The Future Faces of Irregular Warfare: Great Power Competition in the 21st Century

Varsha Koduvayur, James Kiras, PhD & Richard Newton, PhD

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Introduction

In October 2022, Congress created the Irregular Warfare Center (IW Center) to serve as a central mechanism for developing the irregular warfare knowledge of the Department of Defense (DoD) and to advance the understanding of irregular warfare (IW) concepts, and doctrine, in collaboration with key partners and allies.4 Two of the five tasks assigned to the Center addressed facilitating whole-of-government and whole-of-society research related to the non-military aspects of irregular conflict. More importantly, though, Congress made the point that the DoD would occupy a supporting (emphasis added) role when it came to interagency activities related to strategic competition short of war, a significant reorientation of emphasis that should help the department prioritize resources and direct efforts related to strategic competition.5 This book is the IW Center’s first research contribution to assist that effort and to tackle the first of DoD’s responsibilities toward IW: “make permanent the mindset and capabilities necessary to succeed in its current irregular warfare mission sets.”6

It should be expected that after two exhausting decades of counterinsurgency in South Asia and the Middle East and a global counterterrorism campaign, our nation’s security establishment is aching to do something different. Something different, it should be noted, that is more in line with the “business as usual” approach and institutional preferences of its Armed Service components.7 Readers who can recall the decade after the Vietnam War ended, 1975-1985, will remember a similar strategic reorientation. Then, the United States shifted its defensive focus to AirLand Battle, and that doctrine’s near-singular emphasis on deterring war with the Soviet Union.8 Meanwhile, in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, and across Asia, “small wars,” often proxy wars sponsored by the two superpowers competing for influence, sprang up like mushrooms after a spring rain.