A rebuttal to J.R. Seeger’s “A New Office of Strategic Services?” published by FPRI in May 2025.

A recent piece in the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) penned by a retired Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer argues against proposals to revive the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) model for today’s strategic competition environment. In the piece, the author argues: “Reviving the OSS would add additional bureaucracy without any additional capability and could easily risk intelligence fratricide at a time when the United States needs more focus rather than more capability.” As the co-author of one of the critiqued proposals, I am compelled to note that this argument ignores two fundamental advantages of reviving an OSS 2.0 construct.

First, the assumption is invalid that any updated OSS proposal requires creating more redundant capabilities or excessive additional bureaucracy, rather than simply streamlining existing resources, eliminating redundant capabilities and functions, and breaking down organizational barriers between agencies with identical authorities but different cultures. Secondly, there is no acknowledgement of the very real operational fratricide that is already occurring today because of competing interests between organizations vying for missions and resources in an era of increasing government efficiency. The paralysis this interagency competition causes costs us opportunities that we could better realize through a unitary irregular warfare department under the Department of Defense (DoD).

The Real Opportunity: Streamlining Existing Resources

A modern OSS 2.0 would not require creating entirely new structures from scratch. Instead, it would consolidate and optimize existing resources that are currently fragmented across multiple agencies under the purview of the “Department for Special Operations and Irregular Warfare” (DSOIW), created by redesignating and hyper empowering the DoD’s existing Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict. This is especially critical as recent reports indicate the CIA is planning to cut 1,200 positions over the next several years, even as the Trump administration requests a historic $1 trillion budget for the DoD.

Given this stark resource disparity and diverging priorities, we face a clear choice: continue with fragmented irregular warfare capabilities split between a shrinking CIA and an expanding DoD or create a more unified approach that eliminates redundancies and maximizes operational effectiveness. Keeping the smaller, shrinking organization as the lead for these efforts threatens limiting and potentially choking off these critical activities just as they are needed most.

Identical Authorities, Broader Capabilities

Both the DoD’s U.S Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and the CIA’s Special Activities Center possess many overlapping and complementary functional capabilities, with both also having the ability to leverage Title 50 authorities to conduct irregular warfare activities. These authorities and capabilities extend beyond kinetic paramilitary activities, such as those made famous in the 2011 raid into Pakistan that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, to include psychological operations, information warfare, and political influence campaigns—areas where DoD has historically relied almost exclusively on its Title 10 (“Armed Forces”) authorities to enable sensitive operations supporting “traditional military activities” that nonetheless far exceed the scope and scale of those conducted by its interagency counterparts.

As I argued in my 2019 Military Times article, “transferring primary responsibility for paramilitary activities from the CIA to Defense Department would simply be a recognition that the majority interest in and capacity for paramilitary activities resides in the Defense Department [with USSOCOM executing].” While such a move would require the assertion of more robust oversight of these USSOCOM activities through existing DoD structures, this would also resolve longstanding congressional concerns that go back decades.

This principle applies equally to the full spectrum of irregular warfare activities. DoD’s Military Information Support Operations (MISO) teams, cyber warfare units, and strategic communications capabilities represent a formidable information-centric arsenal that could be more effectively leveraged in a unified irregular warfare structure under a broader application of the DoD’s Title 50 (“War and National Defense”) authorities. These capabilities, coupled with USSOCOM’s robust operational infrastructure, provide a comprehensive toolkit for influence activities that complement traditional paramilitary operations.

Executive Order 13470 already established the process for assigning covert action responsibility to agencies other than the CIA when “another agency is more likely to achieve a particular objective.” This order already identifies the DoD as the lead for covert action “in time of war declared by the Congress or during any period covered by a report from the President to the Congress consistent with the War Powers Resolution.” And there is precedence for such an arrangement, such as during the Vietnam War when, dissatisfied with the CIA’s performance, President John F. Kennedy transferred primary responsibility for covert action against communist North Vietnam to the DoD. Given USSOCOM’s robust global access and placement, larger personnel reserves, superior technical infrastructure, and significantly greater budgetary resources, it is increasingly clear which organization is better positioned to lead the full range of irregular warfare efforts in today’s strategic environment.

The Global Placement and Capabilities Advantage

USSOCOM has unmatched global access and placement through its network of forward-deployed operators working with partner forces worldwide. These established relationships provide an invaluable foundation for irregular warfare activities without the need to build separate networks or capabilities. A modernized OSS 2.0 structure would leverage this existing infrastructure rather than duplicating efforts.

