The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the U.S. Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the Naval Special Warfare Command. Among the SEALs' main functions are conducting small-unit special operation missions in maritime, jungle, urban, arctic, mountainous, and desert environments. SEALs are typically ordered to capture or to kill high level targets, or to gather intelligence behind enemy lines. SEAL team personnel are hand selected, highly trained, and possess a high degree of proficiency in direct action (DA), and special reconnaissance (SR), among other tasks like sabotage, demolition, intelligence gathering, and hydro-graphic reconnaissance, training, and advising friendly militaries or other forces.

Depending on the availability of platforms, threat level, and environment, different methods can be used for the insertion and extraction of SEALs into a target location. This could include nuclear-powered cruise missile submarines equipped with dry deck shelters, SDV submarines, surface vessels, surface swimming, or other vehicles

All active SEALs are members of the U.S. Navy. The CIA's highly secretive and elite Special Operations Group (SOG) recruits operators from SEAL Teams, with joint operations going back to the MACV-SOG during the Vietnam War. This cooperation still exists today, as evidenced by military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.