One of US special operators' most important skills is getting lost in translation, watchdog agency warns

• One of the main tasks for US special-operations troops is training and working with foreign forces.
• Language skills are vital for that, but US special-ops units haven't been maintaining those skills.
• The Pentagon should improve procedures, training, and accountability for those units, the GAO says.

What makes special forces "special" isn't just combat skills or superhuman endurance. For units such as the US Army's Special Forces, it's the ability to train and advise foreign forces.

But this requires to ability to speak the local language, or at least to understand enough to know if the interpreter is lying. Yet US special operations forces lack required proficiency in foreign languages, according to a recent report by General Accountability Office, a government watchdog agency.

Between 2018 and 2022, "most Army and Marine Corps Special Operations Forces (SOF) units did not meet foreign language proficiency goals," the report said. In fact, "less than half of SOF personnel completed any foreign language training."

US Army Special Operations Command and Marine Special Operations Command told GAO investigators "that they do not routinely assess if foreign languages assigned to SOF are relevant to the partner forces and local population they communicate with on deployments."

Army SOF units are supposed to have 80% of their personnel qualify for at least minimum proficiency in a language. Yet between 2018 and 2022, only three of eight active-duty units under the Army's 1st Special Operations Command met this requirement.

This linguistic shortfall comes as the Pentagon seeks to improve the ability of US special operators to speak Chinese and other critical languages, and even Congress is demanding better linguistic skills.

"Language is absolutely critical," Brig. Gen. Jonathan Braga, head of US Army Special Operations Command, told lawmakers in 2022, adding that interoperability with local forces requires more than "just equipment," and speaking the local tongue "also shows that you care."

But it's less than diplomatic to send personnel who speak the wrong language. US Special Operations Command, as well as its subordinate Army and Marine organizations, don't monitor "the extent to which foreign languages assigned to SOF service members are relevant for the countries to which SOF deploy," the GAO report said.

Languages are integral to many of the missions that US special-operations forces perform. For example, the US Army Special Forces — the Green Berets — have been training and advising foreign armies and guerrillas since the early 1960s. Language proficiency facilitates this cooperation in a way that conventional military units can't match.

Army and Marine special operators are assigned a language when they are selected, with initial language training comprising four months for Marines and four to six months for soldiers, depending on the difficulty of the language. (French, German, and Spanish are considered easier, and Arabic, Chinese, and Russian more challenging.) Navy Special Warfare Command eliminated its language requirement in 2021. Air Force Special Operations Command suspended its language requirements in 2022 while it reassessed them.

As language teachers like to remind students, practice makes perfect. Army and Marine personnel are supposed to maintain and improve their designated language skill throughout their career. They should take 80 to 120 hours of refresher training a year. Language proficiency qualifies for monthly bonuses of $100 to $500, and up to $1,000 for knowing multiple languages.

Conversely, personnel should be barred from deploying to a region unless they speak the appropriate tongue. However, "not meeting minimum proficiency levels has had limited consequences on service members," some Army and Marine special operators told the GAO. Personnel have not been barred from deployment despite not mastering a language.

Nor did bonuses help. Special operators told the GAO that "the consequence of losing bonus pay for elementary or survival proficiency did not outweigh the necessary time spent in training or preparation to take an annual foreign language proficiency exam that could be used to focus on training other mission-critical skills."

One problem is that the US special-operations community doesn't know what languages it needs to learn. Theater Special Operations Commands, which oversee special-operations forces in different regions, are supposed to advise SOCOM on which languages should be taught. However, the theater commands were unable to explain or document to GAO how they arrived at their recommendations. One described the process as "more art than science."

Perhaps none of this should be a surprise. While many people around the world speak English, Americans (and the British) are notorious for their inability and unwillingness to speak other tongues. It is also true that learning a language doesn't have the same appeal as combat skills such as marksmanship or parachuting — for special-ops units, many of which have spent the past 20 years on the front lines, it's easy to see why the latter receive more attention than the former.

Still, if you can't talk to the locals and they can't talk to you, that's a recipe for miscommunication or worse, especially for the US military, which is increasing its focus on working with partners and allies to counter new threats. As many tourists learn the hard way, words can unintended consequences.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds a master's in political science. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.