DoDBuzz: Irregular War Shift Accelerating in QDR

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Irregular War Shift Accelerating in QDR
By Greg Grant Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 12:18 pm
Posted in Policy

The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review marked a profound shift in the military’s strategic priorities by elevating irregular warfare to the “dominant” form of war that would confront American troops. That reorientation of the military from preparing for large conventional wars to instead gearing up for smaller, more numerous irregular wars will significantly accelerate under the 2010 QDR, the congressionally mandated strategy review currently underway, according to Michael Vickers, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict.

The 2010 QDR will call for a further expansion of special operations forces, reshaping more of the general purpose forces for irregular warfare missions and buying more “enablers,” specifically, large numbers of aerial drones and helicopters, he said. This embrace of irregular warfare is part of the “re-balancing” needed to reconfigure the big war military to meet the challenge of the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and to counter terrorist cells and insurgencies scattered across the globe, Vickers said, speaking last week at a conference of mostly defense industry types sponsored by Aviation Week.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has talked repeatedly of the need to bring “balance” to the military, arguing that less of the costly, leading-edge weapon systems are needed as an insurance against the rise of a great power military, and greater investment is needed to add more troops and buy greater quantities of less technologically advanced weapons for hunting terrorists and waging counterinsurgency campaigns.

Vickers described a “global counterterrorism network” made up of many small special operations teams scattered around the world working with partner nations to hunt down terrorists and insurgents. The best way to fight terrorist networks is with a distributed network of special operators, he said. “It’s important that terrorists not only are hunted globally with our partners but that they’re denied sanctuary, states that might sponsor them, cyber sanctuaries… and that they’re denied access to WMD.” He said counterterror operations span the Pakistani border regions, Yemen, Kuwait, the Levant, Lebanon, Horn of Africa, the Trans-Sahara, Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Europe.

Establishing that global network is the main driver behind the expansion of the special operations forces, he said, as well as the need for additional helicopters, aerial drones and other surveillance assets. For the Army and Marines, the main force driver is the need to maintain a rotation base for large scale counterinsurgency and stability operations, not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but other failed or failing states. Vickers said the military is also preparing for “hybrid” forms of conflict, where opponents mix irregular tactics with advanced weaponry.


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