The First Rule of Fight Club and Irregular Warfare Should be the Same
By David Maxwell
“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Scholars, practitioners, and policymakers continue to contemplate the definition of irregular warfare (IW) and what it means for U.S. national security and defense strategy. Many electrons are flowing through cyberspace with debates and arguments about what constitutes irregular warfare, why it is or is not important, who should conduct it (e.g., specific forces or all forces) and how it should be taught in professional military education.
Recently a mentor and expert on China and Special Operations pointed some of us to a 2021 Modern Warfare Institute article, “China’s Irregular Approach to War: The Myth of a Purely Conventional Future Fight,” with this excerpt about China and irregular warfare.
The term “irregular warfare” does not itself appear frequently in Chinese military writing. Ironically, this is a sign of its centrality. Irregular warfare activities are so fully integrated with conventional tactics and operations that they are not identified as “irregular.” The leadership of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) no longer sees utility in the conventional “people’s war” approach, which involved human-wave attacks in land-centric battles. The PLA is now preparing to fight concurrently across multiple domains, is focused on winning what it calls “informationized wars,” and takes information superiority as the driver of operational planning. Many elements of irregular warfare, such as psychological warfare, legal warfare, and cyberwarfare, are central to the PLA’s concept of information warfare and its theory of victory in a conventional conflict. In Chinese military writing and current operations, we find three principal elements of irregular warfare: the “three warfares,” special operations forces, and paramilitary forces.
The key point of this excerpt is that by not talking about irregular warfare China indicates its importance. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has evolved from its concept of “People’s War” which could be considered a loose parallel to large scale combat operations (LCSO) to a focus on a broader form of warfare which has been described in the seminal work of two PLA colonels in 1999 as “Unrestricted Warfare.”
Like the film “Fight Club,” it seems for the PLA the first rule of irregular warfare is to not talk about irregular warfare even as they are intensely practicing their own form of it.
There are two observations from Unrestricted Warfare that reinforce this “rule.” First, "unrestricted warfare" is used only three times in the entire 224 page document; on the title page, in the introduction (page 12) and the last sentence of the last paragraph on the last page (page 219). Consider how many times the words “irregular warfare” are used in U.S. manuals, directives, and concepts. As a point of reference in one version of the Joint Publication 3-05 Doctrine for Special Operations, the term “special operations” is used some 306 times. In the DODD 3000.7 Irregular Warfare “irregular warfare is used three times and IW is used 60 times. The U.S. military seems to violate the Chinese rules of IW - the first rule of IW is “don't talk about IW.” Maybe IW is just not that important in the U.S. Or perhaps it is.
U.S National Defense Strategies, Irregular Warfare, and Unrestricted Warfare
Like many, I have been guilty of assessing the importance of particular concepts by the simple standard of noting how many times the concept is mentioned in major strategic documents. In 2020 IW seemed very important. Then DOD published an entire irregular warfare annex to the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) using “irregular warfare” 41 times and “IW” 46 times. Yet in the 2022 National Defense Strategy “irregular warfare” is only used twice, once in the context of Iran (page 15) and once associated with integrated deterrence (page 9). The department seems to have shifted to the “gray zone” (used 12 times) as the major descriptor for irregular warfare and the historical low intensity conflict. Perhaps like the Chinese, the Department is describing the centrality of irregular warfare by only using the terminology sparingly.
Since the Secretary of Defense has deemed China as the strategic pacing item for the Department of Defense, consider these excerpts from Unrestricted Warfare and note that the authors are applying the concept of Unrestricted Warfare against the United States. These excerpts really describe the heart of strategic competition and operations in the gray zone and the threats the U.S. and like-minded countries face. Again, these two excerpts are the only references to unrestricted warfare in the entire 224 page text indicting their importance to China.
Introduction:
War in the age of technological integration and globalization has eliminated the right of weapons to label war and, with regard to the new starting point, has realigned the relationship of weapons to war, while the appearance of weapons of new concepts, and particularly new concepts of weapons, has gradually blurred the face of war. Does a single "hacker" attack count as a hostile act or not? Can using financial instruments to destroy a country's economy be seen as a battle? Did CNN's broadcast of an exposed corpse of a U.S. soldier in the streets of Mogadishu shake the determination of the Americans to act as the world's policeman, thereby altering the world's strategic situation? And should an assessment of wartime actions look at the means or the results? Obviously, proceeding with the traditional definition of war in mind, there is no longer any way to answer the above questions. When we suddenly realize that all these non-war actions may be the new factors constituting future warfare, we have to come up with a new name for this new form of war: Warfare which transcends all boundaries and limits, in short: unrestricted warfare. (page 12)
Conclusion:
Although the boundaries between soldiers and non-soldiers have now been broken down, and the chasm between warfare and non-warfare nearly filled up, globalization has made all the tough problems interconnected and interlocking, and we must find a key for that. The key should be able to open all the locks, if these locks are on the front door of war. And this key must be suited to all the levels and dimensions, from war policy, strategy, and operational techniques to tactics; and it must also fit the hands of individuals, from politicians and generals to the common soldiers.
