Irregular warfare: The prevailing battlefield in today’s era of strategic competition
Tomorrow’s next great security challenges will not resemble those of today. Foreign adversaries continue to advance their interests through asymmetric methods that often outpace U.S. strategies. Irregular warfare can no longer be treated as an addendum to kinetic military operations; it is now central to how nations compete, influence, and neutralize new and emerging threats.
Irregular warfare uses influence, access, and ambiguity to undermine adversaries and shape strategic outcomes, often without a single shot fired. China advances its reach through economic leverage and maritime militias. Russia fractures Western cohesion through weaponized disinformation and proxy networks. Iran expands power via state-backed militias and coordinated information campaigns. These efforts succeed because they operate below the threshold of conventional conflict.
Despite this, the U.S. often approaches irregular warfare episodically, constrained by outdated structures and reactive operations. Influence, legitimacy, and access — the decisive terrain of irregular warfare — remain under-resourced. Digital narratives evolve faster than our ability to counter them, and as soon as they are neutralized, they shift again while our bureaucratic processes struggle to keep pace.
To compete effectively, the U.S. must treat information as a maneuver element and integrate irregular warfare planning into joint campaigns from the start. That means rethinking warfighting domains to include the information environment, synchronizing influence activities, converging intelligence disciplines, empowering local partners, and sustaining influence operations long before crises emerge.
Irregular warfare is already shaping the global security landscape. Strategic advantage will belong to the nations that master influence, perception, and behavior — not just firepower.
Read the full white paper to learn how the U.S. can regain the initiative in the irregular warfare battlespace.