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Facing an ‘irregular’ future

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — The new name of the game is “irregular war,” according to top military leaders — and it’s going to last a very long time.

Speaking at a conference on joint warfare here, Marine Corps Gen. Jim Mattis, commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, said this blend of asymmetric techniques employed by human networks and nations, exploitation of cheap information technology, constant global media scrutiny and access to deadly weaponry by enemies such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, remains the present and future conflict.

“Irregular warfare, from my perspective, is the key problem we face today,” he said during a June 19 speech. “Welcome to the future — it’s not going to go away.”

Of course, the military cannot abandon its conventional warfare commitments nor its dominance of the sea, air and space, said several leaders at the conference hosted by the U.S. Naval Institute and the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.

Clearly, however, enemies have shown — especially on land — that America’s once-dominant technological advantages are diminishing and its ability to act and react are closely matched.

“As a form of war, there’s nothing new. [But] it’s different when someone has a spear versus someone who gets their hands on a nuke,” Mattis said to reporters after his speech. “One of the reasons that we sense the need to be very proactive is that you don’t want to take the first hit when it’s going to incinerate 300,000 people.”

Fighting these current and potential adversaries are, and will be, the so-called “millennials” — Americans born after 1978 into a world grown closer through technology such as the Internet and mobile phones. In order to man the force, according to a recent report from Booz Allen Hamilton, the military has begun recruiting in venues such as YouTube and will have to adjust its sometimes unappealing “mindsets, rules and processes.”

Culture shock

Older leaders have some trouble adjusting. Col. Richard Simcock, recently commander of the 6th Marine Regiment, said during a panel discussing “The 21st Century Warrior” that he sometimes does not understand his younger Marines.

“I’ve been in the Marine Corps 25 years. The Marine Corps has not changed, in my opinion. What has changed is the society we draw our Marines from,” he said.

“I’m not going to say I am out of touch with my Marines, but ... they’ll say something to me or do something and I will have no concept of what they are talking about.”

Likewise, Maj. Gen. David Fastabend, director of strategy, plans and policy for the Army, pointed to a building strain within the officer corps, between junior officers — many of them millennials — who have seen the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan up close, and older officers who may not share the same priorities but have what he described as a higher level of “accountability.”

“There’s going to be a very interesting and creative tension in our Army for the next several years,” he said. “We have a younger generation that is battle-hardened and has a level of experience in real operations that you and I only dreamed of when we were growing up. They understand war without pattern and they fundamentally understand ‘irregular war,’ and they are good at it.”

That tension may manifest itself between those who see human solutions and those who want to rely on technological solutions. The theme of many discussions at the conference was how to find the right balance between the two.

The enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan can inflict serious casualties with simple roadside bombs. Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, said the weapons can be countered by innovative technologies, but there is an adaptive human network behind the devices that also needs to be destroyed.

“He’s a smart, tough enemy,” Metz said of irregular warfare opponents. “He’s not a foolish enemy.”

Mattis, who also is NATO supreme allied commander for transformation, described being in a “war among the people” to explain where the military operates today.

It has proven true in places such as Iraq, where soldiers and Marines spend their days mapping the “human terrain” via census data and use highly refined observation techniques to sift through busy marketplaces for enemies hiding among the population.

“There are manifestations of guilty people ... that are almost universal,” he said. “As we try to find these people, it’s going to take a kind of cultural appreciation, cultural training and language training to come together as we try to ferret out this one guy.”