The nature of warfare in the 21st century remains as it has been since ancient times – ‘a violent clash of interests between or among organized groups characterized by the use of military force.’ These organized groups are no longer limited to states with easily identifiable regular armed forces,...
As discussed briefly in the previous post, current US military doctrine describes irregular warfare as having five core activities: counterterrorism (CT), unconventional warfare (UW), foreign internal defense (FID), counterinsurgency (COIN), and stability operations (SO). Rather than being viewed as a list of discrete options, these activities (sometimes called the...
“IW is a complex,’messy,’ and ambiguous social phenomenon that does not lend itself to clean, neat, concise, or precise definition.” Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept, 2008 The above quote reflects the discomfort that the US military had (and continues to have) in coming to terms with an aspect of...