How did the United States leverage local partners in the fight against the Islamic State? What were the unique dynamics of partnering with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, particularly the Women’s Protection Units? What can this case teach us about warfare, will, and relationships?

What would a conflict with China look like? How will irregular warfare fit into a conflict before and during large-scale combat operations? Retired Admiral James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman join this episode of the Irregular Warfare Podcast to discuss the theme of escalation to large-scale conflict, which they explore in their New York Times best seller 2034: A Novel of the Next World War. In answering those questions, they emphasize the nature of human behavior in conflict and how escalation can get out of control.

In episode 26 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast, we discuss US counterinsurgency efforts in Anbar province, Iraq from the 2006 surge through the rise of the Islamic State in 2013–2014 with two guests who both experienced the US COIN fight firsthand—one as the operational commander of Marine Corps forces in the province and the other as a civilian advisor to Marine leadership on Anbari culture and tribal dynamics.

How can the military and civilians work together to prevent or manage conflict? Two seminal policy initiatives, the Stabilization Assistance Review (SAR) and the Global Fragility Act (GFA), provide important answers by emphasizing an alignment of defense, development, and diplomatic efforts and delineating clear roles for respective actors in addressing violence and instability.

Aviation has played an important role in irregular warfare, from its use by the British against rebellious tribesmen in Iraq and Transjordan in the interwar period to the era of the unblinking eye and precision strike in Afghanistan. Our guests discuss this evolution in the use of airpower to support ground forces, illustrating that although rapid advances in technology have brought to the point of near perfection the various procedures recently employed in Afghanistan and Iraq, the role of aviation in war—irregular or otherwise—has not significantly changed to this point. 

Conflict forces millions of individuals from their homes each year. Using a simple structural model and new refugee data, we produce the first set…

Since 2015, there has been a huge increase in laws that ostensibly seek to counter misinformation. Since the pandemic began, this trend has only…

Africa is especially vulnerable to climate change, as millions are already experiencing record heat, extreme precipitation and rising sea levels.…

A study of social media content shows that Venezuelan opposition figures often take harder anti-government lines if they flee abroad. Exiles’ voices are important, but those trying to end Venezuela’s crisis should listen to others as well, recalling that compromise offers the only peaceful exit.

Did fact-checking organizations scale up efforts to debunk misinformation in 2020? Did Twitter users engage more with fact-checking in 2020 than in previous years? Did engagement with coronavirus-related content drive overall engagement with fact-checking content?

This paper provides evidence that adverse economic conditions contributed to the rise of anti-democratic extremism in the United States. A state-level analysis shows that increases in the unemployment rate during the Great Recession led to a large increase in the number of anti democratic extremist groups.

China, it is often said, has mastered the art of economic statecraft. Observers routinely worry that by throwing around its ever-growing economic weight, the country is managing to buy goodwill and influence. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing has exploited its dominance of manufacturing supply chains to win favor by donating masks and now vaccines to foreign countries. And it has long used unfair state subsidies to tilt the playing field in favor of Chinese companies.

Irregular warfare practitioners have played a major role in nearly every war over the past 250 years, according to the guests on this episode. The masters of irregular warfare carry distinct characteristics that have allowed them to achieve strategic effects, even while losing tactical level engagements.

This episode explores the capabilities that irregular warfare practitioners bring to bear. Our guests discuss how irregular warfare integrates into—and often plays a pivotal supporting role in—broader conventional conflict. The conversation ends with recommendations for how to prepare and employ irregular warfare capabilities to address the major threats to US national security, to include great power rivals, rogue regional powers, and violent nonstate actors.

Special Operations Forces (SOF) have played a critical role in US counterterrorism operations. But now, as policymakers’ focus shifts from counterterrorism to great power competition, the implications for SOF are unclear. In this episode, our guests argue that SOF is uniquely suited to address irregular warfare challenges in the era of great power competition. However, limited understanding of these threats among policymakers in Washington, DC, budget constraints, and outdated authorities hinder SOF’s ability to evolve. According to our guests, civilian leadership and oversight can help overcome these challenges.

What drives illicit violence by substate groups such as terrorists, insurgents, and criminals—and how can states counter these threats? Our two guests argue that social science provides tools to understand why illicit violence occurs. By focusing on individual incentive structures, rather than group identity labels, states can develop targeted sanctions and military strategies that disassemble and disrupt violent nonstate groups. This approach has implications for how policymakers and practitioners can counter violent actors from the strategic to the tactical level. Our guests provide several examples from the Treasury Department’s counter–threat finance efforts during the post-9/11 era.

The global reach of the pandemic creates a unique opportunity for a regional analysis of misinformation trends, allowing us to see how misinformation actors in different countries and cultural contexts respond to the same set of potential narrative conditions. Are the observed trends in misinformation similar or different?

Covid-19 caused a significant health and economic crisis, a condition identified as conducive to stigmatization and hateful behavior against…

Australia is undergoing the most fundamental strategic realignment since the Second World War, toward a focus on threats closer to home without reliance on the United States. In that context, what role does irregular warfare play in Australian national security strategy? What lessons does the Australian experience hold for the United States as they both transition from the post-9/11 wars to great power competition? Will Australia’s legacy in conducting irregular warfare enable it now to make this shift and take on the snakes—and one large dragon—in its own backyard?

Our two guests argue that effective US interagency coordination, bipartisan congressional support, and a focus on building institutions and stabilizing the security situation were key ingredients to success in Colombia’s efforts against the insurgency. But more important than anything was that the Colombian government and population owned the commitment to resolve the conflict.

Establishing long-term infrastructure around the study of influence operations and misinformation is more crucial than ever.