Making Sense of Irregular War
Making Sense of Irregular War by Joe Brown, Over the Horizon
In this article, Joe Brown reminds us that most conflict does not involve state-on-state military confrontation. When it comes to multi-domain thinking, one must not only consider multi-domain actions in large-scale war, but also how to apply multi-domain solutions across the range of military options and effectively use all national instruments of power. Keep this in mind as the author helps us make sense of irregular warfare.
Irregular war is an abused and non-intuitive term. It has become a catch-all phrase for any type of conflict which departs from the type of army-on-army, set-piece battle about which the History Channel likes to make documentaries. The term is often conflated and used interchangeably with unconventional, revolutionary, asymmetric, guerrilla, insurgent, civil, hybrid, and even terroristic war. In its etymological formulation, it connotes war that is not normal, deviant, or rare. This connotation is inaccurate and misleading because most armed conflict since 1945 has been of the irregular variety. Irregular wars have also been regarded as a lesser set of conflicts, described using terms such as “small wars” and “brushfire wars.” The implication is that these wars are easier and preparation for “regular” war, i.e. state-on-state conflict, is more than sufficient. This attitude has decreased after the humbling US experiences in Vietnam and Iraq, but the term still muddies the issues. Why is there so much confusion about irregular warfare?
To disentangle the confusing mess of irregular war, we must address four questions:
- What do we mean by irregular war?
- What is the central problem?
- What is the fundamental solution?
- What can an external actor do about it?
As a guide to practical action, we must address each of these questions in turn…
