Making Sense of Irregular War by Joe Brown, Over the Horizon

In this article, Joe Brown reminds us that most conflict does not involve state-on-state military confrontation. When it comes to multi-domain thinking, one must not only consider multi-domain actions in large-scale war, but also how to apply multi-domain solutions across the range of military options and effectively use all national instruments of power. Keep this in mind as the author helps us make sense of irregular warfare.

Irregular war is an abused and non-intuitive term. It has become a catch-all phrase for any type of conflict which departs from the type of army-on-army, set-piece battle about which the History Channel likes to make documentaries. The term is often conflated and used interchangeably with unconventional, revolutionary, asymmetric, guerrilla, insurgent, civil, hybrid, and even terroristic war. In its etymological formulation, it connotes war that is not normal, deviant, or rare. This connotation is inaccurate and misleading because most armed conflict since 1945 has been of the irregular variety. Irregular wars have also been regarded as a lesser set of conflicts, described using terms such as “small wars” and “brushfire wars.” The implication is that these wars are easier and preparation for “regular” war, i.e. state-on-state conflict, is more than sufficient. This attitude has decreased after the humbling US experiences in Vietnam and Iraq, but the term still muddies the issues. Why is there so much confusion about irregular warfare?

To disentangle the confusing mess of irregular war, we must address four questions:

1. What do we mean by irregular war?
2. What is the central problem?
3. What is the fundamental solution?
4. What can an external actor do about it?

As a guide to practical action, we must address each of these questions in turn…

Read on.

Defense Secretary Mattis Arrives at Only U.S. Base in Africa

Carla Babb

Voice of America

DJIBOUTI - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is in Djibouti, the tiny east African nation that’s home to the United States’ only military base on the continent.

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis is greeted by Djibouti's Minister of Defense Ali Hasan Bahdon as he arrives at Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport in Ambouli, Djibouti, April 23, 2017.

Mattis arrived Sunday at Camp Lemonnier before visiting the Djiboutian president and minister of defense.

Officials say Camp Lemonnier is one of the most strategically important areas for the United States military due to its geographic location.

A Chinese naval base and U.S. base Camp Lemonnier, in Djibouti.

The base is critical for U.S. exercises and operations on the continent, and U.S. special forces use the facility to conduct counter-terror operations against al-Shabab in neighboring Somalia, according to officials.

Mattis’ visit to Djibouti comes less than a month after the White House approved a Pentagon proposal to allow the head of Africa Command to launch offensive attacks against al-Shabab militants in Somalia in support of partner forces.

The new directive clears the way for more U.S. presence on the ground and more leeway for U.S. strikes against the militant group. Before, the U.S. was targeting al-Shabab in what they called “self-defense” operations, which the military said protected U.S. advisers operating on the ground with Somali and African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) forces.

Officials say the new mandate “hasn’t changed much” on the ground so far and is mainly representative of the president’s and the defense secretary’s desire to “empower” combatant commanders with “more flexibility.”

“It’s just that now Washington doesn’t have to approve every strike there,” one official said.

Camp Lemonnier is important for military operations in the Middle East as well, with the narrow Bab al-Mandeb strait the only separation between Djibouti and Yemen. Dozens of commercial and military ships travel through the strategic strip of water every day, and the deep Djiboutian port on the strait is used by the US Navy, the French navy and about 10 other navies, according to a U.S. official.

Chinese Presence

The U.S. will soon see another military neighbor in Djibouti when China completes construction of its first overseas military base.

General Thomas Waldhauser, the head of U.S. Africa Command, recently said it will be the closest facility that a “peer competitor” has ever had to a U.S. base, which he said raises some “security concerns.”

Another U.S. official told reporters the U.S. concerns include the “standard counter-intelligence kind” that come anytime you have forces operating within close proximity.

The official said that, at this point, the U.S. sees no reason why its forces cannot “comfortably coexist” with the Chinese in the area, adding that many of the concerns about the Chinese are similar to French feelings when the U.S. arrived in Djibouti.

“Any time it gets a little more crowded, you start to have concerns about ‘how will this affect me,’ ‘how will it affect my operations (and) “how will this affect my relationship with the partner nation,” the official said.

Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Rudy DeLeon told VOA the Chinese base is a bid to increase Beijing's “heavy presence” in the Horn of Africa.

“It’s not traditional Western soft power, where it is a humanitarian mission, because China’s got a clear interest in the resources that are there,” DeLeon said.

While many of the people in the region are poor, the lands and coastal sea floors are rich with minerals, petroleum, gold and natural gas.

DeLeon said Chinese interest in developing some of the poorest areas in the region could be “constructive,” especially as the areas are battling a destructive drought.

Mattis is the first U.S. secretary of defense to visit to the base in Djibouti since Leon Panetta in 2005.