitation of different national caveats such as rules of engagement. The combined training also highlighted strengths and weaknesses both units could exploit. U.S. communications equipment shared among British special operations units provided the American Special Forces company headquarters with more sensors and combat power.
A common refrain for multidomain operations is any sensor to any shooter. What is missing from this mantra is the deciders. Commanders at echelons above brigade attempt to coordinate effects to achieve convergence. Convergence in U.S. Army doctrine is “an outcome created by the concerted employment of capabilities from multiple domains and echelons against combinations of decisive points in any domain to create effects against a system, formation, decision maker, or in a specific geographic area.” During joint U.S.-U.K. training, the authors observed a sensor-decider-effector framework for convergence: any sensor, through deciders, to the best effector.

A British special operations unit reported multiple contacts, or senses, up to the U.S. advanced operating base and U.S. brigade, which then went to a U.S. Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha and a field artillery battery simultaneously. Windows of opportunity were opened for joint force exploitation and provided deciders the choice to employ the best effector, rather than using an expedient measure. This often would preserve the force more effectively to continue the targeting cycle, providing battle damage assessment and exploitation before recommencing the find portion of the targeting process.
Now scale the “any sensor-decider-best effector” model up beyond the division level. The side that can create the most credible deterrence approach will be the one with the most integrated coalition force, presenting multiple threats, dilemmas and obstacles to its adversaries. If deterrence fails, the side with the most effective and resilient sensor-decider-effector framework will have a comparative advantage during conflict.
Allied partner training not only bolsters convergence—it also reinforces the other tenets of multidomain operations. When U.S. and U.K. special operations forces trained together at the Joint Readiness Training Center, they could move forces more rapidly than the enemy, had greater resilience within the operational environment and had greater extension of operations across time and space. This proves that although there are ever-increasing technical solutions to sense the deep battle space, ground manned reconnaissance is required to achieve a resilient layering of capabilities.
Furthermore, units that specialize in using partners and proxies expand the resilience of their common operating pictures, intelligence estimates and domain synchronization tools. The fusion of special operations forces with partners and proxies creates a more robust joint forces intelligence collection plan with improved battle space management.
Successful integration and interoperability requires leaders to nurture and reinforce a radically candid culture to champion it. Leadership is vital to push elements to integrate outward, and there must be command decisions to push for partnered collective training. These decisions drive resourcing, identify critical knowledge gaps, skills and capabilities, and inform future procurement, leader development and training.

True Integration
Coalition training and integration requires leader decisions concerning task organization, specified tasks and leader placement. The best training units integrate at all echelons. There is rich opportunity in attaching a U.S. reconnaissance platoon to a U.K. main effort battalion, or a U.K. engineer company to a U.S. brigade. True integration occurs by officers and NCOs joining one another’s leadership teams and attaching units to one another’s formations. Combined coalition training is an easy place to start.
As such, there is a requirement to ensure all elements have a communications system that provides the ability to operate in a digital era. Maintaining a digital and analog common operating picture allows for integration if the networks can be combined. This requires specialist personnel who are trained and exercised on multiple networks. The intent is to ensure that this is achievable at the speed of relevance before the enemy gets a vote.
Conflict is becoming more complicated for leaders at every echelon, conflict zones across the world are more urbanized than ever, and domain integration is occurring at lower tactical echelons. Layering new capabilities such as unmanned aircraft systems, cyberspace tools and electronic warfare atop wet-gap crossings and passage of lines requires communications systems that transcend service and national boundaries. This ensures coalition elements can achieve the overmatch multidomain operations intend to achieve.

‘Radical Candor’
Trust does not rise to the level of the emergency; it returns to the point of its initial foundation. Having a U.K. special operations officer at Special Operations Training Detachment provided this crucial perspective. The detachment is the organization responsible for all Army, joint and foreign special operations forces training at the U.S. combat training centers. The officer’s “radical candor”—caring personally while challenging directly—often showed when U.S. special operations forces failed to follow or see advantages within U.S. doctrine. The U.K. Ranger teams often reinforced the officer’s candid observations, providing resonance to both observed strengths and weaknesses. Having a trusted allied partner enabled U.S. special operations training units to see themselves better.
Conversely, having U.K. special operations units judged against U.S. special operations standards identified U.K. strengths and exposed key areas of development. U.S. special operations forces are seen as the market leaders of a partner-centric special operations force that operates in the deep battle space.
Errors and mistakes made during rigorous training should not bring embarrassment to allied partners. An effective training culture demands rigorous transparency. Gaps must be highlighted in peacetime, otherwise, the armies do a disservice to their soldiers by expecting them to solve issues in contact.
The British Army Special Operations Brigade and U.S. Army special operations regional alignment fosters a generational relationship upon which errors, mistakes and gaps in training can be resolved. Best practices, trends and observations have increased resonance when they are shared between partners. Candor builds trust, and trust increases effectiveness.
There also are fiscal benefits to joint training. Setting up an exercise is expensive, while adding multinational elements to it is usually less expensive, with the costs largely restricted to transportation and sustainment.
The ultimate efficiency would be building enough trust to achieve validation alongside an interoperability exercise maximizing all benefits. Such a joint validation would require a road map of training and equipping to ensure that both forces pursue a mutually understood program. In the meantime, the U.S. combat training centers offer second-to-none venues due to the scale and scope of the training to work through integration and interoperability issues.

Enduring Excellence
It is increasingly probable that the U.S. and U.K. armies will fight as a coalition in future conflicts. Therefore, combined training should increase, particularly among special operations units. Honesty and trust enable resilient and effective multinational Mission Command. Strategic partnerships are not just agreements on paper between world leaders or diplomats; they resonate down to the tactical level where soldiers will live, fight and die alongside one another. The bonds at the tactical level are reinforced through consistent training and exposure to one another’s units.
To continue development between both units, resources must be protected so the excellent training that is happening endures. Exchanges should be made easier, with more individuals obtaining permanent, career-enhancing postings in the other country. Of course, units training together is best practice, but much can be achieved by exchanging instructors and liaisons. Allowing personnel ease of access to each other’s training, executive summaries and after-action reports would improve education and mutual support.
Joint developments on equipping maneuver elements would improve interoperability. This takes strategic agreements within the business management of each service and nation. However, when achieved, each unit can work hand in glove with the same weapons, same fighting equipment and on a common network to exponentially enhance command and control in addition to application of joint fires.
Lastly, with equally developed personnel and equipment, mutual unit validation should be achievable. This also achieves fiscal success by combining validation and multinational training. Most importantly, it demonstrates trust and proves that the elements can fight in a coalition.
The growth of coalition combined training events—six over the past fiscal year—shows the worthiness of consistent coalition training. The U.K. Ranger and U.S. Special Forces partnership demonstrates what the strategic “special relationship” truly means at the tactical level.
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Lt. Col. Marshall McGurk, U.S. Army, is the strategic plans division chief, U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Fort Liberty, North Carolina. He served as the special operations forces plans chief and lead special operations observer controller/trainer at the Joint Readiness Training Center, Fort Polk, Louisiana, now known as Fort Johnson. He deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He graduated in 2005 from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York. He has two master’s degrees: one in diplomacy from Norwich University, Vermont, and one in military operations from the School of Advanced Military Studies.
Capt. Mark Bennett, British Army, is a platoon commander and instructor at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, U.K. Previously, he served as an exchange officer at the Joint Readiness Training Center with McGurk. He deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He graduated from Sandhurst in 2016.