Irregular warfare will win ‘strategic competition’

Imagine a group of former Pentagon officials, retired senior military officers, and think tank experts gathered around a table and staring at a hexagonal map of Taiwan. Quietly they move pieces around the board: F-35 fighter jets, aircraft carriers, Marine units. Their mission is to defeat a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. War gaming has become a cottage industry inside the Beltway, led by the Pentagon and think tanks, to develop “evidence-based” strategies. Rightly, the Defense Department must study how to win against China and/or Russia in “strategic competition,” should it become a shooting war.  

But here’s the problem: It will not happen, at least not like this, and we may be learning the wrong lessons. As the Cold War teaches, competition between nuclear great powers risks World War III Armageddon, and why the USA and USSR avoided putting their troops into direct conflict. The nature of war is escalation, and no one wanted another 1914 Sarajevo moment with nukes. Both sides maintained large conventional forces and nuclear arsenals for deterrence, but the actual fighting was done through “irregular warfare,” such as political warfare and proxy wars. It’s why the U.S. Army Special Forces, or “Green Berets,” were founded, how Stinger missiles broke the USSR’s back in Afghanistan, and how Javelin anti-tank missiles blunted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Today’s defense community has forgotten that strategic competition is won through irregular warfare — a dangerous mistake. Taiwan wargamers view ultimate “competition” as conventional warfare, and recreate the Battle of Midway in the Taiwan Straits with Ford-class carriers and F-35s. It proves the saying: “Generals always fight the last war, especially if they won it.” The conflict probably would go nuclear in hours or days, and the gamers’ artificially prolonged conventional war phase is fantasy. 

Policymakers are equally misguided. Of the $780 billion defense budget, the Pentagon is overwhelmingly buying conventional war weapons like fighter jets and navy ships while ignoring irregular war capabilities. The budget for U.S. Special Operations Command, which oversees all American special operators everywhere, is 75 percent the cost of an aircraft carrier, and we’re building three at $13.3 billion a ship, with two more planned. Budgets are moral documents because they do not lie. The Defense Department is preparing for a war with China that looks like World War II with better technology, an improbable scenario.

But there is a growing insurgency within the U.S. military that seeks to revitalize our nation’s irregular warfare capacity, beyond simply kicking in doors and bagging terrorists. That’s a sliver of what irregular warfare entails, and what was demanded of irregular warriors over the past 20 years. But strategic competition is a different fight, and we need strategies beyond board games to deal with it. Consequently, Congress authorized the creation of a “Functional Center for Security Studies in Irregular Warfare” in Section 1299L of the Mac Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act of 2021. The center should fill critical gaps between thought leaders, irregular warriors, and international partners. Done well, it will vastly improve our irregular warfighting capabilities and understanding.

However, there are four pitfalls the Irregular Warfare Center (or whatever it will be called) must avoid. First, it should not “reinvent the wheel.” There is a relatively small but robust infrastructure within the Defense Department that already delivers elements of the center’s mission. The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC) provides policy guidance. War colleges and regional centers teach aspects of irregular warfare, albeit too “stove-piped.” The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) brings allied nations into the mix, creating an impressive force multiplier. The Pentagon’s “J7” directorate, run by a three-star, oversees the ideas and education portion of irregular warfare. The list goes on. The center would be smart to help galvanize this cat herd, rather than making another bureaucratic layer.

Second, some think the center should be housed at a civilian university, but this would be a mistake. Most universities eschew the study of war as distasteful, and academic literature is notoriously left-wing. It’s why war colleges exist. Last year, the director of Yale University’s Grand Strategy Program resigned in controversy over her public disdain for Henry Kissinger and teaching Black Lives Matter and “Strategies of U.S. Social Change.” When Yale demurred, she caviled it had succumbed to “donor pressure.” Yale’s Faculty Senate and History Department backed her up, stating professors and programs should never be “under outside surveillance.” Not a good omen for the Defense Department. Additionally, exceedingly few professors specialize in irregular warfare strategy, and there are zero programs dedicated to the topic. Housing the center at a place full of rookies makes no sense. The Defense Department’s desire to leverage academic institutions is principled but unwise.

Third, to do its job, the center must constantly interact with warfighters, the interagency, and policymakers, and that means Washington, D.C. You cannot influence from afar. The National Defense University might be the optimal choice because it’s located in D.C. and is the Defense Department’s premiere senior service school. It houses five war colleges, three regional centers, and a research arm. It offers an accredited master’s degree in Security Studies and its students are exclusively senior leaders (15+ years of service) from across the military, interagency and allied nations, and all are moving up in their organizations. This is the exact population the center is tasked to influence.

Fourth, some in the Pentagon overlook the importance of allies and imagine the center as inherently inward gazing. We are delusional if we think we can “go it alone.” Building partnership capacity is a form of integrated deterrence and mutual strength, which is why Congress created the Regional Defense Combating Terrorism and Irregular Warfare Fellowship Program, managed by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA). It has produced 20,000 alumni from 120 countries and maintains an active network of 7,000 alumni globally. The network supports their own nations’ and U.S. national interests.

In some ways, the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) offers a blueprint for the new center. It’s the U.S. military’s “Irregular War College” and resides at the National Defense University and Fort Bragg, home of the U.S. Army Special Operations Forces. Unlike civilian colleges, its faculty are 100 percent irregular warfare specialists who are recognized thought leaders, and many serve as adjunct faculty at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. The other two-thirds of faculty are seasoned irregular warfare practitioners drawn from the military and interagency, who teach things you can’t learn in books. No one at CISA minds “donor pressure” or “outside surveillance” (a.k.a., accountability). Per the center’s mission, CISA offers an accredited master’s in Security Studies with the focus on irregular warfare. Its student body are senior leaders from the military, interagency and allies — the “Irregular Warfare Fellows” mentioned above and managed by DSCA. The college has a full-time staffer who actively maintains a global alumni network of irregular warfighters that has helped U.S. efforts in Ukraine, Jordan, Mali and elsewhere.

The Irregular Warfare Center should not be housed at CISA but the two should work symbiotically together, alongside other organizations dedicated to the irregular warfare cause. After all, irregular warfare requires more brains than firepower. Or, as T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) put it: Irregular warfare “is far more intellectual than a bayonet charge.”

Sean McFate is the author of “The New Rules of War: How America Can Win — Against Russia, China, and Other Threats.” He is a professor at the College of International Security Affairs, Georgetown University, Syracuse University, and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Follow him on Twitter @seanmcfate.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.