The American special operators are becoming increasingly worried as the day gradually transitions into darkness. The location of the deployment is a heavily populated urban centre in a politically unstable area. The activity level in the area has increased recently, with the marketplaces and highways brimming with activity beyond the typical hustle and bustle of daily life.
Although there is a high threat level in the city, the details are unclear and the team wants to keep their profile low in case a firefight brings known hostile elements down on them. Americans choose to be more circumspect in evaluating possible dangers. An operator ventures out into the main road of the area, preferring to blend in with possible crowds rather than wear visible tactical gear, to see what he may see.
A single button press grants the operator complete visibility. His head-up display has an intricate set of sensors attached to it that begin collecting data from his surroundings. An integrated artificial intelligence engine quickly gathers and routes body language, pulse rates, facial expressions, and even ambient snippets of conversation in regional dialects through his backpack supercomputers for analysis.
Instantaneous analysis, simplification, and regurgitation of the data back into the head-up display occur. The tactical AI sidekick of the operators provides a clear assessment: several seasonal events are approaching the town, and most onlookers are happy and enthusiastic, posing no threat to the crew. For now, the crisis is over.
When talking about the future of United States special operations forces, those elite soldiers tasked with acting as the “tip of the spear” of the United States military, defence department officials have put forth several possible scenarios, this being just one of many. While science fiction writers and defence officials may have imagined a world where brain implants, performance-enhancing drugs, and powered armour akin to Starship Troopers would shape warfare in the future, US Special Operations Command believes that the next generation of armed conflict will be fought (and hopefully won) using a relatively simple concept: the “hyper enabled operator.”
Less strength, more brains
The hyper-enabled operator (HEO) concept was first made public in 2019 through an essay written by officials from SOCOM’s Joint Acquisition Task Force (JATF) for Small Wars Journal. The Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) effort, which was started in 2013, aimed to provide US special operations forces with a suit known as the “Iron Man.” TALOS, the most recent development in the Pentagon’s decades-long effort to create a powered exoskeleton for infantry troops, was designed to increase operators’ survivability in combat by making them virtually resistant to small-arms fire through additional layers of sophisticated armour. The programme was inspired by the 2012 death of a Navy SEAL during a hostage rescue operation in Afghanistan. Even though the TALOS project was deemed ineffective in 2019 because of difficulties combining its various systems into a single, coherent entity, the HEO was an obvious successor to the programme because of the lessons it taught.
Giving warfighters “cognitive overmatch,” that is, “the ability to dominate the situation by making educated decisions faster than the opponent,” on the battlefield is the clear primary goal of the HEO concept, according to SOCOM officials.
The future operator will enter combat with technologies intended to increase their situational awareness and pertinent decision-making to superior levels compared to the enemy, rather than giving US special operations forces a tactical advantage through next-generation body armour and exotic weaponry.
John Boyd, an Air Force colonel and former fighter pilot, proposed the “OODA loop” (observe, orient, decide, act) as the fundamental military decision-making model for the 21st century. The HEO concept aims to use technology to “tighten” that loop to the point where operators are making faster and more intelligent decisions than the enemy.
In 2019, SOCOM officials stated that HEO aims to ensure that the appropriate information reaches the right person at the right time.
By replacing the powered armour at the centre of the TALOS effort with sophisticated communications equipment and a robust sensor suite built on advanced computing architecture, the HEO concept aims to accomplish this goal. This will enable the operator to gather pertinent data and turn it into actionable information using a straightforward interface similar to a head-up display, and to do so “at the edge,” in locations where traditional communications networks might not be available.
As previously noted, if TALOS was intended to be akin to an “Iron Man” suit, then HEO is effectively Jarvis, Tony Stark’s internal AI assistant who continuously provides him with information via the head-up display on his helmet.
According to SOCOM spokesperson James O. Gregory, who is quoting the programme’s general description from the command’s website, WIRED was told, “[JATF] is targeting technologies to deliver cognitive overmatch to SOF operators working at the edge in austere and contested environments in coordination with and working through partners and allies.”
