Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Irregular Warfare
Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Irregular Warfare by Mark Grdovic | Published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute on December 16, 2025.
“The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and the commander have to make is to establish…the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to make it into something that is alien to its nature. This is the first of all strategic questions and the most comprehensive.” – Carl von Clausewitz
This piece highlights the persistent struggle within the US military to effectively define and integrate Irregular Warfare (IW) as core professional knowledge. The author identifies a recurring “boom and bust” cycle in the military’s engagement with IW, spanning four distinct historical epochs where initial enthusiasm is consistently followed by a relegation of the topic.
The analysis identifies the elephant in the room: current official definitions of IW are inadequate. It critiques both Joint and Army definitions for relying on non-defining declarative statements that obscure, rather than clarify, understanding. The analysis also argues that reducing IW to lists of operations and activities is problematic because it diverts attention from the adversary’s strategic intent and instead promotes a narrow focus on how to counter tactics. Instead, the article posits IW as a distinct form of warfare, characterized by its deliberate avoidance of an opponent’s superior military capabilities through indirect attacks aimed at eroding will or capabilities over time. This perspective clarifies why the US military, with its conventional strength, frequently becomes a target for IW strategies.
The piece also stresses that countering IW is not the same as conducting it, drawing an analogy between fighting a boxer and engaging a lawyer to win over a jury, emphasizing the importance of understanding distinct approaches. Ultimately, the article advocates for making IW a standard component of professional military education. There is a great need for proper framing to overcome its perceived complexity and prevent it from becoming a “bolted-on” afterthought, thereby avoiding a repeat of past integration failures.
