New Policy: Irregular Warfare

U.S. To Raise ‘Irregular War’ Capabilities, (Washington Post)…Ann Scott Tyson, Dec 4, 2008

The Pentagon this week approved a major policy directive that elevates the military’s mission of “irregular warfare” — the increasingly prevalent campaigns to battle insurgents and terrorists, often with foreign partners and sometimes clandestinely — to an equal footing with traditional combat.

The policy, a result of more than a year of debate in the defense establishment, is part of a broader overhaul of the U.S. military’s role as the threat of large-scale combat against other nations’ armies has waned and new dangers have arisen from shadowy non-state actors, such as terrorists that target civilian populations.

“The U.S. has considerable overmatch in traditional capabilities . . . and more and more adversaries have realized it’s better to take us on in an asymmetric fashion,” said Michael G. Vickers, assistant secretary of defense for special operations/low-intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities, and a chief architect of the policy.

The new, 12-page directive states that irregular warfare “is as strategically important as traditional warfare.”

Defined as “a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s),” irregular warfare “favors indirect and asymmetric approaches . . . to erode an adversary’s power, influence, and will,” the directive states.