How can the military and civilians work together to prevent or manage conflict? Two seminal policy initiatives, the Stabilization Assistance Review (SAR) and the Global Fragility Act (GFA), provide...
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Irregular Warfare Initiative
Not Just for SOF Anymore: Envisioning Irregular Warfare as a Joint Force Priority
The recent buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine and Chinese naval exercises to the east and west of Taiwan may be seen as evidence that great power competition will require a return to focusing on...
Seven Pillars Revisited: The Myths and Misreadings of T.E. Lawrence
Robert Johnson, Lawrence of Arabia on War: The Campaign in the Desert, 1916–18 (Osprey Publishing, 2020) The iconic figure of T.E. Lawrence remains draped in myth. He appears to modern observers as...
American Vulnerabilities in an Age of Great Power Competition: The Case for Understanding Domestic Extremism through an Irregular Warfare Lens
In the United States, we often analyze distant armed conflicts and counterterrorism efforts as if watching from a remote observation tower. We keep an eye on expeditionary initiatives abroad,...
Armed Overwatch: Airpower in Irregular Warfare—Past, Present and Future
Aviation has played an important role in irregular warfare, from its use by the British against rebellious tribesmen in Iraq and Transjordan in the interwar period to the era of the unblinking eye...
Imperial Policing Redux: The Folly of Staying the Course in Afghanistan
The US military is not an imperial police force. And yet, US policy in Afghanistan and elsewhere over the last two decades has normalized exactly this role. A change seemed possible just last year,...
Pulling Levers, Not Triggers: Beyond Direct and Indirect Approaches to Irregular Warfare
In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory.— Sun Tzu, The Art of War The plan on paper was that the indirect...
The United Kingdom Doubles Down on Covert Operations
Two weeks ago, the British government published its most significant review of defense, security, and foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. It will likely usher in a new era of British...
Learning to Fly: How the US Military can Fix the Problems Plaguing Aviation Advising Missions
In 2017, Afghan Mi-17 helicopters flown by crews from the elite Afghan 777 Special Mission Wing saved the day. Shortly after notification of an ISIS-Khorasan attack on a hospital in Kabul, they...
The Shape of Things to Come: Why the Pentagon Must Embrace Soft Power to Compete with China
Last March, the same week that the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic, three thousand Chinese and Cambodian troops began Exercise Golden Dragon, a series of military...
Countering Terrorism While Competing with Great Power Rivals: Mutually Reinforcing, Not Mutually Exclusive
Since the first American boots hit the ground in Afghanistan in October 2001, countering jihadist terrorism served as the central focus of US national security until the reemergence of great power...
How Small Wars Fit into Big Ones: Lessons from the Masters of Irregular Warfare
Irregular warfare practitioners have played a major role in nearly every war over the past 250 years, according to the guests on this episode. The masters of irregular warfare carry distinct...
Gray is Here to Stay: Principles from the Interim National Security Strategic Guidance on Competing in the Gray Zone
Earlier this month, the White House released its Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, the foreign policy blueprint that will inform the Biden administration’s national security strategy....
Introducing the Irregular Warfare Initiative
Can satire predict reality? Sometimes it definitely seems to. On May 18, 2016, the satirical Duffel Blog reported with tongue firmly in cheek that “the Pentagon's top spokesperson said he was...
The View from Washington: Sen. Joni Ernst and Former Asst. Sec. of Defense Owen West on Civilian Oversight of SOF
Special Operations Forces (SOF) have played a critical role in US counterterrorism operations. But now, as policymakers’ focus shifts from counterterrorism to great power competition, the...
MWI Podcast: The British Army in Iraq and Afghanistan
In this episode of the Modern War Institute Podcast, John Amble is joined by Simon Akam. He is a journalist and the author of a new book, The Changing of the Guard: The British Army Since 9/11. The...
War Entrepreneurs: Economic Drivers of Insurgency, Terrorism, and Crime
What drives illicit violence by substate groups such as terrorists, insurgents, and criminals—and how can states counter these threats? Our two guests argue that social science provides tools to...
Pacific Gambit: The Role of Irregular Warfare in Australia’s Great Strategic Shift
Australia is undergoing the most fundamental strategic realignment since the Second World War, toward a focus on threats closer to home without reliance on the United States. In that context, what...
