Special operations as a military mean have become more important in today’s conflicts. During the last decade, the importance of reliable intelligence has increased. A principle task for special opera-tion forces is Special Reconnaissance and Surveillance, but there is not much open research regarding these kinds of Special Reconnaissance operations and related guiding principles and theories are missing. A theory would be valuable to improve the institution of special operation forces by creating the ability to explain what institutional features help or hinder the uses of special operations.Admiral McRaven’s principles and approach is widely accepted as a theory, but was done with McRaven’s own definition of special operation described as Direct Action. The Swedish Military Op-erational Doctrine, regarding special operations, has a foundation drawn from McRaven’s theory.To reach a better understanding and widen the knowledge for the Swedish Armed Forces there is a need for further explanations on what is unique to the special operation forces and special opera-tions. Deficiencies in knowledge and understanding can lead to the wrong use of these forces, when complex intelligence collection mission is to be conducted.The purpose of this case study is to compare McRaven’s principles regarding special operations and their application in conducting a Special Reconnaissance and Surveillance mission. As a result this paper shows that there are emerging guiding Special Reconnaissance principles of importance to be found. McRaven’s principles can be used to some extent, but should be done with caution, since they are not optimized for Special Reconnaissance missions.

In the new era of hybrid warfare information is key. But information by itself is not enough, decisionmakers want information that is certain and has quality. One method of obtaining this information is special reconnaissance. However, the field of special reconnaissance is slim and hasn’t been researched extensively enough. In the field of special reconnaissance only a single theory exists. That theory is Anders Westbergs theory of special reconnaissance. Westbergs theory states that there is a term called relative certainty. Which is the threshold where there is sufficient actionable intelligence on the opponent or target. To achieve relative certainty there are a certain set of principles which should be fulfilled, these principles are coordination, review, cover, reporting and exploitation. Westbergs theory however is still not tested by an outsider. This study therefore seeks to investigate if Westbergs theory is valid when tested through a qualitative case study on a case that is not only a failure and more modern, but also untested against the theory. The chosen case is the patrol Bravo Two Zero in the Persian Gulf War, 1991. The result shows that Westbergs theory can be used to explain the failure of Bravo Two Zeros mission. Some principles such as reporting shows significant value to the explanation.