This article is experted and modified from a longer, previously published at Small Wars Journal. Maritime civil affairs capabilities can play an important supporting role in military operations. While each military service is required to maintain a civil affairs capability by DoD Directive 2000.13, the US Navy in 2014 divested itself of its only civil
IW Roundup — March 8, 2021
This Week in Irregular Warfare March 1 - March 7 Welcome to the second installment of The Irregular Warrior’s news digest. No summary can capture all the news related to irregular warfare around the world, but we hope you’ll find this collection to be interestingly broad in its scope in addition to bringing you the
IW Roundup — March 1, 2021
This Week in Irregular Warfare 22 - 28 February Welcome to the first installment of The Irregular Warrior’s news digest. No summary can capture all the news related to irregular warfare around the world, but we hope you’ll find this collection to be interestingly broad in its scope in addition to bringing you the stories
New feature on The Irregular Warrior
Starting very shortly, we’ll be trying something new: a news digest of happenings around the world related to irregular warfare. This will probably be a weekly feature, but we’ll see what ends up working best. In any event, we have high hopes for this project, and we think you’ll find it a very useful snapshot
Words Matter — Changing irregular warfare terminology can help the U.S. fight against its global competitors
Kevin Bilms argues in his recent article at War on the Rocks on irregular warfare terminology that redefining the core elements of irregular warfare (unconventional warfare, stabilization, foreign internal defense, counter-terrorism, and counterinsurgency) will help its practitioners and proponents to explain what it is they do, and why it is important. By using clearer language,
Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service capture ISIS child recruiter
The Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service conducted a raid in late October in Fallujah, resulting in the capture of the suspected leader of an ISIS child recruitment ring, according to Stars and Stripes. And it did so without a single shot fired. This is evidence of its growing capability and independence from its U.S. trainers. The Counter-Terrorism
An Irregular Reading List
Welcome to our irregular warfare reading list. As anyone who reads this blog understands, continual study is necessary both to confront the dangers posed by the modern security environment and to understand irregular conflicts of the past. A deliberate course of reading is an essential component of that continual study. However busy our personal or
Committing to Success in Afghanistan
It is foolish to claim that Afghanistan is going well, for us or for them. But there is still reason to hope, and the U.S. has important interests in seeing progress.
Barnett Rubin’s Theses on Peacemaking in Afghanistan: A Manifesto
Royalist and republican, Khalqi and Parchami, Soviet Union and the West, communist and Islamist, mujahid and Talib, Hanafi and takfiri, al Qaeda and America, warlord and technocrat, Pashtun and non-Pashtun, Islamic Emirate and Islamic State, KGB, ISI, and CIA – all have for decades carried on an uninterrupted struggle in Afghanistan. Attempts to end the war have but established new antagonisms, new conditions of conflict, new forms of warfare. The conflict generates these antagonisms rather than the reverse, forcing us to face the real origins of violence: Afghanistan’s relations to the state system from which it emerged. These theses delineate the ever-changing conflict’s constant causes, which any effort at peacemaking in Afghanistan must address.
The Norms of Proxy War: Guidelines for the Resort to Unconventional Warfare
In previous posts on this blog, we have described the use of proxy forces to impose costs on a shared adversary (AKA, unconventional warfare). But perhaps the most difficult aspect of unconventional warfare is not in its planning or execution, but in knowing when it is an appropriate approach at all. A recent article from