Bring Irregular Warfare to the Conventional Forces

Bring Irregular Warfare to the Conventional Forces is published by the Special Operations Association of America  | May 11, 2026

Mandates for Institutional Integration

The Department of Defense has issued several high-level directives intended to transition irregular warfare from a specialized niche to a joint force requirement. The 2020 IW Annex to the National Defense Strategy explicitly mandates the institutionalization of irregular warfare as a core competency for both conventional and special operations forces. This was reinforced by the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which seeks to maintain a baseline of IW capabilities across the entire force. Most recently, the 2025 DOD Instruction 3000.07 defines irregular warfare as a joint activity, yet practitioners report that these top-down mandates have not yet translated into changes in frontline operational reality.

Cultural and Structural Impediments

Significant barriers to implementation exist within the entrenched reward structures of the conventional military. Promotion and career advancement have historically depended on quantifiable kinetic metrics and success in large-scale combat operations. Retired Special Forces officers observe that success in irregular warfare often requires managing ambiguity over generational timelines, which offers few tangible outcomes for standard performance evaluations. Additionally, the presence of dedicated Special Operations Forces allows conventional units to offload IW responsibilities, reinforcing a culture that views irregular tactics as someone else’s mission.

The Historical Cost of Institutional Memory Loss

The lack of a permanent institutional home for irregular warfare lessons within conventional forces leads to a recurring cycle of strategic failure. During the Vietnam War, the Army engaged in Foreign Internal Defense but quickly discarded those lessons in favor of focusing on Soviet threats. Consequently, conventional forces in Iraq had to relearn counterinsurgency tactics at a high cost in resources and personnel. Experts argue that without a permanent change in how the Army retains irregular warfare knowledge, the force will remain reactive to asymmetric threats and continue to expend treasure and blood unnecessarily.

Requirements for Future Force Readiness

Preparing for multi-domain irregular threats requires a fundamental shift in training methodology and professional military education. Current training environments often lack the complexity needed to simulate the political and social realities of irregular conflict. Proponents call for the inclusion of real-world case studies and simulations that emphasize non-kinetic activities such as psychological operations, civil-military cooperation, and counterintelligence. Developing a proactive posture against peer adversaries necessitates that conventional formations practice identifying irregular tactics long before deployment to a combat training center or a real-world mission.