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Military Operational Planning and Strategic Moves pp 49–58Cite as

Irregular Warfare

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Part of the book series: Contributions to Economics ((CE))

Abstract

War understood as two armies fighting against each other has become an obsolete concept. During the last few decades we have been observing conflicts of a different nature, not only because the actors involved are no longer legitimized by states, but also because of the unconventional strategies utilized in particular on the side of the non-state actor. Since 1975, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) has been recording data from global armed conflicts confirming the increasing trend of non-state conflicts.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The UCDP defines non-state conflicts as the use of armed force between two organized armed groups where neither of which represents a legitimate government of a state and which results in at least 25 battle-related deaths in a year (Department of Peace and Conflict Research 2015).

  2. 2.

    On the topic of new wars see also Munkler (2005).

  3. 3.

    Hoffman (2007) uses the term “hybrid wars” to capture the property of intermingling attributes these wars possess.

  4. 4.

    Tank battles as understood as two armies maneuvering against each other.

  5. 5.

    However, Butler and Gates (2010) noted that, once aerial bombardment became a means to inflict economic damage on an enemy and/or to provide tactical support to ground troops fighting in populated areas, the civilian population was bound to suffer even when the air force took great care of not inflicting undue damage, implying that violence against the civil population has not been confined to irregular warfare (Butler and Gates 2010, pp. 6–7).

  6. 6.

    Harmon (2010) finds that although terrorism has an undeniable political character, since the late twenty century it has become more religious.

  7. 7.

    For horizontal versus vertical inequality, see Stewart (2000) and for statistical evidence of horizontal inequality and violent conflict, Østby (2008).

  8. 8.

    Additional information on asymmetry on resources is available e.g. in Katzenbach (1962).

  9. 9.

    Arreguín-Toft (2001) defines an actor to be strong if his material power exceeds that of his adversary or adversaries by at least ten to one (Arreguín-Toft 2001, p. 94).

  10. 10.

    Yet, as discussed in Chap. 4 to Arreguín-Toft (2001) strong actors lose asymmetric conflicts when they use different strategic interactions.

  11. 11.

    The BCA caps do not affect funding for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO). As the budget for the fiscal year 2016 in national defense spending requested &561 billion, &38 billion above the BCA defense cap, the current debate now is whether to adjust the BCA defense cap, move base budget spending accounts to accounts for OCO to avoid the BCA cap, reduce the defense expending or a combination of these to avoid the sequester (Belasco 2015).

  12. 12.

    There are some discrepancies about the European budget figures on defense. According to European Defence Agency and NATO European budgets, the proportion of defense budgets in European national GDP decreased between 2008 and 2010 (European Defence Agency 2013) while according to the Institute for Security Studies’ (ISS) 2014 Military Balance, the European defense budget rose from 1.45% to 1.58% (Institute for Security Studies 2014, p. 97). The discrepancies are explained by whether military pensions are included in military budgets and the countries included. ISS considers countries from a geographical definition of Europe while EDA uses an institutional approach. We refer here to the European Union and therefore take the data from the 27 EDA member states (all EU member states except Denmark).

  13. 13.

    One definition of “regular warfare” i.e., “warfare between permanently organized bodies, each constituting the standing force of a state” (Hurley et al. 2007, p. ES-1).

  14. 14.

    Hurley et al. (2007) divide the population into four categories depending on their preferences related to who (Blue or Red) they believe is more important to their physical security and who they believe better fits their socio/political/economic preferences.

  15. 15.

    The joint publication 3-0, e.g., stands for Operation Series, providing doctrinal foundation and fundamental principles that guide the US armed Forces in the conduct of joint operations across the range of military operations.

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  1. Faculty of Economics, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Lucía Martínez Ordóñez

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Ordóñez, L.M. (2017). Irregular Warfare. In: Military Operational Planning and Strategic Moves. Contributions to Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56108-0_6

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