Case Study: USSOCOM J3-International

Introduction: How do you coordinate a mission across different countries? How do you ensure SOCOM staff and partners can telework during a pandemic?

COVID-19 threw US Special Operations Command's International operations team a curveball.

Challenges: Being spread across 16 time zones and 25 different countries can be difficult to communicate and collaborate with team members and partners in a normal day-to-day operation. Not being able to travel to conferences and meetings is also complicated.

During a global pandemic communication is essential.  Meetings to ensure people are following guidelines and action plans are in place is essential. Family care events for those who were about to deploy needed to be virtual. 25 partner nations with fulltime representatives on MacDill Air Force Base needed solutions to socially isolate due to the virus and telework. Regular meetings needed to be maintained across INDOPACOM, NORTHCOM, SOUTHCOM, and EUCOM to ensure the International team could connect with their partners, despite not being able to travel and meet in person.

Solutions: More than 50 communities were created on APAN. These communities assisted to provide international communication.

USSOCOM could still connect with 25 partner nation representatives who were on MacDill Air Force Base.  An APAN community was created to ensure teleworkers one location to post documents, provide announcements, and utilize chat to continue regular conversations. Family care events became virtual – documents and forms were posted to media galleries, questions and answers were provided using APAN features such as forums and blogs.  Adobe Connect was also used for unit leadership to connect with 120 family members who were attending the virtual conference which had a positive effect on morale prior to heading to Afghanistan. Routine meetings were held using Adobe Connect with up to 155 participants simultaneously. APAN provided easy to customize communities to fit each J-3 International use case.

Results: Investment in development of APAN turned out to be an excellent option for communication with the international community during COVID-19.

Sgt. Maj. Radek Vadjecka, from the Czech Republic serving as the international operations branch’s senior enlisted advisor said, “Investment in development of APAN turned out to be an excellent option for communication with the international community during COVID-19. It has helped us stay connected with our militaries around the world. The challenges our partners faced prior to COVID-19 did not go away because of the virus, so finding additional ways to continue working together is vital so we can keep addressing those threats.”  The team supported development of more than 50 new APAN sites for the global SOF community since March 2020.   

A worldwide virus largely shut down regional economies, international travel and forced millions of people to remain in their homes. Given this environment, SOCOM's international team adapted and found ways to continue the mission with APAN.  The ability to virtually link with partners in real-time increased their ability to coordinate and respond to crisis.

“From the outset of COVID-19, we knew communication and transparency with our SOF partners were going to be key,” said U.S. Army Col. Harold Miller, SOCOM’s International Operations Branch Chief.   APAN communities were able to be customized to meet the needs of a broad international SOF community.  Adobe Connect provided a venue for live conferencing with over 155 people in attendance to ensure on-going communication and collaboration occurred.

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