The Pentagon late Friday released a summary of the Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy. The summary "explains that irregular warfare is to be institutionalized as a core competency with sufficient, enduring capabilities to advance national security objectives across the spectrum of competition and conflict, in alignment with the NDS," the document states. "The Department will employ these concepts and capabilities in a resource-sustainable approach to dictate the terms and tempo of competition to prevail against all global adversaries short of war, and build and sustain our global advan-tage in careful coordination with allies and partners," it adds. "Should war come, these capabilities will shape the envi-ronment to ensure combat dominance and our ability to end any conflict on our terms." The document says previous U.S. approaches to irregular warfare "have been cyclical and neglected the fact that IW --in addition to nuclear and conventional deterrence--can proactively shape conditions to the United States' advantage in great power competition. This reactive cycle fails to prepare the United States to conduct traditional warfare or irregular warfare effectively. All of these conditions are reversible." Consequently, the summary says DOD will "(1) make permanent the mindset and capabilities necessary to succeed in its current irregular warfare mission sets; and (2) leverage all irregular capabilities in our arsenal, including the unique abilities of our interagency and foreign partners, to compete against revisionist powers and violent extremist organiza-tions alike. This approach does not require significant new resources to meet our strategic vision; it requires new ideas and new means of employing existing capabilities." The Army, however, appears to be moving away from the counterinsurgency battle. Last week, it announced it discontinued the Asymmetric Warfare Group and Rapid Equipping Force as the service focuses on multidomain opera-tions and large-scale combat operations.
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