Defense Primer: What Is Irregular Warfare?
Introduction
United States military doctrine distinguishes between two
types of warfare: traditional warfare and irregular warfare.
In Department of Defense (DOD) Joint Publication (JP) 1
Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States,
traditional warfare is characterized as “a violent struggle for
domination between nation-states or coalitions and alliances
of nation-states.” The publication further states that
“traditional warfare typically involves force-on-force
military operations in which adversaries employ a variety of
conventional forces and special operations forces (SOF)
against each other in all physical domains as well as the
information environment (IE).” According to JP 3-04
Information in Joint Operations, the IE is “the aggregate of
social, cultural, linguistic, psychological, technical, and
physical factors that affect how humans and automated
systems derive meaning from, act upon, and are impacted
by information, including the individuals, organizations,
and systems that collect, process, disseminate, or use
information.”
In DOD Directive 3000.07 and in other DOD doctrine,
irregular warfare (IW) is characterized as “a violent
struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and
influence over the relevant population(s).” These actors
may use nontraditional methods such as guerrilla warfare,
terrorism, sabotage, subversion, criminal activities, and
insurgency in their efforts to control the target population.
In IW, a less powerful adversary seeks to disrupt or negate
the military capabilities and advantages of a more powerful
military force, which usually serves that nation’s
established government. Because of its emphasis on
influencing populations, actions to control the IE, to include
actions in cyberspace, play a prominent role in IW.
Missions of Irregular Warfare
IW includes, among other activities, the specific missions
of unconventional warfare (UW), stabilization, foreign
internal defense (FID), counterterrorism (CT), and
counterinsurgency (COIN).
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12565/1
