The use of special forces and special operations has increased in recent decades. Despite the increased use, research in the area may be viewed as inadequate. William McRaven is the creator of a famous theory of special operations. The theory consists of six principles, all necessary for operations to be successful. He claims the theory to be valid for all types of special operations. At the same time, other researchers argue that it is not possible to create a theory that can handle the whole spectrum of different special operations, such as hostage rescue. The purpose of the study is to apply McRaven's theory to two operations to test the theory's validity for this specific type of operation. This is done by creating an analysis tool that measures whether the principles of the theory are present in two successful hostage rescues; Op Nimrod and Op Barras. The study shows that some of the principles were not met during analysis of the two operations. Because of this, the theory is invalid for this context. The result is interesting, but should be supplemented with more research in order to be fully generalized.