It seems everyone these days is clawing for a bigger piece of the Pentagon’s shrinking budget pie and special operations forces (SOF) are elbowing their way to the trough.

But even elite forces need help fighting Beltway budget wars and winning battle space in the coming Quadrennial Defense Review — the good book that informs (or at least gives cover fire) to all Pentagon spending. On Friday, Adm. Bill McRaven, head of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), who has called for expanding a “global SOF network,” just acquired a major ally in the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA).

The watchdog released on Friday a 125-page report, “Beyond the Ramparts: The Future of U.S. Special Operations Forces” outlining how special operations forces should use the post-war era to expand and solidify a global network with more forward basing, more personnel, more “stealthy” and appropriately SOF-like equipment, more foreign headquarters and training centers, and … well, more of everything.

“Returning SOF to their pre-9/11 roles would undoubtedly squander what has been gained over the past decade and forfeit a major U.S. competitive advantage,” writes CSBA Vice President Jim Thomas and Chris Dougherty, research fellow and 75th Ranger Regiment veteran.

CSBA tries to wrap its hands around how to expand SOF forces around the globe in an era where they also predict more restrictive rules of engagement (outside of the “hot” war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq), smaller bases, and yet far more available conventional “enabler” forces to support their missions as those wars wind down.

To get started, elite U.S. forces will need language training and more diversity. Thomas suggested sending troops abroad with “things like Rosetta Stone” books, which allow them to train and test remotely. The face of elite troops, he added, is overwhelmingly white and male, and so does not tap into America’s ethnic diversity, which he called “one of the greatest strategic strengths of the United States.”

It will take money. Thomas’s final slide shows a tiny sliver emerging from a pie chart: it’s SOF’s current share of DOD’s more than $600 billion budget.