This literature review will interest anyone seeking a better understanding of developments in the Special Operations (SO) and Special Operations Forces (SOF) research field over the past decade. For the well-versed reader, it serves as a guidebook pointing to the sections of most interest and providing suggestions for future research. For those less acquainted with the literature, the report can be read from start to finish for a distilled but comprehensive overview of the field and its key debates. This report considers definitional issues as well as theoretical debates surrounding SO and SOF but does not recommend a specific terminology. It also identifies and briefly accounts for a number of SO and SOF research topics that are reoccurring in the literature and provides suggestions for future research. The suggestions are categorised into three themes: international cooperation, interaction with the conflict environment, as well as organisation, culture, and ethics. Finally, the appendix consists of a comprehensive reading list of 121 texts organised in themes in order to inspire and facilitate further reading on the topics that are most interesting to the reader.