Among the five of us who teach the Irregular Warfare Center’s (IWC) advanced campaigning course (IW401), we have spent a long time watching capable people lose slowly. Not only on the battlefield, where American units almost always prevailed, but in the space above it, where campaigns are designed and where conflicts are so often lost prematurely.
Irregular Warfare (IW) goes by many names and definitions across the world. While some differences are only minor semantic variances reflecting the history of specific countries or the local culture of a particular state’s defense sector, other differences show widely divergent understandings based on who perpetuates and who are targeted by IW. Caught in the middle of these diverging views are U.S. warfighters, diplomats, and security cooperation professionals tasked with securing the United States from a myriad of IW threats that emanate far from America’s shores.
The popular memory of Ignacio Zaragoza is often compressed into a single date: May 5, 1862. In much of the United States, Cinco de Mayo has become a cultural celebration detached from the military and political context that produced it.
Diplomacy in irregular warfare (IW) is not a supporting act; it is one of the main ways the United States competes for power and legitimacy below the threshold of conventional war. That claim matters even more now because the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has shown that contests over legitimacy, sanctions, coalition management, information, logistics, and economic resilience are not ancillary to war; they are central to it.
Today’s world is rife with flashpoints for future conflicts, and America’s baptism by fire into drone warfare, such as we’ve seen in Ukraine, may be close at hand. Tactics and technologies born in the Russo-Ukrainian war have already appeared in Myanmar, Colombia, and Mexico, as well as in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq.
Migration is the most destabilizing force in the world today, vastly exceeding the impact of nuclear weapons, war, poverty, oppressive governments, natural disasters and all the other causes of instability that news outlets focus on. In fact, the main destabilizing impact of the other factors is the migration they cause.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has endured almost 3,000 Iranian missile and drone strikes since February 28, 2026. This volume of kinetic activity exceeds that of any other nation in the theater, including Israel.
The combined U.S. Operation Epic Fury and Israeli Operation Roaring Lion (OEF/ORL) is the largest conventional air and naval operation in a generation, but it is also an irregular warfare (IW) showcase. The current (mid-April 2026) ceasefire provides an opportunity to take stock of what has happened so far in the IW space.
The logic seems compelling to argue that fuel shortages are in China’s future – consider three facts. First, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) imports more oil than any other nation on earth, about 11 million barrels per day (mbpd). Second, a large percentage of the world’s exported oil, more than 14 million barrels per day (mbpd), passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
Implementing new controls over the cognitive conditions of illicit markets for weapons, drugs, contraband and people would address underlying enablers of a vexing border security challenge.
August 4-6, 2026
IW Symposium: Irregular Warfare in the Homeland:
Adapting for a Secure Future
The Irregular Warfare Center (IWC) is hosting a 2.5-day symposium on the Defense of the Homeland. This symposium embodies the NDS's call for a clear-eyed realism that leverages all elements of national power.
