Will Abandonment of the Syrian Kurds End America's Involvement in Unconventional Warfare by Steven Metz – The National Interest
… The United States first became involved in irregular warfare in a big way during the 1960s. After Vietnam, it fell out of use but was revived in the 1980s when a number of Soviet client states emerged in what was then called the Third World and again after the September 11 attack demonstrated the danger posed by transnational networks of terrorists and insurgents. As the 2010 Joint operational concept explained, “To prevent, deter, disrupt, and defeat irregular threats, the U.S. military applies some blend of counterterrorism, unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, counterinsurgency, and stability operations.”
“Unconventional warfare” which, in the Department of Defense’s wooden phrasing, consists of helping “a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power” (is the most problematic component of irregular warfare. While several U.S. government agencies and elements of the military have been involved in it, it has long been a specialty of Army Special Forces. But, as the Syrian fiasco shows, the problem lies not with the mechanics of unconventional warfare but with its broader political and strategic context…