Jack Barry and Daniel Elkins.
The United States is overdependent on the Department of Defense (DoD) and Special Operations Forces (SOF) to counter threats that are political in nature.
In U.S. national security discussions, terms like “unconventional warfare” and “political warfare” are often used interchangeably to describe the murky space between peace and war where an increasing amount of global conflict is levied. The imprecision and conflation of these terms is symptomatic of a broader, more concerning trend of being slow and unilateral in reacting to adversaries who contest American interest and shape the battlefield without firing a bullet. The overall lack of understanding of political warfare causes strategic misalignment in how we should operate in and respond to an increasingly complex global order. If we do not make a deliberate shift toward a whole-of-government political warfare framework in which military operations support integrated diplomatic, informational, and economic efforts, we will continue to lose ground to nations who have mastered the art of full spectrum political warfare.
The distinction of political warfare and unconventional warfare is significant, and it would pay well to understand them completely. George Kennan, the architect of U.S. Cold War strategy, defined political warfare in 1948 as, “The employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives… from overt actions such as political alliances, economic measures, and ‘white’ propaganda to covert operations such as clandestine support of ‘friendly’ foreign elements, ‘black’ psychological warfare, and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.”
Unconventional warfare (UW), by contrast has a much narrower definition. According to the 2014 edition of Joint Publication 3-05, UW consists of activities that enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power, usually by operating through underground or guerrilla forces in denied areas.
In other words, political warfare describes the full spectrum of available means of influence; unconventional warfare is one option. Yet, in Washington, “unconventional warfare” has become a catch-all label for almost any irregular, non-kinetic activity, which convolutes the policy discussion and triggers military-first responses to problems that require an interagency campaign. In contrast to Washington’s current state, Russia and China understand political warfare and apply it effectively.
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