Here's the news out of TRADOC: CAC Stands Up Irregular Warfare Cell by Colonel Chad Clark, Leavenworth Lamp. BLUF: "Irregular warfare is not so irregular. In fact, it is so prevalent and our Army has been engaged in irregular conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan for so long that Soldiers in non-Special Forces units have become proficient in key irregular warfare and counterinsurgency warfighting tasks. Since the end of the Vietnam War, irregular warfare has been the exclusive domain of special operations forces, but now knowledge of irregular warfare tactics has become important for all soldiers."
As an endnote - IW is not exclusively COIN ala Iraq and Afghanistan -- it includes counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, and stability operations. And further - as full disclosure - I proudly worked for the JIWC up until my day-job "went away" - but that aside, my opinion on this matter is not based on that unfortunate turn of events. I think my work here at SWJ speaks volumes in regards to my passion for this subject.
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As a saved round here is a collection of IW-related quotes I began assembling last August when Secretary Gates announced the disestablishment of USJFCOM. "Senior Defense Department Officials Commentary On Irregular Warfare Related Issues" is a collection of quotes (with links) by the "powers to be" via speeches as well as articles published by or reported on a particular DOD official.
Comments
This is something long overdue in TRADOC. There have been far too many similar organizations sucking up manpower/resources with overlapping responsibilities in these domains. We tried to suck up PKSOI under Leavenworth in 2009 but the resistance was strong.
In my SWJ piece "Overdue Bill" I wrote:
"The first and most critical task for TRADOC is to designate a COIN proponent responsible for developing education strategy, training support products, and coordination for all efforts related to its instruction. This responsibility could rest with a new organization, CAC organization, or a TRADOC School/Center for Excellence.3 A proponent, manned with knowledgeable and experienced personnel, would create a more coherent approach to COIN than currently exists. It would exercise key authorities to oversee and implement changes in the education curricula by developing the key training assistance products and standards required to integrate COIN education into the institutional force.
As a corollary, TRADOC requires a single integrator for counterinsurgency. Such an integrator would synchronize the efforts of disparate COIN/IW related organizations, allowing a more coherent approach to counterinsurgency and stability tasks. 4 In addition, such an approach prevents training redundancy and methodological conflicts that exists in the current "thousand points of light" configuration.5 The designated organization requires the authority, expertise, and resources to coordinate and direct implementation of counterinsurgency across the general purpose forces in coordination with the U.S. Army Special Warfare Center and School. Depending on the task analysis, this could be the same office as the COIN proponent recommended above."
Seems like a much needed step in the right direction. Hopefully it results in a more coherent approach to IW (or whatever you prefer to call it) in the force.
Niel
Dave:
Thanks for the saved round - IW Quotes from Senior Defense Officials. You have done a great service for students and researchers. This is just another example of the great value and benefit we receive from the premier web site for critical thinking and discourse on the full range of military and interagency operations.
We receive so much more benefit that it costs us. I hope when people use this great product that you put together that they will not have to think twice about making a contribution to keep this site running. We thank you and Bill and the rest of the team for the sacrifices you have made for the intellectual development of the SWJ community.
This is a good move - I assuming that this will subsume the USA>USMC COIN Center at Ft Leavonworth...?
I've long been an advocate for a better term for the COE that the uber-narrow COIN and have preferred Countering Irregular Threats or even more accurately, Countering Irregular Activity (we'd like to counter it before it becomes a threat) but, in the interests of getting on with 'it', buy totally into the term Irregular Warfare as the over-arching term...thus I couldn't agree more with your last paragraph and I wonder if COL Clark gets that? His statement above seems to imply that IW = SF which is not the case at all. A grasp of 'factors other than pure warfighting' has always been important for any serviceperson that interacts with anyone on the outside (where 'outside' starts and how far it may extend are subjects for debate).
With AirSea Battle heralding major shift of US DoD focus back to MCO, and a greater reliance on regional partners and coalitions for resolving irregularity, and across-the-board of IW concepts will be essential.