US Army/K. Kassens
- US Army Special Operations Command held its Best Combat Diver Competition in September.
- Commandos from the US Army and Navy showed off their underwater skills during three days of events.
US special operators are the best in the world, and they need to stay in top form amid rising tensions around the world and increasing competition with Russia and China.
In September, US commandos showed off their skills during the US Army Special Operations Command Best Combat Diver Competition — and Army Special Forces divers flexed their little-known underwater muscles to triumph over their Navy brethren.
Over three days at Naval Air Station Key West, 13 two-man teams from across the Army and Navy special-operations communities competed in 10 combat-diving events for the prize of being named the best combat dive team in the US special-operations community.
The events included physical and academic tests, parachute jumps over water, underwater navigation, and helicopter insertions.
US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School/K. Kassens
The competition was close, but when the dust settled Green Berets won the day, taking the first three spots, with a team from 5th Special Forces Group in first place, a 2nd Special Warfare Training Group team in second, and a 5th Special Forces Group team placing third.
Fourth place went to a team of Navy SEALs from SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One.
"I'm really proud of the organization for going above and beyond. I'm equally proud of the competitors," Maj. Brandon Schwartz, commander of the Special Forces Underwater Operations School, said in a release. "The standings were separated by a few points, so it speaks to how interoperable and capable SEAL and Green Beret divers are."
A Green Beret from the second-place team said the competition was important for increasing interoperability. "We were having good conversations with SEALs," the operator said. "There's something to bring back, not only to the [Special Forces] regiment but to the Army as a whole."
US Army/1st Special Forces Command
"Coming out here competing is cool, it's fun. I love doing this but competing to bring something back to the team and the regiment, the capabilities is the best thing — the unilateral work between the SEALs and different [special-operations forces] units is bar none," the operator added.
The competition showed the skill of the Army's Green Berets and "the dedication" of their combat divers, an Army Special Forces noncommissioned officer serving in a National Guard unit told Insider.
"This is some hard shit, and people don't sign up to be Green Berets with combat diving in mind. It's [an] added layer of challenge that only a few guys decide to pursue once they have finished with selection and the Q course," the Green Beret said, referring to the Special Forces Qualifications Course.
"I know many tough operators who don't try for a dive team because they are afraid to fail," the Green Beret said, speaking anonymously because they weren't authorized to talk to the media.
Combat diving revival
1st Special Forces Command/Sgt. Emely Opio-Wright
Like other special-operations forces, combat divers can have outsize impact on the battlefield.
"Combat Divers create an enormous challenge for adversary planning by forcing them to plan and implement countermeasures for a wide variety of scenarios over an impossibly large geographic area," Lino Miani, a former Special Forces officer, told Insider.
"The Combat Dive capability [also] allows us to build or enhance similar capabilities in partner forces, vastly expanding available options even if US forces aren't directly available for Combat Dive operations," added Miani, who is president of the Combat Diver Foundation, a nonprofit public charity dedicated to the combat-diver community and a sponsor of the 2023 Best Combat Diver Competition.
US Army/K. Kassens
US strategy for countering China hinges on partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, and special-operations forces are a key component of the US military's relationships with those countries.
Despite their value, not all special-operations forces have the same influence. The US special-operations combat-diver community in particular has had ups and downs recently. Two decades of land warfare in the Middle East did little to endear it to military leaders and policymakers.
With the attention of leadership focused on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the combat-diver capability was left to atrophy, leading to problems with faulty equipment and insufficient training. The Army Special Forces dive teams suffered the most.
Every Special Forces Group — there are five active duty and two National Guard — has about 72 operational teams specializing in different infiltration methods, including mountain warfare, mobility operations, and military free-fall parachuting. Out of those teams, only 12 are dedicated dive teams.
US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School/K. Kassens
But the war on terror has wound down, and there is increasing focus on great-power competition with China across the vast maritime spaces of the Pacific. The result is reinvigorated interest in combat diving.
US Special Operations Command has invested more in its combat divers and their capabilities, but the community still faces issues, including concerns about safety during its rigorous training course.
"The pivot toward China poured fuel into the capability," the National Guard Green Beret said of the renewed attention. "Now they're the cool kids in town."
Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations and a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ). He has a B.A. from the Johns Hopkins University, an M.A. in strategy, cybersecurity, and intelligence from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and is currently pursuing a Juris Doctor degree from Boston College Law School.