Irregular Warfare in a New Era of Great-Power Competition
Jeff Goodson | May 20, 2020
Rooted in Francis Fukuyama’s idea that the end of history was near, the end of the Cold War saw renewed enthusiasm for the liberal international order. That notion proved both illusory and short lived. By 2014, marked by China’s territorial aggression in the South China Sea and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the reality of great-power competition in a multipolar world had returned to define how the world is ordered in fact.
First acknowledged in the 2015 US National Military Strategy, great-power competition became the conceptual framework upon which current US security and defense strategies are predicated. These strategies represent a departure from those that underpinned much of America’s post-9/11 wars—with their heavy components of irregular warfare—but that does not mean a departure from irregular warfare itself. Instead, this strategic emphasis on great-power competition is changing when, where, and how the United States conducts irregular warfare—counterterrorism, unconventional warfare, counterinsurgency, foreign internal defense, and stability operations. The changes most directly affect US special operations forces.
https://mwi.usma.edu/irregular-warfare-new-era-great-power-competition/
