CONGRESS MAY WANT A WORD HERE: Hegseth seeks to elevate top SOF civilian to service-secretary equivalent.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is seeking to upgrade the powers of the department’s top special operations civilian role to the equivalent of a service secretary, a move that would radically shape the power of the special forces community inside the military.
“Despite [its] contribution to the Joint Force and our Nation, resourcing for SOF remains behind current operational and force posture,” Hegseth wrote in a new memo, released today but dated Nov. 2. “It is time for a bold, foundational change.”
The overall goal of the memo is to elevate the assistant secretary of defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (ASD-SOLIC), a role currently held by Derrick Anderson, to a new role of undersecretary of strategic services (OSS). The question of whether SOF should have its own military department has been bandied about over the years, but has never gathered much steam in Congress, where members have instead focused on enhancing the SOLIC office and give special acquisition authorities to US Special Operations Command.
The memo outlines a number of changes Hegseth would like to see, but they break down into effectively two buckets: the changes that need congressional support to happen, and those that can be done internally right now.
Does this mean that Jack Ryan is out of a job?
Whoa, the CIA is about to lose its operational arm! OSS under the SecWar puts the military in charge of clandestine kinetics operations. No more 'civilians' out of Langley running amok around the world… sorry Jack Ryan, you're in the Army now. @Republicans @WhiteHouse
— John Shulli (@Shulli) November 13, 2026