AI Enhanced Risks to Irregular Warfare
Abstract
The practice of irregular warfare has a checkered history when it comes to long-term outcomes. It is extremely difficult to forecast how fighting over the will and support of a population will lead to unintended consequences in the years and decades that follow any irregular warfare operation. The introduction of AI into the information-centric style of fighting is poised to increase the speed of irregular warfare beyond the ability of human operators to control, potentially damaging populations and causing irreversible second- and third-order effects at an unsustainable rate.
Introduction
Current literature describing the intersection of artificial intelligence and irregular warfare has largely focused on AI as a capability enhancer in a new competitive space. One publication emphasizes AI’s potential as “the newest weapon” in irregular warfare, and another frames AI applications as “an evolution, not a revolution.” However, these perspectives, while valuable and true, don’t address a critical reality: AI doesn’t simply add new capabilities to irregular warfare—it also amplifies the field’s most problematic characteristic.
AI has incredible potential, but it also creates a paradox for irregular warfare practitioners. While AI promises to enhance the speed and penetration of our influence campaigns, it simultaneously amplifies the inherent unpredictability that has always haunted irregular warfare outcomes, especially over the long term. When addressing AI related risks, the most dangerous course appears to be falling behind in the tech race, but it is largely unacknowledged that AI’s very advantages—speed, scale, and precision—directly compound irregular warfare’s tendency toward unintended consequences. We need to assess what risks to the mission could be associated with the successful adoption of AI. As military and intelligence communities increasingly integrate AI tools into their operations, they must grapple with how these technologies will fundamentally alter the defining characteristics of irregular warfare as an information-centric activity and recognize the heightened unpredictability of their operational effects.
The Information Battlefield Accelerates
As a struggle for legitimacy and influence over a relevant population, information has always been the primary weapon in irregular warfare. Whether enabling partner forces to execute missions or shaping target populations, success depends on controlling both the quality and quantity of information flows. No matter what kind of operation is being conducted, how the target population responds will determine whether or not it was successful. Whether it’s an overt presence of military advisors or an unseen cyber operation, how information around their actions is delivered and interpreted is key.
AI is poised to revolutionize this information battlefield. Machine learning algorithms can generate convincing text, images, and videos at scale, while natural language processing enables real-time analysis of social media sentiment and automated content generation tailored to specific audiences. These capabilities offer irregular warfare practitioners powerful new tools to influence and control their battlespace by allowing them to craft and disseminate targeted messages with unprecedented speed and precision.
However, this technology-driven acceleration cuts both ways. These advanced algorithms shape how populations consume information through social media platforms, creating an environment where audiences can move instantaneously between information sources. Information is consumed in seconds with dubious levels of comprehension, causing disinformation to go viral on a daily basis. Meanwhile, trust in traditional sources of dependable information continues to erode. With distrust in media reaching historic highs globally, we face an increasingly fragmented information landscape where competing narratives can rapidly gain traction or evolve in unexpected ways.
For irregular warfare practitioners in particular, this presents a fundamental challenge: how can they effectively employ their techniques and tactics in an increasingly chaotic information environment? Even more critically, how can they forecast operational outcomes or assess effects when AI enables both friendly and adversarial actors to operate at machine speed?
The Unpredictability Problem Compounds
The inherent unpredictability of human response toward efforts to shape their perceptions is the defining characteristic of irregular warfare. Unlike conventional warfare, where destroying enemy forces produces relatively clear outcomes, the will of populations that are targeted by irregular warfare presents a much more volatile and unpredictable target. Because these operations work through indirect methods, they frequently produce second- and third-order effects that can spark new conflicts, erode public trust, or trigger sudden socio-political changes that may not align with the original objectives.
AI promises to compound this unpredictability problem. The same technologies that enable rapid information dissemination also accelerate the speed at which populations can respond to political, military, and economic events in their information space. Social media algorithms provide immediate feedback and response to any perceptible activity, triggering a procedurally-generated lens through which a given population will interpret any given irregular warfare action, whether it is overt, covert, or clandestine. In such an environment, irregular warfare operations can trigger cascading effects with minimal warning time for course correction.
Historical Lessons in Unintended Consequences
The history of irregular warfare is full of examples of successful operations that produced catastrophic, long-term consequences. For example, US support for Mujahideen forces against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan achieved its immediate objective of bleeding Soviet resources and ultimately contributing to Soviet withdrawal. However, it also contributed to the conditions that eventually produced the Taliban and provided safe haven for Al-Qaeda’s planning of the September 11 attacks. But such unintended consequences are hardly unique to the US. Years of Russian political warfare in Ukraine before 2014 initially appeared successful in maintaining influence over Ukrainian politics. However, these same activities ultimately sparked the Maidan Revolution and a cascade of events leading to the largest European war since World War II. China’s use of maritime militia fleets to assert control over resources in the South China Sea achieved some tactical successes in pushing back neighboring fleets and occupying disputed islands but has also generated regional animosity and international pushback, leading to increased militarization and the potential for larger conflicts. Even the rapid and effective 2013 French counterterrorism intervention in Mali using special operations and partner forces devolved into a lumbering COIN operation that unexpectedly contributed to the dissolution of French influence across the entire Sahel region.
