For nearly three months in the summer of 1999, India and Pakistan fought what became known as the Kargil conflict. With Pakistan recently joining India as a nuclear power, the conflict played out...
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For nearly three months in the summer of 1999, India and Pakistan fought what became known as the Kargil conflict. With Pakistan recently joining India as a nuclear power, the conflict played out...
In 1949, China hit a historical inflection point with the Chinese Communist Party’s victory over nationalist Kuomintang forces and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. It also marked...
Nearly two years have passed since Russia invaded Ukraine. In the lead-up to the war, European states largely agreed on the importance of supporting Russia, but disagreed about the optimal form—and...
For nearly two months, three powerful dynamics have converged in Gaza: lawfare, a humanitarian crisis, and urban combat. This episode of the Irregular Warfare Podcast examines those subjects and...
When two adversaries confront one another militarily, they are rarely the only participants. Either side might delegate portions of its war efforts to proxies, for example—a subject that has been...
In 1952, Iceland expanded its territorial waters based on a ruling by the International Court of Justice. It triggered a series of confrontations with the United Kingdom that would continue for...
As the global information environment rapidly changes, revisionist states are increasingly enabled to wage information warfare. They leverage networked information systems to sow political chaos in...
On November 4, 1979, fifty-two Americans were seized in Tehran. The 444 days they spent in captivity is one of the most notable cases in recent history of a state actor using hostages to advance its...
What are the fundamental tenets of China's approach to political warfare? What does it look like when Beijing employs political warfare in the real world? And how is it different, in both theory and...
Irregular warfare, by its nature, includes activities that distinguish it from those traditionally conducted by conventional forces. But if congressional oversight is designed with the latter in...
In what ways do irregular warfare and counterinsurgency overlap? Is China engaged in irregular warfare against its adversaries? What are some of the failures of the wars and conflicts of the last...
What happens when authoritarianism expands into online environments? A form of digital repression takes shape. But what does that actually look like? What are the specific ways that authoritarian...
What does it mean when a state’s security sector undergoes what scholars call “elite capture”—a form of corruption in which military and defense resources are leveraged to benefit a small, powerful...
Why do states engage in proxy warfare? How does what scholars call principal-agent theory explain the way proxy warfare actually plays out—particularly the challenges that arise when the interests...
Is it possible to deter adversaries in the cyber domain—and if so, how? What should the US Department of Defense be learning from the role of cyber in the war in Ukraine? How do activities in the...
When the US military set out to combat ISIS in Iraq in the mid-2010s, it did so determined to operate “by, with, and through” partner forces. That approach would prove to have advantages in the case...
In the blurred spaces between peace and war, a contest over influence plays out. But how is the contest won? What are the components of an effective strategy in this gray zone? What role do...
For nearly two decades of constant operations during America’s post-9/11 wars, Army special operations forces played a central role at the tip of the spear. But how will they best contribute to...
For fourteen months, global headlines have been dominated by the war in Ukraine. But while attention has tended to fixate on antitank weapons, artillery systems, and armor, the conflict’s cyber...
It’s been described as the “terrorist’s dilemma”—the trade-offs between maintaining security and exercising command and control that terrorist organizations must make. But how can counterterrorism...
What are the origins of America’s longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity regarding Taiwan? How effective has that strategy been and, more urgently, how effective is it likely to remain? How has...
Editor's note: The Irregular Warfare Initiative has exciting news! In partnership with the Modern War Institute at West Point and Princeton University's Empirical Studies of Conflict program, IWI...
Editor's note: The Irregular Warfare Initiative has exciting news! In partnership with the Modern War Institute at West Point and Princeton University's Empirical Studies of Conflict program, IWI...
As the character of warfare changes, emerging technologies are influencing the direction—and the magnitude—of that change. But what can past technological revolutions teach us as we prepare for the...
The security situation in the Sahel region is complex, daunting, and not improving. The annual number of fatalities caused by conflicts in that part of Africa is estimated to have risen by 50...
Editor's note: The Irregular Warfare Initiative has exciting news! In partnership with the Modern War Institute at West Point and Princeton University's Empirical Studies of Conflict program, IWI...
Episode 73 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast examines the National Defense Strategy and the way it interacts with irregular warfare. Our guests begin by describing the importance of the NDS and the...
Episode 72 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast is the first episode of the special Irregular Warfare Initiative Project Cyber. IWI projects explore critical topics impacting the modern practice,...
Editor’s Note: This article is part of IWI’s Project Maritime, a series exploring the intersection of irregular warfare and the modern maritime dimension. The project aims to contextualize...