A Super-Max Failure and the Case for Going Irregular: Recalibrating US Policy Toward Iran
Over the past four years, the United States has taken a more aggressive approach with Iran through the “super-maximum pressure” economic campaign, overt military action, and confrontational...
Institution Building as a Counterinsurgency Tool: The Case of Colombia
In 2016, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace deal, which ended over five decades of guerrilla war. Having provided the Colombian government...
When It’s Over: An American Withdrawal Plan for the Middle East
Is it too early to begin planning for the United States to leave the Middle East? There’s a strong argument to be made it’s not. Over the past few years discussion of the United States decamping...
Competing for Influence: Operations in the Information Environment
Information in its many forms has become a significant component of national power—the primary medium of competition between the United States and its adversaries. Our guests today are both experts...
Artificial Intelligence in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency, with Retired Gen. Stan McChrystal and Dr. Anshu Roy
What role do information and intelligence play in counterinsurgency? How can artificial intelligence assist in tracking and identifying insurgent or terrorist activity? What are some of the...
MWI Podcast: Proxies and American Strategy in Africa
This is a special episode of the MWI Podcast. In it you'll hear a very timely episode of another podcast MWI features. It’s called the Irregular Warfare Podcast, and it is a collaboration between...
Breaking the Boom-Bust Cycle of Irregular Warfare
Where does irregular warfare fit within the framework of national security policy? Does the recently released Irregular Warfare (IW) Annex attenuate focus, or relegate IW to a policy...
Drones are Proving to Have a Destabilizing Effect, Which is Why Counter-Drone Systems Should Be a Key Part of US Military Aid to Partners
On November 9, the six-week-long outbreak of armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in their longstanding dispute over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh ended (or at least paused). Under the...
Russia’s Wagner Group and the Rise of Mercenary Warfare
What role do private military companies (PMCs) such as Russia’s Wagner Group play on the modern battlefield? How should US policymakers and US and allied troops in conflict zones manage threats from...
We Should Treat Disinformation as a Shaping Operation—Because It Is
Disinformation has become the new standard for shaping conflict environments. Great power rivals are reaping the benefits of instability and the fractured faith in our institutions that it has...
The Practice and Politics of Security Force Assistance
When, why, and under what circumstances does security force assistance (SFA) work? Episode 14 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast focuses on best practices of SFA, along with challenges, realistic...
Strengthening America’s Competitive Advantage: A Security Sector Assistance Case Study
In the renewed environment of great power competition, the United States has a distinct competitive advantage: its alliance and partner network. Strengthening those alliances and partnerships...
Ally, Bad Guy, or Both? Thoughts on Reconciling American Values and Questionable Partners, Two Years after the Death of Abdul Raziq
Two years ago, a bodyguard for the provincial governor of Kandahar stormed into a meeting between the governor and several top NATO and Afghan security officials, including Gen. Scott Miller,...
Fighting the CENTCOM OIF Campaign Plan: Lessons for the Future Battlefield
The expected conditions under which the US military will campaign in the twenty-first century differ markedly from those it has experienced during most of the years of America’s post-9/11 wars. That...
David Petraeus on Irregular Warfare and Countering Violent Extremism
How should the United States address threats from violent extremist organizations nearly two decades after the 9/11 attacks? Retired Gen. David Petraeus joins this episode of the Irregular Warfare...
Achieving Information Dominance: What We Can Learn from “SOF Effects Cells”
“We are in a war of ideas.” This is how Murray Dyer, in 1959, described the standoff between the United States and its allies and their Soviet-led adversaries. While some of those adversaries have...
The Costs and Benefits of Unconventional Warfare and Subversion
What are unconventional warfare and foreign subversion? Will they be important in an era of great power competition? What are some of the second- and third-order effects when states use subversion...
Nobody Puts IW in an Annex: It’s Time to Embrace Irregular Warfare as a Strategic Priority
Two years after the release of the National Defense Strategy, the Pentagon has issued a declassified summary of its Irregular Warfare Annex. The seven-page text details how the Department of Defense...
MWI Podcast: The Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is Giving Us a Glimpse into the Future of War
In this episode of the MWI Podcast, John Amble is joined by Dr. Jack Watling. He is Research Fellow for Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute and has been monitoring the conflict...
Counterinsurgency in the Philippines: An Inside Look at Partner Warfare
Episode 11 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast is a deep dive into insurgency and counterinsurgency in the Philippines, presented through the perspectives of both a Republic of the Philippines armed...