We [the PLA authors] can think of no other more appropriate key than "unrestricted warfare." (page 219)
In 1948, George Kennan would have described this as political warfare which arguably was a key guiding concept throughout the Cold War.
Political warfare is the logical application of Clausewitz's doctrine in time of peace. In broadest definition, political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation's command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives. Such operations are both overt and covert. They range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures (as ERP--the Marshall Plan), and "white" propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of "friendly" foreign elements, "black" psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.
In addition, consider this interview excerpt from the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) editor's notes accompanying the translation of unrestricted warfare. It describes the type of strategic competition China assesses the U.S. is conducting.
In the Zhongguo Qingnian Bao interview, Qiao was quoted as stating that "the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden." Elaborating on this idea, he asserted that strong countries would not use the same approach against weak countries because "strong countries make the rules while rising ones break them and exploit loopholes . . .The United States breaks [UN rules] and makes new ones when these rules don't suit [its purposes], but it has to observe its own rules or the whole world will not trust it." (see FBIS translation of the interview, OW2807114599)
From this it is understandable why China has developed the “Three Warfares” to compete with the U.S. – psychological warfare, legal warfare (lawfare), and media or public opinion warfare.
Jargon and Buzzwords
We spend so much time on our jargon and terminology and we spend so much time debating and expending a lot of energy arguing over terminology. This has long been a hobby horse of mine. In "Threats and the Words We Use: A Thought Experiment" I use the arguments of Clausewitz and the late Colin Gray to say that we are too dependent on jargon. Rather than relying on doctrinal terms or worse, buzzwords or phrases, we need to be able to describe the strategic environment, U.S. national interests, and actions and activities in plain language. The following chart illustrates a history of trying to describe what Congress called Low Intensity Conflict (LIC) in 1987. We try to come up with pithy new terms and it is possible that it has caused definition and terminology paralysis in strategic thinking.
The new buzzword, whatever it is, will not solve anything and certainly not everything.
Low Intensity Conflict and Irregular Warfare
Irregular warfare is today's low intensity conflict. The intent of the Nunn Cohen Amendment of Goldwater Nichols was that all things related to LIC were to fall under the responsibility of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (ASD SO/LIC) and, by extension, the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and then by relation, USSOCOM). This is another important issue: Should we meet the Nunn-Cohen intent and have ASD SO/LIC responsible for overseeing all IW related activities for DOD?
But rather than understanding the changing character of war we have spent decades trying to come up with pithy new terms.
Every proposed term, whether old (e.g., political warfare 1948), relatively new one (e.g., asymmetric warfare or hybrid warfare), or the reincarnation of irregular warfare in 2007, or today’s gray zone have a lot of heavy accompanying baggage. All have “antibodies” among many constituencies in the national security community: DOD, Services, State, academia/think tanks, press, pundits, politicians, policy makers and the public. Every proposed term has resistance among one and often more of these constituencies.
It may be time to stop focusing so hard on terms and definition. The two terms that are most appropriate for strategic competition with China today are irregular warfare and political warfare with irregular warfare as the military contribution to a national level political warfare strategy. Yet are two of the most disliked terms within the national security community. Yet if only their descriptions were provided there would likely be concession that the actions and activities described are necessary for strategic competition. Maybe irregular warfare and political warfare should simply be internalized with the national security community and the military and from this day forward should never be spoken of again. Instead, policymakers, strategists, and planners should shift to only describing the activities in plain to avoid the controversy generated by such terms. Rather than struggle for agreement on pithy new terms, it is time to direct the intellectual capital to understanding the strategic environment and developing policies, strategy and campaign using plain language free of jargon and buzzwords. The 2022 National Defense Strategy may be showing us the way forward on irregular forward by minimizing its use. The NDS recognizes the centrality of irregular warfare to U.S. national security and has done so by adopting the first rule and fight club and irregular warfare.
The above is naïve and pure fantasy. We will never give up the quest for the doctrinal term that will solve all our problems. It is in our DNA. And we cannot nor do we want to be like the Chinese (though we can learn lessons from them). Rather than argue over such terms as political warfare and irregular warfare and worse be afraid to use them when they correct describe the strategic environment and actions necessary for effective strategic competition in the gray zone. Now is the time to set agendas, equities, and petty arguments aside and bring intellectual rigor to appreciating the context, understanding the approach, and developing an approach that serves U.S. national security.
We should be reminded of Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) in Apocalypse Now when he said. “Shit. I'm still only in Saigon. …. Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger.” American policy makers, strategists, and planners cannot remain stuck on arguing about the definition of terms, especially irregular warfare. We grow weaker every day we do while the PLA gets stronger.
David Maxwell is a retired US Army Special Forces Colonel and has spent more than 30 years in Asia as a practitioner and specializes in North Korea and East Asia Security Affairs and irregular, unconventional, and political warfare. He is the Editor of Small Wars Journal. He is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Senior Fellow at the Global Peace Foundation (where he focuses on a free and unified Korea), and a Senior Advisor to the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy.