Military Review English Edition May-June 2014 | Page 65

P E R S I S T E N T CO N F L I C T
In Afghanistan, conventional military organizations were asked to implement the difficult social
policies needed to end persistent, irregular conflict—rooted in social problems—while lacking the
expertise and experience for the job. It is no wonder
conventional forces were marginally successful in
Afghanistan; they are designed and resourced to
destroy an opposing state’s ability to resist. They
will always be needed for conventional types of
conflict, but irregular warfare needs other types
of organizations and tools. United States Special
Operations Command (USSOCOM) assets are
better suited to the persistent, low-intensity conflicts
likely to characterize operations in the near future.
This is because USSOCOM is focused on its role
as a partner in long-term, strategic, interagency
engagement aimed at resolving conflicts that cannot
be settled by purely military means.

Future Conflicts

Irregular conflicts will continue to characterize
the global security environment. From 2002 to
2011, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program’s online
UCDP Conflict Encyclopedia counted over 370
small or nonstate conflicts—nearly ten times the
number of interstate wars.1 Irregular conflicts take
the form of insurgencies, guerrilla wars, terrorism,
smuggling, and even simple banditry. Nations are
likely to avoid state-versus-state conflict because it
is so expensive. Nonstate groups will increasingly
seek to achieve their goals using asymmetric and
irregular methods because they cannot compete
directly against the overwhelming power of U.S.
conventional military forces.
A range of conflicts. The United States must
remain prepared for very different types of conflicts.
On one hand, the U.S. military faces near-peer competitors with the ability to cause significant harm to
U.S. interests. The Department of Defense (DOD)
will attempt to remain unmatched in its ability to
destroy the offensive or defensive capabilities of
enemy nations in conventional wars. However, the
U.S. military will inevitably find itself confronting
more unconventional threats.
The United States must remain ready to counter
insurgencies, state-supported guerrilla wars, and
transnational terrorism—the hallmarks of persistent
conflict. The United States will not be able to afford
large conventional deployments for these types of
MILITARY REVIEW

May-June 2014

persistent conflict. Nor will the nation stomach
engagement in large-scale nation building after Iraq
and Afghanistan. Calls within the DOD to refocus
on high-intensity conflicts are consistent with analyst Martin Van Crevald’s prediction that governments will literally contract out their responses to
low-intensity conflicts, seeing them as not worth
the blood and expense of a military designed to
deter global challenges and topple states.2 If the
Uppsala Conflict Data Program’s data are correct,
the future of war will look more like the later phases
of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, the
United States will not likely outsource its response
to low-intensity threats. Low-intensity and irregular wars will continue to require U.S. action. The
ability to acquire devastating weapons means that
even fringe elements could strike a serious blow
to the U.S. homeland, as 9/11 proved.3 All told,
the next several decades will be as busy as the
last. Appropriate U.S. response to calls for support
from threatened partners likely will fall somewhere
between relatively small, predictable peacetime
engagements and full-blown deployments of hundreds of thousands of troops, with their staggering
price tag. Obviously, a range of military capabilities
will be needed.
A range of capabilities from USSOCOM. As
part of a unified effort with other U.S. government
agencies, USSOCOM has been providing support
around the world that is appropriate to the context
for each situation and crucial to a national strategy
of persistent engagement. Historically, DOD’s
most public actions in foreign assistance have been
responses during natural disasters. Less well known
is DOD’s support for strengthening foreign governments’ ability to manage internal and international
threats. DOD contributes through state building and
assistance to foreign militaries.4 These operations
represent an in-between world with peace on one
side and complex maneuver warfare with large
deployments on the other (see figure).

Nature of the Adversary

Many adversaries in persistent, irregular conflicts
organize as loose, distributed networks ra ther than
large, hierarchical military or political structures.
Functioning as distributed networks helps terrorists,
insurgents, and criminals remain adaptive. They
form amorphous entities not bound by traditional
63