Winning the adaptation race for SOF and Indo-Pacific operations
BlogJuly 24, 2026
Bill Thetford
CACI
Don Baker
CACI
Modern Special Operations Forces (SOF) and Indo-Pacific military operations are shaped by an accelerating cycle of technological change and globally sourced innovation.
U.S. forces face adversaries who rapidly iterate commercial technologies, exploit foreign supply chains, and field new capabilities long before U.S. institutions can complete requirements, staffing, or compliance processes. If U.S. forces don’t improve how to test, modify, and acquire technology, they’ll fall behind – and fast.
The mission outpaces the model
Across SOF and Indo-Pacific theaters, operators face missions and environments that evolve faster than legacy logistics and acquisition structures can support. As part of their research and development (R&D) process, SOF units must evaluate emerging systems, study foreign-made technologies, integrate commercial off‑the‑shelf (COTS) platforms, prototype field modifications, assess threat‑representative systems, and sustain dispersed forces.
This process requires experimentation, technical risk, iterative design, modification of existing equipment, integration of foreign technologies, and rapid test-and-adjust cycles. [Federal Acquisition Regulation] FAR 35 – the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) R&D contracting authority – exists specifically to enable these functions, yet many service contracts do not include it, leaving units without the legal authority to carry out mission-critical activities.
The result is a misalignment between SOF and Indo-Pacific forces expectations and what their support structures legally empower them to achieve. Without R&D authority and global sourcing flexibility, adaptation slows and risk grows.
Foreign technology: A critical enabler of realistic R&D
In many of the technology categories most relevant to SOF and Indo-Pacific missions – uncrewed aerial systems (UASs), robotics, autonomy, sensors, electronic warfare (EW), and commercial dual-use platforms – foreign suppliers dominate the global market. These systems mirror what adversaries use, what irregular actors acquire, and what commercial innovators upgrade on a rapid cadence and those systems for which countermeasures cannot be developed quickly.
For R&D to be realistic and operationally useful, forces must be able to source, test, and evaluate foreign systems directly. This approach requires FAR 25 foreign-acquisition authority and a Class Non-Availability Determination (NAD) that pre-approves recurring procurement of non-Trade Agreement Act (TAA) items when no compliant alternatives exist. Treating foreign-technology procurement as an exception rather than a requirement artificially limits the force’s ability to keep pace.
A strategic accelerator for R&D access
Deviation 2024‑O0014 authorizes the procurement of foreign-made UASs for R&D, testing, training, and national‑security purposes, thereby reducing approval steps and aligning acquisition speed with operational needs. While the emphasis is on uncrewed systems, this rule highlights a wider understanding within the DoD that successful research and development relies on timely access to technologies from around the world. Furthermore, compliance procedures should facilitate experimentation rather than impede it. The DoD’s deviation reinforces ongoing guidance to accelerate innovation and highlights the need for streamlined global-access pathways in rapidly evolving operational environments.
Iterating at the tactical edge
Additive manufacturing, known commercially as 3D printing, directly enhances the speed and agility that contested logistics require. Additive manufacturing enables teams to move from problem to prototype in hours instead of weeks, modifying foreign-made systems acquired under FAR 25, creating adapters and mounts, producing repair parts for dispersed platforms, and supporting iterative R&D cycles enabled by FAR 35.
Additive manufacturing accelerates threat-representative experimentation by enabling rapid modification of surrogate platforms and facilitating faster development of countermeasures and mission-specific configurations.
Embedding success elements into mission support
The interweaving of FAR 35, FAR 25, NADs, and Deviation 2024-O0014 illustrates the tools that are available, yet these mechanisms will have no impact unless they are embedded in day‑to‑day support and acquisition. To align current mission-support structures with the realities of SOF and Indo-Pacific operations, several updates are essential.
To keep pace with operational demands, mission-support structures need to embed R&D authority directly into their contracts, ensuring that FAR 35 is explicitly included so units can experiment, prototype, and iterate without legal barriers. At the same time, accessing foreign technology should become a normal part of the process, rather than an exception. Using FAR 25 and Program‑Level or Class NADs enables teams to routinely procure non‑TAA systems that are essential for realistic testing and threat‑representative R&D.
Rapid global sourcing should also be reinforced by normalizing the use of Deviation 2024‑O0014 as a broader model for reducing friction in foreign‑system procurement, not just for UASs. Alongside this, additive manufacturing should be standard in mission support, providing deployable 3D‑printing capabilities that enable units to prototype quickly, adapt foreign systems, and sustain equipment at the tactical edge. Finally, establishing a mission‑aligned R&D cell would help consolidate these efforts by coordinating technology scouting, foreign‑system evaluation, additive‑manufacturing support, and operational integration – ultimately accelerating adaptation across the force.
Making this process the standard
Embedding FAR 35 authority, FAR 25 global‑technology access, Program‑Level NADs, Deviation 2024‑O0014, and additive manufacturing into mission‑support structures gives SOF and Indo‑Pacific forces exactly what today’s environment demands: rapid experimentation ability, access to threat‑representative technologies, faster learning cycles, resilient sustainment in contested logistics, and a persistent advantage over near‑peer adaptation timelines. In operational environments defined by speed, complexity, and constant technological turnover, adaptation cannot be an ad hoc effort – it must be the default mode of the force. Ensuring this is so requires aligning acquisition and sustainment systems with the pace of modern conflict and giving warfighters the ability to learn, innovate, and evolve faster than the threats they face.
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