Taking “De Oppresso Liber” to the Streets: Why the US Army’s Special Forces Qualification Course Needs to Become More Urban
There are two thousand years of experience to tell us that the only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old idea out.— B. H. Liddell Hart The old military maxim,...
The Defense Department Just Published a Summary of the National Defense Strategy’s Irregular Warfare Annex. Here’s Why It’s so Significant.
This week, the Defense Department released an unclassified summary of the Irregular Warfare (IW) Annex to the National Defense Strategy. It declares that, with respect to IW, the department will...
The Pentagon Bureaucracy and the Human Domain of War
What is the human domain of warfare, and will it be more or less relevant in great power competition? Who should own it? What does it take to change how the Department of Defense thinks about war?...
Are Some Militaries Better at Counterinsurgency than Others?
Are the US Marines better at counterinsurgency than the US Army? How about the British Army? If so, why, and if not then what else might explain success and failure in different COIN campaigns over...
The Missing, Irregular Half of Great Power Competition
The US military has embraced great power competition as its organizing principle, but cannot seem to agree on what the term actually means. While the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) has driven...
The Future of Irregular Warfare
In Episode 8 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast, hosts Nick Lopez and Shawna Sinnott have a conversation with best-selling authors August Cole and P.W. Singer to discuss how they see the future...
Big Data at War: Special Operations Forces, Project Maven, and Twenty-First-Century Warfare
During the Iraq war America’s special operations forces (SOF) demonstrated a remarkable capacity to innovate to accomplish a mission for which they were not prepared—finding and dismantling al-Qaeda...
Proxy Wars, Part 2: Opportunity and Risk in the Middle East
In this episode of the Irregular Warfare Podcast, Shawna Sinnott and Kyle Atwell discuss the history and context of proxy and partner warfare in the Middle East with Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Dr....
MWI Podcast: The Other Foreign Fighters
In this episode of the MWI Podcast, John Amble talks to Joseph Young and Jason Fritz. Together, they have researched an intriguing phenomenon: American citizens who traveled independently to Iraq...
Proxy Wars, Part 1: War Through Local Agents in Africa
In this episode of the Irregular Warfare Podcast, Kyle Atwell and Shawna Sinnott discuss proxy and partner warfare in Africa with retired Maj. Gen. Marcus Hicks and Dr. Eli Berman. This is the first...
Blessed Are the Peacemakers: What Afghanistan Can (Re)Teach Military Planners about Conflict Termination
Despite plenty of recent experience in peacekeeping, Western militaries have largely forgotten how difficult it is to end hostilities in a conflict where they are a belligerent. Military officers...
MWI Podcast: Competition, Conflict, and the Future of Irregular Warfare
In this episode of the Modern War Institute Podcast, John Amble is joined by Dave Stephenson, the director of the Joint Staff’s Office of Irregular Warfare and Competition. The conversation dives...
Inside Insurgency: Nonstate Armed Groups in Syria and Iraq
In this episode of the Irregular Warfare Podcast, Kyle Atwell and Nick Lopez discuss the inner workings of nonstate armed groups in Syria and Iraq with Dr. Vera Mironova of Harvard University and...
MWI Podcast: Security Force Assistance in an Era of Great-Power Competition
In this episode of the MWI Podcast, we're joined by Col. Curt Taylor, commander of the 5th Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB). The SFAB he commands is the final of five such units that the...
Irregular Warfare Oversight in DC
What are the mechanics and politics that determine how the US government approaches irregular conflicts? Hosts Nick Lopez and Kyle Atwell discuss irregular warfare policy formation and management...
Does Building Partner Military Capacity Work?
This episode of the Irregular Warfare Podcast tackles the topic of capacity building. Hosts Shawna Sinnott and Kyle Atwell welcome Dr. Stephen Biddle and Mr. Matt Cancian to discuss the...
Leadership Targeting and Drones: An Effective Counterterrorism Strategy?
The second episode of the Irregular Warfare Podcast, a collaboration between the Modern War Institute and Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, focuses on...
Introducing the Irregular Warfare Podcast – Episode One: “What are Small Wars?”
This is the inaugural episode of a brand-new podcast the Modern War Institute is launching in collaboration with Princeton University's Empirical Studies of Conflict Project. It's called...