Department of Defense Directive 3000.07
09.01.2014 at 01:00am
Department of Defense Directive 3000.07 – Irregular Warfare (IW) Dated August 28, 2014
Of note, it is DoD policy that:
a. IW is as strategically important as traditional warfare and DoD must be equally capable in both. Many of the capabilities and skills required for IW are applicable to traditional warfare, but their role in IW can be proportionally greater.
b. DoD will be proficient in IW.
c. IW is conducted independently of, or in combination with, traditional warfare.
No significant change from the December 2008 version. In fact I have not been able to find anything significantly different except that the 2014 version is signed by DEPSECDEF Robert Work as the new DEPSECDEF, the elimination of US Joint Forces Command (which of course no longer exists today but did in 2008), and the new one is 14 pages long while the 2008 version was 12 pages long.
I would also point out that like the 2008 version there are three terms that are not doctrinal and not in JP 1-02 (Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms). I would have thought that by now these two terms would have been added to the Joint Dictionary.
civilian-military teams. Temporary organizations of civilian and military personnel specifically
task-organized to provide an optimal mix of capabilities and expertise to accomplish specific
operational and planning tasks, or to achieve objectives at the strategic, operational, or tactical
levels. Civilian-military teams may conduct both overt and clandestine operations.
irregular. Characterization used to describe a deviation from the traditional form of warfare
where actors may use non-traditional methods such as guerrilla warfare, terrorism, sabotage,
subversion, criminal activities, and insurgency for control of relevant populations.
(note in JP 1-02 there are the terms irregular forces and irregular warfare but not the singular irregular with the above definition)
traditional warfare. A form of warfare between the regulated militaries of states, or alliances of
states, in which the objective is to defeat an adversary’s armed forces, destroy an adversary’s
war-making capacity, or seize or retain territory in order to force a change in an adversary’s
government or policies.
(For reference for the next comment: IW. A violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s).)
I wish that we could relook the definition of irregular warfare (and irregular above) because I think the focus on “control of relevant populations” or a struggle for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s). In my mind this implies that IW is overly focused on insurgency and being “population centric.” I think this limits our thinking about IW. I would say that in Ukraine, in Syria, and in Iraq the actions and strategies of Russian and the ISIL/IS are not dependent on the legitimacy and influence over the “relevant” population. Counterinsurgency tactics, techniques and procedures or a campaign designed around the principles of FM 3-14 are unlikely to have much utility in Ukraine, Syria, and Iraq today.
If one’s state (due to, for example, foreign influence or aggression) has become compromised such that it cannot or does not perform the basic function of a state (protect and defend the way of life of its citizens, and protect and defend the foundational values, attitudes and beliefs upon which this way of life is based),
Then populations within these states/civilizations may proceed to (1) organize in some non-state fashion (AQ), (2) organize in some NEW-state fashion (ISIS) and/or (3) adopt some non-traditional approach to warfare. All this, so as to do what their present states are no longer willing or able to do (see “protect and defend” in the paragraph immediately above).
This (organize in some non-state fashion; organize in some new-state fashion; adopt some non-traditional approach to warfare) is what one would expect the citizenry of the West to do — if the West’s present state mechanisms proved either uninterested in, or inadequate to, the task of defending our way of life, our way of governance and our foundational values, attitudes and beliefs.
Thus, the United States/the West today, in accordance with our/its enduring goal of outlying state and societal transformation, must be prepared to deal with:
a. Present state entities who use traditional and/or un-traditional warfare methods to protect and defend the way of life and values, attitudes and beliefs of their citizens,
b. New state entities who do the same and
c. Non-state entities who, lacking competent and/or loyal state mechanisms, use traditional and un-traditional methods of warfare to achieve this self-same goal (preservation of one’s way of life, foundational values, attitudes and beliefs, etc.).
This, I believe, is the post-Cold War reality that such publications as DoD Directive 3000.07 seek to (1) acknowledge and (2) address.
This Directive has been largely resisted by the conventional forces of the USMC. Of the 5 pillars of IW (COIN, Stab, CT, FID, UW) Stability has caused the most contention. Stability to most of the ground element means providing security. Building tasks that clarify or add training resources and time to an already overburdened OpFor have not been acceptable.
The Ground Combat Element has been resistant to take on the burden of training or sustaining personnel trained in governance, biometric enrollment, attack the network operations, language skills, expeditionary contracting, and a plethora of other skills that were defined in DoDD 3000.07. I personally sat in meetings where O-7s and O-6s disagreed on just the lexicon of terms surrounding COIN and Stability.
The end result is and will remain that these are skills that the conventional forces can ramp up to, via pre-deployment training, versus expending the time and funding required to keep them on staff. The rebalance to the Pacific language seemed to provide carte blanche approval to dump IW skills in favor of conventional operations, while selling the DoD on having an “Off the shelf” capability.
The comments by COLs Moore, Maxwell and Jones below make me ask what (hopefully) is an appropriate, correct and relevant question:
a. Why the heck is IW — today — seen only within the context of “fragile state” and/or “population-centric” problems,
b. And not also (or primarily) within the context of great power/state-on-state conflict/war?
Do our national leaders somehow believe (even with our current problems with Russia before them) that — due to such things as economic interdependence — the era of great power/state-on-state war has ended?
Does this explain why these national leaders do not identify and specifically spell out — as they do for “fragile states” and population-centric” problems:
a. The problems of great power/state-on-state conflict/war and
b. The applicability of IW in that specific, traditional, “normal” (and I might I say current) setting?