The Irregular Warfare Center (IWC) to Host IW Medical Resiliency Workgroup: Inaugural IWC Event

By David Wyscaver (CTR), IWC Public Affairs and Strategic Communications Manager, Morgan 6 LLC.

The newly established Irregular Warfare Center is scheduled to host its first IW-themed event, the IW Medical Resiliency Workgroup, from Feb. 22-24, 2023, in Bethesda, Md.

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

Opening remarks will be provided by the Honorable Christopher P. Maier, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, Dr. Woodson, the President of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and Dr. Dennis Walters, IWC Acting Director.

“Our goal is to amplify the medical communities’ efforts to counter and build resiliency against threats and increase our collective optionality to address these threats when required, through efforts like resistance,” said Dr. Dennis Walters, IWC Acting Director. “We’ll do this through the workshop by collecting data from the medical community, analyze and develop academic solutions to identified educational gaps, invigorate a more strategic approach to IW medicine campaign planning and discover capability shortcomings. This is an amazing opportunity for the medical community to dive deep and create a way forward as a synergistic IW community.”

The 3-day event will include 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.

“The goal for this event is to create a collaborative network of irregular warfare medical personnel that will be integral in developing medical resiliency curriculum in other than normal environments,” said Lori Leffler, IWC Chief of Staff. “The IWC has recognized that it’s important to convene in a setting such as this workshop to talk through barriers and innovate ways to address these concerns. Being a part of the IWC and being part of our first event is an incredible opportunity and is only a small purview of what the Center has on the horizon.”

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.