Legitimacy—the public’s beliefs in the appropriateness of some behavior—is central to the sustainability of US drone strikes abroad. Research shows that the public does not generally challenge...
In his 1961 book about warfare in Southeast Asia, Street Without Joy, Bernard Fall, the Howard University professor and former French Resistance fighter, explained, “A dead Special Forces sergeant...
Episode 71 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast examines the often misunderstood security dynamics of Somalia and al-Shabaab. Our guests begin by describing the complex security landscape of Somalia....
Over the past fifty years, about two-thirds of all civil wars have occurred in countries where customary traditions of honor and retaliation regulate social life. Firmly embedded in the fabric of...
In 2016, as it was pushing ISIS from its Euphrates valley strongholds in Iraq, the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS weighed how best to speed up the military campaign. The coalition ultimately chose...
In March 2022, the Pentagon released a new National Defense Strategy (NDS) that identified China as the “most consequential strategic competitor” of the United States. The NDS also described two...
Episode 70 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast explores the nuances of India’s approach to counterinsurgency throughout the nation’s history. Our guests assess the Indian counterinsurgency experience,...
Mary Harper, Everything You Have Told Me is True: The Many Faces of Al Shabaab (Hurst, 2019) Despite over a decade of international military interventions, the al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group...
Episode 69 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast examines the evolving relationship between climate change, Arctic security, and geopolitical competition. Our guests begin by describing America’s...
Taiwan and the United States appear to have reached the decade of maximum danger with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). While Taiwan has mostly accepted the need to shift to a “porcupine strategy”...
Episode 68 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast explores aviation advising and how airpower can be a critical aspect of building partner capacity. Our guests begin by highlighting past success of air...
Irregular warfare is fundamental to strategic competition with China and Russia. In his recent congressional testimony, General Richard Clarke described the critical space in which this competition...
Episode 67 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast explores the complicated relationship between US foreign policy and democratic values, and the risks and opportunities associated with exporting liberal...
After a stunning military advance, the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021. This seemingly sudden takeover, with hundreds of districts falling like dominos, took most observers...
Episode 66 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast explores how America’s security cooperation programs can help shape regional security environments by training foreign militaries. Our guests begin by...
The 2022 National Security Strategy focuses on US leadership in strategic competition over the future of international order. The document lays out the threats and challenges the United States faces...
Episode 65 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast explores why violence occurs from the local to the geopolitical level and how conflict can revert back to peace. Our guests today begin by asserting that...
The Russian government’s war on Ukraine has sparked renewed interest in Russian cyber proxies. Before the war began, headlines described “Russian-backed” hackers defacing Ukrainian websites; since...
Episode 64 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast explores the interplay between urban spaces and irregular warfare. Our guests begin by examining how demographic and economic shifts are increasing the...
Sometimes, when it comes to civil war and insurgencies, it’s all in the family. Consider the example of Bashar al-Assad, in Syria. Assad appointed family members to prominent military positions to...
The Department of Defense is working on a new definition of irregular warfare, and the stakes are surprisingly high. The danger lies not just in forgetting whatever was learned from twenty years of...
Episode 63 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast explores the French experience with irregular warfare in the Sahel since 2013. Our guests begin by explaining why the French were involved in combat...
The United States failed in its attempts to build air forces in Iraq and Afghanistan for numerous reasons. Chief among these was policymakers’ excessive ambition: they failed to consider what the US...
According to the 2020 Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy, the United States is underprepared to counter irregular warfare; the dawn of the AI age compounds...
Episode 62 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast explores the diverse concepts that undergird irregular warfare (IW) as a whole. These theoretical structures offer innovative ways to conceptualize and...
On August 25, the US Department of Defense announced sweeping changes to help minimize civilian casualties in war. The “Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan,” or CHMR-AP, followed the...
Episode 61 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast contemplates lessons learned from America’s twenty years of war in Afghanistan. Our guests begin by discussing whether, in the year following the US...
Authors' note: This primer reflects the discussion of an expert panel on resistance as a deliberate strategy featuring Major General Patrick Roberson, Dr. Ulrica Pettersson, Dr. Byron Harper, and...
Of all the lessons of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, one stands out: the importance of achieving dominance in the information domain. From the first days of the war, Ukraine has used...
Episode 60 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast explores both the recent history and the future character of insurgency. Our guests begin by arguing that insurgency will play an important role in great...
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has provoked a belated immune response to Moscow’s political warfare campaign to subvert democracy and exploit systemic weaknesses in Europe and the United States. To be...