
The Irregular Warfare Center’s first book, The Future Faces of Irregular Warfare: Great Power Competition in the 21st Century, is an edited volume of essays on the future evolutions and trends of irregular warfare and competition. Written by leading scholars and practitioners of irregular warfare and national security, the book presents a forward-leaning analysis of how irregular warfare (IW) between the U.S. and its competitors is likely to play out in several key theatres, such as the Indo-Pacific and the Baltics, and in particular issue sets, such as climate change, misinformation and disinformation, economic coercion, and counterterrorism.
Foreword 7
Introduction 13
Defining Irregular Warfare: Legitimacy, Violence, and Politics 19
Irregular Competition: Contemporary Lessons Learned and Implications for the Future of Irregular Warfare 33
Towards a Better Irregular Warfare Strategy: A Contrarian View 53
Cheap Toys and Deadly Results: The Rise of Guerrilla Air Forces 72
Legal Gamesmanship: How China and Russia Use International Law in Geopolitical Competition 89
How Russia, China, and Iran Weaponize Information for Internal Social Control and External Influence 106
Russia and Ukraine: Three Lessons in Economic Warfare 124
The American Way of Proxy War Rethinking U.S. Unconventional Warfare Doctrine and Concepts in the Context of Modern Irregular Warfare and Strategic Competition 143
Terrorism and Irregular Warfare: The Four-Headed Challenge of Massed Terrorists, Terrorist Dispersal, State-Sponsored Terrorism, and Terrorist Franchising 161
China’s Little Blue Men 184
Russia’s “Special” Way of War: SOF, Spetsnaz, and Irregular Warfare 201
Climate Change, Conflict, and Instability: Implications for Irregular Warfare 220
Total Defense: Nordic and Baltic Perspectives on Irregular Warfare 236
The United States’ Maginot Mentality 251
Great Power Confrontation in the 21st Century for the Baltic States 268
National Security Challenges and Irregular Warfare in the 21st Century 282
Acknowledgments 289
Endnotes 290