In each case, operationally successful irregular warfare campaigns created conditions for strategic failures. The practitioners achieved their immediate objectives but lost control of the broader narrative and long-term outcomes in ways that few could have predicted. Each of these campaigns unfolded over years – or even decades – but the modern irregular battlefield could see campaigns begin and end within days and still carry the same indelible consequences.
AI as Force Multiplier and Risk Amplifier
As AI capabilities advance, irregular warfare practitioners must prepare for operations that unfold at unprecedented speeds. Machine learning algorithms can analyze vast datasets to identify influence opportunities, generate targeted content, and adapt messaging in real-time based on audience responses. These capabilities offer significant advantages in terms of operational tempo and precision. That is, of course, if the US is able to effectively harness and deploy AI capabilities to the irregular warfighter, which remains to be seen at scale.
However, the same speed that enables increasingly effective operations also compresses decision-making timelines and reduces opportunities for human oversight. AI-driven misinformation, social media dissemination, and, of course, intentional influence operations can rapidly spiral beyond their intended scope, creating viral effects that human operators may struggle to control or redirect. The technology that promises to make irregular warfare more effective also makes it more volatile.
Managing the Double-Edged Sword
Despite these risks, irregular warfare will only become more prevalent as AI lowers barriers to entry and provides new capabilities to both state and non-state actors. The key for practitioners will be developing frameworks for managing AI-enabled operations while maintaining a strategic perspective on long-term consequences.
This requires several critical adaptations. First, practitioners must develop new assessment methodologies that account for AI-accelerated timelines and viral effects. Analysts, operators, and campaign planners must take into account the potential for irregular effects to spiral in unexpected ways, or to linger in a population for better or worse. This reality must be incorporated into training, exercises, operational planning, and execution. After-effects must also be analyzed, though traditional battle damage assessment frameworks designed for kinetic operations poorly capture the dynamic nature of information effects in AI-mediated environments. Preparations must be put in place to collect and analyze data over long periods of time throughout the lifecycle of an irregular warfare campaign.
Speaking of data, operators need enhanced monitoring capabilities to detect unintended consequences early in their development. Fundamentally, this means they need access to a variety of data sources at scale and at speed. It is not enough to determine effects after an operation has ended; irregular operators need to be able to adapt to a changing battlespace in the same way that a maneuver company needs to address changes in enemy fire. Traditional government acquisition processes are not designed to quickly procure data for delivery to operational end users, and industry standard seat-licensing schemes limit data sharing and encourage information silos. Whether it is informing a human operator or feeding an LLM, data is the lifeblood of AI-enabled irregular warfare, and government procurement offices are the beating heart.
Finally, the irregular warfare community must accept the uncomfortable reality that AI will make their operations simultaneously more powerful and more unpredictable. Success in this environment demands unprecedented data processing requirements, and warfighters must be properly equipped for rapid decision-making. AI tools can also help by providing real-time analysis to enable faster course corrections in the midst of an operation. The case for AI applications is extremely valid, and it is not a matter of if we use it, but whether or not we can employ this technology more effectively than our opponents. However, governments must also commit resources for persistent population damage assessments to identify new threats and opportunities as they develop over time across the irregular warfare continuum.
Conclusion
AI applications demand a new framework for thinking about irregular warfare as a whole, not just in terms of a single discrete technology. Rather than viewing AI as simply another tool in the irregular warfare toolkit, practitioners must recognize it as a force multiplier that amplifies both capabilities and volatility. The historical pattern of tactical success leading to strategic failure in irregular warfare is likely to accelerate in an AI-enabled environment, where operations unfold at machine speed but human judgment remains essential for strategic direction. We should also take the opportunity to pause and critically assess what we hope to accomplish through the conduct of irregular warfare in general to ensure that we apply AI in a way that maximizes its benefits and minimizes its risks.
The challenge ahead isn’t whether or not to integrate AI into irregular warfare operations—that integration is already underway. The challenge is developing the conceptual frameworks and operational disciplines necessary to harness AI’s power while managing the instability it could create within a target population. Success will require practitioners who can think several moves ahead while remaining prepared to adapt rapidly when operations develop in unexpected directions. Mastering AI-enabled irregular warfare means learning to wield a double-edged sword that grows sharper and more unwielding with each technological advance.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of any agency, organization, or company.
