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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" and in U.S. law as "Department of Defense activities not involving armed conflict that support predetermined United States policy and military objectives conducted by, with, and through regular forces, irregular ...
FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency is a US Army manual, created by General David H. Petraeus and James F. Amos.The foreword is by Sarah Sewall.The document has been credited with changing for the better the US approach to insurgency in Iraq. [1]
In the United States, "special forces" refers specifically to the United States Army Special Forces (SF), as opposed to the usage in most other countries, where "special forces" refers to the range of unit types that the U.S. calls "special operations forces" controlled by the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). SF units are ...
The 8240th Army Unit (8240th AU) was an American guerrilla commando unit that operated during the Korean War that specialized in clandestine operation, commando style raids, gathering tactical field intelligence, irregular warfare, long-range penetration, and special operations behind enemy lines.
The U.S. Army field manual describes unconventional warfare as “intent of United States unconventional warfare operations is to exploit a hostile power’s political, military, economic, and psychological vulnerability by developing and sustaining resistance forces to accomplish U.S. strategic objectives.” [2]
An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare against a larger authority. [1] [2] [3] The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irregular forces face a large, well-equipped, regular military force state adversary. [4]
A November 1947 United States Department of the Army memorandum entitled A Study of Special and Subversive Operations was an early assessment of the lessons learned from World War II in the context of Cold War imperatives. In the only point in the memorandum concerning counter-guerrilla operations, the authors point to the German example:
The term "irregular military" describes the "how" and "what", but it is more common to focus on the "why" as just about all irregular units were created to provide a tactical advantage to an existing military, whether it was privateer forces harassing shipping lanes against assorted New World colonies on behalf of their European contractors, or Auxiliaries, levies, civilian and other standing ...