The Navy for several years has carried out a variety of irregular warfare (IW) and counterterrorism (CT) activities. Among the most readily visible of the Navy’s recent IW operations have been those carried out by Navy ...Read more >

In most, if not all, irregular wars, somebody organizes to defy a State, the State being or acting through a government. By defy I mean they don’t pay their taxes, refuse to serve in the military, extort, bribe, ...Read more >

This training circular (TC), as part of the TC 7-100 series, addresses the irregular opposing force (OPFOR), which in Army training exercises represents a composite of actual threats and enemies that comprise irregular ...Read more >

Unmanned systems continue to deliver new and enhanced battlefield capabilities to the warfighter. While the demand for unmanned systems continues unabated today, a number of factors will influence unmanned program development in the ...Read more >

St. Augustine of Hippo was a cleric and philosopher who lived centuries later than Alexander, but whose keen observations about the nature of sovereignty and power still influence us today. St. Augustine addresses moral weight in the context of State ...Read more >

Depending on how the narrative is shaped in Afghanistan, IW may become playbook for future US ...Read more >

The sound of traffic passing through the intersection of West 45th Street and Broadway echoed through Times Square as tourists crowded the sidewalks of Astor Plaza. The two men prepared to sell their t-shirts and handbags to the crowds, anticipating the rush of theater goers emerging from The Lion King playing at the Minskoff Theatre. They barely noticed the dark blue 1993 Nissan Pathfinder sport utility vehicle as it pulled up to the sidewalk at 6:28 ...Read more >

Britains irregular warfare experience in the post-World War II era presented the military with numerous insurgent challenges where the casus belli ranged from communism (in Malaya), to tribal supremacist land struggles (in Kenya), to socialist-inspired nationalism (in Yemen), to the nationalist fight for an alternative union (in Northern ...Read more >

A thorough understanding of Irregular Warfare (IW) and the principles of organizational theory and design will enable the Department of Defense (DoD) to organize efficiently and effectively for operations within the Irregular Warfare Environment, while maintaining its conventional capabilities. We develop our argument for this thesis in several stages. First, we define irregular warfare and differentiate it from conventional warfare through the development of our critical success factors. We ...Read more >

Joint operating concepts describe how the joint force is expected to conduct joint operations within a military campaign in the future. They identify the broad military capabilities necessary to achieve the ends envisioned by the concept.1 Since the original version of the Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept was approved in September 2007, the understanding of irregular warfare has continued to ...Read more >

As a form of warfare, IW has a long and rich history. Strategists and analysts have had the tendency to misunderstand and mischaracterize irregular warfare, including the use of limiting and erroneous ...Read more >

War is fascinating as well as appalling, and despite my abhorrence of the violence and destruction that is the essence of warfare I have been studying it in one context or another virtually my entire adult life. In the course of that study, I developed an interest in irregular warfare, particularly in the context of revolution. This work brings together in one place some of the results of the teaching, research, and writing I have done in the field over more than thirty ...Read more >

Irregular warfare has been described as the “violent struggle among states and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population”. Concepts of legitimacy and influence are key components in this struggle. When engaged in such a struggle, the design of the Counterinsurgency (COIN) or irregular warfare campaign must reflect the population’s cultural realities, social norms and conventions of war and ...Read more >

We appreciate everybody being here for this hearing on a topic that I think will play a significant role in the security of the country moving ahead. It seems to me the basic question is to what extent we learn from our experience and build on it, and to what extent we assume that the past was just an aberration and now we can, quote, ‘‘get back to normal.’’ I am not sure that the conventional wisdom about normal is quite ...Read more >

War, all of it a political endeavor, regular irregular and in between-compound. We can never solve the equation on the correct mix. The classical Clausewitzian Trinitarian view on the character of war: passion, politics, probability conducted by the government, military and needs support of its people, gave way to a more modern (French) view that sees people as human terrain. The IW challenges both these paradigms suggesting that, given the informational technological influence on local and ...Read more >