Assessing Irregular Warfare

Provides an analytic framework and procedure for the intelligence analysis of irregular warfare (IW) environments that can serve as the basis for IW intelligence curriculum development efforts. Defines IW in terms of two stylized situations: population-centric (such as counterinsurgency) and counterterrorism. Provides a detailed review of IW-relevant defense policy and strategy documents and a list of relevant doctrinal publications.

The aim of this study was to assist the Department of the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) in better understanding the intelligence analytic requirements of irregular warfare (IW). To do this, RAND was to develop an analytic framework for IW that could be used as the basis for an educational and training curriculum that would enhance NGIC analysts' capabilities for assessing IW situations. The outcomes of IW situations depend on both the level of one's understanding of the population and the deftness with which non-military and indirect means are employed to influence and build legitimacy. Accordingly, the study team's principal efforts were devoted to developing an analytic framework for understanding IW situations, whether population-centric (such as counterinsurgency) or counterterrorism, that focused on "irregular features" of the operating environment -- that is, the central environmental and operational variables whose interplay determines the overall trajectory of an irregular conflict toward either success or failure. The central idea of the framework is that it is an analytic procedure by which an analyst, beginning with a generic and broad understanding of a conflict and its environment and then engaging in successively more-focused and more-detailed analyses of selective topics, can develop an understanding of the conflict and can uncover the key drivers behind such phenomena as orientation toward principal protagonists in the conflict, mobilization, and recruitment, and choice of political bargaining or violence. Put another way, the framework allows the analyst to efficiently decompose and understand the features of IW situations -- whether they are of the population-centric or the counterterrorism variety -- by illuminating areas in which additional detailed analysis could matter and areas in which it probably will not matter. This analytic procedure involves three main activities and eight discrete steps.

Today's protracted asymmetrical conflicts confuse efforts to measure progress, often inviting politics and wishful thinking to replace objective evaluation. In Assessing War, military historians, social scientists, and military officers explore how observers have analyzed the trajectory of war in American conflicts from the Seven Years’ War through the war in Afghanistan. Drawing on decades of acquired expertise, the contributors examine wartime assessment in both theory and practice and, through alternative dimensions of assessment such as justice and proportionality, the war of ideas and economics. This group of distinguished authors grapples with both conventional and irregular wars and emerging aspects of conflict—such as cyberwar and nation building—that add to the complexities of the modern threat environment. The volume ends with recommendations for practitioners on best approaches while offering sobering conclusions about the challenges of assessing war without politicization or self-delusion. Covering conflicts from the eighteenth century to today, Assessing War blends focused advice and a uniquely broad set of case studies to ponder vital questions about warfare's past—and its future. The book includes a foreword by Gen. George W. Casey Jr. (USA, Ret.), former chief of staff of the US Army and former commander, Multi-National Force–Iraq.

Although irregular warfare includes a range of activities in which naval forces have played an integral role, there has been little examination of the characteristics or potential of such operations in maritime environments. An assessment of the maritime component of a series of historical and ongoing operations reveals that current notions of irregular warfare would benefit from increased recognition of potential maritime contributions.

The 2018 U.S. National Defense Strategy made headlines by officially downgrading terrorism as a national security priority in favor of "inter-state strategic competition." Many interpreted the statement as signifying a return to "conventional combat," yet a closer reading suggests that even state-based competition is likely to be "irregular." Much like insurgent adversaries, states blend separate instruments of power to offset military weakness, weaponize narratives to ease strategic progress, and exploit social and political contradictions to undermine and divide target societies. The effort to understand this approach has generated new jargon-"hybrid war," "the gray zone"-yet the United States and the West in general struggle to overcome their entrenched presumptions about war. Such confusion constitutes an upstream source of analytical friction with implications for how strategy is conceived and implemented. Based on the pedagogical approach of the College of International Security Affairs within the National Defense University, this article presents an analytical framework to assess and respond to irregular threats. Though terminological precision and analytical frameworks are no panacea for the malaise facing Western strategy, it is an indispensable starting point for all that must follow.

A thought provoking essay on the possible implications of irregular warfare in national military strategy.

An internationally-recognized authority on constitutional law, national security law, and counterterrorism, William C. Banks believes changing patterns of global conflict are forcing a reexamination of the traditional laws of war. The Hague Rules, the customary laws of war, and the post-1949 law of armed conflict no longer account for nonstate groups waging prolonged campaigns of terrorism—or even more conventional insurgent attacks. Recognizing that many of today's conflicts are low-intensity, asymmetrical wars fought between disparate military forces, Banks's collection analyzes nonstate armed groups and irregular forces (such as terrorist and insurgent groups, paramilitaries, child soldiers, civilians participating in hostilities, and private military firms) and their challenge to international humanitarian law. Both he and his contributors believe gaps in the laws of war leave modern battlefields largely unregulated, and they fear state parties suffer without guidelines for responding to terrorists and their asymmetrical tactics, such as the targeting of civilians. These gaps also embolden weaker, nonstate combatants to exploit forbidden strategies and violate the laws of war. Attuned to the contested nature of post-9/11 security and policy, this collection juxtaposes diverse perspectives on existing laws and their application in contemporary conflict. It sets forth a legal definition of new wars, describes the status of new actors, charts the evolution of the twenty-first-century battlefield, and balances humanitarian priorities with military necessity. While the contributors contest each other, they ultimately reestablish the legitimacy of a long-standing legal corpus, and they rehumanize an environment in which the most vulnerable targets, civilian populations, are themselves becoming weapons against conventional power.

When Joint Special Operations Command deployed Task Force 714 to Iraq in 2003, it faced an adversary unlike any it had previously encountered: al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). AQI’s organization into multiple, independent networks and its application of Information Age technologies allowed it to wage war across a vast landscape. To meet this unique threat, TF 714 developed the intelligence capacity to operate inside those networks, and in the words of commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal, USA (Ret.) “claw the guts out of AQI.” In Transforming US Intelligence for Irregular War, Richard H. Shultz Jr. provides a broad discussion of the role of intelligence in combatting nonstate militants and revisits this moment of innovation during the Iraq War, showing how the defense and intelligence communities can adapt to new and evolving foes. Shultz tells the story of how TF 714 partnered with US intelligence agencies to dismantle AQI’s secret networks by eliminating many of its key leaders. He also reveals how TF 714 altered its methods and practices of intelligence collection, intelligence analysis, and covert paramilitary operations to suppress AQI’s growing insurgency and, ultimately, destroy its networked infrastructure. TF 714 remains an exemplar of successful organizational learning and adaptation in the midst of modern warfare. By examining its innovations, Shultz makes a compelling case for intelligence leading the way in future campaigns against nonstate armed groups.