ABSTRACT
Strategically, adaptation to insurgent challenges invariably proves difficult. Not only must the precise nature of the threat be discerned, but adaptation must occur even as the conflict develops. Too often, focus is upon immediate, tactical quick-fixes rather than reform realized through correct strategy and operational art. At the strategic level, irregular warfare is a contest of governance but not in the manner so often portrayed. Rebellion erupts from the perception, more often than not grounded in reality, that the political opportunity structure is failing to deliver justice. The American way of war, which necessarily as per particular strategic culture means the military’s approach to warfighting, regardless of level under consideration, leads and often is nearly the entirety of modern US experience in irregular conflict. The conflicts under consideration are irregular only in the sense that the challengers to the existing order must engage in asymmetric approaches, from strategy to tactics.
