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Unconventional warfare (UW) is broadly defined as "military and quasi-military operations other than conventional warfare" [1] and may use covert forces or actions such as subversion, diversion, sabotage, espionage, biowarfare, sanctions, propaganda or guerrilla warfare. This is typically done to avoid escalation into conventional warfare as well as international conventions. [2]
Aside from the earlier definition of warfare that is not conventional, unconventional warfare has also been described as:
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. [3]
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. [4] [5]
The U.S. 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. [6]
Between the 17th and 18th centuries, there were wars between American colonists and Native American tribes. Benjamin Church designed his force primarily to emulate Native American patterns of war. Toward this end, Church endeavored to learn to fight like Native Americans from Native Americans. Americans became rangers exclusively under the tutelage of the Native American allies. (Until the end of the colonial period, rangers depended on Native Americans as both allies and teachers.) [7]
Church developed a special full-time unit mixing white colonists selected for frontier skills with friendly Native Americans to carry out offensive strikes against hostile Native Americans in terrain where normal militia units were ineffective. Church paid special care to outfitting, supplying and instructing his troops in ways inspired by indigenous methods of warfare and ways of living. He emphasized the adoption of indigenous techniques, which prioritized small, mobile and flexible units which used the countryside for cover, in lieu of massed frontal assaults by large formations. Church also pioneered the use of indigenous warriors as auxiliaries to bolster and educate his soldiers. In 1716, his memoirs, entitled Entertaining Passages relating to Philip's War, was published and is considered by some to constitute the first American military manual and first written guide to unconventional warfare. Benjamin Church is sometimes referred to as the father of unconventional warfare. The ideas of Benjamin Church were widely incorporated into warfare by early colonial officers, especially by American colonialists who prevailed in the Revolutionary War against the British Empire. [7]
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. [8]
One of the first references is in "Manpower and Atomic War," [9] 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. [10] These were developed as a tool of national socialism, [11] or neo-liberalism, [12] 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. [13] One of the first instances of Unconventional Warfare techniques against civilians was documented by the La Follette Committee.
US & NATO specific:
Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians including recruited children, use ambushes, sabotage, terrorism, raids, petty warfare or hit-and-run tactics in a rebellion, in a violent conflict, in a war or in a civil war to fight against regular military, police or rival insurgent forces.
Asymmetric warfare is a type of war between belligerents whose relative military power, strategy or tactics differ significantly. This type of warfare often, but not necessarily, involves insurgents or resistance movement militias who may have the status of unlawful combatants against a standing army.
A low-intensity conflict (LIC) is a military conflict, usually localised, between two or more state or non-state groups which is below the intensity of conventional war. It involves the state's use of military forces applied selectively and with restraint to enforce compliance with its policies or objectives.
Special operations or special ops 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 counterterrorism, 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) (USASOC ( YOO-sə-sok)) is the command charged with overseeing the various special operations forces of the United States Army. Headquartered at Fort Liberty, 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.
Jungle warfare or woodland warfare is warfare in forests, jungles, or similar environments. The term encompasses military operations affected by the terrain, climate, vegetation, and wildlife of densely-wooded areas, as well as the strategies and tactics used by military forces in these situations and environments.
Irregular military is any non-standard military component that is distinct from a country's national armed forces. Being defined by exclusion, there is significant variance in what comes under the term. It can refer to the type of military organization, or to the type of tactics used. An irregular military organization is one which is not part of the regular army organization. Without standard military unit organization, various more general names are often used; such organizations may be called a troop, group, unit, column, band, or force. Irregulars are soldiers or warriors that are members of these organizations, or are members of special military units that employ irregular military tactics. This also applies to irregular infantry and irregular cavalry units.
Modern warfare is warfare that diverges notably from previous military concepts, methods, and technology, emphasizing how combatants must modernize to preserve their battle worthiness. As such, it is an evolving subject, seen differently in different times and places. In its narrowest sense, it is merely a synonym for contemporary warfare.
The United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne), USACAPOC(A), or CAPOC was founded in 1985 and is headquartered at Fort Liberty, North Carolina. USACAPOC(A) is composed mostly of U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers in units throughout the United States. The size of the Command is nearly 13,500 Soldiers, which is 76% of the Department of Defense's Civil Affairs forces and 63% of Psychological Operations forces.
Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their motives and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and large foreign powers.
The Partisan Ranger Act was passed on April 21, 1862, by the Confederate Congress. It was intended as a stimulus for recruitment of irregulars for service into the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. The Confederate leadership, like the Union leadership, later opposed the use of unconventional warfare out of fear the lack of discipline among rival guerrilla groups could spiral out of control. On February 17, 1864, the law was repealed after pressure from General Robert E. Lee and other Confederate regulars.
Special reconnaissance (SR) is conducted by small units, such as a recon team, made up of highly trained military personnel, usually from special forces units and/or military intelligence organizations. Special reconnaissance teams operate behind enemy lines, avoiding direct combat and detection by the enemy. As a role, SR is distinct from commando operations, but both are often carried out by the same units. The SR role frequently includes covert direction of airstrikes and indirect fire, in areas deep behind enemy lines, placement of remotely monitored sensors, and preparations for other special forces. Like other special forces, SR units may also carry out direct action and unconventional warfare, including guerrilla operations.
Foreign internal defense (FID) is a term used by the military in several countries, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom, to describe an integrated or multi-country approach to combating actual or threatened insurgency in a foreign state. This foreign state is known as the Host Nation (HN) under the US doctrine. The term counter-insurgency is commonly used for FID.
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.
In US 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.
The main strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare tend to involve the use of a small attacking, mobile force against a large, unwieldy force. The guerrilla force is largely or entirely organized in small units that are dependent on the support of the local population. Tactically, the guerrilla army makes the repetitive attacks far from the opponent's center of gravity with a view to keeping its own casualties to a minimum and imposing a constant debilitating strain on the enemy. This may provoke the enemy into a brutal, excessively destructive response which will both anger their own supporters and increase support for the guerrillas, ultimately compelling the enemy to withdraw. One of the most famous examples of this was during the Irish War of Independence. Michael Collins, a leader of the Irish Republican Army, often used this tactic to take out squads of British soldiers, mainly in Munster, especially Cork.
The history of guerrilla warfare stretches back to ancient history. While guerrilla tactics can be viewed as a natural continuation of prehistoric warfare, the Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu, in his The Art of War, was the earliest to propose the use of guerrilla warfare. This directly inspired the development of modern guerrilla warfare. Communist leaders like Mao Zedong and North Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh both implemented guerrilla warfare in the style of Sun Tzu, which served as a model for similar strategies elsewhere, such as the Cuban "foco" theory and the anti-Soviet Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. While the tactics of modern guerrilla warfare originate in the 20th century, irregular warfare, using elements later characteristic of modern guerrilla warfare, has existed throughout the battles of many ancient civilizations.
Special forces or special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equipped forces using unconventional techniques and modes of employment".
Joint unconventional warfare is the inter-agency, or international implementation of an unconventional warfare strategy, comprising elements of asymmetric warfare, irregular warfare, urban warfare and various forms of psychological operations deployed by non-traditional means.
Security Force Assistance (SFA) a term originating in the United States Armed Forces for military adviser assistance with "training, equipping and advising allied or 'partner' militaries to enable them to defend themselves without 100,000 Americans on the ground to do it for them." 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. Given the ending of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with US-led multinational missions to train and equip the militaries of weak states for counterinsurgency and counterterrorism purposes, the US have increasingly shifted towards SFA programs that make host-nation security force more capable of conducting Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO).
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.
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.