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21 September 2023

The Relentless Regularity of Irregular Warfare

Michael Miklaucic

The U.S. Department of Defense has a rich taxonomy of the various kinds of war. There are conventional and unconventional wars, nuclear war, cyberwar, hybrid war, information war, guerilla war, proxy war, and many more. Some but not all these terms are carefully defined in military doctrine. One of them—irregular war—defies definition, or rather suffers from multiple definition syndrome. Ask ten experts the definition of irregular warfare and you will receive ten definitions. What many of those definitions have in common, however, is the characterization of irregular warfare as a suite of tools, tactics, and techniques for conflict below the threshold of military combat; a specified set of means short of military combat toward the end of prevailing in conflict. That is a problem.

The Pentagon definition is more nuanced than most; according to the Department of Defense’s Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy “Irregular warfare is a struggle among state and non-state actors to influence populations and affect legitimacy. IW favors indirect and asymmetric approaches, though it may employ the full range of military and other capabilities, in order to erode an adversary’s power, influence, and will.” This definition does not dwell on specific tactics, techniques, or tools. But ambiguity and ambivalence still reign.

The irony of irregular warfare is its regularity. A recent paper by the Center for the Study of Intelligence and Nontraditional Warfare informs us that U.S. armed forces have been engaged in irregular warfare for 92 of the last 125 years, while in conventional warfare for only 17 of those years. In other words, irregular war is the norm rather than the exception. And there is every reason to believe this will continue to be the case. Just one look at the war in Ukraine reveals not only multiple aspects of irregular warfare but also foreshadows the horrors that would devastate large civilian populations, infrastructure, and economies in the case of major war between the great powers. Irregular warfare is less risky and much cheaper.

It is not for these reasons alone that irregular warfare is a favorite fighting mode of our adversaries Russia and China. They do not share the binary paradigm of war and peace that the West embraces—a paradigm in which we are either at war or at peace. On the contrary both Russian and Chinese strategic thinking are strongly influenced by a belief in permanent and comprehensive struggle against any and all opposed to their own authoritarian world views. China’s Three Warfares include media war, psychological war, and legal warfare. Russia’s New Generation Warfare combines conventional, irregular, and cyber warfare across the full conflict spectrum. These doctrines show candidly and clearly how our adversaries marshal all the elements of their national power in a never-ending battle against what they perceive as the hegemonic, corrupt, and declining Western liberal, rules-based world order. All domains are within the battlespace, every resource is a weapon, and there is no distinction between civilian and military.

Through brutal enforcement sprinkled with authoritarian ideology the Chinese Communist Party and the Kremlin’s gangster regime have cultivated “whole of government” and even “whole of society” approaches to great power competition. This is an important aspect of irregular warfare, and while Western countries can’t emulate China’s or Russia’s forced alignment of all the elements of national strength, they can certainly more effectively deploy their diplomats and aid workers whose contributions can be significant. This is not a novel insight; indeed, it is a lesson we have learned and unlearned in fateful cycles, and one which, over well over a half century ago, George Kennan recognized in his writings on political warfare.

Even more significant than the Pentagon’s definition is the following statement found in the Irregular Warfare Annex: “IW is a persistent and enduring operational reality employed by non-state actors and increasingly by state actors in competition with the United States.” Understood as a ubiquitous condition of life in an adversarial environment irregular warfare describes much more than a set of tools, tactics, and techniques; it describes a continual, comprehensive environmental attribute, permeating interaction between adversaries. Irregular warfare here is characterized as the perpetual struggle for dominance between great powers. If we think of irregular warfare not as a suite of tools, tactics, and techniques, but as a structural attribute of coexistence, we might be more innovative in developing our own approaches, and more effective in competing with these determined and relentless adversaries.

Irregular warfare differs from all the other warfares; it is neither a means nor an end, but a condition. It resembles the Chinese concept of unrestricted warfare which views conflict—including violent conflict—as a constant, rather than as an aberration. Recall the optimistic aspiration of the 1970s and 1980s—peaceful coexistence. It was not a tool, tactic, or technique, but rather an imagined steady state in which the United States and the Soviet Union would live indefinitely at peace despite their differences. Irregular warfare far more accurately characterizes the condition of states seeking dominance or at least autonomy in an environment with predatory competitors. As a condition of the human predicament, we should not assume that irregular warfare can ever be won or eliminated. It is something we must become attuned to, and for which we must develop innovative and effective tools, tactics, and techniques.

All conflict is ultimately a struggle over the terms of coexistence (either between states, political parties, or individuals), and who gets to make the rules for coexistence. For the indefinite future—and possibly forever—that struggle will take place in the gray zone of irregular warfare. Recognizing its ubiquity and permanence is the first step toward developing the tools, tactics, and techniques to prevail in the gray zone of irregular warfare and will definitely serve our purpose if we wish to set the terms and make the rules.

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