Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

Why do special operations, which defy the conventional wisdom that the numerically superior and fortified defender will prevail against the numerically inferior attacker, succeed? The key to this question, according to Adm. William McRaven (1996), lies in relative superiority and the six principles of special operations. The theory, created in 1993, has before only been tested on one case of special operations conducted in the third age of modern western special forces defined by Ansbacher and Schleifer (2022). This study aims to expand the theory’s explanatory aim by conducting a comparative case study on two cases of special operations during the U.S. Global War on Terrorism in Afghanistan: Operation Red Wings and Operation Neptune Spear. 

The study has found that the theory was able to explain both the failure of achieving relative superiority during Operation Red Wings and the success of achieving it during Operation Neptune Spear. This means that the theory still provides explanatory value to this category of cases and that the theory has stood the test of time.