With the use of these technologies, SOF operators’ tactical teams will be able to quickly develop situation awareness by using data from next-generation sensors, networks, computers, and communication systems in an easy manner. It will also assist in making prompt, well-informed decisions and acting before an enemy has a chance to respond.
Step into the gray area
Five years after the HEO was first included in the tactical lexicon of the US military, what does it look like today? Due to the effort’s confidential (and partly theoretical) nature, few details are known, and SOCOM authorities have not said anything about its advancement. Gregory of SOCOM, however, claims that the situation and idea the HEO is attempting to solve have “evolved” from what programme officials initially told reporters.
SOCOM officials envision something more akin to a casually dressed operator collecting information on a busy urban avenue through an eyepiece resembling Google Glass and assessing the situation, more James Bond than Tony Stark, rather than augmenting warfighters deployed to active combat zones.
According to Gregory, “The JATF’s present operations are taking place in permissive or semi-permissive environments throughout the competitive phase of combat.”
The HEO is not just another tool for kinetic assault. It will support elite troops operating in the “gray zone” between peace and conflict. A permissive environment is generally defined as an operational environment where US forces have the backing of a host country’s security apparatus, according to the US Army.
The JATF is pushing for cutting-edge technologies that improve situational awareness, as detailed in a SOCOM broad agency release (a general call for research and development proposals from the defence sector) that was published in 2020 and updated as recently as November 2023.
These technologies include low-visibility communications systems; sophisticated sensors capable of “iris, facial, anatomical measures, gestures, gait, heartbeat, electromagnetic signals, deoxyribonucleic acid [DNA], and microbiome recognition”; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities “without substantial manning or networking resources” (the previously mentioned “at the edge”); and “data visualisations” that “permit [operators] to receive and intuitively understand networked information from communication, computing, and sensor systems,” among others.
To put it briefly, the HEO envisions systems that allow for the continuous, real-time capture of data and its subsequent distillation into actionable intelligence that may, in an unpredictable circumstance, make the difference between life and death.
Case with edges
Regarding the creation of new goods, Gregory states that throughout the past few years, the HEO effort has concentrated on three key experimental technological domains: language translation, architecture and analysis, and sensing and edge computing.
“Sensing and edge computing” encompasses both the gathering and analysis of data from diverse sources as well as the specialised processing power required by operators to operate both “at the edge” and the AI-enabled software that will serve as the HEO’s core.
According to Gregory, “Conventional CPU-based devices are insufficient for emerging technologies and solutions in artificial intelligence/machine learning, which require specialised ‘computing’ hardware. Our goal is to include a manpack device that can function as a tensor processing unit, neural processing engine, or graphical processing unit. This will give the required foundation to make use of cutting-edge technologies, such as language translation and other edge solutions, even when the cloud is not available.”
This processing capacity serves as the foundation for the “architecture and analysis” component, which focuses on quickly evaluating and presenting data to field operators.
Gregory stated that the command has created “a flexible [system] architecture that fuses data from diverse sources and media kinds” into an understandable format that operators can evaluate and act upon to accommodate this element, as reported by WIRED.
Regarding language translation, that should go without saying. According to Gregory, SOCOM thinks that “clear communication may considerably increase the development of our long-term partnerships before any conflicts ever occur.”
Instead of depending on the frequently insufficient interpreters in the field, operators can communicate more successfully when they use voice-to-voice translation. SOF soldiers, despite being multilingual, are often deployed to regions with different languages or dialects.
According to C4ISRNet, SOCOM has reportedly focused on six main areas of product development in line with these experimental technology areas: the “operator-worn kit,” which consists of sensors and onboard computer processing power; application development resources; a distinct, mission-agnostic system architecture; the “human-machine interface,” which is typically thought of as a digital head-up display; a product dubbed “information realisation,” which probably entails the clear presentation of data; and beyond-line-of-sight (BLoS) communications meant to maintain troops’ communication with their commanders (and each other) in environments denied satellite service.
Gregory claims that in recent years, the command has progressively released a few new capabilities resulting from the HEO initiative.
