The Irregular Warfare Center (IWC) Releases IW Medical Resiliency Workgroup Conference Report

The newly established Irregular Warfare Center recently released its IW Medical Resiliency Workgroup Report from the Center’s first hosted event, the IW Medical Resiliency Workgroup Conference, which took place Feb. 22-24, 2023, in Bethesda, Md.

The IWC, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, and the Center for Global Health Engagement from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences jointly hosted the event.

This event was the Center’s initial working group for Irregular Warfare Medicine curriculum development. The event brought together U.S. and allied and partner nation surgeons to discuss medical capabilities in contested or non-permissive environments.

Medical leaders from U.S. Special Operations Command, the theater special operations commands, Department of Defense medical security cooperation entities, the Department of State, the Department of Health and Human Services and several allied nations discussed the use of medical security cooperation as an integral part of medical support to IW. The conference was attended by medical professionals from E6 to O9 (not solely U.S. Special Operations) from across the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), the U.S. interagency, partners, allies, academia, and nonprofits.

The 3-day event included a variety of guest speakers and irregular warfare SME’s, various briefs on Irregular Warfare Medicine topics, as well as break-out sessions to identify capabilities, gaps and share findings to support the IWC’s medical security cooperation efforts.

This is the first of a series of working groups focused on medical resiliency in IW specifically focused on medical operations in austere, contested, and denied environments.

The report includes a medic/practitioner summary, executive summary, working group findings, working group recommendations as well as participant takeaways and summaries.

To request a copy of the report, please send an email from your official account (.mil .gov .state .edu .org etc) to reports@irregularwarfarecenter.org with your full name, title, name of organization and phone number.

Aside from its inaugural event, the IWC recently hosted several informative and educational irregular warfare-themed events including IWC International IW Week (March 2023), IWC IW Seminar at Georgetown University (March 2023), University Days (April 2023) and PME Day (April 2023).

The IWC serves as the central mechanism for developing the Department of Defense’s (DOD) irregular warfare knowledge and advancing the Department’s understanding of irregular warfare concepts and doctrine in collaboration with key allies and partners.

The IWC serves as the central mechanism for developing the Department of Defense’s (DoD) irregular warfare knowledge and advancing the Department’s understanding of irregular warfare concepts and doctrine in collaboration with key allies and partners.

The Center’s foundation is built upon three Lines of Effort:

• AMPLIFY and collaborate to build an innovative and adaptable global networked IW community of interest.
• Strategically ILLUMINATE current and future irregular threats, crises, and obstacles.
• ADDRESS current and future irregular threats to the US, allies, and partners by providing optionality to leaders.

Through these LOEs, the Irregular Warfare Center addresses current and emerging security concerns and challenges with world-class research, rigorous analysis, top-tier strategic education and training for U.S. and international partners.