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Conventional warfare is a form of warfare conducted by using conventional weapons and battlefield tactics between two or more states in open confrontation. The forces on each side are well-defined and fight by using weapons that target primarily the opponent's military. It is normally fought by using conventional weapons, not chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons.
Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), have been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and Minds", and propaganda. The term is used "to denote any action which is practiced mainly by psychological methods with the aim of evoking a planned psychological reaction in other people".
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.
Special operations (S.O.) are military activities conducted, according to NATO, by "specially designated, organized, selected, trained, and equipped forces using unconventional techniques and modes of employment". Special operations may include reconnaissance, unconventional warfare, and counter-terrorism actions, and are typically conducted by small groups of highly-trained personnel, emphasizing sufficiency, stealth, speed, and tactical coordination, commonly known as "special forces".
The United States Army Special Operations Command (Airborne) is the command charged with overseeing the various special operations forces of the United States Army. Headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, it is the largest component of the United States Special Operations Command. It is an Army Service Component Command. Its mission is to organize, train, educate, man, equip, fund, administer, mobilize, deploy and sustain Army special operations forces to successfully conduct worldwide special operations.
Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionaries" and can be considered war by a state against a non-state adversary. Insurgency and counterinsurgency campaigns have been waged since ancient history. However, modern thinking on counterinsurgency was developed during decolonization. Within the military sciences, counterinsurgency is one of the main operational approaches of irregular warfare.
Steven Kent Metz is an American author and professor of national security and strategy at the U.S. Army War College specializing in insurgency and counterinsurgency, American defense policy, strategic theory, the African security environment, and future warfare.
The U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (SWCS) – known informally as "Swick" – primarily trains and educates United States Army personnel for the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) and United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM), which includes Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations personnel. Its purpose is to recruit, assess, select, train and educate the U.S. Army Civil Affairs, Psychological Operations and Special Forces Soldiers by providing training and education, developing doctrine, integrating force-development capability, and providing career management.
Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
National governments deal in both intelligence and military special operations functions that either should be completely secret, or simply cannot be linked to the sponsor. It is a continuing and unsolved question for governments whether clandestine intelligence collection and covert action should be under the same agency. The arguments for doing so include having centralized functions for monitoring covert action and clandestine HUMINT and making sure they do not conflict, as well as avoiding duplication in common services such as cover identity support, counterespionage, and secret communications. The arguments against doing so suggest that the management of the two activities takes a quite different mindset and skills, in part because clandestine collection almost always is on a slower timeline than covert action.
The Small Wars Journal (SWJ) is an online magazine focusing on intrastate conflict. Aside from its online magazine, SWJ hosts an accompanying blog and the Small Wars Council discussion board. Other site features include an online reference library, recommended reading and event listings. The magazine is published by the Small Wars Foundation, a non-profit corporation.
Irregular warfare (IW) is defined in United States joint doctrine as "a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations." Concepts associated with irregular warfare are older than the term itself.
In United States military doctrine, unconventional warfare is one of the core activities of irregular warfare. Unconventional warfare is essentially support provided by the military to a foreign insurgency or resistance. The legal definition of UW is:
Unconventional Warfare consists of activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow an occupying power or government by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary or guerrilla force in a denied area.
David A. Morris is an American major general (retired) who is the founder and owner of Decisive Edge, LLC, a consulting firm focused on the development of business strategies for the Special Operations and intelligence communities.
Hybrid warfare is a theory of military strategy, first proposed by Frank Hoffman, which employs political warfare and blends conventional warfare, irregular warfare, and cyberwarfare with other influencing methods, such as fake news, diplomacy, lawfare and foreign electoral intervention. By combining kinetic operations with subversive efforts, the aggressor intends to avoid attribution or retribution. The concept of hybrid warfare has been criticized by a number of academics and practitioners due to its alleged vagueness, its disputed constitutive elements, and its alleged historical distortions.
The Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order is a secret U.S. Defense Department Directive, signed Sept. 30, 2009 by General David Petraeus, which authorized the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces. The seven-page directive did not appear to authorize offensive strikes in any specific countries. Its goals were to “prepare the environment” for future attacks by American or local military forces, as well as to build networks that could “penetrate, disrupt, defeat or destroy” Al Qaeda and other militant groups.
Project Avocado is a standing Presidential authorization which allows U.S. military combatant commanders to assemble task forces for almost any purpose, drawing resources from any military unit. President Obama authorized Project Avocado in the summer of 2009, with a view towards widening U.S. counter-terrorism activities and powers, under the advisory of former General Stanley A. McChrystal, then the Director of Operations of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Project Avocado provides unprecedented military powers to U.S. operational commanders to conduct unconventional warfare throughout the world.
The United States Special Operations Command is the unified combatant command charged with overseeing the various special operations component commands of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force of the United States Armed Forces. The command is part of the Department of Defense and is the only unified combatant command created by an Act of Congress. USSOCOM is headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida.
The 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne) is a division-level special operations forces command within the United States Army Special Operations Command. The command was first established in 1989 and reorganized in 2014 grouping together the Army Special Forces, psychological operations, civil affairs, and support troops into a single organization operating out of its headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Security Force Assistance (SFA) is the strategic-level military practice of a donor country creating, equipping, training, advising, and supporting one or more groups of a foreign host country, such as a military, police, paramilitary, coast guard, intelligence organization, border police, etc, which contribute to the national security of the host country. SFA is used when improving the security of the host country aligns with the national interests of the donor country. It may be used alongside or instead of larger commitments of the donor country's military personnel and matériel. This means SFA can provide an alternative to large-scale operations if a war becomes controversial or politically difficult.
References
- ↑ USAWC STRATEGY RESEARCH PROJECT: A JOINT AND INTERAGENCY UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE TRAINING STRATEGY FOR SPECIAL FORCES IN THE 21ST CENTURY, Colonel David G. Fox, United States Army, U.S. Army War College, CARLISLE BARRACKS, PENNSYLVANIA 17013
- ↑ Department of the Army, Special Forces Unconventional Warfare Operations, Field Manual 3-05.201 Archived 2011-07-24 at the Wayback Machine (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of the Army, 30 April 2003), 1-1.