Competing with Great Powers through Competitive Strategy and Unconventional Warfare

ABSTRACT

As US attention shifts from counterterrorism to great power competition (GPC), the US government (USG) can no longer afford to substitute material resources for sound strategy. The USG cannot hope to outspend these state competitors by orders of magnitude. Instead, the USG must reembrace competitive strategy, which seeks to impose asymmetric costs on competitors. This approach proved successful during the Cold War, and can work in today’s more complex, multipolar operating environment. To this end, unconventional warfare (UW) offers a particularly promising approach as the relative cost to the USG versus the targets of UW activities is exceptionally low. That said, effectively employing UW in the current era of GPC requires refining the US conception of UW and developing a suitable UW operating concept. Moreover, UW is not without its risks. Indeed, there is the potential for severe, negative externalities when employing UW. This article therefore explores the potential for employing UW during GPC, with particular emphasis devoted to redefining UW for the current era, elaborating key considerations for developing a UW for GPC operating concept, and exploring both short- and long-term risks, as well as risk mitigation strategies.

KEYWORDS:

• Unconventional warfare
• great power competition
• competitive strategy

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful for the helpful feedback provided by Otto C. Fiala and G. Jim Worrall. While this commentary served to improve this article, all opinions and all errors are my own. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the US Department of Defense, US government, or of any organization with which the author is affiliated.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. N.B., Even this is uncertain at best.

2. Competitive strategy is defined as “a plan of action (or a set of such plans)& for helping the nation gain and maintain a long-term advantage in a particular competition” (Andre, 2000, p. 8).

3. Analysis by Johns Hopkins University Professor Thomas Rid (2020, pp. 28–31) suggests that while evidence of Russian meddling is clearly apparent, the effect on the election outcomes was likely marginal.

4. Indeed, the very act of labeling Russian and Chinese aggressions as competitive versus conflictual activities decreases the likelihood that the USG will endeavor to impose substantial costs on great power competitors absent far more pronounced, and thus damaging actions undertaken by these powers.

5. N.B., Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) offers an excellent case study in the utility of targeting linear infrastructure such as oil and gas pipelines and high-tension electric wires. This, in turn, forced the Colombian and US governments to spend lavishly on infrastructure protection, to include creating specialized Infrastructure Protection Battalions (see, for example, Bencosme, 2014).

6. For example, Russia’s deplorable treatment and wanton discrimination against their indigenous populations in the arctic presents an especially interesting opportunity as some of these populations have closer cultural/ethnic ties to Alaskan indigenous populations in the US than they do to the average Russian. They are also very proximate to Russian basing and strategic weapons systems (see, for example, Filostrat, 2020, p. 9).

7. The Department of Defense’s Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms formally defines clandestine as “any activity or operations sponsored or conducted … with the intent to assure secrecy and concealment”, whereas covert operation is defined as “an action of [sic] activity that is planned and executed to conceal the identity of, or permit plausible deniability by, the sponsor” (Joint Chiefs of Staff, n.d.a, pp. 34, 53).

8. Before actually developing components of an operating concept for UW during GPC, it would also be highly instructive to carefully revisit the extant definition of two closely related terms: insurgency and resistance. Fully understanding the nature of the indigenous forces that the USG seeks to support through UW is going to be critical to success. In the interest of space, however, a thorough discussion herein is omitted.

9. N.B., The former Acting Secretary of Defense’s decision cut DOD support to CIA has resulted in extensive discussion as to whether CIA or USSOCOM will own UW, and other initiatives. Even if CIA retains its status as the lead agency for UW, it will continue to require extensive DOD support (see, for example, Barnes & Schmitt, 2020).

10. Based on the author’s experience contributing to a gray zone conflict Strategic Multilayer Assessment initiative in support of USSOCOM (see, for example, Koven, Piplani, Sin, & Boyd, 2017).