"Wargaming for the new Great Game" Topic

"In the opening days of the Iraq invasion in 2003, then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld infamously quipped, "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." The offhand remark ignited indignation, but the United States had the Army it wanted. This Army won in the opening days of the Iraq War and excelled in the preferred American way of war—high-intensity combat underpinned by cutting-edge technology.

But this style of warfare is infrequent and brief. Despite the US military's institutional preference on preparing for conventional conflict, irregular warfare (IW) remains the most prevalent form of warfare since 1945. This trend shows no signs of change in the twenty-first century. The United States cannot opt out of these messy wars, and must be ready for irregular warfare in the conflicts of the future.

Unfortunately, the United States' primary force for irregular warfare, the US Army, is anything but prepared. Retired Lieutenant General Charles Cleveland, former commander of Army Special Operations Command, argues that the American military lacks a proper conceptual and structural basis for irregular warfare. Further, the Army fails to adequately educate or prepare for this type of conflict. Put simply, the US Army is not particularly good at, does not prefer, and does not care to think about IW regardless of the mandate of the Irregular Warfare Annex to the current National Defense Strategy…"

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Armand

I spent 30+ years in the US Army including time in special ops, the article is not wrong about our preference to focus on conventional warfare. The funny thing is that probably more than half of the wars we have fought involved irregular warfare as a major part, I have long thought that we should try to teach multiple layers of thinking.

Thanks!

Armand