The Department of Defense (DoD)’s Irregular Warfare Center (IWC) is scheduled to host itssecond annual Symposium, focusing on Total Defense from March 26-27, 2025. This event will bring together military leaders, policymakers, academia, industry experts, and international partners to explore Total Defense as a strategic framework for national resilience and deterrence against modern threats. “The IWC Symposium serves as a […]
Quantum computing represents a paradigm shift in computational technology, poised to revolutionize industries including national security and defense. While the abilities of quantum computing still remain largely theoretical, significant progress is being made. Notably, experiments from companies like Google and IBM have demonstrated early examples of quantum supremacy, where quantum computers outperform classical systems on specific tasks. These breakthroughs suggest that quantum computing is not only on the horizon but is considered an inevitable advancement that stakeholders should prepare for now.
As the global landscape shifts into an era of Great Power Competition, characterized by unconventional threats and complex geopolitical dynamics, the need for a reimagined Office of Strategic Services (OSS) framework has never been more pressing. The revival of an OSS 2.0 would empower the Department of Defense (DoD) with enhanced Human Intelligence (HUMINT) capabilities that are critical for navigating the intricacies of Irregular Warfare (IW). Leveraging an updated OSS concept, the DoD could build deeper, longer-lasting relationships with foreign partners and local populations, laying the foundation for invaluable intelligence collection and clandestine or covert operations.
This paper explores the ways that states benefit from the activities of non-state actors (NSAs) as tools of irregular warfare (IW), with a particular focus on China and Russia. An examination of the historical relationships between state and non-state actors reveal that while proxies provide many potential advantages to their authoritarian patrons, they also present significant problems. The paper further demonstrates how China and Russia each utilizes a wide range of NSAs in a similarly broad spectrum of irregular warfare activities, including low-level persistent operations designed to erode adversaries’ institutions over time, to much more kinetic operations that directly challenge the territorial integrity of other sovereign states. Implications for how to respond to these activities are discussed.
The Department of Defense (DoD)’s Irregular Warfare Center (IWC), in partnership with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security (OUSD(I&S)), recently hosted the first Intelligence Support to Irregular Warfare Symposium. Held from October 29-31, 2024 at the U.S. Naval Institute Jack C. Taylor Conference Center in Annapolis, Md., the symposium marked the beginning of an […]
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October marked the Irregular Warfare Center (IWC)’s second anniversary since establishing full operating capacity in October 2022. Over the past 730 days, the IWC has generated significant accomplishments and partnerships that are in line with the Center’s overall mission and supporting lines of effort. The IWC was established to serve as the central mechanism for developing the Department of Defense’s […]
Irregular warfare (IW) is vital in today’s military planning. It’s complex and constantly changing, using methods that aren’t typical and adapting strategies as needed. Conventional warfare aims to fight and beat enemy forces. IW, however, works in messy political and social situations where standard rules of engagement don’t always fit. Because IW covers so many areas, the armed forces need to improve how they handle it. This means updating their policies, battle plans, teaching, and practice to meet IW’s demands. Policy needs to address new challenges like threat networks, information operations, terrorism, and cyber-attacks within a greater strategic framework.
The Department of Defense’s Irregular Warfare Center (IWC) hosted its second annual Irregular Warfare Colloquium, which took place on Sept. 26-27, 2024, at the AMA Conference Center in Arlington, VA. This pivotal event brought together scholars and subject matter experts from more than 15 universities across the U.S. and internationally to discuss topics related to irregular warfare and research. The […]
When Rambo Meets the Red Cross takes a critical look at the trifecta of U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF), their relationship with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and the beneficiaries of foreign aid. Stanislava Mladenova collects semi-structured interviews from actors on all three sides of the civil-military relationship to search for the answer to her central question: “Can SOF and NGOs be effective partners in low-intensity conflict?”
Aug 19, 2026 10:00 AM EST
Join IWC researchers Dr. Alicia Ellis and Sarah Shoer for a virtual lecture on their new article, "Agriculture as a Domain of Hybrid Warfare," now published in the current issue of PRISM.
The authors will discuss how agriculture has become a critical front in modern strategic competition, exploring the vulnerabilities in the U.S. food supply chain from cyber threats, economic coercion, and intellectual property theft. Learn about their proposed "Agriculture Security" (AgSec) framework designed to protect this vital national resource.
