IWC to Host IW Medical Resiliency and Sustainment Working Group Event

The Irregular Warfare Center (IWC) is scheduled to host its IW Medical Resiliency and Sustainment Working Group event from Jan. 30 – Feb. 2, 2024, at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine in Bethesda, Md.

The IW Medical Resiliency and Sustainment Working Group will feature more than 70 medical professionals from across the Department of Defense (DoD), academia, and industry, strategically challenging themselves in various scenarios encompassing medical challenges in denied and contested areas to identify gaps in doctrine and training and build current capabilities to improve prolonged casualty care in austere environments.

“As the Center progresses into its second year, we’re eager to kick off 2024 with our first of many IW-hosted events to further grow and evolve our partnerships, educational capabilities, resources, community of interest outreach and the Center’s mission awareness,” said Dr. Dennis Walters, IWC Director. “The IW Medical Resiliency and Sustainment Working Group event provides an opportunity for medical professionals from a variety of different backgrounds and areas of expertise to come together in a single setting to exercise their medical knowledge, problem solving techniques, team-building fundamentals, planning & execution essentials as well as other critical skillsets to help further the progress of IW medical capabilities across the globe.”

The 4-day event will include a variety of guest speakers and irregular warfare SMEs, various briefs on irregular warfare medical topics, as well as break-out sessions & wargames to identify capabilities, gaps and share findings to support the IWC’s medical security cooperation efforts.

The wargames will facilitate key leaders’ strategic austere medical decisions to validate capabilities, identify critical gaps and develop tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) for operational medics with focus on survivability, restricted communications, clandestine evacuation, and prolonged field care.

The simulation consists of two main phases: drafting strategy and implementing strategy to challenge participants to think strategically and tactically about issues of sustainment, logistics, and grey zone conflict. The exercise places participants in the shoes of a strategic planner, facing realistic and complex scenarios involving U.S. adversaries as participants will plan global sustainment operations for irregular warfare.

During the simulation, participants will not perform roles within their current unit or agency affiliation. Instead, red team personnel will serve as advisors to the leaders and militaries of Opposing Forces, while blue team role players will act as senior advisors to U.S. leadership, advising on the role of all non-governmental entities (business sector and non-government organizations) or US allies.

An important outcome of the scenario is to identify unclear authorities and determine the types of research needed. What is learned from these information requests will be used to inform future TTX activities and IWC research.

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.