Unconventional warfare (UW) is the support of a foreign insurgency or resistance movement against its government or an occupying power. Whereas conventional warfare is used to reduce the opponent's military capability directly through attacks and maneuvers, unconventional warfare is an attempt to achieve victory indirectly through a proxy force. Unconventional contrasts with conventional warfare in that forces are often covert or not well-defined, and subversion and guerrilla warfare are relied upon.
Two original definitions of unconventional warfare are: "The intent of U.S. Unconventional Warfare efforts is to exploit a hostile power’s political, military, economic, and psychological vulnerabilities by developing and sustaining resistance forces to accomplish U.S. strategic objectives", or according to John F. Kennedy:
There is another type of warfare— new in its intensity, ancient in its origin—war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins; war by ambush instead of by combat, by infiltration instead of aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him. It preys on unrest.[1]
Unconventional warfare targets the civilian population psychologically to win hearts and minds, and only targets military and political bodies for that purpose, seeking to render the military proficiency of the enemy irrelevant. Limited conventional warfare tactics can be used unconventionally to demonstrate might and power, rather than to reduce the enemy's ability to fight substantially. In addition to the surgical application of traditional weapons, other armaments that specifically target the military can be used are: airstrikes, nuclear weapons, incendiary devices, or other such weapons.
Special Forces, inserted deep behind enemy lines, are used unconventionally to train, equip, and advise locals who oppose their government. They can also spread subversion and propaganda, while they aid native resistance fighters, to ultimately cause a hostile government to capitulate. Tactics focus on destroying military targets while avoiding damage to civilian infrastructure and blockading military resupply are used to decrease the morale of government forces.[2]
Unconventional warfare structure by guerrilla organizations.
The USA Department of Defense defines unconventional warfare as activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force in a denied area. Also called UW.[3]
History
The advent of the Atomic Age changed forever philosophies of conventional warfare, and the necessity to conceal authorship of actions by hostile states. The age of asymmetric, or unconventional warfare & terrorism had begun.[4]
One of the first references is in "Manpower and Atomic War," [5] which Edward Fitzpatrick referred to as "the next kind of war- technological war, machine war, or atomic war."
Using soft power methods, to target civilians instead of military units, however had begun earlier, particularly as a strategy for use against Republics.[6] These were developed as a tool of national socialism,[7] or neo-liberalism,[8] and evolved into other doctrines.
There is an overlap in the world of Corporate Security & Defense Contracting where these models have extended to the field of Risk assessment.[9] One of the first instances of Unconventional Warfare techniques against civilians was documented by the La Follette Committee.
^Kitzen M. (2020) Operations in Irregular Warfare. In: Sookermany A. (eds) Handbook of Military Sciences. p. 1-21. Springer, Cham doi:10.1007/978-3-030-02866-4_81-1
^ Fitzpatrick, Edward A. (1951), Manpower and Atomic War, vol. 278, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, p. 126-136 Also see: United States, President's Advisory Commission on Universal Training (29 May 1947), A program for national security, Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., p. 14, OCLC500618, Second, and equal in importance to the first, we must have trained men in every part of our own country ready and able to meet disorder, sabotage, and even invasion.
^Paddock Jr., Alfred H., US Army Specical Warfare, Its Origins: Psychological and Unconventional Warfare, 1941-1952, Minerva, Carroll's study, forwarded to Draper on 24 February 1949, recommended that a separate "unit" be established to take charge of the Army's psychological warfare responsibilities.; Wood, Gordon S. (1990), Classical republicanism and the American Revolution, vol. 13, Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 66, republicanism. . . offered new conceptions of the individual, the family, the state, and the individual's relationship to the family, the state, and other individuals.
^Pollock, Frederick (1941), Is National Socialism a new order?, vol. 9, Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, p. 440-455
^Mayo, Elton (1966), The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization, London: Routledge & Kegan
^Heath, R. L., Catalytic model of issues management. In Encyclopedia of public relations, vol. 1, SAGE Publications, Inc., p. 101; de Becker, G., Intervention decisions: The value of flexibility. White paper report prepared for the 1994 CIA Threat Management Conference
External links
Insurgency Research Group – Multi-expert blog dedicated to the study of insurgency and the development of counter-insurgency policy.