Human intelligence collection and liaison relationships are critical to the conduct of effective irregular warfare, and the Department of Defense already maintains its own parallel and extensive intelligence networks across the globe. These efforts are spearheaded by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which specifically focuses on foreign military intelligence and could be more effectively leveraged within a unified irregular warfare framework reporting to DSOIW. However, as a key advisor to the Department of State’s deployed chiefs of mission (or ambassadors), the CIA maintains virtual veto authority over any proposed DoD intelligence and many of its Title 10 irregular warfare activities overseas. The arrangement oftentimes creates tensions driven by divergent organizational interests.

Information Dominance in the Digital Age

Beyond traditional paramilitary operations, today’s irregular warfare landscape demands sophisticated cyber, information, and psychological operations capabilities where DoD has made substantial investments. Of the 18 organizations in the intelligence community, nine fall under the direct purview of the DoD and many focus on those required capabilities. MISO teams, U.S. Cyber Command elements, and strategic communications specialists throughout Defense Intelligence Enterprise (DIE) represent a formidable irregular warfare capability that dwarfs similar resources within the non-DoD intelligence community, including at the CIA.

In an era where influence campaigns, cyber operations, counter-disinformation efforts, and strategic narratives are increasingly decisive in strategic competition, these capabilities must be fully integrated with other irregular warfare tools. Under a unified DSOIW structure, these complementary capabilities could be better synchronized for maximum strategic effect, rather than operating in separate organizational silos with limited coordination.

Efficiency in the Era of Great-Power Competition

Today’s strategic competition with near-peer adversaries requires coherent, efficient application of irregular warfare capabilities. The current bifurcated approach between CIA and DoD creates significant operational inefficiencies that undermine our national security interests. Our intelligence community and special operations forces face duplicative reporting chains that produce redundant intelligence products and congressional oversight, often at considerable taxpayer expense. This unnecessary duplication extends to operational costs as well, with parallel capabilities often maintained across agency boundaries despite serving nearly identical functions.

Perhaps most concerning is how the current structure leads to competing priorities and objectives between agencies engaged in irregular warfare activities. In my own dealings with the congressional intelligence committees, I found that different organizations often briefed the same operations with no mention of other organizations that supported, causing confusion and frustration amongst those elected members charged with overseeing and funding our irregular warfare efforts. This fierce competition for limited resources and attention can compromise operational effectiveness and strategic coherence. Additionally, our limited pool of specialized personnel—individuals with rare skill sets and extensive experience—are inefficiently allocated across multiple organizations rather than being concentrated where they can have maximum impact.

The proposed DSOIW offers a clear solution to these systemic problems. By redesignating and empowering the current Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, we would establish proper unitary organizational authority and accountability. This new department would serve as the lead agency for all irregular warfare efforts, eliminating jurisdictional disputes and ensuring unity of effort across the full spectrum of activities and operations.

A Budget Reality Check

The Trump administration’s announcement of a $1 trillion defense budget stands in stark contrast to the CIA’s planned workforce reductions. This dramatic resource disparity makes the case for consolidation even more compelling. Why maintain separate, overlapping irregular warfare capabilities when we could optimize resources under a unified command structure? This move would also unburden the CIA of responsibilities always seen as secondary, allowing the spy organization to refocus on its primary mission: gathering information, generating exceptional analysis, and providing critical strategic insights to national decision-makers.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently stated, “President Trump is rebuilding our military—and fast,” while pledging that taxpayer dollars would be spent “wisely, on lethality and readiness.” A modernized OSS 2.0 structure within DSOIW would ensure that irregular warfare capabilities receive appropriate resources while eliminating wasteful redundancies between agencies.

Conclusion: The Path Forward

As we prepare for a new era of strategic competition, we must move beyond institutional turf battles and optimize our irregular warfare capabilities. The proposed OSS 2.0 concept is not about creating something new, but rather about breaking down unnecessary barriers between existing capabilities to create a more efficient and effective approach to irregular warfare. Moreover, the establishment of a single entity fully responsible for and empowered to expand such activities would give Trump a more powerful weapon akin to that wielded by President Franklin Roosevelt in Gen. William “Wild Bill” Donovan’s original OSS during the Second World War.

The timing could not be more appropriate. With CIA resources diminishing while DoD funding reaches historic highs, we face a clear opportunity to streamline our irregular warfare capabilities under a unified structure. Rather than seeing this as a threat to agency prerogatives, we should recognize it as an opportunity to better serve our national security interests in an increasingly complex and dangerous global environment.

The views expressed are the author’s and do not represent official US Government, Department of Defense, or Department of the Army positions.

Image Credit: US Army photo by Sgt. Eli Baker