According to Janes’ assessment at the time, SOCOM declared in 2021 that two products, a BLoS communications system, and an unidentified “integrated situational awareness tool,” would be converted into formal programmes of record.
Gregory confirmed to WIRED, that the BLoS system comprises “a steerable gimble antenna system that boosts the functionality” of the command’s SOF deployable nodes, which are a suite of cutting-edge satellite communications equipment. It’s unclear if the latter is related to the “automate the analyst” effort the command kicked off in 2020 to provide operators with an autonomous AI assistant.
The spokesperson also confirmed that the situational awareness tool, known as SEEKER, is an app that “enables advisers to build advanced situational awareness, thereby allowing them to select actions with an eye toward the broader situation rather than just the immediately apparent problem.”
The “visual environment translation” system translates inputs in foreign languages into understandable English in real-time. This system is called the Versatile Intelligent Translation Assistant (VITA) and is considered “the most mature” of the JATF’s experimental technology areas, according to SOCOM. It has voice-to-voice and visual environment translation capabilities.
Not only has VITA successfully demonstrated Russian, Chinese Mandarin, and Ukrainian language translation capabilities during testing, but the system has even been deployed to two undisclosed theatres of operations.
Gregory describes VITA as essentially “a voice-to-voice translation engine that functions offline on GPU-enabled devices,” small enough to be carried in the field on a laptop-tethered smartphone or wearable device and “engage in effective conversations where it was previously impossible.”
According to Gregory, “The visual translation component improves situational awareness by translating video pictures in real-time, such as street signs, graffiti, and other written texts. Users may instantly grasp other languages by using their phone’s camera to scan their environment.”
“A high-quality translation capability that is not dependant on the cloud or local interpreters, therefore considerably decreasing risk and logistical expenses while enhancing operational range and effectiveness for USSOF and our allies,” according to Gregory, is what VITA offers US special operations soldiers.
And that language translation may not be limited to a mobile device for long: according to SOCOM’s fiscal year 2025 budget request published in March, the command is still pushing ahead with head-mounted sensors and an augmented-reality HUD to present these functions right before operators’ eyes. The JATF is currently working with industry partners to reduce the size of the hardware and transition it into an SOF Programme Executive Office for eventual fielding.
Field operations
The HEO concept appears promising to US military planners: an Army assessment suggests that a successful implementation of the system might improve operator survivability well beyond what the TALOS programme’s extra body armour can do.
However, like with other potentially game-changing technological endeavours, HEO may prove to be a science fiction fantasy that crumbles under the weight of its technological intricacy. Furthermore, there’s no assurance that operators will accept the new technology with ease: while VITA has demonstrated operational promise, it remains uncertain whether other HEO products will be sufficiently intuitive to support operators in the field rather than burden them with a new and complex system.
“If you load a mud foot down with a bunch of gear that he needs to watch, somebody a lot more simply equipped—say with a stone ax—will sneak up and bash his head in while he is trying to read a vernier,” as Heinlein so eloquently stated in Starship Troopers.
Like TALOS, military engineers may find it too ambitious to completely achieve the promise of a tactical AI helper akin to Jarvis, Tony Stark’s sidekick. However, the HEO initiative will still provide a significant capability boost for US special operators stationed overseas, even if it merely manages to produce, say, the VITA language-translation tool. The day is slowly giving way to night, but American commandos control the night and will continue to do so well into the following fight with the assistance of the HEO.
The HEO concept represents a bold leap into the future of warfare, emphasising cognitive superiority and situational awareness over brute strength and advanced weaponry. As the US Special Operations Command refines and implements these technologies, they stand poised to redefine the capabilities of elite soldiers in the field.
By integrating cutting-edge AI, advanced computing, and real-time data analytics into a cohesive and intuitive system, HEO aims to empower operators with unparalleled decision-making abilities. While the full realisation of this vision remains to be seen, the strides made thus far suggest a promising enhancement of US special operations forces.
The future of warfare will be shaped by highly skilled soldiers who can make rapid decisions and gather crucial data. As the nature of conflict continues to change, these technologically empowered operators will lead the way, using their intelligence and agility to overcome the challenges of modern warfare.