Special Forces Soldiers are often deployed to prevent terrorist and insurgent incidents abroad. They respond to terrorist activities and train other nations’ militaries in the basics of fighting insurgents.

The cornerstone of Special Forces operations, unconventional warfare is activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force in a denied area.

Direct Action missions are short duration strikes used to seize, capture, recover or destroy enemy material, or recover personnel.

Foreign Internal Defense is the act of training and equipping foreign allied military forces to defend against insurgency, subversion, terrorism and other security threats.

Surveillance conducted in hostile, denied, or diplomatically or politically sensitive environments is known as Special Reconnaissance. During this mission, Soldiers collect or verify information of strategic significance, and employ capabilities not normally used by conventional forces

During Security Force Assistance missions, Special Forces Soldiers are called upon to train and develop the defense capabilities of friendly and developing nations.