ABSTRACT
It is convenient and arguably useful as well as historically justifiable, though possibly misleading, to divide the experience of warfare into two broad categories: regular and irregular. The former is warfare between the regular armed forces of states, while the latter has traditionally been defined as warfare between those forces and the irregular armed forces of non-state political entities. Irregular warfare is asymmetrical: the opponents are certain to be very different. Also, the warfare may well need to be transcultural. It follows that such belligerency must pose unusual, and unusually severe, challenges to the regular side. An army justly proud of its military effectiveness in regular warfare is apt to discover that irregular combat, with the absence of large-scale open battle, prices its strengths at a heavy discount. To be outstanding at regular warfare does not mean that one will even be competent, let alone good, at warfare of an irregular kind. To employ a vital Clausewitzian concept, the ‘grammar’of irregular warfare is radically different from that of regular warfare (Clausewitz, 1976: 605).
