Irregular Warfare, Part One: Updating the Term and the Toolkit

Irregular Warfare, Part One: Updating the Term and the Toolkit by Jocelyn Garcia of Small Wars Journal and Dr. James Giordano establishes the doctrinal necessity of state stewardship and analyzes the role of artificial intelligence in modern irregular warfare to provide a framework for future strategic recommendations.

The current Department of War definitions of irregular warfare often rely on characteristics like asymmetry that appear in both regular and irregular conflict, leading to potential strategic imprecision. To resolve this, the piece argues for the adoption of state stewardship as the primary criterion for doctrinal classification. This approach defines warfare based on the level of state authority, entitlement, and responsibility involved in an operation. By establishing this clear standard, the Joint Force can better maintain irregular warfare as a core competency and accurately categorize activities that are indirect, non-attributable, or asymmetric.

Adopting a stewardship-based model allows for a more effective response to the non-kinetic domain where legitimacy and perception are the centers of gravity. Adversaries use artificial intelligence to exploit this space, utilizing large-scale data processing and synthetic media to modify target populations’ decision-making processes. This technological amplification facilitates cognitive operations that degrade trust and social cohesion. When doctrine is rooted in state stewardship, commanders have a clearer understanding of how to counter these grey zone activities that deliberately operate outside traditional state-level norms and defenses.

Stewardship-focused language also addresses the challenges posed by the democratization of advanced technology. AI lowers the barrier to entry for non-state actors and regional powers, allowing them to conduct sophisticated operations without state-level intelligence infrastructure. These actors often occupy the lower end of the stewardship scale, meaning they risk less by acting outside international norms; recognizing this shift in the authority and responsibility of combatants is essential for maintaining readiness and allied cohesion. Integrating state stewardship into the doctrinal toolkit ensures that the Joint Force is prepared to engage with the actual character of modern, AI-enabled irregular warfare.

Next week, the series continues by exploring the evolving threat landscape and proposing specific approach recommendations to enhance Joint Force readiness in AI-enabled environments.