science

Irregular warfare

Irregular warfare is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Irregular warfare rather than just read about it. In short: Irregular warfare (IW) is defined in United States joint doctrine as "a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations" and in U.S. law as "Department of Defense activities not involving armed conflict that support predetermined United States policy and military objectives conducted by, with, and through regular forces, irregular forces, groups, and indiv…

Key takeaways

Irregular warfare belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Irregular warfare to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Irregular warfare from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Irregular warfare (IW) is defined in United States joint doctrine as "a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations" and in U.S. law as "Department of Defense activities not involving armed conflict that support predetermined United States policy and military objectives conducted by, with, and through regular forces, irregular forces, groups, and individuals." In practice, control of institutions and infrastructure is also important. Concepts associated with irregular warfare are older than the term itself. Irregular warfare favors indirect warfare and asymmetric warfare approaches, though it may employ the full range of military and other capabilities in order to erode the adversary's power, influence, and will. It is inherently a protracted struggle that will test the resolve of a state and its strategic partners. The term "irregular warfare" in Joint doctrine was settled upon in distinction from "traditional warfare" and "unconventional warfare", and to differentiate it as such; it is unrelated to the distinction between "regular" and "irregular forces".

Terminology

Early usage One of the earliest known uses of the term "irregular warfare" is Charles Edward Callwell's classic 1896 publication for the United Kingdom War Office, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practices, where he noted in defining 'small wars':

Small wars include the partisan warfare which usually arises when trained soldiers are employed in the quelling of sedition and of insurrections in civilised countries; they include campaigns of conquest when a Great Power adds the territory of barbarous races to its possessions; and they include punitive expeditions against tribes bordering upon distant colonies....Whenever a regular army finds itself engaged upon hostilities against irregular forces, or forces which in their armament, their organization, and their discipline are palpably inferior to it, the conditions of the campaign become distinct from the conditions of modern regular warfare, and it is with hostilities of this nature that this volume proposes to deal. Upon the organization of armies for irregular warfare valuable information is to be found in many instructive military works, official and non-official. A similar usage appears in the 1986 English edition of Modern Irregular Warfare in Defense Policy and as a Military Phenomenon by former Nazi officer Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte. The original 1972 German edition of the book is titled Der Moderne Kleinkrieg als Wehrpolitisches und Militarisches Phänomens. The German word "Kleinkrieg" is literally translated as "small war". The word "irregular," used in the title of the English translation, seems to be a reference to non-regular armed forces as per the Third Geneva Convention. Another early use of the term is in a 1996 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) document by Jeffrey B. White. Major military doctrine developments related to IW were done between 2004 and 2007 as a result of the September 11 attacks on the United States. A key proponent of IW within US Department of Defense (DoD) is Michael G. Vickers, a former paramilitary officer in the CIA. The CIA's Special Activities Center (SAC) is the premiere American paramilitary clandestine unit for creating and for combating irregular warfare units. For example, SAC paramilitary officers created and led successful irregular units from the Hmong tribe during the war in Laos in the 1960s, from the Northern Alliance against the Taliban during the war in Afghanistan in 2001, and from the Kurdish Peshmerga against Ansar al-Islam and the forces of Saddam Hussein during the war in Iraq in 2003.

Other definitions IW is a form of warfare that has as its objective the credibility and/or legitimacy of the relevant political authority with the goal of undermining or supporting that authority. IW favors indirect approaches, though it may employ the full range of military and other capabilities to seek asymmetric approaches in order to erode an adversary's power, influence, and will. IW is defined as a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s). IW involves conflicts in which enemy combatants are not regular military forces of nation-states. IW is "war among the people" as opposed to "industrial war" (i.e., regular war).

Activities

Activities and types of conflict included in IW are:

Asymmetric warfare Civil-military operations (CMO) Colonial war Foreign internal defense (FID) Guerrilla warfare (GW) Insurgency/Counter-insurgency (COIN) Law enforcement activities focused on countering irregular adversaries Military Intelligence and counter-intelligence activities Stabilization, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction Operations (SSTRO) Terrorism/Counter-terrorism Transnational criminal activities that support or sustain IW: narco-trafficking Illicit arms trafficking illegal financial transactions Unconventional warfare (UW) According to the DoD, there are five core activities of IW:

Counter-insurgency (COIN) Counter-terrorism (CT) Unconventional warfare (UW) Foreign internal defense (FID) Stabilization Operations (SO)

Modeling and simulation As a result of DoD Directive 3000.07, United States armed forces are studying irregular warfare concepts using modeling and simulation.

Examples

Nearly all modern wars include at least some element of irregular warfare. Since the time of Napoleon, approximately 80% of conflict has been irregular in nature. However, the following conflicts may be considered to have exemplified by irregular warfare:

Afghan Civil War Algerian War American Indian Wars American Revolutionary War Arab Revolt Chinese Civil War Cuban Revolution First Chechen War First Sudanese Civil War Iraq War Kosovo War Lebanese Civil War Mexican drug war Portuguese Colonial War Rwanda Civil War Second Boer War Second Chechen War Second Sudanese Civil War Somali Civil War Philippine-American War The Troubles Vietnam War Libyan Civil War (2011) Syrian Civil War Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017) Second Libyan Civil War Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)

Wargames and exercises

There have been several military wargames and military exercises associated with IW, including:

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Irregular warfare

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Irregular warfare claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Irregular warfare before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Irregular warfare ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Irregular warfare

In research: Irregular warfare appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Irregular warfare in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Irregular warfare is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Guerrilla warfare tactics, Military doctrines, Military science, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Irregular warfare outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Irregular warfare in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Irregular warfare means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Irregular warfare out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Irregular warfare in simple terms?

Why does Irregular warfare matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Irregular warfare?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Irregular warfare.