Bridging the Gap: Why Conventional Forces Need Irregular Warfare Training

 Austin Wesley

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The Army is undergoing a major transition as it refocuses toward its pacing threat and modernizes for Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) against a near-peer adversary. In preparing for this future possibility, it should not forget the lessons of the past 20 years nor fall into the post-Vietnam trap of forswearing irregular warfare (IW) and solely focusing on conventional warfare. Historically, the Army has struggled to institutionalize lessons learned from IW operations which resulted in an organization that was reactive to irregular threats and often failed to achieve strategic objectives. The Army has an opportunity to avoid these past mistakes and take a more holistic approach to how it operates in current and future environments. To proactively compete against the United States’ adversaries, Army conventional forces need to understand IW and break the reactive cycle by institutionalizing IW throughout the Army’s Professional Military Education (PME) system.

Doctrinal Framework and Definitional Ambiguity

To understand the Army’s role in Irregular Warfare we must start with doctrine, which provides the framework to understand how the Army supports the joint force and prepares for and deters conventional and irregular war. Doctrine recognizes the importance of conventional deterrence, and the resources required to do so, but also the significant contribution the Army provides to the joint force throughout the competition continuum as outlined in Figure 1 below. The Army’s doctrinal foundation, ADP-1, The Army, states “The primary responsibility of our Army is to conduct prompt and sustained land combat as part of the joint force.” Furthermore, “when not engaged in direct conflict, the Army focuses its efforts on conducting operations to prepare for and deter war.” It is easy to interpret this section as simply deterrence through modernization and training; however, doctrine codifies two categories of war, conventional and irregular, so what does the Army do to prepare for and deter an irregular war?